Howards End is on the Landing

Synopsis: This is a year of reading from home, by one of Britain's most distinguished authors. 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 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.

Review: What could be more perfect, a book about books and book reading. It's clear that every single room in Susan's house is stuffed full of books, to say I was emerald green with envy would be an understatement .. her farmhouse just seemed to be a book lovers paradise. But most of us, even with more modest collections of books, have books than we own that we've never ever read and this is Susan's dilemma .. she's determined that she won't buy any new books for a year in an attempt to read or re-read some of her books. It's a book that will have you constantly jotting down book titles and googling authors etc, Susan is so enthusiastic about her subject that it's infectious. She ponders lots of questions that are frequent favourites here ... such as 'does a good book title make a difference' (Susan thinks so .. she says she can't be bothered to read a book that's just entitled something like 'Far and Near' .. though it does depend doesn't it .. The Road is not the most exciting of titles and yet it's premise makes it intriguing. She's particular about type face too .. not tolerating anything in sans serif .. particularly arial!.

She's fairly brave in her views and not afraid to say that she doesn't really enjoy Jane Austen and she's clearly not a fan of the electronic book either .. 'no one will sign an electronic book, no one can annotate in the margin, no one can leave a love letter casually between the leaves'. I was also relieved to read that she doesn't mind a bit of book abuse either, freely admitting to crimes such as scribbling in books and *in hushed tones* 'turning down the corners of pages'. One chapter has her spending a whole day looking through her collection of pop-up books of which she is a fan. I haven't got many, if any, pop up books, but I do love to collect illustrated books and it made me realise that I don't look at them nearly enough.

The book is full of anecdotes. Through the course of her life Susan has been lucky enough to meet several famous authors especially in her younger days (Edith Sitwell, WH Auden, Ian Fleming and most touchingly Iris Murdoch both before and after the onset of dementia) and the book has her reminiscing over these meetings. Like Gyles she isn't particularly a fan of Roald Dahl (in person that is, she's a huge fan of his writing - though she did say he'd mellowed with age - new wife apparently.)

One of the things I most liked about it was the discussions about Susan's top 40 essential books ... the 40 books she couldn't possibly do without and it's interesting to read how she makes her choices out of all the Shakespeare plays and all the novels of Dickens/Trollope etc and to see how your own thoughts correspond (or not.) She gives us her final list on the last two pages but it is marred slightly by the fact that neither Susan or her editor noticed that one book went on the list twice. That's just a tiny gripe though (because I'd love to know what book would have been elevated to the list after the amendment had been made.) On the whole I loved it and didn't want to finish it. It's fairly short and the sort of book that you can read easily in one sitting (if you've got a bit of time to spare) and I had to ration my reading so that I could eke out the enjoyment.

I didn't agree with all of her opinions but I could read them forever.

Susan's 40 'Can't do Without' Books:
click here to continue review - possible spoilers

1. The Bible
2. The Book of Common Prayer (1662)
3. Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens
4. The Mayor of Caterbridge - Thomas Hardy
5. Macbeth - Shakespeare
6. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe - Carson McCullers
7. A House for Mr Biswas - V.S. Naipaul
8. The Last September - Elizabeth Bowen
9. Middlemarch - George Eliot
10. The Way we Live Now - Anthony Trollope
11. The Blue Flower - Penelope Fitzgerald
12. The Last Chronicle of Barset - Anthony Trollope
13. To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
14. A Passage to India - E.M. Forster
15. Washington Square - Henry James
16. Trolyus and Criseyde - Chaucer
17. The Heart of the Matter - Graham Greene
18. The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton
19. The Rectors Daughter - F.M. Mayor
20. On the Black Hill - Bruce Chatwin
21. The Diary of Francis Kilvert
22. The Mating Season - P.G. Wodehouse
23. Galahad at Blandings - P.G. Wodehouse
24. The Pursuit of Love - Nancy Mitford
25. The Bell - Iris Murdoch
26. The Complete Poems of W.H. Auden
27. The Rattle Bag. Edited by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes
28. Learning to Dance - Michael Mayne
29. Flaubert's Parrot - Julian Barnes
30. A Time to Keep Silence - Patrick Leigh Fermor
31. The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
32. Family and Friends - Anita Brookner
33. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
34. The Journals of Sir Walter Scott
35. Halfway to Heaven - Robin Bruce Lockhart
36. The Finn Family Moomintroll - Tove Jansson
37. Clayhanger - Arnold Bennett
38. Learning to Dance - Michael Mayne ??
39. Amongst Women - John McGahern
40. The Four Quartets - T.S. Eliot