Books of 2008

As I shan’t have a laptop with working internet until ‘on or before January 14th’ (according to the email Dell recently sent me) I’m taking advantage of Our Vicar’s Wife’s laptop for one last time before I head back to Oxford tomorrow. And what better way to use it then to list all the books I’ve read in 2008… With rather an embarrassing beginning. It was cheap, ok? Oh, and further down, I *do* mean When I Was Very Young, not When We Were Very Young – the former is a limited print run autobiographical sketch by AA Milne, which I requested to the Bodleian. OH, and at several junctures I’ve simply written ‘Postal Book Group’ – these titles I’m keeping secret as others in the postal book group read this blog…

Enough prevarication: here is the list. A very happy new year to you all.

1. Nicole Kidman: The Biography – Lucy Ellie & Bryony Sutherland
2. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
3. The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets – Eva Rice
4. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day – Winifred Watson
5. Unbeaten Tracks in Japan – Isabella L. Bird
6. Miss Elizabeth Bennett – AA Milne
7. The Glass Wall – EM Delafield
8. The Crowded Bed – Mary Cavanagh
9. Prince Rupert’s Teardrop – Lisa Glass
10. One Year’s Time – Angela Milne
11. As It Was – Helen Thomas
12. When I Was Very Young – AA Milne
13. Year In, Year Out – AA Milne
14. World Without End – Helen Thomas
15. The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow – Jerome K. Jerome
16. One True Void – Dexter Petley
17. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
18. Last Orders at Harrods: An African Tale – Michael Holman
19. The Victorian Chaise-Longue – Marghanita Laski
20. The Eternal Husband – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
21. The New House – Lettice Cooper
22. Dear Friend & Gardener – Beth Chatto & Christopher Lloyd
23. Yes Man – Danny Wallace
24. Hearts and Minds – Rosy Thornton
25. The Road to Oxiana – Robert Byron
26. The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly – Jean-Dominique Bauby
27. Mrs. Darcy’s Dilemma – Diana Birchall
28. Simonetta Perkins – LP Hartley
29. Cousin Phillis – Elizabeth Gaskell
30. Death and the Maidens – Janet Todd
31. Pencillings – J. Middleton Murry
32. Balancing on the Edge of the World – Elizabeth Baines
33. The Juniper Tree – Barbara Comyns
34. The Bestowing Sun – Neil Grimmett
35. Words From A Glass Bubble – Vanessa Gebbie
36. Naomi Godstone – Richmal Crompton
37. Thrown To The Woolfs – John Lehmann
38. The Yellow Wallpaper – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
39. Counting My Chickens… and other home thoughts – Deborah Devonshire (nee Mitford)
40. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
41. The Red Leather Diary – Lily Koppel
42. The Woman Who Walked Into Doors – Roddy Doyle
43. Mary – Vladimir Nabokov
44. Letters to a Friend – Rose Macaulay
45. The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters – ed. Charlotte Mosley
46. The Green Hat – Michael Arlen
47. Yellow – Janni Visman
48. The Well-Tempered Clavier – William Coles
49. The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson
50. Angel – Elizabeth Taylor
51. An Error of Judgement – Pamela Hansford Johnson
52. Halfway to Venus – Sarah Anderson
53. Tru – Eric Melbye
54. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
55. Gaudy Night – Dorothy L. Sayers
56. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Shaffer
57. Suite Francaise – Irene Nemirovsky
58. Speaking of Love – Angela Young
59. Star Gazing – Linda Gillard
60. The Love Child – Edith Olivier
61. This Secret Garden – Justin Cartwright
62. Piccadilly – Laurence Oliphant
63. The Flight of the Falcon – Daphne du Maurier
64. William – An Englishman – Cicely Hamilton
65. Alternative Medicine – Laura Solomon
66. Identical Strangers – Elyse Schein & Paula Bernstein
67. The L-Shaped Room – Lynne Reid Banks
68. The Battle for Gullywith – Susan Hill
69. High School Musical: The Book of the Film – NB Grace
70. The Great Western Beach – Emma Smith
71. Vanessa and Virginia – Susan Sellers
72. The Twins at St. Clare’s – Enid Blyton
73. War With Honour – AA Milne
74. The Brontes Went To Woolworths – Rachel Ferguson
75. Miss Marlow At Play – AA Milne
76. Lovers in London – AA Milne
77. Jane Austen’s Letters – Jane Austen
78. The Provincial Lady Goes Further – EM Delafield
79. My Cousin Rachel – Daphne du Maurier
80. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat – Oliver Sacks
81. Queen Lucia – EF Benson
82. To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
83. The O’Sullivan Twins – Enid Blyton
84. Summer Term at St. Clare’s – Enid Blyton
85. The Icarus Girl – Helen Oyeyemi
86. The Sixpenny Debt and other Oxford stories – OxPens
87. Second Form at St. Clare’s – Enid Blyton
88. Postal Book Group
89. Piccadilly Jim – PG Wodehouse
90. The Man Who Knew Everything – Tom Stacey
91. Down To A Sunless Sea – Mathias B. Freese
92. Miss Mapp – EF Benson
93. The Bookshop – Penelope Fitzgerald
94. Lucia in London – EF Benson
95. Mapp and Lucia – EF Benson
96. Old Friends and New Fancies – Sybil G. Brinton
97. Ways and Means – Noel Coward
98. Incomparable: Exploring the Character of God – Andrew Wilson
99. The Assassin’s Cloak – ed. Alan & Irene Taylor
100. The Story of an African Farm – Oliver Schreiner
101. Untouchable – Mulk Raj Anand
102. Peter Pan – J.M. Barrie
103. Kim – Rudyard Kipling
104. Beasts and Superbeasts – Saki
105. A Passage to India – EM Forster
106. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenberger
107. Orientalism – Edward Said
108. Alva & Irva: The Twins Who Saved A City – Edward Carey
109. Look Back in Anger – John Osborne
110. Waiting For Godot – Samuel Beckett
111. Reading After Theory – Valentine Cunningham
112. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction – Jonathan Culler
113. Postal Book Group
114. Major Benjy – Guy Fraser-Sampson
115. The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop – Lewis Buzbee
116. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
117. The Garden Party – Katherine Mansfield
118. Homage to Catalonia – George Orwell
119. Lucia’s Progress – EF Benson
120. Peter Pan and Wendy – JM Barrie
121. Bliss – Katherine Mansfield
122. Black Dogs – Ian McEwan
123. Trouble For Lucia – EF Benson
124. Letters From Menabilly – Daphne du Maurier
125. Dream Life and Real Life – Olive Schreiner
126. Dreams – Olive Schreiner
127. Revolutionary Road – Richard Yates
128. A Boy at the Hogarth Press – Richard Kennedy
129. Mhudi – Sol T. Plaatje
130. Foe – JM Coetzee
131. Miss Buncle’s Book – DE Stevenson
132. The Borrowers – Mary Norton
133. Letters and Journals – Katherine Mansfield
134. What’s So Amazing About Grace? – Philip Yancey
135. Aspects of Love – David Garnett
136. The War-Workers – EM Delafield
137. Quirkology: The Curious Science of Everyday Lives – Robert Wiseman
138. Postal Book Group