100 Books in a year. 31 - 35.

 Good evening / morning / whatever. You join me in the middle of a mighty journey through a hundred books in one year. Are there even that many books? Turns out, yes. There's loads of them. Better get on with it.

Here's books 31 - 35.

We Solve Murders - Richard Osman

I've very much enjoyed Osman's 'Thursday Murder Club' books. I found them delightful, whimsical tales, glowing with humanity and intrigue. Me and everyone else in the entire world, it seems. Well, except for professional contrarians who sniff haughtily at the idea of anyone enjoying themselves. They don't like the things everyone else likes, and boy do they love telling people about it.

Well, prepare to welcome me, cynics, to your miserable parties, because I didn't like 'We Solve Murders' anywhere near as much. Which annoys me, because now I feel like one of those people who hear a mention of Coldplay and simply have to let you know how much they don't enjoy them. I'm one of them, and I have to hang out with them, and join in when they sneer at anyone who smiles in public.

Perhaps it will help if I tell you what I did like. Respect to Osman for trying out a new bunch of characters, and expanding the scope of the storytelling. The people we meet are interesting and well written, and there's that eye for the small details of life that makes the whole thing relatable, even when people are chasing assassins on planes. There are several moments that made me laugh out loud.

But - and this is more of a me thing, I'll grant you - I didn't have the first clue what was going on. There were far too many characters, many of whom existed in completely different spheres of experience to each other. Their relationships were hard to discern. Deliberately so, of course - this is a murder mystery. But I couldn't quite get a grasp on what motivated them, and why it mattered. Mysteries are fine, but I need to know the difference between information that's deliberately hidden, and information I simply haven't understood. So, while it was fun to watch the characters chatting about Twixes and exchanging droll repartee, I was left being quite glad to finish the book. 

I'm sorry. Please don't make me stay with the cynics. I'll behave.

The Machine Stops - E.M. Forster

I'm going to be completely honest and tell you that I read this because it's short. I googled 'what are the best short books', and this was one of them. It turns out that reading a hundred books is fine if you're a fast reader, but I'm absolutely not. My brain, when reading, is very easily distracted. It's like a dog straining at its lead. Yes, I know you want me to go that way, but I've smelled some very interesting wee on that lamppost.

So, it's short. Very short. Too short? It's definitely a book, in that it constitutes a complete, printed object with a cover and a spine and the like, but it feels a bit like maybe it's a short story actually. I flew through it in no time. As a result my stupid brain had no opportunity to pull desperately away, shouting 'This is about computers and my first computer was a ZX Spectrum and that's when I knew Angela Rhodes and she was mean to me in the library and remember when I use to go to the library every week and why don't I read more books and oh I'm meant to be reading now aren't I, where was I?"

The book appears to be about how we shouldn't let machines take over every aspect of our lives and rob us of our humanity. Astonishingly, it was written over 100 years ago, but feels incredibly pertinent now. Which means either a) Forster was a genius, with an incredible eye for the foundations of human nature or b) Forster was a time traveller who used his powers to make a quick buck in the short story market.

Envy as Sickness - Jody Lancaster

Jody is a friend of mine. He likes to spend his time annoying me by working hard at his creative endeavours, while I lay around pawing at unfinished projects and eating biscuits. Here we find him finishing and publishing a novel, with the exclusive aim of making me feel bad and lazy. 

Well, joke's on you, Lancaster, because I read it anyway, and since I started this '100 books in a year' project, reading counts as research. So you've helped me do something useful and productive after all. And if there are any good ideas in there, I'm definitely going to steal them. So who's the smartest of us now? 

Yes, alright. It's still him. He's written an intelligent and thoughtful book, throbbing with peculiar ideas and vibrant imagery. Best of all, the chapters are really short. I mean, like, I don't think any of them are more than three pages long. I can't overstate how much this contributed to the pleasure I had reading it. The feeling of achievement was awesome. Another chapter done! I hadn't even finished that biscuit!

I don't want him to get too cocky, though. So here's something I didn't get on with. As with the Osman book mentioned above, I wasn't always quite clear on why things mattered. I've come to realise that this is a big part of how I enjoy story. I need to know the stakes, and feel them strongly reinforced. Not every novel is bothered with this, of course, and some of the best works of literature leave me cold as a result. And so I sometimes found myself a little detatched from the - often crazy and peculiar - events of the story. 

However. On the whole, this was a good read. The prose style is excellent and there's an enjoyable madness to the nightmare world he's created. I would, of course, have preferred him to have written an embarrassing, boring failure of a thing, which I could bring up every time we met as a kind of weapon to beat him with. But we can't have everything.

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish - Douglas Adams

My wander through the Hitch Hiker books continues. And this one is odd. I remember it completely phasing me as a teenager. We seem to have drifted a long way from the madcap antics of the first couple of books, and this is, tonally, a very different experience.

It's a very slender book, and seems in many ways unfinished. The main plot follows Arthur Dent and his new romance, and that's all Adams seems to be interested in. Then there are sporadic attempts to hit other notes, with Ford Prefect and spaceships and hints at the wider galactic picture. But these feel perfunctory, with little heart or feeling. Indeed, there's a slight sense of contempt to these sections, as if Adams is letting us know how grown up he is to be talking about romance, and we should really be leaving the silly spaceships behind. 

And maybe that's fine. The romance stuff is very lovely, and there's a sincerity and lyricism to Arthur's homecoming that shows a different side to Adams's creativity. But what a shame that he didn't just lean right into the romance, and have confidence in its power. Or, failing that, write something new, rather than this odd beast. 

Outlining Your Novel - KM Weiland

I went to see Jody - the friend/author mentioned a couple of books back - to drink wine and talk about writing. I spent a gleeful half hour outlining the shortcomings of his book, only later admitting that it was generally quite good and I really liked the way he described stuff. 

He listened to my thoughts in the way that a father might listen to his 7 year old son's criticisms of the way the house was decorated - had he considered more pictures of dinosaurs and spaceships? What about knocking through to next door to make the living room bigger? Then, when I'd calmed down, he asked how my book was going. Well can you imagine anything more rude? He knew I couldn't plot things, and that I'd cry if he brought it up. 

Rather graciously, he recommended this book, on how to plot novels. And it turns out it's a thing of wonder. I've read quite a lot of books on story structure, and there are some really good ones out there. So I'd more or less discarded the idea of reading any more. How much more could there be to say? 

It turns out that there is plenty more to say. This is an immensely practical book which matches theory with good, solid advice on how to make things happen. The techniques are fairly simple and I adopted a number of them immediately, and to good effect. It's well written, too, with a friendly, accessible style that doesn't waste time trying to impress you with the author's own amazing skillset. It just gets on with it. 

The moral, then, is that if you have a talented friend, get alongside them. Steal their ideas. Pretend they were your ideas. If they come to you saying, "Hey, those were my ideas," simply say, "Are there, really, any new ideas in the world?" And then leg it. 

See you next time for books 36 - 40.

Or you can look back at last time - books 26 - 30.

100 books in a year. 26 - 30.

 Evening all. You join me on a mighty quest, the like of which no mortal can comprehend. I'm reading 100 books this year, and I'm ruminating on the process here, in these pages.

OK. some of you might easily read more than that many books, every year. But for me it's a heroic endeavour, so please be impressed.

Here's books 26-30. 

The Transgender Issue  - Shon Faye

We'll start with one that makes me look clever and thoughtful, before we collapse into the usual morass of spaceships and murders. I was leant this by a friend at work, possibly in response to the confused look that creeps across my face whenever discussing transgender stuff. 

I am, at least in my intentions, an ally to transgender people. If I was famous, the Daily Mail would call me 'woke', and I'd be perfectly fine with that. I am also, however, an idiot who gets things wrong all the time, and I would very much like to be better informed about this stuff, rather than just parading around shouting about how pronouns are good, and should be free on the NHS. 

It's a complicated business, and so I was delighted to read this book. Faye does two things which I really like in a book. The subject matter is divided nice and clearly, each chapter dealing with a specific issue. Secondly, there's real character to the writing - it's not a dry, academic exploration, it's a warm blooded, passionate take, backed up with facts. Oh, and thirdly - sorry I said there were two things, I was lying - thirdly, there's lots of stories and examples. 

So it was a great read. But my predominant emotion throughout was rage. This is a book about injustice, and the cynical manipulation of public opinion by people in positions of power. All at the expense of a vulnerable group, in a complicated position. Yes, the answers to some of the questions might not be clear cut. But a lot of the time people aren't even trying to answer them, hiding instead behind disingenuous rhetoric and fear. Thanks to this book, I feel a little better equipped to join the discussion.

Doctor Who: Scratchman - Tom Baker and James Goss

Aaaaand, we're back in 'silly science fiction nonsense'. You see, I don't stay focused on the real world for long. 

This book was also put my way by a work colleague. This time they gave me it to keep, as they were having a clear out, and they know that I'm a massive geek. Amazingly, I didn't already have it. It was on the vague 'read it one day' list, along with all the other millions of Doctor Who books that get published every bloody week. 

This is really good. It isn't an adaptation of a TV story. Rather, it's an idea that Tom Baker had, back in the 1970s when he was Doctor Who, and he's finally got round to writing it. Well, I say writing it. I rather get the impression that James Goss, cruelly neglected on the book cover, is the real engine behind the work here. I imagine James sat and did the writing, while Tom just sat on the sofa working his way through a bottle of wine, laughing and saying things like "Make Doctor Who shout at a scarecrow" and "Include more cows!"

It does have Tom Baker's delightfully weird vibe, especially in the writing of Doctor Who himself, and there's the general feel of his era of the TV show. I had a lovely time reading it, though that might be more about nostalgia than quality. But I'll take happiness wherever I can get it. 

The Fox - Frederick Forsyth

For the most part, my journey through the forest of books has been a joy. I've found something to love in everything, from the classics to the pulp nonsense. However. This book is total, absolute horseshit. 

Let's start with the plot. The concept is like someone asked a confused old man to ramble incoherently about 'the modern world'. There's this super-tech-wizard kid who is just the best at computers ever, and he can hack into anything in the whole world. You'll be amazed to learn that he's autistic too. The British government are delighted to discover this badly written stereotype child, and promptly set him to work, hacking into the computers of foreign goverments.

The plot then appears to have been given to a violent, racist ten year old boy. The foreign governments are annoyed about all the hacking, so they send Bad Foreign Assassins to England to murder Autism Child. These are the most amazing assassins ever, and we spend a lot of time being told about what kind of guns they use. But then, even more amazing British agents spring a brilliant trap on them, and shoot at them for ages, and kill them all. This happens three or four times, each time featuring villains from a different Evil Country. Then we're done, and the book ends, hurray for the motherland.

The prose style, meanwhile, is somehow even worse. As I was reading, I was wondering why I wasn't engaging at all with the plot. Yes, it was basic and daft and wildly xenophobic, but I can often find joy in that kind of thing regardless. But I was just bored. After a while I realised that it was the prose style. Forsyth doesn't describe anything. It's like he wrote the notes for the basic plot, and then forgot to develop them into actual scenes. Whole chapters will unfold like this: "He went to see the Prime Minister and asked for some planes. She wasn't keen, but he was so brilliant, he won her over." Horrible! 

And that's the other thing I hated about this stupid book. Almost every single character is a man, and he's the best man, and everyone respects him and thinks he's great. Even the bad guys are astonishing men, tall and muscular and super great at murder and crosswords and sex. There are two women in the whole story - the Prime Minister, who is there just to go "Yes, you may murder people on British soil, because you are so handsome", and the mother of the autistic coder kid, whose sole function is to fancy a soldier and do sex with him. 

Frederick Forsyth has a long and distinguished career as a novelist, so I'm wondering if this is atypical? I intend to check out some of his earlier novels. Maybe this was ghost written? Or he was old and going mad? I don't know. The good thing that's come from reading this is that I now know, in my own writing, what not to do. Which is this: Don't do mad, racist, vaguely written bollocks with a stupid repetitive plot. 

Eucalyptus - Murray Bail

Another borrowed book, this time from a friend who loves reading and has a quite sensitive, thoughtful approach to literature. "Oh no," I thought. "That's basically the opposite of me."

This is lovely, and I mostly enjoyed it. The overall plot is about a man who sets a challenge whereby you can only marry his daughter if you can name loads of different types of eucalyptus tree. Many men come to do so - apparently the daughter is so hot that her foxiness outweighs the tedious, stupid nature of the task. And then one man comes, and he sort of does the task, except that mostly he just tells her little stories about love and romance. 

I liked these little stories a lot. They are all wildly different, vividly sketched, and instantly engaging. I like that. I'm not very good at having ideas. When I sit down to write a story, I'm often flummoxed when it comes to thinking of original, interesting settings and characters. What people exist? Where do people live? They can't all be frustrated novelists living in the North of England. Can they? What else is there? 

The answer, it seems, is that there are many cool, interesting ways for people to meet and fall in love, and this book is full of them. So I was impressed and inspired, and will be stealing these ideas presently. What I didn't enjoy so much was the 'describing trees' bit. There's an awful lot of that, and I did not like it one bit. Turns out I don't care about being told, in detail, what trees look like. Boring. Stop doing it. 

So, a book of two halves. If you like romance, you'll definitely enjoy that. And if you also love to be told what different trees look like, you'll have a blast. 

Life, The Universe and Everything - Douglas Adams

My journey through the works of Douglas Adams continues. This is the third Hitchhikers book. I read this many times as a teenager, and as I recall I found it less satisfying than the first two. There's a proper sort of plot, and it weighs things down somewhat. The light, fluffy madness struggles under the requirements of conventional narrative structure, and the experience is a little harder going. 

Coming back to it years later, I found it less bothersome. I mean, it's certainly not as good as the first two. It feels like the energy of Adams's first flush of inspiration is losing momentum, and he's trying to work out what to do with these great characters he's created. But there's still plenty of ideas at work, and a beautiful silliness to how things unfold. And his prose style remains constantly funny and inventive. 

I suppose, as well, I'm now reading from the perspective of knowing that Adams is gone, and didn't really write all that much. So this represents a significant chunk of his finite, irreplaceable genius. And that makes it feel like gold-dust.

That's your lot for now. If you are craving more of my insights and wisdom, look:

Here's what's next - books 31 - 35

Here's what I wrote last time, about books 21 to 25. 

100 books in a year. 21 - 25.

 It's my year of 'reading loads of books'. The target is 100. Here's how I got on with numbers 21 - 25.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

Reading new books is tiring. You have to learn all the character names and key yourself into the author's writing style. And sometimes there's a load of world building to take account of, and you have to remember the rules and priorities of the universe you're in. Exhausting.

All of which is to excuse myself for going back to a book I've read dozens of times, and know like the back of my hand. I decided to read all the Hitchhikers books again, on the very reasonable grounds that I hadn't read them for a while, and they would make me happy. 

Hitchhikers is a foundation text for me. I think I saw the TV show first, when I was very young, and was instantly won over by its mad stream of big ideas, outlandish characters and clever humour. Not to mention that it started with the outrageous idea of destroying the Earth in the first episode.

Then came the book. I think my mum lent me a copy, which she had in turn borrowed from someone else. And that's the one I've still got, more than 40 years on. So if that's yours, I'm very sorry. I'm not sure you'll want it back - it's sort of falling apart. And that's because it's been loved so very, very much. 

Reading it again, I was startled at how well I knew the text. My brain ran ahead of the words, autocompleting the lines from memory before my eyes had caught up. Adams's prose seems so light and effortlessly witty, which is testament to the real work he must have put in - it's not easy to make things look that easy. It's also suprising, coming back to the book, how many deep, clever ideas explode from the pages, in among the daft wordplay and frivolous nonsense. It's an amazing piece of work, and part of my soul forever.

The Bullet That Missed - Richard Osman

Another fun one. I love Osman's writing style, and yummed this up in no time. This is the... third, I think, of his Murder Club books. I was initially reluctant to read them, I recall. Insanely, I think there was a kind of snobbery at work in my thinking. "Why would I want to be like everyone else and read these immensely popular books?" As if I was some daring, independently minded reader who read nothing but the most esoteric and unusual things. 

Well, his books are good. He has a great ability to quickly sketch interesting, memorable characters. Which is good, for me, because when I'm reading I tend to instantly forget who everyone is and why they matter. Also true in real life, if I'm honest. I'm not what you'd call 'focused'. But yeah, Osman's characters are a delight, and I think it's down to his great eye for small quirks and details. 

I'm currently writing a book, and one of the things I'm interested in is, 'how much description is too much?' Like, should I be constantly describing the way characters move and speak? Will it help to establish them in your mind if I give a running commentary on how they fumble unwrapping a packet of Digestives, or enjoy the chorus of  This is a Low by Blur, or shift in their chair trying to get comfortable? Is that fun? Or is it maddening fluff that slows things down and gets in the way?  Agatha Christie seems to do none of it, and I didn't have the first clue who her characters were, which suggests I definitely should do it. But Charles Dickens, conversely, goes on forever, waffling about minute details, and it made me so furious and bored that I threw his stupid book across the room. So there's clearly a point where it becomes too much.

Anyway, the answer is 'do it as much as Richard Osman does it', which is to say, a small, perfectly judged amount. This book is great and I loved it. 

Invisible Women - Caroline Criado-Perez

This book has been sitting by the bedside for quite some time, on the special shelf called 'Things to read when you have the concentration span'. Well, it turns out I basically never have the concentration span, so the only thing to do is read it anyway and hope for the best.

This is a really good book which does an excellent job of arguing that the world is designed by men, for men, and while that's excellent if you are a man, there's are apparently all these other non-men who are having a terrible time. The book looks at all sorts of areas, from medicine to employment to the way we test seatbelts, and shows how the standard of 'normal, regular design' is in fact very lopsided. 

So I liked this, because I'm very into learning about our blindness to ingrained assumptions, if only so I can be more pedantic when arguing with Doctor Who fans on the internet. Plus I suppose I am, by definition, part of the problem - creating the world around me in my image and thinking 'what a very fair and normal place'. 

I did find, however, that I wasn't very engaged with the data itself. I'm fascinated by the idea that the statistics underpinning social struture are flawed, because the methodology used to gather them is inherently one sided. And I'm interested in what needs to be done to rebalance that. But the numbers themselves... I'm afraid to admit my mind started to slide off them. Turns out I'm more interested in ideas than facts. Please try to forget this character flaw, and just remember that I'm an amazing feminist, and very sensitive, and ever so brave.

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Look at this! Proper literature. Like I should have read on my English degree. Or read before I started it, probably. I seem to remember my lecturers often making reference to famous, classic novels, on the quite reasonable assumption that people signing up to a degree in literature would have read them. And everyone in the class would nod and say things like, "Ah yes, typical of the themes to be found in her other works" and I'd just chew my pen and think, "Please don't ask me anything. Marillion did not write  a song about this one."

So, here we are with my first Austen. And it's good, isn't it? Even though it's a book, and not on TV, and it's quite long, and it's set in the past when things were more boring. Am I being flippant? Only a little. I have always avoided these books, with a quite lazy prejudice that assumed they'd be slow, unrelatable and reliant upon incredible levels of concentration.

What I found, of course, was an incredibly human story, populated by very recognisable characters. Their world is utterly unlike mine in many ways, but the psychology of the characters is instantly recognisable. There's an incredible wit to the writing that made me laugh out loud, and a pulsing energy to the conflicts, difficulties and victories the story throws up. At one point I gasped, out loud. "What's happened?" asked the wife, expecting some kind of zombie based event or explosion. I tried to explain: "Old Auntie Evil Tossface had demanded that Elizabeth Whatsername be quiet, and Elizabeth has said no! Amazing!" 

It takes quite some writing to make me realise that an act of disobedience, in this social circle, is basically the equivalent of Darth Vader throwing the Emperor down a shaft in Return of the Jedi. Bravo.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams

The second of the Hitchhikers books is also great. It's more or less the same book, really, based on the same source material as the first, that being the initial radio shows. 

There's a little bit more of a sense in this book that Adams is trying to work towards something of a plot. Which is not his strong point. He's much more of an ideas person than a 'plot' or 'character' person, and the book feels a little more laboured as a result. 

It's still incredibly enjoyable, though. Reading it again became a kind of archeology into the layers of my personality. Arthur Dent was a good figure of identification for a young adolescent. As he wandered around the galaxy, clad in his dressing gown and wondering why nothing made sense, I was wandering into my teenage years, wondering much the same thing. 

And, yes, sometimes I actually went wandering round the streets in just my pyjamas and dressing gown. In my satchel were a peculiar collection of items, including, of course, my towel. Through the city I'd go, marvelling at the alien world opening up. Because of Adams, it was OK that it made no sense. That was all part of the fun. It didn't need to. You could just accept things on their own terms, and try to have fun, and love everything.

Ahhh. What books. What a man. 

That's your lot for now. I know, it goes so fast, doesn't it? But look - 

Here's what happened last time, with books 16 - 20. Why not read that?

100 books in a year. 16 - 20

 For some reason I've decided to read 100 books this year. I don't know why. Maybe there's a prize?

Last time we look at books 11-15. Here's what I thought of the next five.

Call for the Dead - John Le Carre

Here's another of those authors everyone talks about, but whom I'd never read. I'd seen the film of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and found it utterly incomprehensible, so my hopes weren't high. I went in expecting a labyrinth of complicated plotting and esoteric references to the world of espionage. 

I was pleasantly surprised. There was a clear, enjoyable plot, with lots of action and surprises. Best of all, I could follow what was going on. You hear that, Agatha Christie? It turns out it wasn't my fault I didn't understand your bloody overcomplicated nonsense. It was you. Read some Le Carre! Take notes!

This was a fun, witty read and made me want more. It feels like a clear ancestor of the Slow Horses books, which I just adore, so that's pleasing. 

Doctor Who: The Romans - Donald Cotton

As previously mentioned, the first books I truly loved were Doctor Who books. 

Back in the early 80s there was no way of revisiting old TV stories: no streaming, no DVDs, not even video tapes. Which made being a young geek a difficult proposition. How could I bore my family with detailed accounts of Doctor Who's activities, without adequate source material? Well god bless these novelisations - brisk accounts of nearly every television story, written for my very demographic (weird young boys with overactive imaginations and no friends).

All very lovely, you might be thinking. But come on, you're a lot older now. And DVDs do exist. And surely you've got some friends by now? Well yes, all good points. And I don't tend the revisit these Doctor Who books very often. They live, stacked three deep in a shelving unit, rarely disturbed. I can't throw them away, obviously, but I tend not to read them.

I dug this one out because I write a Doctor Who blog, and I wanted to talk about this story. Yes, I do another blog - it's here if you're interested. Like one isn't enough. Anyway, this was basically research. Plus, bonus, it's very short. 

But lest you think I'm being all defensive and am in any way embarrassed about the inclusion of this, a children's book, let me set you straight. This was an absolute bloody joy. Witty, engaging and really well written. Not all the novelisations stand up to scrutiny, but this one really does, and I have no shame. 

Pay the Piper - George A. Romero and Daniel Kraus

Was this a present from my brother? It seems like the sort of thing he'd send my way. We're both very into the zombie films of Mr. Romero, and my brother is good at finding interesting, unusual things that I'd like. And also stupid, boring things I don't want at all, that I don't care for and I've no idea why he he thought I'd be interested. This is why I have a wishlist, Dan. Stick to the wishlist.

Except, if this was from him, it was a win. So, whatever. Stick to the wishlist except for interesting horror novels, I guess. I had a great time with this book. I don't know how much of this Romero actually wrote, and how much of his credit is just to get people like me interested. But the prose style is great, with loads of gloopy, tangible atmosphere. It's a horror tale, very much in the style of Stephen King, with a well drawn community slowly coming under the influence of an unspeakable evil. Lots of people die, horribly, and it's properly unsettling. 

If Dan didn't buy me this, and you did, and you're currently furious that I forgot you gave me such a thoughtful present... um... well, I'm sorry. I hope the satisfaction of knowing I loved it mitigates against your feelings of betrayal.

Filterworld - Kyle Chayka

Yeah... this was fine. It's a well researched exploration of how algorithms work and how they are changing culture, and that is interesting. It's also written in a clear, fairly engaging style. 

So why am I being meh about it? Well, it's an issue I've had with a number of these books. I spend the first quarter of the book going, "Oh, this is all fascinating, and offers a different perspective on the world." And then I spend the rest of the book going, "There's that new perspective again. And again. And... yeah, it's just this one idea, isn't it?"

There's plenty in here to like. But maybe either have more ideas, or write shorter books. Either will do me fine. There's no shame in a short book. If anything, they make me happier. 

Oh, one last thing. This book was recommended to me by Amazon because I buy other books on a similar topic. The irony of this is not lost on me.

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

I've owned this book for many, many years. Very occasionally I have picked it off the shelf, teasing it with the prospect of me finally reading it, only to dash its hopes by shaking my head and putting it back, too lazy to engage with what I assumed would be a bleak and difficult read. Sorry, book. If it's any consolation, I have also made many women feel this way, and most of them went on to form happy, successful relationships. 

Well, having finally got beyond the 'dithering by the bookshelf' stage, I can report that yes, Brave New World is bleak. But no, not especially difficult. There's a lot of worldbuilding, which isn't always my favourite thing. I don't yet understand this world, the one I live in. How am I meant to also understand a new, pretend one? I don't care how brave it is. 

The learning curve is made easier, however, by the fact that this book clearly inspired a massive amount of sci-fi that came afterwards. And by that I mean films and television. Don't go jumping up and down about all the literary science fiction I've failed to consider. I haven't read them. That's why we're here, remember?

This is clearly a hugely influential work, and it was pleasing to see early expressions of ideas that became commonplace tropes. But I'll tell you what, I wasn't expecting as much Shakespeare. I mean, I know the title is a reference. It's even from a play I've read. What are the odds of that? But the book really gets into its Shakespeare, to the extent that massive swathes of the later chapters are basically characters shouting bits of Hamlet at each other. 

Anyway. This was good and I enjoyed it. And I've a sneaking suspicion that it's one of those that appears on 'books you should have read' lists, and usually they leave me feeling wretched.

That's all for now. See you next time for books 21 - 25.

Or you can leap backwards, to see how I found books 11 - 15.

100 books in a year. Eleven to Fifteen.

Great news, it's me. Here to share with you some of the books I've been reading this year. 

Last time I told you what I thought of books six to ten. And, as sure as maths is maths, here come the next five. 

Ban This Filth - Ben Thompson

This is good. It's about Mary Whitehouse, the mad old woman who spent her life crusading against moral filth wherever she saw it. Which was pretty much everywhere, but particularly on TV. 

I can't remember a time when I didn't know Whitehouse's name. She was a ubiquitous presence in the media as I was growing up, always railing against some new perversion which was going to ruin the minds of the innocent. And of course I loved all the perversion and stuff, and was very excited about having my mind ruined. So by extension I hated her. And I was looking forward to this book ripping apart her idiotic, puritanical ideas.

Well, to my annoyance this turns out to be a thoughtful, well researched book which takes a balanced, fair approach to the mad old battleaxe. Thompson has unearthed an massive amount of correspondence, primarily between Whitehouse and the BBC, which shows the development of her campaigns through the years. The letters themselves are fascinating - full of middle class passive aggression and sexual tension - but the real gold is in Thompson's dissection of the battles.

He has a very dry wit and pulls no punches when it comes to addressing Whitehouse's more unreasonable panics. But he also takes pains to look at her motivations and finds that, even though her actions might often seem mad and bizarrely naive, she was at heart a good woman who observed the power of the media, and worried about its effects. Damn you Thompson. I didn't come here to have my prejudices challenged. But well done anyway, I guess.

Murder at the Vicarage - Agatha Christie

If you've followed my reading journey from the start you won't be at all surprised to find that this was my first Agatha Christie. Yes, I know - she's one of the best selling authors ever. How have I avoided it? Well, by cunning, stealth and misdirection, that's how. I'm sneakier than I look.

Anyway. I didn't like it. Stupid bloody book. Why is she so popular? And don't go saying, "Because she's great and you're wrong and I bet you weren't even paying attention properly and kept checking your phone to see if anyone had clicked 'like' on that picture of you in a hammock."

Here's the thing. I'm willing to accept that Agatha Christie is objectively good. and that people like her for a reason. But on the evidence of this book and this book alone. I don't get it. She introduces a dozen characters, all of whom have completely interchangeable names and personalities and say things like "I say, Julian, can you make the badminton kerfuffle at the weekend?"

And then I'm meant to keep track of them all, as they wander about their complety unrelatable lives, having tea at each other's houses and occasionally dropping dead of murder. And I'm meant to work out the impossible puzzle of who was near the garden when the hen made a loud noise and such trivia. And then Miss Marple, who isn't even a detective, comes up at the end and says, "Ah, didn't you realise that Margaret took Jocasta's earring and so that means Henry couldn't have worn a hat that day and so I think Sebastian did the murder." Yeah, Miss Marple. If I had literally nothing to do all day, I'd be great at working out what was happening. But I'm not a retired old nosey madwoman, so I wasn't. 

Stupid book. 

The Hotel Avacado - Bob Mortimer

I read Mortimer's first novel, The Satsuma Complex, last year, and found it pleasantly diverting. Same with this sequel. It's mildly funny and well written, and I yummed it up, much as one might yum up an enjoyable ham and cheese pastie. It didn't rock my world, but it did keep me happy til lunchtime. 

It's a little odd reading a book by Bob Mortimer I found myself automatically trying to tune into his 'TV persona' voice, looking for absurdity and playful irony in every character and plot beat. For as long as I've watched Bob, he's been a carnival of gentle absurdity, and so I was looking for that here.

But it's not really that sort of thing. It's funny, yes, and he has some winning turns of phrase that demonstrate the unorthodox connections forged by his unique synapses. But this is a sincere, romantic tale of people trying to win against the odds. And it's quite lovely.

Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris

I have a friend called Matt who is very smart. Well, I have two or three, but let's not get bogged down in trivia. This Matt, the Matt we're focusing on, lent me a book by David Sedaris in order to stop me strutting up and down his house, drinking his wine and shouting, "What books would you recommend? I'm trying to be clever, like you."

This is not that book - this is one I sought out afterwards, by the same author. But it's more or less the same thing. A series of journalistic-ish, autobiographical-ish essays about memories and times Sedaris has experienced, with reflections on how it made him the person he's become. Though really it's just a series of hilarious, slightly bitchy stories about stuff he did. 

I'd never heard of David Sedaris before this, and am delighted to find that he has many books for me to newly enjoy. He appears to be a slightly awkward, outsidery kind of guy, who found that, in the world of prose, he's something of a badass. Love it.

Grendel - John Gardner

I've wanted to read this for years. Ever since 1987, when I first heard the very-long Marillion song of the same name. The song retells the story of Beowulf from the perspective of the monster, and it goes on for ages and has cool widdly keyboard bits and I love it. When I discovered it was based on a book, I became very excited.

"Why didn't you read it, then?" you may ask. To which I can only say... um... I'm not sure, and I've been busy, and please don't make me think about the fact that it's been nearly 40 years. I really don't think I can account for that big a gap in my CV.

Anyway. I read it this year, so shut up. It's very weird and wonderful and I had a great time with it. Grendel lurks on the outskirts of human society, occasionally breaking into their castles and biting people's heads off, then retreating to his dead to wax philosophical on the nature of being. It's a wild, vivid ride that throws notions of storytelling and morality in the air and laughs as they cascade all over the place. Dark, mad and fascinating. 

So there you go. Five books closer to the grave. See you next time, for books sixteen to twenty. 

Or you can skip back, to books six to ten.