The final tour round my bookshelves, which are now less extensive than many a TBR pile–
Mary Renault
Paul Reps
Joanna Richardson
Matt Ridley
Rainer Maria Rilke
Robert Roberts
Henry Rollins
Philip Roth
Jean Rhys
Robert Sabbag
Siegfried Sassoon
Bruno Schulz
Alice Sebold
Will Self
Joe Simpson
Ali Smith
Martin Cruz Smith
Thorne Smith
Stanley Spencer
Stephen Spender
Robert Louis Stevenson
George Steiner
Robert Stone
Elizabeth Taylor
Giuliana Tedeschi
DM Thomas
Dylan Thomas
David Thompson
Adam Thorpe
Colin Thubron
Michel Tournier
Joanna Trollope
Turgenev
John Updike
Stephen Venables
EH Visiak
MM Waldrop
Alan Wall
Benjamin Walker
Alan Warner
Paul Watkins
Sydney Wignall
Charles Williams
Tim Winton
Tom Wolfe
Jack Womack
Daniel Woodrell
Antony Woodward
Virginia Woolf
TM Wright
Simon Yates
Yeats
Thomas de Zengotita
Zola
This is what you get when you pursue an idle notion. Still, at least I didn’t think it was a good idea for a trilogy. Next time I trim the shelves I’ll be getting rid of everything, except maybe RLS.
no Sebald?
Hi sbci: he’s on my partner’s shelves, so I don’t keep him on mine. If I wanted a set at short notice I could pop into the nearest Oxfam shop. Sebald is one of the most-bought, least-read middleclass cultural icons. In fact, the thing about all books these days is that they’re everywhere. If you wanted to get away from books, that might be a little more difficult. Although less difficult, I agree, than getting away from 24 hour news.
Was reading about Stanley Spencer recently, in David Boyd-Haycock’s “A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War”, which also covers Nevinson, Nash, Gertler and Carrington. A fascinating insight into that generation of Slade School painters.
A great R – Z by anyone’s standards. Rilke and Schulz stand out for me, Woolf, Yeats and Dylan Thomas too.
Has anyone read that Malcolm (forget his surname)’s book of Dylan Thomas’s last lecture tour of America? One of the most moving and, it has to be said, funny, chronicles of self-destruction I have ever read with a great description of Mr and Mrs Thomas punching each other at the breakfast table.
I’ve just had a big clear out. Hundreds of books taken off the shelves and now sitting in a pile on the dining room floor. It was ruthless and heartbreaking but needed to be done.
Hi Ben. Ruthless indeed. I try to get them out of the house the same day, or I end up sitting on the floor with them changing my mind…
They are still sat there two weeks later and I still haven’t called the book dealer in Cromford to arrange a deal. I almost dived in to rescue the Paul Watkins paperbacks after reading your latest blog post.
You have to act fast, or they play upon yr liberal sympathies, books. With me, it’s nine grams at the base of the skull as soon as the sentence is read…
Have you read Paul Watkins’ mountain thriller ? I haven’t, only the earlier ones.