Unfortunately I am a teacher and not long ago I had an inset training on outstanding teaching. What annoyed me was the assertion made by the speaker that children should read a certain canon of books before they leave primary school. Shouldn't children just read? Does it matter if they have read 'The Tiger Comes to Tea' or if they decide to challenge themselves and read 'A Brief History of Time'? As adults, do we expect that we should have read a fixed set of books before we are thirty? No! All that matters is that we read. That we read insatiably. That we read what matters to us and what comes into our lives. Books, surely, are living things (especially the physical book.) Books are passed on and they grow into your day- either they are read or they are abandoned like wordy puppies.
And so here is a list of my favourite 15 books of 2014 in no particular order (they may not have been published this year!):
1) 'The Letter for the King' by Tonke Dragt
A completely engrossing children's tale concerning a young squire who unexpectedly goes on a quest to deliver a letter to a rival king in an unknown kingdom. This book was published in the 60s but feels like a classic immediately. It stands up to the Hobbit or Earthsea in its sense of fantastic escapism. Chivalrous in its morality, it feels medieval but modern in its telling.
2) 'The Goldfinch' by Donna Tartt
It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and perhaps deservedly so. This is a huge novel which feels very Dickensian as it follows the life of its protagonist in New York from a tragic childhood to an adulthood linked disturbingly to crime, While I found the ending a little bit preachy and overlong, what made this book so enjoyable was the attention to detail in its main character and his relationship with a range of memorable characters in New York and Las Vegas. The incredible events at the beginning are unexpected and breathtaking.
3) 'The Luminaries' by Eleanor Catton
Another enormous book with Dickensian overtones. I felt as though I had unearthed this book from a gold mine in New Zealand, which is the setting of this novel. The language is exquisite and this is the main reason for reading and ploughing through it. Its sense of place and history is extraordinary, although at times it feels overwhelming. One to get lost in, in more senses than one.
4) 'Childhood's End' by Arthur C. Clarke.
Mad, bewildering, philosophical and brilliant. It's like Independence Day with brains and was written in the late '50s. C S Lewis admired it but questioned its morality.
5) 'What Has Nature Ever Done For Us?' by Tony Juniper.
An excellent, informative book about the purpose of nature's ecological systems and how it helps rather than hinders humanity. It is compelling in making us realize that nature gives us an awful lot but humanity seems to offer nothing in return. Rather than a negative, doomsday book about climate change, this is more an eulogy to nature on planet Earth, in all its forms. Inspiring and positive.
6) 'Cloud Street' by Tim Winton
Richard Flannigan may have won the Booker Prize this year, but Tim Winton is an Australian writer also deserving of big accolades. This story follows a family uprooting their life to share a house with another family in Perth. Over decades the families get a little closer, in many ways. Written unusually, this book is funny, poignant and with plenty of Australian whimsy. I loved it.
7) '1Q84' by Murakami.
Firstly, this book should come with a warning. Reading it is like jumping into another world. At first the waters are cold. Even though you warm to it, at any moment the tides change and you often wonder why you even went swimming to begin with. It is very engaging, but you are never sure why. I'm still uncertain quite what happened in this book. Part of me wonders whether Murakami wrote this as a colossal joke. Read it, if you dare...
8) 'The Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4' by Sue Townsend.
Finally I got round to reading this classic. It was a joy and Adrian is such a superbly imagined character that I am still convinced he exists! He feels like a friend or someone I know (or perhaps me myself!) Sad to hear that Sue Townsend passed away; more reason to read the next one this year! What will he get up to next?!
9) 'The Steady Running of the Hour' by Justin Go.
A debut author writes with gravitas, wisdom with a true sense of history in its broad strokes and in its personal, intricate details. The story involves an American graduate tracking down his family history across Europe, hoping to receive a huge fortune in the process. While being saturated with the weight of history, the story is engrossing and the descriptions of World War One are moving without being overblown. An author to watch.
10) 'The Circle' by Dave Eggers.
A Waterstones employee recommended this. He said it put him off the internet for life. I have made it my vow this year to be more internet savvy, which is contrary to the message of this disturbing novel; a 1984 or Brave New World for our social media times. Imagine a company so huge and powerful that it subsumes Google, Apple and the rest; thus creating a monstrosity called 'The Circle' which dictates our lives. While some may say the ideas are stretched to the absurd, the warning in this book is there: be careful where Facebook takes us... We will all be watching ourselves... Are we all Big Brother in the end?
11) 'Into the Wild' by Jon Krakauer
I haven't seen the film, but the book is compelling. Based on a true story, the premise involves a young man who abandons all responsibility to head out into the barren wilderness of Alaska. Following Romantic notions of being a kindred spirit of nature, the protagonist is at once reasonable and rational though in the end seemingly naive and idiotic. I felt like running off myself at times, but this book acts as a warning. As much as 'The Circle' may warn us about turning away from our true nature, this biography alerts us to the folly of turning away from the inevitable progress of humankind too.
12) 'Hard Times' by Charles Dickens.
As a teacher, I find Mr Gradgrind to be a hilarious figure. He preaches the virtues of facts to children who wish to find fantasy in an imagined Victorian Northern industrial town. I find this book interesting in that Dickens has not based the town in reality like so many of his books. There is a lot to appreciate in this; the town is hard, sooty but polluted with the sense of a fairy-tale (a circus is on the fringe of the banal.) In some ways this could have been the prelude to the next book on this list...
13) 'The Night Circus' by Erin Morgenstern
A riveting read. This is an immensely enjoyable story about two magicians at a travelling circus who are competing in a competition which they do not understand yet manage to find themselves falling in love. The language is rich and weaves a magical spell. While being a fantasy it feels wholly real, as if the circus dropped out of Dicken's head, fell into Morgenstern's and morphed into its own beautifully dark new creation.
14) 'Carl Jung: Dreams, Reflections, Memories' Carl Jung.
Jung trumps Freud in my view. He was a fascinating psychologist in that myth, history, personality and his own life informed all his beliefs. This semi-autobiography, collecting parts of Jung's diaries and essays, is not only a brilliant introduction to his theories but a superb recollection of his life. Sometimes it is bizarre and unworldly, yet Jung has enough humanity and spirit to warmly carry you through it all, explaining along the way the basis for his rich and paradigm changing psychological treatises.
15) 'The Science Delusion' by Rupert Sheldrake.
Sheldrake has had some criticism over the years. Critics have labelled him as some anti-scientist or quack New Ageist. However, his views on modern science are seemingly lucid and rational. He is not in any way against the practice of science, instead he believes that science is fundamentally about challenging our viewpoints. Science today, he reflects, is stuck in its own paradigms and there is not enough reviewing and evaluating to progress our understanding of the world in ways that used to be in the spirit of science. Sheldrake has his own theories, which on the surface appear absurd, are on, closer inspection, perhaps as valid as any other views about our place in the universe. In some ways Sheldrake is the opposite of Richard Dawkins; he is ready to collapse the pillars of science to discover new truths. In this respect, it makes for very interesting and mind-bending reading!
And lastly... I had to add 'Fahrenheit 451' by Ray Bradbury.
This is probably better than 1984 or Brave New World or even the Circle. I can't decide why I think this but perhaps it has something to do with the notion of burning every book and the fear that entails. Don't do it, you idiots! Don't even get a Kindle! It sounds too close to kindling, which is used to make fires. And especially don't get a Kindle Fire... don't burn the books!!!
Hence, this blog begins (which I haven't written on a Kindling Fire 451). Books, books and more books....
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