Read and Appreciated in 2003
A Year’s Best List
Books
During 2003 I read many books, mostly stuff from my personal library which I had not read for many years. Inspired by Jeff VanderMeer’s Fantastic Literature lists, I dug out several old classics to re-read. The cost of books and lack of storage space has limited my purchase of new books over the past few years so I only buy books that I really can’t live without. No doubt I am missing out on books which I should read and are considered by other people to be essential.
Here are a few that stuck in my memory along with 2003 books I found exceptional.
The Alexandria Quartet (Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive and Clea), Lawrence Durrell
Having not read these books for about 30 years, I was pleasantly surprised to find them still enthralling. A tad over indulgent perhaps but beautifully written. Durrell’s sense of place, and his descriptions of city and landscape, is excellent. I had also forgotten how funny they are.
The Avignon Quintet (Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastian and Quinx), Lawrence Durrell
After reading the Alexandria Quartet I launched into this work and found them in the main just as enjoyable as the earlier sequence. Quinx was the only one I found rather tedious, but the rest have all the hallmarks of Durrell’s best work.
The Roses of Picardie, Simon Raven
This book was recommended to me by David Hartwell who thought that, liking the Whittemore books, I would enjoy this book. He was right. It is a crazy picaresque quest for a legendary necklace of rubies, cursed of course. Cleverly written it also displays a wicked sense of humour. It has a cast of eccentric characters. One has a strange mastery over rats, upon which ability the novel curiously hinges.
Pattern Recognition, William Gibson
Being a hard-bitten enthusiast for William Gibson’s style of writing, I naturally bought the hard cover. Unlike his previous books, this novel is set in modern times, but reads as if it were somewhere in the future with it’s emphasis on the symbols of popular culture hyped beyond recognition through the perceptions and sensitivities of Cayce the heroine of the novel. The book takes Cayce into a tense and exciting adventure in a world made strange but familiar all the same. A great read I thought.
