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Howards End is on the Landing: A year of reading from home
 
 
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Howards End is on the Landing: A year of reading from home (Hardcover)

by Susan Hill (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Profile Books (8 Oct 2009)
  • ISBN-10: 1846682657
  • ISBN-13: 978-1846682650
  • Product Dimensions: 20 x 13.6 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 615 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #1 in  Books > Fiction > Novelists
    #1 in  Books > Poetry, Drama & Criticism > History & Criticism
    #1 in  Books > Biography > Novelists, Poets & Playwrights

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Product Description

Review

`A totally beguiling, utterly persuasive, argument for reimmersing yourself in literature's past...' --Michael Gove, The Times

'An eloquent advocate [for] the virtues of wide-ranging, deeply felt and considered reading... to be cherished' --Michael Arditti, Daily Telegraph

`Evoked with precision and grace... beguiling' --Victoria Glendinning, Spectator

`[A] vividly experienced journey... viewing books and their authors with a learned, gossipy warmth.'
--Metro

`The blend of book chat and personal memoir, though apparently serendipitous, is associative and intimate' --Iain Finlayson, The Times

'A timeless creation, [it] will give endless pleasure not only to Hill's many admirers but also to anyone who values books.' --Herald

`A light-hearted memoir using books as anchors on which to fasten life experiences. Funny, educational and occasionally surprising' --Catholic Herald

'Both a passionate reminder of the importance of reading and a revealing glimpse of a writer's life' --Observer

`Delightful... an idiosyncratic commingling of fiction, non-fiction and poetry...Hill has a voracious and varied appetite' --New Statesman

'The memoir's texture is wholesome and cosy; an indulgent quilt in which to nestle before the blazing hearth of literary tradition'
--Caroline Howitt, TLS

`Delightful... Charming... Her legion of fans will love it' --Ian Pindar, Guardian


Book Description

A year of reading from home, by one of BritainÂ’s most distinguished authors
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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews
5 star:
 (8)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A must for anyone who loves books and reading, 14 Oct 2009
By Damaskcat (UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
I found myself rationing my reading of this book because I didn't want to reach the end. It is far more than a list of books Susan Hill read during the year when she decided not to buy any new ones. It is a memoir which includes fascinating insights into other authors she has met during her life in the literary sphere.

The author's love of books and reading shines out from every page and provides new authors to explore for anyone reading it. After reading Hill's thoughts on Dickens I may well give him another try as I don't think I've given his books a fair chance. There are excursions into lesser known 19th and 20th century authors as well as the classics. There are chapters on short stories and essays as well as novels and children's picture books and there is one on spiritual reading which I found truly inspiring. At the end there is a list of 40 books the author decided she could not live without - a sort of Desert Island Discs for books. But there are far more than these 40 mentioned and discussed in the text.

I did not agree with all the author's conclusions but I do agree that both Anthony Trollope and Anita Brookner are underrated as authors. The book is written in a subtle unobtrusive style which is something of a trade mark for Susan Hill. George Orwell wrote that a good writer's prose should be transparent so that the reader is unaware of reading it only aware of the message conveyed. In this book Hill achieves just that. I loved it and would recommend it to anyone who loves books and reading.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An irresistible book about books for booklovers, 30 Oct 2009
By Annabel Gaskell "gaskella2" (Nr Oxford, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
Susan Hill's latest is a memoir about reading the books in her house and the stories they are associated with. At the heart of HEIOTL, as I shall abbreviate it to, is Hill's decision not to add to her house full of books for a year (except for books she is to review); to explore her collection and find new books to read in it, to re-discover lost gems and re-read favourites, and then to compile a list of the forty books she couldn't live without.

Each shelf examined brings reminiscences. There are stories about encounters with great writers and celebrated personages, who all seemed to be very supportive of the young novelist, and indeed many of them became friends. I loved all this name-dropping, and particularly enjoyed the chapter about Benjamin Britten whose 'Sea Interludes' provided an epiphany for Hill (I love them too - they were marvellous to play many years ago in Croydon Youth Philharmonic Orchestra); the story about Alan Clark was good also.

There are many discussions of writers and their books. Hill is refreshingly honest about what she doesn't enjoy reading as well as her literary loves - she's no Austenite, but reveres much of Thomas Hardy, she can't be doing with Terry Pratchett and Sci-Fi in general but did concede to liking John Wyndham but puts him in the horror pile. I was delighted that she loves Ian Fleming, John Le Carré and Michael Connelly too.

Although I haven't read him, her chapter about W.G.Sebald does make me want to read The Rings of Saturn. She writes "But so many places on a Sebald journey are eerie, deserted, out of date, and lie under a pall of dismal weather. In The Rings of Saturn he walks through East Anglia and manages to make places I know well, and have found sparkling and lively, suicidally depressing." I lived and worked for nearly two years in and around Great Yarmouth - a South Londoner fresh out of uni and mostly have never felt so lonely as then.

Then at the last pages we get to the final forty, the snapshot in time of the forty books she couldn't do without - well on that day at least, for she says she would probably pick a different 40 tomorrow. The natural extension of this is to start compiling one's own forty - but that's a project for another day ...

Every year I say I must read more books from my TBR mountains. Do I think I could do as Hill did and not buy any new books for a whole year? It would be nice, but I don't think I can. My biggest problem post-HEIOTL is the number of books I've added to my wishlist, and may have to buy/acquire, after reading it - an index would have been slightly helpful here! I love reading books about books, and this one (with its lovely cover) didn't disappoint at all.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A journey worth taking., 2 Nov 2009
By P. Ashley "aka trisha ashley" (Conwy United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I am fascinated by what other people have on their bookshelves, especially other authors, but Howard's End is on the Landing is not just a journey through the books that have accumulated during Susan Hill's lifetime, it is also partly autobiographical,with people and places in her past evoked by her discoveries among the unread or forgotten tomes. A few well-chosen recollections and we are suddenly a lot closer to major literary characters like Edith Sitwell than six degrees of separation.
I was delighted to find many of my favourites were hers too - but equally interested when our tastes diverged wildly, or she praised a writer I had barely heard of. In all, a book to dip into again and again, an old friend never to be relegated the darker end of the landing.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A Reading Journey Around Susan Hill's House
I read a review of this book and it captured my imagination. Susan Hill had been looking for her copy of Howard's End and as she struggled to locate it she realised that amongst... Read more
Published 3 days ago by Allan Gordon

5.0 out of 5 stars The Perfect Bedtime Read
I am only half way through this book but I am carefully rationing myself to only a few chapters a night as I don't want to finish it! Read more
Published 4 days ago by Ms. Nicole Wright

4.0 out of 5 stars Three and a half stars
I really didn't know what to expect with this book. Well yes actually I did. I expected Susan Hill to discuss a year's worth of her reading from home. Read more
Published 12 days ago by SJSmith

5.0 out of 5 stars A treasure trove of anecdote
Highly readable - my first read was in one sitting, quickly. Then - as the author exhorts - a slow read. Read more
Published 13 days ago by Mr. A. Lenaghan

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed
I heard a review of this book on the radio and was really looking forward to reading it. But in the event it turned out to be a very snobbish, name dropping, boring read. Read more
Published 15 days ago by Terrystred

5.0 out of 5 stars It could have been me!
This book resonates so much - it is so much the book I would want to write. Imagery is all - but Susan Hill's words leap from the page like old and benign ghosts from my... Read more
Published 18 days ago by Ms J M Wood

3.0 out of 5 stars Lightly entertaining, but for me a bit disappointing
I was greatly looking forward to this book having read wonderful reviews of it. However, unlike the other reviewers here, I found a lot of what this book said a bit... Read more
Published 28 days ago by emma who reads a lot

5.0 out of 5 stars A Box of Delights
I've always enjoyed listening to Susan Hill talking on the radio about books - her enthusiasm for, and love of reading, is infectious. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Mr. T. Harvey

5.0 out of 5 stars I Wish Susan Hill Was On My Landing
When one day Susan Hill was searching for a book she knew she owned and wanted to read she realised that she couldn't find it and instead found lots of books that she owned but... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Simon Savidge "savidgeread...

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