Last week I received a lovely old  Penguin paperback of Agatha Christie's The Moving Finger, which gave all the usual Christie frisson whilst still allowing me to sleep peacefully at night. A review is on its way, dealing with the problem of a mysteriously appearing currant loaf. Rather more seriously, I've also been ploughing on with Goncharov's Oblomov, one of the novels I picked for the Russian Reading Challenge hosted by ExLibris in 2008. Oblomov is a delight, but I say ploughing because I'm out of practice with reading anything that takes more than half a brain. A kind of claustrophobia sits over me whilst I'm reading it. I'm aware that the story is more than it seems; it's an allegory for the decline of the aristocracy in 19th century Russia, with existential dilemma thrown in for good measure (I'm thinking the book of Ecclesiastes). But I am also suffocated by the eponymous character. I've just reached page 177, and Oblomov has finally got out of bed. His laziness is grotesque - both comical and nightmarish - and yet it is simply a character trait I possess in abundance, played to an extreme.

Woman's Hour Drama on Radio 4 has been gripping me, with a dramatisation of Lionel Shriver's We Need To Talk About Kevin. I toyed with the idea of a re-read, but realized that the appeal of the book was perfectly encapsulated by the radio adaptation. I appreciated anew the control Shriver exercises over the voice of her narrator, and the wonderfully chilling plot twists. Next week is the Orange Prize shortlisted A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, which I reviewed last year, so I'll be listening eagerly online.

And finally, I was very pleased to hear that 217 Babel has received a new update recently. 217 Babel is a hypertext fiction that will be growing over the coming weeks and months. It tells the stories of the inhabitants of a block of flats near the sea, all intertwined and growing together. At the moment it is full of mystery and I love it.  

But with the New Year come those ill-fated Resolutions. I made about 20 of them this year, and many of them are destined to be broken. Obviously the most important Resolution is to improve my writing and review more books on this blog.

Before that begins, though, I simply have to finish off the Top-Ten list from last year. So here it is, in one fell swoop:

Six.

Self-Help by Edward Docx

I started this doorstop of a book back in August, and quite enjoyed it. The problem? I put it down, and it was so big and so involved that I couldn't be bothered to pick it up again. I'm fairly certain that Docx's ambition was to write the new Great Russian Novel, so perhaps I will revive it this year in connection with the Russian Reading Challenge.

Five.

Girl Meets Boy by Ali Smith

Ali Smith is one of my absolute favourite writers. I first encountered her when I read The Accidental which made the Booker shortlist in 2006. And then I picked up a copy of Hotel World, which is maybe even better. Smith writes with real verve, succeeding in being both stylistically flamboyant and engaging. I didn't read this in 2007 because I wanted to add it onto my Christmas list, along with

Four.

The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies

The Welsh Girl got such outstanding reviews from the good people of Palimpsest that it was rather shocking when it wasn't shortlisted for the Booker. However, it has been selected for Richard & Judy's Book Club this year, so I doubt that Mr Ho Davies is crying his eyes out. And I got my nice hardback copy for Christmas, sans R&J sticker. We're all happy.

Three.

Light Years by James Salter

Another one that the Palimpers have been shouting about. They're usually right, after all.

Two.

The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing

When the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature is announced my guilt and embarrassment is usually assuaged by the fact that the author is barely known in the UK, and their work is often not available. This year I have no excuse. The Golden Notebook is the seminal Lessing work, but I might pick up a copy of The Cleft, simply because of the (rather bad, but rather interesting) review it got on Eve's Alexandria.

and drum roll please:

One.

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Gilead was my book of 2007, so I'm saving this up for some dark moment when I'm most in need.

Eight.

English Passengers by Matthew Kneale and

Seven.

Ghostwritten by David Mitchell

Both of these books were leant to me during 2007. English Passengers is sitting on my shelf at work, with the recommendation of my office mate, who said that it was the only book she enjoyed reading this year. Ghostwritten is languishing on my TBR shelves at home; I don't dare bundle it into a work bag or take it on holiday because it's a signed copy and I have no intention of getting it crumpled. I think I'd enjoy both of these novels, but mostly I wish I'd read them just in order to alleviate my guilt at not having returned them to their rightful owners yet.

Anyway, on with the Top-Ten-Wish-I'd-Read list.

Nine.

Watch Me Disappear by Jill Dawson

John Self reviewed this over at Asylum in February, and ever since then I've been putting in and taking it out of my Amazon basket, doing a little dance. It got good reviews on Palimpsest from all and sundry.

It's a modern reworking of Lolita set in the contemporary Cambridgeshire of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, and in the 1970s. Its a story about the sexualisation of children, and I'm hoping that it has something fresh to say.

What I haven't read continues to play on my mind at the moment so whilst this is perhaps an odd way to post, it is somewhat fitting.

Ten.

Herzog by Saul Bellow

I nearly joined a real-life book group this Autumn, and the real-life book that I could have read with them was Saul Bellow's Herzog. Why didn't I join? Possibly the fear of discussing novels with my manager, who is older and wiser than me. Possibly because Bellow is labelled in my mind as being difficult, even though he is the possessor of a great name (for some reason, Saul Bellow puts me in mind of a whale), a stonking book cover for Herzog (isn't it pretty?), and a list of influences (on Wikipedia - oh, the shame!) that would whet the appetite of any Russophile English student: Dostoevksy, Shakespeare, Chekhov, Joyce.

Anyway, I wish I'd read Herzog. Mainly because it represents not always picking the easy option.

10. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

9. L'Assomoir by Emile Zola

8. The Road by Cormac McCarthy

7. Darkmans by Nicola Barker

6. The Blackwater Lightship by Colm Toibin

5. Dr Haggard's Disease by Patrick McGrath

4. The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore

3. Animal's People by Indra Sinha

2. This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson

and... ta-da

1. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

A special nod of the head goes out to The Observations by Jane Harris, which came in at 11th. On a different day, or perhaps if I had read it later in the year and it was still fresh in my mind, it would have made this top ten.

A Top-Ten Wish-I'd-Read-in-2007 is on its way soon. I bet you can't wait.

I haven't read a book for three weeks, and I'm starting to wonder what's wrong with me. Is this how non-readers feel all the time: apathetic and devoid of satisfaction?

I feel that the reading habit has fallen foul of a busy life. Last week I was at evening classes on two nights, a meeting at church another night, went to the gym twice, visited friends who live in Birmingham, went to church and helped with the pre-school class, and made loads of stew for the freezer. I'm aware that some people manage to maintain such scintillatingly exciting lives and read the odd chapter of a book at the same time, but I need my mental space, and I'm not getting it. Wah wah: poor me.

'Lord' comes from 'hlaford', which is a contraction of 'hlaf'='loaf'+ 'weard'='guardian'. So a lord is a 'guardian of the loaf'. Ladies are 'kneaders of the loaf'; did even a noblewoman belong in the kitchen in Anglo-Saxon England?

I'm enjoying my Old English classes intensely, whilst at the same time being painfully aware that I should be doing ten times the amount of homework that I'm currently doing to get the best out of the course. Now I've got the evening class bug, though, I've got my eyes on these two courses which begin in January: Old English Language, Literature, and Culture: A Continuation, which does what it says on the tin, and The Medieval World and Us, which looks at representations of the medieval world in culture taking in anything from Walter Scott and gothic novels to medieval murder mysteries.

We arrived at Oxford Playhouse to find the place crammed and the average age of theatregoers significantly lower than I'd normally expect. There weren't many pearls and alligator handbags; instead the audience were sporting the healthy, preppy, middle-class for evening look.

I'd forgotten that this play was a student production (Apricot Productions) and I was slightly apprehensive. I needn't have been so worried - it was a captivating performance, replete with energy and sympathy, though marred by a lack of sophistication when it came to the final act. Sian Robins-Grace stood head and shoulders above the rest of the cast with her portrayal of a warm, vivacious, seductive Duchess, and Tom Wilkinson as her husband, Antonio, was thoroughly convincing, though it is the character of Bosola, played admirably by Owen Findlay, who is the locus for most of the dramatic tension within the plot. Molly Davies, as Cariola, was capably sweet-natured, yet managed to pull off a death scene that was both terrifying and affecting (in short: it brought me to tears). The rest of the cast were a mixed blessing: actors playing Julia, Ferdinand, the Cardinal and Delio failed to engage me. Unfortunately, the final scenes of the play hang upon this collection of characters, and they did not manage to carry off the blood bath at the end of the play with anything resembling the gravity of the Duchess and Cariola's demise.

All in all, it was a great opportunity to revisit a play I haven't read for nearly a decade (!), and it was exciting to see such an accomplished performance from Robins-Grace. And I came out vowing to see more theatre over the next year, which is a sure testament to the quality of the production.