The proof of the book is in the re-reading

In my family, I am considered something of an oddity in that I can – and will – read and re-read my favourite books. It’s something my Grandma never understood about my Granddad – “You know the ending! It’s just not as interesting the second time!” – but I believe that the proof of an excellent book is in the re-reading. If it is truly well-written with a gripping plot and believable characters, re-reading will bring to light new facets of each of these things. Otherwise, I will get bored and stop re-reading.

Some books I have re-read just once (occasionally this has been due to studying them at university!), and others I re-read on a two year to yearly basis. Some of them, I have been reading since childhood, and others are more recent. Here is a selection of books I have lost count of the amount of times I have read, and why. Give them a try J

The Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis) – childhood classics. My favourite used to be The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and I remember disliking The Horse and His Boy, but this is now actually one of my favourites. A few years ago I decided to read the series based on chronological publication date rather than the order they are usually presented in (beginning with The Magician’s Nephew – which was actually last but one to be published), and I think I prefer it this way. The current order was suggested by a young fan in a letter to Lewis and was adopted after he agreed it would make sense. Every time I read these books I discover something new!

Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) – my Mum used to joke I could go on Mastermind answering questions about this book. I read it, and its three sequels, many many times as a child. Like every young girl reading this book, I wanted to be Jo March. I’m sure it comes across as very moralistic to anyone reading it for the first time as an adult, but I love it. It’s just the story of four sisters learning their place in the world and how to love each other and those around them really well – and it has some funny moments, too. BBC Radio 4 recently re-ran their dramatic version and I really enjoyed it. The 1994 film is also beautiful.

Wuthering Heights (Emily Brontë) – read for the first time aged 11, this was the first book I really had to work at understanding. I knew part of the story from the musical Heathcliff (it was a musical starring Cliff Richard in the title role; my mum was a huge fan so we watched the video many times!) but realised that half of the story in that was missing. I wrote my A level comparative paper on it (comparing the treatment of romance in a social context to that in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South) and learned pages of quotes from it for a final year exam on Victorian Literature during my degree. It’s a fascinating book, and each time I read it I realise that more and more; it’s just so unusual for its time (and for any time), and the characters are so individual – I can’t think of equivalents to Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff in any other books I know. I still cannot understand, however, how ANYONE having actually read the book, could find Heathcliff attractive.

I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith) – as I write, I am watching the film adaptation of this. Although some details of the novel are amended, I think the spirit of the book is quite well communicated – and I love Bill Nighy as Mortmain (though physically he doesn’t correlate to the description in the book). This is the classic coming of age novel, and what I love is Cassandra’s narrative, the beautiful characterisation of the eccentric family, and the literary references. I also find it funnier and funnier each time I read it, and every time I don’t want it to end because it is so delightfully written. Having read some of Smith’s other novels in the past year, this is still the best in terms of storyline, characterisation and pace. It’s also incredibly bittersweet, and has probably my favourite opening line of all time (‘I write this sitting in the kitchen sink’).

These is My Words (Nancy Turner) – at the last meeting of school’s book club, we discussed this as I had recommended it before. All of the ladies who read it absolutely loved it, and every person I have lent it to has also loved it. I still maintain it would be a fantastic film, particularly with Hugh Jackman playing Jack, the main male character! Another diary form novel, it draws you into Sarah’s world, a young woman from a pioneering family finding her way in the world. She and Jack are wonderful characters, and this book succeeds in making me both laugh and cry every single time I read it. Again, bittersweet, but so satisfying. There are sequels. One day perhaps I’ll read them...

The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets (Eva Rice) – This is a funny one. It’s just a retro chick-lit type novel but it’s so light, fluffy, innocent and fun that I read it for pure escapism. It contains: a mouldering stately home, a poverty-stricken noble family who live in it, three teenagers living up in the late 50s, an eccentric older lady, and lots of improbable happens. It’s delightful.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke) – a wonderful combination of the politics, literature and society of the early 19^th century, Austenesque writing, and magic. It’s really long, but utterly enthralling. The at times very long footnotes add richness and humour to the story, and the novel is set in a rich imaginative world which is incredibly convincing. The first time I ‘read’ it was age 17 as an audio book – very long but very worth it as the skill of the writing becomes so evident when read slowly. The Ladies of Grace Adieu, the book of short stories, is also lovely, and I hope Clarke writes more soon!

Back to reality...

 The greater majority of my reading for pleasure involves fiction. I love to read newspapers, although as I rarely have the time, when I do I just get the ‘i’; I was also a subscriber during my NQT year to the TES (Times Education Supplement) but again, there just isn’t enough time... I also read a variety of blogs, and books about spiritual matters. Other non-fiction reading generally falls into four categories for me: societies/travel, literary, biography and cook-books. Sometimes those categories overlap. Here are one or two I’ve been reading recently...

The Secret Life of France, by Lucy Wadham

Bought for me by my old housemate for Christmas when we were both on our years abroad, this is a reflection on French society as expressed by a Brit who moved there in the middle of her university studies after marrying her Parisian boyfriend. Some parts are insightful and interesting, but on the whole I find it far too Paris-centric and struggled to recognise the French people I have lived and worked with in my two times living there in her description of the adulterous, pleasure-seeking Parisian bourgeoisie she knew in the 80s. There is also a massive amount later on about international politics which is only loosely related to the overall aim of describing French society, and which appears to be more about showing off about some of the high-up acquaintances Wadham made during her journalistic career. There are some sweeping generalisations, as with any book which sets out to describe a society, but the comments about French TV definitely made me smile!

The Brontës, by Juliet Barker

Believe it or not, I have had this book out of my local library since I moved to this flat last summer. By dint of returning the book every time I reached my renewal limit, and then immediately reissuing it to myself (tricks of the trade learned during my part time library job as a teenager!) this has been done with incurring only minimal fines when I couldn’t get myself organised enough to renew it on time. It’s a whopper of a biography, spanning 1000 pages (plus another 200 of notes), and a 90 year period beginning with the birth of Patrick Brontë. Despite the time it took for me to read it, it was genuinely fascinating stuff (particularly once you get past the very long quotes from the juvenilia!) and, despite not being so interested in the passages about local Haworth politics, I was mesmerised. Barker evidently feels a responsibility to set the record straight, particularly about Patrick Brontë, Arthur Bell Nichol and Anne and Branwell Brontë, arguing that their reputations were created by Charlotte’s embittered friend Ellen through Elizabeth Gaskell’s posthumous biography of Charlotte. She uses lots of really interesting extracts from letters, and even when she ventures into the realms of speculation is able to back up her ideas with other evidence which gives a good idea of the psychology of the subjects. Charlotte particularly comes across as very human, with her strengths and weaknesses shown very clearly!

 

Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady, by Kate Summerscale

I don’t think I would have chosen this book to read by myself, despite having read and been intrigued by The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, but it was one of two books we were going to discuss at my school’s book club, so I bought it (another lady bought the other), read it and we swapped. Like Mr Whicher, it’s got a very factual feel about it, which the other ladies at the book club didn’t like as I think they’d prefer to read a love story! Unfortunately the subject matter didn’t interest me much – the book centres around one of the first divorce cases in England after it became possible to divorce through the law courts, where the main piece of evidence was the woman’s diary. In this diary, Mrs Robinson (the lady in question) had written about an affair she claimed to have had with a married doctor, over a period of years. Summerscale’s interest appears to chiefly lie in the way in which Mrs Robinson seems to have used her writing as a tool – to create happiness for herself in an uncongenial marriage – and in the arguments put forward by the defence that Mrs R was ill and had imagined the events of the affair. Although I didn’t dismiss it quite as quickly as the ladies in the book club (!), the most I could say of this was that it was “OK”.

A Soup for Every Day: 365 of our Favourite Recipes, by the Covent Garden Soup Company

I love soup. Yum. So I bought this with a Waterstone’s voucher, and it is lovely. It looks delightful, and many of the recipes look really inspiring, tasty, and some downright unusual (chocolate and rhubarb ‘soup’? Hmm). I’ve only tried making one so far but have loved flicking through it to decide what to try next! As the soups are laid out one for each day of the year, care has been taken to choose ingredients which are seasonal, topical and would be at their best that time of year. During the ‘big snow’ in January I made the spicy sweet potato soup, which was lovely – most of the spiciness came from the rather large amount of ginger it contained! – but my only gripes were that it was really, really, really thick, and that the recipe said it would serve 4 (it served my American housemates and me, so – 3). I definitely followed it right!

Coming up in non-fiction I have...

Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl, by Donald Sturrock. Another doorstop book! I love Roald Dahl’s children’s books of course, but also his short stories for adults – although I do find many of them very creepy (‘Royal Jelly’ – yuck...)

North Africa, by Barnaby Rogerson. I have a longstanding interest in North Africa so am looking forward to finding out more about it – am hoping the writing style will be engaging and not too battle-based!!

Of course, this is while trying to read Ian McEwan’s Solar, re-read Les Misérables and keep up the light relief with a Dorothy L Sayers (Five Red Herrings) I’ve been trying to finish for ages!! Oh, and that little matter of a more than full-time job...