tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19063759091061238672024-03-13T15:53:22.473+00:0020th Century VoxTanya Izzard's book blogUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger223125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-85810183694714361002018-02-20T09:07:00.001+00:002018-02-20T09:07:18.211+00:00UpdateI'm now blogging about reading, culture and indexing at
www.tanyaizzard.co.uk/blog
This blog will remain available as an archive, and I will still respond to any comments on posts. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-8962033250239783602014-12-31T21:13:00.000+00:002014-12-31T21:13:08.452+00:002014 readingPoor neglected blog. Still, I did complete my PhD this year as planned, so something had to give. Here's this year's reading summary.
How many books read in 2014?
Only 30 books this year, which may be the lowest ever; there have been reading droughts if not actual incidences of the dreaded reader's block.
Fiction/Non-Fiction ratio?
23 fiction and 7 non-fiction; one of the non-fiction Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-80098061721029688402014-03-23T19:06:00.000+00:002014-03-23T19:06:44.279+00:00Pilgrimage 1 by Dorothy RichardsonI have submitted my thesis, so what could be a better way to celebrate than to start on Dorothy Richardson's modernist epic, a roman fleuve of 13 novels delineating the outer and inner lives of one Miriam Henderson? Pilgrimage has a reputation for being difficult, heavily reliant on interior monologue or, as May Sinclair famously called it in her review of the early novels in the sequence, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-85273314859890960122014-01-26T11:52:00.001+00:002014-01-26T11:52:25.802+00:00The Ice Palace by Tarjei VesaasThis short novel tells the story of Siss, a young Norwegian girl who finds herself strangely drawn to the new girl in her class, orphan Unn who has only recently come to live in their isolated little town. The two girls spend an evening together that becomes freighted with meaning for both of them when Unn indicates she has a secret that cannot be spoken. The next day, excited about Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-19846861487315742122014-01-01T13:52:00.000+00:002014-01-01T16:21:52.914+00:00My 2013 reading
2013 has been a thin year for both reading and blogging. I plan to submit my thesis in the spring, so both should pick up a bit during 2014.
How many books read in 2013?
39 books read in total; I haven’t counted books where I only read one or two chapters.
Fiction/Non-Fiction ratio?
18 fiction and 21 non-fiction; leisure reading has been mostly non-fiction this year, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-67319566540317072082013-12-02T10:00:00.000+00:002013-12-02T10:00:00.868+00:00E.M. Delafield
It is 70 years ago today that E.M. Delafield died, much too young, at her home in Devon. She had been ill for some time, enduring the rather primitive treatments for cancer that were available in the 1940s, but had kept up her cheerful spirits almost until the end - Kate O'Brien remembers her climbing a fig tree in the garden in September 1943, and according to Maurice McCullen she was Unknownnoreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-19214865615803691372013-08-11T19:02:00.000+01:002013-08-11T19:02:58.603+01:00Women Must Work by Richard Aldington
"I want a life that is full and interesting. I should like to work at something which had a purpose beyond mere money-making. I should like to mix with people who would make my life fuller. I want to live with or near a man I love and who would love me, and I think I'd like to have a child, but I don't want that in squalor and misery. As jam for it all, I'd like to liveUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-27696109224528085822013-07-05T10:22:00.000+01:002013-07-05T10:22:15.806+01:00Keeping Up Appearances by Rose MacaulayThis is a very difficult book to write about, and it's particularly difficult to explain why it is such a good and enjoyable book without giving away its secrets, secrets which are part of why it is so enjoyable. Rose Macaulay's novel has to do with identity, its construction and presentation, and its sudden dissolution. Half-sisters Daisy and Daphne Simpson are modern young women in Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-66892197584165474262013-04-01T14:30:00.000+01:002013-04-01T15:11:06.410+01:00Walking Home by Simon ArmitageThis is Simon Armitage's account of his attempt to walk the Pennine Way, travelling against the wind and with the sun in his face from North to South, towards his home village of Marsden in Yorkshire. Kindly strangers offer him a bed for the night, transport his luggage (a vast suitcase nicknamed the Tombstone) between stops, or simply walk with him along this most demanding of paths. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-77677212216807503962013-04-01T14:29:00.001+01:002013-04-01T14:29:16.072+01:00The Twenty-Third Man by Gladys MitchellDame Beatrice Bradley has taken a refreshing sea voyage to the island of Hombres Muertos where she plans to take a little holiday and watch the lizards sunning themselves in the garden of her hotel. The island gets its ominous name from a cave which houses the mummified bodies of twenty-three men, all seated upright around a table and arrayed in masks and robes. Dame Beatrice's fellowUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-80581595957905136432013-03-08T15:59:00.000+00:002013-03-08T15:59:01.067+00:00Potterism by Rose MacaulayI'm indebted to Kate Macdonald's podcast on this book for reminding me I had it and that I really ought to read it. Potterism the concept derives its name from Mr Potter, a newspaper magnate, whose vast press empire promotes vague, opinionated, palatable reading material for a conservative and rather dim public who do not want their preconceptions challenged. This has, unsurprisingly,Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-13323170911185559152013-03-01T15:23:00.000+00:002013-03-01T15:23:49.956+00:00Elsie and Mairi Go to War by Diane AtkinsonDespite reading endless books about women workers during the First World War, I'd never heard of Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm, household names in their day and the most photographed women of the War. This is probably because their story is so exceptional. Elsie, a trained nurse and midwife, and eighteen-year-old Mairi, formed part of an ambulance corps which went out to Belgium inUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-90741706478258976572013-01-31T18:00:00.000+00:002013-01-31T18:00:02.814+00:00Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey I came to this book through a recommendation from Kate Macdonald in her excellent series of podcasts, Why I Really Like This Book. I'm with Kate on this one - I really like Miss Pym Disposes. Published in 1946, but clearly taking place in interwar England - the Second World War is never mentioned or hinted at - Tey's novel is a good companion read to Gaudy Night. Before Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-28582047324369354552013-01-30T18:00:00.000+00:002013-01-30T18:00:06.705+00:00Greenbanks by Dorothy WhippleGreenbanks the novel is the story of the Ashton family of Greenbanks the house, a stone house of "no particular style or period" in the fictional Lancashire town of Elton. We're plunged into full family life in the opening chapter, joining the Ashtons for Christmas dinner a year or two before the outbreak of the First World War. Robert Ashton is the handsome head of the family, still Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-14758245037984644002013-01-26T16:02:00.003+00:002014-03-03T09:07:05.338+00:00Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. SayersI'm a bit of a Sayers novice, having only got around to reading Whose Body? last year. Gaudy Night fits in with the theme of my current PhD chapter, so I had an excuse to finally read it. This is one of those books that I've read a lot about, as it crops up frequently in critical works, so much so that I was well aware of whodunnit before I opened the book.
Gaudy Night starts with Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-43372293280876064832013-01-02T15:16:00.000+00:002013-01-02T15:16:00.109+00:00A Diary without Dates by Enid BagnoldThis little book is an episodic, fragmentary account of Enid Bagnold's work as a VAD nurse during the First World War. Based at a hospital somewhere on the outskirts of London, she tries to soothe and cheer the patients, sees her talents for bandaging and splinting improve, chafes under the authority of the professional nurses, and listens to the stories of the men under her care.
Her Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-86305558645961733482013-01-01T11:31:00.000+00:002013-01-01T11:31:00.214+00:002012 reading challengeI'm
sure you're on tenterhooks about my reading challenge. I read 25 of the
50 books I hoped to read, discarded a couple because I discovered there
were good reasons that I hadn't read them, and found that another couple
of books were more reference titles than books to sit down and read
from cover to cover.
Of the ones I did read, there were a few undiscovered gems, some that Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-73288810556586742032012-12-31T11:24:00.002+00:002012-12-31T11:24:32.994+00:00My 2012 readingHere's how my reading went in 2012:
How many books read in 2012?
61 books completely read; I've not counted books only dipped into for study purposes.
Fiction/Non-Fiction ratio?
34 fiction and 27 non-fiction. I was surprised, looking back, by how many novels I've read this year.
Male/Female authors?
23 books by male authors, and 38 by female authors. I've read more Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-34243451596022842722012-12-22T13:00:00.000+00:002013-01-01T12:15:29.432+00:00Akenfield by Ronald BlytheThis is the third book in my Suffolk triad, meant to be read during a holiday in that county which didn't quite happen (we went to France instead). Akenfield is a collection of interviews with Suffolk villagers, conducted by Ronald Blythe during 1967 and described by him in his introduction as a "quest for the voice of Akenfield". The interviews are divided up thematically: we hear Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-26059438482294278602012-11-10T12:19:00.000+00:002013-01-01T12:09:45.763+00:00Joseph and his Brethren by H.W. FreemanThis 1928 novel is another Suffolk book, telling the story of a farming family, the Geaiters, who take on the unpromising Crakenhill Farm and, through astonishingly dedicated hard work, make it profitable. Benjamin Geaiter, the patriarch of the family, generates gossip in the local village; he has served time for manslaughter and, it is rumoured, beats his wife. Emily Geaiter expires Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-75461355834193599582012-10-31T20:26:00.002+00:002012-10-31T20:26:41.878+00:00My Life in Books
The lovely Simon of Stuck in a Book very kindly invited me to participate in his online version of My Life in Books, and my responses appear today, with those of fellow blogger Margaret from BooksPlease, a delightful blog that I've only just discovered. You also get to find out what we thought of each other's choices - Margaret pegged me as a keen swimmer based on mine! Do have a look; theUnknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-71301408862603578712012-10-08T11:50:00.000+01:002013-01-01T12:10:26.064+00:00Bestseller by Claud CockburnThis book, published in 1972, takes a look back at "the books that everyone read" between 1900 and 1939, and what we can understand about why these books were read and who read them. Some of the titles here are still well-known and a few are still in print (Precious Bane, The Constant Nymph and The Riddle of the Sands are all included); others are remembered but probably very little read Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-9686664511384123532012-09-23T15:55:00.000+01:002013-01-01T12:14:03.478+00:00Corduroy by Adrian BellCorduroy - the title comes from the habitual dress of the Suffolk farmer, as opposed to the finer fabrics worn in London - is a memoir of Adrian Bell's first year in farming. Bell's father was a journalist, and the young Adrian tries newspaper life briefly, but succumbs to the lure of the rural, and goes to live with Mr Colville, part of a large Suffolk farming family; his own family hope Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-58135742842131902072012-08-27T18:27:00.000+01:002013-01-01T12:11:36.922+00:00Findings by Kathleen JamieThere has been a lot of press about Kathleen Jamie's new book Sightlines which inspired me to try her, but I thought I should start with this book first. Findings is a book of essays, some recounting journeys, some considering the natural world, others the details of the world we have made for ourselves. Jamie's message could be summarised, simply, as pay attention: pay thoughtful andUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906375909106123867.post-9103345162736228172012-08-25T13:46:00.000+01:002013-01-01T13:35:09.566+00:00A Perfectly Good Man by Patrick GaleThe good man of the title is Barnaby Johnson, a middle-aged Church of England priest with a parish in West Cornwall. The novel opens, though, on the last day of Lenny Barnes's life; Lenny has been paralysed in a rugby accident and, at the age of twenty, has decided to take his own life. Barnaby is the person he asks to be with him while he takes the drug that will bring about his death.&Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0