Reading Challenge 2015

Having started reading for pleasure again in 2014 after much too long a gap, I decided to take on this reading challenge in 2015, in order to expand my literary horizons a little. I am pleased to say that I have successfully completed the challenge, and although it is likely to be of little interest to anyone, I have written out some of my thoughts about the books that I have read this year.

Title: Dead Air
Author: Iain Banks
Year published: 2002
Date finished: 9th January
Criteria fulfilled: A book from an author you love that you haven’t read yet; a book with a love triangle
Comments: In 2014 I read 10 Iain Banks novels, and decided to kick off 2015 with one of the remaining five (if you don’t include his science fiction novels, written under a clever pseudonym). I enjoyed Dead Air, but probably shouldn’t have started reading it on a plane, given that the first few chapters concern the World Trade Centre attacks. The story is about Ken Nott, a Scottish shock jock living in London, which is a useful framing device for Banks to go off on several of his thinly disguised and rather delicious social justice rants. Nott is involved with a married woman, and finds himself a target for various people after he goes off on one of said rants on the radio. The plot is not one of Banks’s most complex or compelling, but it’s still a good read, and provides quite a lot of insight into the man and his world view.

Title: Gone Girl
Author: Gillian Flynn
Year published: 2012
Date finished: 15th January
Criteria fulfilled: A book that became a movie; a book by a female author
Comments: After three viewings of the excellent film, I thought I’d squeeze in a reading of the book on which it was based before the fourth. I only had a few days in which to do so, however, which meant I had to pay full price for the book in order to start as ASAP as possible, but I am willing to make the occasional sacrifice. I think I would have got more out of the book had I read it first, and it was hard not to see Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike as I read, but it was interesting to read the book when I already knew the film so well. (For instance, Flynn worked the ‘bleed and clean, clean and bleed’ line into her screenplay in a completely different context, which was almost as meta as the name of the bar.) I know I’m a couple of years behind everyone else, but this is a well-written and deftly woven book, and well worth reading if you like that sort of thing.

Title: For Whom The Bell Tolls
Author: Ernest Hemingway
Year published: 1941
Date finished: 12th February
Criteria fulfilled: A book by an author you’ve never read before; a book you own but have never read
Comments: I am quite conflicted in my feelings for this book. It took me a month to read it because I just couldn’t get into it properly, despite a strong interest in the subject matter (the Spanish Civil War). Hemingway writes in a style that is at times irritating, and at other times quite pleasant to read. Long chunks of the book (by which I mean several pages at a time) are devoted to monologues reporting events to other characters, which I found equally annoying and dull. The plot is minimal, and the few events that do occur seemed very repetitive. When I finished the book, I decided I would never read Hemingway again. I have since softened my position, and would be willing to give him another go, but am in no great hurry.

Title: American Psycho
Author: Bret Easton Ellis
Year published: 1991
Date finished: 3rd March
Criteria fulfilled: A book written by someone under 30; a book set somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit; a banned book
Comments: I’ve been there once, but New York is the only place I can remember always really wanting to visit, and I’d love to go back, so this totally fits. Ellis wrote this book as a response to the vapid world of the preposterously wealthy and idle of which he found himself a reluctant part after the success of his first two novels. Patrick Bateman works on Wall Street, where he earns more in an hour than I could count in a day, and in his spare time (of which he seems to have plenty) he goes about murdering people. He spends enormous amounts of money on dinners, videotapes (a rudimentary version of Netflix), drinks, drugs, taxis, and clothes, of which he has knowledge almost as terrifying as his habit of slaughtering people. My favourite thing about the book is that, in the midst of these harrowing tales of torture, there is the occasional chapter dedicated to Bateman’s detailed thoughts on an album or artist. It’s rather a chilling read, but in places very amusing and comes from a very interesting point of view. I can see easily why it was banned, but not how it was written by a 27-year-old.

Title: Slaughterhouse-Five
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Year published: 1969
Date finished: 9th March
Criteria fulfilled: A book with a number in the title; a book a friend recommended
Comments: This was one of my favourite books of the year, and it was recommended to me by my good friend Simon, who works in a bookshop and gets me books nice and cheap. Vonnegut was an author I had been meaning to read for a while, but hadn’t got round to yet, so I chose this book with a number in the title. My only complaint is that it was very short; I have since bought two more of his books, but have not yet read them as I was unable to fit them into the other categories. I laughed out loud on several buses and trams as I read this very silly story that makes an important point about how we perceive things.

Title: The Casual Vacancy
Author: J. K. Rowling
Year published: 2012
Date finished: 18 March
Criteria fulfilled: A book with more than 500 pages; a book with bad reviews; a book based on or turned into a TV show
Comments: It’s become really trendy to look down on J. K. Rowling now, which is pretty ungrateful considering that she lit up all of our childhoods. I remember reading a couple of bad reviews about this book when it came out (including this relentless capitalist manifesto masquerading as journalism from the Daily Mail), but not the book itself as I was too busy reading On The Road, my least favourite book in the history of books. Having finally read The Casual Vacancy, slightly concerned that I might not find as intricate and compelling a tale as I have come to expect from its author, I am very glad I got round to it in the end. Rowling remains an extraordinary writer, capable of conveying a character in fewer words than any of her contemporaries, and if you want to deprive yourself of the joy of reading her books because you don’t like her politics, then you go right ahead. That’ll show her. You and the Daily Mail have really stuck it to uppity socialists everywhere.

Title: In The All-Night Café
Author: Stuart David
Year published: 2015
Date finished: 22 March
Criteria fulfilled: A book published this year; a memoir
Comments: This is the delightful story of how Belle & Sebastian formed and recorded their first album, Tigermilk, from the point of view of original bassist Stuart David. It is likely to be of little interest to you if you are not a fan of the band, but for me it was just lovely. David’s writing style is almost like a letter to a friend, and it was lots of fun reading the introduction of each ‘character’ and seeing how things all fit together during the first year of one of my favourite bands (and how one of my favourite albums was recorded in under a week for a college project). This is a book that I could read over and over again, and is very funny, very interesting, very sweet, and very Glaswegian.

Title: Glue
Author: Irvine Welsh
Year published: 2001
Date finished: 8 April
Criteria fulfilled: A book with a one-word title; a book that takes place in your hometown; a book you started but never finished
Comments: From one of my favourite cities to another, Irvine Welsh’s Glue tells the story of four Edinburgh friends growing up across four decades. I first started reading this book when I was 16 or 17, shortly after reading Trainspotting, after which I had planned to read its sequel, Porno, but I then learned that Porno also serves as a sequel to Glue, so I chose to read it first. I didn’t get far, though; I found it much less interesting than Trainspotting and, although I never officially decided I was giving up, after a while it was clear I wasn’t going back to it. The second time around, though, I quite enjoyed it. Glue doesn’t have the depth or the diversity of Trainspotting, but it has a lot of humour, a lot of heart, and a lot of depravity, all of which you would expect from an Irvine Welsh novel.

Title: All the President’s Men
Author: Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward
Year published: 1974
Date finished: 28 April
Criteria fulfilled: A book based on a true story
Comments: I bought this book when I was at university, and I really should have read it then, but in a shocking twist, I did not. All the President’s Men is presented in the style of a novel, written in the third person, which is odd given that the authors are also the protagonists; that said, it would have been strange to write it from the first person perspective, given that there are two of them. Of course, I had a broad idea of the story told within its pages, but I think the only way to get a sense of the scale of the Watergate investigation is to read this first-hand account. The whole affair, which led to the only ever resignation of a US President, depended on such an incredible number of coincidences and whims, that it is astonishing that it ever took place at all. Had Woodward not gone down to the courthouse the day after the break-in, out of curiosity more than suspicion, it is probable that Nixon would have got away with it all and had it away on his toes. Were it not for following the right tenuous leads, and being in the right place at the right time, on a number of occasions, the story might never have reached the front page. It is an incredible true story, and while at times the figures and meticulous records of conversations are a little dry, there can be no better telling of it than straight from the reporters who uncovered one of the biggest stories in US political history.

Title: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Author: Philip K. Dick
Year published: 1968
Date finished: 2 May
Criteria fulfilled: A book with nonhuman characters; a book set in the future
Comments: The book that served as the basis for Blade Runner, I was surprised to find, was not terribly similar to the plot of the film. Dick’s style reminded me of Vonnegut, mainly in terms of his directness and his dry humour. One of the main aspects of the bizarre future presented in the book, the ownership of false animals to trick and impress one’s neighbours, is rather silly, but somehow it doesn’t always feel that way. It’s a strange book, and not the kind that I would normally read, but I’m glad I did, which is the whole point of the challenge, of course.

Title: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Author: Stephen Chbosky
Year published: 1999
Date finished: 6 May
Criteria fulfilled: A book set in high school
Comments: This is another book I’ve had for a while, having bought it shortly after I enjoyed the 2012 film adaptation, but for whatever combination of reasons, it has remained unread since. I found more or less exactly what I was expecting: a charming story with dark undertones and a touch of ghoulish humour. It’s not a terribly clever book, but it’s an easy read and a nice wee story, and it does make an important point about how we perceive other people, and how much we can ever really know.

Title: When You Are Engulfed In Flames
Author: David Sedaris
Year published: 2008
Date finished: 17 May
Criteria fulfilled: A book based entirely on its cover
Comments: I had never heard of David Sedaris, and as my choice was based entirely on its cover (my favourite Van Gogh painting, Skull of a Skeleton With Burning Cigarette), I had no idea what to expect. I assumed it was a novel, but instead found a collection of essays by a man who is either incredibly conceited, or very witty and self-aware. I hope and think it is the latter; some of these stories border on the unbelievable, but there were plenty of laughs and some delightful wordplay. That’s all I need from a book, really.

Title: Divorcing Jack
Author: Colin Bateman
Year published: 1995
Date finished: 23 May
Criteria fulfilled: A popular author’s first book
Comments: This is the first book about Belfast journalist Dan Starkey, of which I read the seventh a few years ago without realising it was part of a series. After reading s standalone Bateman book last year, he reappeared on my radar, and I decided to start at the beginning (a very good place to start, I’m told). In many ways, it’s more believable than All the President’s Men, a story of political scandal, corruption, and some pretty serious threats. I think Bateman is definitely worth a look, if you haven’t read any of his stuff already; he’s funny, and he makes you want to keep reading, if you like that sort of thing. I quite like it.

Title: Pride and Prejudice
Author: Jane Austen
Year published: 1813
Date finished: 8 June
Criteria fulfilled: A classic romance; a book more than 100 years old
Comments: The only thing I really need to explain about this book is why I had never read it before, for which my only two excuses are that I’m not great at getting round to things, and I’m not a big fan of love stories. I don’t see either of those things changing in the near future, but I enjoyed this book and the snippets about historical customs I learned from it. I had a broad idea of the story and characters, of course, since it is so widely referenced and parodied, so as well as everything else, it was good to be able to put all of these things together into a better understanding of one of the most celebrated books of all time.

Title: The Motorcycle Diaries
Author: Che Guevara
Year published: 1993
Date finished: 20 June
Criteria fulfilled: A non-fiction book
Comments: Another book that has been sitting on my shelf for a few years, it seemed appropriate to read this shortly before my holiday to Cuba. I haven’t read a lot of translated books, so I was a little surprised at how well the English version flowed, and I enjoyed Che’s gentle humour throughout. While this was a good read, it provides insight into only a short part of Che’s life, so I will definitely need to read more by and about him for a better overview of the man.

Title: Anne of Green Gables
Author: Lucy Maud Montgomery
Year published: 1908
Date finished: 9 July
Criteria fulfilled: A book your mum loves; a book with a colour in the title
Comments: This is one of my Mum’s favourite books, and it was the first one I thought of when I saw this category, so it was the most obvious choice. I found myself reading a story that I wished I had read when I was younger, as my Mum had often advised me to do, marking yet another entry on a long list of things about which she was right. Like many books aimed at children, I think this one can quite easily be enjoyed by adults as well, and I certainly liked reading about Anne’s adventures in Avonlea, her assault on small-town life, and all the friends and enemies she made along the way.

Title: A Spy By Nature
Author: Charles Cumming
Year published: 2001
Date finished: 12 July
Criteria fulfilled: A book written by an author with your same initials
Comments: I held off on this one for a little while, having had my fill of spies from watching 25 James Bond films in a row, but the story is very different from any Bond film I’ve ever seen. I blasted my way through it in three days, finding it quite possible to put down but without ever really wanting to. There were parts that felt a little dry, going over protocol and reinforcing to the reader how everyone’s role relates to everyone else, but this was all important in setting the scene for a well-crafted intriguing spy story, with a realistic and unusually human protagonist.

Title: The State of the Art
Author: Iain M. Banks
Year published: 1991
Date finished: 24 July
Criteria fulfilled: A book of short stories
Comments: I had once glanced at one of Banks’s sci-fi novels to see if I thought it was for me, and concluded that it was probably not, but this book of short stories (set mostly in his Culture universe) seemed like a fairer test. I found a few of them too short to get into properly, but the titular novella that makes up around half of the book grabbed my attention quite firmly. I may well return to this world at some point, once I have exhausted Banks’s mainstream fiction, which should be any day now.

Title: Sniper’s Moon
Author: Carsten Stroud
Year published: 1990
Date finished: 17 August
Criteria fulfilled: A book published the year you were born
Comments: Tough going and not terribly interesting at first, this book sprang into life around a third of the way through and didn’t stop until the end. I was never really sure who (if anyone) was the good guy, and the ending was pretty off the wall, but I’m glad this was the cheapest 1990 book I could find on ebay, because otherwise I doubt I’d ever have heard of it, never mind read it.

Title: Yes Please
Author: Amy Poehler
Year published: 2014
Date finished: 22 August
Criteria fulfilled: A funny book
Comments: This is a book about comedy, life, and learning, and very much what I have come to expect from Amy Poehler. In the introduction, she talks about all the great memoir/manifesto/self-help book hybrids written by women she admires that she read to prepare for writing her own book, some of which I have read, some of which I plan to. Yes Please includes large chunks of Poehler’s background story and her early career, as well as her later success on Saturday Night Live and Parks and Recreation, her children, her divorce from Will Arnett, and what she plans to do next. It’s a fun read, full of insight into a world I probably know too much about already, and while it will be of little interest to non-Poehler enthusiasts, it is sure to delight her fans.

Title: Northern Lights
Author: Philip Pullman
Year published: 1995
Date finished: 27 August
Criteria fulfilled: A book with magic; a trilogy
Comments: It had been a while since I had read these fantastic books, so I decided to revisit them for my trilogy. Northern Lights is probably the most accessible, since it is the start of the story and the least complex part. Reading it now, there are themes and parallels with our world that I missed when I was younger, and some that I was vaguely aware of but not to the extent that I am now. This is a fantastic book that can be enjoyed on several different levels, and is the start of an excellent and highly ambitious trilogy.

Title: The Subtle Knife
Author: Philip Pullman
Year published: 1997
Date finished: 31 August
Criteria fulfilled: A trilogy
Comments: Perhaps my favourite of the His Dark Materials books, this is the one where things start to get serious and dots begin to be joined. While Northern Lights works as a standalone book, this one would make virtually no sense without having read its predecessor, and would not fully satisfy readers’ curiosities about Dust, dæmons, and the various worlds connected to ours in Pullman’s exceptional imagination.

Title: The Amber Spyglass
Author: Philip Pullman
Year published: 2000
Date finished: 10 September
Criteria fulfilled: A book that made you cry; a trilogy
Comments: This is the only book I can remember making me cry, so it had to be included, and it got me again, as I fully expected it to. I don’t actually have very much to say about these books, except that anyone who hasn’t read them should absolutely do that. I can’t imagine you’ll regret it.

Title: The Shining
Author: Stephen King
Year published: 1977
Date finished: 1 October
Criteria fulfilled: A book that scares you
Comments: I didn’t find this book scary enough to put it in the freezer, but I did find it much more to my taste than I had expected. Horror has never been one of my favourite genres, since I don’t understand the appeal of scaring oneself, although I did of course read plenty of Goosebumps when I was a kid. I think I was expecting something more like that, more formulaic, with a scary mini-cliffhanger at the end of each chapter, but The Shining is more like a mainstream novel than I had anticipated, building the fear and the uncertainty throughout before it comes to a head in the last quarter or so of the book.

Title: Breakfast At Tiffany’s
Author: Truman Capote
Year published: 1958
Date finished: 2 October
Criteria fulfilled: A book you can read in a day
Comments: This is a novella followed by a few unrelated short stories (at least in my edition), which I just sat down and read over a few hours one afternoon. Although there is plenty to be said for long, complex plots, I really liked consuming an entire book in one sitting, which would not be feasible with most books. The story is simple, the characters straightforward, and the appeal is timeless. I highly recommend you read it all in one go for maximum twee.

Title: War and Peace
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Year published: 1869
Date finished: 26 October
Criteria fulfilled: A book set in a different country; a book at the bottom of your to-read list; a book with antonyms in the title; a book that was originally written in a different language
Comments: I approached this one with mild dread, because 1,200 pages is rather daunting, and I’m not big on war. I find war films very boring, and although peace sounds nice, I was still expecting a big dollop of war in this big dollop of literature. There certainly was plenty of it, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed War and Peace. Tolstoy is a sarcastic little shit, slipping in as many digs as possible at Napoleon and his strategy, and crafting characters that I found highly relatable, despite being rich Russians from 200 years ago. It’s a big commitment, but I got a lot out of reading it, and am very glad that I was not put off by the ludicrous size of the thing.

Title: Things Fall Apart
Author: Chinua Achebe
Year published: 1958
Date finished: 30 October
Criteria fulfilled: A book you were supposed to read in school but didn’t
Comments: I started this one as part of my Higher English course, but didn’t get much further than around halfway. The main character is about as unsympathetic as you could hope to find, regularly beating all of his wives (of which he has three) and ignoring all of his children (of which he has many). It’s not a particularly long book (especially if you’ve just read War and Peace), so I really should have just stuck with it at the time, but I can see why I didn’t bother.

Title: Watchmen
Author: Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
Year published: 1987
Date finished: 11 November
Criteria fulfilled: A graphic novel
Comments: I bought this shortly after the film came out and planned to get around to it a lot sooner than I did, but then I didn’t. As superhero stories go (sorry for oversimplification, nerds), I thought this one was quite unique in that it is very specific to the time in which it was set, and fits in closely with real world events. I found the characters interesting and believable, and the book itself far more memorable than the film. This is the definitive version of a pretty special story, perfectly paced and visually excellent as well as being brilliantly told.

Title: To Kill a Mockingbird
Author: Harper Lee
Year published: 1960
Date finished: 16 November
Criteria fulfilled: A Pulitzer prize-winning book
Comments: Another from the pile of books I should have read by now, but I did finally get round to it this year. Somehow, I knew next to nothing about the story, so had the rare opportunity to go into a classic completely fresh. A tale about rural race relations in the 1930s, it is a relief to see how far things have come, but at the same time rather terrifying to consider the extent to which attitudes like those depicted herein still exist, and continue to dictate the circumstances of many. Still, a cracking read.

Title: Hamlet
Author: William Shakespeare
Year published: 1603
Date finished: 22 November
Criteria fulfilled: A play
Comments: I have read a few plays before now, and have seen several performed on stage, but The Merchant of Venice was the only Shakespeare I had read before now. I still don’t really understand the appeal of reading a play, when they are surely designed to be performed for an audience. Irregardless, I am glad I chose this one over the alternatives, because I liked the story, even if Shakespeare does have a tendency to go on a bit.

Title: Career of Evil
Author: J. K. “Robert Galbraith” Rowling
Year published: 2015
Date finished: 23 November
Criteria fulfilled: A mystery or thriller
Comments: When you think about the complexities of the Harry Potter stories (particularly the later ones) and the way that these are unravelled across hundreds of pages, a detective series was a natural next move for Rowling. This is the third book about Cormoran Strike, a former soldier who now makes his living as a private detective, solving murders and whatnot, with the help of his assistant, and almost partner, Robin. This is their most personal case yet, in which Robin is sent a severed leg at their London office, in the midst of preparing for her wedding. As with The Casual Vacancy, many people will happily dismiss these books without having read them, but the praise for the first Strike novel, The Cuckoo’s Calling, before the author’s identity was known, should be enough to demonstrate that there is plenty of merit in these stories. If not, that’s fine; she has nothing to prove, and life’s too short for me to pretend I don’t love these books.

Title: The Hobbit
Author: J. R. R. Tolkien
Year published: 1937
Date finished: 9 December
Criteria fulfilled: A book from your childhood
Comments: I had only previously read this book once or twice, so I was surprised by how much of it was very familiar to me as I revisited it this year. The tone is very different from The Lord of the Rings, and the story far simpler, making it an ideal introduction into the world of hobbits, dwarves, elves, wizards, orcs et al. I can exclusively reveal that it is still very, very good.

Title: Mystery in White
Author: J. Jefferson Farjeon
Year published: 1937
Date finished: 24 December
Criteria fulfilled: A book set during Christmas
Comments: It made sense to leave this category until last, and I finished it, fittingly, on a train home on Christmas Eve. Mystery in White is an unusual murder mystery in that the majority of the significant events take place 20 years before the bulk of the narrative. I can’t really recall reading another book like this one, which is part of the reason I’m glad I chose it over the more obvious A Christmas Carol. You probably don’t want to read it right now, but I’d certainly recommend getting your hands on a copy at some point in the next 11 months.