The books I didn't quite get to in 2012

I think this post is going to become an annual event! Compiling it certainly encourages me to stop buying books for a while in the New Year. Every year I make the same resolution & my best effort was three months without buying a single book. After such abstinence, it was quite hard to get back in the habit of buying, but I managed it eventually! It is quite a good feeling, especially when I know I have so many lovely books on the tbr shelves - not to mention on the e-reader & at the library. It did lead to my wishlists at various bookshop websites getting longer, but that's a great way to remember what I want.

So, here's my list of books that I was desperate to read when I ordered them & was determined to drop everything as soon as they arrived on the doorstep & read them first. Only, I didn't & they're still sitting patiently on the tbr shelves waiting their turn.

Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins had so many enthusiastic reviews from Desperate Reader & Book Snob, among other respected bloggers & friends & it's a Persephone so what was I waiting for?

The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield Fisher was recommended in my online bookgroup by Diana, Austen devotee & writer of the lovely blog, Light, Bright and Sparkling. In a flash, I'd ordered it & was determined to drop everything when it arrived, but I didn't, as you can see.

The first two volumes of Agnes & Elizabeth Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England was eagerly awaited & then completely ignored.

Desperate Reader's review of Arabella Boxer's Book of English Food only confirmed the fact that I'd been right to order it. It's been sitting by my reading chair ever since it arrived & I'm only halfway through the Introduction.

I seem to be collecting books about Jane Austen (I have two more on the way) but not actually reading them. Maggie Lane's Understanding Austen is one of these. Hopefully with the 200th anniversary of the publication of Pride & Prejudice coming up this year, I'll be inspired to read this.

I read a lot of books by Dickens & a few books about Dickens in his Bicentenary year - but this wasn't one of them. I love letters & I hope to get to the Selected Letters edited by Jenny Hartley sooner rather than later.

Shamefully, I read no Elizabeth Taylor in her Centenary year although I enjoyed reading lots of reviews of her novels around the blogosphere. At least I've read quite a lot of her novels, just not in 2012. I couldn't resist her Complete Short Stories published by Virago & introduced by her daughter, Joanna Kingham, & even though Harriet reviewed it glowingly here, it's got no further than the Virago shelf of the tbr shelves.

Sylvia Townsend Warner is another writer that I want to read more of. Simon reviewed this volume of her Selected Writings called With the Hunted & I was keen to read it, especially the section on Jane Austen (see above). I don't promise to read the whole book this year but I will at least read Sylvia's thoughts on Jane. I can console myself with the thought that Simon hasn't read it all either - or, at least, he hadn't when he reviewed it in August.

Well, there you have this year's list. Writing a post like this does spur me on to read the books. Last year, I read all but two of the books in the 2011 list.

Happy New Year to everyone. Here's to a happy, healthy year with lots of reading - & a bit less book buying!

Something to look forward to

I've had a very disjointed reading week. After reading three books last week, I haven't finished anything this week at all. I've read five archaeology magazines & this week's instalment of Martin Chuzzlewit. My online reading group is reading Martin in celebration of the Dickens Bicentenary. It took me a while to hit my stride  because the opening chapters are quite verbose, full of characters & none of them very nice. However, the last two weeks have been much more enjoyable. Martin has gone to America with Mark Tapley (this was a ploy by Dickens to increase sagging circulation for the book's magazine publication & I must say it needed something to get things moving!) & back in London, we have met Mrs Gamp at the deathbed of old Anthony Chuzzlewit. I've been longing to meet Mrs Gamp ever since reading Miriam Margolyes's Dickens's Women a couple of months ago. I'm also about to start reading Zola's Germinal with my 19th century book group & I'm looking forward to that.

Then, I started reading Riceyman Steps by Arnold Bennett on my e-reader. I keep reading recently that Arnold Bennett is a much underrated writer. Then, I read Harriet Devine's review of Clayhanger & I remembered that Riceyman Steps had been recommended to me as well so I already had it downloaded & ready to go. Well, it turned out to be a frustrating experience. I was enjoying the book when suddenly the pages started skipping forward at a great rate & then the reader froze. I eventually unfroze it by plugging it in to my PC & I thought all would be well, just a glitch. But, it happened again the next time I sat down to read & only resetting the reader would get it working again. At this stage I was hunting out the receipt for the reader & muttering that this sort of thing never happened with a REAL book. Then, I thought it might have just been that file so I've started reading another book on the reader, Emergency in the Pyrenees, by Ann Bridge & so far, all is well.

I was about to reach for one of my favourite comfort reads, Excellent Women, by Barbara Pym when the new Joanna Trollope novel, The Soldier's Wife, came in at work. I had to move this to the top of the pile because there's a long line of reservations on it so I started reading last night & I'm half way through. I love Joanna Trollope's books & this one is fascinating, about the stresses on an Army family when the man comes back from Afghanistan. I hope to finish it this afternoon.

Don't worry, this post isn't just a moan about all the reading I haven't done this week. When I look at what I've written, I have actually read quite a bit, it just hasn't resulted in finishing any one particular book. I have discovered that there are several exciting books to look forward to in the coming months. Mostly reprints but also a new book from Catherine Bailey who wrote Black Diamonds, a fascinating book about the coal mine owning Fitzwilliam family of Wentworth House. Bailey's new book, which is not out until November, is called Secret Rooms. It's about the Rutland family of Belvoir Castle. Sounds like another investigation of family secrets in a grand house. I can't wait!

Elizabeth Taylor has been growing in popularity & critical esteem in recent years, mostly thanks to Virago's reprints of her novels & Nicola Beauman's biography, The Other Elizabeth Taylor. There have also been movies made of two of her books, Angel & Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont. It's the centenary of Taylor's birth this year & there are celebrations happening all over the blogosphere. Virago are publishing the Complete Short Stories in June & New York Review Books have just published stylish editions of A Game of Hide & Seek & Angel.

New reprints of three of Dodie Smith's adult novels are coming soon from Corsair, an imprint of Constable & Robinson. The Town in Bloom, It Ends with Revelations & The New Moon with the Old are out in March. I love the covers. I've only read I Capture the Castle, although I have the recent Slightly Foxed edition of her memoir, Look Back with Love, enthusiastically reviewed by Elaine, on the tbr pile.

I've wanted to read Betty Miller's WWII novel, On the Side of the Angels, ever since I read Persephone's reprint of her Farewell, Leicester Square. Published in 1945, this is an exploration of the psychological damage of war. Capuchin are reprinting it in May. If you pop over to Capuchin's website, you can also have a look at the brand new cover design they will be unveiling with their July titles.

Nicholas Blake was the pseudonym used by the poet Cecil Day-Lewis for his detective novels. I remember reading some of these as a teenager so I'm very pleased that Vintage are reprinting lots of them in May. Four titles will have striking new covers (you can have a look at them here) & the rest will be in their plain generic POD covers. They will also be available as e-books.

So, lots of good things to look forward to. I've kept to my usual New Year resolution of not buying any books so far this year but I know I'm going to be buying some of these. I'm strong but not that strong! If I hold out until May, I'll be pleased & surprised.

The Blush & other stories - Elizabeth Taylor

Desperate Reader’s enthusiastic review of The Blush by Elizabeth Taylor a few weeks ago sent me to the tbr shelves to grab my own copy. I’m sorry to say it had been languishing there since 1994. I’ve certainly proved the worth of my tbr shelves this year. This year of buying fewer books has been studded with the discovery of books I bought so long ago with every intention of reading immediately but, only now, after reading a review or suddenly being seized with an enthusiasm for the author or period, getting around to reading them. Elizabeth Taylor is an author I’ve read with great enjoyment over the years. I’ve read several of her novels, At Mrs Lippincote’s is an especial favourite, but although I have a couple of volumes of her short stories on the shelves, until this year I haven’t read many short stories. I always thought I wasn’t a fan although I seem to have collected quite a few volumes. Like many fellow bloggers, I find it almost impossible to leave a Virago in a second-hand bookshop & The Blush was one of these. I often choose short stories as my lunchtime reading at work & last week, I read The Blush.

Desperate Reader highlighted Perhaps A Family Failing as her favourite story & I certainly agree that the picture of a disastrous wedding night was funny & tragic. I found the picture of the bride, reading women’s magazines to find out how to be a wife so sad. Her pathetic insistence on all the proprieties during their courtship, keeping him at arms length, conducting the whole relationship as instructed by Women’s Own was heartbreaking. The wedding was everything, the reason for the relationship. She hadn’t given a thought to what came after, apart from buying a chiffon nightie to tempt her husband on the honeymoon. She thought that would guarantee the success of the marriage. Did these two people know each other at all?

My favourite story was The Letter Writers. Emily, a spinster living in an English village, has been writing to Edmund, a writer living in Rome, for years. They’ve never met until now, when he’s visiting England & proposes a visit. They’ve built up an image of each other & of their lives & Emily is apprehensive about meeting him. She lives her life in anticipation of writing to him. Incidents of village life become amusing stories for her letters. Even when she visited Rome, she had avoided seeing him, unwilling to break the spell. As she prepares for his visit, Emily remembers their wonderful correspondence. She becomes almost frightened of the meeting, they know each other so well yet not at all,

‘He knows too much about me, so where can we begin?’ she wondered. She had confided such intimacies in him. At that distance, he was as safe as the confessional, with the added freedom from hearing any words said aloud. She had written to his mind only. He seemed to have no face, & certainly no voice... She had been so safe with him. They could not have wounded one another, but now they might.

This story was based on a relationship Taylor had with a young writer, Robert Liddell, who lived in Greece. They were both apprehensive about meeting after a long, intimate correspondence. Luckily, they liked each other in person as well as on the page. Emily & Edmund’s meeting isn’t as successful as Emily descends into small talk & confusion, not helped by her cat eating the lobster that was destined for lunch. There are several cats in these stories. Elizabeth Taylor was obviously a cat lover & knew the havoc they can wreak.

I enjoyed reading these stories & if you’re a lover of the middlebrow short story, I’d recommend The Blush. If you would like to explore Taylor's short stories in more depth, I can also recommend Nicola Beauman's biography, The Other Elizabeth Taylor. As well as a fascinating biography of a very private woman, Beauman concentrates on the short stories as they have been very little written about in the critical works on Taylor.

There's a copy of Blush and Other Stories, and other books by Elizabeth Taylor, available at Anglophile Books.