friday book reviews: two funny ladies

First, to get it out of the way, I need to remark how effing hot it is today: 40 degrees, currently.
An evil hot bushfire wind blowing too, so a very nasty day.

Books: I read Judith Lucy's Drink, smoke, pass out and Denise Scott's The tour.

They were both laugh out loud funny autobiographical tales for the most part ( but some pretty heart rending family stuff too), and I loved that I could really hear their voices in my head as I was reading.

Judith is a few years younger than me and Denise a handful of years older but their stories of growing up and being teenagers, then young women of the 70s and 80s totally resonated.

 Judith's parents, like mine, died within ten months of each other and Denise's mum with Alzheimer's disease so, wow, did I ever relate to their writing about these things....
They are both "confessional' no holds barred tales and they are both so honest, with no spin given about their lives ( which normally puts me off reading autobiographies) I can highly recommend both as great reads.

*

Time to clean up my sidebar and record last year's books  here, so I can start my new list:

 Um - no.

My brain is fried and I can't seem to copy and paste it. Will get one of the kids to help when they return.  OK. Done.

1. Drink,smoke, pass out - Judith Lucy
2. Habits of the house - Fay Weldon
3. The Wilder life - Wendy McClure
4. The twelve - Justin Cronin
5. Venetian curiosities - Donna Leon
6. Political animal: the making of Tony Abbott - David Marr (Quarterly essay)
7. Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
8. After the darkness - Honey Brown
9. The weed that strings the hangman's bag - Alan C Bradley
10. The casual vacancy - J.K. Rowling
11. Sweet Tooth - Ian McEwan
12. Gaysia: adventures in the queer east - Benjamin Law
13. The kingmaker's daughter - Philippa Gregory
14. The engagement - Chloe Hooper
15. We all fall down - Peter Barry
16. The age of miracles - Karen Thompson Walker
17. The woman who died a lot - Jasper Fforde
18. The sweetness at the bottom of the pie - Alan C Bradley
19. The lantern bearers- Rosemary Sutcliff
20. What we talk about when we talk about Anne Frank - Nathan Englander
21. Broken Harbour - Tana French
22. Behind the scenes at the museum - Kate Atkinson
23. The shadow of death - James Runcie
24. The snow child - Eowyn Ivey
25. Gone girl - Gillian Flynn
26. Whispers under ground - Ben Aaronovitch
27. Howards End - E.M. Forster
28. The silver branch - Rosemary Sutcliff
29. Bring up the bodies - Hilary Mantel
30. Deadlocked - Charlaine Harris
31. The various haunts of men - Susan Hill
32. The forest of hands and teeth - Carrie Ryan
33. The doublet affair - Fiona Buckley
34. The children of the King - Sonya Hartnett
35. Death come to Pemberley - P.D James
36. The house at midnight - Lucie Whitehouse
37. The rebellion of Jane Clarke - Sally Gunning
38. Nicholas Nickleby - Charles Dickens (reading)
39. The Eagle of the Ninth - Rosemary Sutcliff
40. A difficult young man - Martin Boyd
41. Religion for atheists - Alain de Botton
42. The Julius house - Charlaine Harris
43. Rival to the Queen - Carolly Erickson
44. The Bellwether revivals - Benjamin Wood
45. Believing the lie - Elizabeth George
46. Three bedrooms, one corpse - Charlaine Harris
47. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen - Alan Garner
48. The lady and the unicorn - Tracy Chevalier
49. A bone to pick - Charlaine Harris
50. The autobiography of Alice B Toklas - Gertrude Stein (gave up at page 100: unfinished!)
51. V is for vengeance - Sue Grafton
52. The diary of a provincial lady - E.M. Delafield
53. Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins
54. Catching fire - Suzanne Collins
55. Down and out in Paris and London - George Orwell
56. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
57. Why be happy when you could be normal? - Jeanette Winterson
58. The hunger games - Suzanne Collins
59. Real murders - Charlaine Harris
60. Housewife superstar - Danielle Wood
61. The leftovers - Tom Perrotta

I read 59 and I/4 books ( a couple of long essays in there).
The quarter is Nicholas Nickleby.
The only one which defeated me after 100 pages was Gertrude Stein. Sorry, Gertrude.