Books I've read this year

This year, I have been reading books in alphabetical order of the author's surname. Sometimes, I was reading books concurrently but the rule was that they had to be finished in alphabetical order which created several logistical problems as some books were being read aloud to my children; some books needed to be finished by a certain date because I was teaching them and some books were just more heavy-going than others. Here are the books and for some of them, the story as to how I ended up reading the book.

A

The Man in the Tower by Aravind Adiga

Where did the book come from? A charity shop for about a pound I think
I'd already enjoyed The White Tiger and After the Assassinations by Adiga but this one sat on my shelf for a couple of years after purchase, the main reason being that it was hardback and I like my books to be portable, pocket-sized (parka coat pocket-sized at least) and this rat-swatter of a tome didn't meet that requirement. I'd missed out though - this is a great book that explores the caste system of India. I feel like most of my favourite books over the last five years have been set in India and this was a fascinating study of capitalist greed and a study of people. The premise is that a large corporation are buying a tower-block to redevelop it. They're paying over the odds and most of the residents are keen except for an old man whose memory of his deceased wife is tied up with his simple home. Freedom of personal choice and sacrifice for the good of the majority vie violently with each in this book in a really interesting way.

B
No Nonsense by Joey Barton
Where did the book come from? A Christmas present from my mother-in-law
I've read quite a few football autobiographies and while I am somewhat obsessive about football, the reality is this category of book is in the main, quite boring. I thought that this one might be different, mainly because Joey Barton quotes George Orwell on Twitter and so I thought, he might channel GO and play with the football autobiography genre and cast himself in a dystopian future where football is a hypnotic mind-control tool to tame the masses. He didn't and, to be honest, after enjoying some sections, I started to get bored. The football books that I think are genuinely wonderful are Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby, Cantona: The Rebel Who Would be King by Philippe Auclair and Irons in the Fire by Russell Brand - read those instead if you want to read a football book.

C
The Childhood of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee
Where did it come from? Another Christmas present from my mother-in-law (I'd made an Amazon list and with the reading challenge in mind, had put a few potentials on the list)
J.M. Coetzee has written some of my favourite books, in particular the masterful trio of autobiographical texts, Boyhood, Youth and Summertime. He is a wonderful experimental writer and Diary of a Bad Year is probably him at his weirdest and experimental best. This book, I didn't enjoy that much. The blandness of the setting and of the characters was a deliberate alternate reality but it made for a frustrating read. The title was perplexing: it wasn't actually about the childhood of Jesus and although there were a number of intertextual moments, it wasn't an exploration of Jesus' childhood in a way that I found interesting or illuminating.

D
Room by Emma Donoghue
Where did it come from? A colleague, Holly, lent it to me
My last school did a wonderful thing in encouraging people to recommend books to each other. I was at letter D so I scoured the list or recommendations and fellow English-teacher Holly recommended another book by Emma Donoghue: The Wonder but when I chatted to her, she suggested Room as one she thought I would enjoy more. It was one of those books that you feel compelled to keep reading. It deals with abduction and is told from the perspective of a boy who has never seen anything other than the room he has been imprisoned in his whole life. It's so good.

E
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Where did it come from? My mum maybe although I actually think this copy was bought in a charity shop, perhaps in Leicester
Fourteen years ago, when I was thinking about doing an English Literature degree, my mum lent me Middlemarch. At the time, I was mainly reading John Grisham thrillers and hadn't really prepared my mind for the more challenging task of a hefty Victorian novel. I made it through about two-hundred pages and then all the characters that I had been getting to know disappeared and there was a committee meeting discussing complicated things that went over my head and I floundered and gave up. After my degree, I thought I would be ready for Middlemarch and I probably was. I'd really enjoyed Daniel Deronda which another Eliot novel of the same length but again, I got to the same moment and my interest dwindled and Middlemarch remained a quarter-read. This year, the alphabetical challenge depended on its completion and, with the additional carrot of the alphabet-completion and the fear of failing a third time at the same book, I completed it. This all makes it seem like it was unenjoyable, but, although it was really challenging at times and there were occasional chunks of the plot that were less interesting, I really loved it. Silas Marner is my favourite of Eliot's novels and I think, perhaps, I might read a bit more of her stuff.

F
Faulks on Fiction by Sebastian Faulks
Where did it come from? Amazon
This is the first non-fiction book in my list and having enjoyed, in slightly decreasing amounts, Engleby, Birdsong, Charlotte Gray and A Week in December (all Faulks' novels), I thought reading his thoughts on some of the big characters in fiction would be interesting. If I hadn't been doing this challenge though, I would not have read his thoughts about characters from novels that I hadn't read for those thoughts meant very little to me and to be honest, some of the characters were a little blurry in my recollection, for his thoughts to be that coherent as well. Perhaps, a quarter of the book was interesting or it would be fairer to say that a quarter of it was personally interesting to me. It's perhaps weird that I persisted but I did.

G
Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah
Where did it come from? Amazon
At university, one of the units I studied was African Literature. Africa has always felt like it has tugged at my heart but the novels I studied revealed that my romantic notions were far from the truth of how brutal life in Africa can be - or certainly was in most of the novels I read. By the Sea was the Gurnah book I read at university and I don't really recollect much about it but I did recognise the simmering violence that bubbles and regularly bursts in this novel. It's tough and important to face up to what the world is like.

H
Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes
Where did it come from? Amazon
I stumbled across this collection of poetry a few years back. I wanted to teach a poet's work as a collection and this worked perfectly in that it had a narrative thread running through it: namely, the tumultuous relationship that the poets Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath shared. Their story is horribly tragic. The poems were released as Hughes was dying. He had been criticised often for the way he treated Syliva, cheating on her and leaving her and some of her supporters blamed him for her suicide. He chose not to defend himself and only late on in life did he release his thoughts on the relationship. The poems are incredible, the imagery so perfect, the emotion so incisively expressed. The narrative is painful and uncomfortable but they are great poems and what is also satisfying about these poems is that there is not really a sense of justification from Hughes, just a painful remembering.

I
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Where did it come from? My mum
My birthday is in March and I let some of my family know that I was in around this point in the alphabet, so some of the gifts I received were books that slotted into position. My main go-to gift is a book and although often I tell people what I want, I quite like the idea of someone perusing a shop or reading a book and then thinking that I might like it. It's a dystopian novel that deals with cloning. What was jarring was futuristic content and the setting of Hailsham which felt a little incongruous.

J
The Hundred-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
Where did it come from? Amazon
This had been close to being selected by the Book Group that I was part of but never quite made it through the final cut. I don't often read books that aim to amuse because often I fail to be amused but this was successful in part. I enjoyed the crazy plot swerves and the bizarre images it managed to conjure.

K
Making Sense of God by Tim Keller
Where did it come from? A birthday present - I don't recollect who it was from, perhaps my mother-in-law
As a Christian, it's true to say that often, my faith confuses me and makes me ask uncomfortable questions. Tim Keller has an incredible ability to discuss confusion and doubt in a real way. The book that is in some ways, an introduction to this book, The Reason for God was superb and helped me both to understand my own faith and also reaffirm things in my own mind. Making Sense of God is similar in its aim, but goes to more complex and philosophical positions. For example, in understanding morality, he leads the reader to consider the fact that morality is ingrained in who we are as humans, ingrained in the stories we tell and therefore, suggests that we are not random beings but created beings with a moral core that links us directly to our maker and His moral core.

L
Beetle Boy by M.G. Leonard
Where did it come from? Coldean Library
This is the first book in this list that I read aloud. I sit with my boys most evenings and read to them and as the years have rolled by, the books have got increasingly enjoyable to read as the complexity level has risen. These are precious times and the books we've have at times, prompted discussions about injustice, racism and other important issues. Without these books, I don't know where and how I'd have introduced conversations about equality in a way that would be meaningful and interesting to them. I dread the day when I have to stop because they've got 'too old' for it or have simply moved out (I imagine it will be earlier than that). I'd recommend this book; it's a dark adventure about a boy who finds he is able to communicate with beetles.

M
Wake Up, Percy Gloom by Cathy Malkasian
Where did it come from? Jethro, my brother
My brother and I share a liking for graphic novels and my collection is probably 50% gifts from him. This was one that I'd never heard of before and it was a bizarre, bonkers story that, I think, was an allegory about the formation of organised religion. It portrayed the religions as ridiculous, mainly through showing their formation as random accidents.

N
The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
Where did it come from? Coldean Library

O
Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell
Where it come from? My mother-in-law

P
Curfewed Night by Baccarat Peer
Where did it come from? Amazon

Q
Zazie on the Metro by Raymond Queneau
Where did it come from? Amazon, recommended by Alison Perkin

R
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Where did it come from? A Christmas present from over ten years ago

S
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Where did it come from? Chailey School

T
Light Shining in the Forest by Paul Torday


U
Sacred Hunger by Barry Utters

V
Enjoying God's Grace by Terry Virgo

W
Who's Tom Ditto? by Danny Wallace

X
Sky Burial by Xinran

Y
What's so Amazing About Grace by Philip Yancey

Z
The Messenger of Athens by Anne Zouroudi

David's Tiger

This rather eye-catching butterfly is called David's Tiger. The tiger obviously refers to it's distinctive markings, but quite how David claimed this butterfly for himself, I don't know. I went to see my beloved Brighton and Hove Albion beat Newcastle United 2-0 in the FA Cup today and Brighton's right-back had the name David on the back of his shirt (his full name is David Lopez and he played pretty well although he is getting criticised for diving by some Facebookers). Perhaps he is the owner of the butterfly species known as David's Tiger, although this unlikely leap of logic is unlikely to be actually true, but if it is, then Mr David needs to pay a bit closer attention to his Philippine butterflies are critically endangered.

I've tried to find out what has caused this endangered situation, but I'm afraid I am none the wiser. I've seen quite a lot of butterflies stuck on pins in the Booth Museum and perhaps this barbaric turning of butterflies into lollipops is the cause, but I reckon that most museum butterflies are from a bygone era and that no one does this anymore unless the butterfly has died of natural causes. I once followed a local aspiring politician into the woods on a 'Bug Hunt' and with his massive net (big enough to catch a badger in), he managed to ensnare some butterflies. He then put them in jars and showed me a clever trick - if you turn the jamjarred butterfly upside-down, when you then release the butterfly, they sit calmly on your shoulder for a little while to get over the confusion of being in topsy-turvy land. Dave Bangs is this bloke's name if you think my brief anecdote is enough to get you voting for him.

I may start my own political campaign to ensure the saving of this particularly attractive butterfly (although I worry that attractive endangered animals get more attention than ugly ones), but until I know how their salvation will come, I will have to leave you with a dull ache in your hearts for our stripy friends.

Derecho

It seems like rain is getting far too much attention today. It rained a lot last year apparently, the second most since records began, but they don't seem to measure wind records unless they are individual high speedy ones that blow things all over the place. The only big-wind memory I have is of 'The Great Storm' of 1987. I was seven at the time and got to go home early from school in case my scrawny bones took to the skies. I remember being quite excited by the prospect of windiness, thinking it an opportunity for flight - I attempted spreading my arms and taking off on the way home, but all the only real effect that the wind had on my frame was that it made it slightly more troublesome to walk to the bus-stop. The wind couldn't have been particularly high at this point, otherwise double-decker buses would surely not have been careering down Portland Road carrying ruined haircuts homewards.
  The most ferocious point of the storm took place in the night and I slept through the whole thing and was surprised to find that a tree had fallen onto our shed when I awoke in the morning. Now that I've finished with my wind-autobiography (that type of wind anyway), I shall move onto the point of this post, and explore the language of wind and where the boundary between a light breeze and a gentle breeze occurs. I remember learning about the twelve-stage Beaufort Scale in Primary School. Here's some brief details: a light breeze starts at 4 miles per hour at Beaufort number two and this is when wind can be felt on exposed skin. Breezes then travel through stages gentle (Beaufort 3), moderate (4) - the average human breathes out at 15 mph which in this category - , fresh (5) and peaks at strong (6). A strong breeze is between 25 and 30 mph which seems pretty quick to still be in the breeze category. If you're traveling in the direction of the wind at the same speed as the wind, would that mean that you wouldn't be able to feel the wind? I'm afraid I have no answer to that question that has just popped into my head.
  Beaufort number 7 moves us into near-gale category at 31 mph. This is when it becomes hard work to walk into the wind - I reckon this must have been where we were at when I exited my school in 1987, although I was only a young child, so perhaps it wasn't that fast yet. As I tappetty-tap, another wind memory has crawled into my mind. I was on a school trip somewhere and my memory suggests that we were really close to the edge of a cliff although that seems unlikely. On this occasion, my classmates and I were testing the wind's ability to hold us up if we leant backwards into it. With the assistance of a Tesco carrier-bag providing a little more drag, I seem to remember one boy achieving very close to an equilibrium between his weight and the wind's power.
  39 mph is where a near-gale becomes an actual gale (8) and then at 47 mph a strong gale (9). 1987, the time in my life where wind was at its highest was at point 10 - storm, somewhere between 55-63 mph. At 64 mph (11), the storm becomes a violent storm and at 74 mph (12), we have the hurricane. Did you know, the fastest speed that snot is recorded to have travelled out of someone's nose is 102 mph, so if you got lots of people in a line and they all sneezed at once in the same direction, then you would have a pretty ferocious snot hurricane in the few millimetres in front of their noses.
  The Beaufort Scale is all about wind-speed, but there are also words to describe the way the wind blows. For example, a tornado is a vortex of rapidly rotating winds created by a thunderstorm and extends all the way from the clouds to the ground, whereas a whirlwind is just a column of air moving about, but not necessarily connected to the ground or clouds; a typhoon is specific to a tropical area.
  Finally, I come to the word that entitles this blog entry: derecho. This refers to a wind that travels in a straight line and they often come with a fast-moving band of extreme thunderstorms. This year's high winds in Argentina and in the east of America were examples of derechos. So there you go: I feel fairly educated about wind now and I hope you do also. Derecho is also a potentially helpful word in Scrabble.

Diary of James Kochalka

About four years ago I came across the online diary of James Kochalka; from October 26 1998 up until New Year's Eve, he sketched a moment from his day, often brief meaningless moments, but moments nonetheless. When I found the diary, I shuffled right back to the beginning and read the lot and have continued to visit his site: americanelf.com every few days since to keep up with what's going on in his life.

During the thirteen years of American Elf, Kochalka (it seems weird using his surname like I would with another writer because it kind of feels like I know him) has documented not only the small joys and painful lows of everyday life, but also the big events that have happened during that time: the birth of his two children and recently, the death of his father. The diaries, whilst brief, are intimate and Kochalka has freedom, that makes good art into great art, to lay his life (the good bits and the bad bits) before his reader and it makes for fascinating and addictive stuff.

My twins boys, Ned and Jarvis, had been born shortly before I found his diaries and I found his entries helpful, I guess enlightening. This sounds a bit grandiose because he's a very different person to me, and I don't particularly aspire to be like him, but the day to day emotional accounts of being a dad rang true for me. Novels that discuss being a father can tend to focus on big events and use these to reflect truths about relationships, but these diaries simply paint the tick-tock of day to day existence which is surely everyone's experience, and the emotional experience of moving from one day to the next can swing around the emotional compass in a haphazard fashion which is exactly what Kochalka expresses, not deliberately, but naturally because he is simply penning his life.

I will certainly miss his daily diaries.

Dungeons

"Jarvis, can you think of any things beginning with the letter D?"

"Dog."

"Can you think of any other words?"

"Prison."

"That doesn't begin with D."

"I can see a dungeon outside and it's got wheels and the baddies are bringing it to get Ned. I'll shoot you with... tricked you, they weren't really coming."

"What's the difference between a dungeon and a prison?"

"Er, you get trapped in dungeons and prisons?"

"But, are they the same thing or are there any differences between dungeons and prisons?"

"Er, there's no differences between them."

"Shall I have a look in the dictionary?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, a prison says: a building to which people are legally committed as a punishment for crimes they have committed, and a dungeon says: a strong underground prison cell, especially in a castle. What do you think about that?"

"Yeah."

"Have you ever seen a dungeon?"

"No. We haven't. We've never seen a dungeon."

"Would you like to see a dungeon?"

"Yeah."

"What do you think it would be like?"

"I don't know."

"Would it smell of anything?"

"Yes."

"What would it smell of?"

"I don't know."

"Would it be a nice smell or a horrible smell?"

"A nice one."

"What would be inside the dungeon?"

"Er, I don't know. Maybe goblins' things."

"What do goblins have?"

"I don't know."

"Do they have toys?"

"No. On Noddy they do."

"What do goblins do?"

"Er, steal things."

"Who do they steal from?"

"Er, I don't know. Maybe everyone's things. Maybe grown-ups' things."

"Have they ever stolen anything from you?"

"No."

"Why do they steal?"

"Because they're a bit bad."

"What do goblins look like?"

"Er, I don't know because I've never seen a goblin."

The Dandy

I've never been much of a fan of The Dandy, a fact I have already discussed in brief detail when I pitted their cover-star Desperate Dan against the cover-star of its rival The Beano, Dennis the Menace. Since I dismissed Dan as an irrelevance, The Dandy has vanished from our shops, now only to be found online (www.dandy.com), having slumped to a weekly sale of just 8,000 copies.

Back in the 1950s however, The Dandy sold an incredible two million copies a week; that's an incredible 4% of the population purchasing the comic  (22% of 6-14 year olds). Magazines struggle to get close to those figures today, even with a larger population pool. TV Choice is the best-seller, shifting 1.3 million a month; What's on TV  is the only other magazine to top a million. Magazines and comics aimed at children sell far fewer with Moshi Monsters, the best-seller on the kids' market, clambering close to a quarter of a million. Back in the '50s, it's obvious to say that entertainment was a far narrower field, but that doesn't take away from the fact that The Dandy was absolutely huge, bigger than Bing Crosby in its day.

I kind of wish that comic books still held such a prominent position in our culture; in recent years, I have rediscovered a love for the comic, regularly reading graphic novels, but children's magazines are a different beast now, mostly linked to a TV series. Back in the day, it was the other way round: did you know that Bananaman moved from the pages of The Dandy (where he still remains) onto the screen? It's weird that I'm lamenting the loss of an age that I never lived through and the reality is that all I really want is for the things that I love to be a bit more universally loved, but then again, I'm not sure I want to like what everyone else likes - I'd feel a bit sheepish - so perhaps it's best as it is. Let me conclude by recommending five cracking graphic novels: American Born Chinese  by Gene Luen Yang; Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the the Geeks by the same person; Maus by Art Spiegelman; Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and American Elf by James Kochalka (www.americanelf.com). 

Sports Personality of the Year for People Whose Name Begin With D

I am a little perturbed that this evening's Sports Personality of the Year award is dominated by people whose names don't begin with the letter D. There is one contender whose first name begins with D: David Weir and not a look-in for anyone whose surname begins with the letter D. This is a clear case of alphabetical elitism and so here is my own Sports Personality of the Year nominations for British sports stars whose surnames begin with the letter D.

1. Charlotte Dujardin
Great Britain had never even received a medal for dressage before this summer (dressage, by the way, is that funny horse dancing thing that is difficult to get that excited over) - ignore my parenthetical comments because that is perhaps why Dujardin didn't make the list. She was the woman that earned Team GB their first ever dressage medal (and it was of the gold variety); as she completed her triumph, the commentator claimed she'd 'iced the cake in style' which is quite an achievement whilst riding a horse. She then went onto win a team gold as well. Two golds in a sport that GB have always sucked at is surely worth a nomination.

2. Jermaine Defoe
23 goals so far in 2012 for Tottenham Hotspurs and England striker surely warrant an inclusion. It's as if England's abject failure in the European Championships was overshadowed by the 84 medals Team GB racked up, but this wasn't Jermaine's fault. He was a barely used substitute (hmm, that's not a great selling point really).

3. Tom Daley
Daley's bronze surely deserved recognition from the shortlist selection committee and to be fair to SPotY, they have allowed the young diver to stroll onto the stage and talk through the triumphant moment of his third place finish, but unfortunately his Speedos were just too small for him to be considered a valid contender.

4. Kenny Dalglish
The legendary number 7 and manager of Liverpool had a 2012 to remember. He spent £100 million pound on substandard footballers; managed Liverpool to their worst ever league finish in 18 years; defended Luis Suarez when he refused to shake hands with a black man (Patrice Evra) he'd racially abused a few months earlier and then as a result of these calamities, got the sack.

5. Dion Dublin
Oh dear, this is the third footballer (or ex-footballer) that I've nominated, but I don't really care that much about any other sport. I'll watch Wimbledon and I enjoyed the Olympics, but when it comes down to it, I only really like football and I just saw Dion in the audience. He's done a fine job this season, occasionally featuring as a pundit on Match of the Day 2. In 2011, Dublin invented a percussion instrument called 'The Dube' which he performed in a gig with Ocean Colour Scene, but unfortunately this high moment in his career cannot be recognised because it happened last year. Kriss Akabusi is in the crowd as well and that excites me greatly, but unfortunately his name doesn't begin with D. Sorry Kriss.

6. Steven Davies
Cricket bloke Steven Davies got a recall to the England squad this year; that's not bad eh. He hits a ball with a bat and once ran from one wicket to another 192 times in one game which is pretty good. I've only played one proper cricket game and I only managed it once, so he is 192 times better than me at cricket. I can occasionally hit the ball quite hard if someone bowls me a real easy one, so this bloke must be some kind of cricket superman.

7. Steve 'The Game' Douglas
The current number 12 in the darts world, The Game (I like to call him The Dame, so that he's not disowning the D), lost in the second round of the World Championships which was a bit of a disappointment. If you define yourself by 'The Game', then it must be pretty depressing to lose at it. I like darts and am vaguely tempting to resurrect my darting days by joining a club, but I fear my lobbing lethargy of late may hold me back.

8. Paul Di Resta
He may only be Great Britain's third best Formula One driver, but I'm not sure how I'm going to finish this sentence and make him sound like he should actually be considered as a greater personality than Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, but his name is more exciting and he's Scottish you know.

Right, I've had enough of trawling around the internet searching for mildly worthy contenders; who said there had to be twelve? And I want to get this posted before the end of the show, otherwise the moment will be lost. So, this, I'm afraid, is my short(er than the official shortlist)list.