Time Quartet For March

I read A Wind In The Door for The Time Quartet read-along in February, but I never posted my thoughts on it. In lieu of a review, here's one of my favorite quotes from that novel by Madeleine L'Engle:

Meg had turned from the kitchen sink at the pain in her mother's voice, and had seen her father reach across the table for her mother's hand. "My dear, there is not like you. With my intellect I see cause for nothing but pessimism and even despair. But I can't settle for what my intellect tells me. That's not all of it."

"What else is there?" Mrs. Murry's voice was low and anguished.

"There are still stars which move in ordered and beautiful rhythm. There are still people in this world who keep promises. Even little ones, like your cooking stew over your Bunsen burner. You may be in the middle of an experiment, but you still remember to feed your family. That's enough to keep my heart optimistic, no matter how pessimistic my mind. And you and i have good enough minds to know how very limited and finite they really are. The naked intellect is an extraordinarily inaccurate instrument." (p. 87 of my Yearling Book published in 1973)

 ~~~~~

Thinking that The Horn of Joy by Matthew Maddox was a real novel which drove the plot of A Swiftly Tilting Planet, I did a Google search and discovered it's nothing more than a MacGuffin. "A MacGuffin?" you say, "what the heck is that?"  Funny you should ask, as I did, for here's the definition from Wikipedia:

A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin or maguffin) is "a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction".

Sometimes, the specific nature of the MacGuffin is not important to the plot such that anything that serves as a motivation serves its purpose. The MacGuffin can sometimes be ambiguous, completely undefined, generic or left open to interpretation.

The MacGuffin is common in films, especially thrillers. Commonly, though not always, the MacGuffin is the central focus of the film in the first act, and later declines in importance as the struggles and motivations of characters play out. Sometimes the MacGuffin is even forgotten by the end of the film.

So, even if you don't like Madeleine L'Engle (impossible as that is for me to imagine), or fantasy (which is less impossible), you have now either learned something new or been reminded of a literary technique. Fascinating, huh?

Specific to A Swiftly Tilting Planet, though, is this beautiful 5th century Irish poem named St. Patrick's rune:

At Tara in this fateful hour
I place all Heaven with its power,
And the sun with its brightness
And the snow with its whiteness,
And the fire with all the strength it hath
And the lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the winds with their swiftness along their path
And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness
And the earth with its starkness
All these I place
By God's almighty help and grace
Between myself and the powers of darkness."

In this third book of The Time Quartet, Meg must kythe with her fifteen year old brother Charles Wallace as he rides the unicorn Gaudior to vanquish their foe. More important to me than the plot, is the message within it: as always with Madeleine, a message of faith despite what one sees.

Dance Dance Dance

She is definitely calling me. From somewhere in the Dolphin Hotel. And apparently, somewhere in my own mind, the Dolphin Hotel is what I seek as well. To be taken into that scene, to become part of that weirdly fateful venue. (p. 5-6)

When our nameless narrator from A Wild Sheep Chase continues his story in Dance Dance Dance we find him searching for the Dolphin Hotel of his past. Where the girl with the beautiful ears had taken him, and they had lived together for a short while as lovers before she vanished.

 It is no easy task to find the hotel, but when he does, he discovers an ultra modern, utterly changed, building from the tiny dump that he remembered. In this new international complex he discovers Yumiyoshi, the charming girl at the reception desk who tells him about her dreadful experience when the elevator took her to floor sixteen: a dark, lightless place of terror from which she could barely escape.  He, too, encounters floor sixteen, and The Sheep Man who tells him that he must keep his feet moving. To keep everything going he must dance.

"Tendencies. Yougottendencies. Soevenifyoudideverythingoveragain, yourwholelife, you gottendenciestodojustwhatyoudid, alloveragain."

"Yes, but where does that leave me?"

"Like wesaid, we'lldowhatwecan. Trytoreconnectyou, towhatyouwant," said the Sheep Man. "Butwecan'tdoitalone. Yougottaworktoo. Sitting'snotgonnadoit, thinking'snotgonnadoit."

"So what do I have to do?"

"Dance," said the Sheep Man. "Yougottadance. Aslongasthemusicplays. Yougottadance. Don'teventhinkwhy. Starttothink, yourfeetstop. Yourfeetstop, wegetstuck. Wegetstuck, you'restuck. Sodon'tpayanymind, nomatterhowdumb. Yougottakeepthestep. Yougottalimberup. Yougottaloosenwhatyoubolteddown. Yougottauseallyougot. Weknowyou'retired, tiredandscared. Happenstoeveryone, okay? Justdon'tletyourfeetstop." (p. 85-86)

The narrator's journey continues when he accompanies Yuki, a thirteen old girl left behind by her photographer mother, Ame, to her home in Tokyo. Throughout the course of his search he runs into his old friend from school, Gotanda, now a professional actor; Yuki's father who's a writer named Hiraku Makimura (!); assorted call girls named Mei and June, Yuki's mother's lover named Dick North, and eventually he sees Kiki herself, who leads him to a room in which six skeletons are arranged as clearly as if the flesh had melted from their bones while they were simply sitting there.

What is he to make of these six dead bodies? The continually vanishing Kiki? Life itself? This is why I love Murakami so much: the puzzles, the questions, the way they seldom have clear answers, and the way that this character abandons all pretentions in living his life. He is content with his Suburu, instead of a Maserati, if nothing else.

Tanabata's discussion questions:

How does Dance Dance Dance compare to A Wild Sheep Chase? Did you prefer one book over the other? If you haven't yet read A Wild Sheep Chase, do you plan to?

Both novels were a mystery, and I might add, for me, an almost unsolved one. I have questions as to the full identity of the sheep, as well as the reason why one must dance. Also, who's the Sheep Man? Is he some kind of God? But, the two novels tie together, and I'm so glad I read A Wild Sheep Chase first, to give me the foundation for Dance Dance Dance.

Our narrator remains nameless throughout, but unlike A Wild Sheep Chase, many of the other characters in Dance Dance Dance were named? Do you think this was done on purpose? Did this alter your reading experience?

I suspect he named many of these characters for a sense of irony, or at least a sense of humour. Mei and June for the call girls? Hiraku Makimura for the famous author? I thought those were wonerful names! I'm not sure about Dick North, though, where his name points us.

Did you have any favourite characters, or scenes in Dance Dance Dance?

I loved his relationship with Yuki, that he was really there for her when her parents weren't. They understood each other, and comforted each other, and I loved reading about them driving around listening to all those genres of music: jazz, rock, punk. When was the last time I heard the name Boy George or Duran Duran? Not since I was in college!

Did your perception of the Sheep Man change? Do you think he plays a different role in Dance Dance Dance, compared to A Wild Sheep Chase?

I can't help but think that the Sheep Man represents some kind of diety to Murakami, some being which is all powerful, all knowing, and able to guide the characters along some path. I think he was the same in both novels.

The importance of human connection is a major theme in Dance Dance Dance. What do you think Murakami is saying here about relationships, and fate?

That we'll all be sitting around in a dusty hotel room as skeletons together? I don't see that Murakami has much hope for the after life, and if anything bothered me about his writing, it's what I see as his complete lack of faith. Hope. The characters are pretty hopeless in my mind.

Do you think the chapter numbers, with the black lines in various positions relative to the numbers, had any significance? How about the fact that chapter number 42 was upside down?

I was trying to figure out what the black slashes in varying positions by each chapter number meant, and I have no clue! Also, I don't know why the dance steps would intermittently appear from time to time throughout each chapter. I searched for a reason, a consistent theme in their placement, but it's beyond me.

Who do you think the sixth skeleton represents?

I think it's our narrator himself. I think that's why there's someone crying for him in the hotel, and that's why he's led there, for a glimpse into his future.

Did anyone else chuckle at the name of Yuki's famous but mediocre writer father?

Hysterical!

Any other thoughts or questions about book?

As usual, when I finish a Murakami work, I'm impressed and perplexed at the same time. I know I'll read it again; each time I reread one of his books I find more clarity. Although I'm comforted when I read of what he's said about Kafka on The Shore, for example; his books sometimes require your own interpretation. Thank you for hosting this read along Tanabata, and asking such wonderful questions. I only wish we were sharing a cup of tea in the same room together!

The Creation of Eve

 "The Creation of Eve is a novel based on the true but little-known story of Sofonisba Anguissola, the first renowned female artist of the Renaissance. After a scandal in Michelangelo's workship, Sofi flees Italy and joins the Spanish court of King Felipe II to be a lady-in-waiting to his young bride. There she becomes embroiled in a love triangle involving the Queen, the King, and the King's illegitimate half-brother, Don Juan. The Creation of Eve combines art, romance, and history from the Golden Age in Spain in a story that asks the question: Can you ever truly know another person's heart?"

I have long been enamored with Italy, as you know, and with art, as you may not. If you've ever stood before the statue of David (which used to be outside in the courtyard when I first saw him in 1969, and is now firmly placed inside an enclosure so you can't get very near him at all) you will stand in awe at the wonder of Il Divinio's work.

I loved how this novel started with Sofonisba learning in Michaelangelo Buonarroti's studio. Studying with the master, she falls in love with Tiberio Calcagni for whom she waits the rest of the novel. Why does he return her letters with a certain aloofness? Is it true what is said about him and Michelangelo?

In order to escape possible shame to her father, should the knowledge of her liaison with Tiberio become public, she accepts the invitation to become a lady-in-waiting to the fifteen year old Queen of Spain. The new Queen's mother is Catherine de' Medici of France, and it is critical to her mother that the alliance between France and Spain remain intact; made all the more certain should the Queen of Spain bear her husband's son.

More than about painting, which is what I'd been expecting, I found this novel to be about history. It tells the roles between royalty and countries, between royalty and their servants, between parents and children for whom royalty bears more importance in their power than in their relationships.

I was intrigued by the possibility of the King poisoning those who do not please him with moonflowers, or the King's intent to obtain whatever it is that pleases him regardless of consequence to who may love him. I was intrigued by the relationship in the royal family, between the King and his sister, Dona Juana;  his mistress; his brother, Don Juan; and his stepson, Don Carlos. I was intrigued to find whom it is the Queen truly loves. And, I was intrigued to view it all through the eyes of the painter, Sofi. She lets us watch each scene unfolding, revealing only the information which is critical at the time, keeping us anxious for the outcome until the end.

It is a surprise that His Majesty did not come to My Lady's chamber last night?

Now a page has come, announcing that the Queen has sent for me. I must hide my notebook and join her in this place where the thorny canes of discord spread in the tranquil shade of civility." (p. 129)

~~~~~

One of the paintings mentioned in this book is The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch:

The Queen asks her husband if she could take a painting to her mother, even though

"the French Queen's true reason for coming to the border was to meet with our King to remind him of his allegiance with France, and as for seeing her daughter-here Francesca spits before continuing-well, that was just an afterthought.

"What painting do you think she would like?" the King asked.

"How about one of those El Boscos?" Dona Juana suggested sweetly. "I think she would like The Garden of Earthly Delights."

The King glanced at her unamused. For him to offer the French Queen Mother any of his paintings at all was generous. Truth be told, his relationship with Queen Catherine is on poor footing that grows ever poorer. (p. 297)

 Also, there were several mentions of the famous Spanish Pearl.

"Known once as the Phillip II pearl, La Peregina, (not to be confused with La Pellegrina) was once the most celebrated pearl of its time. Weighing a large 203.8 grains, La Peregrina was celebrated not only for its great size, but also its perfect pear shape, and bright white coloration.



La Peregrina was found off the coast of Panama in the 16th century, and was promptly delivered to King Phillip II of Spain who presented the gem to his new bride, Queen Mary of Spain. The gem later belonged to Queen Margaret as well as Joseph Bonaparte, before the British Marquis of Abercorn acquired it.

In 1969, La Peregrina was purchased by actor Richard Burton for a mere $37,000, as a gift for his wife, Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth Taylor, a pearl lover and a catalyst of Tahitian pearl popularity, owns La Peregrina to this day. (from Pearl-Guide)

What a novel this is, deeply rooted in culture, history, and intrigue. I feel as if I've touched the very hands of the Royals who once lived it themselves.

Mailbox Monday

When I went to my mailbox this morning it contained Dead End Gene Pool by Wendy Burden. This is a book sent by Lisa of Books On The Brain as she is hosting a discussion about it with the author on May 18th. As of March 23, she still had seven copies available, so hustle on over if you want to partake in the Reading Series with us!

Wendy Burden is a bold new voice in American literature. For generations the Burdens were one of the wealthiest families in New York, thanks to the inherited fortune of Cornelius "the Commodore" Vanderbilt. By 1955, the year of Wendy's birth, the Burdens had become a clan of over funded, quirky and brainy, steadfastly chauvinist, and ultimately doomed bluebloods on the verge of financial and moral decline-and were rarely seen not holding a drink.

At the heard of the story is Wendy's glamorous and aloof mother who, after her husband's suicide, travels the world in search of the perfect sea-and-ski tan, leaving her three children in the care of a chain-smoking Scottish nanny, Fifth Avenue grandparents, and an assorted cast of long-suffering household servants (who Wendy and her brothers love to terrorize). Rife with humor, heartbreak, family intrigue and booze, Dead End Gene Pool offers a glimpse into the fascinating world of old money and gives truth to an old maxim: The rich are different. (back cover)

Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.

Spring Break Supplies

Ah, there's nothing like the Friday before Spring Break. The promise of time stretches before me, and time is the number one thing I need for Spring Break.

Lots of teachers, lots of my students, are heading off for vacations to Florida...the Wisconsin Dells...North Carolina. I'd rather nail my  head to the table than fight the crowds at Disney during Spring Break.

No, for me the ultimate requirement for Spring Break is time and space. I love having the house to myself, my husband at work, my son out and about. I love sleeping in because I've stayed up most of the night reading. I love having the laundry done, the house immaculate, and my kitties around me, with Henry (part Husky, all dope) looking on as I read.

I'm beginning Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov on April 1 for the read-along I'm hosting; please join in if you haven't already! We'll read one part a week, which averages to about 200 pages every seven days, and I'll post my thoughts every Thursday in April. I'm hopeful that participants in this read-along will either write their thoughts on their own blogs, or leave a comment here, as we share this Russian classic together.

Tonight has the promise of getting into Dance Dance Dance...is there anything like opening a Murakami novel for the first time? Surely not. I gasp with the anticipation.

So, my supplies include time. (See the girl resting in the field? It's Rest At Harvest, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. She depicts exactly what I'm talking about!) The Brothers Karamazov following Dance Dance Dance. And, quite possibly, a dark chocolate bar or two.

What will your week require?

A Whistling Season

When my book club chose this book last August, for me to lead in April, I thought, "Great, here comes Willa Cather's My Antonia Part 2." (I loathed My Antonia; I'd rather watch paint dry than read that book, although the last time I picked it up I was fourteen.)

But, I couldn't have been more wrong.

This is a fantastic book.

This is a fabulous book.

This is the best book I've read about education for as far back as I can remember, and it's certainly in my list of top books read for the year so far.

To be fair, it isn't solely about education. Sure, there's the school-house with its paint peeling from the sun of Montana. Sure, there's a teacher in the form of Morrie, who accompanied his sister, Rose, to Marias Coulee in 1910. She'd placed an ad: Can't Cook, But Doesn't Bite in the paper for a housekeeping position, but unlike A Reliable Wife, turned out to be the perfect answer for this family who'd lost their mother a year before.

She whistled while she scrubbed. She made the house a home. And, she had a brother who brought education to life. He was exactly the kind of teacher I long to be: unconventional, caring, finding the unique and sensational in every student and every subject.

"Morrie thought up a doozy this time," I confided to Rose insofar as I could. "I wish I could tell you, but it's a ----"

"Ah, but I know all about it," she whispered back, delicately fingering her cocoa cup. I kept forgetting how much time she and Morrie naturally spent together, sister and brother, out of our sight. "That man. You just never know what he will pull next, do you." Her little conspiratorial smile seemed to approve of that, this time." (p. 265)

I cannot do this book justice with my weak words. You must read it for yourself even if you are not a teacher. Or, a housekeeper. Or, familiar with rural Montana life from 100 years before. It makes no difference for the way this book will impact your life.

Merlin's Harp

I was drawn to this book from the very first lines:

When I was yet a very young woman I threw my heart away. I fashioned a wee coracle of leaf and willow twig and reed, a coracle that sat in the hollow of my two palms. In this I placed my wounded, wretched heart and set it adrift on the rain-misted wavelets of the Fey river, and I watched it bob and whirl, sail and sink.

What vocabulary...what imagery...what a marvelous way to re-imagine Arthurian legend. For within the pages of Merlin's Harp we find all the well-known characters: Arthur, Merlin, Morgan Le Fay, Mordred, Gwen, and Lancelot. But, they are interspersed with the fey, fairy creatures with even-fingered hands and magical gifts.

The story is told through the eyes of Niviene, a winsome lass who meets Arthur while he is hunting the white deer. Their union produces Bran, who could have been raised by Merlin and brought up in royal surroundings. But, when Bran leaves his mother as a young child, she throws her heart away.

The rest of the book tells us of Niviene's call by Merlin to save Arthur's kingdom from the Saxons, and we are pulled into the story by Anne Eliot Compton's magical writing, her magical rendering of this beloved tale.

Read Chapter 1 of Merlin's Harp here.

The Guardian's List: 1,000 Books You Must Read Before You Die

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
Money by Martin Amis
The Information by Martin Amis
The Bottle Factory Outing by Beryl Bainbridge
According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge
Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes
A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes
Augustus Carp, Esq. by Himself: Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man by Henry Howarth Bashford
Molloy by Samuel Beckett
Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
Queen Lucia by EF Benson
The Ascent of Rum Doodle by WE Bowman
A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd
The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury
No Bed for Bacon by Caryl Brahms and SJ Simon
Illywhacker by Peter Carey
A Season in Sinji by JL Carr
The Harpole Report by JL Carr
The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
Mister Johnson by Joyce Cary
The Horse’s Mouth by Joyce Cary
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin
Just William by Richmal Crompton
The Provincial Lady by EM Delafield
Slouching Towards Kalamazoo by Peter De Vries
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens
Jacques the Fatalist and his Master by Denis Diderot
A Fairy Tale of New York by JP Donleavy
The Commitments by Roddy Doyle
Ennui by Maria Edgeworth
Cheese by Willem Elsschot
Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
Caprice by Ronald Firbank
Bouvard et Pécuchet by Gustave Flaubert
Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn
The Polygots by William Gerhardie
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Brewster’s Millions by Richard Greaves (George Barr McCutcheon)
Squire Haggard’s Journal by Michael Green
Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene
Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith
The Little World of Don Camillo by Giovanni Guareschi
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodgkins
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal
The Lecturer’s Tale by James Hynes
Mr Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood
The Mighty Walzer Howard by Jacobson
Pictures from an Institution by Randall Jarrell
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
The Castle by Franz Kafka
Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor
Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov
The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester
L’Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane (Gil Blas) Alain-René Lesage
Changing Places by David Lodge
Nice Work by David Lodge
The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay
England, Their England by AG Macdonell
Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie
Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf by David Madsen
Cakes and Ale – Or, the Skeleton in the Cupboard by W Somerset Maugham
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
Puckoon by Spike Milligan
The Restraint of Beasts by Magnus Mills
Charade by John Mortimer
Titmuss Regained by John Mortimer
Under the Net by Iris Murdoch
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
Fireflies by Shiva Naipaul
The Sacred Book of the Werewolf by Victor Pelevin
La Disparition by Georges Perec
Les Revenentes by Georges Perec
La Vie Mode d’Emploi by Georges Perec
My Search for Warren Harding by Robert Plunkett
A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym
Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau
Solomon Gursky Was Here by Mordecai Richler
Alms for Oblivion by Simon Raven
Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth
The Westminster Alice by Saki
The Unbearable Bassington by Saki
Hurrah for St Trinian’s by Ronald Searle
Great Apes by Will Self
Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe
Blott on the Landscape by Tom Sharpe
Office Politics by Wilfrid Sheed
Belles Lettres Papers: A Novel by Charles Simmons
Moo by Jane Smiley
Topper Takes a Trip by Thorne Smith
The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom by Tobias Smollett
The Adventures of Roderick Random by Tobias Smollett
The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle by Tobias Smollett
The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark
The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark
Loitering with Intent by Muriel Spark
A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Spark
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
White Man Falling by Mike Stocks
Handley Cross by RS Surtees
A Tale of a Tub by Jonathan Swift
Penrod by Booth Tarkington
The Luck of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray
Before Lunch by Angela Thirkell
Tropic of Ruislip by Leslie Thomas
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
Venus on the Half-Shell by Kilgore Trout
The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain
The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh
Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh
The Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon
Tono Bungay by HG Wells
Molesworth by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle
The Wimbledon Poisoner by Nigel Williams
Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson
Something Fresh by PG Wodehouse
Piccadilly Jim by PG Wodehouse
Thank You Jeeves by PG Wodehouse
Heavy Weather by PG Wodehouse
The Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse
Joy in the Morning by PG Wodehouse

Crime

The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren
Fantomas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre
The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler
Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
Trent’s Last Case by EC Bentley
The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley
The Beast Must Die by Nicholas Blake
Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary E Braddon
The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke
The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
Greenmantle by John Buchan
The Asphalt Jungle by WR Burnett
The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain
Double Indemnity by James M Cain
True History of the Ned Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
No Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase
The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie
The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon
The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad
Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Poetic Justice by Amanda Cross
The Ipcress File by Len Deighton
Last Seen Wearing by Colin Dexter
The Remorseful Day by Colin Dexter
Ratking by Michael Dibdin
Dead Lagoon by Michael Dibdin
Dirty Tricks by Michael Dibdin
A Rich Full Death by Michael Dibdin
Vendetta by Michael Dibdin
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
The Pledge by Friedrich Durrenmatt
The Crime of Father Amado by José Maria de Eça de Queiroz
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
LA Confidential by James Ellroy
The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy
A Quiet Belief in Angels by RJ Ellory
Sanctuary by William Faulkner
Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
Goldfinger by Ian Fleming
You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene
The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene
The Third Man by Graham Greene
A Time to Kill by John Grisham
The King of Torts by John Grisham
Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton
The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
Fatherland by Robert Harris
Black Sunday by Thomas Harris
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
Tourist Season by Carl Hiaasen
The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V Higgins
Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
Bones and Silence by Reginald Hill
A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes
Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg
Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household
Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles
Silence of the Grave by Arnadur Indridason
Death at the President’s Lodging by Michael Innes
Cover Her Face by PD James
A Taste for Death by PD James
Friday the Rabbi Slept Late by Harry Kemelman
Misery by Stephen King
Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
The Constant Gardener by John le Carre
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
52 Pick-up by Elmore Leonard
Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum
Cop Hater by Ed McBain
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
Sidetracked by Henning Mankell
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
The Great Impersonation by E Phillips Oppenheim
The Strange Borders of Palace Crescent by E Phillips Oppenheim
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk
Toxic Shock by Sara Paretsky
Blacklist by Sara Paretsky
Nineteen Seventy Four by David Peace
Nineteen Seventy Seven by David Peace
The Big Blowdown by George Pelecanos
Hard Revolution by George Pelecanos
Lush Life by Richard Price
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
V by Thomas Pynchon
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
Black and Blue by Ian Rankin
The Hanging Gardens by Ian Rankin
Exit Music by Ian Rankin
Judgment in Stone by Ruth Rendell
Live Flesh by Ruth Rendell
Dissolution by CJ Sansom
Whose Body? by Dorothy L Sayers
Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L Sayers
The Madman of Bergerac by Georges Simenon
The Blue Room by Georges Simenon
The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo
Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The League of Frightened Men by Rex Stout
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
The Getaway by Jim Thompson
Pudd’nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
A Dark-Adapted Eye by Barbara Vine
A Fatal Inversion by Barbara Vine
King Solomon’s Carpet by Barbara Vine
The Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Native Son by Richard Wright
Therese Raquin by Emile Zola

Family and self

The Face of Another by Kobo Abe
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
Epileptic by David B
Room Temperature by Nicholson Baker
Eugenie Grandet by Honore de Balzac
Le Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac
The Crow Road by Iain Banks
The L Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks
Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett
A Legacy by Sybille Bedford
Herzog by Saul Bellow
Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow
The Old Wives’ Tale by Arnold Bennett
G by John Berger
Extinction by Thomas Bernhard
Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles
Any Human Heart by William Boyd
The Death of Virgil by Hermann Broch
Evelina by Fanny Burney
The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler
The Sound of my Voice by Ron Butlin
The Outsider by Albert Camus
Wise Children by Angela Carter
The Professor’s House by Willa Cather
The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Les Enfants Terrible by Jean Cocteau
The Vagabond by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
Manservant and Maidservant by Ivy Compton-Burnett
Being Dead by Jim Crace
Quarantine by Jim Crace
The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir
Roxana by Daniel Defoe
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
My New York Diary by Julie Doucet
The Millstone by Margaret Drabble
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
Silence by Shusaku Endo
The Gathering by Anne Enright
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford
Howards End by EM Forster
Spies by Michael Frayn
Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud
The Man of Property by John Galsworthy
Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Immoralist by Andre Gide
The Vatican Cellars by Andre Gide
The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
The Shrimp and the Anemone by LP Hartley
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse
Narziss and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
The Three Paradoxes by Paul Hornschemeier
Tom Brown’s Schooldays by Thomas Hughes
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Ambassadors by Henry James
Washington Square by Henry James
The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins
The Unfortunates by BS Johnson
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Ulysses by James Joyce
Good Behaviour by Molly Keane
Memet my Hawk by Yasar Kemal
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi
Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence
Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee
Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
How Green was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
Martin Eden by Jack London
Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
The Chateau by William Maxwell
The Rector’s Daughter by FM Mayor
The Ordeal of Richard Feverek by George Meredith
Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
Sour Sweet by Timothy Mo
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Who Do You Think You Are? by Alice Munro
The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
A House for Mr Biswas by VS Naipaul
At-Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O’Brien
Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness by Kenzaburo Oe
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
The Good Companions by JB Priestley
The Shipping News by E Annie Proulx
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
A Married Man by Piers Paul Read
Pointed Roofs by Dorothy Richardson
The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney by Henry Handel Richardson
Call it Sleep by Henry Roth
Julie, ou la Nouvelle Heloise by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
Alberta and Jacob by Cora Sandel
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
Unless by Carol Shields
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
The Three Sisters by May Sinclair
The Family Moskat or The Manor or The Estate by Isaac Bashevis Singer
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield
Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo
The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
Angel by Elizabeth Taylor
Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson
The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend
Death in Summer by William Trevor
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
Peace in War by Miguel de Unamuno
The Rabbit Omnibus by John Updike
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Jimmy Corrigan, The Smarest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
Morvern Callar by Alan Warner
The History of Mr Polly by HG Wells
The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
Frost in May by Antonia White
The Tree of Man by Patrick White
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
I’ll Go to Bed at Noon by Gerard Woodward
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

Love

Le Grand Meaulnes by Henri Alain-Fournier
Dom Casmurro Joaquim by Maria Machado de Assis
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Emma by Jane Austen
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
The Garden of the Finzi-Cortinis by Giorgio Bassani
Love for Lydia by HE Bates
More Die of Heartbreak by Saul Bellow
Lorna Doone by RD Blackmore
The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Vilette by Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Look At Me by Anita Brookner
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
Possession by AS Byatt
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
A Month in the Country by JL Carr
My Antonia by Willa Cather
A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
Claudine a l’ecole by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette
Cheri by Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette
Victory: An Island Tale by Joseph Conrad
The Princess of Cleves by Madame de Lafayette
The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The Lover by Marguerite Duras
Adam Bede by George Eliot
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald
The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford
A Room with a View by EM Forster
The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico
Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell
Strait is the Gate by Andre Gide
Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
Living by Henry Green
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
The Go-Between by LP Hartley
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
The Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer
Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer
The Swimming-Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst
Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest by WH Hudson
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek
Beauty and Sadness by Yasunari Kawabata
The Far Pavillions by Mary Margaret Kaye
Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
Moon over Africa by Pamela Kent
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre-Ambroise-Francois Choderlos de Laclos
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by DH Lawrence
The Rainbow by DH Lawrence
Women in Love by DH Lawrence
The Echoing Grove by Rosamond Lehmann
The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
Zami by Audre Lorde
Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
Samarkand by Amin Maalouf
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
The Silent Duchess by Dacia Maraini
A Heart So White by Javier Marias
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham
So Long, See you Tomorrow by William Maxwell
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Child in Time by Ian McEwan
The Egoist by George Meredith
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Patience and Sarah by Isabel Miller
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
Arturo’s Island by Elsa Morante
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Painter of Signs by RK Narayan
Delta of Venus by Anais Nin
All Souls Day by Cees Nooteboom
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Maurice Guest by Henry Handel Richardson
Pamela by Samuel Richardson
Clarissa by Samuel Richardson
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan
Ali and Nino by Kurban Said
Light Years by James Salter
A Sport and a Passtime by James Salter
The Reader by Benhardq Schlink
The Reluctant Orphan by Aara Seale
Love Story by Eric Segal
Enemies, a Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer
At Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
The Map of Love by Ahdaf Soueif
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
Waterland by Graham Swift
Diary of a Mad Old Man by Junichiro Tanizaki
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
First Love by Ivan Turgenev
Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
The Graduate by Charles Webb
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
East Lynne by Ellen Wood
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

Science fiction and fantasy

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Non-Stop by Brian W Aldiss
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster
The Drowned World by JG Ballard
Crash by JG Ballard
Millennium People by JG Ballard
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
Consider Phlebas by Iain M Banks
Weaveworld by Clive Barker
Darkmans by Nicola Barker
The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter
Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear
Vathek by William Beckford
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Lost Souls by Poppy Z Brite
Wieland by Charles Brockden Brown
Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Coming Race by EGEL Bulwer-Lytton
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
The End of the World News by Anthony Burgess
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Erewhon by Samuel Butler
The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino
The Influence by Ramsey Campbell
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
The Man who was Thursday by GK Chesterton
Childhood’s End by Arthur C Clarke
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Hello Summer, Goodbye by Michael G Coney
Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland
House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski
Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq
The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R Delaney
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K Dick
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick
Camp Concentration by Thomas M Disch
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
Under the Skin by Michel Faber
The Magus by John Fowles
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Red Shift by Alan Garner
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Light by M John Harrison
The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein
Dune by Frank L Herbert
The Glass Bead Game by Herman Hesse
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg
Atomised by Michel Houellebecq
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Children of Men by PD James
After London; or, Wild England by Richard Jefferies
Bold as Love by Gwyneth Jones
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Shining by Stephen King
The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski
Uncle Silas by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
The Earthsea Series by Ursula Le Guin
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin
Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing
The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis
The Monk by Matthew Lewis
A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay
The Night Sessions by Ken Macleod
Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel
Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin
The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Ascent by Jed Mercurio
The Scar by China Mieville
Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller Jr
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Mother London by Michael Moorcock
News from Nowhere by William Morris
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Ada or Ardor by Vladimir Nabokov
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Ringworld by Larry Niven
Vurt by Jeff Noon
The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien
The Famished Road by Ben Okri
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl and CM Kornbluth
A Glastonbury Romance by John Cowper Powys
The Discworld Series by Terry Pratchett
The Prestige by Christopher Priest
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling
Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
The Female Man by Joanna Russ
Air by Geoff Ryman
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Blindness by Jose Saramago
How the Dead Live by Will Self
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Insult by Rupert Thomson
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain
Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
Institute Benjamenta by Robert Walser
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Affinity by Sarah Waters
The Time Machine by HG Wells
The War of the Worlds by HG Wells
The Sword in the Stone by TH White
The Old Men at the Zoo by Angus Wilson
The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
Orlando by Virginia Woolf
Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

State of the nation

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe
London Fields by Martin Amis
Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand
Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
La Comedie Humaine by Honore de Balzac
They Were Counted by Miklos Banffy
A Kind of Loving by Stan Barstow
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave by Aphra Behn
Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett
The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
Room at the Top by John Braine
A Dry White Season by Andre Brink
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess
The Virgin in the Garden by AS Byatt
Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell
The Plague by Albert Camus
The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe
Disgrace by JM Coetzee
Waiting for the Barbarians by JM Coeztee
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
Underworld by Don DeLillo
White Noise by Don DeLillo
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Little Dorritt by Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion
Sybil or The Two Nations by Benjamin Disraeli
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin
The Book of Daniel by EL Doctorow
Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
USA by John Dos Passos
Sister Carrie by Theodor Dreiser
Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Silas Marner by George Eliot
The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert
Effi Briest by Theodore Fontane
Independence Day by Richard Ford
A Passage to India by EM Forster
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
The Recognitions by William Gaddis
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Counterfeiters by Andre Gide
The Odd Women by George Gissing
New Grub Street by George Gissing
July’s People by Nadine Gordimer
Mother by Maxim Gorky
Lanark by Alastair Gray
Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
South Riding by Winifred Holtby
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
Chronicle in Stone by Ismael Kadare
How Late it Was, How Late by James Kelman
The Leopard by Giuseppi di Lampedusa
A Girl in Winter by Philip Larkin
Passing by Nella Larsen
The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Amongst Women by John McGahern
The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
Of Love & Hunger by Julian Maclaren-Ross
Remembering Babylon by David Malouf
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
The Time of Indifference by Alberto Moravia
A Bend in the River by VS Naipaul
McTeague by Frank Norris
Personality by Andrew O’Hagan
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Ragazzi Pier by Paolo Pasolini
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
The Moon and the Bonfire by Cesare Pavese
GB84 by David Peace
Headlong Hall by Thomas Love Peacock
Afternoon Men by Anthony Powell
Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
The Human Stain by Philip Roth
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
Shame by Salman Rushdie
To Each his Own by Leonardo Sciascia
Staying On by Paul Scott
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr
The Lonely Londoners by Samuel Selvon
God’s Bit of Wood by Ousmane Sembene
The Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge
Richshaw Boy by Lao She
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Novel on Yellow Paper by Stevie Smith
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovtich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Red and the Black by Stendhal
This Sporting Life by David Storey
The Red Room by August Stringberg
The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Couples by John Updike
Z by Vassilis Vassilikos
Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Germinal by Emile Zola
La Bete Humaine by Emile Zola

War and travel

Silver Stallion by Junghyo Ahn
Death of a Hero by Richard Aldington
Master Georgie by Beryl Bainbridge
Darkness Falls from the Air by Nigel Balchin
Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard
Regeneration by Pat Barker
A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry
Fair Stood the Wind for France by HE Bates
Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles
An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd
When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Auto-da-Fe by Elias Canetti
One of Ours by Willa Cather
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Monkey by Wu Ch’eng-en
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
Sharpe’s Eagle by Bernard Cornwell
The History of Pompey the Little by Francis Coventry
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Bomber by Len Deighton
Deliverance by James Dickey
Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos
South Wind by Norman Douglas
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Justine by Lawrence Durrell
The Bamboo Bed by William Eastlake
The Siege of Krishnapur by JG Farrell
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
Parade’s End by Ford Madox Ford
The African Queen by CS Forester
The Ship by CS Forester
Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
The Beach by Alex Garland
To The Ends of the Earth trilogy by William Golding
Asterix the Gaul by Rene Goscinny
The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
Count Belisarius by Robert Graves
Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman
De Niro’s Game by Rawi Hage
King Solomon’s Mines by H Rider Haggard
She: A History of Adventure by H Rider Haggard
The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton
Covenant with Death by John Harris
Enigma by Robert Harris
The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
Rasselas by Samuel Johnson
From Here to Eternity by James Jones
Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
Confederates by Thomas Keneally
Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally
Day by AL Kennedy
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski
If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
The Mark of Zorro by Johnston McCulley
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
La Condition Humaine by Andre Malraux
Fortunes of War by Olivia Manning
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Children of the New Forest by Frederick Marryat
Moby-Dick or, The Whale by Herman Melville
Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener
The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat
History by Elsa Morante
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh
Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
Burmese Days by George Orwell
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
The Valley of Bones by Anthony Powell
The Soldier’s Art by Anthony Powell
The Military Philosophers by Anthony Powell
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by Rudolp Erich Raspe
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
The Crab with the Golden Claws by Georges Remi Herge
Tintin in Tibet by Georges Remi Herge
The Castafiore Emerald by Georges Remi Herge
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by Joao Guimaraes Rosa
Sacaramouche by Rafael Sabatini
Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathon Safran Foer
The Hunters by James Salter
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
The Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald
Austerlitz by WG Sebald
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
The Young Lions by Irwin Shaw
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
Maus by Art Spiegelman
The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal
Cryptonomicon by Neil Stephenson
A Sentimental Journey by Lawrence Sterne
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
Williwaw by Gore Vidal
Candide by Voltaire
Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh
Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh
The Island of Dr Moreau by HG Wells
The Machine-Gunners by Robert Westall
Voss by Patrick White
The Virginian by Owen Wister
The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
The Debacle by Emile Zola

Sunday Salon: Children's Poetry Day

(my son in the Northwoods, about 2000) 

Bas Bleu sent me an announcement that today, March 21, is Children's Poetry Day. In honor of children, and one my favorite childhood pastimes, I wanted to post this beloved poem by Robert Louis Stevenson:

The Swing

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown--
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

May you enjoy many days of freedom and joy as we enter into Spring, remembering how to play as children do.

Diets Kill Me

(photo credit here)

You can try stupid Weight Watchers, counting every blessed point of every blessed food, obsessively writing it down in a journal, and reaching your point limit by noon because ONE tall latte and ONE english muffin already total seven points.

Or, you can try South Beach where you can't have an english muffin at all, unless it's after week 2, and it's filled with twigs mixed in with sand.

Or, you could get a cold from Hell like I did this week, lie in bed so tired you can't even read, and after two days wake up three pounds lighter.

I'm opting for the later, because it took me three weeks to lose three pounds with Weight Watchers. And I wasn't even resting.

Little Bee

Our problem is that you only have your own story. One story makes you weak. But as soon as we have one hundred stories, you will be strong. If we can show that what happened to your village happened to a hundred villages, then the power is on our side. We need to collect the stories of people who've been through the same things as you. We need to make it undeniable. Then we can send the stories to a lawyer and we'll let the authorities know, if anything happens to you, those stories will go straight to the media. Do you see? I think that was what Andrew hoped to do with his book. It was his way of saving girls like you." (p. 253)

There is nothing like a book such as this to point out to me my incredible naivety. To make me feel in profound discomfort that I am a white girl in a privileged country who knows nothing of rape and torture and fear like Little Bee did in Nigeria. I'm so comfortable in my ignorance, in fact, that I would never even choose Nigeria as a vacation destination, like Sarah did when the free tickets fell into her lap.

She takes her husband there, on a trip meant to restore their marriage, and during the course of their vacation their lives are irrevocably changed. Missing is Sarah's middle finger, missing is any freedom from guilt; so incredibly changed is Andrew that he cannot cope with the events they experienced on the beach even when he returns to his home in London.

This is a story of courage and strength, of worlds colliding when two women decide that they will help each other learn to survive, learn to live, no matter what the cost. Which is greater than I could ever imagine.

Once Upon A Time IV

Once upon a time, the door to reading challenges was opened to me by a terrific guy. I'd heard about Rest In Peace, which at that time was in its first edition, but being just a beginner at blogging, I had not time to join in the RIP The First. Fortunately, I was able to climb aboard for the first Once Upon a Time, and now, here we are at the fourth. It is always a harbinger of spring to me when this challenge rolls around.

I'm drawn to animal stories of fantasy. Charlotte's Web first spoke to my heart in 1969, and it has not been quiet since. Many people think it is a book about friendship, which of course it is, but to me it is also a book about loss. It is a lesson which I learned at a very young age, but it has  helped me throughout my life: from loss, often comes something good.

Or, how about the adventures of Rat and Mole in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in The Willows? I've begun it a thousand times, but, as with many children's books, I doubt it's really a children's book. Who but adults can fully appreciate the whimsy of animals throwing down their whitewash brushes with a loud, "Bother!" and cavorting down the river in a blue boat?

On a less whimsical note, how about the terror the rabbits of Watership Down feel? Richard Adams created a magical world of talking rabbits, which so many times reminds me of Mrs. Frisby and The Rats of NIMH (even though they, of course, are rats not rabbits). I read this with my mother in 1974 when we took a drive up to a cabin in Ontario, and I have such lovely memories of us sharing this book together.

But, I could also walk through the door which Italian author Italo Calvino holds open for me. What first caught my eye is his book of short stories, Cosmicomics, in which the very first story has people walking to the moon.

 

The best known story is probably the first, The Distance of the Moon, which takes the fact that the moon used to be much closer to the earth, and builds it into a romantic story about two men and one woman in a tribe of people who used to jump up onto the moon when it passed overhead. (Wikipedia.com)

The possibilities are endless, and the challenge gives us time to explore so many as it begins March 21 and ends June 20. Won't you walk through the door, or the forest, or the kingdom with us?

Addendum: Was just reminded, while reading Chasing Bawa, about how much I loved George R. R. Martin's Songs of Fire and Ice series. I'm farily certain that after Cosmicomics, which just arrived from amazon.com today, I'll be diving into Clash of Kings. Ooh, the thrill of anticipation...

Sunday Salon: Becoming Obsolete

The state of Illinois owes my school district alone over 7 million dollars.

Who knows what the buffoons who have been running our government have done with our taxes; now Governor Quinn wants to raise them again, as if we can trust that will solve the problem when what we've already given has been so poorly mismanaged.

Five people were fired from my school Friday. Five. Out of 22 elementary buildings, 5 middle schools and three high schools; I don't know the total number of people district wide who have been "released from their positions." It felt like a bomb had gone off in our building; there was nothing those of us who were staying could do to help. Tomorrow we go back with a touch of survivor's guilt. "What have I done to keep my job?" I ask myself. "Taught for 25 years. Am I a hard worker, or am I blessed?" It's a bit of both, I suspect.

Last night I took my friend from Jr. High out for dinner. We shared a bottle of Chianti and lots of memories: when her talking bird followed her to school and called her name from outside the English classroom until the teacher made her call her mother to come get it; when we walked the streets of Milan as twenty-something year old girls and giggled when cars of young men stopped to ask us to come with them. Twenty years have passed since then; getting asked out now? Not so much.

We never could have dreamed, sitting in that classroom as our teacher read The Summer of '42 secretly behind her desk, that in 2010 books would slowly become obsolete.

My sister-in-law leaned over during Cirque du Soleil's performance of Alegria last Saturday and said, "I bought myself a present. A Nook from Barnes and Noble. You should buy one too, then we can share e-books." At one time I would have scorned the idea. Not be able to smell the page? Not be able to turn it? Not be able to feel the heft of the book, or hear the small crack of the binding when it's first opened? Are you kidding me?!

But, then my book club decided to read Little Bee, and I wasn't sure I wanted to buy it. The library had nine million holds on it, as usual, but then I saw a little icon indicating "e-book''. I went through a series of clicks last night, for about two hours, and taught myself how to download the book electronically from the library to my computer to my iPod.

Like a child in a candy story, so thrilled was I at the prospect of having free books (well, from my taxes, anyway) delivered to my home where I don't even have to leave my living room, I downloaded a few extra for good measure.

Things come and go so quickly here: jobs, youth, hardcover copies of novels. I'm hanging on to what I do have for dear life.

The Name of This Book Is Secret

When I saw this book on Jorge's desk, I had to pick it up to see what he was reading.  From the very first page I knew it was a book I, too, would have to read:

Warning!

Do not read beyond this page

!

The next page read:

Good.

Now I know I can trust you.

You're curious. You're brave. And you're not afraid to lead a life of crime.

I love books like this! Give me all your sarcasm, give me all your wit, give me all the intrigue I can find within the first ten lines. The kids in my class loved it, too.

Never mind the mystery. Never mind the backflashes to the Bergamo Brothers, two Italian boys who joined the circus. Never mind the concept of synesthesia. They were so absorbed in the story that none of this was too complicated for them to follow.

It is a book for any age. It is marvelous as a read-aloud, or, if you want to read it faster, for your own silent reading.

Two more books conclude the trilogy:

This Book Is Not Good For You and If You're Reading This, It's Too Late.

A Wild Sheep Chase

"I'm enclosing a photo. A picture of sheep. I'd like you to put it somewhere, I don't care where, but someplace people can see it. I realize I'm making this request out of the blue, but I've got no one else I can ask. I'll let you have every last ounce of my sex appeal if you do me this favor. I can't tell you the reason why, though. This photo is important to me. Sometime, at some later date, I'll explain everything to you." (p. 97)

This is the request which Rat makes of his old friend, our nameless narrator, in a letter. How bizarre, then, that a hundred or so pages later we find this request made to him from an austere man dressed in black:

"You do not have to speak if you do not want to," said the man. "Instead, I will send you out in search of the sheep. These are our final terms. If within two months from now you succeed in finding the sheep, we are prepared to reward you however you would care to request. But if you should fail to find it, it will be the end of you and your company. Agreed?"

"Do I have any choice?" I asked. "And what if no such sheep with a star on its back ever existed in the first place?"

"It is still the same. For you and for me, there is only whether you find the sheep or not. There are no in-betweens." (p. 146)

What can it mean, finding a sheep with a star on its back which may, or may not, exist? With Murakami, one never knows for certain. Perhaps there is such a sheep, perhaps not; the importance, I believe, lies in part with the quest.

"The hotel owner accepted the luggage graciously. I settled the bill up through the following day and told him we'd be back in a week or two.

'Was my father of any help?' he asked worriedly.

I said that he'd helped enormously.

'I sometimes wish I could go off in search of something he declared, "but before getting even that far, I myself wouldn't have the slightest idea what to search for. Now my father, he's someone who's been searching for something all his life. He's still searching today. Ever since I was a little boy, my father's told me about the white sheep that came to him in his dreams. So I always thought that's what life is like. An ongoing search.' (p.229)

So, what does this sheep represent? A singular sheep with a star on its back...I'm still struggling with that. I feel it could be something like a quest, as I said before, but it must be more than that. It's the title of the book, for goodness sake, and a key element for so many characters. I'm wondering if the sheep could stand for weakness in us, because it is only when the sheep is asleep inside the characters that they are able to be free. Could it be guilt? Fear? Hatred? Anything that is our own particular point of failure? I suspect so.

"The key point here is weakness," said the Rat. "Everything begins from there. Can you understand what I'm getting at?"

"People are weak."

"As a general rule," said the Rat, snapping his fingers a couple of times. "But line up all the generalities you like and you still won't get anywhere. What I'm talking about now is a very individual thing. Weakness is something that rots in the body. Like gangrene. I've felt that ever since I was a teenager. That's why I was always on edge. There's this something inside you that's rotting away and you feel it all along. Can you understand what that's like?"

I sat silent, wrapped up in the blanket.

"Probably not," the Rat continued. "There isn't that side to you. But, well, anyway, that's weakness. It's the same as a hereditary disease, weakness. No matter how much you understand it, there's nothing you can do to cure yourself. It's not going to go away with a clap of the hand. It just keeps getting worse and worse." (p. 333)

The conclusion of A Wild Sheep Chase was shocking and distressing to me. Nevertheless, I love it because as usual, Murakami brings up the essential through the oblique. We puzzle through, as readers, wondering exactly what he's getting at, all the while enjoying the Story.

This is my fifth Murakami novel, and I'm finding the following traits consistent in each:

• cats
• missing wives/women
• sex
• brutal honesty rather than pretension
• seemingly apathetic heroes
• a quest

It is my quest to read all of his works, and then probably at some point in my life read them all over again. (I've already read Kafka on the Shore twice, and found it immeasurable enriching the second time around.) He is one of the few authors who always has something new to say to me, each time I open one of his books. This one in particular was read for Tanabata's read-along, as a precursor to Dance Dance Dance which will be discussed March 29th. I hope to see you there.

If You Follow Me

Suicide in Shanghai Girls by Lisa See.

Suicide in A Wild Sheep Chase by my beloved Haruki Murakami.

Suicide again in If You Follow Me by Malena Watrous.

I can't stand any more; it's so depressing.

I splash water on my face and return to the art room, where I have to pose for two more classes before lunch. I keep my eyes closed but I can't fall asleep. I keep thinking about my father. I think about the note he left in the glove compartment of his car, a note so short that I memorized it without trying, without wanting to. I am sorry for the pain that this will cause you, but I am in a black hole of despair and I can't find my way out. I forfeit the right to give you any advice. Please try not to be too sad and move on with your lives. Try not to be too sad? Move on with your lives? I've been following this advice like a dare. Maybe Carolyn is right, I think. Maybe I have no feelings..." p. 170

I, however, have plenty of feelings, and I didn't enjoy reading about Marina's which came across to me as indulgent and self-absorbed. I didn't like that she has a female lover, Carolyn, whom she followed to Japan where she could teach English. I didn't like the way that gomi, garbage, was featured in every single chapter in the first half of the book: how to get rid of it, where it goes, how it was brought back to the girls after they'd placed it in the wrong disposal container. Enough already with the rotten beef, the broken Amana refrigerator, their neighbor, Mrs. Ogawa, telling them how to recycle Japanese style.

It was interesting to learn some Japanese vocabulary. It was interesting to learn some Japanese customs. It was interesting to imagine my life as a teacher in Japan through Marina's life.

Unfortunately, I couldn't relate to the choices she made in her lifestyle. How about you? How do you feel when reading about characters who are diametrically opposed to you?

Find other stops along the tour here:

Wednesday, March 10th: Take Me Away

Thursday, March 11th: Life in the Thumb

Monday, March 15th: Raging Bibliomania

Wednesday, March 17th: Stephanie’s Written Word

Thursday, March 18th: nomadreader

Monday, March 22nd: Books and Movies

Wednesday, March 24th: Book Chatter

Tuesday, March 30th: BookNAround

Wednesday, March 31st: Bookstack

Mothering Sunday and Persephone Books

 

"What is Mothering Sunday?" you may ask, as well you might if you're living in America as I am.

 

Apparently, it's Mother's Day for our lovely British friends! And, Persephone books is honoring us mothers with this delightful offer:

It is Mothering Sunday this weekend.

 

If you order two Persephone Classics by midnight on Wednesday, we will send you a third Classic of your choice free of charge. Please note that the offer does not apply to the grey books.

 

When ordering online you should only pay for two books, and then write in the Additional Information box: Mothering Sunday Offer and the title of the third Classic you would like. In the same box please let us know whether the books are going to you or whether they should be sent directly to your mother with a card, and if so what the card should say.

 

(Apologies to readers in North America, where Mothering Sunday is in May: however this does not stop you from taking advantage of our special offer well in advance!)

 

Here are the Persephone Classics to choose from:

 

• Cheerful Weather For A Wedding
• Good Evening Mrs. Craven
• Kitchen Essays
• Little Boy Lost
• Making of A Marchioness
• Mariana
• Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day
• Saplings
• Someone At A Distance
• The World That Was Ours

 

Which will you choose?!