20 Books of 2020 (Pt.27)

Books are a wonderful thing and I've been reading a lot of them of course. One thing I wanted to discuss shortly was the fact that there are lots of good websites on which you can get really good book recommendations apart from just going on GoodReads.

For example: BookRiot is a great website to try out. Their book recommendations are sometimes those ones that remain on the sidelines, ones you probably haven't heard of or read. One reason I like the site is because it gives you a short, clear description of the book next to an image, but not enough to give the book away. It is a description that keeps you interested. I have found many books thanks to that site.

Another example of a good book website is Gates Notes. My brother introduced me to this site and since going on it, I have found many book recommendations from the ultimate brain of the modern world - Bill Gates. He has a ton of great nonfiction recommendations in my opinion and I have read some of them on my journey through literature. I heavily recommend this to anyone looking for a more challenging read.

LitHub is another great site on which I visit lists regularly. The lists on this site I often read are classics because there can be some very interesting finds amongst them. LitHub I find is a little bit more academic and less about new novels for young people. For pretending I'm sophisticated, I like to visit these kinds of websites.

So now that we've had a short overview of that, I'd like to introduce you to part 27 of our journey. We'll have another celebration at part 30, so there's not long to wait. But I thank anyone who is still reading these, you are a true friend (and that's coming from a person who has no friends, so you should feel great about yourself right now). Thanks for coming along and I'd love to see your book lists in the future! (If you've got some already, drop them in my Instagram DMs and I'll check them out, please and thank you).

Here we go, numbers 521 through to 540

521-530

521. Diamonds Are Forever by Ian Fleming

Every now and again I like to read a spy novel. This could be something by Graham Greene or something by Ian Fleming, Tom Robb Smith, John Le Carre etc. I love them because of a quality that I found "Diamonds are Forever" had as well - atmosphere. The atmosphere of criminality is so extreme in this particular book especially that you can hardly take your eyes away from the chapters about the smugglers purely out of fear that you will lose this illusion that your mind has created. This hallucination of darkness that you have. When James Bond enters, he is entering into this world and only he can be the one to extract you from it. It is best seen in this text and in its successor, "From Russia With Love" - and that is my favourite Bond novel.

522. Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett

This is a book about a man called Malone who is on his deathbed recounting various stories from his life. It tends to flash back and forth between him being on his deathbed and him being younger than he is in the present. To be honest, I've never been overly interested in the works of Samuel Beckett, but this one was amazing. I really loved the emotion evoked by a man on his deathbed. It is brilliant.

523. Slow Man by JM Coetzee

This book is about a man who falls off his bicycle after being hit by a car and is taken to hospital. He really wants to know whether his bicycle is okay, but he has to have his leg amputated. When he is being looked after by a nurse, he starts discussing his childhood with her because she, like him, is from Europe. The ending is actually so heartwarming, I'm not very much used to happy endings in books and though it isn't entirely happy or really anywhere near, it is heartwarming.

524. The Chateau by William Maxwell

This book is about a couple from the USA who go to France on a vacation. They are very enthusiastic at first because France is heavily romanticised. After this, they realise that France is not what they thought it was and it is actually quite a horrible place to be. They meet new people and go to new places but they can't seem to find that media-enhanced vision of France they were searching for in the first place.

525. The Pale King by David Foster Wallace

I was reading this book for my "first impression" article and I had gone through and heavily annotated it. It doesn't have a main plot but tells the stories of different characters who eventually all want a job in the IRS - however, they are all entirely different people. The author interrupts the novel every now and again and yet, it is still a triumph of a final novel.

526. So Disdained by Nevil Shute

This book is about a man who drives down the road only to find a pilot walking down the pathway in the rain. The pilot had to make an emergency landing in the grass nearby and has since been really mysterious towards Peter ever since he's been picked up by him. The novel goes through Soviet intelligence, the war and a number of other things before making a defiant twist near the end. It's something quite special.

527. The Old Wives’ Tale by Arnold Bennett

This tells the story of two women over the course of around seventy years. It not only tells the story of their lives but also concentrates on the way in which they get older and what happens both physically and mentally. Though there are many inaccuracies between what the real Victorian Woman was and what Arnold Bennett writes in this book - it is entertaining in some ways.

528. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

This book, though not as good as her novels "Commonwealth" or "The Dutch House", is a book about a dinner party for the rich and powerful which is taken over suddenly by a bunch of terrorists. As shots fly through the air, some of the victims develop feelings for each other, some develop hatred and a taste for revolution whilst some develop a sort of Stockholm Syndrome.

529. The Wapshot Chronicles by John Cheever

This book is about a rich white family called 'The Wapshots" and it tells the story of each member before going into the family history. We get the history of where the name came from, we get the history of how the family got richer and richer, developing over the years and finally, we make our way swiftly back to the present day. It's not a great book, but it's not the worst he's done.

530. The Italian Girl by Iris Murdoch

This is a book about a man called Edmund who has heard that a woman in his family has died and goes to her funeral and cremation. After this, he sits down with the rest of the family and they begin to confide in each other and especially in Edmund about their deepest darkest regrets and secrets. All of them seem to link up to this strange, aloof Italian woman. It is one of Iris Murdoch's best efforts, but definitely not as good as "The Sea, The Sea."

531-540

531. Street Fight in Naples by Peter Robb

This book was pretty good but again, it isn't as good as his other book "Midnight in Sicily". This is a book about the history and culture of Naples. It goes through why the city means so much to people, some of the landmarks there and the different things that happened there during history. For example: Machiavelli liked the city and there's something to commemorate him in Naples. Another example is that Caravaggio had a fight (hence the title of the book) and went on the run for a while in Naples during the Renaissance. It's a great and thoughtful book about a wonderful city.

532. An Armenian Sketchbook by Vasily Grossman

Vasily Grossman is an amazing writer, I recently read his book "Everything Flows" and I'm also analysing "Life and Fate" for one of my other articles. I really loved the "Armenian Sketchbook" because it goes into a lot of detail about what impact Soviet Russia has had on the countries around it. It looks at the dwindling political state of Armenia and how life is getting evermore difficult for everyone who lives there because of the rippling effect from the Stalin Regime.

533. Play it as it Lays by Joan Didion

This book, again not Joan Didion's best, is actually pretty interesting because it gets to the heart of American purposelessness. The feeling of being useless or condescending in many ways is explored in this book and, at the very central point of it is the dissatisfaction with life as your only actual purpose is your child. Narrated by a mother who is falling apart, Didion manages to create an entire world of American Mental Health Politics within a book with fewer than five main characters.

534. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service by Ian Fleming

I love the James Bond books but this one has never really been my favourite, nor is it in the top ten. As it presents itself as more of a lead in to another book, I've come to appreciate it as more informative rather than present in the midst of the action as "Diamonds are Forever" or "From Russia with Love" are. Be that as it may, the more I read it, the more I understand its position within the timeline.

535. Under the Net by Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch's focus on the paranoid hysterics of a writer who is slowly going obsessive over their own work, delving into the philosophical and often even the faustian realm is kind of unrivalled by most other authors. Though it isn't my favourite by her, it has to be up there near my actual favourite by her - "The Sea, The Sea" - as it too discusses the philosophical realm in ways I have never imagined.

536. King Jesus by Robert Graves

This book by Robert Graves is not different to his usual requests of historical stories in extreme detail but, there is one thing it has which is considerably different. In various books by Robert Graves, he normally tries to upset the established idea of history whether that be Greek, Roman, Aramaic etc. and, unlike his autobiography (which I can't imagine is 100% true) actually works with reason.

537. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman

This book was one of the best books I've read this year. It's all about the battle in Stalingrad and the rising war in Europe. We have images of death and violence, suffering in multitudes and characters dying left, right and centre for numbers of reasons. It is basically the 20th century's answer to "War and Peace" and yet, it has far more graphic violence that Tolstoy's novel did. It is a brilliant depiction of a world practically killing itself and I would highly recommend that though it is long, you must give it a go no matter how long it takes you to read.

538. A Woman by Sibilla Aleramo

This autobiographical novel is amazing in more than one way. A short anecdote is that I had this on my TBR for about six months and I hadn't read it until recently. It is a book about the expectations of a woman who is under constant pressure to live up to a strained and slightly foggy ideal of what a woman is supposed to be. In order to break these chains, she must force out of herself a tradition that has long endured the rampant obedience of those around her and possibly risk her own identity as well. It's a brilliantly told story and has an incredible message about suffering in it. I would highly recommend it to you and I'd even give it to you if I could. It's wonderful.

539. A Death in the Family by James Agee

I wanted to read this as a part of getting better from suffering from an illness, but this was the most heartbreaking thing I'd read in a while. Whilst in the midst of a dying family member, one man seeks out his father's deathbed and then - tragedy overtakes and the family is shaded in nothing but memories. A darkness that befalls on them all during a strange time. I was waiting to read this book for a long time and by god, I am glad I waited. It was moving, incredible and brilliant.

540. Blue Horses by Mary Oliver

A poetry book in which Mary Oliver encompasses everything from animalism to the beauty of everyday being, she tries to focus on what it means to exist in nature. I have to say that I had never heard of this Mary Oliver book before and it was one of the greatest books I've ever read by her. It shows the trueness of the way she is in tune with the natural landscape. It shows you what her definition of existence really is.