Tigers need not apply... two years of books, the long list

No tigers, dogs, or wild things in this list.

Here’s the full list (as far as I can remember) from my two years of not much reading.

This is minus my five fiction faves, pregnancy guides, baby name handbooks, and books about hungry caterpillars, wild things, dogs with Scottish surnames and tea-taking tigers.

Back to Blood, Tom Wolfe – Bonfire of the Vanities was ace. Vitriolic and cuttingly clever. This is kind of more of the same but set in Miami and less ace. Stereotypes abound.

Beyond Black, Hilary Mantel – before Henry VIII and her two Booker prizes, Hilary Mantel wrote Beyond Black. Black it is… it's about psychics, ghosts and personal demons. Funnily, it’s one of those stories that haunts me  from time to time -- I think about the characters as if they were real people and wonder what happened next.

Chaos Walking trilogy, Patrick Ness – young adult fiction. The trilogy’s central idea is a good one (a world where men’s thoughts are heard by everyone yet women’s remain private) but, for me at least, the new Dark Materials trilogy it ain’t.

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens – sadly this has been spoiled by every sitcom ever to have made a Christmas episode. Ghosts of sitcoms past.

Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn – a well-written, twisting and, umm, twisted thriller. Might make you look at your significant other in an unfavourable light for a few days.

Goodbye to all that, Robert Graves – anti-war memoir detailing Graves’ life up to the late 1920s, including his time in the trenches. Had been meaning to read it for ages but didn't get to it until I was 8 months pregnant. Poor timing. Pretty harrowing.

Jeeves and Wooster Omnibus, P.G. Wodehouse – silly old Bertie Wooster. Luckily he’s got his right hand man Jeeves to skillfully extricate him from a multitude of scrapes and capers. Good fun, what.

Mortal Fire, Elizabeth Knox – young adult fiction. Magic and fantasy set in the New Zealandesque Southland of Knox’s two previous Dreamhunter works. Canny Mochrie meets a mysterious 17 year-old boy, held captive in his own home by strong magic. A mining accident is central to the plot and you can’t help but feel Knox’s writing is informed by the Pike River disaster. It's pretty good stuff.

Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut – World War II, satire and sci-fi. Billy Pilgrim is ‘unstuck in time’ and jumps between 1945’s Dresden bombing, his later life as an optometrist and abduction by two-foot tall aliens. Irreverent, sad and funny. Not for those who only like fiction based in the realms of the probable.

The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller – narrated by Greek demi-god Achilles’ friend, or in this telling, boyfriend, Patroclus, this is a love story and a retelling of the Trojan War. It’s accessible and entertaining. Winner of the 2012 Orange Prize for fiction.

State of Wonder, Ann Patchett – set in the Amazon jungle. Far-fetched but Brazilliant. Obstetrics and wonder drugs. I read this before my sparkly-eyed, raisin-scoffing imp came on the scene. Parents, watch out for what now seems a fairly brutal finish…

Now I have a scapegoat, I read less.

Not good with stuff, me. Like keeping an up-to-date blog. Hard enough reading any books bar Brown Bear, Brown Bear now I have a tiny, sparkly-eyed, raisin-scoffing imp, let alone remembering what I’ve just read.

Let alone writing about it.

Like other enthusiastic new(ish) parents, I now account for time in months. It’s been 27 since my last post. The sparkly-eyed raisin-scoffing imp is only 18. It’s wonderful to finally have a scapegoat.

In the interests of brevity, here’s my top five from my 27-month blog sabbatical (full list in a separate post, in case anyone’s interested – that’s probably just you, Mum).

1. A Tale of Two Cities 

Charles Dickens 

Best of books, definitely. Move over Count of Monte Cristo, there’s a new, old, page-turner in town. Set in London and Paris during the French Revolution with a rip-roaring plot and the kind of twists and coincidence that only Shakespeare and Dickens can really pull off. Main characters Darnay and Lucie are a bit wet (requited love is naff – at least in fiction) but Lucie’s spurned lover Sydney Carton is très cool and the vengeful Madame Defarge, stitching up both garments and the Revolution’s enemies (their names woven into the pattern of her knitting) has to be one of the most frightening villains of all time.

Extra for experts: some keen and crafty types have set up What Would Madame Defarge Knit with patterns and the like. Revolutionary!

2. Life After Life 

Kate Atkinson 

Set during World War II, a period I often, callously, find a bit trying in novels, Life After Life is exceptional (thanks book club peeps for showing me the way). It's a novel that gives new meaning to Vera Lynn's 1939 tearjerking anthem 'We'll meet again'. Reincarnated into different versions of her own life, again and again, Ursula Todd begins to feel she may have an overriding purpose. Intriguing and, after the repetition of the first few chapters, enthralling. The Blitz chapters are gripping stuff.

3. The Luminaries 

Eleanor Catton 

It would have been unpatriotic not to read the first Kiwi book to win the Man Booker prize since Keri Hulme's The Bone People. I can’t pretend to understand the astrological theme (light years over my head) but I very much enjoyed the whodunit. Opiates, gold, vendettas, the South Island’s West Coast… all that good stuff. And conveniently a list of characters in the first few pages. With hindsight, it might have been one for the Kindle. At 832 pages, the physical book is the kind of hefty tome that leaves you with tennis elbow and upper back problems.

4. The People of Paper 

Salvador Plascencia 

If Love in the time of Cholera and Sophie’s World had a baby this would be it. Magical realism, author interaction with the characters… crazy but clever. While sometimes hard to read, it’s magical for the most part and certainly the most unusual book (including the picture flat we now own where a sheep gets a turkey to eat poo) I’ve read in the last 27 months.

5. Benediction 

Kent Haruf 

Quiet and very moving. Reminded me a little of A Good House and Gilead – it’s about loss and ordinary people in small-town America. I know I’ve already said quiet – but it is – quiet yet mesmerising with beautifully drawn characters.