In which I present, for no apparent reason, a list of books I’ve read since the last list.

The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad: This is the fourth of his books that I’ve read (the previous three are here, and it’s now level pegging, with two of them (this included) being very enjoyable, and two not so much.

Dead Souls – Ian Rankin: First of a set of “three for five quid” picked up in a bargain bookshop that’s conveniently near where I was waiting for the old Merc to pass it’s MOT test. This one was picked because I’ve read quite a lot of Rankin’s stuff. A fairly standard “Rebus” novel, but with an unexpected twist – I spent quite a lot of the time having a strange sense of deja vu, like I’d read some passages of the book before, and some bits of the story were familiar too. It turned out that it was adapted from a short story I’d already read, which was published in Beggar’s Banquet.

The Front – Patricia Cornwell: The second of the bargain-bookshop-three. This was ok, but it deserved to be in the bargain bookshop.

Roman Blood – Steven Saylor: The wildcard entry from the bargain bookshop. I’d never heard of it (or him), or any of the other books on offer, so I picked it up almost at random to make up the set of three. It turned out to be the best of the lot by a long way. Very good indeed. Luckily it’s also the first of a long series, of which I’ve already purchased the next book.

The Turn of the Screw – Henry James: This was ‘recommended’ by my wife. Recommended as in she read it, then passed it on to me, but failed to inform me beforehand that she didn’t really like it. There are two stories in the book. I got about halfway through the first page before I asked if she’d read them both, and she said no. I wondered why not, but with hindsight it was a valiant effort even reading the first in its entirety. I lasted about three chapters then gave up.

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley: An astounding vision of the future, for its time, although it doesn’t seem so far away now. Also, in my opinion, an astoundingly bad piece of writing.

Set In Darkness – Ian Rankin: More of the Rebus stuff. Readable enough, as always.

The Falcon Flies – Wilbur Smith: Without any reasonable grounds for doing so, I always had Wilbur Smith down as some kind of author of junk fiction. I only read this because I found it lying around. I thought it was great, and I’ll be reading more of his books.

This is the third list of books I’ve been reading. (One and two). I’m not sure what made me start doing this. Even writing a couple of sometimes sarcastic comments about each book can be hard work. It’s worth doing though, I reckon. To be accurate, the first two of these should have really been included in the last batch, but I forgot about them so they’re here instead. Anyway, without any further ado, here is the list:

Victory – Joseph Conrad: I really enjoyed this, particularly all the very interesting and utterly dislikeable characters. I’ll definitely be reading more of Joseph Conrad’s books.

Time and Tide – Edna O’Brian: I remember the quality of this being a refreshing change after whichever crap I’d read before it, but for some reason by about half way through I’d lost track of who was who and what was supposed to be going on, so I cast it aside. Probably my fault, not the book’s.

Angels and Insects – A. S. Byatt: Two novellas in one book. The first, Morpho Eugenia, is superb. The second, The Conjugal Agent, has it’s moments, but is ultimately pretty tedious.

Doors Open – Ian Rankin: I bought this at the supermarket because the supply of books of unknown origin lying around the house had run out. I tend to like Ian Rankin’s stuff, and also everything else Morrison’s had to offer looked absolutely awful. Literary masterpiece, it was not. Good read and entertaining, it was.

Consider Phlebas – Iain M Banks: I bought this one off eBay. I love anything by Iain M Banks, or at least what I’ve read so far, so obviously I loved this.

Matter – Iain M Banks: I actually bought this one from a real bookshop. It lived up to expectations, which is to say it was just as great as all his other work, except for Look To Windward which is so good it would be nearly impossible to match.

Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad: After enjoying Victory so much, I expected great things of Lord Jim, but I was a bit disappointed with it. Apart from being heavy going, writing an entire lengthy novel in speech marks is a very strange thing to do. I remember several “someone said that someone said” kind of situations where it ended up nested three levels deep in the pesky things. As I programmer, I ought to be able to cope with that kind of thing better than most, but I just found it annoying.

Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad: Another speech marks extravaganza. This time there was an occasional oasis of non-in-speech-marks narrative which, although it usually lasted only a sentence or two, was a blessed relief. That aside, I found the whole thing rather vague and tedious, despite Conrad’s excellent writing.

Tom Hodgkinson – How To Be Idle: There’s a lot I could have said about this, but I decided to stay in bed an for extra couple of hours and ponder the patterns on the ceiling instead.

Sleepers of Mars – John Wyndham: Five stories by John Wyndham. Some better than others. A recurring theme in his work is that some new technology can be invented, but then the inventor destroy their work (or someone else can) and it’s gone. This is preposterous. Pretty much all new technology is but an incremental improvement on the previous thing. If I ‘invent’ something new, then destroy all my work, it makes no difference because umpteen other people will have invented the same thing at the same time, or soon will. This is one of several reasons I dislike the whole idea of patents. Software patents, in particular, are completely ridiculous. This has nothing to do with the book whatsoever though.

Permutation City – Greg Egan: Very refreshing, in fact unprecedented I think, for me to read a book about technology and software where the author actually has a clue what he’s talking about. An excellent book. (Andy, thanks for the loan – I’ve added this to the pile of borrowed books I’m supposed to be giving back to you!)

Equinox – Michael White: This was a great book, and it was also a pleasant surprise to find that Isaac Newton was a major character in it. A surprise because I didn’t read the back of the book. I never read the back of books – I think it spoils the story to have it summarised before you’ve even started. You shouldn’t have read this really.

With that in mind the obvious course of action would be to select each and every precious book wisely. But no, because as before these are mostly books I found lying around the house rather than ones I chose. On the other hand, I did decide to write the list more frequently from now on, not least because I might drop dead at any moment and leave the world wondering what garbage I’d been filling my head with in my final days. So, without any further ado, on to the list:

Three Men In A Boat – Jerome K. Jerome: You’ve heard of this, because it’s one of those classic books everybody should have read. I found it in the cupboard, and have no idea how it got there. I’m glad I did, as it was one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. A strange combination of comedy and travel guide, I thought. (I found out later that it was in fact originally intended to be a travel guide.) On the other hand, I recommended it to my wife who read one chapter, declared it totally unfunny, and refused to read any more. Read it here!

The House of Doctor Dee – Peter Ackroyd: I’ve tried to read this before and failed. I didn’t get much further this time. Although it’s well written and seemed to be going somewhere interesting it kept turning into an A-Z of London. And I mean index of the street names, not the more interesting bit with actual maps. “I walked up Cocksparrow Street, down Jellied Eel Lane and then on into Kneesup Square.” Pages and pages of this at a time. Or so it seemed. I just couldn’t be arsed, quite frankly.

The Flood – Ian Rankin: I actually bought this one. It was cheap as chips in one of those bargain bookshops. Rankin’s first book, written as a young whippersnapper, and surprisingly insightful under the circumstances I thought. A worthwhile read.

The Hungry Tide – Valerie Wood: A historical romanctic melodrama kind of affair. Much as I feel I ought to, I can’t claim not to have enjoyed it. The main downside was the terrible attempt to write all the dialogue in some kind of strange historical Yorkshire accent/dialect form. You might think, what with that being somewhat close to my native tongue, that it wouldn’t have caused me any problems. In fact, I seem to recall having to read every line of dialogue several times, sometimes cursing out loud in annoyance. “Chuffin’ ‘eck, thou wouldst ‘ave ‘eard me sayin’, ‘appen as like”. Stein (yes, him out of Stein On Writing) is pretty clear about this kind of dialogue – don’t do it, he says, if my memory serves correctly. Now, I hate rules, and I remember when I read Stein On Writing thinking, after each and every “don’t do this”, that rules are made to be broken and there is a place for everything in the world. But she definitely should have listened to him on this one. Still, as I say, I have to admit to having enjoyed the book.

Gerald’s Game – Stephen King: Stephen King is the kind of author that has passionate fans, I believe, and if they’re obsessed with all this gore and horror stuff they must be quite scary types so I’ll try not to offend them, but really, I wonder why people enjoy reading this kind of miserable stuff so much, let alone writing it. Kind of like when I told my wife not to watch Hotel Rwanda, advice she promptly ignored and then afterwards was in tears, and depressed about it for the rest of the week. Why inflict that on yourself? But it was a good film, and likewise this was (of course) a good book, what with Mr King being the excellent writer that he is. I just prefer not to make a habit of reading this kind of thing. You are what you eat.

Fluke – James Herbert: 95% tired old “the world from a dog’s point of view” stuff, 1% insightful or amusing commentary on the same, and 4% tired old spiritual claptrap. You might get the impression I didn’t much like it, which is not entirely fair, it was okay enough. But I’ve read much better from James Herbert, so it’s probably the disappointment making me judge it with unfair harshness.

Beau Geste – P. C. Wren: Fantastic. I couldn’t write that in big enough letters. It would definitely feature in my list of the top ten books ever, if I were to write such a list, which is very unlikely.

The Cave – Kate Mosse: In the previous installment of my pointless list of books, I heaped praise on two of Kate Mosse’s books. I’m not heaping any praise on this. It was like the plot of the previous two simplified and melded together, then rewritten in a style appropriate for a semi-literate monkey to read. I think that was on purpose though – some kind of scheme to get bozos who don’t read to start reading, but frankly if they were coaxed into reading this they’d go straight back to trying to figure out which button to press to vote for their favourite Pop Idol, and I wouldn’t blame them.

Lottery (the fortunes and misfortunes of Perry L. Crandall) – Patricia Wood: I didn’t expect to like this because of the unimaginitive and tedious-sounding plot, i.e. someone unlikely wins the lottery and the obvious ensues. I had to eat my words though, because it was very good indeed.

Of Human Bondage – W Somerset Maugham: This seemed long – I remember turning a page and seeing the heading CXIX and briefly wondering what it meant. It had taken 119 chapters before I’d even noticed they were numbered. I guess, this being something of a classic, that I’m missing something and making myself look stupid, but I thought it basically meandered through the protagonist’s life with little or no point or purpose, and ended when the author ran out of paper, or lost the will to carry on. I did enjoy it, but if I had my time again I wouldn’t go out of my way to read it.

From Potter’s Field – Patricia Cornwell: Another bloody post-mortem conducting heroine – possibly the original one, since I’ve read several tales of this particular scalpel-wielding superwoman before. All books in this vein are the same to me – I picture them getting squeezed out of some murder-autoposy-thriller sausage machine, rather than being written. Perfectly readable though. No doubt I’ll read another one sooner or later.

Cold Shoulder – Lynda La Plante: A very popular author, so I’m led to believe. I thought the writing was completely uninspired and tedious, but the storytelling side of things was good. Reluctantly, I enjoyed it.

Lunar Park – Bret Easton Ellis: An actual new-ish book, from this century, not one of the previous two. Whatever next? Anyway, very good, I liked it. I guess they still do make books like they used to after all.

A Dark And Distant Shore – Reay Tannahill: I had my reservations about this, not least because the cover says “…a marvellous blend of Gone with the Wind and The Thorn Birds”, and even worse that quote, presumably the best they could get, was from the Daily Mirror. It was a good book though, despite suffering from the same spelling-out-of-accents problem as The Hungry Tide, which I complained about above. Scottish this time, which apparently is acheived by doubling up every ‘s’ and replacing ‘j’ with ‘ch’!? News to me. Also the castle around which the story revolves is called Kinveil and for some reason I misread this EVERY time and thought of Evil Knievel. That spoiled the atmosphere a lot, but I daresay it’s my fault somehow, and not the book’s. Definitely worth reading, and more so if you’ve never heard of Evil Knievel.

A House Divided – Catherine Cookson: No. Just no. I threw this aside after three mind-numbing chapters, which was more of a chance than it deserved. Sadly this and some other Catherine Cooksons (No!) were the last books I could find in the house that I haven’t read, so it’s a good place to end this installment. Next time, perhaps, some books I actually read on purpose.

Typee – Herman Melville: A game of two halves – fascinating and gripping reading for the first, but ultimately tedious and disappointing. I would definitely recommend reading it, but when you find yourself trudging on hoping it will get better again, or at least come to a worthwhile conclusion, you should stop and set fire to the book, because it won’t.

Labyrinth – Kate Mosse: Possibly the worst opening of any book I’ve ever read. I wanted to discard it after the first page, but luckily my wife convinced me to keep reading, because it turned out to be brilliant.

Sepulchre – Kate Mosse: It’s a testament to how badly this one starts that I read the tedious first chapter and then threw the book away in disgust on four separate occasions before I managed to get past it. And bear in mind that I’d already read and enjoyed Labyrinth and was looking forward to more of the same. Again though, it turned out to brilliant, but not quite as brilliant as Labyrinth.

Beggars Banquet – Ian Rankin: A fine collection of short stories.

Midnight Champagne – A. Manette Ansay: This was great – fantastic writing and characterisation.

Excession – Iain M. Banks: I’d read this at least four times before. I wouldn’t be surprised if I read it again.

Forgiveness – Sarah Brown: Excellent. Thought-provoking and well written – highly recommended.

A Fancy To Kill For – Hilary Bonner: This was a dreadful book in all possible ways, including the writing, the plot and the characters. Oddly, I enjoyed reading it all the same.

Goodbye Sally – Rhona Martin: Very good, but the ending seemed to be an afterthought.

The Seeds Of Time – John Wyndham: Ten short stories, which was nine too many for my liking due to the fact that only one of them wasn’t total rubbish. I think this is the only book in the list that I wish I hadn’t picked up, which is particularly disappointing because I usually like John Wyndham’s writing. But…

The Outward Urge – John Wyndham & Lucas Parkes: I didn’t like this much either, despite the subject matter.

Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, Foundation’s Edge – Isaac Asimov: I’d never read any of Asimov’s work before. It seemed best to start with these four books from the Foundation ‘trilogy’. On the negative side, I found the whole psychohistory premise of the Foundation series completely ludicrous, and the quality of writing seemed to vary from excellent to substandard in places. Despite that, I still found all these books to be very enjoyable.

The Caves of Steel – Isaac Asimov: Much better than the Foundation stuff. I loved it.

The Gods Themselves – Isaac Asimov: Having just read most of the Foundation series, the first part of this seemed to be very much in the same vein, one which was becoming slightly tiring. However, part two was amazingly good – possibly the most imaginative writing I’ve ever come across. The moon-based part three didn’t disappoint either.

Indelible – Karin Slaughter: On the face of it, standard crime thriller stuff, even down to the cliche of the post-mortem conducting heroine. Luckily, the strength of the characters and plot made it a worthwhile read.