Category: Other

Categories
Other

My Favourite Book Blogging Community Builders

 

 

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Today marks the start of Book Blogger Appreciation Week, a time to celebrate the hard work of bloggers from around the world.

The book blogging world is growing all the time so it is increasingly hard to feel part of the community. Luckily there are a few bloggers out there doing everything they can to build relationships between bloggers.

My post A Beginner’s Guide to Joining the Book Blogging Community explains some of best ways to form bonds with other bloggers, but today I’d like to highlight those doing a fantastic job, making our online experience warm and welcoming.

 

Beth Fish Reads

Beth and I started blogging at a very similar time and so I have enjoyed watching her blog grow and blossom into the amazing place it is today. We don’t really have the same taste in books, but I love the way she does everything possible to unite bloggers of all reading tastes. She is always helpful and encouraging to new bloggers and is a constant source of bookish information on twitter (@bethfishreads).

She links bloggers from a wide variety of genres with her weekend cooking feature and always seems to be encouraging bloggers to join in with community events. She is at the heart of the book blogging community.

Leeswammes’s Blog

Judith is the centre of the European book blogging community. She organised the Book Bloggers Abroad feature that showed how life is different for bloggers from around the world, started a Literary Giveaway Blog Hop and is a member of the Independent Literary Awards.

She is always a positive voice on twitter (@leeswammes), encouraging friendly interaction and unity. And the best thing? She has an almost identical reading taste to me, so I trust every single book recommendation she suggests.

Kittling: Books

If you want to know what is going on in the blogging world then I recommend following Kittling: Books. Every week Cathy does a fantastic weekly link roundup detailing all the major events of the past week. She also seems to know just about everyone, thanks to her wonderful Scene of the Blog feature. I recommend following her!

International Reading Challenges

I also love anything that encourages people to read books from outside their own culture. Hello Japan!, The South Asian Review Database and Nigerian Literature Fridays are some of my favourite current initiatives.

Blogging is a wonderful hobby, but it is so much more enjoyable when we all work together, sharing the joy of books.

Thank you to Amy and all those who organised the wonderfully positive Book Bloggers Appreiciaition Week!

Categories
Booker Prize Other

The 2011 Booker Prize Short List

The 2011 Booker short list has just been announced as:

(all links go to my thoughts on each book)

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edgyan

Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

Snowdrops by A.D. Miller DNF

 

SnowdropsThe Sisters BrothersPigeon English

Half Blood Blues: From Berlin to Paris. Two Friends. One BetrayalThe Sense of an EndingJamrach's Menagerie

I predicted 4/6 correctly, so can’t say I was very surprised by the announcement; although I must have failed to see something in Pigeon English, as I predicted it would be the book least likely to make the cut.

I’m pleased I can now put the Booker prize behind me for another year and concentrate on some more random reading.

Categories
Booker Prize Other

Who will make the 2011 Booker Short List?

I have now attempted to read all the books on this year’s Booker long list and am sad to report that I haven’t had much luck with them. I only found two books I really enjoyed; the rest were a mixture of average reads and ones that irritated me.

Predicting a short list is an almost impossible task so I decided to summarise my thoughts by ordering the long list a) according to my preference and b) in the order I think reflects their relative literary merit (writing quality, re-readability etc).

Bookers ordered to my preference:

(all links go to my thoughts on each book)

  1. A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvvette Edwards
  2. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
  3. The Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuinness
  4. Half Blood Blues by Esi Edgyan 
  5. On Canaan’s Side by Sebastian Barry
  6. The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst
  7. Far to Go by Alison Pick
  8. Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch
  9. Derby Day by DJ Taylor
  10. The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
  11. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
  12. Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman
  13. Snowdrops by A.D. Miller

Bookers in order of literary merit:

  1. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
  2. On Canaan’s Side by Sebastian Barry
  3. Snowdrops by A.D. Miller
  4. Half Blood Blues by Esi Edgyan
  5. Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch
  6. The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst
  7. Derby Day by DJ Taylor
  8. The Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuinness
  9. A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvvette Edwards
  10. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
  11. Far to Go by Alison Pick
  12. The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers
  13. Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

In each case the top six titles (in bold) would make it to their respective short lists. The exception being :

  • The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
  • On Canaan’s Side by Sebastian Barry

where I think the books are too similar for both to be put through to the short list together. I think The Sense of an Ending is the slightly stronger book and so I predict it will go through at the expense of On Canaan’s Side. I’m hoping that the books are selected on literary merit and so therefore predict that the Booker short list revealed on 6th September will be:

 

The Stranger's ChildSnowdropsDerby Day

Half Blood Blues: From Berlin to Paris. Two Friends. One BetrayalThe Sense of an EndingJamrach's Menagerie

 Which books do you think will make it onto the Booker short list?

Categories
Other

August Summary and Plans for September

August Summary

My August reading has been dominated by the Booker long list. I only have two more left to try and am looking forward to finishing them and writing a brief summary for you. The Booker reading has reduced my overall reading enjoyment for the month, but I’m still pleased I made the effort to try them all – I wouldn’t have discovered the wonderful, A Cupboard Full of Coats, without it.

Book of the Month

A Cupboard Full of Coats

Books Reviewed in August

A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvvette Edwards 

The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah 

The Housekeeper and The Professor – Yoko Ogawa 

The Twin – Gerbrand Bakker 

The Sisters Brothers – Patrick deWitt 

The Proof of Love – Catherine Hall 

The Testament of Jessie Lamb – Jane Rogers 

The Sense of an Ending – Julian Barnes 

Titus Alone – Mervyn Peake 

Two Abandoned Bookers: Derby Day by DJ Taylor and Far to Go by Alison Pick

What else have I been doing?

August has been a very busy month for me. My boys have been off school and so I’ve been entertaining them locally and on a camping trip in Yorkshire.

 

I have also been celebrating my 10th wedding anniversary. My husband and I enjoyed a luxurious few days without the children in Whatley Manor, including the best meal we’ve ever eaten. An expensive treat!

Ayla continues to grow. She now weighs 20kg and is starting to loose her puppy fluff. She can now look handsome as well as cute!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plans for September

I will be continuing my Gormenghast read-along with the fourth book in the series, Titus Awakes.

I will be trying The Stranger’s Child and The Last Hundred Days, the last two books of the Booker long list and will let you know my thoughts on the rest.

I also hope to finally have the time to finish the wonderful Shantaram. I am loving every word, but it is a long, heavy book and I’ve struggled to find enough time to read it comfortably (ie. not travelling, in the bath etc!)

I also hope to read the following books:

Caribou Island by David Vann

Everything You Know by Zoe Heller

How to Forget by Marcus Brill

Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry

The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark

Gillespie and I by Jane Harris

The Fat Years by Chan Koonchung

Hen’s Teeth by Manda Scott

My youngest son starts school at the end of September (time flies!) so I’ll have much more free time then. Hopefully this will mean I’ll be able to research a few more interesting topics for you – let me know if there is anything in particular that you’d like me to investigate.

I hope you all have a wonderful September!

 

Categories
Other

Book Blogger Appreciation Week and the Best of Farm Lane Books

Book Blogger Appreciation Week is an annual event celebrating the work of book bloggers and I’m pleased to announce that my blog has been long listed in the Best Literary Fiction Blog category.

Thank you to all who nominated me!

It is lovely to know that you appreciate the work I put into my blog and to see that I am amongst such wonderful company on the long list.

I thought this would be an appropriate time to introduce myself to new readers of my blog and highlight some of my favourite posts from the last three years.

About Me

My name is Jackie and I live in Surrey, England with my husband and two young sons. When my first son was born I gave up my ‘proper’ job as an analytical chemist to stay at home and look after him. To make a little bit of money I set up an online business selling second hand books. This gave me the excuse to create my own library at home (take this in the loose sense of the word – imagine wobbly stacks of books, rather than a posh room lined with ordered book cases!), allowing me the pleasure of being surrounded by thousands of books.

I have always loved reading, but spending so much extra time at home allowed me to indulge in my hobby a lot more. This led me to discovering book blogs and eventually starting my own nearly three years ago. Since then blogging has enabled me to do many things I never dreamed of. I’ve met lots of lovely bloggers and have been lucky enough to attend many publishing events in London. I’ve even met some of my favourite authors. All this is wonderful, but what I love most is discussing the books I’ve read in the comfort of my own home. I wouldn’t continue blogging if I didn’t receive all your wonderful comments. So thank you for making my blog what it is today!

My Favourite Posts

My favourite posts are those that generate a lot of discussion. I have written a lot over the years, but my favourite remains:

Does the age of the author matter?

I still notice that I tend to favour authors who are slightly older than me and think this is a more important indicator of how much a person will enjoy a book than most people realise.

I also think my post  Has Reading Ruined Your Facial Recognition Skills? is one all avid readers should ensure they read.

You can see more of my favourite posts by clicking on the ‘My Favourites’ tab in the box of my side bar.

You can see a post listing My Favourite Books, but all the books I’ve reviewed on my blog can be found under the ‘Books Reviewed’ tab in the top right-hand corner of my blog. These can then be sorted either by Author Surname, Book Title or by My Rating, allowing you to easily see my taste in books.

For those interested, I submitted the following posts for the BBAW award:

If you’d like any more information about me or my blog, please ask below.

Enjoy browsing my blog!

Categories
Crime Other

Are all Henning Mankell books similar?

Faceless Killers (Kurt Wallander Mystery)

Scandinavian crime fiction seems to be everywhere at the moment. All the authors are compared to each other, despite the fact their books are very different in style. Henning Mankell has been on my radar for a long time and I was interested to see how his books would compare to the likes of Larsson and Nesbo. Unfortunately, I have the feeling that his books are the weakest of the three, but having only read a small section of his writing I wanted to check that I wasn’t missing out on his best work.

I started to read Faceless Killers (the first of the Wallander books) over the weekend, but I quickly became frustrated and abandoned it after 70 pages. Wallander appeared to be a stereotypical cardboard cutout detective and no attempts were made to bring him to life. There was no atmosphere and the plot seemed implausible.

I also struggled with the poor quality of the writing. The simplicity was almost child-like in places.

Overall, I wasn’t very impressed with the section I read.

Does Faceless Killers have a good ending?

Does the Wallander series improve as it progresses?

Are any of Mankell’s other books worth reading?

Or, should I forget the books and stick to the Wallander DVDs?