It’s very strange to look back over this blog. I’m like: who is this person who wrote this blog? She seems to have a lot of energy and a lot of free time. Also, she has a lot of funny things to say. I guess we each have our own sense of humour, so it makes sense that reading what I wrote, I often think: that’s exactly what I would have said! What is really disconcerting is to read a blog post about a book I have entirely forgotten. It’s like time travel to a former self, and offers the rare opportunity to look at myself at a strange kind of remove.
Other books I remember well, and reading the blog takes me back not just to the book, but to where I was when I read it. SOMETHING IN THE WATER, I’m sick in a hotel room in Napa. GRANT I’m on the beach in Mauritius. NORMAL PEOPLE it’s the sofa of my living room in the middle of the night If I ever re-read this post, let my future self note: it’s a hotel room in Wisconsin at 4am.
Best of the blog: CONVERSATIONSWITH FRIENDS by Sheila Rooney, a story of love and friendship I’ve read three times this year already; EARLY WORK by Andrew Marr (just getting in under the bar as I read it in December), which is a hilarious tale of infidelity and procrastination;LESS by Andrew Sean Greer (give him another Pulitzer); and MEMOIRS OF ANINFANTRY OFFICER by Siegfried Sassoon, a memoir of the First World War it is not one’s business to like or dislike but just to respect.
2019 will the ten year anniversary of this blog, and I’m toying with the idea of re-reading all ten years and 500+ books that went into them. I’m not sure I have the energy – or the courage. If I’m surprised by who I was this year, what will it be like to meet that stranger who started this blog in 2010 in a tree house hotel in Kenya?
FAMILY LEXICON by Natalia Ginzburg
BARACOON by Zora Neale Hurston
COUNTRY DARK by Chris Offutt
FRIDAY’S CHILD by Georgette Heyer
THE DEATH OF REX NHONGO by CB George
THE MAKIOKA SISTERS by Junichiro Tanizaki
THE LESSER BOHEMIANS by Eimear McBride
EDUCATED by Tara Westover
EARLY WORK by Andrew Marr
COTILLION by Georgette Heyer
LOLLY WILLOWES by Sylvia Townsend Warner
WAYS OF ESCAPE by Graham Greene
THE END by Karl Ove Knausgaard
CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS by Sally Rooney
THE WINTER SOLDIER by Daniel Mason
CIVIL CONTRACT by Georgette Heyer
WAR WITH THE NEWTS by Karel Capek
THE KINGDOM by Emmanuel Carrere
SYLVESTER by Georgette Heyer
REGENCY BUCK by Georgette Heyer
NORMAL PEOPLE by Sally Rooney
EMPIRE FALLS by Richard Russo
A SORT OF LIFE by Graham Greene
STANDARD DEVIATION by Katherine Heiny
GOODBYE VITAMIN by Rachel Khong
TALENTED MR RIPLEY by Patricia Highsmith
LESS by Andrew Sean Greer
A SPORT AND A PASTIME by James Salter
HOW TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
NEWLYWEDS by Nell Freudenberger
THE AWAKENING by Kate Chopin
ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN by Mark Twain
SOMETHING IN THE WATER by Catherine Steadman
THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO by Alfred Russel Wallace
GRANT by Ron Chernow
THE PATRIOTS by Sana Krasikov
LIKE SODIUM IN WATER by Hayden Eastwood
FROST IN MAY by Antonia WhiteA WHOLE LIFE by Robert Seethaler
MEMOIRS OF AN INFANTRY OFFICER by Siegfried Sassoon
CHERRY by Mary Karr
TIES by Domenico Starnone
THE ADVERSARY by Emmanuel Carrere
IS EVERYONE HANGING OUT WITHOUT ME (AND OTHER CONCERNS) by Mindy Kaling
MEMOIRS OF A FOX-HUNTING MAN by Siegfried Sassoon
THE HISTORY OF PENDENNIS by William Makepeace Thackeray
HOW SHOULD A PERSON BE? by Sheila Heti
CONVERSATIONS WITH FRIENDS by Sally Rooney
SEALED by Naomi Booth