2012 Reading List: The books that will accompany me through the year

So it goes, according to Kurt Vonnegut, a writer who will not feature in this particular blog post despite holding a very high place in my poorly titled ‘Authors I Really Need To Read More Of’ list. I just thought it made for a better opening than “here we go again”.

Before you ask, I am fully aware we’re nearly at the end of January and I am mildly apologetic for the delay in writing this. For anyone wondering, I have spent 2012 so far with the brilliant I, Partridge, possibly the only book I’ve ever needed to own in both print and audio form. I chose to read it first, and I now relish the prospect of listening to Alan’s dulcet tones on the way to work, especially when he’ll describe FM as being as dead as Chiles’ eyes.

Without further procrastination, here are the books I have selected to be my companions in 2012, in no particular order:

A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell. Actually, I suppose there is an element of order here, because this is the book I’m going to read next. The one and only time I encountered A Dance To The Music of Time was about 4 or 5 years ago when I was having a drink with a friend. One of those friends who is acquainted with a whole bunch of unrelated friends and who you normally see  in group situations. In fact, I think this was the only time we’ve ever hung out together, just the two of us. How fitting, therefore, that he would mention in passing that he was working his way through a twelve-novel sequence about a man’s life, wherein characters from the early books pop up, or are fleetingly referred to, later on, just as we all drift in and out of other people’s existences. That’s all I know about this series, and in a way, that’s all I want to know at this stage. I’m mostly fascinated by the investment required to churn through a series of 12 novels. Hopefully it will be an enjoyable one, although I’m not banking on getting through it any time soon; after all, it’s taken me nearly half a decade to pick up part one.

Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire by Iain Sinclair: I remember scorning this lefty-looking book when I read the Guardian’s glowing review of it – despite the fact I was eating organic porridge in an eco-ville area of Bristol at the time – and asking who would want to read a book about this now trendy part of East London apart from people residing there. Well now I do reside there, and spying this book at the ICA last year I was compelled to eat my words (and scorn) and to buy it, not least due to the lovely cover design but also because there’s a section devoted to the street I currently live on. The initial self-indulgence goes a bit deeper, because over the years my tolerance levels have mellowed and I’ve developed a keenness to learn more about the history and cultural and economic shifts in this part of the city, especially considering the events that took place there last year. I am still a big fan of porridge, particularly of the organic variety, proving that some things never change.

Erewhon by Samuel Butler: All I know about this is that many of my favourite authors have cited it as an influential novel, it inspired Aldous Huxley to write Brave New World (citation and confirmation required but you get the picture) and it’s meant to be ‘nowhere’ spelt backwards, not that is actually is. I found an old Penguin copy of it in a second hand shop on one of my favourite streets in London and I am really looking forward to discovering the secrets within. Or wihtin.

I am keen to build on my knowledge and appreciation of Dickens in his bicentenary year, and following the genuine fondness I found for Pickwick Papers in 2011, I’m giving Bleak House a go. Not being a fan of TV period dramas or adaptations, a screen version of this novel has not passed my eyes so I have no idea what the plot entails, but as I read it I will no doubt imagine that all of the older lady characters look like Judi Dench.

There are four books that I’m carrying over from 2011, or possibly even – for shame – 2010 so you can see more information about them in earlier posts: Faith in Fakes by Umberto Eco, one of the coolest and wisest living Italians who celebrated his 80th birthday this month, the gargantuan Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand that almost makes Anthony Powell’s 12-novel sequence seem easy to digest, The Original of Laura by Vladimir Nabokov – this has definitely featured on a couple of reading lists so I need to just get on and read the damn thing – and The Ebony Tower by John Fowles. 2011 was a Fowles-free year and I must have been affected by the absence because I recently found myself drawn to a copy of The Collector at a market to re-read the creepy final few pages.

You may have noticed that I don’t tend to be fully informed about my selected books and the same can be said about The Ginger Man by J.P Donleavy, but you could argue – and I will! – that prior research would remove a lot of the fun of discovery.  My dad’s copy of this novel has been a permanent feature in our bookshelf for as long as I’ve graced the household, and it always used to catch my eye because it has a similar spine – an orange one; basically it’s a Penguin – to Roald Dahl’s brilliant short story collections Kiss Kiss, Someone Like You and Switch Bitch, so I used to accidentally pick this one out in the hope that it was another piece of Dahl that I’d not yet read. My dad must have been there on one of these later occasions because he said The Ginger Man was a favourite of his, and whilst he’s no book critic, that’s enough for me. There is a chance he was being sarcastic – bear in mind I was going out with a ‘strawberry blond’ boy at the time, and knowing dad’s sense of humour he’d have found that hilarious – but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

In 2011 I read Brideshead Revisited and on the basis of that I am keen for More Waugh, so I’m going to read Vile Bodies this year. What a great title; vile is an under-appreciated word. I also recently re-read Catcher in the Rye and felt ashamed of my ignorance about the rest of J.D Salinger’s works, so I aim to rectify that in the form of Franny & Zooey.

In my quest to wade through the classics – I’ve still not yet tackled War and Peace, perhaps I’ll leave that for retirement – I’ve added Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy to the 2012 book pile, and onto more recent publications, I’ve picked A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan as it’s been recommended by not one but two people, plus its presence doubles the reading list’s paltry women author count. I could make myself feel better by pretending that the authors who apply initials instead of first names are actually females, which would raise the scale to 5 out of 15. Still pathetic. Whatever gender I allow myself to believe H.P Lovecraft is,  I’m intrigued by The Call of Cthulhu & Other Weird Tales because I haven’t read any horror (or is this fantasy? I have no idea!) for ages and let’s face it, any book with words like ‘cthulhu’ and ‘weird’ in the title is not going to be boring.