It’s New Year’s Eve – an occasion on which Moppet flatly refuses to leave the house. What’s stopping her? Well, aside from the inflated taxi fares, stinginess of London Transport who only offer free travel after 23.45 and requirement to stay wherever she is till after midnight whether she’s bored to sobs or not, she thinks it would need a director like Douglas Sirk to inject any kind of drama or interest into the transition from one year to the next. She can’t bear the grim pre-recorded fare on offer on television, so that leaves the Internet as a source of entertainment. Moppet decided to do something productive with her New Year’s Eve: post about her favourite 2009 reads. Feel free to imagine her sipping hot chocolate by a roaring log fire as she taps away on her laptop, smiling to herself because the neighbours who terrified her out of her mind with their New Year’s fireworks in previous years now can’t afford them.
Button by Alex for Historical Tapestry
1. Nana by Emile Zola. Read in February 2009.
Nana is an actress who shoots to fame in Second Empire Paris for…having a great body really, she can’t act or sing to save her life, but she goes through men and their millions like a hot knife through butter. I liked Nana – she can be selfish but also very generous; she is feckless and deceitful but vulnerable too, with unfulfilled dreams and ambitions. Throughout the novel Zola gives us glimpses of other ex-courtesans, some rich and respectable, others literally reduced to scavenging in the gutter. What will be Nana’s fate?
2. American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. Read in May 2009.
Fictionalised account of Laura Bush’s life, told in the first person by ‘Alice Blackwell’. I wasn’t too sure if I approved of this book as I’m the daughter and stepdaughter of lawyers and thought it was basically libel. However, I shouldn’t moralise as I was one of the first on the library’s waiting list (having enjoyed CS’s earlier offering Prep). I thought the first part, covering Alice’s girlhood up to the tragic car accident which irrevocably changes her life, was just brilliant. And the rest was intelligent and highly readable. So I recommend it, although of course you have to take it with a pinch of salt.
3. Armadale by Wilkie Collins. Read in June 2009.
Unlike Collins’s more famous novel, The Woman in White, Armadale isn’t a mystery. You see things from the point of view of the villain, flame-haired seductress Lydia Gwilt as her dastardly plans unfold. Collins generously allows Lydia to be beautiful, although she’s in a Victorian novel and all of 35. The illustrator to the first three-volume edition seems to have taken exception to this and didn’t portray her as beautiful at all, which would make nonsense of the plot. This is a long haul, but fairly easy reading for a classic, and the climactic scene, in a lunatic asylum, is one of the most atmospheric and suspenseful I’ve ever read.
4. Penmarric by Susan Howatch. Read in August 2009.
The story of Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine and their feuding children is played out in nineteenth-century Cornwall. Penmarric is a riveting family saga – even if you can guess at some of the plot, it’s fascinating to see how Susan Howatch works it all out. This is my favourite of her family sagas, with The Wheel of Fortune coming a very close second.
5. The Last Queen by C.W. Gortner. Read in September 2009.
Juana la Loca has always been ‘Catherine of Aragon’s sister’ to me so it was great to find out more about her and refreshing to read about a sixteenth-century woman who wasn’t a Tudor. The book reimagines the life of Juana, who was supposedly mad, from a feminist viewpoint: not only did Juana seem pretty sane to me, I wanted her to go further in rebelling against her grasping father and husband! The book sustains a fast pace while explaining a fairly complex political situation. You understand how hard it was for Juana to know whom to trust and why her life turned out as it did.
While I only read 33 books in 2009, I had a hard time choosing only five highlights, and I seem to recall a lot of DNFs – so I conclude that I didn’t finish anything that I wasn’t enjoying. Also several of my 2009 books were very long ones – the classics and the Susan Howatch sagas. Thus I completed about half as many books this year as I have in previous years.
What about 2010? Well, in the final days of the year I have been sniffing out various challenges I want to sign up to. More about that in the New Year’s Day post!
In the meantime, I wish all my readers and commenters a very happy New Year! Thank you so much for stopping by – I hope you’ll be back in 2010.
Tags: american wife, armadale, curtis sittenfeld, cw gortner, douglas sirk, emile zola, nana, penmarric, susan howatch, the last queen, wilkie collins
It’s going to be too cold here in Denver to go do much – although the public transportation system is free tonight from 7pm to 6 am. We might go see a movie though. I read The Last Queen when it first came out and loved it! I think he is so talented and can’t wait to read his take on Catherine de Medici. Happy New Year!!
Happy New Year Daphne! Hope you have a good time if you do go out and I’m glad your city authorities are more generous than ours. I’m looking forward to the Catherine de Medici book too, in fact it will be mentioned in my New Year’s Day post.
I still can’t decide if I want to give Collins a whirl or not. Wheel of Fortune is slooooowly moving to the top of the pile. It wet and miserable outside and I’m going nowhere and hoping the rain dampens the spirits of the neighbors who always shoot off fireworks at midnight for 30 plus minutes.
I found the Collins a bit confusing and slow to start with – but once Lydia Gwilt steps on stage it’s compelling. So it’s one of those books you do have to give some commitment to before knowing if you really will like it or not. Wheel of Fortune was a real fat juicy read – I think you’ve got a treat in store!
Hope your neighbours hold off on the fireworks! I like to look at them but they are so appallingly loud and must terrify all the pets in the vicinity. I’ve found that one of the very few advantages of the recession has been the relative peace and quiet on Bonfire Night and at New Year – it was like a re-enactment of the battle of the Somme before that.
Thank you, Miss Moppet, for your lovely words about my book. Readers like you have been so incredibly supportive to me; I very much appreciate your enthusiasm and interest in my work, and hope I will continue to entertain you with Catherine de Medici in 2010. Happy New Year to you and your readers!
You’re welcome CW! And Happy New Year to you. I’ve added you to my blogroll.
Public transport here is free after 6pm, but we went into the city for the family fireworks at 9pm last year (as in 2008) and the getting home was a nightmare on public transport so not prepared to do that again for another couple of years at least.
Last night, friends came around, we got pizza for dinner, listened to music, played Singstar and Buzz, chatted, drank etc etc.
It’s a very civil way to usher in the new year!
Happy New Year to you.
And to you Marg! Sounds very civilised and fun. So does Danielle Steel’s black-tie fast-food-and-poker New Year bash. But she didn’t invite me!
Nana is one of my favorite books by Zola, followed right after by Germinal and Au Bonheur des Dames. I really need to reread them one of these days… Happy New Year, Miss Moppet!:)
Happy New Year to you Alex and thanks for the pretty button!
I plan to read the entire Rougon-Macquart series and am making progress at the rate of about one a year. So far I’ve read La fortune des Rougon, L’assommoir and Nana. Also started both La Curee and Le Ventre de Paris but didn’t finish them. If I read one this year it might well be Au Bonheur des Dames.
Nice list! All of them sound really good.
The Last Queen was one of my favorite reads of 2009, too! It’s funny about Susan Howatch–I’ve never read anything by her, but lately she’s been popping up on my radar. May have to check her out, but my TBR pile at time moment is enormous! Happy reading in 2010.
And to you! I think Penmarric is a good one to start with but it’s a chunkster – took me a couple of weeks to get through. If you’re ever in the mood for something meaty it could be just the thing.