British Author Challenge 2021 Wildcard: Books off your shelves

If you're anything like me you always have one or two books on hand you haven't gotten around to reading yet, so the Wildcard selection is here to help you conquer your TBR stack. Only two restrictions:

1) You can't have read the book before.

2) You must own the book before 01-01-2021. Hitting purchase at 11:59 P.M. on New Year's Eve is fine, but nothing purchased in 2021!

Wildcards can replace any of the months or be read in addition to the other selections.

>1 amanda4242: woo! I think this will help.

I have noticed that so many of this year's challenges are for books I don't own. I want to get some off the shelves, not add more!

>2 fuzzi: Confession: the bulk of this year's BAC was designed to help me clear my tbr stack (really a mountain).

>3 amanda4242: that's fine. I just won't be participating every month. If I don't read the month's challenge I still like reading the chat!

Randomly selecting an unread book I had on my e-reader has brought me my first wildcard read: The Poison Master by Liz Williams.

An alchemist and a poisoner join forces to overthrow evil overlords. The world building is excellent, but the pacing is a little off and the characters could have used a touch more development.

I read 3 that qualify
Brighton Rock and The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake.

In January my wildcard read was Look Back with Love: a Manchester Childhood, a memoir by Dodie Smith, who wrote several children's classics. So not a children's book, but related to the January theme.

>6 Kristelh: Gormenghast is a favorite of mine. I love the way Peake had with words!

>7 kac522: I wish my library had that one!

First wildcard for February:
Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie....on the TBR since 2016.

>10 kac522: How was it? I wasn't taken by the few Christie's I've read, but have often thought of giving one of her more famous works a try.

>11 amanda4242: I am reading all of them in order, so this is 1934, although I had read a few here & there, like you. I would say up to this point, this was by far the best, with the exception of And Then There Were None, which (in my opinion) far outstrips all the rest I have read so far. Murder on the Orient Express was just right for me now, because we are stuck inside amidst a lot of snow and very, very cold (10F) temperatures. In the story the train is stranded in the snow when the murder occurs, so the suspects are limited to the people stuck on the train.

And Then There Were None, which is the first Christie I read, is from 1939, is a stand-alone, and is outstanding for not only the mystery but also the tension that builds among the characters. Also good was an early short story "Witness for the Prosecution." In fact, so far I tend to like the short stories almost as much as the full novels, but most people don't. At this point in my chronological reading, Poirot is starting to get a teensy bit annoying, and I haven't read enough Miss Marples to judge. I actually like Tommy & Tuppence because of the banter between them, but some people find them annoying. And I am probably one of the few people on the planet that haven't seen any of the TV/film productions of Agatha Christie (except for And Then There Were None), so I'm not influenced by screen adaptations. I'm planning on watching some of my favorites when I get farther along in my reading.

>12 kac522: I'm another who's never seen any Christie adaptations. I think I might give Murder on the Orient Express a try for July's book & movie theme.

>13 amanda4242: Whether or not you read it, this BBC TV mini-series of And Then There Were None is fantastic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None_(TV_series)
(Charles Dance, Aidan Turner, Toby Stephens and an interesting small part for Anna Maxwell Martin)

>14 kac522: Charles Dance, Aidan Turner, and Toby Stephens are three excellent reasons to watch a movie.

>15 amanda4242: Ain't it the truth...

>15 amanda4242: you had me at Charles Dance...

>17 fuzzi: To me Charles Dance will always be Mr. Tulkinghorn from Bleak House.

>18 kac522: I adored him as Guy Perron in The Jewel in the Crown. I particularly melted near the end when (paraphrasing) Guy wanted to see Sarah again, she said something like "What is there to see?" and he answered "A great deal"

I have a special fondness for Dance as Lord Vetinari in Going Postal.

Completed The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

>21 Kristelh: How'd you like your time with the great detective?

>22 amanda4242:, I enjoyed it. It was easy read that didn't require a lot effort.

What Ho, Automata and Deja Vu Halloo by Chris Dolley

Take a heaping helping of P.G. Wodehouse's Jeeves and Wooster, a touch of Arthur Conan Doyle, throw it into a steampunk Edwardian era, and dust with a generous amount of Doctor Who at its wibbly wobbliest, and you'll come up with something very much like the Reeves & Worcester series.

Is it Wodehouse? Not quite. Is it Conan Doyle? Not remotely. Is it super fun silliness? Absolutely.

The Kraken's Tooth by Anthony Ryan

How can I help but love a book that's dedicated to Indiana Jones?

As in the previous installment, The Kraken's Tooth is chock-full of action and gives a complete, satisfying story in a compact package that can be devoured in one sitting. I enjoyed the fleshing out of Pilgrim/Guyime's backstory and hope the next volume will show us more of the wonderful Seeker's story.

Received via NetGalley.

Another wildcard off my shelf for February: Country Bunch by Miss Read; a collection of excerpts (essays, fiction, poetry) from various authors on English country life and traditions.

>26 kac522: I'll have to see if I can track down a copy of that one. I've always enjoyed reading descriptions of English country life--they seem so exotic to someone from Central California!

The Worst Breakfast by China Miéville and Zak Smith, illustrated by Zak Smith

I continue to be thoroughly unimpressed by Miéville. This children's book is about a young girl telling her sister about the worst breakfast ever, with increasingly foul offerings being recited (mostly) in rhyme, culminating in the revelation of what that breakfast has to do with the current one: the orange juice has "bits" in it. As someone who firmly believes orange juice should be freshly squeezed and thick with pulp, I cannot even begin to imagine why thin, watery OJ would be preferred.

All I could think while reading it was that Shel Silverstein did the rhyming of gross foodstuffs so much better in Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out.

>27 amanda4242: Miss Read chose mostly 18th and 19th century extracts; there are a fair number of excerpts from Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson, too, which I read some years ago.

>28 amanda4242: Alas, sweet orange flavored sugar water reconstituted from the can was the breakfast beverage many of up grew up with. Somehow it was taken to be a fruit serving just because a bit of it came from a fruit.

>29 kac522: Hmm, I have been meaning to check out Lark Rise to Candleford and it would be easier to get a hold of than Country Bunch...

>30 quondame: Frozen OJ concentrate! A tale of childhood tragedy worthy of a Dickens novel!

>32 amanda4242: ever eat it out of the container with a spoon?

>33 fuzzi:

I read Super-Cannes by J.G. Ballard, British author. This book is a bit of mystery, fantasy/SFish.

>35 Kristelh: That one's on my tbr list. Ballard is a writer I generally admire, but I often have a hard time wrapping my head around his work.

>36 amanda4242:, this was the best of the 3 Ballard books that I've read.

>37 Kristelh: My top Ballard is Empire of the Sun; his speculative fiction made a lot more sense after reading it and Miracles of Life.

I have so many UK authors on my TBR shelves purchased before the start of this year. I will do a sweep of my reads at the end of each quarter and see what fits the challenge if it doesn't go anywhere else.

>35 Kristelh: to >38 amanda4242: He can be a deceptively difficult read. I read his fairly short novel The Drought last year as he was in my BAC picks then and liked it but struggled through it.

I'm more than halfway through The Greyhound by Helen Griffiths. It's engaging, and the boy is not overly whiny for eleven years old.

>39 PaulCranswick: I'm in much the same boat. I'll go to my shelves to pick an unread book and think, "Should I read this as a wildcard or save it for one of the monthly themes?" and then I find myself grabbing something entirely different.

>40 PaulCranswick: Ballard isn't always immediately obvious, which is one of the things I like about him.

>41 fuzzi: and the boy is not overly whiny for eleven years old

That's good. I've read so many books where the author thinks the secret to writing a convincing child character is to make them whine all the time.

>43 amanda4242: I've discovered several authors whose child characters act...like children! Jamie is fairly normal for eleven, Griffiths writes him well.

Oh, I managed a second read for this challenge, though it doesn't qualify as it only was on my bookshelves for a day: The Reluctant Dragon by Kenneth Grahame and illustrated by Ernest H. Shepherd. Double-whammy!

I won't count it for the challenge, but wanted to share how much I enjoyed it!

I read 1 book this month that fits the Wildcard criteria:
--E. M. Delafield: The Way Things Are (1927). Delafield is best know for The Diary of a Provincial Lady.

Also off my shelf by a Northern Irish writer and set in 1960s rural Northern Ireland (does that count?):
--Patrick Taylor: An Irish Country Village, the second in the Irish Country series.

Other British authors I read this month, but don't qualify:
--an audiobook re-read: Charles Dickens: Little Dorrit, amazingly read by Simon Vance

and a bunch of library books by British women authors:
--Victorian author Dinah Mulock Craik: Olive (1850), an interesting 19th century novel about disability and race
--Agatha Christie stories: Parker Pyne Investigates
--new author Janice Hadlow: The Other Bennet Sister (2020), Jane Austen fan fiction featuring "plain" sister Mary Bennet
--two books by Ursula Orange re-published by Furrowed Middlebrow/Dean Street Press:
Begin Again (1936) -- life of 4 twenty-somethings in 1930's England
and Tom Tiddler's Ground (1941) -- a London evacuee wittily observes rural Kent life and people

Oops--duplicate post!

>46 kac522: Sure, Northern Ireland can count.

I read Normal People by Sally Rooney. Irish author, does she count?

>49 Kristelh: Sorry, Irish authors don't. Northern Ireland counts because it's part of the UK, but the rest of Ireland is an independent country.

>50 amanda4242: thank you, is Oliver Goldsmith British or Irish, the tag says British but wiki says he is Irish.

>51 Kristelh: Um, yes? Wikipedia describes him as Anglo-Irish, and says the Kingdom of Ireland was at the time he lived a client state of Great Britain. I think arguments could be made for him being either Irish or British or both, so I think it's fine to count him for this challenge.

ETA: I just looked at the Wikipedia page for The Vicar of Wakefield and it's categorized as both an 18th-century Irish novel and an 18th-century British novel. Looks like we're not the only ones unsure how to classify Goldsmith!

>52 amanda4242: thanks

Read two British authors this month (make that 3)
The Lost Traveller by Antonia White and
The Children's Book by A.S.Byatt
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

>54 Kristelh: I enjoyed Piranesi. I admit I was hoping for something more akin to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but I really liked the labyrinthine world Clarke created.

>55 amanda4242: I agree, I was also hoping for something like Strange and Norrell and at first I just was a bit disappointed but when I looked at the Labyrinth and the connections to the Italian Piranesi's art and to Narnia's The Magician's Nephew. I was won over.

April BAC Wildcards:

--Changes at Fairacre, Miss Read (1991); the next book in the series
--Yorkshire: Regional Archaeologies, Ian Longworth (1965); (nonfiction); survey of ancient sites in Yorkshire by a professional archaeologist

Other British authors I read but don't meet the Wildcard criteria:
--Library book--The Golden Ball and Other Stories, Agatha Christie
--Re-read: Audiobook: Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen; although I've read the book many times, this was my first time on audiobook. Narrated by actress Emilia Fox, who played Georgiana in the 1995 P&P (with Colin Firth & Jennifer Ehle). Notably, Georgiana has no actual dialogue in the book!

>57 kac522: God, I'd never realized Georgiana doesn't have any dialogue! Strange, since she isn't an unimportant character.

>58 amanda4242: I know! I kept waiting for her to speak her "own" lines, and it never happened, because there weren't any!

>59 kac522: she had a few lines in that particular version of P & P.

>61 kac522: Right, she has lines in the movie, but in the actual original text Georgiana has not a single word of dialogue. I had forgotten about that, so while listening to Fox read the original text on the audiobook, I kept waiting for her to speak the lines she spoke in the movie as Miss Darcy. But the movie lines were written by Andrew Davies, not Austen!

My BAC wildcards this month:

--The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby (1924); a young Yorkshire woman slowly gains her independence; covers the years 1900-1920.
--William, by E. H. Young (1925); set in Bristol 1900-1910; a novel of family dynamics; Young's wit reminds me of Barbara Pym--really loved this one.
--Death in the Air, Agatha Christie (1935)
--Private Lives, Noel Coward, (play) (1930)

Not counting as wildcards, but British author re-reads and/or library books in May:

--A Room with a View, E. M. Forster (1908) (re-read)
--The Doctor's Family and Other Stories, Margaret Oliphant (1861)--the first installments of her Carlingford series; will continue the series for June BAC (library book and re-read)
--Silas Marner, George Eliot (1861), re-read via audiobook
--Letter from England, Mollie Panter-Downes (1940); collection of her columns for the New Yorker from September 1939 to September 1940 (library book)
--The English Air, D. E. Stevenson (1940) (library book)

>62 kac522: A Room with a View is a favorite of mine. Even though you can't count it as a wildcard, it would qualify for February's LGBT+ History Month theme.

>63 amanda4242: Right. I actually read Where Angels Fear to Tread for February. I've also read Howards End, which is my clear favorite. I have yet to read Passage to India or Maurice.

Just read Orlando by Virginia Woolf.

>65 Kristelh: Woolf and I don't really get on, but I thought Orlando was the best of her works I've read.

I finished A Peaceful Retirement by Miss Read (1996). In this last book in the Fairacre series, Miss Read has an eventful first year of retirement. I just loved coming back to Fairacre these comforting books

I now plan to start her Thrush Green series, perhaps next month.

I read an Angela Thirkell, August Folly. Not my favorite of hers, but it had its moments.

>69 Kristelh: I envisioned the theme as a way to decrease the number of books owned but unread, so library books can't count for the wildcard. Midnight Library has been shortlisted for a couple of awards, so it can count for December's awards and honors theme.

>70 amanda4242: Thanks, I deleted it.

My July Wildcard reads:

--A Peaceful Retirement, Miss Read (1996) -- the last of the Fairacre novels. Now on to the Thrush Green novels.
--Jane Austen: The World of her Novels, Deirdre Le Faye (2002) -- an excellent introduction to Austen, the Regency world, and her novels. In the first half of the book, Le Faye pulls in just about every aspect of JA's world and life during her times, with specific examples from the novels, Austen's letters, and other contemporary citations. Everything from politics to fashion to cosmetics to entertainment, as well as education, social rank, manners and beyond are all discussed, with specific examples from the novels. The second half summarizes the plots of the novels, putting each book in context to her world and other Austen works. I've read lots of books about Austen, but I still learned quite a few new bits in this 300 page book (with lots of illustrations).

I read Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer which is one of my oldest TBR books that was on my nook since I first acquired a nook.

I read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams which has been on my TBR since 2013

>74 Kristelh: I've been meaning to reread that one for ages.

I just realized I've neglected to post my own wildcard readings. Oops.

Hard Time by Jodi Taylor, read by Zara Ramm

Book two of The Time Police series has Team Weird going undercover to breakup an illegal time travel ring. I don't like this series *quite* as much as The Chronicles of St Mary's, but it's still a heck of a lot of fun.

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor Vol. 1 - After Life by Al Ewing and Rob Williams
Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor, Volume 2 - Serve You by Al Ewing and Rob Williams
Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor, Vol. 3 - Conversion by Al Ewing and Rob Williams

Some comics featuring the Eleventh Doctor. They don't make a lot of sense, but that's not surprising since trying to apply logic to Doctor Who is akin to trying to nail jello to the wall. I do like the companions in this arc: Alice Obiefune is a little older and more experienced than the average companion, which helps her not be bowled over by the Doctor; and John Jones is David Bowie under a different name, so of course I'm going to like him.

My Wildcard books in August:

--London: a History, A. N. Wilson (2004); disappointing.
--Witness for the Prosecution, Agatha Christie (1948); great short stories
--The Wild Geese, Bridget Boland (1938); a writer from Ireland, raised in England. This is an epistolary novel about 18th century Irish Catholics who fought for European countries, since they prohibited from joining the English military.
--Thrush Green, Miss Read (1959); first in the Thrush Green books
--The Land of Green Ginger, Winifred Holtby (1927); novel set in north Yorkshire post-WWI
--The Vicar's Daughter, E. H. Young (1928); family dynamics in 1920s England

Not counting toward the Wildcard--Library books I read this month by UK authors:

--Pianos and Flowers, Alexander McCall Smith, delightful short stories based on archival photos (2019)
--Women in the Kitchen, Anne Willan (2020); profiles of women cookbook authors in English, from the 18th century to the present day.
--The Artful Dickens, John Mullan (2020); fascinating look at the literary tips and tricks in Dickens's novels

>77 kac522: How was The Land of Green Ginger? I've owned it for years, but haven't gotten to it yet.

>78 amanda4242: To be honest, I'm having a hard time evaluating how I felt about it. It centers around a married couple who run a farm in a small, isolated community. The couple are not suited to farming life and even less to each other, but carry on regardless. I didn't relate to either of them, and yet Holtby gets us to feel sympathetic for each in certain ways.

Joanna day-dreams of travels to far-off lands, and at first it's hard to separate her fantasizing from real life. Some political and religious references I didn't understand made it less accessible. But the ending pulls the book together and lets in a glimmer of hope.

>79 kac522: Hmm...Perhaps I'll save it until November or December; I tend to have more patience when it's cold outside.

My September British Author Wildcard reads:
--Winter At Thrush Green, Miss Read (1961)
--The A. B. C. Murders, Agatha Christine (1936)

British author re-read:
--Barnaby Rudge, Charles Dickens (1841), audiobook read by Simon Vance; historical fiction novel about the Gordon anti-Catholic riots of 1780 and the storming of Parliament, made very relevant after Jan 6, 2021.

British author read from the library:
--Period Piece, Gwen Raverat (1952). Raverat's (1885-1957) memoir of her childhood in Cambridge; she was an artist and wood engraver, and a granddaughter of Charles Darwin. Fascinating recollection of an unusual and eccentric family.

I read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (a reread, but the audio has been on my shelf since 2017
I read The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers, also on my shelf since 2017.

Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths by Natalie Haynes

A very interesting look at ten women in Greek mythology. Haynes compares the modern view of these women and contrasts them with the many variations of their myths found in ancient literature, and makes a very good case that ancient writers wrote the women with far more complexity than they are given today.

Much of the material Haynes covers will be familiar to fans of her excellent podcast, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics, but there's still a wealth of information to explore here.

And in a reversal of my usual preferences, I actually like the American cover more than the British cover.


American cover


British cover

November wildcards:

--Murder in Mesopotamia, Agatha Christie (1936); Agatha missed on this one for me--the relationship between victim & murderer was not believable
--News from Thrush Green, Miss Read (1970); installments in this series are slowly getting better, but not quite up to the Fairacre series for me
--Nina Balatka, Anthony Trollope (1867); set in Prague; story of love between 2 young people of different faiths; Trollope initially published this anonymously, along with his next book, Linda Tressel, which is set in Nuremberg.

and I hope to re-read before the end of the month:
--Diary of a Provincial Lady, E. M. Delafield (1930); one of my favorites from the inter-war years; reminds me in some ways of Erma Bombeck, for those who may remember the humor columnist

>84 kac522: I have Diary of a Provincial Lady on the tbr stack, but I think I'm going to hold off for next year's Interwar theme.

I read Testament of Youth by Vera Britain. It has been on my shelf since 2019.

>86 Kristelh: I loved that book when I read it years ago.

My BAC reads this month:

Off the shelf:
Dumb Witness, Agatha Christie (1937); loved Bob the dog

From the library:
The Country Child, Alison Uttley (1931); a year in the life on a Derbyshire farm from the perspective of a 9 year old; many wonderful nature descriptions, but a bit lacking in plot.

Re-reads from the shelf:
Diary of a Provincial Lady, E. M. Delafield (1930); just as funny as ever
Rachel Ray, Anthony Trollope (1863); loved it even more on re-reading

Re-read Book and a new-view movie:
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (1843); more dark and cold than I remember;
AND: listened to the audiobook of above, read by Jim Dale, which brought out things I missed even in my reading of the week before
AND: watched the movie version from 1951, starring Alistair Sim; very much as I imagined it from the book, and mostly faithful to the text.

My December off the shelf reading:

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor Volume 4 - The Then and The Now by Si Spurrier and Rob Williams
Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor Volume 5 - The One by Si Spurrier and Rob Williams
Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor Volume 6 - The Malignant Truth by Si Spurrier and Rob Williams

The Doctor is put on trial for crimes he has no memory of committing. This story arc relies heavily on time travel and paradoxes, so it's confusing as hell in some places. Still enjoying companion Alice Obiefune, though.

Troy by Stephen Fry

Fry's take on the Trojan War is as much a history of the city and the many people involved as it is a war story. Highly entertaining, and I'll probably try the audio version next year.