Doing sums

© C A Lovegrove

At the start of August I outlined my bookish plans for that month which, even at the time, seemed quite ambitious. How did I do, I hear you all cry. (Not.) Here’s a quick update, my original schedule now annotated in green (for those seeing text in colour.)

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

In my imagination August is always associated with books. It may be that, unless memory plays me false, I spent most school summer holidays cosied up with a classic novel; or that the relatively recent promulgation of August 9th as Book Lovers Day merely cements a traditional association.

I may also have Cathy Brown’s increasingly popular meme 20 Books of Summer (or 15, or 10) to blame. But whatever the cause, today may be a good time to take stock.

746books.com

I opted to officially read 10 named books this summer. So far I’ve completed The Lord of the Rings for the umpteenth time, Aldous Huxley’s so-so The Genius and the Goddess, Muriel Jaeger’s dytopian The Question Mark and Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess from my list. I’m also simultaneously pottering through works by Nikolai Gogol, Mervyn Peake and whatever catches my attention, though I’m aware that my attention span currently compares unfavourably with a goldfish or a gnat.

Well, here I failed miserably. Of my 10 Books I read a few more pages of Gormenghast … and that’s it. 4/10.

So that hasn’t stopped me reading or dipping into other books since the beginning of June: novels by Edith Nesbit, C S Lewis, Patricia Highsmith, Muriel Spark, Penelope Fitzgerald and Georges Simenon have all featured, and been reviewed.

Austen in August

The Austen in August meme also runs throughout this month. Since I’ve read all her mainstream novels I thought I might try Catharine, or The Bower from her substantial juvenilia, begun in the early 1790s when she was around seventeen. This might be initially preferable to me trying her later incomplete fiction, namely Sanditon* and The Watsons.

Success! I did indeed read about Kitty and her bower and posted a review, and also quickly skimmed through A Brief Guide to Jane Austen which I read and reviewed nearly a decade ago.

Robertson Davies

The Canadian author Robertson Davies was born on 28th August and, following a meme once run by Lory Hess which had us reading his work in the week leading to his birthday, I shall be tackling the third title in his Salterton trilogy, A Mixture of Frailties.

I also read and very much enjoyed the Robertson Davies novel, going as far as posting a review on the anniversary of his birth in 1913.

Mevagissey in the 1960s

Finally – for now, at least – I’ve determined to follow Annabel Gaskell in reading the complete series of Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising sequence, using the #TDiRS22 tag. Though I’ve read and reviewed the first three novels, I’ve yet to tackle the last two which are set in Wales. A quick reread of the first title, Over Sea, Under Stone, will prove an ideal holiday book, set as it is in a fictional Cornish fishing village during the summer holidays.

#TDiRS22 @ annabookbel.net

And what better than kidlit reads to while away the weeks ahead?

And this too was read before the end of the month, and a delightful revisit to Trewissick it proved too! So, as well as Austen, Cooper and Davies I also read Luis Fernando Verissimo‘s Borges and the Eternal Orang-Utans and Wynne Jeudwine‘s Stage Design.

I then asked, What do you choose for summer holiday reading? Light fiction? Blockbusters? Classics? Or do you continue with your usual plans? and you kindly responded in the comments. I do hope you managed to achieve some of what you planned!

Barbican Children’s Library author map. It’s been criticised for its lack of diversity (and the inclusion of a couple of questionable authors) so let’s hope this map will be updated or expanded soon since it’s a lovely concept

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* Our son was one of the key grips on the second series of Sanditon, an adaptation and continuation of Austen’s incomplete novel.