The Bibliophile's Night Out

Aoife from Pretty Purple Polka Dots shared her responses to this tag this morning. It is the invention of Beth from Books Nest, and if I'd thought I'd have to be a Night Out person, I'd have passed it by - for that is one thing I am most definitely NOT.

But Aoife's post interested me because, as she explains, she is another Night Out Hater. She'd still made an excellent post out of this, so I thought I'd have a go too. 

Pre-drinks: A prequel/novella you've read

I loved Angela Meyer's Joan Smokes, which won the inaugural Mslexia Novella Prize. It's a brilliant, searing, unforgettable piece of writing about a woman reinventing herself, and why she has to. (Review here.)

The taxi to town: A book about travel

I decided not to go with my usual favourite (The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay) here and chose instead Diana Athill's A Florence Diary, a little book Athill wrote in 1947 (but one that was not published till 2016), about her first trip to Italy at the age of 20, with her cousin Pen. It's a book full of first impressions - food, art, churches, but most of all 'the tiny glimpses of foreign ordinariness' - wonderful. (Review here.)

Trying to find a table: A book you didn't like to start with, but then ended up loving

I only started Iain Maitland's Mr Todd's Reckoning because Sara Hunt of Saraband sent it to me. I usually loathe anything featuring violence, especially of the psychological kind, but Sara has never sent me a dud yet and she encouraged me to move outside my comfort zone (for once...) After the first chapter I was hooked - Maitland is such a gifted author that I not only loved this, I loved the next one (The Scribbler) too. The writing is so sharp, so clever and so subtle, the atmosphere (an unbearably hot summer in a down-at-heel suburb of Ipswich) so oppressive, and the narrator so believable. The eventual denouement is an absolute shocker.

First round of drinks: A first book in a series

I can think of many I've loved, but top would have to be Elizabeth Jane Howard's The Light Years, the first book in her wonderful Cazalet Chronicles. The story begins in 1937, with the extended Cazalet family assembled at Home Place, the parental seat in Sussex; the four Cazalet children each have their own problems, and the series follows them (especially the women), through the war and out the other side, as their own children start to take centre stage. A close second would be A Question of Upbringing, the first in Anthony Powell's twelve book masterpiece A Dance to the Music of Time. A Question of Upbringing starts with Nick Jenkins' recollections of his schooldays at Eton and his undergraduate life at Oxford; he introduces what are to become some of the key players in the story, notably Kenneth Widmerpool, Charles Stringham and Peter Templar. In their very different ways Howard and Powell are so very readable, and even though Powell ends up with so many characters that you need Hilary Spurling's excellent guide to remind yourself who some of them are, both series are outstanding. 

The dance floor: A book that makes you want to jump up and down with excitement

A strange choice, perhaps, especially as I can't imagine this writer ever jumping up and down herself, much less on a dance floor, but I still remember discovering Barbara Pym. I borrowed Excellent Women from the library, went home, lay on my bed and read it from cover to cover. It was a revelation - I don't think I'd ever before found an author who shared my intense pleasure in observing the small things in life; people's eccentricities and their foibles. I've read EW so many times since then, and my love of Pym eventually took me as far as Harvard, where I attended the annual US Pym conference and met some truly Pymian characters. Joni Mitchell may have been the soundtrack to Emma Thompson's life in Love Actually but Barbara Pym has been the library of mine. 

The toilets: A book you wouldn't touch with a bargepole

For this one I second Aoife's suggestion of 50 Shades of Grey, and for the same reasons - as she says 'Any book that trivialises abusive relationships is a no for me.'  I also wouldn't ever read We Need to Talk About Kevin - I'm sure it's an excellent book but I just don't want to read about a school massacre.

The first to bail: the last book you did not finish

I loved the first few of Louise Penny's much celebrated Three Pines mysteries, but by the time I got to How the Light Gets In I had become increasingly annoyed with her writing style, and this one irritated me so much that I just could not go on. Penny has become more and more addicted to using Very. Short. Sentences. for effect, but the more she uses them the less effect they have - or at least the less of the desired effect. They now simply make me want to throw the book against the wall. I think I'm probably alone in this - thousands of readers adore everything Penny writes. You can't win them all!

The journey home: a book you can't really remember the plot of anymore

I'm afraid there are lots of these, but that's at least as much due to my sieve-like brain as to the author! On looking through the reading record I keep I find it interesting to note that I do still remember the plots of several books that I really did not like - they are emblazoned on my memory, whereas others - about which I had more neutral feelings - are not. I am just about to give up on the British Library Crime Classics, about which many people are hugely enthusiastic. I just can't get into the very particular style of these 'Golden Age of Crime' writers, with their almost exclusive emphasis on timings, clues and technical details (eg is a car's engine hot to the touch?). I've come to realise that I like far more character development and atmospheric setting. One of these books whose plot I've definitely lost forever is Death on the Cherwell by Mavis Doriel Hay. It's a shame because I do love the beautiful covers of these reprints!

The morning after: A comfort read

I've got many, many of these!  Maybe E Nesbit's The Treasure Seekers or Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Almost any Barbara Pym apart from Quartet in Autumn (too depressing). RC Sherriff's The Fortnight in September. Maeve Binchy's Light a Penny Candle. I could go on...