Well, the From The Stacks Reading Challenge has really motivated me to sit down and do some serious reading.
Just as a refresher on this challenge: we were to choose five books from our “to be read” pile and read them between 01 November and 30 January.
I’ve actually already finished all five of the books I chose. They were, luckily for me, all great in their way.
Here’s a brief overview of them:
• Shauna Singh Baldwin’s What The Body Remembers: This book is the one that had the biggest impact on me. Set in India in the first half of the 20th century, it combines the story of three characters (Roop, Satya, and Sardarji) and the story of India moving toward independence. For a long time after I finished it my head was full of the characters, the events, the structure . . . everything. It’s hard to believe that this was a debut novel; it certainly deserved to win the Commonwealth Writers Prize. Now I want to read more work by her.• Anita Brookner’s Falling Slowly: This contemporary novel tells the story of two sisters as they live their unremarkable quiet lives in London. That doesn’t sound like much, but it was riveting. I’d never read Anita Brookner before, but when I finished reading this book I wanted to run out and buy everything of hers. I later read somewhere that she’s been compared to Jane Austen (who is my all-time favourite author). Interestingly, she alluded to The Odd Women, another book I read for this challenge, and some of the issues the books examine were similar.
• Louise Erdrich’s The Beet Queen: This novel follows the lives of several characters in North Dakota starting in the Dirty Thirties and ending decades later. It’s told from multiple perspectives, a technique that can be distracting but which in this case was handled so skilfully that it was seamless and definitely added to the appeal of the story. The book examines, in part, the unhappiness that can be experienced in relationships (whether the relationship is parent-child, extended family, lovers, or other). I was captivated by this book from the first chapter to the last.
• George Gissing’s The Odd Women: this novel traces the stories of five women in 19th century England—some struggling in various ways to survive despite poverty, some resolutely fighting for women to have an expanded role in society. The nature of love and marriage is also examined. I enjoyed this book despite its unrelentingly serious, even earnest, tone.
• Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop: I’ve never found Evelyn Waugh as funny as everyone else seems to, but in a low-key way I did enjoy this send-up of journalists set in the early 20th century.
Because there’s still some time left in the challenge, I think I’ll see if I can’t reduce my stack of unread books a little more. Here’s my new list:
• Laterna Magika by Ven Begamudre
• The Polished Hoe by Austin Clarke
• I’m Frankie Sterne by Dave Margoshes
• Jazz by Toni Morrison
• The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker
Posted by Amy as Readers & Reading at 1:41 AM EST