Top Reads of 2016

It was a hectic year for me, and I didn't get nearly as much reading done in 2016 as I had hoped.  I guess my excuse is the big overseas move which took a lot of mental energy. Still, I managed to read 75 books in 2016, and I've picked out some of my favorites for an end of the year list. I think I only reviewed three of these online but in chronological order, here are some of my reading highlights:

1.  The Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse. One of the most popular Bertie and Jeeves stories, and considered by many to be the best. Lots of mayhem, silliness, and a silver cow creamer. I knew the plot from the BBC series but it was still hilarious.

2.  Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope. Book #4 of the Barchester Chronicles. I figured it would be a bit of a slog since Phineas Finn wasn't my favorite, but it was great -- I suppose putting the main character on trial for murder would perk up any Victorian novel!

3.  The Bromeliad Trilogy by Terry Pratchett. I haven't read much middle-grade fiction the last few years but this had been hanging around the TBR shelves and I needed a fun, light read last spring. I'd only read one other book by Terry Pratchett (Good Omens) and I absolutely loved it. It was laugh-out-loud funny and I definitely want to read more of his works.

4.  The Mapp and Lucia series by E. F. Benson. I read five of the six novels in the series this year -- I really needed some levity with all the stress (not to mention the election). Mapp and Lucia, the fourth novel, was my favorite but they are all wonderful. Sadly, I only have one left to read but I know Benson wrote quite a few more books.

5.  The Chateau by William Maxwell. A delightful find at a small used bookstore on the military base. A young American couple take an extended visit to postwar France. It's really not about much, plot-wise, but I loved the characters and all the descriptions. A slow, thoughtful book but definitely worth reading if that is your cup of tea.

6.  Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. A lovely book. I'd seen the Oscar-nominated film, which I loved, but the book was even better.

7.  Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child by Noel Riley Fitch. Another book I've owned for years but never touched. It was a little slow starting but Child's life was even more fascinating than I expected. If you liked Julie & Julia or My Life in France I highly recommend it.

8.  The Skin Chairs by Barbara Comyns. A quirky little Virago about an eccentric but endearing family. It was just the sort of book I like.

9.  Main Street by Sinclair Lewis. One of the books from my Classics Club list, I'd been putting it off forever and I was so glad I finally got around to reading it! A wry satire of a young librarian who moves to a small town in Minnesota and attempts to bring some culture to the locals.

10. The Quincunx by Charles Palliser. A big, fat, historical novel, just the thing if you're a fan of Charles Dickens or Wilkie Collins. I know I could have finished three or even four books in the same time but it was worth every minute.

So -- an eclectic list, but that's me! I have lots of good reads on the horizon, plus another challenge. Bloggers, how was your 2016 in books? What are you looking forward to reading? And have any of you read these books?

The Conquest of Plassans by Emile Zola

I'm getting near the end of the Back to the Classics Challenge and I'm much farther behind than I planned. The other day I was looking for a good short book and I decided it was time to read something in translation. It had been more than two years since I read anything by Emile Zola so I chose The Conquest of Plassans -- partly because it was short; partly because it was French; and partly because I loved the cover (and I've actually seen the original painting from that edition, The Orange Trees by Gustave Caillebotte. It's at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston).

So. Set in the provincial town of Plassans in Provence, this is the story of Abbe Faujus, a mysterious clergyman who arrives in town with his mother and rents rooms from the Mouret family. Monsieur Francois Mouret is related to the Maquarts, and his wife, Marthe, was a Rougon. There are a lot of gossipy characters with nothing much to do other than speculate about the lives of their neighbors. Somehow Abbe Faujus manages to say very little about himself and yet others start talking to him and spill all kinds of secrets.

Eventually Faujus is able to gain the trust of the townspeople and local church hierarchy. He begins to claw his way to the top politically and socially and gain power over many of the locals, some of whom don't appreciate his influence. In particular, Francois Mouret becomes jealous and suspicious regarding the influence Faujus has over his wife Marthe, who becomes incredibly pious and obsessed with religion. 

Meanwhile, Faujus shady sister Olympe and her ne'er-do-well husband also arrive in town and threaten to expose all kinds of family secrets. They ingratiate themselves in the Mouret household which doesn't bode well. This being a Zola novel, a lot of these characters are basically train wrecks. 

The Conquest of Plassans is the fourth in Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle, and the eleventh of the series I've read so far. Normally I tend to read series books in order, but when I started reading Zola about five years ago, some of the earliest books in the series weren't available in good English translations. (Luckily, Oxford World's Classics has been publishing excellent translations, like the one  I read). I'd heard that most of the books are really stand-alone novels that are loosely linked.

I'd already read the second and third novels, which are set in Paris, but this novel is set in Plassans, which is also the setting of the very first novel in the series. There are a lot of references to events from the first book especially in the endnotes. If you don't want any spoilers for the first novel, I would definitely recommend reading it before you read this one -- I was really regretting not having read The Fortunes of the Rougons first, especially since my library in Texas owned a copy. But buying a copy of the first book from Amazon didn't seem practical since the mail takes longer now that I'm overseas.

This book was OK but it won't rank with my favorites in the Rougon-Macquart series. I think some of his later books are really better. This one felt like it was kind of all over the place plot-wise. There's a whole sub-plot about political intrigues that basically went over my head, and I don't know if I just wasn't paying close enough attention, or if I should have done more research about the Second Empire, but either way I found it confusing. In general, I thought the drama centered around the families was the strongest part of the book, but I tend to enjoy stories about domestic life.  I also didn't like the way most of the female characters were portrayed. To be fair, the male characters were also awful, and Zola is a product of his time, but a couple of the women's portrayals were pretty sexist and made me really uncomfortable. 

I think in a way I put off reading this book because my last experience with Zola was not great -- a lot of people love Nana, but I really disliked it and it kind of put me off Zola for a while. I'd read ten of his books and I think I was worried that I'd read all the good ones already and the rest would be disappointing. Maybe there's a reason that some of Zola's novels don't have many good English translations. And in general, is it better to read an author's best work first, or should you save it for last? Bloggers, what do you think? 

I'm counting this as my Classic in Translation for the Back to the Classics Challenge. 

Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum

On my recent visit to London, I was fortunate enough to visit a whole slew of bookstores. I saw this brand-new edition of an NYRB Classic: Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum. It ticked off a lot of boxes for me:

• Nice cover
• Set in a hotel -- so lots of characters thrown together 
• Woman writer
• Translated into English -- I'm always trying to widen my literary perspective
• Set in Germany
• Between the wars -- one of my favorite time periods

So, basically, this was a no-brainer -- I had to buy it. It took a couple of chapters to get into it, but once I got started it was great. Set in 1929, it's the story of a different guests at the posh Grand Hotel in Berlin: the aging ballerina Grusinskaya, who is worried that she's losing her appeal; the sexy playboy Baron von Gaigern; the tragic Dr. Otterschlag, whose face was destroyed by a bomb during the Great War; Herrr Preysing, the director of a family firm who's desperate to secure a manufacturing bid; and the meek clerk Kringelein, who's worked for thanklessly for years for Preysing's firm. He recently had a terminal medical diagnosis and has decided to spend his last few weeks enjoying life. Some of the characters have a slight connection, like Preysing and Kringelein, but after a few days in the same hotel, their lives interconnect and are changed forever.  

I really enjoyed this book. I love how Baum intersected all the characters' lives, and I thought the plot was great and the ending well done; however, I think the strength of this book was the character development. I do love any book that has a variety of characters -- I'm particularly fond of books set on trains and sea voyage (I think it started with my love for Murder on the Orient Express.) In this book I was concerned at how many characters Baum, was going to introduce, but it was easy to keep them all straight. I do wish there had been a better ratio of female to male characters (there's also a beautiful young stenographer who shows up about halfway through the book) but Baum made a point with both of the women about the limited choices they had during the time period. 

I also found the writing to be very insightful. The whole book is full of great quotes that I kept marking with little scraps of paper as I read. Here's one of my favorites:

Then the doors closed throughout the hotel. Everyone locked himself in behind double doors and each was left alone with himself and his secrets.

And here's Dr. Otterschlag using hotel as a metaphor for life:

The whole hotel is only a rotten pub. It is exactly the same with the whole of life. . . . You arrive, stay for awhile, and go on again. Passing through. Isn't that it? . . . and what do you do in life? A hundred doors along one corridor and nobody knows a thing about his next-door neighbors. 

Originally published in German as Menschen im Hotel, this was an international best-seller and was adapted as a stage play and an Oscar winning movie in 1932, starring Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, and Joan Crawford -- it's the source of the famous Garbo line "I want to be alone." I've never seen it but it's available on Netflix so it's at the top of my DVD queue.

Greta Garbo and John Barrymore. She just wants to be left alone .

Vicki Baum wrote about 50 books altogether, some in German, some in English after she left Europe during WWII. As an Austrian Jew, her books were banned by the Nazis, so I'm counting this as my Banned or Censored Classic Book for the Back to the Classics Challenge. 

Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

I'm finally down to the single digits in my Classics Club list, but I realized that I have less than six months to go before my deadline! The other day I was at the library and just for fun, I looked to see if they had any of the books on the list on the shelves. Lo and behold there was Main Street by Sinclair Lewis. I'd tried to read it about a year ago but just couldn't get into it, mostly because I was listening on audiobook and couldn't stand the narrator, who sounded like she was reading to small children. Anyway, I gave it another shot and it was so worth it, because this book is brilliant.

Main Street is a satire of small-town life in the Midwest about 100 years ago. Carol, a bright young librarian living in St. Paul, meets a doctor at a party. He's about 12 years older and from a small town called Gopher Prairie. After a bit of a whirlwind courtship, they marry and return to Gopher Prairie, population 6,000. Carol has many good intentions and is convinced she can make the town into a place of beauty and culture, but she is foiled at every turn, by nosy neighbors, gossips, and people who think life is just fine as it is. Over a period of years, she tries to improve by volunteering on the library board, joining literary societies, and even directing an amateur theatrical. 

She is also the subject of much gossip, about her clothing, her interior decorating, and her choice of friends, whether they be working-class servants, socialists, or well-dressed arty types. World War I erupts, and there are some painful reminders of racism and political backlash that are incredibly timely. There's also a character who is mocked for being effeminate which made me really uncomfortable and a terrible incident about a woman who is basically run out of town after a boorish young man ruins her reputation with gossip. It made me furious but incidents like this still happen today. 

I thought Sinclair Lewis drew a brilliant portrait of small towns -- his characters are really well developed and the descriptions of scenery are wonderful. It reminded me a little of the winters in Little House in the Prairie. There's also lots of snappy dialogue and great quotes. I don't usually include this many quotes in a review but these three were so great I had to include them. This one is my favorite and I forced it upon my family with great delight: 

Carol drove through an astonishing number of books from the public library and from city shops. Kennicott was at first uncomfortable over her disconcerting habit of buying them. A book was a book, and if you had several thousand of them right here in the library, free, why the dickens should you spend your good money? After worrying about it for two or three years, he decided that this was one of the Funny Ideas which she had caught as a librarian and from which she would never entirely recover.

I imagine many book bloggers can relate to this as well!

Here is another of my favorite quotes that made me laugh out loud. Carol is at Sunday dinner with some annoying relatives: 

Carol reflected that the carving-knife would make an excellent dagger with which to kill Uncle Whittier. It would slide in easily. The headlines would be terrible.

Lewis had his snarky moments, but he's also incredibly insightful:

There are two insults which no human being will endure: the assertion that he hasn't a sense of humor, and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble.

I raced through this book in less than a week and highly recommend it if you're looking for a well-written, insightful American classic. I'm sure it will be one of my top reads of the year, and now I have only seven books left on my Classics Club list!

The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I've really had a hard time sticking to a book lately -- we have so much going on with our upcoming move, it's really hard for me to concentrate on anything -- it's definitely time for those non-challenging comfort reads. Luckily, the list of my unread Persephone books included The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I actually own a copy from 1907 just like the one picture above. I'd put off reading it because it's just over 500 pages long, but it's in the public domain and readily available for download on my smartphone. I started reading it in bits and pieces, and by the fourth or fifth chapter, I was completely hooked and couldn't stop reading it.

Basically, this is the story of a society marriage gone wrong, and the dramatic aftermath. Like Downton Abbey's Cora Crawley, Rosalie Vanderpoel is a wealthy heiress wooed by a titled Englishman in financial straits. Rosalie is young, tenderhearted, and impressionable, and she agrees to marry Nigel Anstruther though she doesn't realize quite how desperate he is. Her younger sister Betty, though a child of nine, sees right through him and dislikes him instantly.

Sadly, no one realizes what a good judge of character Betty is, and the marriage takes place. Once Rosalie reaches England, her husband becomes a very different person. He's furious that he can't control her money, so he becomes abusive and cuts Rosalie off from her family with little explanation.

Twelve years later, Betty is now a beautiful, intelligent, confident young woman, and she is determined to find out what really happened to Rosalie. With her father's blessing (and his virtually unlimited resources) she sails to England on a mission. On the boat over, she also has a chance encounter with a second-class passenger, James Salter. She is impressed by his forthrightness and strength of character (not to mention his good looks), but assumes she'll never see him again.

After finding her sister and young nephew in terrible circumstances, Betty takes matters into her own hands and is determined to put things right at their crumbling estate, with her diabolical brother-in-law, and finds true love along the way. It's a bit of a fairy tale, but what I really liked about this book is what a great character Betty is -- she doesn't wait around for a man to save her, she's frequently the one doing the saving. Of course the fact that she comes from a rich family makes it much easier, but I got the sense that this is a woman that would have done great things with or with out the money. She's a real go-getter.

I also loved reading how Betty took charge of improving the derelict estate. The book is a bit like a cross between Downton Abbey (but with an abusive Lord Grantham) and an episode of This Old British House. There are also some fun quirky side characters, like local villagers, the vicar Mr. Penzance, and a traveling American salesman named G. Selden. Frances Hodgson Burnett was born in England but spent much of her life in America, crossing the Atlantic numerous times, and her characters from both countries seem lovingly portrayed.

Burnett clearly loved England and you can also see hints of her future novel, The Secret Garden, when Betty Vanderpoel admires the beautiful countryside of Kent and plans improvements with the estate gardeners. Burnett rented Great Maytham Hall in Kent and the gardens inspired her. I haven't read The Secret Garden since I was a child so I think it's time for a re-read.

Great Maytham Hall garden

"One feels it so much in a garden," she said. "I have never lived in a garden of my own. This is not mine, but I have been living in it—with Kedgers [the gardener]. One is so close to Life in it—the stirring in the brown earth, the piercing through of green spears, that breaking of buds and pouring forth of scent! Why shouldn't one tremble, if one thinks? I have stood in a potting shed and watched Kedgers fill a shallow box with damp rich mould and scatter over it a thin layer of infinitesimal seeds; then he moistens them and carries them reverently to his altars in a greenhouse. The ledges in Kedgers' green-houses are altars. I think he offers prayers before them. Why not? I should. And when one comes to see them, the moist seeds are swelled to fulness, and when one comes again they are bursting. And the next time, tiny green things are curling outward. And, at last, there is a fairy forest of tiniest pale green stems and leaves. And one is standing close to the Secret of the World! And why should not one prostrate one's self, breathing softly—and touching one's awed forehead to the earth?"

I only have a few tiny quibbles with the novel -- as much as I loved Betty, she really doesn't seem to have any faults, and Sir Nigel Anstruthers is a bit of an over-the-top, mustachioed villain. Also, the ending was a little melodramatic for my taste. But overall, this was a very enjoyable read and it's one of my favorite reads so far this year. 

I'm counting this as my Classic by a Woman novelist for the Back to the Classics Challenge, and also for Reading England Challenge.

The 1938 Club: National Provincial by Lettice Cooper

Just in time for the end of The 1938 Club, I finished National Provincial by Lettice Cooper. I'd read and loved The New House several years ago, so when I realized she'd published another book that fit the parameters, I put in an ILL request immediately. It arrived in time but took me much longer to finish than I expected. 

Set in the 1930s, this is an ambitious work about several families living in the fictional town of Aire, in Yorkshire. The book begins with a young woman named Mary Welburn, who's leaving her job as a journalist in London to start work at a smaller regional paper close to her childhood home, mostly so she can help with her disabled mother since her sister is about to get married. The reader begins to learn about the local residents of different classes and their intertwining lives. Mostly, the characters and setting are a microcosm of British society, examining the conflict between the classes and the ongoing changes in society, both social and political, against the backdrop of the late 1930s just before the war. 

As Mary begins reporting, we learn about some of the prominent families and events going on in the area. The Harding family used to be the wealthiest landowners, but one half the family lost money (but not status) after a business failure during the depression. The younger son, Stephen, took a job with a local factory owner, Mr. Ward, who was born poor but created a manufacturing empire by dint of hard work and determination. His wife would love nothing more than to be accepted by the local gentry, but sadly, she's viewed as a social climber and not the right sort. She and her husband try to keep a tight rein on the lives of their two young adult children. Mary befriends the daughter, Marjorie, who has left school and can't join the family business since it "wouldn't be ladylike." Her brother Leslie is at the local university, and befriends two of the younger professors and their wives, with mixed results. 

Mary's sister is engaged to marry a local cricket star, and she's close to her childless aunt and uncle. Uncle John is the union rep for Ward's clothing factory, and has a young protege, Tom, but the two begin to disagree about wages at the factory. Tom also has a shallow, self-absorbed girlfriend named Olive, who's embarrassed by her brother's girlfriend who works as a domestic for one of the Harding's sons.

This book covers about a year and a half and follows real events, including the death of George V, the abdication of Edward VII, and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. It's very interesting to read this knowing that Cooper didn't know exactly what was going to happen in Europe, though some of the characters definitely suspect that war is looming on the horizon. This was such a contrast to the other Cooper novel that I read, The New House, which took place entirely over one day with one family. National Provincial was more than 600 pages in my edition, and includes several extended families as well. (One of my few quibbles about the book is that there are so many characters I sometimes confused them, and there were a few stories that I found unresolved). 

Overally, I really enjoyed this book. I found the characters really well developed and realistic -- nobody is completely bad, and nobody is completely good either. I thought Cooper did a really good job showing both sides of various conflicts, especially some of the political struggles with the Union at Ward's clothing factory. 

As I read this, I couldn't help being reminded of some of my favorite British novels, including Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South; Winifred Holdby's South Riding; and even a little bit of Downton Abbey. It's a really great book and I'm so glad I read it! I'm really intrigued by the novels of Lettice Cooper and I've emailed Persephone books to suggest it as a reprint. I'm also going to order another of Cooper's novels called Fenny which was reprinted by Virago back in the 1980s. 

Has anyone else read anything by Lettice Cooper that you recommend? And how did everyone enjoy the 1938 Club! Thanks again to Simon and Karen for hosting, and to Cosy Books who mentioned National Provincial as a possible read.

The 1938 Club: The Baker's Daughter by D. E. Stevenson

I was really struggling to find a book to read for The 1938 Club Readalong, hosted by Simon at Stuck in a Book and Karen at Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings. It seemed I'd read all the best books already (including the P. G. Wodehouse classic The Code of the Woosters, which I finished just days before the readalong was announced). Nonetheless, the librarian in me refused to give up and I kept hunting; I finally and came up with not one but three books from 1938 that I wanted to read. 

The first book I read was The Baker's Daughter by D. E. Stevenson. I'm thrilled that Sourcebooks is reprinting her works, I just wish they would published more than two a year! The Baker's Daughter just came out in January, (though I was actually able to get my hands on a different edition from ILL, as I just can't bear to buy another book right now). Anyway, alight charming book by Stevenson was just the thing.

The setup: set in the 1930s, Sue Pringle is in her early 20s, living with her stepmother, younger brother, and curmudgeonly father, the baker, in a small town in Scotland. Her late mother's parents own a successful grocery shop and would love for Sue to come and live with them, as she doesn't much get along with her stepmother. One day, while visiting her grandmother at the shop, a customer has an unusual request -- not just groceries, but an actual cook. The customer is the Mrs. Darnay, wife of an artist who's just left glamorous London rented a cottage so he can paint in the wilds of Scotland. Sue, bored with her dull life, is intrigued by the idea of an artist, jumps at the chance and agrees to take on the job. After Mrs. Darnay suddenly does a runner back to London, Sue takes pity on Mr. Darnay, and stays on to keep house for him and keep him from starving, as he's so absorbed in his work. Naturally, one thing leads to another, and Sue finds herself falling in love with the reclusive artist. 

This was a quick, light read, and if you've read Miss Buncle's Book or any of Stevenson's other novels, you'll find few surprises here. It's a charming little novel with a fairly predictable outcome, though there were some interesting twists along the way. I liked the characters, especially Sue's grandparents, and I liked how Stevenson really seemed to appreciate Scotland, with nice descriptions of the scenery. She also gave the characters depth and color without making them too stereotypical.

However, there was an attempt at one plot twist that I thought was really unnecessary, and a weird anti-Semitic remark that kind of came out of left field, with a reference to Hitler. I'm not sure if Stevenson was criticizing what was happening politically in the late 1930s, but it seemed really incongruous to the storyline. Also, the ending was kind of abrupt. But overall, it was a very enjoyable book and a perfect comfort read if you like middlebrow women's fiction from that time period. 

There are two other Stevenson reprints by Sourcebooks I haven't read yet, Celia's House and The Listening Valley. My library actually owns both of them but I'm rather torn, I don't know if I should read them now for free or read up more of my TBR shelves now and save those for later, since I can actually buy them from Sourcebooks later. Bloggers, have you read any other books by D. E. Stevenson? Which do you recommend? And are you enjoying The 1938 Club?

New Grub Street by George Gissing

I'm really trying no read as many as my own books as possible this year, so I picked New Grub Street by George Gissing as my Classic the a Place Name in the Title for my current read. (Also one of the last nine books on my Classics Club list -- a win/win!).

Basically, this is the story of how awful it was to be an unsuccessful or mildly successful writer in late 19th century London. Published in 1891, it follows several families: Jasper Milvain, a somewhat cynical and opportunistic journalist and writer, and his two sisters, Dora and Maud; the bitter Alfred Yule and his wife and grown daughter, Marian; and Marian's cousin Amy Reardon, and her husband Edwin, a semi-successful novelist on a downward spiral.

All three of these families are dealing with the financial difficulties of supporting one's family as a writer, to varying degrees. Alfred married a woman he considered beneath himself, and blames her for his not getting ahead among the society of writers. His daughter Marian is talented and does a lot of her father's research and some writing of her own, but rarely gets the credit for it. Alfred dreams  of editing his own literary journal, but lacks funds or connections. 

Edwin Reardon showed early promise, and after a legacy left him temporarily flush with cash, married the beautiful Amy. Now that they have a small child and money is tight, Amy doesn't want to economize and the subsequent stress over finances is causing Edwin to lose focus on his writing. 

Jasper is attracted to Marian, who seems his intellectual match, but he cynically believes that he needs a wealthy wife to help him get ahead in literary society. His sisters have become friendly with Marian but are also aware of their brother's character and ambition. Also, Alfred Yule is convinced that Jasper wrote an unflattering piece about him, so he is persona non grata. Their lives all intertwine in the literary London of the early 1890s, and the action really picks up after Alfred's brother dies, and his will changes the lives of these three families. 

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. George Gissing isn't nearly as popular as Dickens or Hardy or even Trollope -- he wrote 23 novels but as far as I can tell, only three of them are in print anymore. Gissing's writer is quite easy to read, and his characters were really well developed -- I found myself really rooting for some and booing others as the story progressed. Parts of it were quite sad, as these starving writers struggle to churn out enough pages to keep from being thrown into the workhouse and splitting up their families. Gissing makes some really good points about women writers. There were some really dramatic bits and in the end, I wanted to strangle one of the characters (though I wasn't surprised one bit how his story was going to shake out). 

Overall, a very satisfying book, and it's giving me courage to try reading some of the more obscure Victorian writers. 

The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit

After finishing Journey to the Centre of the Earth, I was still in the mood for a some good adventures. I remembered a copy of The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit that I'd picked up years ago at a library sale. How is it that I completely missed out on Nesbit in my youth? I suppose my hometown library just didn't have them. Well, I've now completed five of her books and loved all of them. This one ranks right up at the top of great classic children's fantasy, right up there with the Wizard of Oz books and the entire oeuvre of Roald Dahl.

Published in 1904, The Phoenix and the Carpet is the second in the series of that began with Five Children and It. Instead of a magical sand fairy, the a family five children find both a magic carpet and a magical bird, a legendary phoenix. By a series of mishaps (well, basically, they decide to try out fireworks inside the house) they have to get a new carpet for the nursery. Their parents buy a second-hand carpet which, when unrolled, is found to include a strangely glowing egg. The children attempt to return it, but no go. After the egg accidentally rolls into the fireplace, it hatches and out comes the phoenix, who explains that the carpet is also magic, and can give them three wishes a day.

If you're looking for serious high fantasy, this isn't it. Although the children are occasionally transported to faraway places, their adventures are pretty tame, though humorous. As in Five Children and It, the children quickly realize that wishes don't always work out quite like you plan. Of course it's a children's story, so most everything comes out right in the end, but Nesbit's chapters are cleverly plotted, so I really wasn't sure how everything was going to shake out. And the writing is both wry and witty, with a few sharp observations. It's both entertaining and funny as the kids get in and out of scrapes. My only quibble as that in some their adventures, they encounter "savages" who are quite obviously people of color, and the racism that tinges these episodes.

Cover of the new Puffin Classics edition

Overall, though, it was quite a delightful read, and tI'll probably include it among my favorite books of this year. I'm counting it as my Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Dystopian Classic for the Back to the Classics Challenge. 

Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

Determined to knock off a few books from my own TBR shelves, I picked up Journey to the Centre of the Earth the other day. I'd just finished Armadale, after a month-long read, and just couldn't bear committing to another dense Victorian. Specifically, I picked this one up because it had an introduction by the late Diana Wynne Jones -- which is why I probably purchased it in the first place. It's one of the charming Puffin Classics editions packaged for children. (Ithink it was a buy one, get one special at Barnes & Noble.)

So, if you were wondering about the plot, it is exactly as the title states. After finding an ancient code tucked in an old book, Young Axel and his eccentric scientist uncle, Otto Liedenbrock, leave their comfortable home in Hamburg and attempt to explore the center of the world, via a volcano in Iceland. Axel nervously agrees to the crazy scheme, believing there's no way they will actually get that far.

But clearly, they do, and make astonishing discoveries along the way, with the help of an Icelandic guide named Hans. The first quarter of the book are pretty standard let's-go-on-a-trip with all the preparations, sea voyage, and encounters with a different culture. But eventually, they make their descent through an dormant volcano, Sneffels, (better known in Iceland as Snaeffelsjokull).

The actual Snaeffelsjokull in Iceland.

Things get pretty interesting after they descend into the a series of underground caverns, with dangers and discoveries and miraculous escapes (of course). Suffice to say it's all slightly ridiculous to the modern reader, but for its time, it must have been pretty fantastic. I'm not sure how this version compares to others (this one was translated in 1965 by Robert Baldick) but it was a quick, easy read. I do know that a lot of the translations in English made a lot of abridgments -- one audio version actually changes the names of the characters completely! But I mostly liked it, though in retrospect, the characters weren't very practical about planning and packing for the journey, and there's one part that's sort of racist which I found a little annoying. There's also a lot of geology and such that I will admit I mostly skimmed.

A couple of years ago I tried listening to an audiobook of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but I eventually gave up on it -- after awhile I got bored and I remember it just seemed like a lot of lists of undersea flora and fauna. I did get a bit of that in Journey to the Centre of the Earth as well -- I know Verne did a lot of research and I can only guess that he wanted to pack everything in.  I'm afraid I did tend to skim over a lot of the scientific details of this book, especially the parts about calculating depth and suchlike. However, it has inspired me to consider visiting the Natural Bridge Caverns, which are just a short drive away.

Underground lake in Natural Bridge Caverns.

I had originally intended to count this as my Classic Science Fiction choice for the Back to the Classics Challenge, but I don't know that I'd necessarily call it sci-fi -- though one could call it that because of the speculative nature of their discoveries, I'm really more inclined to count it as my Adventure Classic -- really, most of the book is taken up with exploration and discoveries (though if someone else wants to count this as their Science Fiction Classic, that's fine with me).

Reading England Challenge 2016

Once again, I'm signing up for the Reading England 2016 Challenge, hosted by o of Behold the Stars. The challenge is to read a certain number of books set in different British counties throughout the years. I have no shortage of British books on my TBR shelves; the challenge for me will be to spread them out throughout the different counties. It can be a little tricky because some books are set in multiple counties, and county names and borders have changed over the years.

I'm signing up for Level 3, 7-12 counties. I finished books from seven different counties so far in 2015 so I think I can achieve that number next year as well. Here are the possible reads I've been able to match with particular counties:

Berkshire: Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

Buckinghamshire: Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson

Cambridgeshire: Maurice by E. M. Forster

Cornwall: Basil by Wilkie Collins
Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier

Cumbria: Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransom

Dorset: Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy
Thank You, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse

Gloucestershire: The Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse

Hertfordshire: Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy Sayers

Kent: The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Darling Buds of May by H. E. Bates
The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
The History of Mr. Polly by H. G. Wells

Lincolnshire: The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

London: New Grub Street by George Gissing
A Dance to the Music of Time (First Movement) by Anthony Powell

Norfolk: Armadale by Wilkie Collins

Northamptonshire: Mistress Masham's Repose by T. H. White

Oxfordshire: Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley

Somerset: Every Eye by Isobel English
Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer
The Belton Estate by Anthony Trollope

Aunts Aren't Gentlemen by P. G. Wodehouse

Staffordshire: Adam Bede by George Eliot

Surrey: The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

Sussex: Mapp and Lucia by E. F. Benson

The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer

The Talisman Ring by Georgette Heyer

The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells

That turned out to be quite a list! There's no way I'll get through all of these but it was fun to search through Wikipedia (if you're interested, just search for "novels set in England by county.")

Anyone else signing up for the Reading England Challenge? What other challenges are you signing up for next year?

Back to the Classics Challenge 2016

It's back! Once again, I'm hosting the Back to the Classics Challenge.  I hope to encourage bloggers to discover and enjoy classic books they might not have tried, or just never got around to reading. And at the end, one lucky winner will receive a $30 prize from Amazon.com or The Book Depository!

Here's how it works:

The challenge will be exactly the same as last year, 12 classic books, but with slightly different categories. You do not have to read 12 books to participate in this challenge!

• Complete six categories, and you get one entry in the drawing
• Complete nine categories, and you get two entries in the drawing
• Complete all twelve categories, and you get three entries in the drawing

And here are the categories for the 2016 Back to the Classics Challenge:

1.  A 19th Century Classic - any book published between 1800 and 1899.

2.  A 20th Century Classic - any book published between 1900 and 1966. Just like last year, all books MUST have been published at least 50 years ago to qualify. The only exception is books written at least 50 years ago, but published later.

3.  A classic by a woman author. 

4.  A classic in translation.  Any book originally written published in a language other than your native language. Feel free to read the book in your language or the original language.

5.  A classic by a non-white author. Can be African-American, Asian, Latino, Native American, etc.

6.  An adventure classic - can be fiction or non-fiction. Children's classics like Treasure Island are acceptable in this category. 

7.  A fantasy, science fiction, or dystopian classic. Dystopian could include classics like 1984, and children's classics like The Hobbit are acceptable in this category also. 

8.  A classic detective novel. It must include a detective, amateur or professional. This list of books from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction is a great starting point if you're looking for ideas.

9.  A classic which includes the name of a place in the title.  It can be the name of a house, a town, a street, etc. Examples include Bleak House, Main Street, The Belly of Paris, or The Vicar of Wakefield.

10. A classic which has been banned or censored. If possible, please mention why this book was banned or censored in your review.

11. Re-read a classic you read for school (high school or college).  Re-visit a book you were assigned to read! If it's a book you loved, does it stand the test of time?  If it's a book you disliked, is it any better a second time around?

12. A volume of classic short stories. This must be one complete volume, at least 8 short stories. It can be an anthology of stories by different authors, or all the stories can be by a single author. Children's stories are acceptable in this category also.

And now, the rest of the rules:

• All books must be read in 2016. Books started before January 1, 2016 do not qualify. All reviews must be linked to this challenge by December 31, 2016. I'll post links each category the first week of January which will be featured on a sidebar on this blog for the entire year. 

• You must also post a wrap-up review and link it to the challenge no later than December 31, 2016. Please include links within your final wrap-up to that I can easily confirm all your categories. 

• All books must have been written at least 50 years ago; therefore, books must have been written by1966 to qualify for this challenge. The ONLY exceptions are books published posthumously.

• E-books and audiobooks are eligible! You may also count books that you read for other challenges.

• Books may NOT crossover within this challenge. You must read a different book for EACH category, or it doesn't count.

• Updated: Children's classics are acceptable, but please, no more than 3 total for the challenge.

• If you do not have a blog, you may link to reviews on Goodreads or any other publicly accessible online format. 

• The deadline to sign up for the challenge is March 1, 2016. After that I will close the link and you'll have to wait until the next year! Please include a link to your original sign-up post, not your blog URL. 

• You do NOT have to list all the books you're going to read for the challenge in your sign-up post, but it's more fun if you do! Of course, you can change your list any time. Books may also be read in any order. 

• The winner will be announced on this blog the first week of January, 2017. All qualifying participants will receive one or more entries, depending on the number of categories completed. One winner will be selected at random for all qualifying entries. The winner will receive a gift certificate in the amount of $30 (US currency) from either Amazon.com OR $30 worth of books from The Book Depository. The winner MUST live in a country that will receive shipments from one or the other. For a list of countries that receive shipments from The Book Depository, click here. 

So what are you waiting for? Sign up at the linky below! I'll be posting my list of possible reads for 2016 in the next couple of days. Happy reading!

Updated: The sign-ups are now closed. Check back at the end of the year to sign up for next year's Back to the Classics Challenge!