The Pure Pleasure of Books

Writers must read, and read widely, we’re told. Why would anyone not want to read?

I’ve always loved reading and was fortunate to be born into a home full of books. I can never understand when I go to somebody’s house and there are no books around. I wonder why? Why would you deprive yourself?

In my childhood and young adult years, I read widely around my O- and A-level set texts and ploughed through school recommended reading lists. I’m a completer, you see; I love nothing more than to see a line of ticks against every single book on a list.

I lost my way fictionally speaking for a few years. Busy with life, a career and weekends full of DIY, I confess (the shame… the shame…) that my reading narrowed to Cosmo and endless sort-your-life-out self-reflection and cod-psychology books. Venus and Mars, several dozen how to be a better woman and even more how to meet the man of your dreams texts all passed through my hands. They didn’t work.

In my late twenties I found my way back to fiction via the Sunday Times book reviews and best seller lists. I own up to occasional forays into chick lit (Bridget Jones had a lot to answer for) uber-commercial (John Grisham and Jeffrey Archer are sneered at by many, but rewarded me with hours of page-turnability) and even the odd few chapters of erotica (Black Lace, the forerunner brand to 50 Shades and all its imitators). But my pleasure has enduringly come from what might be called mainstream quality fiction – the sort of books which these days get talked about in book clubs and find themselves adorned with Richard & Judy or Costa stickers, and are so often on those 3 for 2 promotional tables at Waterstones.

Today I love reading and listening to these types of books, and I’ll typically have 3 or 4 on the go at once; paperbacks, e-books and audio. I love stories which engage me with the quality of their writing and the depth of their characters, but deliver a great plot and a satisfying ending. And I particularly enjoy stories with a psychological edge.

But I was sorting out my bookshelves the other day and I realised that I’ve enjoyed many different types of books over the years. Just for fun, I thought I’d let you in on a few of my favourites. I’m not trying to be smart or clever – just me – so there are pot-boilers and airport books as well as contemporary literary, funnies and even the odd classic. Whilst I have few favourite authors, I’ve only included one book from any particular author. It’s not an exhaustive list, by any means – it’s really not – just a few notables.

Sizzling Psychological Suspense

Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
Blue-Eyed-Boy – Joanne Harris
Before I Go to Sleep – S J Watson
Room – Emma Donoghue
Monster Love – Carol Topolski

Gripping Grizzlies

Acts of Violence – Ryan David Jahn
A Quiet Belief in Angels – R J Ellory
London Fields – Martin Amis

Favourite funnies

My Family and Other Animals – Gerald Durrell
Notes from a Small Island – Bill Bryson
E: A Novel – Matt Beaumont
The Hundred-Year-Old-Man Who Jumped out of a Window – Jonas Jonasson

Books I just loved from beginning to end, sometimes without even knowing why

A History of the World in 10½ Chapters – Julian Barnes
Far From the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
Beach Music – Pat Conroy
Wild Swans – Jung Chang
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil – John Berendt
Alone in Berlin – Hans Fallada
One Day – David Nicholls

Books that made me want to give somebody – anybody – a huge hug

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows
The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry – Rachel Joyce
Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time – Mark Haddon
The Shock of the Fall – Nathan Filer

Amazing audiobook narrations

The Casual Vacancy – J K Rowling (narrated by Tom Hollander)
Dominion – C J Sansom (narrated by Daniel Weyman)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson (narrated by Saul Reichlin)
The Help – Kathryn Stockett (narrated by Jenna Lamia, Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, Cassandra Campbell)
A Kind of Intimacy – Jenn Ashworth (narrated by Jane Collingwood)

I’d love to know if you have a favourite read, and why. I’m always on the lookout for books that leave their mark on a reader and I’m sure I miss many, many great reads. So, tell me… what would you recommend?

Bookshop Bliss

I passed an absorbing couple of hours yesterday mooching round Waterstones in Piccadilly, in the heart of London.

Apparently now Europe’s biggest bookshop, Waterstones Piccadilly is a paradise for the reader. Its five floors are an abundance of every kind of book from any genre you care to think of, categorised both systematically and creatively, and topped and tailed with comfy areas to kick-back with a drink and a bite to eat.

I headed straight for Fiction on the first floor. Bypassing the helpful shopping baskets (I didn’t see them) I was soon loaded with armfuls of paperbacks. I’m an avid audiobooker, but if I’ve enjoyed listening to a book, I need to own the paper too (I blogged about this a while back, here). Consequently, I keep a running list of books I need to buy, simply so I can go back through them and enjoy them… differently, and of course, possess them, in real leaf-through-the-pages format, as nature and the publishing world intended.

So I picked up three from my listened-and-enjoyed list:

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel by Deborah Moggach – an eclectic group of oldies retire to India
A Kind of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth – dark but comic, about a deliciously weird, damaged girl
Smut by Alan Bennett – two unseemly short stories in Bennett’s inimitable style (narrated for audio by the author himself)

But it didn’t end there. With the able and enthusiastic assistance of the… um… assistants, I tracked down another five from my must-read list.

Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell
The Red House by Mark Haddon
May We Be Forgiven by A M Homes
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Yes, I know I’m arriving at one or two of these a little late in the day, but there’s just so much reading one woman can do. Especially when the thing she most wants to do with her spare time is… write.

I read all over the genre geography. I enjoy the kind of books which fall into what’s variously called lit-lite (yuk!), accessible literary, crossover or even, I saw the other day, ‘Richard & Judy’. I particularly enjoy edgier psychological suspense – that’s what I’m writing, after all. I’m not into romance, historical or sci-fi, but I meander around the fringes of crime/police procedural, thrillers, chick-lit and full-blown literary as the mood takes me.

I get leads from Goodreads and I buy loads from Amazon as it’s convenient – who can argue with that? But an afternoon in a bookshop is an indulgence and I loved every minute of it, especially being so warmly and professionally served by people who really, properly know their books.

Grammar purists like me bemoan the demise of that apparently outdated possessive apostrophe, flushed away from Waterstones’ (ha!) branding as of last year, for reasons of… practicality. But given the pleasure quotient of a meander around their floors, it seems churlish to dwell.

I had lunch with a friend, took my time over a coffee and dreamed. I’ll be back again, to shop. But just maybe, one day, I’ll be back there to do a reading and a bit of meet-the-author. How’s that for a star to shoot for?

Classic comedy with a linguistic twist

I’m picky about punctuation and I adore audiobooks. Today I was reminded of a comedy sketch which brilliantly and heroically blends these two things – Victor Borge on Phonetic Punctuation. Comedy routines come and go, but some go on forever – especially now, thanks to YouTube. Blissfully, it took me less than 30 seconds to locate this delightful piece (even though it’s been given an incorrect title). You can enjoy it here.

To have and to hold

I love audiobooks – as my earlier post proclaims. I love being read to, especially when a narrator’s voice perfectly complements a story. I love the way they enable me to cover more literary (and even not-so-literary) ground than I would otherwise have time for.

At Christmas I was given a Kindle and I find I love this too. Now I can have 4 or 5 books in my handbag wherever I go. I don’t have to second-guess myself; I can pick and choose what to read according to my mood or the segment of time I want to fill. Will it be a racy plot-driven thriller or an oh-so-clever prizewinning literary masterpiece? Perhaps a treatise on the existence of God or an analysis of high-fat, low carb versus calorie-counting?

But I’ve always loved real, actual, physical books most of all. I love the feel of them when they’re new; that crisp-cut brick of pages, virgin spine, pristine and unsullied. And I love them too, when they’ve been read to bits, when the spine is bent back and creased a dozen times, the pages have gone a bit curly; there’s evidence of lunch or suntan lotion, corners turned down to mark favourite sections. That’s when they take up residence in my bookshelves – betraying all evidence of my pleasure in the reading. My books – the ones I’ve enjoyed and valued – are a little piece of ‘me’. I cannot throw a book out, nor even give one away, that has enthralled or entertained me. I want to be near it.

But now I find I have a dilemma. I read a book on Kindle and I love it. But where’s the evidence of this? ‘Soft’ just doesn’t do it. I listen to a novel, exquisitely read on an audiobook, and the only place it resides is in my iTunes library. That’s not good enough.

So I’ve taken to purchasing that lovely brick of pristine pages each time I enjoy an audiobook or a Kindle title. And I make room on my bookshelves for the pages that surprised, entertained or delighted me in their more contemporary formats.

I wonder if I’m alone in this? If I’m not, and there are hundreds or even thousands of audiobookers and Kindlers out there buying second copies in physical paperback, just to possess them, the book trade perhaps has less to worry about than it sometimes fears.

Jackanory for grown-ups

Some people are purists when it comes to books – nothing other than leafing through paper pages will do. I see it differently. Audiobooks enable me to ‘read’ far more than I could otherwise make the time for. For me, audiobooks mean I can enjoy more writing and a wider range of books than I can treat myself to in plain book form. There’s an added pleasure – that of being read to; of enjoying the way a good narrator adds dimension, drama and emotion to the experience. It’s Jackanory for grown-ups.

The other morning, engaged in the usual start-of-day repair job on my face, I tuned into my latest audiobook (Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo), to be presented with the last three sentences of the chapter. I nearly poked myself in the eye with my liner. Drat. It happened again.

It’s the one thing that bugs me about audiobooks; you can’t see when the end of a chapter is coming up.

I listen each morning whilst attempting to renew my menopausally blotchy face with a few coats of war-paint. I switch off once I’ve achieved all the silky-smooth radiance a bottle of foundation and a tub of powder is ever going to offer me. Next day, same process, so I return to the audiobook where I left off. And there they are again, almost every day; those three or four stray sentences – the chapter conclusion just seconds away.

If I were reading a paperback, I’d see the chapter end coming and unless I had no time at all, I’d read right to the end. But when an audiobook is recorded in sections, where each section comprises several chapters, you get no clues. And the Grumpy Old Woman in me rails at those stray sentences and pleads one of those “why don’t they” questions….. Why don’t they record audiobooks with tracks that correspond to every chapter?

You’d think it a simple enough task.