The First Of Many: The Times' Books of the Decade

Oh dear, we are going to be inundated with "The Best XYZ of This Decade!" lists, aren't we? One of the first Best Books of the Decade list comes from the Times (thank you, kimfobo) and is an eclectic mix of high- and low-culture, fiction and non-fiction, and Anglophone and translated works. I am not quite sure what the editorial guidelines were - maybe "try to include stuff people have heard of"? Anyway, allow me a moment of indulgence as I track the ones I have read:

• 97: The Brief, Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. I posted about this book earlier this year. Generally favourable towards it, still.
• 66: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. It is not my favourite Mitchell novel (which is either yet to be written or Ghostwritten, depending upon my mood) but CA is great. Still cannot believe anything this clever ended up as a serious contender for the Booker Prize (miaow).
• 62: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. I still have not made up my mind regarding Sarah Waters as a serious novelist, but her Victorian novels are very entertaining.
• 61: The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst. Or, That Gay Novel Wot Won The Booker. I said it then and I'll say it now: Hollinghurst writes exquisite English and his sentences are ever so beautiful, but he still needs to find the right plot for his style. I will read Hollinghurst just for the way he uses the language.
• 46: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. Maybe I should try this one again because I didn't get the hype surrounding it.
• 30: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Okay, I read this one for work, mkay? Sentimental drivel of the worst order with incredibly implausible plot points. Mawkish and horrid. No, I didn't like it and I don't care if this book changed your life, omg.
• 29: The Accidental by Ali Smith. This one really got book people talking but I left my copy at Aberdeen Bus Station on purpose as it left me absolutely cold.
• 25: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon. For some people this book was a revelation (you know who you are). I couldn't connect with it (which is rather apt for a book about autism, I guess).
• 22: The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman. This is a bit like Marmite, I suppose. Some people love this book; others could not get into it all. For the record, this is one of the few books that reduce me to tears every time I read it. Go on and mock me.
• 19: The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. Or, Yet Another MAJOR North-American Novel That Karie Just Couldn't Get Into At All.
• 17: Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling. My favourite is still the Prisoner of Azkaban, but Deathly Hallows did make a Saturday at work pass that much more quickly. I actually cannot recall the plot.
• 12: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. Dear The Times, Eggers has become an incredibly influential publisher and he does very wonderful things with the-book-as-object, but we can surely agree that he should never ever be allowed to write another book. AHWOSG is one of the worst books I have ever read in my entire life - and I have read quite a few.
• 10: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. When compared to Eggers' novel, The Da Vinci Code comes across as an astounding piece of literature with a keen eye for detail, a witty turn of phrase and an intricate plot. When compared to standard literature, Brown's novel is an overblown piece of ludicrous prose, flat characterisation, ridiculous plotlines and simplistic thinking. I read it for work and got exactly what I thought I'd get: an airport novel which earns brownie points for not having a picture of Tom Hanks in an awful wig on the cover.
• 9: Atonement by Ian McEwan. I get the feeling that I would not get on with whoever edited this list because this book is yet another one of my literary pet hates.
• 2: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Is this chosen for its literary qualities or because of its cultural significance (i.e. "omg, the Iranians are people too!"). I enjoyed reading this but I wouldn't put it second on such a list.
• 1: The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I described this novel as "superb" and it continues to nudge me ever so often. Exquisite sparse prose and incredibly moving, I have no qualms about this being called "the book of a decade".

Croak, Croak

Health update: I think I'll be okay as long as I a) do not talk, b) do not laugh and c) keep drinking rum toddies. It is a slightly flawed plan, so I have stocked up on Halls Soothers. We are also on our third day of curly kale soup - it is my first time cooking this soup which was one of my great-grandmother's special dishes and I'm happy with the result although I'm going to tweak my recipe a tiny bit to make it a bit more like my nan's - and hopefully all those fresh veg will also make a difference. Knitting update: I have stalled on the first sleeve of Dave's pullover and am seven rows away from finishing my shawl's Chart B. Onwards, ever onwards. I am still pondering NaKnitSweMoDo (interNational Knit a Sweater a Month Dodecathon) for next year although both my knitting group and my beloved claim I will grow bored and whiny. We shall see. It depends upon the stash.

General update in the form of one link: These literary clutch bags make my heart go all a-flutter although I am most definitely not a clutch bag girl. They combine so many of my loves: books, paratextuality, craft, things handmade and geekdom. Be still my heart.

Also, I'm getting a bit nostalgic about the noughties almost being done and dusted, so expect wallowing entries in the near future.

Thirty-Love

I have a very soft spot in my heart for tennis. Yes, tennis. It was one of the few sports I was ever good at in school and in the early 1990s I watched tennis broadcasts almost religiously. My favourite time of year is still Wimbledon time. My favourite player was a tall Croat, Goran Ivanisevic, who was maddeningly unpredictable: on good days, his tennis was stunning; on bad days, his games were like watching a car crash in slow motion. You never knew what kind of a day it would be. Ivanisevic wound up winning Wimbledon, but characteristically he didn't do so until he was well past his prime and only admitted to the tournament on a wild card.

Andre Agassi belongs to the same tennis generation as Ivanisevic, but although Agassi was a wildly popular player at the time, I never took to his game. Without going into too much technical detail, Agassi played a defensive game from the baseline relying upon serve returns and solid ground strokes (on today's circuit Scots Andy Murray plays a very similar game). He was technically brilliant, absolutely, and he had a colourful personality, but his game lacked the fireworks of players far more on the offensive (Ivanisevic, Pat Rafter, Pete Sampras, and, later, Andy Roddick).

Coloured me surprised, then, that Andre Agassi's autobiography turns out to be filled with offensive gameplay, if you will pardon the pun.

At the age of 12, Andre traveled to Australia with a team of elite young players. For each tournament he won, he got a beer as a reward. Then in the seventh grade he was shipped off to the Bollettieri Academy in Florida, where his tennis flourished, but his life turned feral. Drinking hard liquor and smoking dope, he wore an earring, eyeliner and a Mohawk. Nobody objected as long as he won matches. The academy, in Agassi's words, was "Lord of the Flies with forehands." Since the press and the tennis community still regard Nick Bollettieri as a seer and an innovator whose academy spawned dozens of similar training facilities, Agassi's critical opinion of him may shock the ill-informed. But in fact, Bollettieri is the paradigmatic tennis coach: that is, a man of no particular aptitude or experience and no training at all to deal with children.

Fascinating stuff which really appeals to my inner seventeen year-old girl who knew there was something sketchy about Agassi. Of course I'm unlikely to ever read Agassi's book (my inner seventeen year-old is torn, though) as I'm now thirty-something .. a fact that was brought home to me yesterday when I was watching the UK Top 40 and I knew exactly two songs..

Boredom Sets In

A brief link today pilfered from elsewhere: Hey, Oscar Wilde!.  It is "a personal art collection of various artists interpreting their favourite literary figure/author/character". I really like this Winnie the Pooh. Health update: I managed to get dressed and head outside today. Okay, I went across the road to the local supermarket and I went straight back to bed afterwards, but it's progress!

Speaking of progress, I finished the yoke on David's sweater tonight. He tried it on and we quickly agreed that the textured design on the yoke didn't work. I ripped back the 40-ish rows and I'm back to the drawing board. I know some might complain, but I'm fine with it. after all, I'd rather have him liking the finished sweater than me finishing something quickly which will never get worn. My shawl is also progressing well (and the list of unlistened-to podcasts is dwindling fast)..

.. I just want to get better really, really soon. If you think my blog posts are dull, imagine how I feel.

The Reading Survey

15. What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read? This is being written whilst I’m gritting my teeth: Ben Marcus’ The Age of Wire and String. It’s a very, very short novel. I spent a month reading it. Then Stupid Boyfriend said: “Oh. Did you try to make sense of it? I didn’t. I just read it for the beautiful words.”

&/#”/! The book was excellent, actually, and said really interesting things about ritual language and how language acquires meaning. I am never going to read it again.

That question/answer and thirty-one others can be found at The Reading Survey which I have posted as a static page as it is too long to post here.

Thank you for all your well-wishing. I am still under the weather and have developed a nasty cough. This means I'll miss out on tonight's Guy Fawkes events but there will be others.

Also, in case you have not read it, this little post by Ysolda Teague summed up everything I wanted to say today (and it reminded me that I need to make a batch of Apple Butter as Casa Bookish's usual supply from the St. Alban Church Fete has finally run low after I have been unable to attend/stock up for several years).

Deja Vu

YouTube Comment or E.E.Cummings? One of the funniest 20th century poetry/21st Century internet crossovers I have seen today. Not that I have seen that many, of course. After a few weeks of awe-inspiring knitting productivity, my busy fingers have become almost idle. I cast on, knit maybe twenty rows, decide the project doesn't thrill me and I rip it all out. Lather, rinse, repeat. Possibly it is the continuous failure of Topstykke that haunts me. The pattern is great, of course, but I keep messing up:

1. I cast on too few stitches and tried to remedy this whilst on a fast moving bus to Aberdeenshire filled with shouty Russian students.
2. I cast on the correct number of stitches but lost my stitch markers somewhere between a sofa and the kitchen table (a 3 year old nephew might have been involved).
3. I cast on correct number of stitches, got all of the set-up row right and blissfully knitted on until I realised that I was knitting a size up from what I'm supposed to knit.
4. I cast on correct number of stitches, got all of the set-up row right and blissfully knitted on until I realised I had twisted my cast-on and I was knitting a moebius-shaped top which will be impossible to wear (in this dimension, at least).

So I think it is time to let Topstykke rest for a few weeks whilst I get other things done. David's sweater is a top priority (he won the Halloween costume competition, by the way) and I want to have another lace shawl on my needles (Aeolian, I'm looking at you). I just hope that I can stick with those two projects and not rip them out after twenty rows.

Shockingly enough I have begun reading again and am currently one-third through Iain Banks' Transition. Banks strides the literary and speculative fiction divide, but cunningly uses a middle initial "M" to differentiate between the two genres. Interestingly, "Transition" is being marketed in the UK without the "M" (i.e. it is not speculative fiction, you fools!) whereas the US market gets courted with the "M" (hey, it's speculative fiction!). My favourite Banks novel, The Bridge, is a non-M novel but is more speculative than many genre novels. It's all about marketing, isn't it? So far I'm enjoying the novel, in case you were wondering..