What I read in 2015

According to Yes by Dawn French

Capital by John Lanchester

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz*

The Sisterhood by Emily Barr

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith

The Bees by Laline Paull

I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh

After You by Joyo Moyes

The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessey by Rachel Joyce

The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

Out of My Depth by Emily Barr

Backpack by Emily Barr

Where Love Lies by Julie Cohen

We Are All Made of Stars by Rowan Coleman

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers*

Us by David Nicholls

The Woman Who Stole My Life by Marian Keyes

The Lie by CL Taylor

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

Lady Worsley's Whim by Hallie Rubenhold

The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult

H is For Hawk by Helen MacDonald*

Mothers & Daughters by Kate Long

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton*

The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline

Precious Thing by Colette McBeth*

Mrs Sinclair's Suitcase by Louise Walters

Hello From The Gillespies by Monica Mcinnerney

Balancing Act by Joanna Trollope

The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-Mi Hwang

*Book Club choices

What I read in 2014

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters*

Her by Harriet Lane

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

A Cornish Affair by Liz Fenwick

The Murder Bag by Tony Parsons

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

Public Battles, Private Wars by Laura Wilkinson

The Unknown Bridesmaid by Margaret Forster

The Friday Gospels by Jenn Ashworth

Life Drawing by Robin Black

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson*

The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence

Mad About the Boy by Helen Fielding

Strength in Strangers by Lauren Britton

The Land of Decoration by Grace McLeen

Erosion by S A Hemmings

The Memory Book by Rowan Coleman

The Paris Wife by Paula McLain*

Sense and Sensibility by Joanna Trollope

The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan

The Accident by CL Taylor

Secrets and Rain by Cally Taylor

The White Cuckoo by Annie Ireson

The Diary of The Lady by Rachel Johnson

Out of The Ruins by Sue Guiney

The Moment by Claire Dyer

The Rosie Project by Graeme C Simsion

Wake by Anna Hope

The Legacy of Hartlepool Hall by Paul Torday

All Change for Nurse Millie by Jean Fullerton

Woman Walks into a Bar by Rowan Coleman

Call Nurse Millie by Jean Fullerton

The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

The Lewis Man by Peter May

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriaty

The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood

Longbourn by Jo Baker

*Book Club choices

What I read in 2013

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Benedict's Brother by Tricia Walker

The Girl on the Landing by Paul Torday

The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce by Paul Torday

The Hopeless Life of Charlie Summers by Paul Torday

Light Shining in the Forest by Paul Torday

The Twins by Saskia Sarginson

Something Beginning With by Sarah Salway

House of Silence by Linda Gillard

Stoner by John Williams*

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

Death Comes to Pemberley by PD James

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvette Edwards

The Other Half Lives by Sophie Hannah

Summer of '76 by Isabel Ashdown

Carol by Patricia Highsmith

Diary of a Provincial Lesbian by VG Lee

Revenge Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger

Dearest Rose by Rowan Coleman

Build a Man by Talli Roland

What The Grown-Ups Were Doing by Michele Hanson

The Lighthouse by Alison Moore

The Silver Locket by Margaret James

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

The Uninvited Guests by Sadie Jones

The Light Between Oceans by M L Stedman

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

The Light Years (Cazalet Chronicles 1) by Elizabeth Jane Howard

Catching the Sun by Tony Parsons

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova

White Cargo by Felicity Kendal

Alone in Berlin by Hans Fallada*

The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller

Restless by William Boyd

The Knot by Mark Watson

Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest

My Future Husband by Karen Clarke

Thursdays in the Park by Hilary Boyd

My Fat, Mad Teenage Diary by Rae Earl

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Winter Games by Rachel Johnson

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins*

You Had Me at Hello by Mhairi McFarlane

Jubilee by Shelley Harris

Swimming Home by Deborah Levy

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

*Book Club choices

What I read in 2012

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton

The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling*

The Bolter by Frances Osborne

The Cook's Tale by Nancy Jackman & Tom Quinn

The Accidental Billiionaires by Ben Mezrich*

Move Over Darling by Chris Stovell

Mr Churchill's Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal

The Colour Purple by Alice Walker*

A Kind of Vanishing by Lesley Thomson

The Soldier's Wife by Joanna Trollope

27: Six Friends, One Year by RJ Heald

A Perfectly Good Man by Patrick Gale

Drowning Rose by Marika Cobbold

Ninepins by Rosy Thornton

Somewhere to Hide (The Estate, Book 1) by Mel Sherratt

Tony Hogan Bought me an Ice Cream Float before he Stole my Ma by Kerry Hudson

Gold by Chris Cleave

The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend

Charlotte Street by Danny Wallace

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas*

The Expats by Chris Pavone

Various Pets Alive and Dead by Marina Lewycka

The Cornish House by Liz Fenwick

The Most Beautiful Thing by Fiona Robyn

The Buddha In The Attic by Julie Otsuka

Untying the Knot by Linda Gillard

My Dear I Wanted To Tell You by Louisa Young

When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro*

You Before Me by Jojo Moyes

Nirvana Bites by Debi Alper

Everything and Nothing by Araminta Hall

The Book of Fires by Jane Borodale

Hothouse Flower by Lucinda Riley

Room by Emma Donoghue*

A Field Guide to Fabric Design by Kimberly Kight

When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman* (reread)

Limitless by Alan Glynn

Handmade Type Workshop by Charlotte Rivers

The Fundamentals of Printed Textile Design by Alex Russell

What the Nanny Saw by Fiona Neill

More Than You Can Say by Paul Torday

Cuckoo by Julia Crouch

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel*

How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

*Book Club choices

Happy New Year

We saw it in at home, playing games and watching Harry Potter (and the Order of the Phoenix) until 11.55 and then we went out onto our Bangkok balcony and watched several displays of fireworks. I love living in a city.

I’m going to gloss over the ‘what I have achieved in 2011’ round up we’re seeing all over the blogosphere because the answer is ‘precious little’ and I’m feeling pretty blah about it.

A few weeks ago I signed up for Sally Quilford’s 1000 words a day for a hundred days. It started this morning. Of course I had to trick myself into writing. I set the clock for one hour and wrote and I just continued until I’d written the 1000 words. Why isn’t it always that easy?

This year I am going to get this novel into a shape I am happy with if it kills me. (It might.)

I’ve given up wheat, meat and sweet(s).

And I’m going to have a better blogging year.

What I read in 2011

Taunting the Dead by Mel Sherratt

Tears and Laughter and Happy Ever After by many talented writers!

Daughters-in-law by Joanna Trollope

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath*

The Association of Foreign Spouses by Marilyn Heward Mills

Hens Dancing by Raffaella Barker

Home for Christmas by Cally Taylor

The Devil's Music by Jane Rusbridge

Disgrace by J M Coetzee

The Extra Large Medium by Helen Slavin

Tender by Mark Illis

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Write To Be Published by Nicola Morgan

The Cardturner by Louis Sachar

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday*

The Point of Rescue by Sophie Hannah

TigerLily's Orchids by Ruth Rendell

Hurry Up and Wait by Isabel Ashdown

Below Stairs by Margaret Powell

A Tiny Bit Marvellous by Dawn French

Bombsites and Lollipops by Jacky Hyams

The Beauty Chorus by Kate Lord Brown

When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman

And The Band Played On by Christopher Ward

West End Girls by Barbara Tate

Getting Away With It by Julie Cohen

The Novel in the Viola by Natasha Solomons

The Art of Losing by Rebecca Connell

Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton

Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson

The London Train by Tessa Hadley

Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson

Cold Light by Jenn Ashworth

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones*

Janice Gentle Gets Sexy by Mavis Cheek

Sex and Stravinsky by Barbara Trapido

Blame My Brain by Nicola Morgan

Naked by David Sedaris*

Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty

Mathematics of Love by Emma Darwin

Bestseller by Alessandro Gallenzi

Told in Silence by Rebecca Connell

Days of Grace by Catherine Hall

The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay*

Everything We Ever Wanted by Sara Shepard

Glasshopper by Isabel Ashdown

The Blasphemer by Nigel Farndale

Orchid Fever by Eric Hansen*

You Don't Have to be Good by Sabrina Broadbent

Crow Stone by Jenni Mills

Not So Perfect by Nik Perring

Mousetrapped: A Year and a Bit in Orlando by Catherine Ryan Howard

Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

The Ghost Lover by Gillian Greenwood

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams

*Book Club choices

Take one large dose

When my sister in law and her family were staying with us we watched The Adjustment Bureau. It was a miracle that a realist like me (strictly no aliens, no end of the world, no fantasy) would even contemplate such a film… I quite enjoyed it but I spent quite a lot of time huffing and puffing about Emily Blunt’s dancing and her posture.  (EB’s character is a professional dancer.) Husband and SiL spent quite a lot of time laughing at my huffing and puffing. I know it’s ridiculous to let it spoil the film (when, frankly, a gigantic dose of suspension of disbelief had to be taken to watch the film AT ALL. I mean ‘hats’ enable them to go through the portal? Really?) Anyway the daft notion of the hats didn’t spoil the film but Emily Blunt’s dancing was a low level irritation all the way through. (You can tell a dancer from their posture, the way they move, even stand. It’s a useless piece of knowledge but I know it anyway.)

Eventually I turned to SiL and said ‘if we were watching a film about dressage and the rider was really pants, wouldn’t it irritate you?’ Because the thing is, any little thing that brings you crashing out of the story can act as an irritant and we need that belief.

I was thinking the same thing about reading. I open the book and I say ‘I am willing to believe.’ And you enter this wonderful, symbiotic relationship with the creator: you are prepared to believe and they will entertain you. I don’t think life gets much better than that.  But, if you encounter a gaffe, that tenuous rapport is shattered. For me the breaking of that contract is liked being sucked out of a vacuum.

Crumbs; this writing lark is a bit of a responsibility.

(Incidentally I think Natalie Portman (Black Swan) had considerably more background in dancing than EB and her posture was pretty good. I heard Deborah Bull on Radio 4 say that it takes ten years training to make a dancer’s arms look weightless and the only thing apart from this to let Natalie Portman down was that she didn’t have a dancer’s bottom! Of course, NP also had a dancing double and it was damn difficult, thankfully, to spot where she took over.)

Thought for Thursday: guilt

Something came up at book club on Tuesday. One of our new members asked if people read more now that they are expats. Answers were split. I don’t read more; I’ve always read obsessively.

Someone asked about guilt. They said: do you feel guilty taking the time to read? Quite a few people did.

I don’t. It’s not like I’d be dusting under the sofa if I weren’t reading, is it?

Book maths and I can stop any time I want

I came across a brilliant idea, in which Nose in a book admits shamelessly copying Novel Insights’ post about doing some book maths. The idea is that you add up your To Be Read pile – theirs were 137 and 108 respectively - then you work out how many books you read a week or a month or a year and calculate how long it will take you to read your TBR pile as it stands.

Husband did a rather informal version of this a few weeks ago. Verbally. In a fit of pique. 

(For the second year ever I’ve kept a list of what I’m reading so I know what rate I read at but I’ve had to remove the list from the sidebar because Blogger has been playing Silly Bluggers.)

I went to my dedicated TBR bookshelves and counted the volumes. Ahem. There are 196 books on my TBR pile. Oh dear. 

Now bear in mind that I had to have tuition to get through my maths O’level so I’m not very reliable when it comes to book calculating; perhaps even my counting skills are in question. If these figures are correct – which they can’t possibly be - and I’ve read 50 books so far this year and it’s now week 39 then I read at a rate of 1.6 books per week. But by my reckoning that means those 196 books will take 122.5 weeks or 2.3 years to read. And that can’t be right.

I don’t think book maths is such a great idea any more. I think there must be something wrong with the operator.

I could've kicked sand in my own face...

Just before we leave Koh Samui behind, I've got one last post for you.

When he was planning the trip, Husband asked me if I'd heard any recommendations for resorts in Samui. Stupid as I am I didn't give it much thought and told him no... which was a real shame; if only I'd done a bit of homework my memory would have been jogged by the name of a hotel that HAD been recommended to me in the dim and distant past.

After a short walk on Chaweng Beach we came across it (and trespassed over it, while taking photos.) Honestly, I could've kicked sand in my own face.

Please look at these photos of the resort, The Library on Koh Samui and tell me - could I have found a more apt place?

The page numbers on the grass relate to the room numbers, index or content I think was the reception area and I can't recall what the bookmark one was.

All Quiet on the Eastern Front

Sorry that it’s been so quiet here.

When I got back to Bangkok I had a friend to stay. She’d been working in Phuket for a month and came up to see us before transferring to Bali to meet her family. She was the very first person I called after Husband dropped me the ‘I’ve been offered a promotion in Bangkok’ bombshell. She was (and continues to be) a source of great wisdom about expat life. I met her at our kids’ primary school when she returned from many years living in SE Asia and we’ve been trying and failing to meet up in Bangkok since we got here.

As she made her way to Bali, so we were on our way to Koh Samui.

That’s where we are now. Husband’s colleague said ‘Two weeks in Samui? OMG; you’ll be so bored.” But we wanted a do nothing holiday… I’ve got ten books to read and my own novel to re-write. How can I get bored?

I had planned to pelt through my reading list but the mood took me to start rewriting so that’s what I’m doing in the mornings and reading with whatever time is left over. So far I’ve enjoyed reading/am reading:

• Dad's Life by Dave Hill

• Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

• Turning The Tide by Christine Stovell

And I’m 9% through reordering my manuscript. Happily, there isn’t nearly as much mess as I’d anticipated.

Confused

When the blogging cupboard was bare the other day I mentioned I could tell you about our book club meeting where we discussed Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. With Fran’s encouragement, “Go on. What did they think of 'Oranges'? Have you seen the film?” I’ve decided I do want to talk about it.

I want to talk about it because I am troubled.

I adored studying English literature at school and I’ve blogged before here and here about the teachers who contributed to that passion. Since I could read I’ve loved reading but later on I discovered that I really enjoyed studying books too.

But those things are different, aren’t they?

I think that that’s where we didn’t… couldn’t do Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit justice.  It’s possible to read and not study it but it throws up all sorts of questions for the average reader - at least it did at our book group. (And I am assuming that we’re the average reader… we’re all enthusiastic readers, educated – mostly to at least degree level – we read a wide range of material and want to meet with other addicts to talk about our experience.) Another assumption I’m going to make is that you know of or have read Jeanette Winterson’s OANtOF – if you don’t, you can check out its wiki page.

Many of us enjoyed it while acknowledging that we knew we were 'not getting it' or missing out in some way and others decided that they just didn't like it. I felt alienated. My knowledge of the Bible is sketchy. The chapter headings alone left me floundering, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy: the Last Book of Law, Joshua, Judges and Ruth, the only one that means anything to this impious one is Genesis. 

I am of course a ‘looker upper’ of things and I wanted to be prepared for book club so Google pointed me towards Sparknotes. They told me that OANtOF fits firmly in the postmodern tradition. It explains that the confusing nature of the plot is deliberate. The interruption of Jeanette’s narrative for fables and myths “creates a ‘metafiction,’ or a fictional novel that attempts to question the nature of fiction instead of just recounting a simple plot.”

So simply put, it’s a deliberate device to remind the reader that what they are reading is artifice.

Why? Who wants to read only as an academic exercise? And how is the average reader (the non studying one) supposed to know this? 

If anyone is able to shed any light on this I would be most pleased. 

Reading

I can stop harping on about the internet and the Mac now. All fixed. It’s time to retire off the old PC and get to love the Mac.

I’ve been reading my first draft. I made the gargantuan mistake of reading Kate Atkinson’s One Good Turn at the same time. Not simultaneously, obviously, because that would be impossible. During the day when I was working I read my draft and then when I’d stopped work I’d read One Good Turn. Talk about inferiority complex. I got quite depressed.

When I finished One Good Turn (particularly loved the opening scenes) I started Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. This is a futuristic, YA novel set in a dystopian US, way out of my genre but one of the blogs I read (I’m sorry I don’t know which one) recommended it as a good example of tension on every page. Son had read it and I like to keep up a bit with what he enjoys so I put it on my pile to read, not really thinking I’d get around to it. Yesterday, I picked it up and started it but it was so… well, not my thing that after a few pages I thought I’d just read a bit to have a look at the way Collins had achieved the tension … and do you know only a few pages later, before I knew it, I couldn’t put it down.

Isn't it funny how a book can creep up on you like that?

Blog famine

You know, this won’t do. It simply won’t do.

Why the blogging famine here at Tea Stains?

I am unable to put together a coherent post so here are some bullet points for you.

• I enjoyed Mystic River.
• I’m enjoying Incendiary - which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy Heartburn.
• I’m wondering why shop assistants need to stalk customers.
• What would have happened if the deadline had come around and you still hadn’t done it?
• I’m confused why tourists come to Thailand without having done a teeny weeny bit of research. It’s not okay to wear a skimpy and flimsy white dress with spaghetti straps and conspicuous black underwear. Save it for the beach.
• I am sad that one of our guests is flying home today and the other will go to Koh Chang on Thursday.
• I am beginning to feel something (other than confusion) about starting work on my novel again!

I hope to find my blogging mojo over the next few days.

Email from Husband

I received the following email from Husband a few days ago.  I think, maybe, he's trying to tell me something. I'm just not quite sure... what.

Some Maths Homework

41 = Books read so far this year (from your blog book list)
2/12 = Fraction of the year remaining (November and December)
41*2/12 = 7 More books to read this year.
41+7 = 48 Books read in 1 year (forecast)

43 = Current age of reader.
16 = approx age reading reached current pace and books were not just Enid Blyton
43-16 = 27 reading years
27*48 = 1296 Books read so far.

500g = Average weight of quality paperback (use 200g for chick lit and 800g for Stephen King)
4cm = average thickness of quality paperback (use 2cm for chick lit and 6cm for Stephen King)
500g * 1296 = 648kg.
4cm * 1296 = 52m

500cm average width of bookcase shelves
5 average shelves per bookcase
500*5 = 2.5m per bookcase
52m/2.5m = 21 bookcases required to house your books; with a total weight of a small family car.
*

A series of random or connected annecdotes...

A few weeks ago Husband and I watched a wonderful film called Incendiary. Being out here in Bangkok, we’d missed any hype there might have been about it. We struggle to find films we both like (Husband only likes films with aliens, guns or dinosaurs in and I loathe all films that have aliens, guns or dinosaurs) I picked it up because it appeared to be a bit more indie feeling than glossy Hollywood. It had explosions in it which I thought might appease Husband. We both loved Incendiary and have talked about it several times since we watched it.

A few weeks ago my lovely friend J told me about a book she’d read that had a mad ‘blurb’ which said they couldn’t tell anyone what the story was about because it would spoil the book. I didn’t write it down but I thought it sounded interesting. J told me I must read it. A couple of days later Caroline blogged about a book called The Other Hand by Chris Cleave. It took me a while but as soon as I connected the two referrals I went off and bought it.

Last week, I went into the library where I am book buyer and I was given the list of arrivals from my last order - two months earlier: based on a review, I had ordered The Other Hand by Chris Cleave.

I just finished reading it. In the US it goes under the title ‘Little Bee.’ It’s a must read. You must go out and buy it, whether you are a writer or a reader. It’s beautiful and terrifying and you just must read it. It's made me so very, very angry.

I went and looked at his website. He’s published one other book called Incendiary and a film has been made of that book…

It all goes to show how my brain is degenerating and I can’t remember anything how some things are serendipitous and just have to be.

Tagged by Leigh

Lovely Leigh has tagged me with this meme. The requirements for receiving it are as follows:

List ten honest things about yourself (try to make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep!) Hmmm, I’ve had a problem with this.

1. Pass the award on to ten other bloggers

Okay, here are the ten things:

1. I must have tea. I can do classy tea drinking but mostly, on a day to day basis, I just want workman’s tea. My daily dose of five to eight cups a day, needs to be PG Tips.


2. I am rarely … no, never… to be found without a lip salve in my pocket… and my handbag; and one by my bed. I might possibly give one to Husband too, to put in his pocket just in case. I have always been strict; a purist… Lip salve had to be ‘original.’ You wouldn’t catch me with a flavour until a few months ago when I really let myself go… and bought a milk and honey one. See, I’m not set in my ways.


3. I am kind, tolerant and thoughtful. I am always ready to empathise with people. I need time to get to know people and won’t be ‘me’ until I’m properly relaxed. I’m a ‘grower’ so if you make judgements quickly and don’t reassess, we won’t make it. I am astonished and saddened when people are unkind. Dislike who I am when you know me, but don’t judge me until then.


4. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to write or to acknowledge to myself I wanted to write. As I’ve dabbled my family have been telling me for years … decades even, that I should but I didn’t know whose dream it was.


5. I am capable and confident – we’ve moved our family to Thailand after all – but I won’t remember what time it starts, where we agreed to meet or which cinema it’s on at. Rarely, I’ll even forget that we agreed to meet.


6. I am not very sociable. I am not the life and soul type. I’d rather be with a small group of people than at a large party. If I’m being loud then I’m relaxed with you (or I’ve had too much gin.)


7. I am a pathological worrier.


8. I need lots of sleep.


9. I need to read.


10. I’m not interesting enough to find ten things to say about myself.

If you'd like to do the meme, consider yourself tagged.

I ♥ Book Club

My being ‘a reader’ isn’t unusual here on the blogs. Among those of us also writing it’s also a requirement, although I’ll bet, entirely a pleasure. When I meet people who don’t read (in the same compulsive way I do) they often remark on my ‘head in a book’ habit. It does define me.

I’ve always known what I wanted to read. I’ve no idea how early books came into my life (did my parents choose them?) My parents certainly never ‘managed’ my reading nor forbade anything. I was aware that my Mum disliked Enid Blyton, but both she and my Dad had a ‘any reading is good’ philosophy; they believed if you discovered a love of reading (anything) you’d always be a reader and your critical faculties would develop with maturity.

About four years ago I had a fiction reading crisis. It came upon me slowly, but I ceased to be satisfied by the type of books I was reading and then worse still, I stopped being able to choose books. It was so frustrating because I’d never been unable to select books. My lovely friend The High Priestess of Punk-chew-ation let me loose on her bookshelves. Among the ones I took and never read was Bel Canto by Anne Patchett.

Then I found out we were moving to Bangkok. There wasn’t room in my head to worry about what to read and so I just consumed ‘escapist’ novels because I needed more than ever in this time of upsidedownyness to read. This took the pressure off me and my panic and misery subsided a bit.

Then when I got to Thailand I joined a couple of book clubs. Once a month my reading was prescribed and I had agreed to read whatever it was that was nominated. (When I read in the blurb of Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami that there were ‘talking cats,’ I nearly expired on the spot. I didn’t do talking animals ... but I really enjoyed it.)

I don’t always like the book club choice but I always (barring life events) read it. Brilliant books I would NEVER have picked up with being made to, are: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant and Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.

This month’s book for Book Club… is Bel Canto by Anne Patchett which I’d already got.

And OMG: I’ve found the book I wish I’d written.

It’s my first 5/5 for Book Club.

On holiday

It's half term, and we're away: not where we planned to go and not our second choice ... but we're away.

This is Son's preparation for his holiday. His wicked parents told him he couldn't bring his lap top. He'd finished the first Harry Potter for the 247th time, by the end of the journey. His stupid mother didn't notice the hotel had a wii.

It's definitely still the rainy season.

Write, Wrong?

I’ve finished The Memory Keeper’s Daughter (three out of five) and started The Door by Magda Szabo.

And, I’ve done some writing.

I’ve written my Book Club report which wasn’t due until 5 February. That’s a first.

I’ve thought of a subject that was evading me for an upcoming article.

I started the second Andaman Discoveries article, but there’s a third of these due too. And quite rightly, they are keen to get the Bangkok Post article that I wrote last term that needs work, back to submit – having been reworked. I looked at it on Monday and decided that it needed to be rewritten. Sometimes it’s easier starting from scratch rather than rejigging.

But I haven’t done any more novel. This is somewhat depressing because it’s nearly February. I have to develop the sitting-on-your-bum-more-regularly habit if I want to keep up with the writing I’ve promised and the writing I want to do.

And still, every time, pretty much, that I do engage bum glue and sit on my ever expanding, writerly arse, I wonder if I can do it (write a novel). In fact, it’s worse than that: what I really I think is ‘I don’t think I can do this…’

*sigh*