My book jar experiment was such a success in 2023 that I’m going to continue using this to choose which books to read from my extensive TBR shelves.
On the first day of each month I’ll pick out three titles from the jar (eyes closed so I can’t cheat) and commit to reading one of them within the following two months. I thought I’d start to share with you all what comes out of the jar and which title I’ll choose to read.
So here goes. This being January 1 I’ve drawn three new titles in the lucky dip. This is what’s on offer this month.
Frog by Mo Yan
This was one of the titles I choose to keep when it featured in a Sample Sunday post. It’s been on my shelves since 2016.
The novel by the Nobel Laureate tells the story of a woman whose life spans the Japanese occupation of China, the years of communist rule and then the beginning of state-directed capitalism. At one point she acts as the midwife in her village, having to perform late-term abortions to prove her allegiance to the communist rulers and their strict one-child policy.
A Room Full of Leaves by Kate Grenville
One of the many (too many) books I requested from Net Galley and then failed to read. This one dates from 2020, requested because I’d enjoyed a previous novel by Grenville — The Secret River.
A Room Full of Leaves is a mix of fact and fiction about Elizabeth Macarthur, wife of John Macarthur who was apparently a highly influential (but controversial) figure in the establishment of the colony of New South Wales. Grenville uses letters sent by Elizabeth to her family and friends in England to reveal the “truth” about her life with a man who seems to have been rather a thug.
Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge
I bought this as a Persephone edition in a National Trust secondhand bookshop in 2019. It was in pristine condition and a bargain at £2 so even though I knew nothing about the book or the author it was impossible to resist.
I’ve since learned that it’s an autobiographical first novel, published in 1933, which follows the life of a doctor’s wife in a small Cambridge village, It doesn’t have a plot as such but is more a domestic narrative that reflects on a way of life in the period between 1915 and 1933 when the book was published. Persephone describes it as “A quiet, beautifully-written novel …”
And the vote goes to …….
Hostages of Fortune
It was a close run contest between this and Frog but Elizabeth Cambridge won just because the book is so beautifully published. A glorious coral/pink endpaper (with matching bookmark) and heavy weight off white paper stock give it a wonderful tactile and visual appeal while the text is surrounded by a lot of white space making it easier to read.
So now all I have to do is read the book — I have until end of March. If it’s not read by then, as per my own “rules” it will have to be given away.