Status
Available
Call number
Series
Collection
Publication
Profile Books (2009), Hardcover, 288 pages
Description
Early one autumn afternoon in pursuit of an elusive book on her shelves, Susan Hill encountered dozens of others that she had never read, or forgotten she owned, or wanted to read for a second time. The discovery inspired her to embark on a year-long voyage through her books, forsaking new purchases in order to revisit her own collection.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Cynara
While reading this book, much discussed and often loved on LT, I toyed with several different ways of starting my review:
Ahem.
Dorothy Parker wrote that "the affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith shall live on as one of the prettiest love stories in all of literature." To self: no, too
Ahem.
Dorothy Parker will forgive me if I say that "through the pages of Howard's End is on the Landing walk the great. I don't say that Susan Hill actually permits us to rub elbows with them ourselves, but she willingly shows us her own elbow, which has been, so to say, honed on the mighty." Well, that's a little closer.
Ahem.
Susan Hill is happiest when ending sentences "..., I think." Her mood is judicious, meditative, and often arch. She doesn't like Jane Austen. Well, fine, I suppose not everyone can. She doesn't get Australian literature. She doesn't quite see the point of Canadian literature (having read much of both?). Her reading is mostly British, and colonial readers like me may not get the references. She dismisses thrillers and comic books as "ice cream reading" (I think that's an underinformed point of view, but she's entitled to it) but reserves the right to praise Enid Blyton to the skies. Better, closer....
Ahem.
Here is a quotation from the beginning of Howard's End is on the Landing: "the journey began in the old farmhouse where I live, surrounded by the gently rising hills and graceful trees, the ploughed and planted fields, the hedgerows and flower borders and orchards and old stone walls, the deer and birds and hedgehogs and rabbits, the foxes and badgers and moths and bees of Gloucestershire. I climbed two flights of elm-wood stairs to the top landing in search of a book, and found myself embarked on a year of travelling through the books of a lifetime."
I would have expected myself to find this sentence charming. I wanted to adore the book based on its cover alone. Instead, I felt the early rising of what was to become an intense urge to take Susan Hill by the shoulders and shake her, shouting "don't you think I would like to spend a year reading from my shelves? Don't you think I would like to have built-in bookshelves in every room? Don't you think I would like to live in an Elizabethan farmhouse in rural Gloucestershire, surrounded by the original cast of Beatrix Potter?" No, wait, get a grip. Your jealousy is unbecoming.
Sigh. Here we go.
I started my reading year with Anne Fadiman's wonderful Ex Libris, which celebrates reading, books, and the community of readers. In my review I mentioned my discomfort with the occasional near-preciousness in the books-about-reading genre that I felt Fadiman had skirted. Susan Hill, by contrast, plops right into the mire.
Here's my disclaimer: I don't think that Hill is necessarily a snob, or a flake, or as self-involved as this book makes her seem. I'm sure that her reading preferences as she describes them are genuine, and not faked to impress us. Perhaps the tone of the book got away from her.
The book did strike me as self-involved in its lack of focus and frequent digressions into famous-authors-I-have-met and literary-achievements-in-my-career. It is not entirely a bad book, but it is a relentlessly self-regarding book, with Susan Hill using her library as a mirror to inspect and display Susan Hill.
I don't agree with many of her judgements (oh, all right, except for Wodehouse, and maybe Dickens), and I don't have the reading background to have an opinion on the rest. The lack of organization irritated me more as the book progressed, as I wasn't feeling very entertained, and the shifting focus of the book (reading from shelves, literary autobiography, anecdote collection, desert island book list, the writing life) prevented me from feeling that I was getting a cohesive account of any one thing.
I can imagine that if I were familiar with Hill's work and with more of the books and authors she describes with such affection then I might have felt a greater sympathy for the book, and perhaps I could have read it in the spirit she no doubt hoped it would be.
Ahem.
Dorothy Parker wrote that "the affair between Margot Asquith and Margot Asquith shall live on as one of the prettiest love stories in all of literature." To self: no, too
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waspish, and besides, not quite accurate.Ahem.
Dorothy Parker will forgive me if I say that "through the pages of Howard's End is on the Landing walk the great. I don't say that Susan Hill actually permits us to rub elbows with them ourselves, but she willingly shows us her own elbow, which has been, so to say, honed on the mighty." Well, that's a little closer.
Ahem.
Susan Hill is happiest when ending sentences "..., I think." Her mood is judicious, meditative, and often arch. She doesn't like Jane Austen. Well, fine, I suppose not everyone can. She doesn't get Australian literature. She doesn't quite see the point of Canadian literature (having read much of both?). Her reading is mostly British, and colonial readers like me may not get the references. She dismisses thrillers and comic books as "ice cream reading" (I think that's an underinformed point of view, but she's entitled to it) but reserves the right to praise Enid Blyton to the skies. Better, closer....
Ahem.
Here is a quotation from the beginning of Howard's End is on the Landing: "the journey began in the old farmhouse where I live, surrounded by the gently rising hills and graceful trees, the ploughed and planted fields, the hedgerows and flower borders and orchards and old stone walls, the deer and birds and hedgehogs and rabbits, the foxes and badgers and moths and bees of Gloucestershire. I climbed two flights of elm-wood stairs to the top landing in search of a book, and found myself embarked on a year of travelling through the books of a lifetime."
I would have expected myself to find this sentence charming. I wanted to adore the book based on its cover alone. Instead, I felt the early rising of what was to become an intense urge to take Susan Hill by the shoulders and shake her, shouting "don't you think I would like to spend a year reading from my shelves? Don't you think I would like to have built-in bookshelves in every room? Don't you think I would like to live in an Elizabethan farmhouse in rural Gloucestershire, surrounded by the original cast of Beatrix Potter?" No, wait, get a grip. Your jealousy is unbecoming.
Sigh. Here we go.
I started my reading year with Anne Fadiman's wonderful Ex Libris, which celebrates reading, books, and the community of readers. In my review I mentioned my discomfort with the occasional near-preciousness in the books-about-reading genre that I felt Fadiman had skirted. Susan Hill, by contrast, plops right into the mire.
Here's my disclaimer: I don't think that Hill is necessarily a snob, or a flake, or as self-involved as this book makes her seem. I'm sure that her reading preferences as she describes them are genuine, and not faked to impress us. Perhaps the tone of the book got away from her.
The book did strike me as self-involved in its lack of focus and frequent digressions into famous-authors-I-have-met and literary-achievements-in-my-career. It is not entirely a bad book, but it is a relentlessly self-regarding book, with Susan Hill using her library as a mirror to inspect and display Susan Hill.
I don't agree with many of her judgements (oh, all right, except for Wodehouse, and maybe Dickens), and I don't have the reading background to have an opinion on the rest. The lack of organization irritated me more as the book progressed, as I wasn't feeling very entertained, and the shifting focus of the book (reading from shelves, literary autobiography, anecdote collection, desert island book list, the writing life) prevented me from feeling that I was getting a cohesive account of any one thing.
I can imagine that if I were familiar with Hill's work and with more of the books and authors she describes with such affection then I might have felt a greater sympathy for the book, and perhaps I could have read it in the spirit she no doubt hoped it would be.
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LibraryThing member richardderus
Rating: 3.5* of five
The Book Description: Early one autumn afternoon in pursuit of an elusive book on her shelves, Susan Hill encountered dozens of others that she had never read, or forgotten she owned, or wanted to read for a second time. The discovery inspired her to embark on a year-long voyage
A book which is left on a shelf for a decade is a dead thing, but it is also a chrysalis, packed with the potential to burst into new life. Wandering through her house that day, Hill's eyes were opened to how much of that life was stored in her home, neglected for years. Howard's End is on the Landing charts the journey of one of the nation's most accomplished authors as she revisits the conversations, libraries and bookshelves of the past that have informed a lifetime of reading and writing.
My Review: Haven't all of us who possess a lot of books done this? “I will not buy a new book until I have read x from my shelves!” Uh huh. “No seriously THIS year I mean it, I'm not buying a book! Not one! No!” Mmm hmmm “Really!! I WILL NOT!” Yes dear.
I have no idea how Ms. Hill fared in her commitment not to buy any new books for a year (I suspect poorly, but I'm a suspicious old bugger, I am). I read this lovely memoir of her her reading life with pleasure, because she told me enough about the books that sparked the memories she shares for me to capture my own memories of the books, or to latch on to her sense of them, their place in her life, and the overall effect is to offer her own context as well as the book's.
I like that idea. I like to read what other readers think about when they're reading or after they've finished or even before they've decided what to read next. (Makes sense, doesn't it, here on this site?) And when that reader has written some very, very popular books, published some very good books, and talked about books on radio, television, and stage, I mean! Go fight those odds. I had to read this book. And then re-read it. I loved the experience of both, and would never ask for those eyeblinks back.
There are two passages I've come to and come back to multiple times. One is from author David Cecil's book Library Looking Glass: A Personal Anthology, a tome and a writer absolutely unknown to my poorly educated little ol' Texan self; while Ms. Hill does a wee bit of Internet bashing at the beginning of this book, I found Mother Internet most helpful in digging up a potted biography on Wikipedia of this fourth child of a marquess and father of an actor, an historian, and a literary agent. He was a very old-school gent, and deeply deeply steeped in a bygone literary tradition, author of books on Tennyson and Max Beerbohm and Dorothy Osborne...ye gods how grisly it all sounds to my ear. But then Hill quotes this from his 1975 “Personal Anthology:”
It is often said that mankind needs a faith if the world is to be improved. In fact, unless the faith is vigilantly and regularly checked by a sense of man's fallibility, it is likely to make the world worse. From Torquemada to Robespierre and Hitler the men who have made mankind suffer the most have been inspired to do so have been inspired to do so by a strong faith; so strong that it led them to think their crimes were acts of virtue necessary to help them achieve their aim, which was to build some sort of an ideal kingdom on earth.(pp156-157, English softcover edition)
Oh yes indeed, Lord David. Oh yes indeed, and so well said. Hardly a surprise, I suppose, this gift he shows there with the gab, given the amount and the quality of the poetry he spent his life reading, analyzing, delving into, parsing, disassembling and reassembling and explicating to generations of young scholars. But how surprising, how very satisfying to find, in a book about someone else's readerly DNA, a hitherto uncatalogued strand of my own.
Hill meditates on the subject of what forms a person, on readerly DNA, later in the book. The passage is one I found calling out to me while I was reading other books, and I marked it for easy access. It has helped me understand the reasons that I read, and the reasons that I decide not to read, certain books or genres or authors.
Books help to form us. If you cut me open, will you find volume after volume, page after page, the contents of every one I have ever read, somehow transmuted and transformed into me? … But if the books I have read have helped to form me, then probably nobody else who ever lived has read exactly the same books, all the same books and only the same books, as me. So just as my genes and the soul within me make me uniquely me, so I am the unique sum of the books I have read. I am my literary DNA.(pp201-202, English softcover edition)
It is the reason I am so interested in what others who, like me, crave the written story and the printed book, have to say about their reading, and their lives. We're all made of a unique set of genes, and a unique formula of books. It makes us deeply flawed, and deeply interesting.
Even as I turned the pages of the book again and sometimes two or three times, to re-read and re-savor some lovely or lively moment of memory or of sensory pleasure, even as I contemplated my own version of this book, I was aware of a sense of want, a lack of something I was expecting and not getting. It feels churlish to bring it up, but it's the reason I've given the book a half-star less than I would have otherwise. Please forgive the nosy American, Ms. Hill, but...so? And you are...? I'm asking for a wee little bit more of your CV, your activities in some...not a great deal, just some...more detail than you give. The small bits of personal information that are here are those that a very congenial acquaintance would provide, and I have the sense that is exactly and precisely what was intended to be offered.
But we're all readers here, ma'am. We're all in the club. A tell-all dishfest on le monde litteraire? No, not this book (though one of those would be lovely)...but a few more lines of whys and hows and whos would not have come amiss, nor would a sense of your place in life as the discoveries you limn for us have weighed down the narrative unduly.
A minor cavil. A delight of a book. My warmest personal thanks from England's 1644 colonial foundation on Long Island to the Long Barn.
The Book Description: Early one autumn afternoon in pursuit of an elusive book on her shelves, Susan Hill encountered dozens of others that she had never read, or forgotten she owned, or wanted to read for a second time. The discovery inspired her to embark on a year-long voyage
Show More
through her books, forsaking new purchases in order to get to know her own collection again.A book which is left on a shelf for a decade is a dead thing, but it is also a chrysalis, packed with the potential to burst into new life. Wandering through her house that day, Hill's eyes were opened to how much of that life was stored in her home, neglected for years. Howard's End is on the Landing charts the journey of one of the nation's most accomplished authors as she revisits the conversations, libraries and bookshelves of the past that have informed a lifetime of reading and writing.
My Review: Haven't all of us who possess a lot of books done this? “I will not buy a new book until I have read x from my shelves!” Uh huh. “No seriously THIS year I mean it, I'm not buying a book! Not one! No!” Mmm hmmm “Really!! I WILL NOT!” Yes dear.
I have no idea how Ms. Hill fared in her commitment not to buy any new books for a year (I suspect poorly, but I'm a suspicious old bugger, I am). I read this lovely memoir of her her reading life with pleasure, because she told me enough about the books that sparked the memories she shares for me to capture my own memories of the books, or to latch on to her sense of them, their place in her life, and the overall effect is to offer her own context as well as the book's.
I like that idea. I like to read what other readers think about when they're reading or after they've finished or even before they've decided what to read next. (Makes sense, doesn't it, here on this site?) And when that reader has written some very, very popular books, published some very good books, and talked about books on radio, television, and stage, I mean! Go fight those odds. I had to read this book. And then re-read it. I loved the experience of both, and would never ask for those eyeblinks back.
There are two passages I've come to and come back to multiple times. One is from author David Cecil's book Library Looking Glass: A Personal Anthology, a tome and a writer absolutely unknown to my poorly educated little ol' Texan self; while Ms. Hill does a wee bit of Internet bashing at the beginning of this book, I found Mother Internet most helpful in digging up a potted biography on Wikipedia of this fourth child of a marquess and father of an actor, an historian, and a literary agent. He was a very old-school gent, and deeply deeply steeped in a bygone literary tradition, author of books on Tennyson and Max Beerbohm and Dorothy Osborne...ye gods how grisly it all sounds to my ear. But then Hill quotes this from his 1975 “Personal Anthology:”
It is often said that mankind needs a faith if the world is to be improved. In fact, unless the faith is vigilantly and regularly checked by a sense of man's fallibility, it is likely to make the world worse. From Torquemada to Robespierre and Hitler the men who have made mankind suffer the most have been inspired to do so have been inspired to do so by a strong faith; so strong that it led them to think their crimes were acts of virtue necessary to help them achieve their aim, which was to build some sort of an ideal kingdom on earth.(pp156-157, English softcover edition)
Oh yes indeed, Lord David. Oh yes indeed, and so well said. Hardly a surprise, I suppose, this gift he shows there with the gab, given the amount and the quality of the poetry he spent his life reading, analyzing, delving into, parsing, disassembling and reassembling and explicating to generations of young scholars. But how surprising, how very satisfying to find, in a book about someone else's readerly DNA, a hitherto uncatalogued strand of my own.
Hill meditates on the subject of what forms a person, on readerly DNA, later in the book. The passage is one I found calling out to me while I was reading other books, and I marked it for easy access. It has helped me understand the reasons that I read, and the reasons that I decide not to read, certain books or genres or authors.
Books help to form us. If you cut me open, will you find volume after volume, page after page, the contents of every one I have ever read, somehow transmuted and transformed into me? … But if the books I have read have helped to form me, then probably nobody else who ever lived has read exactly the same books, all the same books and only the same books, as me. So just as my genes and the soul within me make me uniquely me, so I am the unique sum of the books I have read. I am my literary DNA.(pp201-202, English softcover edition)
It is the reason I am so interested in what others who, like me, crave the written story and the printed book, have to say about their reading, and their lives. We're all made of a unique set of genes, and a unique formula of books. It makes us deeply flawed, and deeply interesting.
Even as I turned the pages of the book again and sometimes two or three times, to re-read and re-savor some lovely or lively moment of memory or of sensory pleasure, even as I contemplated my own version of this book, I was aware of a sense of want, a lack of something I was expecting and not getting. It feels churlish to bring it up, but it's the reason I've given the book a half-star less than I would have otherwise. Please forgive the nosy American, Ms. Hill, but...so? And you are...? I'm asking for a wee little bit more of your CV, your activities in some...not a great deal, just some...more detail than you give. The small bits of personal information that are here are those that a very congenial acquaintance would provide, and I have the sense that is exactly and precisely what was intended to be offered.
But we're all readers here, ma'am. We're all in the club. A tell-all dishfest on le monde litteraire? No, not this book (though one of those would be lovely)...but a few more lines of whys and hows and whos would not have come amiss, nor would a sense of your place in life as the discoveries you limn for us have weighed down the narrative unduly.
A minor cavil. A delight of a book. My warmest personal thanks from England's 1644 colonial foundation on Long Island to the Long Barn.
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LibraryThing member LyzzyBee
21 Jan 2010 - from Jen
Gosh - here I am in August reading books from January... just realised!
I heard about this book on the Dovegreyreader blog and immediately added it to the wishlist. What's not to like when you have an established author married to a Shakespeare Professor, living in a big house
Well, there was some stuff to like, and some to dislike, and some to argue with. And that's the mark of an excellent read, isn't it? The book is divided into short sections which dip into reading, Hill's life as a reader and as an author, and all sorts of bits and pieces. The short section style is eminently suitable for treat reading, especially in quite a busy week, although I did devour great gobbets of it at once. This is definitely a book to read once, fast, and again, slowly (as she is told to do with Proust).
So - I got a bit annoyed on p. 6 when she talks about "I know people... whose books are even catalogued, in card indexes, on spreadsheets or even on infernal systems on websites where it is possible to log your own library and arrange virtual books on virtual shelves", as I love my LibraryThing account and wouldn't be without it. But it becomes clear that Hill loves the chaos of her books, their odd juxtapositions, the serendipity of coming across something when looking for something else - and she also champions books AS books, holding out against the little grey e-reader... and there's a lot more to like in the book.
Hill confesses at the beginning to be worried about seeming to name-drop, but I love her encounters with other writers, placed in context within the book and her life. Her meeting with Edith Sitwell is hilarious and cringeworthy, and there are a lot of other writers in here too. A whole section is devoted to Iris Murdoch, which of course pleased me greatly - including two meetings, one where she is hale and hearty and one when she is sadly unwell. I like the assessment that Murdoch's reputation is going through a dip at the moment due to her having died fairly recently, that she reclaims her from the miserable film and Bayley books, and that a Murdoch could in fact be included in her forty books for a desert island.
I also like her discursions on books she hasn't read (she knows all about Don Quixote... but has never read it) and books she can't finish, and I have to love her description of saving up some unread books for "when I am very old, or have an illness that requires me to stay in bed for days but that does not make me feel too rotten to read" - don't we all have Books I Will Read If I Break My Leg? And she admits she can't get into Jane Austen, which is a big admission to make.
So, a challenging and at the same time comforting read - for the basic assumption under all of the book is that books MATTER, and that's got to be a good thing, of course. Even if they're not catalogued.
Gosh - here I am in August reading books from January... just realised!
I heard about this book on the Dovegreyreader blog and immediately added it to the wishlist. What's not to like when you have an established author married to a Shakespeare Professor, living in a big house
Show More
full of books and deciding to only read from her current collection for a year?Well, there was some stuff to like, and some to dislike, and some to argue with. And that's the mark of an excellent read, isn't it? The book is divided into short sections which dip into reading, Hill's life as a reader and as an author, and all sorts of bits and pieces. The short section style is eminently suitable for treat reading, especially in quite a busy week, although I did devour great gobbets of it at once. This is definitely a book to read once, fast, and again, slowly (as she is told to do with Proust).
So - I got a bit annoyed on p. 6 when she talks about "I know people... whose books are even catalogued, in card indexes, on spreadsheets or even on infernal systems on websites where it is possible to log your own library and arrange virtual books on virtual shelves", as I love my LibraryThing account and wouldn't be without it. But it becomes clear that Hill loves the chaos of her books, their odd juxtapositions, the serendipity of coming across something when looking for something else - and she also champions books AS books, holding out against the little grey e-reader... and there's a lot more to like in the book.
Hill confesses at the beginning to be worried about seeming to name-drop, but I love her encounters with other writers, placed in context within the book and her life. Her meeting with Edith Sitwell is hilarious and cringeworthy, and there are a lot of other writers in here too. A whole section is devoted to Iris Murdoch, which of course pleased me greatly - including two meetings, one where she is hale and hearty and one when she is sadly unwell. I like the assessment that Murdoch's reputation is going through a dip at the moment due to her having died fairly recently, that she reclaims her from the miserable film and Bayley books, and that a Murdoch could in fact be included in her forty books for a desert island.
I also like her discursions on books she hasn't read (she knows all about Don Quixote... but has never read it) and books she can't finish, and I have to love her description of saving up some unread books for "when I am very old, or have an illness that requires me to stay in bed for days but that does not make me feel too rotten to read" - don't we all have Books I Will Read If I Break My Leg? And she admits she can't get into Jane Austen, which is a big admission to make.
So, a challenging and at the same time comforting read - for the basic assumption under all of the book is that books MATTER, and that's got to be a good thing, of course. Even if they're not catalogued.
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LibraryThing member Kasthu
Howards End is on the Landing is a short collection of essays in which Susan Hill, author of The Woman in Black, went on a search through her house to find a book—and found hundreds that she hadn’t read, and dozens more that she had forgotten she owned but wanted to return to. She then resolved
The essays in this book aren’t organized in any particular way, so Hill’s discourses tend to be a bit random at times; but her writing style is superb, and she writes well about the books she loves and doesn’t love. Be warned, however, that there’s a fair amount of literary name-dropping (everything from “EM Forster once dropped a book on my foot when I was a student at King’s College” to various authors she’s been acquainted with over hr literary career), which sort of put me off after a while.
There are also a number of inconsistencies (her husband is a Shakespearean scholar, yet Hill dismisses other Elizabethan poets as not worthy of her time because people have never heard of them; she claims she’ll never read a Richard and Judy selection, so why does she keep buying them?). Hill tends to dismiss certain types of books (fantasy, historical fiction) and Australian and Candian authors as not worthy of her time, and her tastes tend to run towards 20th century fiction for the most part. She claims that Jane Austen isn’t her cup of tea (different strokes for different folks, I guess) and tends to promote authors that you might not have heard of—which is good in a way, as she’s given me a number of new-to-me authors to track down; and she’s also inspired me to read more from my TBR pile (she mentions FM Mayor’s the Rector’s Daughter, which has been on my TBR list for a while, and I’ve had Dorothy Sayers’s The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club on my bookshelves for a long time as well).
I also wish that Hill had given us a full list of the books she read during her year—and that she’d read more from her unread pile (it’s fine to revisit the books you’ve always loved, I do that sometimes, but surely there should also be an effort to broaden your horizons, so to speak?). Hill does give a list of the forty books she’d take with her to a desert island—the Bible, for example, or Wuthering Heights. I also wish there had been an index of the books mentioned in this one, as she mentions perhaps hundreds, either in depth or in passing. Despite my reservations about this book, I did enjoy parts of it. It's perhaps just not the best book about books there is to be had.
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to read more books from her ever-growing collection, making a vow to not buy any more books (more power to her!) There were a couple of caveats: she would still accept books from publishers, for example.The essays in this book aren’t organized in any particular way, so Hill’s discourses tend to be a bit random at times; but her writing style is superb, and she writes well about the books she loves and doesn’t love. Be warned, however, that there’s a fair amount of literary name-dropping (everything from “EM Forster once dropped a book on my foot when I was a student at King’s College” to various authors she’s been acquainted with over hr literary career), which sort of put me off after a while.
There are also a number of inconsistencies (her husband is a Shakespearean scholar, yet Hill dismisses other Elizabethan poets as not worthy of her time because people have never heard of them; she claims she’ll never read a Richard and Judy selection, so why does she keep buying them?). Hill tends to dismiss certain types of books (fantasy, historical fiction) and Australian and Candian authors as not worthy of her time, and her tastes tend to run towards 20th century fiction for the most part. She claims that Jane Austen isn’t her cup of tea (different strokes for different folks, I guess) and tends to promote authors that you might not have heard of—which is good in a way, as she’s given me a number of new-to-me authors to track down; and she’s also inspired me to read more from my TBR pile (she mentions FM Mayor’s the Rector’s Daughter, which has been on my TBR list for a while, and I’ve had Dorothy Sayers’s The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club on my bookshelves for a long time as well).
I also wish that Hill had given us a full list of the books she read during her year—and that she’d read more from her unread pile (it’s fine to revisit the books you’ve always loved, I do that sometimes, but surely there should also be an effort to broaden your horizons, so to speak?). Hill does give a list of the forty books she’d take with her to a desert island—the Bible, for example, or Wuthering Heights. I also wish there had been an index of the books mentioned in this one, as she mentions perhaps hundreds, either in depth or in passing. Despite my reservations about this book, I did enjoy parts of it. It's perhaps just not the best book about books there is to be had.
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LibraryThing member lycomayflower
Well, nuts. This was disappointing. LW3 did warn me. What she said, I think, was, "It's not good like Anne Fadiman is good." Which, perhaps, is not fair (the comparison is not strictly one-to-one), but it is also, perhaps, inevitable, and absolutely bang-on accurate. Fadiman, in [Ex Libris], had me
She says early on that name-dropping is "tiresome," but that "Names" would inevitably come up, and would be important in the book. Fine, and fair enough. And they did, and I rarely felt as if they were being "dropped"--largely because I often didn't understand why they were there at all. Not always, of course. But often. And that points to a large problem I had with the whole book: it felt weirdly unfocused, especially for a book which has a stated topic (reading from one's own shelves for year). The chapters (none felt enough self-contained to be individual essays, really) were often smatterings of reading-life smooshed together by the common factor of all coming from Hill's own collection, but there was too little reference to the home or the collection itself for that really to keep the thing hinged together. New aspects of the project would suddenly spring up ("I have three sets of Hardy's works--which shall I keep?" When did culling the collection come into it? "I can't decide which of Shakespeare's plays to include in my list of forty works that could occupy me to the end of my life." When the what now?), and then sort of melt away again.
There were some chuckling and nodding and musing moments, moments when Hill put something just so, and I was quite glad I had put a few hours into her book. This is one: "But if the books I have read have helped to form me, then probably nobody else who ever lived has read exactly the same books and only the same books, as me. So just as my genes and the soul within me make me uniquely me, so I am the unique sum of the books I have read." But there were far more places where I couldn't see how she'd got where she was or fathom where she was going to.
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chuckling and nodding and musing and wishing for more. Hill mostly doesn't. I'm often at odds with her taste in reading, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, it did set me up to be easily irked by other infelicities in the book. She says early on that name-dropping is "tiresome," but that "Names" would inevitably come up, and would be important in the book. Fine, and fair enough. And they did, and I rarely felt as if they were being "dropped"--largely because I often didn't understand why they were there at all. Not always, of course. But often. And that points to a large problem I had with the whole book: it felt weirdly unfocused, especially for a book which has a stated topic (reading from one's own shelves for year). The chapters (none felt enough self-contained to be individual essays, really) were often smatterings of reading-life smooshed together by the common factor of all coming from Hill's own collection, but there was too little reference to the home or the collection itself for that really to keep the thing hinged together. New aspects of the project would suddenly spring up ("I have three sets of Hardy's works--which shall I keep?" When did culling the collection come into it? "I can't decide which of Shakespeare's plays to include in my list of forty works that could occupy me to the end of my life." When the what now?), and then sort of melt away again.
There were some chuckling and nodding and musing moments, moments when Hill put something just so, and I was quite glad I had put a few hours into her book. This is one: "But if the books I have read have helped to form me, then probably nobody else who ever lived has read exactly the same books and only the same books, as me. So just as my genes and the soul within me make me uniquely me, so I am the unique sum of the books I have read." But there were far more places where I couldn't see how she'd got where she was or fathom where she was going to.
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LibraryThing member elkiedee
Susan Hill was looking for a particular book one day. Everywhere she looked, she found at least a dozen books she had never read, sometimes as many as 200. Then she found books she had read, but coming across them prompted her to want to reread. She decided she would spend a year not buying any new
As a bookworm I found the concept of this book irresistible. I have not read any of her other books, but Hill writes literary and crime novels, and I am always intrigued by books about books, and love to know what people who write enjoy reading themselves. I hoped for lots of tempting suggestions, not because I am short of books to read (only of space to store them and time to read them).
Howards End is on the Landing is quite chatty and readable, and I finished it very quickly. She mentions authors in a range of genres, including classic literature, children's books crime fiction and others. Some of her books bring back memories, and these musings are among the most interesting in the book - I liked reading about her student days at Kings College in London and about her encounters with a number of other writers (Hill herself published her first novel as an 18 year old schoolgirl in 1960).
I was rather surprised and disappointed by what this book did not do though. I don't think the book made me want to read more of the books she talks about, or even Hill's other writing. As a crime junkie, why haven't I even looked for her crime novels in the library? I might look for one of her other novels at some point though.
There are several reasons for this. Despite the subtitle, "a year of reading from home" there is not really a detailed account or list of what she actually read over the year and her thoughts on each book. Mostly she just picks up books off the shelves and talks about them from memory. There is only one list at the end, and this is a list of just 40 books that Hill feels she can't live without, but she says herself it might be a different list the next day.
I thought there was an element of genre snobbery in her comments. She is also very ready to dismiss books that are not her taste as unworthy of her attention at all, including most genre fiction and a lot of books which are popular, eg Richard and Judy Book Club choices. I can totally understand buying books and then finding that they never really appeal to you enough to pick them up rather than all the others, but... She's even quite dismissive of a lot of crime fiction although she writes it herself (that puts me off trying her crime novels), although she does include a chapter defending Ian Fleming's James Bond books, and a book by Raymond Chandler makes her final list. She also writes about other older crime novels recognised as classics.
If she gets round to reading some of the never read books on her shelves, she never actually says so - most of the book chat is about old favourites, and it is often a few comments in passing rather than an in depth commentary. That list of 40 essential books at the end is very Anglocentric and rather conservative, with only a few Americans, one Finn, an Australian and a few Irish writers (who the English always try to appropriate anyway) and only a few very recent novels. The only non-white writer in the final 40 books is V S Naipaul. She admits a problem with Canadian and Australian writers. She dismisses several authors whose work I love as not worth her time. She is entitled to her opinion, it is just that in this case I feel less inclined to trust her judgement on the books she does live because of this. In the end, her year of reading from home seems to be about narrowing her reading horizons rather than expanding them. There is no real thought of trying to read beyond her comfort zone.
Hill is also very dismissive of the Internet. While I understand that for a busy writer, there may be a case for avoiding too much time taken up with browsing and distraction from work, she must not have seen some of the online and email discussion of books which encourages people to try new authors and types of writing.
Ultimately, I enjoyed the book but thought it could have been so much better.
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books, but reading books she already owned. She would not buy any, though she would borrow academic books from libraries (presumably for work related purposes) and she would continue to receive books from publishers sent for review. She also decided to limit her use of the internet, as a distraction from what she regards as more real and substantial reading. As a bookworm I found the concept of this book irresistible. I have not read any of her other books, but Hill writes literary and crime novels, and I am always intrigued by books about books, and love to know what people who write enjoy reading themselves. I hoped for lots of tempting suggestions, not because I am short of books to read (only of space to store them and time to read them).
Howards End is on the Landing is quite chatty and readable, and I finished it very quickly. She mentions authors in a range of genres, including classic literature, children's books crime fiction and others. Some of her books bring back memories, and these musings are among the most interesting in the book - I liked reading about her student days at Kings College in London and about her encounters with a number of other writers (Hill herself published her first novel as an 18 year old schoolgirl in 1960).
I was rather surprised and disappointed by what this book did not do though. I don't think the book made me want to read more of the books she talks about, or even Hill's other writing. As a crime junkie, why haven't I even looked for her crime novels in the library? I might look for one of her other novels at some point though.
There are several reasons for this. Despite the subtitle, "a year of reading from home" there is not really a detailed account or list of what she actually read over the year and her thoughts on each book. Mostly she just picks up books off the shelves and talks about them from memory. There is only one list at the end, and this is a list of just 40 books that Hill feels she can't live without, but she says herself it might be a different list the next day.
I thought there was an element of genre snobbery in her comments. She is also very ready to dismiss books that are not her taste as unworthy of her attention at all, including most genre fiction and a lot of books which are popular, eg Richard and Judy Book Club choices. I can totally understand buying books and then finding that they never really appeal to you enough to pick them up rather than all the others, but... She's even quite dismissive of a lot of crime fiction although she writes it herself (that puts me off trying her crime novels), although she does include a chapter defending Ian Fleming's James Bond books, and a book by Raymond Chandler makes her final list. She also writes about other older crime novels recognised as classics.
If she gets round to reading some of the never read books on her shelves, she never actually says so - most of the book chat is about old favourites, and it is often a few comments in passing rather than an in depth commentary. That list of 40 essential books at the end is very Anglocentric and rather conservative, with only a few Americans, one Finn, an Australian and a few Irish writers (who the English always try to appropriate anyway) and only a few very recent novels. The only non-white writer in the final 40 books is V S Naipaul. She admits a problem with Canadian and Australian writers. She dismisses several authors whose work I love as not worth her time. She is entitled to her opinion, it is just that in this case I feel less inclined to trust her judgement on the books she does live because of this. In the end, her year of reading from home seems to be about narrowing her reading horizons rather than expanding them. There is no real thought of trying to read beyond her comfort zone.
Hill is also very dismissive of the Internet. While I understand that for a busy writer, there may be a case for avoiding too much time taken up with browsing and distraction from work, she must not have seen some of the online and email discussion of books which encourages people to try new authors and types of writing.
Ultimately, I enjoyed the book but thought it could have been so much better.
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LibraryThing member JonArnold
I confess I've never read one of Susan Hill's novels, I haven't even the slightest idea of what she writes, although Those Who Know reckon she's A Literary Heavyweight. Cest la vie, you can't read everyone, although literary snobs would undoubtedly be looking down their nose at me for that
This is far more personal than a straight autobiography could be. Anyone can tell their life as they saw it. Hill instead puts her library up for public scrutiny, and thereby exposes her personality and tastes for all to see. That's far more daring and interesting than selecting the events in your life you want to show people. And she isn't shy, openly proud of her collections of children's books and pop up books where others might have deliberately dodged mentioning them. I'm not sure I'd actually like Hill if we ever met, there's often the loud clanging of literary name drops, her life path and attitudes differ and our generational outlooks and tastes seem vastly divergent. And she often seems a touch on the haughty side, but given the literary circles she came to maturity in, that's perhaps only to be expected.
The book's at its best when she's enthusing about her favourite books, or books I didn't know about but which she makes fascinating. She's quite brilliant on the subject of the King James Bible and why it matters to her so much, and you'd be a curmudgeonly individual indeed (or a massive bibliophile. Or both) not to be moved to follow up on at least a couple of the books she comes across. I considered it a triumph to restrict myself to two (the already-covered-in-this-blog The Smaller Sky and The Paper House). It's that type of recommendation of books you otherwise probably wouldn't hear of that makes this such a fascinating and worthwhile book, although following up on those recommendations is obviously at odds with the book's central conceit. I'm determined to follow that conceit myself one day, but that book addiction is a hard habit to break. Probably worse than crack, although with less physical symptoms.
It doesn't matter if you've no idea who Hill is, by the end of this book you'll feel like you know her personally. And probably be impressed by how lovely her use of words is. It might only appeal to book lovers, but a book that can make you feel that not buying books is not only a worthwhile exercise, but something of a triumph, and not leave you feeling like a philistine, is a remarkable thing indeed.
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admission. But, as a bibilophile with a book collection that's evolving into a world devouring entity, the central idea of the book was irresistible - opt out of the literary rat race and instead turn inward to devour your own collection. Like I say, irresistible, particularly since I don't think I could do it myself.This is far more personal than a straight autobiography could be. Anyone can tell their life as they saw it. Hill instead puts her library up for public scrutiny, and thereby exposes her personality and tastes for all to see. That's far more daring and interesting than selecting the events in your life you want to show people. And she isn't shy, openly proud of her collections of children's books and pop up books where others might have deliberately dodged mentioning them. I'm not sure I'd actually like Hill if we ever met, there's often the loud clanging of literary name drops, her life path and attitudes differ and our generational outlooks and tastes seem vastly divergent. And she often seems a touch on the haughty side, but given the literary circles she came to maturity in, that's perhaps only to be expected.
The book's at its best when she's enthusing about her favourite books, or books I didn't know about but which she makes fascinating. She's quite brilliant on the subject of the King James Bible and why it matters to her so much, and you'd be a curmudgeonly individual indeed (or a massive bibliophile. Or both) not to be moved to follow up on at least a couple of the books she comes across. I considered it a triumph to restrict myself to two (the already-covered-in-this-blog The Smaller Sky and The Paper House). It's that type of recommendation of books you otherwise probably wouldn't hear of that makes this such a fascinating and worthwhile book, although following up on those recommendations is obviously at odds with the book's central conceit. I'm determined to follow that conceit myself one day, but that book addiction is a hard habit to break. Probably worse than crack, although with less physical symptoms.
It doesn't matter if you've no idea who Hill is, by the end of this book you'll feel like you know her personally. And probably be impressed by how lovely her use of words is. It might only appeal to book lovers, but a book that can make you feel that not buying books is not only a worthwhile exercise, but something of a triumph, and not leave you feeling like a philistine, is a remarkable thing indeed.
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LibraryThing member wandering_star
The premise of this book is that one day, Susan Hill was looking for a book, and she noticed the sheer number of books which she owned which she had never read, or in some cases even remembered seeing before: ("Here is a book called How To Train Your Aggressive Dog. But we have never had an
I was expecting one of two things: a book either about that year of reading (the experience of picking up never-read books and rediscovering old ones), or about the reader's interaction with books. In fact, though, this is essentially a collection of essays about authors, reading, books and literary life.
It's still an interesting read - Hill writes sharply about her likes and dislikes and she is not afraid to put forward an unusual point of view, whether that's defending Blyton and Bond (James) or disliking... wait, I'll get to that later. Some of her comments made me laugh and others made me bristle - I expect that experience would be the same for any reader, although our reaction to specific opinions might vary.
I have a couple of caveats with this book. Firstly, in several of the chapters Hill is basically asserting her liking for an author or a book, without really explaining why. To get much from this, you need to trust the opinion of the person you are reading, I think, and I couldn't quite do that for someone who doesn't find Jane Austen enjoyable, or who can't get into writing from Canada or Australia (she does, though, admit this as a weakness). Secondly, Hill attempts a few frothy essays about being a book-lover (like those Anne Fadiman excels at), but you really need a bit of whimsy to make those work, and Hill does not come across like a woman of whimsy, but rather of firmly held opinion.
Despite all that, this certainly sent me back to the books themselves, which is a Good Thing. Many of the books she rates I know are on my father's shelves, so I'll be borrowing an armful next time I go home. And her chapter on Penelope Fitzgerald has finally convinced me that I need to have another go at The Blue Flower: I don't think I gave it the attention that it was due when I read it before.
The book has also made me think about the books that I am reading - which ones will I really come back to and value in the long run?
To sum up, then, I was expecting this book to be delicious, and it's not, but it is interesting and enjoyable, and I will be keeping it and referring back to Hill's views about specific books.
Recommended for: fans of Susan Hill and/or of literary classics.
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aggressive dog.") This prompted her to spend the following year reading only books from her own shelves.I was expecting one of two things: a book either about that year of reading (the experience of picking up never-read books and rediscovering old ones), or about the reader's interaction with books. In fact, though, this is essentially a collection of essays about authors, reading, books and literary life.
It's still an interesting read - Hill writes sharply about her likes and dislikes and she is not afraid to put forward an unusual point of view, whether that's defending Blyton and Bond (James) or disliking... wait, I'll get to that later. Some of her comments made me laugh and others made me bristle - I expect that experience would be the same for any reader, although our reaction to specific opinions might vary.
I have a couple of caveats with this book. Firstly, in several of the chapters Hill is basically asserting her liking for an author or a book, without really explaining why. To get much from this, you need to trust the opinion of the person you are reading, I think, and I couldn't quite do that for someone who doesn't find Jane Austen enjoyable, or who can't get into writing from Canada or Australia (she does, though, admit this as a weakness). Secondly, Hill attempts a few frothy essays about being a book-lover (like those Anne Fadiman excels at), but you really need a bit of whimsy to make those work, and Hill does not come across like a woman of whimsy, but rather of firmly held opinion.
Despite all that, this certainly sent me back to the books themselves, which is a Good Thing. Many of the books she rates I know are on my father's shelves, so I'll be borrowing an armful next time I go home. And her chapter on Penelope Fitzgerald has finally convinced me that I need to have another go at The Blue Flower: I don't think I gave it the attention that it was due when I read it before.
The book has also made me think about the books that I am reading - which ones will I really come back to and value in the long run?
To sum up, then, I was expecting this book to be delicious, and it's not, but it is interesting and enjoyable, and I will be keeping it and referring back to Hill's views about specific books.
Recommended for: fans of Susan Hill and/or of literary classics.
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LibraryThing member gaskella
Susan Hill's latest is a memoir about reading the books in her house and the stories they are associated with. At the heart of HEIOTL, as I shall abbreviate it to, is Hill's decision not to add to her house full of books for a year (except for books she is to review); to explore her collection and
Each shelf examined brings reminiscences. There are stories about encounters with great writers and celebrated personages, who all seemed to be very supportive of the young novelist, and indeed many of them became friends. I loved all this name-dropping, and particularly enjoyed the chapter about Benjamin Britten whose 'Sea Interludes' provided an epiphany for Hill (I love them too - they were marvellous to play many years ago in Croydon Youth Philharmonic Orchestra); the story about Alan Clark was good also.
There are many discussions of writers and their books. Hill is refreshingly honest about what she doesn't enjoy reading as well as her literary loves - she's no Austenite, but reveres much of Thomas Hardy, she can't be doing with Terry Pratchett and Sci-Fi in general but did concede to liking John Wyndham but puts him in the horror pile. I was delighted that she loves Ian Fleming, John Le Carré and Michael Connelly too.
Although I haven't read him, her chapter about W.G.Sebald does make me want to read The Rings of Saturn. She writes "But so many places on a Sebald journey are eerie, deserted, out of date, and lie under a pall of dismal weather. In The Rings of Saturn he walks through East Anglia and manages to make places I know well, and have found sparkling and lively, suicidally depressing." I lived and worked for nearly two years in and around Great Yarmouth - a South Londoner fresh out of uni and mostly have never felt so lonely as then.
Then at the last pages we get to the final forty, the snapshot in time of the forty books she couldn't do without - well on that day at least, for she says she would probably pick a different 40 tomorrow. The natural extension of this is to start compiling one's own forty - but that's a project for another day ...
Every year I say I must read more books from my TBR mountains. Do I think I could do as Hill did and not buy any new books for a whole year? It would be nice, but I don't think I can. My biggest problem post-HEIOTL is the number of books I've added to my wishlist, and may have to buy/acquire, after reading it - an index would have been slightly helpful here! I love reading books about books, and this one (with its lovely cover) didn't disappoint at all.
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find new books to read in it, to re-discover lost gems and re-read favourites, and then to compile a list of the forty books she couldn't live without.Each shelf examined brings reminiscences. There are stories about encounters with great writers and celebrated personages, who all seemed to be very supportive of the young novelist, and indeed many of them became friends. I loved all this name-dropping, and particularly enjoyed the chapter about Benjamin Britten whose 'Sea Interludes' provided an epiphany for Hill (I love them too - they were marvellous to play many years ago in Croydon Youth Philharmonic Orchestra); the story about Alan Clark was good also.
There are many discussions of writers and their books. Hill is refreshingly honest about what she doesn't enjoy reading as well as her literary loves - she's no Austenite, but reveres much of Thomas Hardy, she can't be doing with Terry Pratchett and Sci-Fi in general but did concede to liking John Wyndham but puts him in the horror pile. I was delighted that she loves Ian Fleming, John Le Carré and Michael Connelly too.
Although I haven't read him, her chapter about W.G.Sebald does make me want to read The Rings of Saturn. She writes "But so many places on a Sebald journey are eerie, deserted, out of date, and lie under a pall of dismal weather. In The Rings of Saturn he walks through East Anglia and manages to make places I know well, and have found sparkling and lively, suicidally depressing." I lived and worked for nearly two years in and around Great Yarmouth - a South Londoner fresh out of uni and mostly have never felt so lonely as then.
Then at the last pages we get to the final forty, the snapshot in time of the forty books she couldn't do without - well on that day at least, for she says she would probably pick a different 40 tomorrow. The natural extension of this is to start compiling one's own forty - but that's a project for another day ...
Every year I say I must read more books from my TBR mountains. Do I think I could do as Hill did and not buy any new books for a whole year? It would be nice, but I don't think I can. My biggest problem post-HEIOTL is the number of books I've added to my wishlist, and may have to buy/acquire, after reading it - an index would have been slightly helpful here! I love reading books about books, and this one (with its lovely cover) didn't disappoint at all.
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LibraryThing member murderbydeath
I had issues with this book and with the author. Mostly the author. She starts off strong, impressing me with the fact that the first book she chooses from her library to read again is a Dorothy L. Sayers. She goes on the name more than a few books we both have on our shelves, and I'm just settling
If only this was a one off, I'd probably have forgotten by now. Alas it was not. In a chapter about writing in books, she says "Bookplates are for posers." Wow. She then explains how she unapologetically scribbles in all her books, folds down pages, cracks spines, etc. But Bookplates are for posers. Nice to know where Susan Hill draws the line. Personally, I'd never use a bookplate or write in my books, or dog-ear pages, but I'm also not going to judge anyone who chooses to do those things to their books. I'm totally ok judging Susan Hill for her self-defensive and hypocritical judging of others who enjoy bookplates, though.
In another chapter she talks about covers and fine bindings, offering a backhanded compliment to The Folio Society by praising their products, but suspecting those who own them as "not being a proper reader". To which she can kiss my south-side. I own Folio Society editions and I read them. In fact the list of authors and stories I've discovered because of my Folios is long and distinguished.
In between all these grievances, and in spite of all the books we have in common, she fails to connect with me, the reader. While I admire her honesty and forthrightness about her trouble with Jane Austen's work - even though it mystifies me - I can't help but think her failing is the same one she perceives in Austen's work: "... I never feel empathy with, or closeness to, an Austen character." I could not find a closeness or commonality with Susan Hill.
I finished the book out of sheer cussedness, I think. I have her second memoir, Jacob's Room is Full of Books, but I can't see mustering any enthusiasm for it after this one. Perhaps out of perverseness, to see who she manages to belittle or insult next, but I doubt I'll ever be that curious.
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in with delight, when she suddenly turns uppity. And I don't mean with the name dropping - she's met famous authors and they make up important moments in her memoirs, that's fine. But in the fourth or fifth chapter she opens with "Girls read more than boys, always have, always will. That's a known fact." Well, that's a bold and rather inflexible statement. I don't quarrel with girls reading more than boys historically, or even presently, but to state categorically that they always will, and state it's a known fact rankled. I knew Susan Hill is an author and publisher, but I didn't know she was a prognosticator too. If only this was a one off, I'd probably have forgotten by now. Alas it was not. In a chapter about writing in books, she says "Bookplates are for posers." Wow. She then explains how she unapologetically scribbles in all her books, folds down pages, cracks spines, etc. But Bookplates are for posers. Nice to know where Susan Hill draws the line. Personally, I'd never use a bookplate or write in my books, or dog-ear pages, but I'm also not going to judge anyone who chooses to do those things to their books. I'm totally ok judging Susan Hill for her self-defensive and hypocritical judging of others who enjoy bookplates, though.
In another chapter she talks about covers and fine bindings, offering a backhanded compliment to The Folio Society by praising their products, but suspecting those who own them as "not being a proper reader". To which she can kiss my south-side. I own Folio Society editions and I read them. In fact the list of authors and stories I've discovered because of my Folios is long and distinguished.
In between all these grievances, and in spite of all the books we have in common, she fails to connect with me, the reader. While I admire her honesty and forthrightness about her trouble with Jane Austen's work - even though it mystifies me - I can't help but think her failing is the same one she perceives in Austen's work: "... I never feel empathy with, or closeness to, an Austen character." I could not find a closeness or commonality with Susan Hill.
I finished the book out of sheer cussedness, I think. I have her second memoir, Jacob's Room is Full of Books, but I can't see mustering any enthusiasm for it after this one. Perhaps out of perverseness, to see who she manages to belittle or insult next, but I doubt I'll ever be that curious.
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LibraryThing member Nickelini
Reading Howards End is on the Landing is a little bit like visiting an eccentric, slightly doddering aunt in her slightly shabby old house. One of those typically English cottages, with an overgrown, slightly messy--yet beautiful--garden, and inside, low ceilings, worn furniture, a fire blazing in
After searching for a book, Hill decides she has too many unread books and old books that need rereading, and so she sets herself the goal to stop buying books for a year and read only what she already has. (I'm sure this sounds familiar to no one here! You know who you are.) Although Howards End is on the Landing is set up to be a memoir of a year of reading, it reads like that eccentric aunt telling you not only all about the books she's read and her opinions of them, but also some of her experiences in the literary world, and some of the characters she's met there. Each of the many short chapters reads like a tangent she's gone off on--often rambling, not always on point, but mostly entertaining.
And like any eccentric aunt worth her salt, she's opinionated. We both worship Virginia Woolf, but Hill says she could read A Writer's Dairy every day, while I think it was a bore. She also says she just doesn't get the appeal of Jane Austen, which I think is an interesting comment from someone so entrenched in the literary world.
Recommended for: people who like to read books about books.
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the hearth, and a pot of tea waiting. And of course, stuffed bookshelves at every turn.After searching for a book, Hill decides she has too many unread books and old books that need rereading, and so she sets herself the goal to stop buying books for a year and read only what she already has. (I'm sure this sounds familiar to no one here! You know who you are.) Although Howards End is on the Landing is set up to be a memoir of a year of reading, it reads like that eccentric aunt telling you not only all about the books she's read and her opinions of them, but also some of her experiences in the literary world, and some of the characters she's met there. Each of the many short chapters reads like a tangent she's gone off on--often rambling, not always on point, but mostly entertaining.
And like any eccentric aunt worth her salt, she's opinionated. We both worship Virginia Woolf, but Hill says she could read A Writer's Dairy every day, while I think it was a bore. She also says she just doesn't get the appeal of Jane Austen, which I think is an interesting comment from someone so entrenched in the literary world.
Recommended for: people who like to read books about books.
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LibraryThing member thorold
Long before “working from home” was a phrase people bandied about, Susan Hill decided to spend a year just reading books she already had lying around the house. “Attacking the TBR pile”, as we would put it. Except that she was mixing in a fair proportion of re-reads: the main principle
A fun little book, which comes with a serious risk of encouraging you to buy more books, even if it doesn’t make you disarrange your home library to increase the serendipity factor…
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seemed to be to follow her nose and the quasi-random patterns in which books had settled in different parts of her home. And of course this isn’t just a collection of book reviews, she drifts off engagingly into memories from her long career as an author, broadcaster and publisher. Her first novel was published when she was still in her teens, and she’s been in the literary scene long enough to have baby-sat Arnold Wesker’s children and have E M Forster drop a book on her toe in the London Library, so she knew a lot of the writers she is talking about here, and many of them were evidently friends. But she seems to be quite capable of separating the books from the people: V S Naipaul, for example, seems to have been rude to her the one time they met, but she still praises him as one of the best prose-writers of his generation. A fun little book, which comes with a serious risk of encouraging you to buy more books, even if it doesn’t make you disarrange your home library to increase the serendipity factor…
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LibraryThing member jeniwren
Another book about books and Hill's memoir where she decides to forgo the internet and buying books for a year so that she can reacquaint herself with all of those books on the shelves in the various rooms of her home. She writes about the things that fall out of books, shopping lists, bus tickets
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and postcards from people like Dirk Bogarde and a Christmas card from Penelope Fitzgerald. There is a section devoted to Virginia Woolf whom she admires above all and she also gives her definitive list of 40 books that if she could never get her hands on another book , these would be those she could blissfully re read over and over again. She also talks about those books she finds difficult and makes reference to Australian in particular 'Eucalyptus' by Murray Bail and Canadian novels. Show Less
LibraryThing member generalkala
The basic premise is that Ms Hill does not buy a book for a whole year, reading only what already resides on her shelves.
It's an intriguing concept, but she seems to forget about it half way through. The first half of the book is brilliant, where the author explains her reasons for doing this and
Around this point, she decides to list her Top Forty books for no apparent reason othe than, presumably, to take up space. That's a fine idea, but she details which Dickens books she'd choose no less than three times. It's very repetive.
Annoyingly, she name-drops other authors as frequently as possible, to the point where I'm pretty sure she's never read a book that wasn't written by somebody she knows. Where possible, she also mentions her own books.
I did enjoy it and I will be keeping it. I just enjoyed the first half A LOT more than the second.
It's an intriguing concept, but she seems to forget about it half way through. The first half of the book is brilliant, where the author explains her reasons for doing this and
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describes some of the shelves and books that line her house. I really felt connected to her during this part and didn't want the book to end. Unfortunately, it loses steam half way through and turns into a rather drab collection of essays about books and other, more irrelevant, topics (like famous composers).Around this point, she decides to list her Top Forty books for no apparent reason othe than, presumably, to take up space. That's a fine idea, but she details which Dickens books she'd choose no less than three times. It's very repetive.
Annoyingly, she name-drops other authors as frequently as possible, to the point where I'm pretty sure she's never read a book that wasn't written by somebody she knows. Where possible, she also mentions her own books.
I did enjoy it and I will be keeping it. I just enjoyed the first half A LOT more than the second.
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LibraryThing member SmithSJ01
I really didn’t know what to expect with this book. Well yes actually I did. I expected Susan Hill to discuss a year’s worth of her reading from home. Whilst this happened you do have to delve deep within the covers to find this. Once you’ve worked your way through the people and authors
This took me by surprise. I had expected more than 40 books read in a year from a prolific writer. I assumed she would equally be an avid reader and I genuinely expected to discover some gem I could go on to read myself. I did enjoy reading about how the books came into her life and why she might have bought them. I also enjoyed the images of her wandering through the house from top to bottom looking at her shelves. For any avid reader we all have far too many books and kid ourselves we’ll get them all read in our lifetime.
Going a year without buying books as a reader is a challenge and a half but I still can’t get away from the fact that forty books listed in the closing pages were the forty she opted for when most of them she’d already read at some point in her life. Wasn’t this the chance to discover something hidden in the depths of the bookshelves?
There are some wonderful laugh out loud moments that anyone who reads will find funny. I even saw glimpses of myself in many of the comments she makes such as those about online book groups and blogs etc. Overall, it was an enjoyable afternoon reading the book but I didn’t feel this book lived up to its blurb unfortunately.
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Susan Hill has met and believe me they are covered in some depth here and the details of when she wrote her first book, set up her printing press etc (in short, a very much autobiographical book) you get to the information about the 40 books. This took me by surprise. I had expected more than 40 books read in a year from a prolific writer. I assumed she would equally be an avid reader and I genuinely expected to discover some gem I could go on to read myself. I did enjoy reading about how the books came into her life and why she might have bought them. I also enjoyed the images of her wandering through the house from top to bottom looking at her shelves. For any avid reader we all have far too many books and kid ourselves we’ll get them all read in our lifetime.
Going a year without buying books as a reader is a challenge and a half but I still can’t get away from the fact that forty books listed in the closing pages were the forty she opted for when most of them she’d already read at some point in her life. Wasn’t this the chance to discover something hidden in the depths of the bookshelves?
There are some wonderful laugh out loud moments that anyone who reads will find funny. I even saw glimpses of myself in many of the comments she makes such as those about online book groups and blogs etc. Overall, it was an enjoyable afternoon reading the book but I didn’t feel this book lived up to its blurb unfortunately.
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LibraryThing member tloeffler
"Books help to form us. If you cut me open, will you find volume after volume, page after page, the contents of every one I have ever read, somehow transmuted and transformed into me?...What a strange person I must be."
How true. Susan Hill spends a year reading only from her own bookshelves, and
How true. Susan Hill spends a year reading only from her own bookshelves, and
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compiles a list of 40 books she would keep if she had to give up all the rest. Each chapter is a little vignette about a book, or an author, or a genre, and I enjoyed it just about as much as anything I've ever read. Plus I added a whole bunch of books to my to-be-read list. Sigh. But I loved that quote. Because I think it is true, at least about me. Show Less
LibraryThing member SuzyK222
A much-needed reminder to those of us who buy many books "on spec" and then never quite get around to them -- or mean to reread favorites, or finally read that daunting classic, like Ulysses or The Magic Mountain or War and Peace. Susan Hill is a prolific reader as well as writer (most recently
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I've enjoyed her Simon Serrailler mystery series). She challenges herself to spend an entire year reading only from her library, and includes the 40 books she selected. A bit heavy on the British authors (not unexpected!), but an interesting list nonetheless. The book was a pleasure, especially her forgiving chapter on all the daunting classics she hasn't read! It's entitled "Never Got Around to It, Don't Like the Look of It, Couldn't Get Beyond Page Ten and Other Poor Excuses." Show Less
LibraryThing member infjsarah
I have to agree with Cynara's review. Disappointing and incoherent. And I too had a bad case of envy. Yeah I'd love a posh country house with room for hundreds of books too. No such luck.
LibraryThing member Fliss88
The book title got me in and the book's blurb really hooked me. A year of reading nothing but books from my own shelves. This is exactly what I've been trying to get myself to do for two years, with little success! I take my hat of to Susan Hill for sticking to her guns and loved hearing about the
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books she chose to read and why she chose to read them. For her year of reading she selected 40 books covering poetry, fiction, non fiction, religion, plays and journals. I particularly liked how we were given The List at the end of the book. The author has really thrown down her gauntlet to me, so next year it is, you're on Susan Hill, I accept your challenge! Reading about someone else's love of reading, hearing why they re-read certain books and how they arrange their collection is so much fun if you're a bit of a bibliophile yourself. To quote from the end of the first chapter...."I climbed two flights of elm-wood stairs to the top landing in search of a book, and found myself embarked on a year of travelling through the books of a lifetime." Now that's my kind of travel. Show Less
LibraryThing member lucybrown
With Howard's End is on the Landing Susan Hill offers an amiable, chatty look at books she has loved, loathed and left unread. Her rambles take the reader back to her childhood in Scarborough, to her college years in London and through her years as a writer and radio personality. Through these
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years she managed to meet a great number of the book world elite, from dashing Ian Fleming to the formidable Sitwells. These remembrances, some of which were very slight, at the library, E. M. Forster dropped a book on her foot, may seem to some to be just so much name-dropping. However, they really work both to support her contention that so many of these gods of li-tra-tra were kind, helpful and immanently human, well Edith Sitwell wasn't, and to develop the chatty tone. Honestly, if I happen to be chatting with you about the rock scene of the late '70, I will just have to tell you about the time Elvis Costello's keyboard player touched my arm or the time I had a brief but lovely conversation with Brian Wilson. I would do so for these reasons. One to show my own giddy, star struck nature at 16, the other to show the gentle sweetness of the Wilson. And, well that is what people do when they chat. Hill in her chattiness shares a wealth of opinions and reading foibles. Some of those opinions are bound to raise eyebrows; she can't find pleasure in Austen and has strong views on book plates. One which I was glad to hear voiced was her attitude towards new books which is similar to mine. We both prefer to avoid them in their newly minted state to wait until, as she puts it, "the dust has settled." As with her name-dropping her rather ruthless bandying of views enhances the friendly, volubility of the tone. Though I deeply pity her inability to enjoy Austen rather like I pity my son's color blindness.
As one would expect, Hill has added new names to my never shortening list of must reads. I suppose my final analysis would be that it was an amiable way to spent a very hot summer day thanks to its gregarious tone, but Hill provided me with no ah-ha or aw moments.
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LibraryThing member bell7
This book is made up of linked essays related to Susan Hill's year of reading her own books and not buying any new ones. While she often describes her favorite books and reading experiences, as would be expected, Hill's reflections range far and wide, encompassing e-readers, music, and pop-up
Books about books are my favorite nonfiction "genre." I was hoping to learn more about the books she read during the year, maybe helpfully broken down by month a la Nick Hornby's Believer columns. Alas, that was not to be. I was surprised to find the sheer variety of topics, as well as discussions of books not just in that year but read over her lifetime. Sadly, our mental libraries overlap very little, and where they do, our opinions of shared books tended to diverge. She also has a habit of talking about the authors she met or were a friend of a friend. This didn't strike me as name dropping exactly, but on top of our differing opinions on books, it did serve to make me feel that much more removed from her experiences. Even so, some of her comments were entertaining - I especially enjoyed the essay on picture books and her comments on reading as a family - and I did add a book to the ever-growing TBR list. If you're interested in the book, I'd say ignore my very subjective rating and read it anyways.
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books, to name only a few of the diverse topics.Books about books are my favorite nonfiction "genre." I was hoping to learn more about the books she read during the year, maybe helpfully broken down by month a la Nick Hornby's Believer columns. Alas, that was not to be. I was surprised to find the sheer variety of topics, as well as discussions of books not just in that year but read over her lifetime. Sadly, our mental libraries overlap very little, and where they do, our opinions of shared books tended to diverge. She also has a habit of talking about the authors she met or were a friend of a friend. This didn't strike me as name dropping exactly, but on top of our differing opinions on books, it did serve to make me feel that much more removed from her experiences. Even so, some of her comments were entertaining - I especially enjoyed the essay on picture books and her comments on reading as a family - and I did add a book to the ever-growing TBR list. If you're interested in the book, I'd say ignore my very subjective rating and read it anyways.
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LibraryThing member Andy_Dingley
An enjoyable and interesting read, but oh! the name-dropping (as I said to W H Auden just the other day).
Worth it, because this was interesting and a very engaging read. An awful lot of Austen et al and is there really any need to explain "Austen wrote some good books, you should try them" again?
Worth it, because this was interesting and a very engaging read. An awful lot of Austen et al and is there really any need to explain "Austen wrote some good books, you should try them" again?
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Nice to see a few more obscure names, like Sebald and Causley in there too. Show Less
LibraryThing member KayCliff
MOST enjoyable reading, with acute insights into reading and literature. But how it cries out for an index!
LibraryThing member AdonisGuilfoyle
The publisher's classification on the back of Susan Hill's book is 'memoir', which I wish I had noted beforehand! 'Howards End is on the Landing' is about reading and collecting books, but written from the personal viewpoint of an author with a cache of famous friends and acquaintances in her
Still. When the subject does stray around to reading, and a lifetime of acquiring, shelving and re-reading books, everyone can relate to the author's memories and observations. Faced with a houseful of bookshelves stacked high and deep with fiction, reference, poetry and plays, Susan Hill decides to stop buying in and instead focus on the extensive library she has been acquiring for over fifty years. As an Amazon addict, I was inspired by her stamina!
Looking through her own books (originally in search of one elusive title, Forster's 'Howards End'), Hill is reminded of the favourites from her own childhood, such as Blyton, and the picture books she read to her children. She also fondly recalls authors read and not read, met and 'not met' (few and far between), inspiring and important. I agree with her opinion of Dickens (mighty and flawed) and Austen (boring - yes, I think so, too!), and the 'embarrassing' Wimsey-Vane romance in Sayers' books. I agree that 'style wins, every time', and that my 'TBR' books are 'waiting for their time to come', but that if I don't like a book or an author, the problem is 'always us, never the book'. And yes, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' - holding the satisfying bulk of paper and print will never be replaced by an electronic gadget.
However, I do like Australian fiction, hate Times New Roman, do not believe in annotating, folding or mutilating books (especially library books, being a librarian, but also my own collection) because I respect books. Hill's theory that people who maintain an orderly library of neat (or 'unloved', as she would no doubt see it) books are not booklovers is rubbish - I can read without breaking the spine so that all the pages fall out, and memorise favourite passages without defacing or dogearing the page.
In a nutshell, this is the real joy of Susan Hill's reading reminiscence - the shared tastes and idiosyncrasies of readers everywhere, and the opposing but equally passionate approach to collecting and appreciating a library of your own. The author's literary connections do not interest me, but who can resist browsing through another person's bookshelf? Now I must compile my own list of forty books that I cannot live without, and add Naipaul and Brookner to my ever-increasing list of future reading material!
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address book! Most of the 'choice' names selected here have at the very least signed an autograph for Hill - Kingsley Amis, Elizabeth Bowen, WH Auden, Roald Dahl, Edith and 'Sachie' Sitwell, and 'a postcard from Dirk Bogarde'. She comments on James Lees-Milne as writing 'the diaries of a name dropper and they irritate', and after mistaking a collection of author's anecdotes as a fond study of reading habits, I can understand. Personal taste is one thing, but every other enthusiastic promotion by Susan Hill of a writer's works is followed by, 'whom I first met ...' or even 'when babysitting for ...'! Nor are these references followed by intimate or insightful descriptions of the author, just a long line of adjectives.Still. When the subject does stray around to reading, and a lifetime of acquiring, shelving and re-reading books, everyone can relate to the author's memories and observations. Faced with a houseful of bookshelves stacked high and deep with fiction, reference, poetry and plays, Susan Hill decides to stop buying in and instead focus on the extensive library she has been acquiring for over fifty years. As an Amazon addict, I was inspired by her stamina!
Looking through her own books (originally in search of one elusive title, Forster's 'Howards End'), Hill is reminded of the favourites from her own childhood, such as Blyton, and the picture books she read to her children. She also fondly recalls authors read and not read, met and 'not met' (few and far between), inspiring and important. I agree with her opinion of Dickens (mighty and flawed) and Austen (boring - yes, I think so, too!), and the 'embarrassing' Wimsey-Vane romance in Sayers' books. I agree that 'style wins, every time', and that my 'TBR' books are 'waiting for their time to come', but that if I don't like a book or an author, the problem is 'always us, never the book'. And yes, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' - holding the satisfying bulk of paper and print will never be replaced by an electronic gadget.
However, I do like Australian fiction, hate Times New Roman, do not believe in annotating, folding or mutilating books (especially library books, being a librarian, but also my own collection) because I respect books. Hill's theory that people who maintain an orderly library of neat (or 'unloved', as she would no doubt see it) books are not booklovers is rubbish - I can read without breaking the spine so that all the pages fall out, and memorise favourite passages without defacing or dogearing the page.
In a nutshell, this is the real joy of Susan Hill's reading reminiscence - the shared tastes and idiosyncrasies of readers everywhere, and the opposing but equally passionate approach to collecting and appreciating a library of your own. The author's literary connections do not interest me, but who can resist browsing through another person's bookshelf? Now I must compile my own list of forty books that I cannot live without, and add Naipaul and Brookner to my ever-increasing list of future reading material!
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LibraryThing member Renz0808
I have been seeing reviews of this book on blogs and recommendations from friends for a while now and I have been very excited to read this book because of the idea behind the book. Imagine reading only books that are on your bookshelves for a whole year, what might you discover? I have to admit
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that when I started to read this book I found it be a lot different than I had expected. I thought it would be a journey though the books Hill decides to read during this year and her thoughts and feelings. I discovered this book to be much different, and I would describe it as a writer’s memoir of her reading career. Hill describes books she discovered as she canvassed her shelves to find something to read and how these books affected her in her life, writing and personal. If you can get used to the name dropping she does, in my opinion she has had an interesting and exciting literary life from her college days bumping into E.M. Forrester from her adult years interviewing some of the most fascinating authors of the time. While I might not agree with some of her opinions on books and authors for example, Jane Austen, I found all of her thoughts interesting and vibrant, she infuses them with such depth and humor it is easy to see why she has become such a popular and favorite writer herself. The only thing I think would have made this book better would be a list of all the books she read during her year of reading from home because she mentions so many it is hard to keep track of what she really read and what she just discovered in her search for a book to read. Though different from what I expected I enjoyed reading this book and I can agree with everyone who suggested reading it, because it provided funny and interesting reading. Show Less
Language
Original publication date
2009-10-08
Physical description
288 p.; 7.87 inches
ISBN
1846682657 / 9781846682650
Local notes
A memoir about reading the books in her house and the stories they are associated with.