August/September Summary and Plans for October

That’s a lot of books, Jackie! I really didn’t like the Toibin at all, so I look forward to seeing what you make of it. ‘All the King’s Men’ is one I’ve been wanting to get around to for months so I might join you in reading that soon.

I’ve still got a couple of Booker shortlist books to read (Catton and Bulawayo) which I’ll hopefully get to before the winner is announced, but at the moment I’m thoroughly enjoying making my way through the Giller Prize longlist.

August and September have been fantastic reading months for me with a staggering six 5-star reads. Four of those were short story collections, which I won’t bore you with except to say Raymond Carver’s ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love’ fully deserves its reputation as a modern classic. The two five star novels were Simon Van Booy’s ‘The Illusion of Separateness’ and Michael Winter’s ‘Minister Without Portfolio’. The latter is on the Giller longlist but sadly there doesn’t seem to be a British edition due anytime soon which is a shame as it is superb. I’d not read Winter before but his writing is dazzling – it has a kind of elemental beauty and grace with almost every sentence containing an insight or truth that stops you in your tracks.

Others I’ve enjoyed lately: I thought Lahiri’s ‘The Lowland’ was a cracking read, though perhaps a bit too slickly perfect, and a bit unambitious when compared to some other novels about the immigrant experience I’ve read lately.

Colin McAdam’s ‘A Beautiful Truth’ takes a huge risk by telling half of the story from the point of view of a chimpanzee, but succeeds brilliantly making it both poetic and heartbreaking.

Robert McGill’s ‘Once We Had a Country’ is a Canadian novel that does have a UK publisher (it’s due out in January) and is worth looking out for – it is about people living on a commune in the 70s but what I particularly enjoyed about it is the way the story is filtered through the medium of film (or TV) and shows how that has almost become the way we view the world, and how we often seem to trust that view entirely despite how easily manipulated and edited it is. It also works more traditional religion and belief into the story – it’s a book that has a lot to say about blind faith and naivety.

Anyway, a few more Giller books and the last couple of Booker books to read in October and then I’m really looking forward to a few Australian novels: Alex Miller’s ‘Coal Creek, Tim Winton’s ‘The Eyrie’ and Richard Flanagan’s ‘The Narrow Road to the Deep North’.

Looks like you have some great plans for October. I’ll be interested in your thoughts on The Night Watch (love Waters) and Night Film (scared of the hype).

I admire not only the fact that you read so many books, but that you review each one of them quite thoroughly. I find that if I have a month where I manage to read a lot, I don’t have time to do all the reviews. And if I can’t read more than a handful of books, it usually means I am too busy to review anyway. I’m planning to read Saint-Exupery as well in October, so curious to see how you get on.