It's a commonplace that in reading novels one can escape the ravages of time. In 1994, I borrowed my student housemate's innocent-looking hardback edition of Nicholson Baker's The Fermata in which Arno Strine writes …
Looking over the list of books read over a decade, it becomes clear that each book came too early or too late, or not at all; unless, of course, not yet. Untimely medications. Of the first, Robert Pinget's Be Brave applies. …
Given that my undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, it may seem odd that this the first book of philosophy in the series. Many will say it is not a book of philosophy at all. That would explain why I gorged on Nick Land's T…
I've written about Gert Hofmann's novels a few times, most recently Veilchenfeld ( Our Philosopher in the US edition), but not his short stories. In the year Hofmann died aged only 62, I bought and read Balzac's Hor…
Poetry is a notable absence in my book lists. I assumed at this time that because novels excited my attention, poetry should do too. Under this assumption I bought and read Wallace Stevens' Collected Poems in this chunky Fab…
One the first books I found in a bookshop* upon moving to Brighton was Rosalind Belben's novel Is Beauty Good . I had seen it two years earlier chosen in a newspaper books of the year listing alongside Jacques Roubaud's L…
The first book I read in the 39 years of this series was a genre thriller, and I've read only two more since. The second one came along this year. In 1989, I got a temporary job in the archives of the Royal Navy Submarine Mu…
Nowadays I would be put off reading a book labelled controversial and exciting gossipy attention on TV and in newspapers, but in 1989 I read Alexander Stuart's The War Zone that did exactly that. It was later made into a co…
This is one of my most surprising discoveries in second-hand bookshop trawls in the far off days when they existed, especially because it was found in Portsmouth, not the most literary of cities despite Dickens and Conan-Doyle (o…
From two books in the first year of reading and twenty-four in the second, I read eighty-six in the third, including a lot more non-fiction. This was due to cycling to libraries in adjacent towns where the selection was wider. On…
In my second year of reading, I read four novels by DM Thomas, beginning with his most famous, The White Hotel , in the edition below with its very 1980s cover design. I look at the single-word titles of the others and can rememb…
The first novel I read was Twice Shy by Dick Francis, reportedly the Queen Mother's favourite novelist (which tells you all you need to know about the intellectual energies of British Royal Family). It was the hardback editi…
In 1985, I read two books. The following year I read a lot more, and it was then I began to keep a list of each book I finished. I've kept the list ever since. In this blog series I will choose one book from each of the 39 ye…