The Outsider - Albert Camus

A quickie but a goodie, The Outsider (aka The Stranger) is a massively influential book for men of a certain semi-intellectual, atheistic bent. I would classify myself in that group, I suppose, but I'm probably too old to be much changed by this tale of alienation from society. Catcher in the Rye was my youthful rebellion novel, and I still think of hypocrites as "phonies".

2 points of trivia:

1) My second book this month to have inspired an indie-pop classic
2) Dubya's choice of reading material this summer. I wonder how he felt about the depiction of colonialists murdering arabs for no discernible reason?

Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

Cold Comfort Farm is another classic English comedy, and a thoroughly enjoyable one at that. The plotting is clever, the characters are likeable, and the surprisingly romantic ending worked for me. There are some good running gags too, which had me sniggering.

Incidentally, this was clearly an influence on the peerless Round The Horne, what with the combination of suave urbanity and rural eccentricity. And wasn’t J.Peasemold Gruntfuttock a member of the Quivering Brethren? Where his wife sat on his right hand.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Philip K. Dick

When I started reading this, I couldn't get the film out of my head, despite some radical differences (Deckard has a wife?). Gradually, though, the mindbending Dick stuff that doesn't exist in the movie sucked me in and I thoroughly enjoyed it in its own right. Unusually, it's a fine book that was adapted into a superb film.

The Essential Calvin and Hobbes – Bill Watterson

M introduced me to these lovable 4-frame cartoons back when we were a-courting, and our little girl’s favourite toy is a tiger that we have named Hobbes, so I was delighted when she picked this collection up dirt cheap.

The central conceit of a toy that is alive only in the mind of the hyper-imaginative boy is a brilliant one, and Watterson (who is not a father) seems to have real insight into children and their parents.

Incidentally, I don’t think C&H are very well-known in the UK. If you’re baffled, then look here.

A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

This is one of those books where everything is subservient to the utterly dominant central character. Ignatius J Reilly is a Quixote meets Falstaff figure, a bellowing, farting mountain of a man convinced against all the evidence of his own genius. As he roars around 1960s New Orleans meeting other oddballs, I couldn’t help willing him to succeed despite his destructive, duplicitous and all-round obnoxious behaviour.

Contains the line, “Open your heart, Ignatius, and your valve will follow”.

The Time Machine - H.G.Wells

This was my first Wells, oddly enough, and it was a good yarn and surprisingly contemporary in its concerns, if not its language. I particularly enjoyed the fact that the fantastical and futuristic adventures took place in "the exuberant richness (of) the Thames valley". Not Bluewater, then.

Vathek – William Beckford

I had thought this was going to be another classic gothic novel but in fact it’s more of an exotic Faust/Paradise Lost tale. Once I had got over this disappointment, I got a quick if average read about the fall of an over-ambitious Caliph. There was one funny moment towards the end when, with a trail of gruesome slaughter and untrammelled decadence in his wake, the Caliph understates “I am not over-fond of resisting temptation”.

Disgrace – J.M.Coetzee

I really rated this highly, although that isn’t too surprising; it won the Booker in 1999. It reminded me a fair bit of latter-day Ian McEwan with an added layer of South African politics.

The theme seemed to me to be those things that divide us – age, race, gender, wealth – and the futility of trying to overcome them. A glum subject, but the writing is so brilliant that it’s no chore to read.

Venus in Furs - Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

I've never tried any Victorian erotica before, and I'm not sure I'll be rushing out for more. If you're not sure what it's about, the clue is in the author's last name. The whole thing is laden with an essential silliness and some of the least convincing dialogue I've ever read.

At least I now know what "Severin, Severin awaits you there" means.

Kate's review is here.

Mapp and Lucia - E.F.Benson

I always enjoy an old-fashioned English comedy, and whilst not in the very top rank (Wodehouse, Grossmith, Jerome) this was lots of fun. I particularly enjoyed the unlikely finale, involving a floating dining table and a sought-after lobster recipe.

Wodehouse did keep coming to mind, and the comparison was instructive. Wooster gets to hog the narrative voice which makes him much more sympathetic than the competing heroines of this tale. The effect is to make this feel more satirical rather than collusive, which politically should be more appealing to me but somehow doesn't quite achieve the same comic brilliance.

Thanks to Liz for the recco.

Asterix the Gaul - Goscinny and Uderzo

This hardly counts as it takes barely half an hour to read, but I enjoyed revisiting all the old characters and gags that I loved as a teenager. It still amazes me that so much pun-based humour survives in what must be a pretty free translation. I still don’t get the Latin jokes though - they're probably hilarious.

Day of the Locust – Nathaniel West

This bleak novel reads like an earlier version of Play It As It Lays, both satirical visions of the empty Californian lifestyle. It’s pretty good, and has two outstanding sequences – a bloody cockfight and the climactic, turbulent crowd scene.

A major character is called Homer Simpson, no relation.

Leviticus

Exhibit B in the “not even the bashers take the Bible literally” stakes (shoo-in as exhibit A is Deuteronomy and I’ll get there soon). If this was still applied, churches would be constantly splattered with sacrificial animal blood, no dwarfs would be allowed in the church, and Christians would be kosher.

Partial list of non-kosher foods from Leviticus 11: coney, ossifrage, cormorant, bat, ferret, mole

Lady Sings The Blues – Billie Holiday with William Duffy

"Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen, and I was three."

From this famous, brilliant and untrue opening line, the story of my favourite female singer begins as it goes on. That is to say that I really enjoyed the book but that I didn’t quite trust the authorial voice (Holiday dictating, Duffy transcribing and organising). Even if the tales here are only half-true, though, then she deserves our admiration for surviving unbelievable hardships, yet alone emerging with her dignity and leaving us those beautiful, other-worldly recordings.

p.s. From Wikipedia: “The Black-Eyed Peas recorded a tribute to Billie Holiday for a Coca-Cola commercial” – How much wronger could you get? The answer is none. None more wrong.

Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys

This prequel to Jane Eyre is regarded as a bit of a classic, but I'm afraid I was merely impressed rather than blown away. The character of the first Mrs Rochester is well-imagined and the sense of place is expertly established, but the ending (which overlaps with JE) seems a little rushed. Perhaps - and I never say this about books - it was too short?

p.s. If you're reading this, perhaps you'll enjoy a similar blog from the lovely Kate.

1919 - John Dos Passos

Here's what I had to say about The 42nd Parallel, the first book in the U.S.A. trilogy when I did my Top 100 Novels project:

Now, this is what I'm doing the top 100 thing for. A book I've never heard of, but it blew me away as a kind of American version of Ulysses. A hugely ambitious panorama of early twentieth century America. I've only read volume one of the trilogy, but I'll read the rest soon.

1919 is part 2, and I'm still keen but maybe not so blown away as I was by part one - unsurprisingly, I suppose. I'll get round to part 3 at some stage.