Time to recap what I read in January. Not, I have to tell you, as many as I read this time last year! My aim to read 100 books in 2012 is already looking shaky...but I managed six.
As always...in order of reading...
Please Look after Mother by Kyung-Sook Shin - fiction, translated from Korean
Choral Society by Prue Leith - fiction
The Stepmother's Diary by Fay Weldon - fiction
In Tasmania by Nicholas Shakespeare - history/memoir
Eve Green by Susan Fletcher - fiction (first novel)
Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George - crime fiction
So, how were they? I have to confess to being an Inspector Lynley groupie so Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George is my pick for the month. It's a big book but I read it in a little over a day. I love Tommy and Barbara. This was a little grittier than normal I thought. If you like crime and you haven't read Elizabeth George, please do. I think this is about the 17th in the series, and yes, I've read them all.
Please Look after my Mother was very sad especially given my parents' situation, Choral Society fun but forgettable, The Stepmother's Diary dark and interesting. I bought and started to read In Tasmania at Hobart airport on the way home. It's a very clever weaving of history and the author's own modern story of an expat's life in his new country, where amazingly he finds he is related to the man they call 'the father of Tasmania'. Eve Green was fabulous, and an absolute marvel of a first novel. I've ordered her second book I was so impressed.
I’ve also decided that from now on, in among all the other reading I do, I’m going to read a 'classic' a month. Do you have any recommendations for me? I've read a few of course but I'm open to suggestions and would love to know what you think. I've pretty well done the Austens though J
