#1965Club – phew, what a week! And what year will we choose next? :D

Well, the #1965Club reading week is over, and what a wonderful experience it was! As well as reading some marvellous books myself, I’ve loved seeing what everyone else has picked up and shared their thoughts about – it’s been such fun! Hopefully, you’ll all have enjoyed it as much as Simon and I have – personally, I was amazed at how many bookish options there were from 1965. And thanks, as always, to Simon for being a super co-host! 😀

I managed to read and post about five books and I was really happy with my choices – these are they!

It’s possibly a somewhat eclectic pile, and does represent a *part* of my taste in books (though not everything – there’s no non-fiction or poetry, for a start!). Give longer I would have read more from the year, and these are specific ones I had considered but which got away:

Having two sci-fi titles or two classic crime might have been a bridge too far for 1965, though I *am* sorry I didn’t get to re-read “At Bertram’s Hotel” as I’ve always ranked it as one of my favourite Christies and it’s overdue a revisit. And I really would have liked to tackle the Spark as I haven’t read her for a while and she is *so* good. As for the Strugatsky, that’s the one new book I bought in preparation for the Club, but I never got round to it and I’m sorry about that – hopefully it will come off the stacks sooner rather than later!

Apart from that, though, I managed to read books which I already owned so no other volumes came into the house – which is probably a relief to Mr. Kaggsy *and* the rafters. As Simon mentioned in his podcast about our reading weeks, there is pretty much always a Simenon from whichever year we choose; and there *is* a Maigret from 1965, but I don’t own it so I was good…. And for those of you wondering what date we’re going to choose for the next reading year in six months’ time? Well, Simon and I put our heads together and decided it was between the 1930s and the 1950s since we’ve only done one year from each of those decades. Simon suggested the year in question and I was happy to agree, so in six months’ time it will be (drum roll!):

As Simon pointed out, we’ve not yet done one of the years ending in 0, and this one seems to potentially have lots of interesting works to be reading. So get searching, planning and reading – you have plenty of time to hone your book finding skills… ;D

#1965Club – a Kafkaesque nightmare of bureaucracy…

My final read for the#1965Club is, somewhat inevitably for me, a Russian book – Sofia Petrovna by Lydia Chukovskaya, translated by David Floyd. It’s a book that’s been nestling on Mount TBR for five years, if the grocery receipt tucked in the front is any guide, and that in itself is fairly alarming. Really, I wish I’d pulled this one down to read before now, as it really is an excellent book. Although it was initially published in 1965, “Sofia…” was actually written in the 1930s and this fact is crucial; the book has a ring of authenticity which comes from being written in effect as an eye-witness account of what it was like to live in those times; and it isn’t necessarily pretty.

Chukovskaya herself is a fascinating figure; born in Finland when it was part of the Russian empire, her father was Kornei Chukovsky, a poet and children’s writer. She mixed regularly with just about everyone involved in the arts, from Blok to Chaliapin, and was not particularly welcoming to the Bolshevik regime, earning herself an early period in exile. Yet she managed to survive all of the upheavals of Soviet Russia and lived until 1996, even winning at one point the Andrei Sakharov Prize For Writer’s Civic Courage, presumably for her work supporting dissidents in her country. “Sofia Petrovna” was originally published in 1965 under a completely different (and inappropriate) title, after having circulated via samizdat, and my Harvill edition is from 1989.

“Sofia…” tells the ostensibly simple story of a woman living through the 1930s in Russia. The titular character is a widow with a young son, and she takes up work typing in a Leningrad publishing house to make ends meet. As she’s an efficient worker she soon ends up in charge of the typing pool, trusted with responsible jobs and highly regarded by her employers. She works hard, brings up a good Soviet son and all seems well. However, subtle little cracks appear; there is mention of the Kirov assassination; of Stakhanovite workers, doctors’ plots and sabotage. Anyone with knowledge of Soviet history of the period will immediately pick up on these hints; but of course Sofia is living her ordinary, straightforward life through these times, involved in trying to keep food on the table and get on with her neighbours in their communal housing (ah, the housing shortage and primus stoves – consistent features in any Russian literature of the time!)

As the decade rolls on, things continue to get worse for Sofia; the director of the publishing house is arrested, as is the family doctor, and hostile elements start to take control. Sofia’s engineering son and his friend are sent off to work elsewhere in the country and then rumours start to reach Leningrad of arrests and wreckers, till finally the unthinkable happens – Sofia’s son is accused and she must try to prove his innocence. Yet how can you do that in a country where you can’t even find out where a person is held, what they’re accused of or who you should speak to?

Sofia Petrovna’s days and nights were now no longer spent at home or at her work but in a new world, the world of the queue. She queued on the Neva embankment or she queued on Chaikovsky Street – where there were benches to sit on – or she queued in the vast hall of the Great House, or on the staircase of the Prosecutor’s office. She would go home to have something to eat or to sleep only when Natasha or Alik came to take her place in the queue.

“Sofia…” is a marvellously written and chilling book; barely longer than a novella at 128 pages, it nevertheless manages to convey brilliantly the horror and uncertainty of living through times when you don’t know who to trust, you daren’t speak out or speak to certain people and you never know from day to day who will still be free. As Sofia pursues her quest to search out the truth about her son, it’s terrifying to watch her being sucked into the Kafkaesque nightmare of soviet bureaucracy. And of course, Sofia herself becomes tainted by association, and her health suffers from lack of food as well as endlessly standing in queues whilst trying to get news about her son. It’s a world which is captured in a completely convincing way, and of course reading with hindsight there are little hints in the narrative to which we now attach importance but which to Sofia at the time seem of no import; while I was reading I found myself wanting to scream at her to be careful what she said to this or that person, or to watch her back.

My Chukovskaya books

Chukovskaya lived through those days, losing her husband when he was executed on a false charge, and also being at risk herself – in fact, reading details of her life I can see where she obviously draws on her experience to paint her portrait of Sofia Petrovna. Somehow, she made it through the Purges and went on to have a long career as a writer, poet, memoirist and dissident (although of course “Sofia Petrovna” could never be published in Soviet times – another book written ‘for the drawer’). In speaking out in support of Brodsky, Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov, she lost the right to publish inside the USSR, and in the notes to the book Chukovskaya reveals her strong desire for “Sofia Petrovna” to be published in Russia – which it eventually was, and happily within her lifetime. She was also a lifelong friend of Anna Akhmatova, and I have her book “The Akhmatova Diaries” on Mount TBR, which is something to look forward to….

Chukovskaya on the back cover of the Akhmatova Diaries

So my final read for the #1965Club was an excellent one; a moving, wonderfully written, chilling and frightening book which brings to life vividly the terrible times through which Chukovskaya (and so many other Russians) lived. It’s a fitting memorial to someone who was obviously a strong and moral force, prepared to stand up for others, and I’m so glad that it finally came off my shelves. Truly, I *do* need to read more from the TBR!

#1965Club – golden age crime at a point of transition… @BL_Publishing @medwardsbooks

For our Club reads, I generally manage to fit in some crime reading, but wasn’t finding anything obvious for 1965. As Simon commented in his fascinating podcast about our reading weeks (do go and check it out here!) there’s pretty much always a Simenon title to choose from; and although there is indeed a Maigret from 1965, I don’t own it. The British Library Crime Classics series wasn’t necessarily the obvious place to look for a 1960s title, as Golden Age crime is generally earlier than that. However, a quick rummage through the review copies I had lurking revealed that there was indeed an unread BLCC from 1965 awaiting – “The Belting Inheritance” by Julian Symons; and it turned out to be the perfect book to accompany me on the train during my recent visit to London!

“The Belting Inheritance” opens in what might be regarded as a traditional country house setting. Our narrator, young Christopher Barrington, was taken in by his great-aunt, Lady Wainwright, when he was orphaned at the age of 12; the family live in “gothic gloom” at Belting and apart from the matriarch and Christopher, there are his cousins Miles and Stephen (who he calls uncle, because of the age difference), Stephen’s appallingly doggy wife Clarissa, and a number of general factotums. The house is particularly gloomy because Lady W is still mourning the loss of her two elder sons, Hugh and David, during the war; they’re held up as paragons while the rest of the family are kept well under her thumb. Young Christopher settles in ok, gets on with Lady W and his uncle Miles, and makes it through public school intact. But when he returns to Belting at the end of his schooling, prior to heading up to Oxford, things are taking a dramatic new direction. Lady W is gravely ill; but more shockingly, a man has turned up claiming to be David Wainwright, having survived the war and then spent a number of years in a Russian camp. Lady W is desperate to welcome him with open arms, but the rest of the family (particularly the odious Stephen) are less than happy with the idea, fearing the loss of their inheritance. Add into the mix Miles’ ex-wife, a roving girl reporter with a connection to a dubious incident in the family’s past, any number of skeletons ready to leap out of closets and plenty of chasing about all over the place, and you get the recipe for a cracking read which takes Golden Age crime off in some very unexpected directions! 😀

Martin Edwards, in his excellent foreword, describes “Belting…” as “an entertaining example of a Grand Master at work“, and he’s not wrong; make no mistake, this is a gloriously clever book. Symons takes the tropes of a classic GA crime book (country house, controlling matriarch, returning prodigal, conflict over inheritance) and subverts them brilliantly in a book that’s unputdownable and completely entertaining. When you’re reading the early chapters which set the scene and bring us to the point of the claimant’s first appearance, you could be forgiven for thinking you were reading just another country house murder; albeit one that’s beautifully written and really atmospheric. The narrator’s rather naive 18-year-old voice is totally authentic, and the gradual development and shifting of his perceptions brilliantly done. However, as the book progresses, Symons gradually reveals how the world was changing, how anachronistic the Wainwrights are, and how the rest of the locality view them. Sex and alcohol rear their heads as subjects; there is a marvellous jaunt to Paris at one point, and a particularly lovely bit where Christopher contemplates the fact he’s standing in a place which had seen Danton, Tom Paine and David, amongst others. This latter reference, in particular, made me wonder if Symons was signalling the revolution that had been coming in British society following the end of the Second World War, but I may just be reading too much into it!

However, Symons integrates two seemingly disparate milieus in a way that’s always entirely convincing, whilst creating a twisty and clever plot with characters you know, and in many cases care about deeply. I loved Betty, Miles’ ex-wife who went off and dabbled in arts and clubs, and was surrounded by all sorts of entertaining people. Miles himself was a dear, and I was on tenterhooks in case anything dreadful happened to him. The ending was totally satisfying, with loose ends dealt with and surviving characters rounded up nicely, and I finished the book with a huge smile on my face.

I have quite a few BLCCs (ahem!) still waiting to be read and reviewed, and so I’m not sure I necessarily would have gone for this one if I hadn’t been nudged to it by the #1965Club. However, I’m *so* glad I was; “The Belting Inheritance” was absolutely brilliant, unexpectedly one of the best entries in the BLCC collection. It was a pure joy from start to finish, and just perfect for a train journey too – highly recommended! 😀

#1965Club – a delicate portrait of a relationship

Acts of Worship by Yukio Mishima
Translated by John Bester

When I was casting around for possible titles to read for 1965, the name of Yukio Mishima sprang to mind (probably because of my recent over-excitement at new translations of his work). I wondered whether there were any of his works published in the appropriate year and a quick search revealed that a short story under the title “Acts of Worship” was indeed from 1965; and I already have this in a collection with the same title, translated by John Bester! I have of course read this; but it’s so long ago that memory has faded and so it seemed like the perfect way to read from the year whilst reintroducing myself to Mishima…

At 60 pages, “Acts…” is nudging close to novella territory, and it tells the story of the ageing Professor Fujimiya, and Tsuneko, the widow who takes care of his domestic life as well as acting as a kind of general factotum and sitting in with some of his poetry sessions. Tsuneko is a plain woman and the Professor has a wall-eye; their relationship is entirely platonic. Yet, when the Professor sets off for a pilgrimage to the Kumano shrines, he orders Tsuneko to accompany him, much to her shock. There are very strict boundaries in their relationship, set by the Professor, and the story follows them on their journey while exploring those boundaries. It’s a delicate, moving and beautifully written observation of a platonic relationship between two people who nevertheless depend on each other very much, and we watch Tsuneko (the main focus of the story) go through all manner of changing emotions while on the journey.

One rule that life had taught Tsuneko was that the only things that happened to a person with those that were appropriate to him…

I wasn’t wrong when I remembered that Mishima wrote beautifully, because he really does here. His observations of the world, the place of humans in it, their relationships with one another and the complex balance between them are so finely honed; and he evokes his settings marvellously.

Books had spread like mold, eating their way through each of the ten rooms in turn. Overflowing from the study, they encroached on the next room, converting it into a kind of lightless dungeon, then spread along the corridors making it impossible to pass without edging sideways. (No – my house is not that bad – yet…)

The characters of the Professor and Tsuneko are very finely drawn, and not without humour – in particular, the Professor, respected and yet a figure of fun at times, surrounded by his little clique of followers, is quite brilliantly conjured (and I make no apologies for the long quote, because I love it!):

The spectacle of the Professor crossing the cheerful modern campus of Seimei university with a bunch of his disciples in tow was so eye-catching that it had become one of the famous local sites. Wearing glasses tinted a pale mauve, clad in a badly fitting, old-fashioned suit, he walked with the feeble sway of a willow tree in the wind. His shoulders sloped deeply and his trousers were baggy, ill contrasting with hair that was dyed black and slicked down to an unnatural neatness. The students who walked behind him bearing his briefcase wore, as was only to be expected of such a resolutely anachronistic crew, the black uniforms with stiff white collars that everyone else at the university shunned; it gave them the air of a suite of ill-omened ravens. As in the sickroom of someone gravely ill, they were not permitted to speak in loud or over lively voices. Such conversation as took place was carried out in whispers, so that people watching from a distance would remark with amusement: “There goes the funeral again!“

And the two main characters are very separate and yet so intertwined. As Tsuneko recognises at the end, when the scales fall from her eyes and she sees the Professor clearly, part of her function is to help him maintain his illusions, which are in turn his coping mechanism. She however needs the Professor in order to have a function and place in life, and so the two are co-dependent in a delicately balanced relationship which is beautifully observed and written. The story also captures Mishima’s country at a time of change, with the hints of the traditional dress being discarded by most of the young, and I was intrigued by the fact that Mishima was in some ways mocking the old-fashioned style when he was a man who ended up sacrificing all for tradition…

Via Wikimedia Commons – see here for attribution: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Yukio_Mishima_01.jpg

“Acts of Worship” is a wonderfully told and memorable story and it was the perfect way to become reacquainted with Mishima. I’m keen to re-read the whole collection (and why is there no collected short stories available in English???) as well as move on to the newly translated works – I feel I have treats in store!

#1965Club – on the run in 1960s France #astragal

My second read for the #1965Club is very different from yesterday’s short story, and it’s a book I’ve had knocking about on the TBR pile for some time – “Astragal” by Albertine Sarrazin, translated by Patsy Southgate. I picked it up in the LRB Bookshop a while back simply on the strength of the fact that it had an introduction by Patti Smith; this is usually recommendation enough, but I liked the sound of the story anyway, and a quick flip revealed that the author herself (pictured on the cover) had a colourful, exciting and ultimately tragic life.

Sarrazin was French-Algerian and dropped out of formal education early to take up a life of crime and prostitution. She spent time in and out of jail, on the run from the authorities, and died startlingly young, from complications during an operation. Sarrazin left behind her a few works; and as far as I can see, “Astragal” (which was written while she was in prison) is the only one to have been translated into English. The passionate introduction by Patti Smith makes it clear that this is one of the inspirational, lynchpin books in Smith’s life, a kind of touchstone always with her; she mentions Sarrazin being described as a female Genet but that’s maybe a slightly simplistic way to describe her. Certainly, although she shares perhaps a similar outlook and view on life to Genet, her writing I would say is very different.

However – on to “Astragal” itself. The book opens with its protagonist, Anne, jumping from a wall to escape prison and breaking her ankle; she’s rescued by a passing motorist and then whisked off on the back of a motorcycle by Julien, who will become her lover, soul-mate and occasional companion. On the run from the authorities, the young woman is shunted from safe house to safe house, trying to mend her ankle (the broken talus bone is known as astragale in French) and keep Julien close. The latter, however, has his own issues with the law and so contact is often fleeting. Eventually, an operation is needed to stop Anne from losing her foot, although even getting her admitted to hospital comes with its own risks. Will Anne’s ankle be mended? Will she escape the law? Will she and Julien be together? Will the fact that she dabbles in prostitution and he has at least one other woman get in the way? Frankly, I’m not telling you – you’ll have to read it yourself. However, you can probably work some of it out if you look up Sarrazin’s short life, because this book draws heavily on her biography. Anne is obviously a stand-in for the author who indeed had similar experiences with broken ankles and running from the law. And Julien was his real name….

In that life, you were never carried off, petted, saved; you stood up straight, in the dark cages of the paddy wagon, or sat up on the hard wooden slats. But in that life, all the same, you could get your kicks in secret in the certainty of each day’s routine. My new freedom imprisons me and paralyzes me.

Initially, I wasn’t sure quite what I felt about “Astragal” and I expected to love it more, and love it immediately, particularly after the laudatory introduction. However, despite some beautiful writing, I didn’t actually warm to Anne. She was young, yes, and selfish too, which doesn’t mean she should be intrinsically uninteresting. However, the episodic nature of the story threw me a little, with Anne simply being shunted from one place to the next, being a bit sulky and difficult, and waiting for her lover to turn up. I wondered whether it was the fact that I’m frankly a bit too old to really relate to the book, and that it might have meant an awful lot more to me if I’d read it in my teens.

And yet…. The more I let the book, its characters and its author linger in my mind, the more they seemed to affect me. As I thought about it, I realised that there was an underlying theme of imprisonment; whether during her rotten childhood, her school days or her time in prison or her enforced confinement whilst her ankle is damaged, Anne is always constrained and held back. Her ultimate need is for freedom and she fights for that, even returning to prostitution to maintain her independence, rather than simply relying on someone she loves. Instead, she’ll take advantage of men’s needs and make her money that way, showing her contempt for a world which tries to hem her in.

…what does it matter where I was or what I was doing yesterday, yesterday is dead and we are alive; tomorrow, the limbo of the future, after all…

“Astragal” is a book which cannot be separated from the life of its author, which might by why in the end it stays in the mind; simply because it’s so painfully autobiographical (there is a very moving picture of Albertine with Julien just before she enters a hospital for her last, botched, operation). That somehow makes the events and the story hit home more, knowing she was drawing on her life and fictionalising it, recording her love for Julien, her need for freedom and her disdain for authority. I thought I wasn’t going to love the book, but somehow it’s got its hooks into me and if any more of her writings were available in translation I’d read them. I really ought to brush up on my very rusty schoolgirl French…

#1965Club – the unchanging nature of human beings…

Today sees the start of another wonderful week of Club reading – yes, it’s time to welcome you to the #1965Club! For one week we’ll be discovering, reading and discussing books from the mid-point of the 1960s, and for my part the hardest thing has been choosing what to read. 1965 seems to have been a varied and bumper year, and one from which I’ve already read many books. However, I wanted to read from the TBR as much as possible and so I’ve settled for a few titles, which I threw myself into with gusto after finishing “The Devils”. The first one I want to share with you is a science fiction short story – “The Doors of his Face, The Lamps of his Mouth” by Roger Zelazny.

Zelazny is a name I’ve always been aware of, in my various flirtations with sci-fi writing, but I’ve no idea how well-known he is in mainstream terms. He’s probably an author I’ve never read as I consider him more straight sci-fi, whereas I like my science fiction a little warped or off-kilter… However, he apparently also wrote poetry and fantasy, producing a massive body of work. This particular story was published in 1965 (of course!) and won the Nebula Award for Best Novelette in that year; it originally appeared in the March 1965 edition of “The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction”, and gave its name to the collection I have, which appeared in 1971. There is a story behind by obtaining of this particular edition, as I was in search of the cover art by one Dennis Leigh – the real name of musician John Foxx, who has a sideline in the arts! You can read about that here; that’s by the by, really as it’s the story we’re interested in, and I chose to just read the 1965 tale from the collection; although on the strength of it I plan to read more…

“Doors…” is set on the planet Venus at an unspecified time in the future when travel between planets seems routine; the planet is Earth-like and inhabitable, unlike the real Venus, and of course has been colonised by those voracious humans. The narrator is one Carlton Davits who describes himself as a baitman. As the story progresses it becomes clear that humans haven’t changed a lot; they still want to hunt, destroy and conquer, and the prey here is a Venusian creature called Icthysaurus elasmognathus – 300 feet long and known as Ikky. Davits has had a run-in with Ikky before, failing to capture the creature; however, an old flame, media celebrity Jean Luharich, is determined to capture an Ikky and recruits Davits to help. The dynamics are difficult, with tensions running beneath the surface and old wounds reappearing; will the search succeed and will Davits and Luharich survive the encounter?

Sci fi can be difficult, particularly when you’re dropped into a new world constructed by the author and with only hints of how it works. I always find it’s best to just go with it and see how the place develops; with a good author things will fall into place, and that certainly happens here. Zelazny’s Venus is a vivid and memorable place that really comes alive, despite his often spare narrative (I’ve seen it described as Hammett-like, which may be why I gelled with it). In 32 pages the characters and location develop, with their quirks and their baggage, so much so that you end up caring very strongly about their fate. Davits in particular has been affected by his surrounding, his encounters with Ikky, and the damage these encounters have caused; and Zelazny brilliantly captures the sense Davits has of meeting with something other, something different and unfathomable, on an alien planet.

However, as with all good sci-fi, I found myself pondering the deeper implications. Wikipedia reckons the story is a deliberately retro look at romantic pulp sci-fi which was apparently coming to an end. Yes, I can see that; however, I ended up considering what the story said about humanity and its selfishness and intransigence. Here is a brand new world, a planet humanity can travel to and inhabit; but what do we want to do? Hunt, catch and kill the indigenous creatures of the place. Plus ça change, as they say – colonialism of all sorts extends as far as rapacious humanity will take it and even crossing the final frontier will not change our species’ nature. It’s a thought-provoking story which raises all manner of issues – at least in my mind, anyway

So my first read for the #1965club turned out to be a good one; a new author, an intriguing and absorbing piece, plus perhaps an indication of 1965 works reflecting the changing times of that decade. I was pretty sure when we chose the year for April’s club that there would be some interesting reading turning up, and I can’t wait to see what bookish discoveries await… 😀

Counting down to 1965… #1965club

As  you can see from the dates in the snazzy little graphic Simon prepared, it’s not long till the start of the 1965 Club! 😀

If you’re a newbie to our reading clubs, Simon at Stuck in a Book came up with the idea a while back and asked if I would like to co-host – to which I happily agreed! The idea is to focus on a particular year and get people reading books from the chosen date, blogging about them, posting on LibraryThing or Goodreads or Twitter or Instagram – or even in our comments! That way, we all get the chance to discover great books we might not have known about, revisit ones we’ve forgotten and just have fun in doing so and in interacting about them.

And 1965 looks to be a bumper year for titles. A quick bit of exploring online reveals all manner of interesting books to choose from, spanning literature, poetry and children’s books, to name just a few. I’ve had a rummage in my shelves and come up with many possible choices, including new books, re-reads and titles I’ve been dying to get to for ages – but which will I pick?

Frankly, I’m not sure at the moment… I’d like a little variety, and there are so many interesting titles available. Mr. Kaggsy will no doubt provide one of his guest posts, but apart from that, I’m still undecided. Watch this space to find out what I actually *do* read, and please join in with us. I’ll have a dedicated page for linking to #1965Club posts so please leave a comment and let me know – it’ll be a blast! 😀

Stepping into Spring – dare we consider reading plans…? :D

You might have noticed that not only am I bit rubbish at doing monthly round ups, I’m also notoriously bad for not following reading plans (when I’m silly enough to make them). However, I realised over the weekend that I’ve actually read very little during March – so little it was actually shocking. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s my busiest time of year at work (with financial year ends and budgeting and the like) and admittedly I’ve been fairly worn out at the end of the day and haven’t had the energy to do much at all; even the Dostoevsky marathon has slowed down a little…

But with spring approaching, as well as the Easter hols, I’m hoping for a bit of a resurgence of reading energy; and on that basis, here *are* some very loose plans of what I hope will happen on the Ramblings in the next month!

Finishing Dostoevsky

The Russian Chunkster…

First up, I *will* finish “The Devils” – of that I am sure! It’s a wonderfully involving, very dark and very funny and yes, very Dostoevskian read and I’m loving his characters and situations. It’s a long book that needs stamina and I think I’m about to get my second wind! 😀

More Thoughts on Venice

When I haven’t had the gumption to pick up the Russian Chunkster, I’ve been enjoying some slimline books about the City of Bridges (or Masks or Water or Canals, depending who you consult) – Venice! It’s a place that seems to polarise opinions, and it’s been fascinating and bracing to read what people think of it. There’s one more book to be covered and that will hopefully be soon.

The 1965 Club

Most important of all (hah!) in April is of course the next of our reading week Clubs. Simon at Stuck in a Book and I are looking forward to co-hosting this and the year in question will be 1965 (so hopefully you’ve all been planning and reading up in advance). The Club will take place from 22nd to 28th April, and I’ll have a page where you can post links as well as coverage of what I’ve read, what I recommend and what I loved in the past from that year. The Clubs are always great fun so I do hope you’ll all join in with the #1965Club – we’d love to have you take part!

*****

So that’s what I potentially have lined up for April. I’m particularly excited to see what people discover for the #1965Club, and am looking forward to some interesting reads myself – watch this space! 😀

Club time! (Well – not for a few months…)

Those who you who follow Simon’s blog might have noticed a little announcement this morning – as he has announced the year we’ll be reading from during the next club week and that is…

Yes, we’ve gone for 1965 as suggested by Paula, and it sounds to be an excellent reading year!

Thanks *so* much for all your suggestions, and a fine lot they were – and we’ll keep them all in mind for future reading weeks. In the meantime, you have six months in which to plan your books – so get to it!! 🤣🤣🤣