Euphoria | Lily King

I just finished this slim volume and I am sad that it's over. It is a wonderful story, really well told. Each character is compelling and we care about them. I am still thinking about them although the novel is read.

This is the story of three anthropologists working in New Guinea, in the 1930's. Told through the eyes of Andrew Bankson, it also includes notes form Nell and husband Fen who are working with tribes up river from him.

Slowly the three are mired in a three-way relationship which is passionately intellectual, theoretical and amorous. There is huge tension as they share working methods, thrashing out theories on the tribal behaviours they observe and their own behaviour as two men in love with the same woman.

Nell immerses herself among the women and children of the tribe and learns that way. She had been published, a fact Fen is jealous of and is constantly trying to prove himself to her and Bankson. He is a surly, moody and possibly violent individual, using fairly unorthodox methods in his investigations.

Bankson is beset with guilt and sorrow over the deaths of his two brothers and father, and dominated by a disapproving mother back in England. He is despondent about life and his work but his passion is ignited as he works with Fen and Nell.

The story builds to a climax, and although the outcome is unexpected, it fits perfectly with the rest of the story.

Well worth reading.

The Reader on the 6.27 | Jean -Paul Didierlaurent

This book is part fable, part fairytale and is totally charming. It is possible to read it in one sitting but it is so gorgeous , one should resist the temptation and make it last!

The main protagonist is Guylain Vignolles who is  thoroughly immersed in the routines of his life. He lives alone, with his goldfish as his only companion. He goes to work on the 6.27 train, sits in the same place and reads aloud random pages he rescues from his work. He is employed to operate a book-pulping machine, a huge monster Guylain hates but is tied to in a very ironic way. He hates his boss and workmate and the whole ethos of what his work entails. The only bright spot in his bleak existence is the presence, larger than life, of the security guard at the entrance of the plant. He is enamoured with recitation and everything he says is in poetic form. 

The commuters on the 6.27 train come to love and expect the readings and Guylain has a following of sorts. One day he finds a USB left on the train and once he opens it he discovers it contains the diary of someone called Julie.  He slowly falls in love, and begins a search to find her and return her USB to her. 

A truly delightful read. Don't read it all at once though!

The Mountain Can wait | Sarah Leipciger

I seem to have read quite a few Mountain novels lately: Goat Mountain by D. Vann, Bull Mountain by B. Panowich, and this one.

I really enjoyed The Mountain Can wait. It's from a Canadian author, and it has a huge sense of space which is very much informed by the Canadian landscape.

The story begins with a young man driving in the dark on a back country road when he hits a woman. In a blind panic he rushes off without helping her. It is a  dramatic start to the novel, and the rest of the story is spent in slowly unravelling what has brought him to that point in time.

His father is a forester who manages a company  of planters, young students mostly, who live in the mountains in the summer reforesting difficult terrain. Once he learns of his son's difficulty he returns to find and help him.

This is a powerful story two families trying to survive a tragedy. Leipciger writes very well, her descriptions of the Canadian landscape are beautiful and we become aware of the environment developing as much as the characters.

All the Light we cannot see | Anthony Doerr

This book is a Pulitzer prize winner, so it's a well known title from the last couple of years. It deserves all the accolades, as it is a beautiful story, well told.

A blind French girl and a German boy meet in occupied France, their worlds smashing into each other. From cultural and ideological differences arises a wonderful friendship.

Not much more needs to be said other than it is a fabulous read, one of the best for 2015.

Beyond the Sky and the Earth | Jamie Zeppa

More than anything , this book made me want to visit Bhutan. It sounds like an amazing country, the landscape dominant and breathtaking. Zeppa (Canada) was there in the 1980's teaching as part of a Government scheme. She was part of a group who taught in very remote mountain villages to establish a modern education system in Bhutan.

Zeppa writes well and her descriptions of the place and it's people are mesmerising. She takes a few months to fully acclimatise to the culture and the requirements of her teaching contract. Her observations of the Buddhist way of life are eye opening and her conversion to Buddhism follows from her time living there.

Zeppa engages with the locals on many levels, at the school, the clinic she has to run, the villagers and the expat community. Eventually she forms a romantic liaison and has a child.

I felt that the ending was very rushed. She describes in one paragraph, seven years of her life as a married woman and mother and mentions that 'due to cultural differences' she separates from her husband and returns to Canada. Given the whole book is about cultural observations, this leaves the reader a bit cold, wanting to know what kind of differences, what kind of experiences she had as a Western woman married to a Bhutanese man.

It is worth reading just to discover a bit more of this magical closed kingdom, and it will make you want to pack your bags and go!

The Antipodean | Greg McGee

This is a good read although the style is a bit patchy in the beginning. I noted that the narrative pertaining to the past was better than the modern day story of the young woman.

In this story a New Zealander and his daughter return to Venice where he spent a lot of time during the war. The story swaps time frames as we learn of the time he spent in the Italian Resistance, the people he is looking for in the present and the years after the war spent in New Zealand.

The stories are good, the writing frustrating at times, it lacks lyricism, nuances of language. At times it is a series of factual statements one after the other, as if it is recounting an occurrence, not taking us along a story.

Worth reading nonetheless.

Stalin's Daughter | Rosemary Sullivan

"The extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva" is the whole title of this book. It is a superb read, and although it looks daunting at nearly 700 pages, it is so well written that it is a very quick read.
This is the life of Svetlana Stalin. She grew up in the Kremlin and was part of very significant events in World history. She had  contact with all the main players in Russian political life and in this book we read of how that influenced who she became.

Some parts are so extraordinary, it seems part of a novel or a movie script. Svetlana managed to defect to America in the 60's and even then, was unable to establish firm roots. She moved all the time, searching for something, someone and never quite reaching the fulfillment she desired.
Svetlana died in 2011, so most of the material which is very well researched is based on interviews with friends and family, especially Olga, her American daughter.

Incredibly well worthwhile reading this book. Very well researched and written. Insightful.

Chappy | Patricia Grace

It's been about 10 years since Grace wrote a novel, so I was excited to read this one. And it's one of her best. This New Zealand author has an amazing cultural heritage which she draws from and which add colour and depth to her novels.

This novel is set in the North Island of New Zealand, among an extended Maori family. Into this family, through WW2, comes a Japanese stowaway. They incorporate him into the tribe, he marries into it and becomes an integral part of the town and community.

As WW2 progresses, he is deported as an enemy alien. The story follows his wife's search for him and how she survives the era without him. She's a canny business woman who grows vegetables, buys an ailing bakery and mechanical workshop in the town and slowly turns around the fortunes of her family.

The narrative flows between the different characters as the story develops. It is engaging, we care about the characters and their fate and the richness of the Maori culture make this a great book.

I have read most of Grace's novels, and can highly recommend them. She is a unique voice and a fantastic storyteller.

A God In Ruins | Kate Atkinson

Another wonderful novel by Kate Atkinson. I have always enjoyed her books, and this one is superb. It is a stand alone book although one could also read it as a companion book to Life After Life. The same characters are the protagonists although Teddy is the focus in this one, as Ursula was in the other one.

This is the life of Teddy going back and forth from present to past, not in chronological order but in as he has memories of people in his past and present:  his relationships with the War, his bomber squadron, his wife Nancy, daughter Viola and grandkids.

The narrative is seamless and wanders through various character's lives and thoughts in a very skilled and readable style.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, and highly recommend it, and all her other novels.

Traitor | Stephen Daisley

A truly beautiful book written in a stream of consciousness style, weaving back and forth between New Zealand and Gallipoli.

David Monroe was a farming lad from the North Island of New Zealand who signed up and went to war. The horror and humanity of war is described in broad strokes, beautiful in their simplicity and use of language to portray the anguish of what those young men went through.

Monroe returns to farm in the valley where he grew up. His mother and father are gone, many of his childhood friends have died and have left empty farms all around him. He lives his life haunted by the friendship he had with a Turkish doctor who is injured at the same time as him. They go through hospitalisation together and then they escape, trying to get Mahmoud back to his family. The consequences of these actions reverberate through the years up to the last scenes of Monroe's death.

The narrative jumps back and forth between the years of the war and the rest of Monroe's life. Carefully woven and not always explicit, the story is told in measured steps.

Moving and very beautiful

Madness in Civilization: a cultural history of insanity | Andrew Scull

This book is a very good read, although the  topic and size of it may not at first compel you to pick it up. Scull is an expert in what is know about madness throughout history. He starts by going through the earliest written record of mad people, right up to modern day definitions and practises.

The book is full of fascinating stories of people and doctors who developed psychiatry. Treatments vary from the sadistic to the ingenious and are an eye opener to the medical profession.

I thoroughly enjoyed learning about this field, madness is a fascinating topic. Even now, it seems no one can define madness. Well worth reading by lay people, Scull has a very approachable writing style and can tell a good story.

A reunion Of Ghosts | Judith Claire Mitchell

What is the collective noun for ghosts? Apparently, a reunion!
This is a great story, well told. We are told at the start that three sisters are intent on committing suicide all together, as their family has a 'curse' whereby one or more people of each generation dies by their own hand. Interwoven with the story of their last year is the history of the family as the sisters try to grapple with the curse.
The family arrived from Europe after the war, seeking refuge from the killing of the Jews. They are a bright and successful scientific family in Europe, but their dark secrets come to light and it's an intriguing look at how history forms and in-forms families.

I really liked reading this book as it had great characters I cared about. Well worth reading.

A Mile Down | David Vann

If you love the sea, sailing boats and the life of adventure, this book is definitely for you. BUT if you are not one of those people, reading this will certainly not make you one!!

This is Vann's account of a few years in his thirties when he endeavoured to be free of the trappings of life by buying a boat and running literary chartes in the Mediterranean and Caribbean Islands. The hull was bought and refurbished in Turkey...enough said. Everything that can go wrong does, and more. Vann asks his friend "when does it end?" and is told "it's a boat, it never ends."

What I really liked about the book was the commentary and reflection Vann puts in, about his situation and what he is discovering about himself as things unravel. Underlying all his experiences is the fact Vann's father committed suicide because he couldn't cope with the stress he was under. Vann constantly checks himself to see if he is going that way. It is a brave look at this issue and the fears that assail  those who survive a parent's suicide.

A remarkable young man. I really like his fiction, which is better appreciated once this book is read.

Goat Mountain | David Vann

This is a gem of a book, from an author I have not read before. It is very intense and powerful.
The story itself is simple, a father, son and grandsons go hunting on their land over a weekend. Something horrific happens at the very beginning, and the rest of the time is spent dealing with the impact of this occurrence on the family, on the individuals, on the land on on the family's history.

Vann has written scenes where the tension mounts, it is palpable. It is very well executed and thoroughly worth reading. Vann throws in quite a bit of philosophy into the story, which I feel adds to the intensity.

There isn't much more than can be said without spoiling the novel. I will search out more of his books as he is a very skilled writer.

Off The Map: lost places, invisible cities, forgotten islands, feral places | Alastair Bonnett

This is an interesting non-fiction book which pretty much dedicates itself to the places Google forgot. Each chapter is short and reads like an essay about some location on Earth which is lost, invisible, forgotten or feral. The chapters are a brief and entertaining discourse on a particular area and the implications in society.

I found it interesting and informative, amusing and a quick read. There are some weird places still left on Earth! Good to know.

A Map of Glass | Jane Urquhart

I think I loved this book first because of it's cover. Yes, the cover art made all the difference! The cover is an old black and white photograph of a woman in long skirt, blouse and straw hat fishing on the banks of a wild river.

This is the story of maps, rivers, forests, pioneers and art. The story is set in the wilds of Canada where a family of pioneers owns great tracts of land and forests. They develop an industry around deforestation and supplying logs for the emerging country's cities. Then as the land stabilises they plant barley, which further denudes the landscape until the sand dunes take over the remains of their settlement.

It is the story of a few generations of the family and how they live in this landscape and the family's parallel deterioration as the land is scoured.

Amongst the story of the older generations is the present day family, who tries to understand itself in the light of the past. The story begins with the discovery of a body encased in ice, found by a young man who is photographing the island where the mill was established. Consequently he meets a woman who suffers from Autism (never stated but seems to be the case) who wants to meet the young artist who found her dead lover. As she meets with the young artist she reveals the family's history, the history of the island and the devastation it brought to the family.

I really enjoyed the structure of the book and it's characters. Quite haunting at times, I kept thinking about the story for a long time after I finished reading it.

Oyster | Janette Turner Hospital

This is one of Turner Hospital's earliest works. It is a bit less polished than her later works but a great read nonetheless.

This novel is set in the outback of Australia, in a town that seems not to officially exist, which shuns outsiders and where people seem to disappear in huge numbers.

We switch narrators quite often which is disconcerting at first until we learn to recognise the voices of the characters, which took me a while. The town's deterioration begins with the appearance of Oyster, a self-styled guru preaching peace on earth and the approach of Armageddon. The town is urged to arm itself and to shun all outsiders. Oyster procures an opal mine where the local youth flock to live in community and mine the opals. After a period of peace, Oyster seems to decline into madness and obsession. Rules are tightened, the community becomes more a cult and the young people start disappearing.

We discover the story bit by bit as the narrators reveal how the shame of what has happened touches all of  their lives.

I enjoyed Turner Hospital's ability to tell a story, build tension and her amazing lyricism.

Well worth reading, as are her other novels. Her style develops and becomes more streamline.

A Spool of Blue Thread | Anne Tyler

Tyler has been one of my favourite authors throughout the years. When asked why by a friend, I responded that Tyler does people well. In every book, the characters are so well crafted we are absorbed by them.
 This is her latest novel and it is character driven. I laughed out loud at times because it has a black humour undertow. This is the drama of a dysfunctional family getting together to move the parents out of the family home into something more suitable. As siblings arrive, each adds to the chaos and dysfunction of this family, which could be any family.

The narrations dips back and forth from the present to the history of the family and the famous house they have lived in for years. We discover family secrets and we watch as the family copes with the secrets and the future.

Thoroughly worth reading as are all Tyler's novels.

The Bone CLocks | David Mitchells

This book surprised me. I am not a Si-Fi fan but could not put the book down, the story was totally captivating.

I must say, I had watched the movie of Cloud Atlas (also by Mitchells) last year and again, surprised myself by thoroughly enjoying a story in a genre I don't normally relate to. The Bone Clocks has a similar feel to Cloud Atlas but a different set of characters.

It is a very difficult book to summarise or describe suffice it to say it is very very good and worth reading!

Holly Sykes is a runaway teen who wants to dictate the shape of her own life. On the run, she finds she is under the influence of weird 'radio people' in her head, visions and hallucinations of past and future happenings that she cannot understand. As it transpires, on the fringes of her world there are two groups of beings fighting for preeminence in the world of people. They are fighting to control the world though people who have psychic sensitivities.

Throughout the story we move in history and geography and meet people who have all come in contact with these beings, who are integral in the survival of civilization and each other. This is a novel with well defined characters whom we care for, loads of action and intellectually satisfying.

I suggest reading without trying to suss everything out, but just going with it and enjoying the language and the characters. The story does reveal itself in the end. Well worth reading.

The Translation of the Bones | Francesca Kay

An excellent, small book, with a wonderful story. Not everything we read has to run to 400+ pages...A great story in the hands of a skillful  author can be told in a small book. Less is more.

This book is centered around a small church with a small congregation, mostly devout older women but not exclusively so. The priest, Father Diamond,  is there doing his duties, unambitious, privately having a crisis of faith but pottering along in a small corner of Battersea.

All is as it should be until a simple-minded faithful parishioner Mary Margaret O'Reilly supposedly witnesses a miracle. Word gets out and the world goes mad, bus loads of tourists and pilgrims arrive and cause a huge crisis of faith for all involved.

The story centers around the miracle and it's consequences in the lives of Mary Margaret and her reclusive, morbidly obese mother and we also see the impact it has on the lives of Stella Morrison who is lonely in her marriage and misses her son who is away at boarding school and Alice Armitage eagerly awaits the return of her soldier son who is stationed in Afghanistan. The whole community is affected, we just don't know if it will be for good or ill.

The story is beautifully woven, well worth reading.

The Lighthouse | Alison Moore

This is a thoroughly enjoyable, small book. It is the story of Futh, a middle aged man recently separated, trying to make sense of his life. He is having a crisis, for sure, but one which does not elicit mockery but rather sympathy.

Futh decides to take a walk in Germany. He meticulously organised himself, his accommodation and for his luggage to be transported from hotel to hotel. But what he cannot organise or control are the people he meets and the impact they have on him as he walks.
He has a lot of time to think and remember as he goes from town to town and this also is not something he can control. The impact of the walk ,the people and memory are beautifully described.

Will Furth find himself or become profoundly lost?

The Man in the Wooden Hat | Jane Gardam

This is the second book in the Old Filth trilogy.

Gardam has done a very clever thing with these three books: Old Filth, The Man in the Wooden Hat and Last Friends.

The main story is set in the first book: Sir Edward Feathers Old Filth (failed in London try Hong Kong) was a successful lawyer in Hong Kong, deeply integrated into the expat community but also connected to Hong Kong. He returns to the bar in London to end his career and retire.
we meet him as a widower living in quiet isolation in Dorset. He wants to write and peacefully live out his last years.
What he does a lot of is reminisce, going over events in his life which have formed and scarred him. He had a difficult, emotionally cold childhood, an education in pre-war England and launching his career in Hong Kong as an ambitious young man.
He meets and marries Betty, who understands his emotional immaturity but learns to love and 'manage' him. They have a long marriage, although there are hints that there may be infidelities along the way.
Feathers also has a nemesis ,Terry Veneering, who comes to Hong Kong as a flashy, loud and assertive young lawyer and more or less shadows Feathers and Betty throughout their lives.

In the second book, the story is told from Betty's perspective. We know the story, we don't have new action as such, but there are new anecdotes and 'slice of life' segments that fill out what we know. I really enjoyed this as Betty has quite a different perspective on their life.

And finally in the third book, we see the whole story from Veneering's perspective. It's a wonderful conclusion to the trilogy.

Gardam is a very skilled author and what could be boring and repetitive is actually a captivating look at the lives of three people emerging from one era into another, caught between the exotic East and the old school Western cultures that form them.

Moloka'i | Alan Brennert

I was drawn to this book because it is the story of the leprosy colony in Moloka'i which I had heard of but didn't know much about. Brennert has done a lot of research and it infuses the story with personal and historical authenticity.

The book is primarily the story of Rachel, a six year old girl, living in Honolulu in the late 1890's who is diagnosed with leprosy and then transported and exiled to the Leper colony on Molokai. She is not allowed any more contact with her family and has to learn to make a new family in the isolated community.

I was captivated by the beauty of the landscape, the variety of characters and Rachel herself who is amazing. Also there are non-infected people who work on the island voluntarily, nuns and priests who care for the wellbeing of the children and adults in the community. The best known is Father Damian but the book is set after his death. The doctors who came and persevere with the disease were incredible people as well as dedicated professionals.

As Rachel grows up she has the same questions and longings as any other girl growing up in that era, but is confined to a small peninsula with limited resources and no chance of escape. We journey with her as she grows up and into her dotage.

This book is well worth reading, and others like it who can reveal to us what it was like to have such a severe disease at a time when medicine was a developing science.

Into the Darkest Corner | Elizabeth Haynes

I am cautious about recommending this excellent book, due to very graphic scenes of violence perpetrated against women. I managed to skip them, maybe you can too. The intensity of the story carries the reader along as the characters become more and more controlled by the main criminal.

It is set in the UK, describing the lives of an up and coming group of girlfriends who live hard, party hard and don't have too many cares. The main protagonist is Catherine who is one of the most popular in this crowd. We read her story in two time-frames, one is set in 2003-4 and the other in 2007-8. There is a huge disparity between these two portraits drawn of the same woman and tension mounts until Haynes reveals what transformed the outgoing party animal into a reclusive woman suffering from acute OCD (Obsessive Compulsive disorder).
It seems to revolve around Catherine's chance encounter with Lee, the good looking guy everyone falls in love with.

We are definitively drawn into the nightmare that is her life. The tension mounts and it was hard to put the book down and involved a couple of nights reading into the wee small hours!

I really liked the way this book is written and will seek out more of Haynes' other thrillers.

Defending Jacob | William Landay

This is a well written family/court drama. Andy Barber was an assistant district attorney in his small New England town. He has a successful life, a nice family, a nice home. Nothing much seems to be able to go wrong, it's the American dream. But one day a student in his son Jacob's class is found murdered and Jacob is accused of perpetrating the crime. How could this happen in a small suburban town to a middle-of-the-road all-american family?

The community and the family implode. Andy is no longer able to work, the police investigators who were his friends for years separate themselves from the family and things start to unravel. Andy has to investigate and figure out who murdered Ben Rifkin before his son is taken to trial.

The story follows Andy and his wife Laurie's nightmare as they try to defend their son as evidence mounds against him. I thought this novel brings to life, in a very intense way, the feelings parents have when challenged about what exactly do they know about their own children. It's scary and a bit realistic, knowing that you could be called to account for your children's antisocial behaviour and it's dire consequences.

Well worth reading. I will seek out more of Landay's books as he writes extremely well.

Waiting for Doggo | Mark B. Mills

What happens when relationships end, homes change..and you inherit the world's uglies dog? Not even a name can properly describe him, so he's called Doggo...

Dan is a middle of the road guy, in middle of the road life. His girlfriend finally gives up and moves out, leaving him Doggo. We are continually reminded of how ugly the dog is and how much of an unwanted responsibility he is for Dan.

Dan works in a small advertising agency with creative people trying to land big accounts. Due to Doggos foibles Dan has to take him to work and here the story begins in earnest. It's funny, clever and a good summer read. Well written and I can sense a sequel coming along.

In the same vein as The Rosie Project or The unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.

Little Princes| Conor Grennan

This book's tag line is "one man's promise to bring home the lost children of Nepal." Grennan was a privileged white middle class American, hard working in his chosen career and well supported by his family and friends. To spice up his life he decided to take a year off and backpack around the world. So as not to appear completely self-indulgent he volunteered to work in an orphanage in Nepal for three or four weeks, mostly to impress his friends. 

He arrived at the Little Princes orphanage in Godawari, Nepal and his life changed completely. He had never had anything to do with kids, orphaned or not. But he decided what he could give them was his undivided attention and love. 

This book is his account of what transpired in that year and the ones that followed. He learned that one of the terrible consequences of the raging civil war in Nepal was the trafficking of children from remote areas. Men would go into these impoverished villages and offer to take the children to safety out of harm's way. Parents in their ignorance did send their children away and never hear from them again. The children were enslaved in Kathmandu and traded, sold and abused and trained as child soldiers. 

Once Conor found out he would not let it go. He has become one of the main, but not only, voices for these voiceless children. He and a French friend called Farid opened a house in Kathmandu specifically to rescue the children and try and reunite them with their families. Connor describes the first time he goes to the remote region of Humla searching for the children's' families. It was a harrowing physical journey in very high altitudes with no roads and few supplies. But the reuniting of families with their children was well worth it. 

Eventually Grennan founded the Next Generation Nepal charity and is still active today in his mission. 

I googled the foundation and am going to keep in touch with the amazing work they are all doing. A very inspiring read. Well worth supporting. 

The Spark | Kristine Barnett

I must say, I was a bit sceptical when I picked up this book. Every mother thinks her kids are EXTRA-ordinary and when a mother writes a book about it...well, we've all been there. BUT. WOW.
I couldn't put this book down and will give it to my kids to read. This is an extraordinary story about a family living with autism and genius in their son Jacob.
Kristine is very candid, has an easy way of talking to the reader and showing the reader the journey that has been their life since 1998 when their son Jake was born. At two he was diagnosed with profound autism. Then their second son Wes was born with a rare neurological disorder. Kristine has been diagnosed with Lupus... But this is a good news story!

The basis for the family's success with Jake and other children with autism has been to concentrate on what the kids could do instead of what they couldn't. They started a training programme for the kids where they could learn about challenges ahead such as starting kindergarten in mainstream schools. As many autistic children are excluded from sporting clubs and activities the Barnetts started a rec centre called Jacob's Place for the children to experience sport, being part of a team, having a 'club house' to hang out in.

The tag line is "a mother's story of nurturing a genius" and this really is the underlying story. Jacob is a genius way beyond what has been previously measured. At 9 he was out of elementary school and at a post-grad college programme. He was developing original theories and theses in the fields of maths, astrophysics and astrology. His genius is apparent in a myriad of fields, which makes him incredibly unique.

After reading the book I googled him and watched him deliver a TedTalk. Knowing that at two years of age the experts said he would not talk and possibly not tie his shoelaces, I realised just how amazing this family's story is and how inspiring to all parents and teachers alike. In each child, there is a spark.

Best of 2014

New Zealand is enjoying a wonderful summer and we've had 6 weeks of school holidays to enjoy it. I can look back on the lovely long days we have had reading at the beach, long evenings at the table sharing food and wine with friends, walks and time on the boat. Today is the first day back at school and the year is off with a hiss and a roar.

Last year I managed an all time high reading record, 98 books! This year it would be nice to crack 100.

I catalogue what I read and give each book a rating ranging from boring to excellent. Here is the list of the 34 excellent (by my reckoning) books I read in 2014. I have reviewed the majority, just click on the blue underlined titles to go to their reviews on my main blog. Wherever you are I hope you can also enjoy these books.

Most of them were read 10 minutes at a time as I wait outside school, beside sports fields and inside basketball gyms waiting for my kids. I hope you are able to read at least one more book this year than last. Enjoy.


Can it, bottle it, smoke it by Karen Solomon

Wake by Elizabeth Knox

Lost , Stolen or Shredded by Rick Gerkosky
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna
 A Fort of Nine Towers by Qais Akbar Omar
The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum
Burial Rights by Hannah Kent
The Son by Philipp Meyer
The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan
Old Filth by Jane Gardam
Perfect by Rachel Joyce
The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
Traces of Red by Paddy Richardson
Cathedral of the Wild by Boyd Varty
The Town that Drowned by Riel Nason
The Boy who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba
The End of the Alphabet by CS Richardson
Ariel's Crossing by Bradford Morrow
The Most Beautiful Walk in the world:Paris by John Baxter
You're still Hot to Me by Jean Kittson
Carthage by Joyce Carol Oates
The Claimant by Janette Turner Hospital
The Rise and Fall of Great Powers by Tom Rachman
We are completely beside ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
Hollow City by Ransom Riggs
Taking Pictures by Ransom Riggs
Orpheus Lost by  Janette Turner Hospital
All Saints' Rising by Madison Smartt Bell
The Narrow Road to the Deeper North by Richard Flanagan
Due Preparation for the Plague by  Janette Turner Hospital
The strange & beautiful sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton
Off the Map by Fergus Fleming