Welcome to this week’s blog. Here’s a roundup of your comments and photos from last week.

jmschrei demonstrates that not every reader shares the media’s seasonal obsession with books published in this calendar year:

I finished reading Per Petterson’s latest release I Refuse (2012, translated by Don Bartlett 2014). Out Stealing Horses has long been near the top of my favourite books of all time, but this one will pose a serious challenge to that list. This novel covers common Petterson ground – friendships between boys/men, their relationships with siblings and parents and the inexorable flow of time – but is more firmly rooted in middle age and the doubts, reassessments and evaluations that come with mid-life. The narrative moves seamlessly forward and backward in time and between perspectives and points of view but is framed within the thoughts and actions of the two central characters, Jim and Tommy, on the day that they chance to meet on a bridge more than 30 years after their last contact in their late teens. [...] The result is a novel both brilliant and spare, but not recommended for those who cannot abide incomplete resolution and moral ambiguity in their reading. You might guess that I loved it.

haggy is reading Pure Gold Baby:

A story of a anthropologist single mum of a child born with ‘differences’ in the 1960s. Told looking back with modern day hindsight. Includes lots of interesting anthropological facts and political/social commentary. Written in such a refreshing way. Brilliantly engrossing so far!

goodyorkshirelass had reservations about Naomi Wood’s biopic of the four Mrs. Hemingways:

Slightly disappointed initially with Mrs Hemingway. Perhaps, having read and enjoyed Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife a couple of years ago, the portrait of Hadley in Naomi Wood’s first chapter didn’t quite live up to expectations. Now further in it’s beginning to draw me in and look forward to the appearance of Martha Gellhorn, which will inevitably lead me to putting Caroline Moorehead’s biography Ms G on my Christmas list.

lonelybloomer is re-reading Adelle Waldman’s love story The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P :

It is just as good as before. I wonder, why there are no other novels about dating? Somehow this topic is considered acceptable only for chick-lit and Sex and the city kind of thing, while for single people dating is the same what marriage is for, well, married ones – an exclusive playground for person’s emotions, a process as much as a result, something that may constitute all your personal life for decades, for god’s sake. So why so little of it in fiction? C’mon people, I can’t be turning for comfort to the same novel after each break-up, can I now...

On a slightly related note, JournoKaty said:

I have finally finished Singlism. I say finally not because it was in any way a chore, but more my lack of sitting and reading time. I found it incredibly enlightening and affirming and it inspired me to stand up and combat singlism when I hear/see it. To be honest, I’ve never really been that way inclined, but it helped me see how I, as a person who chooses to be single, am done down, in a myriad ways.

MajorWhipple is catching up with one of the talking-points of last year’s Man Booker prize, The Kills by Richard House:

Just been reunited with this book (and a huge box of others) after nine months while I waited for it to be shipped to me from my previous place of work in France. I’ve been looking forward to this for so long now and I just hope I won’t be disappointed. It certainly seems impressive so far and makes interesting use of extra material provided online on the author’s site. Crime and conspiracy and a thousand pages to try unravelling it all in. Bliss.

Finally, tamewhale found the work of a political philosopher unexpectedly amusing:

I just finished reading The Silence of Animals by John Gray, a follow up to Straw Dogs which I read earlier this year. In this sequel, he takes the ideas of the first book and finds parallels in the work of other writers. The main thrust is that human progress is a myth and a holdover from religion. I found parts of this hard to grasp in the beginning but the second half becomes more lyrical, dealing less with the horror of humans and more with how we live. It reminded me of some ideas in Zen Buddhism and Taoism, less concerned with the future and thinking more about how we are living at this moment, in balance with what surrounds us, but I suspect that Gray would not welcome this comparison.

He presents his ideas unequivocally, with little supporting argument, stating that some idea is clearly false but not often unpacking why, and I think this attitude infuriates some of his readers. Maybe it’s just my sense of humour, but I find his relentless bashing of utopian ideals and his occasionally nihilistic statements perversely funny.

Interesting links about books and reading

• Finish that book! A controversial (to say the least) piece making the case for powering through, and finishing, any book you start.
• For Tolkien fans: A reader kindly alerted us to this piece about a fan website that retells The Lord of the Rings from the perspective of Rivendell’s housekeeper.
• Jacqueline Woodson On Growing Up, Coming Out And Saying Hi To Strangers: a lovely NPR interview with the author about her life growing up in South Carolina in the 60s and 70s.
  
• Like Pushing an Elephant Into a Volkswagen: authors for whom writing is their “other” career on how they juggle office life, family and creativity.
  

Oh, and we have published this open thread for you to discuss the books you have enjoyed the most this year – regardless of when they were published – by popular demand. Enjoy! There won’t be new TLS blogs on the next two Mondays, but this thread will stay open through the holidays. See you in 2015 (gasp)!

If you would like to share a photo of the book you are reading, or film your own book review, please do. Click the blue button on this page to share your video or image. I’ll include some of your posts in next week’s blog.

And, as always, if you have any suggestions for topics you’d like to see us covering beyond TLS, do let us know.