I’m not sure if I’d mentioned a certain hated family pastime on this blog before, but Dad would make each of us have a reading list every six months during our childhood years. That would be – a first-half reading list (first six months of a year) and a second-half reading list (last six months).
Each reading list usually had a theme. Science, fiction or non fiction. Classical. Genre. Non fiction. Military (Dad’s favourite). Classic novels. Popular novels. Novels or short stories by authors from a certain country (my least favourite was definitely Russia – Dead Souls? Eugene Onenil? Crime and Punishment? Heart of a Dog? The Brothers Whatbloodyever? The Crappy Dr. Zhivago? Die. Die! DIE!).
We were supposed to select a title from our list – none of our lists were alike, leaving no chance for us to cheat (yes, we were the cheating lot) – and read it for a month or in some cases for a week, and share our thoughts about a book we read on the last Sunday of a month. To this day, I avoid book clubs because it reminds me so much of that crappy time.
Here’s a scan of the first-half reading list when I was fifteen (there are four more on the back of this page but I’m too lazy to scan it) (And also? I apologise on the behalf of my adult brain that my teen brain was stupid enough to produce nonsensical comments):
(Judging by the handwriting, I think it was childhood friend Karen who wrote that Stephen line at the bottom. (With a response from me, of course. Who else would be bright enough to write swear words when her gran was the type to read her diaries?) I don’t remember Stephen. Probably a summer-season boy she liked. One of school boys on camping trips. The camp site was her idea of a paradise.) [Edited: I'm having second thoughts. Although it's not in my usual style, I think it's actually mine? I can't tell.]
On back of this page:
- Lessing – “Quite interesting”
- Barth (john) – “Lost in funhouse – sooooo confusing!”
- Kesson
- C. Carswell – “Zzzzzzzzzzz!”
Note the “Friday – fun, fun, fun!” line? This refers to Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden.
On the day: I started to give a book report of My Secret Garden when my dad cleared his throat and asked why I read that book. I replied, “You told me to.” He gaped, with his jaw honestly hanging, while my mum and a neighbour looked at him with open curiosity. It turned out I’d misheard the name, and that I was supposed to read a book by someone else. [Edited: Dad says it's Fei Zi.]
That name last on the list is a real puzzle. Phraling? Phaling? I can’t think of an author with a similar surname. Google isn’t helpful. Some names are puzzling as well. So embarrassing that I can’t even read my own writing. And how I misspelt so many names. Am I allowed to blame it on puberty hormones?
Huxley isn’t that Huxley, it’s this Huxley. I remember Dad correcting my understanding as soon as he saw me reading a library copy of Huxley’s Brave New World. I was so gutted when I flipped through the ‘right’ Huxley’s book. I preferred to try the other Huxley.
“Hume – crap, CRAP!” <— that has a lot to do with Dad’s insistence I should read Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. So yeah, I was quite resentful when I read this, hence an insistence that it was crap. It probably was really crap. Either way, it never stood a chance. I’m quite sure I skimmed it, too.
I don’t remember reading Norman O. Brown‘s book. A mention of death has me believing that a) I was referring to Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History, and b) I never read the book. 
It’d make sense if this were the case, because I really don’t remember reading the book at all. I wonder if Dad knew when I bullcrapped my way through a report of the book? I didn’t usually fake a book report but now and then, I did. I’m quite sure this book is one of those few instances.
As for Henry Miller? Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking? Yup – wrong author. It was supposed to be Kelly Miller. Dad had wanted me to read Miller’s History of the World War for Human Rights. In my defence, the name really does look like a Henry. See here:
Well, a Henry without a R but in my eyes, still a Henry. Well, okay, I can see now it’s a Kelly, but it does look like a Henry. It does.
Angela Carter was definitely my mum’s suggestion. She was a huge fan of magical realism, which is something I wasn’t into and still don’t. She tried to get me to read the works by authors like Isabel Allende, Milan Kundera, Haruki Murakami, Martin Millar (she got really impatient when I freaked out enough to stop reading The Good Fairies of New York); Gabriel García Márquez, and whoever wrote Like Water for Chocolate. I don’t mind magical realism in films, though. I just don’t have the imagination when comes to fantasy, fairy tales and magical realism in text.
Maya Angelou – another from my mum (can you see a running theme? Yeah, she was trying to balance the list out by including female authors). She also offered three more: Catherine Carswell, Doris Lessing (would it be bad of me to admit I didn’t realise she’s still alive?) and Jessie Kesson.
But seriously, though – who are these authors? My dad couldn’t recall.
- Friedmann - might be a favourite, but I don’t remember Friedmann and his or her books.
- Richardson - which Richardson? Who would make me write “Dull, dull, dull and dull”?
- Manx
- Macinnes - since I wrote ‘cool’, could it be Colin MacInnes?
- Alexander Schoizche(?) [edited: Never mind. Found it after Googling "Alexander + Russian + Camp". It's Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, author of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.]
- Scholencz(?)
- Massupant – would it be a surprise if this is Guy de Maupassant? Yeah, I didn’t think so either.
- Pharling / Phaling
Hm. I’m curious to know how I managed to find those books if I can’t even read my own handwriting (or spell names right). I really can’t remember. Scary. Maybe Dad lent me some of those books from his book collection? That would make sense because I’m pretty sure my librarian would surely be confused as fuck if I asked for a Massupant or a Schoizche.
I found all this quite fun (sorry for boring you, though), so I’m going to track down more reading lists in my other diaries.
All that said: who the hell is Xenos?
Could Richardson be Samuel Richardson? He wrote ‘Clarissa’ and ‘Pamela’ (servant girl who rejects her master’s sexual advances and has her virtue ‘rewarded’ when he marries her). I remember them as being were very dull, which would certainly fit your description!
Helen MacInnes wrote romantic suspense/spy stories. JanetW recently sent me one of her books. Quite a few were made into Hollywood films (e.g.: ‘Above Suspicion’ with Joan Crawford).
I haven’t a clue who the others might be.
I did wonder if it was Samuel Richardson, but it doesn’t seem to fit in with the theme of this list. To be honest, I remember almost zero about his novels (just a general feeling of dislike towards his female oh-so-self-sacrificial protagonists), so it may be him. Plus, you say his novels were dull.
It’s definitely not Helen MacInnes. My mum disliked her works and my dad wasn’t into genre novels.
Boo. Thanks for the suggestions. Much appreciated!
I love it! Fortunately, my father’s one-time effort to foist a reading list on me failed. However, the result was that I read far and wide as I liked, sometimes great stuff (Brothers Karamazov at 16) and sometimes “mind candy” (in 12th grade every trashy romance novel my friend’s big sister passed on to her). Personally, I think it’s enough that schools have reading lists. Otherwise, let kids read as they will; it won’t harm them.