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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)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
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  • This item: Howards End is on the Landing: A year of reading from home by Susan Hill

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Profile Books; First Edition edition (8 Oct 2009)
  • ISBN-10: 1846682657
  • ISBN-13: 978-1846682650
  • Product Dimensions: 20 x 13.6 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,559 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #2 in  Books > Fiction > Novelists
    #4 in  Books > Biography > Novelists, Poets & Playwrights
    #26 in  Books > Poetry, Drama & Criticism > History & Criticism

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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

`The narrative unreels in what Dr Johnson would call `loose sallies of the mind'... A distinguished woman of letters' --John Sutherland, Literary Review

'Fans of Hill's work will be delighted by this leisurely ramble through the author's mind and reading pleasures' --Mslexia

`Pure pleasure... I simply want to emulate Susan Hill's year... To take books from my shelves, to sit, to read.'
--Country Living

Book Description

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

18 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (18 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
56 of 59 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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28 of 30 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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32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Lightly entertaining, but for me a bit disappointing, 24 Oct 2009
By emma who reads a lot (London) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)      
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... commonplace. I don't need to be told that Great Expectations is a good place to start reading Dickens. And when she does say something intriguing, such as "you should never begin reading George Eliot with Middlemarch", she doesn't explain why! Leaving me a little frustrated.

I think this book is probably great for Susan Hill fans who adore her style, but I honestly felt many of the observations were a bit unthought-out. For example, she finds on one bookshelf at home a pile of long-forgotten Elizabethan tragedies belonging to her husband. She then says they aren't worth reading because of course, if they were any good, we'd already have heard of them. I would have thought her husband's recent book on Shakespeare's contemporary playwrights, some of whom are now being rediscovered to the delight of audiences, might have convinced her otherwise.

I hope I don't sound churlish. I really wanted to enjoy this book, to dive into a luxurious book about books and reading, something like Ex LIbris by Anne Fadiman. I didn't find it to my taste. I'm glad other readers enjoyed it more than I did.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars who?
I was given this book as a present presumably because I love books and I collect books about books - can't hurt to have more recommendations when you run a book group right... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Green Book Addict Librarian

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect Nostalgia
In Howard's End is on the Landing Susan Hill as taken me back over any years of pleasure. She has reminded me of books and authors I had forgotten I loved and renewed my pleasure... Read more
Published 1 month ago by William Fox

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is an absolute joy.
I was hooked from page 1. I had heard Susan interviewed on Radio 4 and the book's concept fascinated me so much that I knew that I had to buy it. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Madame Cholet

4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable but not compelling
I was attracted to this book by the title, the cover, and a peep inside, and was pleased I had ordered it. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Suzie

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you for writing this book

Thank you for writing this book I really enjoyed everything about it . As I read , well devour books on a regular basis it is so wonderful to find a book that is not only... Read more
Published 2 months ago by wendy

4.0 out of 5 stars So many books, so little time.....
I suspect this title rather appeals to everyone who, like me, has a tottering pile of books bought long ago but never actually read lurking in their house. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Gregory S. Buzwell

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 2 months 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 2 months 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 3 months 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 3 months ago by Mr. A. Lenaghan

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