If you had a Germanic sounding surname and lived in the UK post-WW1, it might seem wise to anglicise things a little. Perhaps turning Hueffer into Huffer or Heffer, however Ford chose Ford maybe out of imaginative desperation or love of symmetry. Whatever the reason, for someone like myself, this aroused a certain level of curiosity about such a man, leading me to buy his 4 part book Parade’s End on the cheap recently. It didn’t hurt that the rear cover proclaimed it “the finest English novel about the Great War” and was fronted by a mysterious gentile man in strange shiny shoes escorting a lady in a huge hat up some stairs. Talk about inviting your reading audience into your little tome of mystery!

Let me say that I’ve become a more patient reader over the years and I no longer baulk at 800 odd pages, however this book’s first 50 pages had me completely bewildered – reminding me a little like my one and only attempt at Ulysses nearly a decade ago. A month or so later after finishing it, after reading a couple of Amazon reviews, I was pleased that others felt the same way about the disjointed conversations, exaggerated reactions and impulses which begin the book, and are peppered throughout. It’s really not the most straightforward read (particularly the last part), and possibly the most challenging book I’ve read, however there is some some structure / story to it, and at certain points it gained a certain fluidity which made it very enjoyable. But I don’t think at any point I truly understood all that was going on – often due to conversations which were more about what was left out than what was said, and I went through an entire section being unsure of his use of the word “draft” and what that meant! The main character Christopher Tietjens is described as an 18th century Tory, a dour, brilliant, practical man for whom chivalry and honour are the foundations by which (to his downfall) he lives his life. I get that he is one of the great unique fictional characters, and I loved that the book was long enough to display many aspects of his personality and family history, but I felt you only ever got oblique angles on him, and his helplessness was nothing but frustrating by the end. As for Sylvia, the less said the better! I’m amazed that the BBC saw enough material in it to make a 5 part TV series in 2013, but I’ll have to watch it now. 3 stars.

Once again, a pile of books to write up and embarrassingly, one of them I cant recollect. Might as well stop reading non fiction for all the learning I’m doing right now.

I found The Sellout by Paul Beatty confusing and over my head. Satire isn’t my strong point nor my normal interest but the cover reviews and that little Man Booker Winner sticker worked their usual magic. At times I struggled to understand subtle points or the language and so many characters were unlikeable that I just slogged it out and finished up nonplussed. 2 stars.

Realising I had largely forgotten the subtleties of U.S Football I wanted a reference book to teach me about line play, types of coverage and play calling in general. I think Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0 by Pat Kirwan achieved that but only just. A few months later I should probably skim it again, though I at least know what Mike, Will and Sam linebackers are now. 3 stars.

Underground is Tobias Hill’s first novel, written in 1999 but hey, decent author and public transport / infrastructure theme and I’m interested. Hill does sinister and claustrophobic moods really well and avoided most of the usual serial killer tropes. That’s enough for my tick – 3 stars.

Having heard the ABC’s Book Club review of Ian McGuire’s The North Water, this novel was a must-read for me. Probably a little overly graphic at times (to the point that I felt queasy during a particular whale hunt scene) the novel delivered in spades and I couldn’t recommend it more highly although I certainly couldn’t watch the movie. Best book I’ve read in years, though not for the squeamish. 5 stars.

Grant and I, by Robert Forster was about what I expected for a Go Betweens memoir, but in a good way. A rock documentary a few years back had ex-drummer Lindy Morrison nearly in tears talking about how awful Grant and Robert had been to her/the other females in the band and I wanted to know why. To his credit Robert largely confesses to focusing more on competing with Grant for songwriting glory than on the women in their lives – both girlfriends / band members being ditched when it all got too much. There are a ton of songs listed and critiqued here (probably to the detriment of the book) and the studied pretence / concept / ambition of the band (even early on) was for some reason a surprise to me. It was still a wonderful read however much like after reading Fall biographies, I was left thinking how little I would like to spend time with the egos that made these great bands possible. 4 stars.

Ah….Slow Man by J.M.Coetzee, the writer who can do little wrong by me after the incredible Disgrace. Now that he’s Australian I seem to have developed a slight cultural cringe when reading him which isn’t helped by this unflattering portrayal of a recent amputee (bike accident) which is so plausible it felt autobiographical. Having not read Elizabeth Costello (written a few years before this novel) the injection of this magical / imaginary figure into this second book both saved it and had me arching eyebrows in disbelief. I don’t think this is anywhere near his best but it still wallops nearly anything else for honesty. This would be an awful movie though! 4 stars.

Lastly I had to know more about the circumstances that led to Ern Malley becoming one of the few genuine front page literary hoaxes in history. Michael Heyward’s The Ern Malley Affair drily spelt out the ingredients…the perceived pomposity of Max Harris and the Angry Penguins school; the greater foothold poetry had on a pre-television society and increasingly free-form experimentation in language and arts. The line between what was brilliantly original and what was a nonsensical pastiche was hard to draw, and the hapless but driven Harris was wounded for life as a result. Some of the court transcript of an inept prosecutor trying to prove vulgarity in the poems is amusing now but carried a jail sentence back in the 40s. What does “the black swan of trespass” mean anyway? 3 stars.

Managed to get through a few chunky books this time around, though sadly there were a few self indulgent doozies amongst them. And a few unfinished ones too.

Houellebecq’s The Map and the Territory was a great, if slightly depressing read. It’s not hard to think that many elements of this are autobiographical, especially those about his dying father and his lament about his own failing libido / interests and health. His trademark hedonism is all present, but what makes this book stand out is its more reflective tone, despite plenty of laughs along the way. A melange of observations about modern life (French Tourism; Mercedes A Class vehicles; the financial madness of the Art world) in moments I didn’t expect, and even better, a book that kept surprising me. Probably a 5 star book for me (or close).

Fifty pages into The Hidden by Tobias Hill, a book that had sat unread for five years at home, I knew I was in for another real treat. There were visceral elements that reminded me of Tim Winton or Christos Tsiolkas, and a sense of impending tragedy (McEwan), plus the small group claustrophobia of Golding. I just thought it went on a little long and lost the tension of the earlier part of the book, though the chapter-flipping between modern day Greece and Spartan history was effective. Still a remarkable novel, and a writer I will seek out again. 4 stars.

About a third of the way through Bolano’s The Savage Detectives, I remembered that similarly in 2666, there was a monstrously relentless (and almost endless) section of the book documenting forty or fifty murders of Mexican women who fell fowl of local officials, or who just happened to be around when the cartel chiefs wanted to demonstrate their cruelty to scare off foes. Though not as gruesome as the earlier novel, the 400 page bulky midsection of this book is seemingly designed to wear you down in the same way, via interviews of people coming into contact with our two mad poets Arturo Belano and Ulisis Lima over 25 years of worldwide travels. The book is a loving, scattergun series of recollections about a brief period in Mexico when poetry meant everything to young writers and Viceral Realism was “a thing”. The final section is a harrowing hunt for the founding mother of this genre and whilst I applaud its wackiness and indulgence, I simply couldn’t recommend the book due to length concerns. It still largely won me over – 4 stars.

Well, there’s finally a Coetzee book that I didn’t want to endure, and it was his first and shortest – 1974’s Dusklands. I only managed to get to the end of the first novella and found myself thinking I’d rather move on. What a shame as his later books were so good. 1 star.

Without question I was drawn to David Szalay’s All that Man Is by the maps on the front dust jacket, and (I think) a review in The Age or The Guardian. I found the stories intriguing to begin with, in particular the second one in which the hapless Bernard finds himself trapped with an overweight mother and daughter at an overseas holiday resort. Towards the middle of the book the stories became more angry; materialistic and career driven men and their insensitivities in full flight. The internal lives of young to old men (in sequence) are lovingly examined in small slices, each believable and beautifully described. Well worth the read if you can forgive the stage-prop role of many of the female characters. 4 stars.

Stuck in Woopi, with all the time in the world to pick something long or tough, I lucked out on Foucault’s Pendulum, so grabbed Umberto Eco’s The Island of the Day Before. What a terrible mistake that was; rarely have I found a book so infuriating and circular. Fooled by the Gulliver’s Travels adventure / man finds himself shipwrecked in odd place premise, Eco then digresses to alchemy, explains the cultural relevance of Doves, inset with expositions about longitude and scientific history. Somewhere amongst the 510 pages, there’s meant to be a story, and then it turns out, he’s been writing an imaginary story all along and pretty soon you really don’t care if he ever sees his Orange Dove. Eco is no doubt a clever man, but shouldn’t bore the pants off us needing to prove it. I think I said that about David Foster Wallace in a review of the Infinite Jest too. 2 stars.

I feel so sorry for Ben Pobjie (Melbourne’s Own), as I think he’s a smart guy, and his book Error Australis is often funny, particularly in the absurd chapter quizzes, but heck, reading it made me physically exhausted. I pretty much had to put it down every couple of chapters due to the relentless gag count, and I feel sick thinking about how many hundreds and hundreds of hours he’s put into writing it, only for me to want to bin it or give it to a smart nephew who wouldn’t ever read the Fatal Shore. If I ever need to light a fire, this is the first book I will use as kindling. 2 stars.

I don’t miss riding to work at all – especially not in winter when the trams are warm, and I’m sufficiently rested to enjoy an early morning read. This is not overly encouraged in our house – it’s like someone wants to play the parent figure of her teen years and shush me out of bed because there’s work to be done (there usually isn’t). So, I’ve been plowing through some fiction (some American also – something I doubted I would return to) and have some weighty books accounted for in 2016 so far. NOTE: This doesn’t mean In Search of Lost Time is on the cards for 3Q16 – let’s not get too crazy. I bought the set on a whim (and on some bonus money from work), but heck, it is mainly just for the bookcase if I ever develop a literary buddy or if Gerald Murnane by chance dropped around oneday.

Sometime in early 2016 I started watching Youtube Clips produced by a passionate man called Gilles (is that pronounced Giles or Gille – I’m unsure) in his early 40’s in Quebec. The amazing thing about Gilles is that he thinks nothing of live-streaming his Friday and Saturday night Amateur Radio hobby for three hours at a time without a co-host. The other amazing thing is that he almost single handedly convinced me to buy a small Shortwave (with SSB) radio to listen to mystery stations and generally tool around listening to a lot of static. Sadly, despite a trip to the Moorabin Ham Radio fair with Ash, and a flick through Low Profile Amateur Radio, the possible passion fizzled due mainly to the lack of channels I could pickup in urban Preston. So, the radio sits ready for a trip up north later this year – maybe.

Reading War and Peace threw my interests towards Napoleon, and this lead to Robespierre and the French Revolution by J.M. Thompson, probably the dullest book in the Teach Yourself History series to date. It seems that anyone 200 odd years ago who stuck their neck out and agitated for change, managed to cop it in the end, and Robespierre and his cohort of Jacobins polished off the Girondins before being flushed out themselves when the time came. Gosh he would have been a dull man to live with. 3 stars.

So, Gerald Murnane gets to 75 and then writes easily his most accessible book to date Something for the Pain, perhaps the only one I would recommend to a non-believer. I was delighted again and again with this recollection of childhood events and memories of the turf. It is possibly the only book that I’ve ever found myself consciously trying to slow down and soak in, because it I was gobbling it up like a pack of ginger biscuits. Outstanding! 5 stars.

Despite being pretty passionate about music in the past, composer stories (real or not) don’t excite. Ok, I did enjoy those Phillip Glass and Glenn Gould bios. I think I was dazzled by the Booker 2014 Longlist on the cover, and the mention of Bach on the rear. In truth Orfeo by Richard Powers wasn’t a bad book, but I just couldn’t accept the premise of the composer deciding to morph his passion into finding musical structures amongst the biological world. The book is clearly a love letter to classical composition, but I found myself glazing over in the more musical chapters and enjoying the human interactions and suspense elements. 3 stars.

I wasn’t convinced at all by Margaret Atwoods’ The Heart Goes Last. Although a real page turner with a sexy theme, the whole premise felt flawed; the story light and overly simple, the characters not believable and I spent the second half of it fobbing off my cynicism whilst trying to wind it up. This has shaken my faith in one of the few female writers I (mostly) trust. Will wait for her next nervously. 2 stars.

Speaking of female writers, Barkskins by Annie Proulx was a much more solid proposition (in more ways than one at 710 pages). Early on, I accidentally read a negative review of it in the Irish Times which called it trite and lambasted it for its “set pieces”, but thankfully I never found these aspects irritating. My problem with the book was (like Accordion Crimes) its overly broad generational sweep, which towards the last quarter of the book became a gallop through reams of names and sons of sons in a few quick lines with nothing more than an intention to get you to the present day. Other sections were far more consistent and engrossing – the fiercely business-like Lavinia Duke, the desperately unlucky travels of Jinot Sel, the descriptions of the logging camps and river work were all wonderfully convincing – I had no lack of interest in this book at all until about 3/4 way through. I’d read it again though – probably my second favourite of hers after Postcards – a real return to form which whilst lecturing about mans irresponsible ways, told some wonderful stories, with all the usual Proulx research and attention to period detail. Way too many characters though. 4 stars.

When selecting this book, I think I mistook the “#1 International Bestseller” label on the cover of  The Truth and the Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker for “Winner of the 2015 Edgar Award“, because that’s what I wanted out of my annual / bi-annual crime book (just to show my wife I really do read other genres occasionally). I thought it would be a little more serious, and by the end (640 pages mind you!) it felt preposterous and silly; the number of twists in the last few chapters becoming a bit crazy. The dialogue was terrible, the inclusion of the young novelist into a 33 year old crime case implausible and yet it was still a massively addictive page turner which had me wanting to know who killed Laura Palmer, I mean Nola. 3 stars.