Top Ten Books I Can't Believe I've Never Read

I'm really a somewhat haphazard book blogger. I've blogged a couple of books here. I really should get around to starting a blog about my experiences reading 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up. I think that would make a half decent and interesting blog. It's an amazing ride, and I will be much better read, if not Grown Up at the end of it.

I do follow a number of excellent book blogs, for both adult and childrens books, but I do that haphazardly too- it all takes so much time. Similarly, I'm not much of a meme reader or follower. I'm not even sure why they're called memes. But this one has been nagging at me for a few weeks. I came across it on the wonderful Deb Nance's readerbuzz blog. I found her list both interesting and inspiring. Imagine having never read Enid Blyton! It's almost unimaginable for an Australian of my vintage. But of course we share many similar holes in our reading too.

I've been having random thoughts about what I should put on this list for a few weeks. I'm not sure how I'm going to round out my Top Ten at this stage, but let's have a look, and see where it takes us.




1. The Bible

Yes it's true. I can hear the shocked intakes of air. I'm pretty sure that I read some childrens bible stories when I was a child, but I've never read a Bible as such. Or The Koran, or whatever it is that the other major religions read.






2. Dickens

Yes, ALL of it. Well, I have read half of Bleak House twice, and it is just about the best book I've never read. I'm planning to read A Christmas Carol this December, perhaps that will count for something.

I've read it now!
see my review

3.The Diary of Young Girl
Shame. Shame. Shame





4. The French Classics.
I think to convey the gaps in my reading from here on in I must largely use clusters of books, rather than individual books or authors. I am a Francophile, tis true. And yet, I've read so very little of their literature -modern or classic it must be said, but the classics seems the bigger omission at the moment. I've dabbled at the edges of this wonderful French world. I read Madame Bovary last year, and it was a revelation. Not just the descriptors of 19th century French life, or the casual mentions of famous French surgeons, who are now more known because of their eponyms than their actual deeds. But my goodness, I have yet to come across an English language equivalent to Emma Bovary. Currently I'm two thirds of the way through The Three Musketeers, and this is just as scandalous. It's a ripping yarn. These two little glimpses into the vast array of French Classic Literature make me hungry for more. I want to read Hugo, Zola, Moliere, de Maupassant, Proust, Verne. Sadly of course it will all be in English translation. But one day, perhaps one day, my French will be good enough again to let me try reading in the original.





5. Australian Childrens Classics
This is not to say that I have read every adult Aussie classic that I should have either. I've read only one Patrick White. It was of course a herculean effort on my behalf and took 3 months of my life to read. Still I do feel like I should try to read him, and in this lifetime too, and not save him til I'm dead, as I plan to do with all the unread Virginia Woolfs. And there are many others too of course. But there are also some yawning holes in the Aussie kids classics that I've never read- well I don't believe I have. Blinky Bill. Snuggle Pot and Cuddle Pie. The Magic Pudding. This must be corrected.





6. Shakespeare
Or even Tales from Shakespeare. Yes I've seen some of the plays. I've perhaps even understood some parts of some of the plays, and laughed at some of his jokes. Still I find it difficult to read plays. It's not something that I try all that often to be honest. The most successful attempt to read a play would have been The Importance of Being Earnest, which I've read twice.





7. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde
Speaking of Being Earnest, I do think that Oscar Wilde was possibly the best wit who has ever lived (or at least the best one I've come across thus far). I'm always in awe of his work, but still have much to read, fairytales included, even though once again I have actual copies of these books that I've bought with my hard earned cash that languish, unread on my bookshelves.




8. Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything.

This is quite an abject failure. I even own three different versions of this book, and still I haven't read it. The original, the Illustrated one (hey, the mere sight of the illustrated version of The DaVinici Code made me buy it instantaneously, and then read it, when I had been completely uninterested until the very moment that I saw the illustrated version in the shop, and here I am with the illustrated version of a book I really want to read sitting on the shelf), and I've even bought the children's version (A Really Short History of Nearly Everything). I think I've got through half the first chapter of the illustrated one.





9. Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Because I must be the only person in the world who hasn't actually read it. Or even seen the movie.

I've read it now!
See my review

10. The Wind in the Willows
Likewise.


So it seems the Top Ten is a bit blurry round the edges.... it was fun to do, and good to think about how I can get some of these books read some stage soonish.

They're doing what to Enid Blyton now?

Love her or loathe her Enid Blyton can still stir up controversy more than 40 years after she died. Never content to let her, or her books alone, Hodder is "dragging her language out of the 1940s" and promising to remove such offensive phrases as "awful swotter", "dirty tinker", and even phrases that can not have been confusing or offensive to anyone "mother and father", "jolly lonely" and "it's all very peculiar". It's all very peculiar indeed.

Is it hystrionic to note that the language of Shakespeare, Dickens and Chaucer are all much more dated than poor Enid's and yet people still manage to read these books? Possibly. Yes, there have been toned down versions of these literary greats (and I'm by no means claiming Enid's oeuvre to be literary greats) to help children, and no doubt some adults, cope with the olde worlde language. But these versions can in no way compare to the experience that is reading the original, delving into the language of the time, and reading them as the author intended.

Modern children can definitely cope with this. They still love them. More than 2 million Famous Five books are sold around the world each year!I read the whole Famous Five series out loud to my then 7 year old son a few years ago. He absolutely loved them. Yes I had to explain some things- the pony trap that they used in the first book springs to mind, but there are things that need explaining in most books. I think reading the Famous Five books expanded his vocabulary no end. I've read many author interviews over the years where the author will credit Enid Blyton for nourishing their early love of books and reading, and many turn out a Blyton-esque attempt as their first written work. My son too, did exactly that. He wrote his first story at 7 in Year 2. Eight Go to Bells Mansion. It was wonderful. 15 typed pages of heavily Blyton-esque storyline, with robbers, and plucky children. He did veer somewhat away from Blyton with the giant spiders though.



Totally un-modern children can also cope. I read the Famous Five series to myself when I was about 9 -probably 20ish years ago ;-). I still have fond and very strong memories of Five Go Off in a Caravan. I was never allowed to go on a solo caravanning holiday with my cousins as a child. Indeed, I had never seen the wonderful painted wooden caravans that Enid described so vividly in 1946, they were completely outside my realm, but they set my imagination on fire. Such is the power of these books over children, and I am rather furious at Hodder for fiddling with them. I agree with bookshelves of doom that this seems to be more about dumbing down than creating modern translations to woo todays youngsters. The original versions will still be available, but that hardly seems the point.

Apparently she never actually used the term "lashings of ginger beer"! I was very relieved to see "All for one, and one for all" appear in The Three Musketeers last night. I was 150 pages in, and starting to worry that it might not actually be there.

I was surprised to see Enid Blyton come up in conversation between Jennifer Byrne and Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Jennifer Byrne presents this week. I expected a smorgasbord of much more erudite topics, still they did make old Enid sound Revolutionary and Challenging to Authority, and when you look at her from that perspective, you know what?, she is. (It's dealt with from 10 minutes in in the video)

Snow Monkeys

We've all seen those photos of the cute Japanese Snow Monkeys sitting in the hot spring surrounding by snow, looking like the rich and lazy skiers lounging about in hot tubs after a day on the slopes and too many beers at the bar.



I had presumed that this was an ancient behaviour of these monkeys who long ago learnt to keep warm this way during the long, harsh Japanese winter. Not so. Turns out nothing could be further from the truth. They learned it some 40-50 years ago by watching people sitting in the springs (these very same rich loafers I suppose)!

In 1963 Mukubili, a rather visionary troupe leader as it turns out, mimicked some human behaviour and changed the lot of her troupe to this very day. The rest of her troupe copied her behaviour, and the rest as they say is history. Her descendants still enjoy their hot spring hot tubs, and because of their fame humans bring them food every day. The individuals in this troupe are now twice the size of their near neighbours who still have to forage for their food rather than be fed by people who like to take photos of the hot tub loungers.

I stumbled on this rather interesting fact whilst watching the documentary Snow Monkeys: Who's Hot and Who's Not. It was actually shown on the ABC about six months ago and has been languishing about unwatched on our hard drive recorder, just waiting for a wintery Saturday evening, and a bored child with nothing else to do. Much like the young snow monkeys who have so much free time that they have learned to play with snowballs.

Making the Rounds with Oscar

I was always going to be the perfect reader/buyer for this book. I was already in Oscar's thrall, having read about him way back in 2007, and he was even the topic of my first ever blog post! Oscar of course is a very famous cat who lives on the third floor of a nursing home in Rhode Island. Oscar has a special calling- he will go and sit on the bed of patients during their final hours. He will often jump up on a bed, sniff the air and jump off, but when he settles himself in the staff quickly learnt that the patient wasn't long for this world. It's a remarkable skill really. Of course, many animals, usually dogs I suppose seem aware when their people are unwell and will sit by them. Is that more of a devotional motivation? Oscar doesn't seem to particularly bond with these patients, and indeed the patients who live on Oscar's floor all have severe dementia and they probably don't know that Oscar is there for a long part of their illness. Still, I think it's a really nice idea for a nursing home to have a cat. It helps accentuate the home and not just the nursing. Actually this place has two cats per floor, it's more than just a token gesture.

So, I was intrigued enough by Oscar's habits to buy this book when I first saw it. Yes I wanted it so much I was happy to pay full price, just in case I never saw it again. Unusual behaviour. More typically it sat unread for several months. Then, whilst looking for something gentle to read whilst trying to combat jet lag it seemed the perfect title. And in some ways it was. It was a rather gentle, and easy to read book. It wasn't the book I was expecting however. I was expecting little anecdotes about the cat I guess, padded out with filler. It was much more a book about dementia than about cats.

David Dosa is a physician, a geriatrician. Early on he describes how the "family business" is paediatrics. His mother, uncle and grandfather were all paediatricians. They weren't necessarily thrilled when he developed an interest in geriatrics. In my favourite non-feline sections he discusses the differences between paeds and geris (although perhaps these are somewhat obvious, I liked his turn of phrase).

I thought of going into paediatrics. I love children and babies, and have two little ones of my own. The difference for me has always been the stories. Children are a blank canvas, portraits waiting to be drawn. When we look at them their lives are just beginning, we feel a sense of renewal and an expanse of infinite possibility.

My older patients, on the other hand, are like rich paintings and boy, do they have stories to tell. On my best days I can look at them and see all the way back to their childhood. I think of their parents (long gone now), the places they've been, the things they've seen. To me, it's like looking through the other end of a telescope, back to the beginning.

David Dosa works both delivering palliative care to dementia patients in the nursing home, and also does on call at a hospital some times. I found his tone a bit disengenuous at times, can he really be that naive and ignorant? It is one of the senior nurses Mary who initially points out Oscar's gift to Dr Dosa. He isn't a cat person, and is disbelieving that a cat can have such a higher sense. He does of course come around to belief as Oscar sits with each person who dies. Indeed, Oscar will wait outside closed doors to get into the room of dying people, and even scratch and bang at doors and walls to get in if the door is shut for what he feels to be too long.


But the book is much more about dementia, and more particularly the final stages of their illness. And this is where I found David Dosa particularly disengenuous. He goes to talk to family members who had Oscar with their loved one in their final hours. He comes across as if he's never particularly thought how it must be for the families to watch their loved one wither away, both intellectually and physically. He needs to get a lot of help from the ever-present, ever-sensible Mary. And the families of course. Did he never really ponder this during his training? Or have a particularly poignant experience or discussion with a family before? Maybe he didn't. Perhaps my perceptions were coloured by reading this book basically in the wee small hours when I couldn't sleep. And it was a perfect jet-lag book. But I wanted more about the cat. Perhaps there isn't that much to say about the cat, I don't know. It is an endlessly fascinating feline behaviour though,isn't it? Comforting to know that Oscar is there bringing comfort to these people as they die.


Interesting to see how a relatively simple book about a cat can need multiple different covers for the different markets around the world. I think Portugal's cover is the best, as this is meant to be a book about a cat (although I don't think it quite achieves that aim). And France, I'm sorry I do love you, but you really have some of the worst book covers in the world. I suppose you save all that creative flair for making chocolates and maccarons and wine, and there is precious little left over for book covers. Browsing your bookshops is interesting, and somewhat difficult for a foreigner, all the books look the same, all the spines of the books seem to actually be the same. It's confusing for the non-French, almost as much as your disdain for the burqa and the humble boardie.

Why we travel

This is a topic that is quite interesting to me at the moment, given that I've recently returned from a 4+ week excursion out of Australia. It was with great excitement that I left the chill and comfort of home to journey to Singapore- a completely new and a completely foreign experience to me. I had to travel to Sydney on the bus/train, and then flew to Singapore the next morning. I had prepared bountiful reading material for my trip, figuring that with two days worth of travel I should finish at least one book. I also had a number of weekend supplements to bring with me- I never get to read these fully and one day soon I'm sure that I will turn into one of those old ladies buried alive under the towers of newspapers in her house.

The bus ride was rather tragic and disappointing for a couple of reasons. I had forgotten how loud and obnoxious the general public usually are when travelling on a bus, what with their roiling, productive coughs and "music" blaring out of the headphones making settling into the world of Fantastica difficult. To make it completely impossible the driver had sports talkback blaring through the radio. Fantastic. Not. Not Fantastica.

And then there is all the possible pathology on show on the bus-it's positively distracting, compelling even. Was the man in front of me actually clubbed? It was hard to tell and I don't know that my subversive photography throws any light on the question.




So I gave up on the book and settled in with my newspapers. Time to read all the articles I would normally think that I should read, that I'd be frightfully learned if I read them, but don't get to. And the Spectrum was chock a block full of articles relevant to my travels. Malcolm Brown writing about his love of Joyce. The book design awards. A review of Graham Robb's Parisians (I so want that). And a full page piece on Sylvia Beach and her Parisian institution of the early 20th century- Shakespeare and Company. Perfect.

I started out with Malcom Brown's article about his love of James Joyce. What timing! Here I am setting out on a journey to Dublin, that will see me arrive in Dublin the day before Bloomsday. I know a bit of, but not a lot about Ulysses. Just the concept of it scares me. Will I read it one day? Will I even get to trying? Time will tell. Perhaps I'll end up leaving it til I'm dead, just like Virginia Woolf. So I read the article to try and correct some of my ignorance and perhaps some misconceptions about Joyce's most famous work. It didn't really achieve these simple aims, Malcolm Brown was too busy talking of his experiences in Bourke in the early 70s and walking his dog to walk off his hypertension in Sydney in the 90s. He did however feel that reading Ulysses taught him to see the meaning in everything- bends in roads, paling fences, shopfronts and suburban wildlife. Right. So if I see meaning in some everyday things, then I won't need to even attempt to read Ulysses? Okely dokely.

You can only magine my little heart sinking as a mere 20 minutes into my epic journey I read "People travel to Europe at enormous expense but the real world is at their doorstep, costing nothing." It felt like he smacked me right between the eyes. So, I should just turn back around at Lithgow should I? This is all a waste of my time and money?

I could have stayed at home to have a better life?

Somehow I don't think so.

I still blame Hannah III- The Mona Vale Haul

It's only been a few short months since the lovely Hannah upset my tepid suburban world. It seems particulary unfair that one so young should have such a developed palate, and a wealth of experience. Trying to replicate it from the rural heartland of NSW is pretty tricky. Every trip to the supermarket is now a disappointment. But I've given it a crack. I'm sure Paris will change this. Till I get to Paris, I shall have to make do with Mona Vale and Canberra. Pretty exotic.

Travelling to Mona Vale on a day trip for work I of course, made use of the time and checked out the providores shop that I remembered at the top of the shopping centre. And it paid dividends. Variable dividends, but there was still the thrill of the chase. And I managed to bag three chocolates from three different countries- France, Belgium and the USA.

Firstly to France. And actually to the Perigord. We went there on our travels in 1998 and it was an amazing area. The home of truffles, foie gras and magnificent scenery. And also home to Bovetti. There were a few of the companies products to choose from (I can't remember what now, my blogging is so slow that this trip was actually a few months ago, and disappearing into the mists of time). I chose the Premium Milk Chocolate with Caramel and Fleur de Sel. I do love Caramel, and may well have picked this one without Hannah's undue, subversive influence. We had Salted butter caramels in France, and they live on in my memory as an extraordinary experience. But all that talk of salt and chocolate was too much to bear. It had to be done.



Sadly it didn't quite live up to my expectations.




It wasn't bad by any stretch- that is still to come, but the caramel flavour lingered longer than that of the chocolate and sadly the salt made a barely perceptible contribution. Perhaps that is the point and I just don't know enough to appreciate it. Perhaps my palate isn't educated enough to appreciate it. With correctly seasoned food you don't taste the salt, you just taste more of the food. Is this supposed to be the same? Hopefully France will hold all the answers next month.

The second bar I tried was a Ghirardelli 60% Intense Dark Evening Dream. A famous American chocolate company based in San Francisco I believe. At least I think I remember it from there, many many years ago.



And this was nice. It had a mild snap, and was too soft, but was glossy and smooth, with a hint of madagascan vanilla. The taste lingered reasonably well in the mouth. Mr Wicker and I both enjoyed this but thought that $8.95 was a bit much for what was an essentially nice, but not particularly memorable chocolate. Not worth the food miles on the whole.

Lastly, but by no means least was the experience of Dolfin. A Belgian Milk chocolate flavoured with Green Tea from Japan. I wondered about this pairing. Is it a mistake? Surely it must be really nice if they're going to put two rather obviously odd flavours together like this? I know Green Tea is Big Right Now, does that excuse everything? Is my non-tea-drinker status clouding my vision? Is it ridiculous to pay $4.50 for 30 grams of chocolate?



YES as it turns out. I Really Didn't Like this chocolate. Not quite as much as the 100% debacle from Canberra. I didn't have to spit it out. But awful nonetheless. It sits half eaten in our cupboard to this day. I find it rather ironic that a company that subtitles its product with The Art of Blending should have created this. There is no blending of the tea. I guess I was expecting that it would be green tea powder mixed in with the bar to create a smooth product. Instead this had grassy, dry bits of tea, indeed more reminiscent of chaff that brought memories of my teenage girl horsey stage flooding back. It makes a rather unpalatable mouth feel. The green tea was overpowering, not a subtle flavour note at all. Mr Wicker couldn't eat his piece. I soldiered on through my one piece in the name of scientific research and endeavour. The dogs liked it without reservation.



I am now uncertain as to how much green tea stuff I should try in France. I'd been presuming that I would try a green tea macaron. David Leibovitz somewhat sensibly advises to avoid the new and trendy flavours, he feels that they are hit and miss, and prefers to chose the classic flavours. It certainly is true that classics are often classics for a reason isn't it? We shall see.

Flaubert's Parrot

I came to this book at the perfect time. I had just recently read and enjoyed Madame Bovary. Emma Bovary gave me my first introduction to 19th century French literature, and wow, Flaubert certainly wasn't anything like Jane Austen or The Brontes! I am now rather intrigued by Flaubert, son of a doctor, who clearly learnt a lot of contemporary medicine growing up at the Hotel- Dieu.

In Madame Bovary there's an amazing chapter describing the tenotomy that Charles Bovary performs on Hippolyte, the village stable hand who has been getting around perfectly well with his club foot. Sadly, Charles isn't much of a surgeon and the operation does not go well. The account of his further surgery is harrowing. In that chapter Flaubert makes mention of Ambroise Pare and Guillaume Dupuytren.

Flaubert's fascinating tale of Madame Bovary combined with the tantalising glimpses into the history of medicine made it almost compulsory for me to fall into the thrall of Flaubert. I'd heard of Flaubert's Parrot but never been particularly interested because I've read one Julian Barnes book before, the incredibly awful England, England which was somehow shortlisted for the Booker in 1998. So it was with some considerable trepidation that I borrowed this book from the library. Only to learn that it was based around the parrot that featured in A Simple Heart (Un Coeur Simple). So, I read that too before embarking on Flaubert's Parrot. Turns out I didn't really need to. Barnes' gives a two paragraph summary early on to explain why Flaubert needed to borrow a parrot from the Museum of Rouen to help in his writing of Un Coeur Simple.

Flaubert's Parrot has perhaps the most bizzare structure that I've ever come across in a novel. Indeed, it makes one wonder if this really is a novel. Barnes himself said that he wanted to mix of fact and fiction, elastic and capacious, and expected a small audience.

A great article from the Guardian.

Flaubert's Parrot makes us ponder why we should chase the writer? Because it's so damn interesting is my basic response I suppose. And Flaubert is a perfect case in point. I so wish that our upcoming trip to France could include Rouen. I would take Flaubert's Parrot with me to reread, and to walk the locations of the book, to gaze at the Hotel Dieu, to find the pictures of Flaubert. Last months Good Reading had a great article on the Flaubert trail in Rouen.

Writers are interesting in a way that actors for example can never be, IMHO. I can't understand why week after week newspapers are filled with articles about actors. When almost any other profession is more interesting in and of itself. And most of the magazines that fill the supermarkets one week and then landfills the next are choc full of articles about actors.

I think it was in this book that Braithwaite said that he was going to "save Virginia Woolf til he was dead". Sage advice, think I'll take that on board too. I fact I already have. Perhaps it should be one of my daily affirmations just in case I feel my resolve slipping.