Read Harder Challenge

Checking my reading list lately it occurs to me how many books I read that are by European white men, especially of the dead variety. Although I own lots of books by women and people of different races, I think I've got a bit stuck in a rut of reading books from the same perspective and in particular nineteenth century classics and books set in that time period.

So this month I have decided to try and challenge myself to try and broaden my horizons. I am not going to ban myself from reading books I've already started, but I'm hoping that all the books I start will be by alternative authors.

So far I have continued the French theme I have been pursuing by reading The Lost King of France, a history book describing the downfall of the French royal family and attempts to trace Louis XVII through DNA testing. Although I enjoy reading history books I don't often read books with forensic analysis. This was very interesting and obviously well researched. Deborah Cadbury's description of the treatment of the Dauphin was heartbreaking but avoided becoming too melodramatic. 

Tigers in Red Weather, on the other hand, was wonderfully melodramatic. Full of lurid family secrets and deeply flawed characters. I liked how the story is teased out through the shift in narrative viewpoints so that the reader is not actually sure about the heart of the mystery until the end.

Finally, I finished A Little Life, something that had been on my reading list for a while. Not an easy book to get into due to the subject matter and it seemed like most readers either loved it or hated it. I was in the minority of appreciating it. I thought that the writing was really good, I could appreciate the uplifting moments (I cannot understand people giving books low ratings for being depressing, especially books that are about child abuse) and I was moved and horrified by the story but I also recognised the criticisms, that perhaps Yanagihara missed out on portraying homosexuals and homosexual relationships in a positive way and that the abuse depicted is so very extensive and revealed throughout the book in such a way that it starts to read a little like a hurt/comfort fan fic where the poor protagonist is heaped with such a litany of horrifying things happening to them that it kind of numbs the reader. Once I got into it, I raced through it but the second half got a little frustrating with Jude continually apologising and refusing to see a psychiatrist or do much else to help himself. Anyway, it got 4 stars and I didn't write a review on Goodreads. 

As a follow up I have started The Goldfinch. I haven't had a great history with Donna Tartt, I hated The Secret History to the point of blocking it from my mind and I can't even remember if I actually finished it. But so far I have been impressed with the writing and the plot. 

I am also considering continuing with the French theme by reading a book that's been on the old 'to read' list for a long time, A Place of Greater Safety. I've started it a few times but somehow never got into it. 

Otherwise, I am not sure where the read harder challenge will take me, although I think I'd like to read a little bit more history and also Villa America.   

Where to next?

Had a bit of a binge on the Victorian pastiche, and I've now finished The Quincunx, as well as The Unburied and Rustication (all Charles Palliser). Then I went onto Kept (D J Taylor) and I'm about the finish Derby Day. I think that the two authors differ in that Palliser's novels are more centred on the plot and read more similarly to Dickens or Wilkie Collins. They are both postmodern, but somehow I find Taylor's postmodernism more extreme. Palliser's novels take the Victorian elements such as the coincidences and links between characters and multiply them to the extreme. The mysteries seem genuine mysteries which, in the case of the Quincunx, are not necessarily satisfactorily solved by the reader due to the unreliable FPN. Taylor's novels don't exactly read as murder mysteries, much to the disgust of some of the Goodreads reviewers, the mystery is more like how and why the characters are linked, and Taylor meticulously recreates Victorian atmosphere with references and excerpts from novels of the period as well as from recreated newspaper reports and letters. So far I have enjoyed all of them, but I have to say The Quincunx has been my favourite and one I'd like to re-read at some point.

So, I have sort of reached the point where I am not sure whether to go on with Victorian mysteries or move onto something else. I think I'd like to read An Instance of the Fingerpost before I get out of the genre for a spell; I know it's not Victorian but I think it would round it off nicely.

Otherwise, I have finished The Black Moon (Poldark). I am still meandering through Balzac, a couple of the stories have been a bit forgettable, but I think I will probably continue, although I feel like I am cheating a little on my Goodreads count as if I have a quiet day I can get through one or two in a few hours. I suppose it makes up for the giant books I am trying to read though. Otherwise, not a huge amount of progress on the other books I'm reading as I've been reading a couple of library books in the meantime.