Book Challenges for 2009

Signing up for a book challenge is like a New Year's Resolution you make for your reading in the year ahead.

KittyCat left a link to the very interesting ReadABookAMonth challenge for Malaysian readers on her blog (where you can get all the details and get the code for a sidebar button if you have a blog of your own). It doesn't involve a huge commitment - you sign up to read just 12 books with your child over the year, and leave a comment about each one, either on your own blog or on hers. It's a lovely way to share reading with someone you love.

Since I don't have a kid to read with, I've gone for another challenge that I am pretty sure I can complete, as it would have been on my agenda anyway The Themed Reading Challenge.

If neither of these is to your taste, Ms Bookish has a whole list of reading challenges! And of course, you can do more than one at a time. (I hope to make serious inroads into my TBR pile again this year! But then I remember thinking that last year, and the year before, and the year ...)

Maybe I should add a couple more reading challenges of my own to my list - I plan to read a collection of short stories and at least a couple of books by local writers each month in 2009.

A Book Not Yet Bought is Worth Two on the Shelf

Will the economic downturn force you to fall back on all those unread books on your shelves?

Sam Jordison's blog post on the tyranny of the to-read pile, the books you own and sincerely mean to read (one day .... but somehow just never get round to) had me laughing even while nodding in agreement. Loved this :

Bibliophiles everywhere will be only too well acquainted with the demons of guilt and shame that such explorations would conjure. The to-read pile is more than just a physical stack of books: it's a tower of ambitions failed, hopes unrealised, good intentions unfulfilled. Worse still, it's a cold hard reminder of mortality. Already, I have intentions to read more books than I can hope to manage in a normal lifetime. How will this pile of books taunt me when I'm 64?

Jordison was responding to this challenge on the Bookninja blog - :

Try it yourself and see how many pitiful excuses you can find for not reading a book you own.

- as did Cynthia Crossen in the Wall Street Journal whose musings Jordison decries as :

... a catalogue of pathetic excuses ...

I'm off to comb my own shelves now and to see what feeble reasons of my own I can think up for not reading the plenty that is there already!

Maybe a New Year's resolution should be to join the TBR Challenge again!

Some Reading Goals for 2008

It's probably a bit too late for New Year resolutions (unless we make that Chinese New Year resolutions!) but setting yourself a reading challenge is a mighty good thing. (Even if, like me, you don't manage to win it!). Bloggers have embraced the idea with a whole variety of challenges springing up as Sassymonkey explains on blogher.com . She recommends picking one that really fits your needs.

Do you mostly read fiction and want to add some non-fiction to your reading life? Or vice versa? Do you want to explore a new-to-you genre of books? Do you want to a theme? Do you want to read more foreign authors? Do you have so many unread books in your house that it's starting to scare you and make you feel guilty any time you so much look at a bookstore because you know buying more books means you are either insane or addicted or both?

And then goes on to list them, with links.

My own reading life is too complicated with reviewing and all to be able to commit to reading to any formal plan. I just want to survive ... and enjoy what I read.

The TBR Challenge was fun and even if my final score was only a pathetic 3 out of 12. I won't commit to it this year but I've knocked up a list of 50 books on my shelves I really want to read and I hope I can diminish the pile a little bit.

But I'm happy to see that I have completed the Man Booker challenge already! (And I've got just 3 more novels from last years longlist to go.) But I will definitely try to read all again this year. It's so nice to share opinions and debate books across the world, and that's really what the Booker is - a great big literary conversation.

I guess the reading challenge I really would like to set for myself is reading some of those classics of Malaysian literature (in English or in translation from Malay) that I haven't got around too yet. (I'm too ashamed to post my list.)

I'd also like to read more work in translation and definitely more American fiction ...

I seem to remember that the Malaysian government was encouraging everyone to read a book a month, but that isn't a challenge at all, is it? How about at least a book a week (essential target if you call yourself a writer)?

The 52 book challenge.

Anyone else up for it?

Maths and Apes on the Beach

Another novel recently read was William Boyd's Brazzaville Beach. One of the TBR books I've pledged to read this year, it's been sitting on my shelves since I bought this copy, second-hand from Skoob a couple of years ago. The novel won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for 1991.

It's the first William Boyd I've read, I'm ashamed to say, and I wonder just why it took me so long because it's such an intelligent, well-written novel that now I want to plunge into the others.

Hope Clearwater lives alone in a small beach house of Brazzaville Beach in an unnamed African country. (There actually is a Brazzaville Beach in the republic of Congo though!). She looks back on the cataclysmic events which have changed the course of her life, and throughout the book two stories run parallel, at times echoing each other.

She recalls her relationship and marriage to a brilliant but psychologically unstable mathematician genius. At the same time describes how she came to Africa to participate in a primate research project at The Grosso Arvore Research Center (there are echoes of Jane Goodall's work here) and finds herself uncovering an unnerving truth about the nature of chimpanzees (and by extension perhaps, about mankind's predisposition towards violence). Her discoveries have far reaching consequences and she finds herself pitched against her employer and mentor who refuses to accept her findings.

Boyd is particularly good here at pointing out the dangers of narrowly focused dogmatic belief and academic obsession. I enjoyed the way Hope refers to the mathematical principles she's learned from her husband, John, and tries to draw a philosophy from them to illuminate the seeming chaos of her own life.

The characters, human and ape, were all well-drawn. Here's a male author convincingly able to inhabit a female skin - I felt a lot for Hope. (And I like to imagine for her the happy ending that isn't quite reached in the book.) I also felt deeply for the manic-depressive John Clearwater who fails to fulfill his dream of great Mathematical discovery and suffers terribly because of it.

This book has one of the best first sentences ever:

I never really warmed to Clovis-he was far too stupid to inspire real affection-but he always claimed a corner of my heart, largely, I supposed, because of the way he instinctively and unconsciously cupped his genitals whenever he was alarmed or nervous.

And if that's whetted your appetite, you can also take a gander at the opening pages on amazon.com.

Blanche d'Alpuget's 1991 New York Times review is here, while Robin Mokie in New Scientist takes a look at how research scientists are portrayed!

Because, while anyone who loves a well-written thought provoking novel will enjoy this book, it will appeal particularly to those of you with a love and understanding of maths and science. (Sham? Machinist? Greenbottle? Burhan?)

Betrayal on a Greek Island

I'm constantly acquiring new books, and find there's always a pressure to read the newest, the latest ... particularly as I review. And since I also belong to a book club at least one book a month is decided for me!

Consequently, books that don't get read immediately tend to be get buried on my "to-be-read" shelf, a.k.a. "the shelf of good intentions". I was happy for the TBR Challenge to prod me into making a covenant with at least 12 of these books to read 'em before the year is up.

Sadly, I've only just finished my second-TBR of 2007. It's Pascali's Island by Barry Unsworth which has been patiently waiting its turn since I bought it via Amazon, prompted by catching the excellent film (starring Ben Kinsley, Helen Mirren, Charles Dance) for a second time on ASTRO.

The novel is set on a small Greek island in 1908. The Ottoman Empire is about to fall, but in this remote outpost a government informer pens his last report to the Sultan. Basil Pascali, an outsider of mixed-race, has loyally reported on the activities of the people of his community for twenty years, each month receiving a tiny stipend, but never a single response. As a writer he begins to take liberties with his reports, taking enormous pride in his ability to depict events with great clarity and flair.

When Englishman Anthony Bowles arrives on the island, he and Pascali become rivals for the affection of Lydia, a Viennese artist who has been living there for some time. Pascali suspects that Bowles may not be honest about his claim to be an archeologist (it takes a practiced confidence-trickster to recognise another of his kind, after all), so what is he doing there?

The atmospheric short novel is superbly plotted, there isn't a scene out of place. Nothing is as it seems and Pascali's Island keeps you guessing right up to the tragic ending as the characters become enmeshed in layers betrayal and deceit.

Literary fiction honestly doesn't come much better than this and I am actually surprised that the novel didn't win more recognition at the time.

It was shortlisted for the Booker in 1980, but was eclipsed by William Golding's win for Darkness Visible and Anthony Burgess' masterpiece Earthly Powers. I've read several other novels by Unsworth which I've greatly enjoyed and admired (Morality Play, Rum and Sugar, Losing Nelson, and Sacred Hunger, which finally did won Unsworth the Booker) but I like this by far the best. (I still have his latest novel A Ruby in her Navel to be read.)

Pascali's Island reminded me of several other novels I've greatly enjoyed : E.M. Forster's Passage to India, L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between, and the episode about the smugglers in Lermentov's A Hero of our Time ... all of them written much earlier.

Would I recommend it? Whole-heartedly ... for literary fiction lovers. (And I'm sure I will be rereading it.) Others will still enjoy the film - just watch out for repeats on ASTRO.

The Satisfaction of Finishing a Book

KayKay forwarded a really nice piece from John Connolly's blog about the satisfaction of finishing a book. His thoughts after finishing and enjoying Wilbur Smith's River God:

I ... felt a degree of satisfaction as I closed the book and put it to one side. There, I thought: another book read, and a lengthy one at that. For a moment, I was one step closer to reading every book in my house, albeit a step forwards that would soon be nullified. River God will probably go to my local Oxfam shop, and there is now a space where it once sat on my bookshelves, a space that can be occupied by a new book as soon as I find the time to amble into one of my native city's many bookstores.

Alas, it is a satisfaction I'm very far from feeling this week. I've never been so part way through so many books.

Believe it or not I'm still reading my first book from the TBR Challenge Martin Amis' Money, but I'm well past half way which is not bad.

I bought the book because I thought I oughta. Had heard stories of Amis being obnoxious and his protagonist is obsessed with ... yes, filthy lucre, and you can't get more crass than that.

Didn't expect to be laughing myself stupid so often, delighting in the bad-boy voice (Amir Hafizi has to read this! making a mental note to pass him my scrunched up pizza-decorated copy when I buy a shiny new one), the dialogue, and the craft of every sentence.

The book is set during the Summer of the Charles and Di wedding and the riots which swept the country. The novel captures the early 80's and Thatcher's Britain so well.

It isn't my first Amis, because I read Time's Arrow years back. That's a bit of clever writing, a whole novel told in reverse chronological order from the protagonist's death to his birth. (Try imagining eating backwards for e.g. ... but that's not the worst). Just like a movie being rewound.

I've got to read The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy because Kaykay said so.

Okay then, it's our book club choice and the meeting is next week. Crime fiction so isn't my thing. And this is very much a sweat soaked testosterone drenched bloke book. But it is very well written and I'm not a quitter. So.

I'm also trying to read Yang-May Ooi's Mind Game before Saturday and the Breakfast for Litbloggers thing at MPH and then the readings at Seksan's.

Thrillers aren't my thing either. When I was in Nigeria I overdosed on them because they were the only books available, thanks to my neighbour.

Anyway, am finding Yang-May's novel (which I managed to borrow from my friend Soo Choon) an intriguing read. I appreciate the contemporary Malaysian setting, and find the Asian Values Alliance, bent on world domination, most sinister. And I like that its an unashamedly lesbian love-story!

Have started reading Camilla Gibbs Sweetness in the Belly as I will be interviewing the author when she comes for the KL Literary Festival at the end of March so this is homework, but nice homework as I am enjoying its African setting.

So a lot of books hanging halfway ...

Oh yes, I did finish one book, Richard Posners Little Book of Plagiarism. A legal mind tackles who did and who did not plagiarise in literary history. (Shakespeare gets off the hook you'll be pleased to know!) and just what constitutes plagiarism in the legal context. It's an extremely readable guide, fascinating for litbuffs and invaluable for academics.

One little quote I'll leave you with:

The reader has to care about being deceived about authorial identity in order for deceit to cross the line to fraud and thus constitute plagiarism.

That's right. The ball is in the reader's court.

And talking of readers, what have you finished, and what have you not?

A Reading Challenge or Two

Maybe what we all need is a reading challenge. On Lotus Reads' blog I came across the 2007 Winter Classics Challenge which she picked up from booklogged's blog. The challenge is to read five classics during the months of January and February.

What kind of books might be considered classics I guess opens up a whole can of worms. One I would like to open another day, actually. But I guess most useful criteria is whether a book has withstood the test of time.

(The thought of sitting snug and warm by the fireside reading big thick books from a bygone era makes me feel nostalgic for Britain!)

I then bloghopped and bloghopped to find the source of another very nice reading meme. The 2007 To Be Read Challenge asks you to:

Pick 12 books - one for each month of 2007 - that you've been wanting to read (have been on your "To Be Read" list) for 6 months or longer, but haven't gotten around to.

Then, starting January 1, 2007, read one of these books from your list each month, ending December 31, 2007.

Now this one suits me just fine. I have so many unread books I feel guilty about not getting round to and they all sit glaring at me on my shelves. I actually walked around with a pen and paper making my list last night and ended up with these titles of books I want to read, intend to read:

Martin Amis - Money
Barry Unsworth - Pascali's Island (I love Unsworth and have read almost all his others.)
Ian Mc Ewan - Atonement (Was halfway through and then had to stop and read a ton of other have-to stuff ... and then forgot about it.)
J.G. Ballard - Empire of the Sun. (Need to give this author another chance, and loved the Spielberg film.)
James Kelman - How Late it was How Late
Donna Tartt - The Little Friend (Read the first chapter and loved it ... But again, the have-to reads crept in.)

So yes, I will do this challenge.

The great thing about such challenges is that they make you read the stuff you've been neglecting. And that happens far too often these days as new books get hyped and you feel you're being left behind by the floods of highly acclaimed new stuff on the award lists, best-seller lists, best-books-of-the-year lists and piled high and temptingly in the bookshops. You feel you're not part of the conversation if you're reading something even a little older.

But these challenges has got me thinking ... there could be other challenges that would be fun to do. What is the last book you read in translation? For a lot of you, I know it will be something by Murakami or maybe Orhan Pamuk ... for me it's that Etgar Keret book which I read back in January, for heaven's sake! (More book guilt!)

(Speaking of books in translation, by the way, Words Without Borders is asking for nominations for the best translated book of the year. Why not go add your suggestions?)

Maybe you could suggest some other reading challenges. And maybe, just maybe, we could set up our own challenge?

Afterthought:

I'm a dummy. Why don't we have a banned book reading challenge?

Postscript:

I can't count, can I? I was supposed to list 12 books and I only listed 6. Duh!

Well, here are six more:

Garrison Keiler Lake Woebegon Days (Sitting there since forever.)
Sebastian Barry - A Long Long Way
Gail Jones - Sixty Lights
Manuel Puig - Kiss of the Spider Woman
William Boyd - Brazzaville Beach
Dan Koeppel - To See Every Bird of Earth ( A last year's birthday book and still not read.)