This is the third post in my occasional series looking back at what was happening on my blog 10 years ago (others: Feb 16, Apr 16). June 2016 was a big month for the blog for two reasons: One fab, one not so fab… Let me get the not so fab bit out of the way first.
In the second half of the month, I changed internet hosting companies, and lo and behold, despite backing up my blog and saving offline copies of many posts etc – the upload with the new company lost many, many posts including most of the recent ones relating to the fab bit below! Thank goodness for the back-ups. I was able to restore much of the missing content, and do some updating in the process, but it was intensely annoying. However, moving hosts was a good and cost-effective move, speeding up my blog hugely.
Now for the fab bit – which despite reading several other novels that month, the ones I loved most were all devoted to one author – for June 2016 was when I hosted my first …
Beryl Bainbridge Reading Week
I’d been pleased to find the picture of Beryl with a cat in the background to base the logo on – cats and writers are always a winning combination for me! The wrap-up post lists all the reviews from those who took part with links to their posts. Over the week I reviewed four of her novels, plus a NF Lit Crit book on her. They were:
- A Weekend with Claude
- Another Part of the Wood
- Winter Garden
- Every Man For Himself
- Beryl Bainbridge: Writers and Their Work by Huw Marsh
I was also particularly delighted to have been contacted by author Stephen May, who wrote a splendid and funny guest post for the week – about the time he gave Beryl a piggy-back!
What with web-hosting problems and the joys of getting stuck into Beryl’s work, June 2016 was a month of mega-highs and mega-lows.
What were you reading back in June 2016?
I do remember your unfab experience with the blog. I’m glad it turned out well. Just off the top of my head, no books but I remember meeting the fabulous Mr Big who stretched across two laps in our rented cottage. I later found out he was actually called Oxford.
I had an even worse experience with Shiny New Books in 2020 – managed to delete it all! The rebuild to months… That was really painful.
Rental cats are always friendly though – I’m amazed you remember one from that long ago.
He was very memorable. Quite possibly the biggest cat I’ve ever met!
I remember that Beryl Bainbridge week! I think I read The Bottle Factory Outing for it.
I’ve never read Beryl Bainbridge, where would you begin? A Weekend With Claude appeals the most!
I always suggest The Bottle Factory Outing, An Awfully Big Adventure or Every Man for Himself from earlier, middle, later Beryl books. Her books are just wonderful.
I love this idea for us long-time bloggers! I was hosting a read-along of Cecilia by Frances Burney, which somehow got noticed by our local CBC radio station, who invited me on to talk about it, leading to my highest traffic day ever! Nice to revisit that 🙂
Fab to hear about Beryl Week! It’s been ages since I read her, she’s so distinctive.
I keep a spreadsheet of books read each year. Sadly I lost the 2016 document but the following reads were from the log kept by the book group:
Narrow Road to the Deep North Richard Flanagan
All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr
The Shepherd’s life James Rebanks
Three Evangelists Fred Vargas
The Beginning of Spring Penelope Fitzgerald
Sweet Caress William Boyd
Lila Marianne Robinson
My Name is Lucy Barton Elizabeth Strout
We did the Fred Vargas in our book group many moons ago. Some great choices there. Full list of my book group’s reads in the tab at the top.
I’m going to copy what I posted on Elle’s post in this series rather than re-writing it. A month of ups and downs reading-wise for me!
I read one of Arnaldur Indriðason’s Reykjavik series and one of Dorothy Richardson’s Pilgrimage novels (a struggle!), a Cathy Kelly with an ensemble cast, I DNF’d Salman Rushdie’s “Two Years … ” as it was turgid, and enjoyed Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs Dalloway’s Party” and “Kew Gardens”. Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee’s “Swim Bike Run” was entertaining and I recall nothing of Joanna Biggs’ “All Day Long: A Portrait of Britain at Work”! Charlie Hill’s novel “Books” and Michael Rosen’s “Alphabetical” went together nicely: lots of these were out of my 20 Books of Summer, which I didn’t actually finish that year, but I note I did a David Kynaston later in the project, and did another of those for it last year!