So Many Books, so Little Time

Trouble is, I'm not a book nerd. I want to read more but I have a few other things which have priority too.
Like watching a good movie, mind you, if I see it's from a book, I'll think 'I must read that book'.
Or patchworking, embroidery, listening to music or walking. Some of these things can be done simultaneous, especially if you use audio books.

Recently three books I'd ordered from the library came all at once. All memoirs.
By the time I got through Steve Bisleys, then Peter Fitzsimons (both aussie guys retelling 50's/ 60's childhoods) I couldn't finish the third one. Too much of a good genre gets a bit much.
Like too much cake.

Our Book Club has just joined the library. We get six books a year to discuss. We tried to choose six different genres to widen our reading experience. Its made me realise my reading genre list is small.
Have I read.......
A Classic?
tried Wuthering Heights as a teenage, didn't finish.
Crime?
one only, a friend loaned me one  few years ago.
Sci Fi?
um, no
Romance?
um, no
Thriller?
no
Fantasy?
not really

So, what exactly do I read?
I'll say what I don't read. I have the pile of books waiting by my bed. The pile in the corner near the dining room table, the pile on a shelf in the bedroom waiting to move to the pile next to the bed, the bookshelf ones waiting to move to a pile somewhere. Its worse than a hospital waiting list!

Here's a few from the piles.

  

 

There's a bit of history, bit of art, bit of romance, a classic and not a memoir in sight.

Some of these are borrowed, so I'd better get cracking.

A Bit of Gothic.

I do love a good ghost story.
I have just read "The Woman in Black" by Susan Hill. This is the first time I've read anything of that genre as my reading genres are pretty limited :(
Susan Hill is a classic writer and this book is a traditional gothic story.

My love of a good ghost story stems from childhood when my friend and I would scare each other witless with repetitive recounting from our repertoire of cheesy, clichéd stories. This is the best way. Oral retelling, at night, by candle light or camp fire. We were about age 11, the perfect age. Too old to need to run to a parent for comfort, but too young to be a cynical non believer. There was The Black Hand, the slightly less scary Brown Hand and a few local tales such as the Stone House in Dunorlan where no man would dare spend the night.

I first came across The Woman in Black as a movie in 1989. This was one of those old school movies where less was more and it was your own imagination that scared you, not the visuals. What could be more scary.... walking into the old nursery of a completely deserted, remote old house to see a rocking chair rocking as if someone had just been sitting there? Or seeing a woman in a distant graveyard, wearing Victorian mourning dress and then mysteriously disappearing?

The recent remake of this starring Daniel Radcliffe, while having some good elements, was not in the same class in my opinion. I don't like the use in recent years of graphic horror and over use of creepy supernatural themes.

The book was great, a classic tale. Set in the deserted house of the late Alice Drablow, a young lawyer must sort through her affairs. The house is only reached by a causeway which the tide cuts off every day. This story has every element needed. A great unfolding plot and a scary, haunting location.
I wouldn't call it horror, I wouldn't call it supernatural, just a good old-fashioned haunting.
I did avoid reading it at night though!

Winter Reading.

Is reading seasonal? There's the summer holiday read, but is there spring, autumn and winter reads too?

"Woman at Beach Reading" Marie Fox               "Woman Reading in a Forest" Gyula Benczur

Summer and Autumn.....

"Woman Reading" Tavik Simon
Spring, you can tell by the peonies on the table.
It is warm enough to have the window open, but not warm enough to have a summer dress on.......











and winter.

"Woman Reading on a Settee"
William Churchill

Trying to catch that winter sun.






We are well into autumn now with the prospect of winter upon us. Thoughts of snuggling up with a book (or a movie) are wonderful.
So...three winter books from me:

The Lion, the Witch and the wardrobe, also a movie.
This is a lovely winter book because it places you so well into that snowy, wintry environment, you can almost hear the crunch of snow under foot and feel the warmth of the collar of the fur coat on your face. One of the wonderful things about winter is the promise of an eventual summer. This book shows the bleakness of a prospect of an eternal winter. Always winter, never Christmas. The cover says it all though, spring does come and the White Witch is defeated.

The Remains of the Day, also a superb movie.
The story of Mr Stevens, the old-school butler at Darlington Hall, recalling his life and his relationship with Miss Kenton, the house keeper. After serving Lord Darlington for many decades, the estate is purchased in 1950 by an American , Mr Farrady. It is a story of duty, loyalty, memory and loss. It's about the winter of life, the passage of time and eras that are no more
I must confess, this book sits by my bedside still as yet unfinished.

Wanting.
A Tasmanian book, by a Tasmanian author. I love Richard Flanagan, but he's no lightweight summer read that's for sure. This book tells the story of the young Tasmanian aboriginal girl, Mathinna, adopted by Lady Jane Franklin in the 1840's. But it is the interweaving of the story of Sir John Franklin's disappearance in an Arctic expedition with the failing of the marriage of Charles and Catherine Dickens that is chilling and heartbreaking. It's a cold and crushing book, but one that you can't forget.