2013 End of Year Book Survey

So you've seen which books I read this year, but I haven't written yet about the best books of 2013, my personal favourite books of 2013, what books I'm looking forward to for 2014, or any other typical end-of-year book blog fare. I kept coming up with different angles for these end-of-year posts, so instead of writing five different entries I decided to join in the 2013 survey created by Jamie over at The Perpetual Page Turner (thanks Jamie!). Jamie created the questions four years ago and now conducts this survey annually herself, inviting any interested book bloggers to participate.

1. Best book you read in 2013?

Hm, tough one. Probably May We Be Forgiven by A. M. Homes.

2. Book you were excited about and thought you were going to love more but didn't?

The Interestings, by Meg Wolitzer. I had read such great reviews about it that I personally recommended it for book club. But it did not live up to those reviews, not even close. If it wasn't for the fact that I wanted to review it here on the blog I might not have finished it. I read other disappointing books this year but none that I was as excited about prior to reading.

3. Most surprising (in a good way!) book you read in 2013?

May We Be Forgiven. I hadn't heard much about it, just picked it up in a bookstore and thought it looked good. It was a game changer for me, in the sense that I now want to read everything else she's written.

4. Book you read in 2013 that you recommended most in 2013?

Easy - The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion. It's such a well-written, feel good novel, with hilarity and emotional resonance to boot. There are very few people to whom I would not recommend this.

5. Best series you read in 2013?

It's relatively rare for me to read series, so it is with surprise that I realize I have a ready answer for this one: the Patrick Melrose novels by Edward St Aubyn.

6. Favourite new author discovered in 2013?

Either A. M. Homes or Jennifer Egan.

7. Best book that was out of your comfort zone or was a new genre for you?

I read more non-fiction this year than I anticipated, but I would probably say Death Comes to Pemberley, a crime novel, was the greatest departure from my norm.

8. Most thrilling, unputdownable book of 2013?

Oh, it would have to be Gone Girl. Although strictly speaking I read it the first time towards the end of 2012.

9. Book you read in 2013 that you are most likely to re-read next year?

I don't really do this (unless I have to for book club). I would re-read a classic, or I might re-read a book that I loved years later - but almost never the very next year. I believe that the joy in returning to a book derives from the changes within oneself, and a year is not long enough to evoke changes in me significant enough that they would cause me to see a book in a new, interesting way.

10. Favourite cover of a book you read in 2013?

This is difficult, especially as I purchased many of my 2013 books electronically. I think the Faber & Faber cover of Deborah Levy's Swimming Home is beautiful. I also love the book covers created for the Patrick Melrose novels in the MacMillan box set. They are pleasantly tactile, too.

11. Most memorable character in 2013?

Probably Patrick Melrose, simply because I spent so much time with him. But Don Tillman, the professor at the core of The Rosie Project, is also highly memorable.

12. Most beautifully written book in 2013?

Tinkers by Paul Harding. Which is quite something, as I also re-read The Great Gatsby this year.

13. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2013?

May We Be Forgiven, by A. M. Homes.

14. Book you can't believe you waited UNTIL 2013 to finally read?

I didn't read a book this year that neatly fits into this category. No classics that I should have read ages ago but just read this year for the first time. I suppose I had been wanting to read A Visit from the Goon Squad all through 2012 but only got to it in 2013, so perhaps that counts.

15. Favourite passage / quote from a book you read in 2013?

I couldn't possibly pull out a passage and say it was my favourite out of all 40 books. So I will just set out a couple of excerpts which I had highlighted on my Kindle app this year and which I found beautiful and touching.

From Me and Rory MacBeath by Richard Beasley:

"When 'Forever Young' came on, Harry and Ruth started singing along, and although I couldn't see, I was pretty sure Harry was crying when she was singing it. Towards the end of the song I remembered when it was that I'd last seen Rory smile, really smile, before this night. There he was, grabbing my leg at Brown's Beach, breaking the surface of the water, grinning and laughing like a madman. That had been the last time. Then I thought about how much had happened since that day, and I realized then, for the first time, that the song was really just a prayer, and I felt sad, as sad as Harry's voice, because I couldn't see how anyone could really stay forever young."

From May We Be Forgiven byA. M. Homes:

"What I have learned this year is that the job of parent is to help the child become the person he or she already is."

16. Shortest and longest book you read in 2013?

No idea, can't be bothered to look through them all to find out. Doesn't matter, really, does it, the length of a book?

17. Book that had a scene in it that had you reeling and dying to speak to someone about it?

THAT scene in Mateship With Birds - anyone who has read it will know what I mean. But also, on a more innocent note, the scene in The Rosie Project where Don is the cocktail mixer at the medical convention dinner. It had me laughing till I cried. Oh, also - the way The Dinner unfolds is so brilliant, I kept pressing the book on friends so I could talk to them about it.

18. Favourite relationship from a book you read in 2013?

The relationship between the professor and the housekeeper's son in The Housekeeper and the Professor. Closely followed by the relationship between Jake and his mother, Harry, in Richard Beasley's Me and Rory MacBeath.

19. Favourite book you read in 2013 by an author you have read previously?

Eve in Hollywood by Amor Towles, who also wrote Rules of Civility. Closely followed by How to get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid.

20. Best book you read in 2013 based SOLELY on a recommendation from someone else?

So many! I received great reading recommendations in 2013 and much of my reading was inspired by those recommendations. Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple; The Rosie Project; The Women in Black by Madeleine St John, the Patrick Melrose novels. All great books. Thanks, bookish friends, for your excellent recommendations!


21. Genre you read the most in 2013?

Literary fiction.

22. Newest fictional crush from a book in 2013?

Mindy Kaling. Ok, she may be an actual real-life person but I'm sure there is some degree of fiction in her depiction on the page.

23. Best 2013 debut you read?

The Rosie Project.


24.  Most vivid world / imagery from a book you read in 2013?

I didn't read any sci-fi or young adult fiction this year, the kinds of books where this kind of thing is particularly relevant. The colours and sounds of Pakistan jumped off the page in How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, though.

25. Book that was the most fun to read in 2013?

The Rosie Project, Where'd you go, Bernadette, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me.

26. Book that made you cry or nearly cry in 2013?

I cry frequently, so don't place too much importance on this. I do remember distinct teary moments during my readings of May We Be Forgiven, The Rosie Project, Where'd You Go, Bernadette? and Me and Rory MacBeath. They were all different kinds of tears though - happy tears, sad-for-a-character tears, sad-to-finish-a-book tears, angry tears.

27. Book you read in 2013 that you think got overlooked this year or when it first came out?

The Women in Black, a book about Sydney in the 1950s, was first published in 1993 to little fanfare (although Madeleine St John became the first Australian female writer to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize for a subsequent novel in 1997). I feel as though she should have received greater critical acclaim for this comic little novel.

1. What is one book you didn't get to in 2013 but will be your top priority for 2014?

Timbuktu by Paul Auster. I didn't read a single of his books this year (save for excerpts from a book of letters exchanged between Auster and J. M. Coetzee), and I have this sitting unread on my shelf. I can't wait to crack it open.

2. Book you are most anticipating for 2014 (non-debut)?

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd.

3. 2014 debut you are most anticipating?

Umm. Not sure.

4. Series ending you are most anticipating in 2014?

I am not reading a series where the last book is yet to emerge. But I am yet to read the final book of the Patrick Melrose series, titled At Last, so I suppose that is the ending I am most anticipating for 2014. Oh also, I have Margaret Atwood's Maddaddam on the shelf and am very much looking forward to reading this. I might have to re-read The Year of The Flood first, though.

5. One thing you hope to accomplish in your reading / blogging in 2014?

I would like to read more books this year, if it is possible, and to maintain consistency in my blogging. I need to make a list of all the books I want to read this year, because I keep stumbling across them and I'm worried now I will forget them all before the year is up.

Happy 2014 everyone! Here's to a brand new year of reading.

Bibliofilly x

What I read in 2013

I started this blog on the 9th of January 2013, with no clear idea of where it would take me. Even though I have taken a few months off recently, maintaining this blog has been a great joy for me throughout 2013. I am so pleased to have met some lovely people through my blogging, and I really hope to meet more next year. And I find that knowing I will be reviewing a book on the blog forces me to read it in a more thoughtful manner. Possibly it has also kept me reading through times this year when it has been quite difficult to sit down and read, even though that is one of my favourite things to do: in the sleepless nights following the birth of baby Eloise, for example.

In no particular order, these are the books I have read this year:

1. Steve Hely - How I Became a Famous Novelist
2.Madeleine Wickham - Sleeping Arrangements
3. Maggie Alderson - Everything Changes But You
4. Dominic Knight - Disco Boy
5. Hermann Koch - The Dinner
6. Chris Cleave - Gold
7. Paul Harding - Tinkers
8. Yoko Ogawa - The Housekeeper and the Professor
9. Jennifer Egan - A Visit from the Goon Squad
10. Ian McEwan - Sweet Tooth
11. Tom Rachman - The Imperfectionists
12. Susannah Calahan - Brain on Fire
13. Marian Keyes - The Mystery of Mercy Close
14. Derek B. Miller - Norwegian by Night
15. Edward St Aubyn - Never Mind
16. Edward St Aubyn - Bad News
17. Edward St Aubyn - Some Hope
18. Edward St Aubyn - Mother's Milk
19. Jennifer Egan - Look at Me
20. P. D. James - Death Comes to Pemberley
21. Gillian Flynn - Gone Girl
22. F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby
23. Lauren Leto - Judging a Book by its Cover
24. Graeme Simsion - The Rosie Project
25. Carrie Tiffany - Mateship with Birds
26. Sheryl Sandberg - Lean In
27. Curtis Sittenfield - American Wife
28. A. M. Homes - May We Be Forgiven
29. Madeleine St John - The Women in Black
30. Sophie Kinsella - Wedding Night
31. Richard Beasley - Me and Rory MacBeath
32. Mohsin Hamid - How to get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
33. Amor Towles - Eve in Hollywood
34. Piper Kerman - Orange is the New Black
35. Deborah Levy - Swimming Home
36. Maria Semple - Where'd You Go Bernadette?
37. Gretchen Rubin - The Happiness Project
38. Dominic Knight - Man vs Child
39. Mindy Kaling - Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns)
40. Maggie O'Farrell - The Hand that First Held Mine

Oh, and there were a few others but I'm not sure they count. The Getaway Car, by Ann Patchett - her treatise on writing, formerly only available online, now published as a chapter of her new book. I have dipped, through the year, in and out of the book of letters exchanged between Paul Auster and J. M Coetzee, entitled Here and Now. I have peeked into a wine book, several cookbooks and I perused some travel books before we took off on our trip. I have read a book about French fashion called Forever Chic.

All in all, given that it has been a year of many happenings, I am quite pleased to have read 40 books. And I'm surprised: 6 of my 40 reads are non-fiction. That's more than I would have expected.

But I am so embarrassed by my failure to achieve my set reading goals for 2013. All I managed to do was read a few chapters of Infinite Jest and to re-read The Great Gatsby. I will write another aspirational post soon, and hope to live up to my goals better in 2014.

I have so much reading lined up to do, and I can't wait to get to it. I'm hoping I can squeeze more books into my life next year.

How many books did you read this year? Any stand-outs? Any regrets? I would love to hear from you.

Bibliofilly x

Filling the shelves

It is a great irony that I should have moved, here, into a house finally large enough to house a proper library, just when I have had to leave all of my books behind in Sydney.

By some quirk of fate, we landed a crazy real estate (rental) deal in Toronto. We scored a gorgeous, enormous apartment in one of Toronto's old mansions for more or less the same rent we were paying in Australia for a small two bedroom place. Admittedly our flat there was near the beach, and art deco, and I loved it to bits, but still. The amount of space we have here is so extraordinary that I initially found it daunting. We have ten foot ceilings, more rooms than we can furnish, and a fully finished basement with a spa bath. The bones of the building are truly beautiful and I am in love with many of the spaces in it. But one room in particular has won my heart. I still don't know what to call it: the sunroom, the reading room, the girls' room, the nursery (this is where we sleep Lulu, for now), the library, the annex. It was an addition to the original house, I believe, likely having formerly been a covered patio. It is filled with light and has a gracious feel to it. When we first moved in, this room like most of the others on the ground floor had lovely wooden floorboards, but it was a bit cold. Our landlord has recently had it carpeted, and installed a heater, and now it is the place I like best for hanging out with the kids. Lulu can roll happily on the floor and I can lie on the daybed I put right by the bay windows. I have always dreamed of having a daybed like this and now I have one in the most perfect spot I could imagine - I have the reading spot of my dreams. Check it out:

Bibliofilly reads here

This room is where I have chosen to put the only bookshelves we bought when furnishing the house. There are built-in bookshelves in my son's room and in the kitchen, but this is where my own books will live.

I started with empty shelves.

But as the months wear on, I find that I am filling those shelves rather quickly. When we first arrived there were just two books on the shelf: Filth by Irvine Welsh (as yet unread, purchased on our travels) and a book called The Happiness Project which I am borrowing from my mother. Now there are a fair few. Bibliohubby thoughtfully bought me some special books for my birthday (the details of which I will save for another post); I got some books for Christmas; and of course, I have purchased the odd volume here or there myself.

This gorgeous box set of newly designed children's classics brings me such joy. I bought it 'for the kids' for Christmas. Of course neither of them will be old enough to enjoy it for some time, but I can enjoy it right away! And the prettiness of it reflects the prettiness of the room.

Next to one of my green elephant bookends I have the original books described above, and some recent Christmas additions: the new Donna Tart and Ann Patchett, and The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis, about which I have heard good things.

A small selection of baby books for Lulu, as this is, after all, her room too.

Ah, my precious ones. First editions. Leviathon and The Invention of Solitude signed by Paul Auster. Timbuktu - first ed, but not signed. Salman Rushdie's essays, signed. And my dear brother's Christmas gift to me, a signed first ed of Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin.

MaddAddam, the final book in Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction trilogy which started with The Year of the Flood - signed by her, in person, when I met her recently (about that - more later). A signed first ed by Alice Munro, courtesy of Bibliohubby, and another Munro collection, and Swimming Home by Deborah Levy, one of my holiday reads.

My sweet sister-in-law has given me some books she was ridding her shelves of. I never feel at home until I have an edition of Shakespeare's plays in the house. For some, the Bible. For me - Shakespeare. And Pride and Prejudice. Which, incidentally, I need to acquire.

A few more goodies I have collected here and there. Still to read: The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Rachel Joyce), The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (Jonas Jonasson), The Reason I Jump (Naoki Higashida - thanks John Stewart, for alerting me to this), Beautiful Ruins (Jess Walter) and The Pure Gold Baby (Margaret Drabble).

My mum, clearing her shelves (what would we do without family, eh?) (see how Canadian I now am) has given me some of her duplicates. And what great ones they are!

And finally, three Vogue Australia magazines from when I worked there briefly in the early '90s.

There are other bits and pieces scattered about the house - Bibliohubby's wine books, a few cookbooks, design magazines and a growing collection of great children's books in Iggy's room. But this is the core from which my Canadian library will grow (and I can almost hear Bibliohubby's heart falter as I write this - don't worry, honey, not too many books! Not TOO many...).


Bibliofilly x

Mindy Kaling - Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

I love Mindy Kaling. I loved her before reading this book and now, having read it, I love her even more. I actually feel like she's one of my girlfriends and we hang out all the time. I love her TV show, The Mindy Project, and I loved The Office (before it jumped the shark. But even after that I watched every episode). So it's no surprise that I would also enjoy this book.

I guess I'm new to the comedian-memoir genre. I read Tina Fey's Bossy Pants a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it but haven't read any thing else since that I would classify in this way. I know Chelsea Handler has a book out right now but I don't find her funny (sorry Chelsea).

Anyway, Bibliohubby and I share a love of comedy and so I think I have more of this kind of reading in my future.

But this book - I think one of the reasons I liked it so much and read it so quickly, in spite of everything happening around me right now, is that it feels like a best-friendship unfolding on the page. I really wish MK was my best friend. Not even kidding. She talks a lot about her friendships in this book and I love that she describes her friends as more likely to tell ghost stories in the dark than tell raunchy stories about guys - not just when they were teenagers, now. In a chapter about best friends (it's that kind of book), she writes that 'it is super weird for us not to share a bed' if boyfriends are away or she is on a trip with a friend. 'How else will we talk until we fall asleep?' This made me miss my besties on the other side of the world. I have yet to make that kind of friend here in Canada.

MK loves Will Ferrell and hero-worships Amy Poehler and wishes married people would realize they are the happy ending to the fairy tale and act that way instead of complaining all the time about what hard work it is. She is frenemies with Rainn Wilson. She has an architecturally decorated study but does her writing in bed. And she probably won't lose weight and get all skinny because even though she might fantasize about getting super fit and fighting baddies, there are other things more important to her.

What a great read. I'm worried that it will take me a few days to come down from this and realize MK and I are not besties in real life. Now all I have left is The Mindy Project. If The Mindy Project gets cancelled I will be very, very upset.

Overall rating: I am giving this three stars because I enjoyed it so much, but it's not great literature - it doesn't have to be. Go and read it though. I'm serious.

Note: In case you're interested, these are some other comedians whose books I would read (not an exhaustive list): Arj Barker, Louis C. K., Nick Offerman (I am about to borrow his book from Bibliohubby and will post about it when I do), Amy Poehler, Will Ferrell, Stephen Colbert, Steve Carrell, Megan McCarthy.

A precious gift

As a parting gift, the girls in my Sydney book club the Bibliofillies (from whence this blog got its name) arranged for this to be made for me:

A book stamp with a filly on it - my very own Bibliofilly Ex Libris book stamp. A most excellent and thoughtful gift indeed.

Merry Christmas!

Ok, I have been HORRIBLE at blogging since we left Australia. Strangely it seems that raising two young kids, traveling the world and moving to a new country are not factors conducive to regular writing (or reading, for that matter). But here we are, in Toronto, and if any of you are still out there, for what it's worth, I am back. I plan to be back, is what I'm saying, for more regular posts.

But before we get to those, I just wanted to wish you all a very happy holiday season. We have had snow, a proper white Christmas, which is just wonderful. The kids have loved it (Iggy has, anyway; Lulu's a bit young still), and it has made us feel like we are really properly living in Canada. I mean look at this, for heaven's sakes!

Coming soon: a few brief reviews of books I've read whilst on hiatus, a list of books I currently have on my (new) shelves, best books of 2013, aspirational reads for 2014, and more. Hope to see you back here with me.

Bibliofilly x

Travel update

So we are traveling. And I wasn't able to upload a review before we left. Apologies. In a weak attempt at compensation, here are a couple of book-related photos from our trip. The first, above, needs no gloss. The second (below) is me at the Southbank book market in London. I love stumbling across this kind of thing. The beautiful blanket hides Lulu, who has been my constant companion on such wanderings. No special literary finds yet, but I will keep you posted.