Goodreads Refugee

Vernon God Little seems to be one of those opinion-dividing books but I loved it. It was riotously funny but also made me angry, I suppose, rather than sad, that capital punishment still exists in any form in the world.

Of course, there are lots of these. I think I'm going to have to stick to books I've read or re-read recently, so I'm going to choose The Phoenix and the Carpet by E Nesbit, which I've been reading aloud to my daughters. I read it myself at their age, and revisiting it has been a sheer joy.

Of all the Jeeves and Wooster books, my favourite is the one with the Roderick Spode/Madeleine Bassett/Gussie Fink Nottle love triangle. It's interesting to see how Wodehouse manages to make something as sinister as the rise of British fascism - embodied by Spode - a target of light comedy. It shouldn't work yet somehow it does. Madeleine and Gussie are both fantastically drippy - thank goodness they find each other.

I'm not especially a series reader, but I do love a good saga and I'm currently enjoying Elizabeth Jane Howard's The Cazalets books. I've read the first two and will come back for the rest later.

If the Jeeves and Wooster books by PG Wodehouse count as a series, then I'll go with those. Best comfort reading ever.

There are lots of books I've read more than 3 times, but for this meme I'm going to go with Jane Eyre. This could be my answer to several of the categories, actually, but I'll leave it here and refer to it now and again when I come to some of the other posts.

The reason I've chosen this is because I've read it at different life stages and taken different things away from it each time.

The first time I read it I was 10 or 11 and my main interest was Jane's childhood and the fascinatingly weird and terrifying Lowood School. Jane's feistiness ('I will keep in good health and not die') won her an instant fan, but I confess I couldn't for the life of me understand Helen Burns' passive acceptance of her brutal treatment and I puzzled over this. I don't think I paid much attention to the romance, but was thrilled by the mad woman in the attic bit.

I was a few years older on my second reading, and this time I was much more receptive to the Rochester element. I'd seen the BBC drama with Timothy Dalton in the role, and found book Rochester more appealing still. All the same, I didn't really understand why she had to leave him.

I did understand on my third reading, when I was more aware of the themes and messages of the book.

On my fourth and all subsequent readings, I've picked it up for comfort - the company of an old friend. Good old Jane. For me, this is simply the most satisfying novel ever written and I finish it with a big old 'ahhhhhh'.

I love these memes so I thought I'd break my booklikes duck with this one.

So, what was the best book I read last year? Well, I decided to read the entire canon of Charles Dickens, in honour of his bicentenary, and made a start (in alphabetical order). Can't say I've finished that project yet (I'm up to Martin Chuzzlewit), but I'd have to say that Bleak House was the best book I read in 2012.

As far as more recent titles go (although still a couple of decades old), Adam Thorpe's Ulverton took my breath away.