Frank H. (perryfran) reviewed on 5/31/2021 + 1223 more book reviews

For the most part, I really enjoyed this memoir of Susan Hill's where she decides to take a year and read books that are already on her shelves without buying anything new. These could be books she hasn't read or books that she wants to reread (most of what she discusses fall into that category). Hill is very well read indeed and her house is apparently overflowing with books she has collected through the years even going back to childhood. She discusses everything from pop-up children's books to very dense literary fiction that most people find unreadable. Examples of this include Proust and James Joyce's Ulysses, a book that I have tried reading more than once and can never make it past the first 50 pages or so. She also discusses detective fiction including the works of Dorothy Sayers which I have been meaning to read more of. And yes, she is a big admirer of Virginia Woolf who she apparently tries to emulate, even going so far as to start a publishing house in the vein of Woolf and her husband. Towards the end of the book she decides to make a list of 40 books that she could read and reread for the rest of her life. This list is quite diverse and includes The Bible as well as works by Dickens, Hardy, Eliot, Trollope, Henry James, Raymond Chandler, and many more.

As I said, I mostly enjoyed this memoir about books. But sometimes I felt that Hill talked most praisingly about books where she had met the author in person. She would discuss how much she liked a certain author and then tell how she had met him or her at a gathering or book panel. In this regard, her criticisms may have been a little prejudicial. But then again this narrative did remind me a lot of my own book collection and the books I still haven't got around to reading that have been sitting on my shelves for years. These include most of Dickens novels, works by Faulkner, the Brontes, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, E.M. Forster, Dorothy Sayers, and many others. There were also some books that I don't have and had never heard of that I definitely want to read after Hill's recommendations. These include The Bell by Iris Murdoch, The House in Paris by Elizabeth Bowen, In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin, and My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. As far as Hill's own works, I have only read The Woman in Black which I did enjoy. I should probably seek out more by her.

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