Fast-forward some five or six years.

Michel Faber's Under the Skin, a 'strange, disturbing, genre-defying short novel', turned out to be one of the most fascinating reads in recent memory (I must revisit it soon). Of course I am eager to read more books by Faber, and so another second-hand shop (in another city in another country in another life) delivers yet another copy of The Crimson Petal and White.  This time I bought it. It bears no resemblance to Bridget Jones, Dan Brown, nor The Celestine Prophecy. Instead it reads like Sarah Waters' Tipping the Velvet written by the step-child of John Fowles.

The Crimson is a Victorian novel written for the 21st century. Like Waters' first few books, it explores the underbelly of Victorian society in a way that Charles Dickens could not: the prostitutes, the corpses dragged from the Thames, the blood, the gore, the shame. Faber has a writerly touch which infuses the book with tiny postmodern flourishes - an omniscient narrator breaking the fourth wall, texts within texts and many characters being authors themselves. His touch is light enough not to irritate, but occasionally it is almost too light:  mid-novel it almost disappears only to reappear just before the end. Knowing references to "proper" Victorian novels abound. Readers who have read Collins' The Woman in White, Brontë's Jane Eyre, and Dickens' Great Expectations will savour Faber's small nods; readers who comes to The Crimson without any 19th C novels behind them will enjoy The Crimson as a rollicking good read.

And it is a very good read. I find it difficult to find faults with The Crimson, but at the same time it did not captured me in the same way that Under the Skin did. It is significantly less raw and more conventional (by current standards - certainly not by 19th C standards!). I finished reading it today and found out that the novel has been commissioned for a four-part BBC drama. And perhaps that sums up my sole problem with the book: it is a novel thriving on exploring the dark side of society, and yet it is polite enough to become a Sunday evening BBC costume drama.

Kimfobo at Reading Matters has a superb review, as does Tom of A Common Reader. Maybe The Crimson Petal and the White is still just  tainted in my mind by sharing those shelves with Bridget Jones et al all those years ago.

• With a few modifications, this is how I'd like to live. I would not sort my books by colour (in fact, it is a pet-peeve of mine), I would tone down the pattern-upon-pattern thing, and I would go for a different IKEA sofa*, but overall this is my sort of home. It has that Scandinavian-midcentury/vintage-thriftiness/art-junkie aesthetic I like.
• As I keep saying, I am not getting back into dress-making. Nope. Not a chance. Having said that, I am drooling over this sewing project. There is no way that I'd look anything like the girl in the photos, but that is one fetching dress. I never know what to wear during summer but I like the idea of wearing pretty cotton frocks. But I'm not going to make one for myself.
• Not getting back into dress-making does not mean I cannot look at gorgeous fabric, though. Spoonflower supplies a design/print-on-demand fabric service. Look! Steampunk-inspired fabric! Fabric inspired by early American feminist writer! UK-based company, Clothkits, sells beautiful Liberty fabric designed by Grayson Perry. Sigh.
• Meanwhile Danish ladies' magazines keep publishing lovely free knitting patterns (mostly donated by yarn companies). My recent finds include this awesome cardigan, and a very cool top. I might even have yarn for the top.. Hmmm.

* yes, I have opinions on IKEA sofas. I'm a bit scared by this.

And on a completely different topic, take a look at this MeFi post about the quality of paper used in contemporary publishing.

"Eight years ago we started to notice the shift in buying patterns from free-sheet Permanent Paper to groundwood paper for hardcover books. Groundwood is the type of paper used in newspapers and mass market paperbacks, and its production is such that it is much lower-quality and degrades more quickly than traditional book publishing paper." What makes a book permanent?

The discussion quickly descends into a "well, why print books at all now the digital revolution is here" argument. I have nothing against digital publishing nor against digital archiving (in fact, I support digital archiving as it allows for storage on an unprecedented scale whilst not taking up much room), but I do take issue with people saying books are going to vanish within the next thirty years because they are too low-tech to be anything but obsolete. Despite globalisation, that is a very First-World argument.

The Book's low-tech nature is exactly why it is going to survive - and why books needs to be of better quality. Needing the Book is not about cherishing the object itself, but understanding its role in the dissemination of knowledge. Oh, but the internet! Oh, but Kindle! Oh, but what about people who have no access to the internet, or have limited/censored access? What about people living in areas where electricity is a scarce commodity reserved for the elite? Picking up a book "only" requires you to be able to read. Using a Kindle or the internet requires compatible technology, electricity, the ability to navigate and process information online, stable access, knowledge of how to download content/patch your software .. and then how to use your reading device.

(I miss working with print culture - can you tell?)

The Little Stranger is not Waters' opus magnum. It is an uneven novel - less sure of where it is going than Waters' other novels - and the dénouement will be too open-ended for some people. I really enjoyed it, in other words. Where once Waters threw Everything and the Kitchen Sink into her books, she leans back here and trusts herself as a writer. Her first two novels were particularly unsubtle, but The Little Stranger thrives on subtlety. I understand if other readers find its lack of resolve frustrating, but I would argue this may be the point of the novel. I said it of Alan Hollinghurst and now I shall say it of Sarah Waters: the Big Important Novel will happen at some point soon. As for now The Little Stranger has preyed on my mind that Waters' other novels have failed to do.

I have not read anything else by Rachel Seiffert and the decision to read The Dark Room was a quick 8am "I have to have something to read at lunch" grab. Twelve hours later and the book is finished. Another uneven read, but unlike The Little Stranger, the unevenness stems from an author unable to join the seams and smooth out the kinks in her material. The subject, the effect of the Second World War on Germans, is too big and too complex for Seiffert. Symbolic gestures replace genuine characterisation - the disabled boy becoming a fervent nationalist; the collaborator standing in for an absent grandfather - and the entire novel falls a bit flat. I think the second story of The Dark Room's three would make a good companion piece to Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, though, as they share similar characters and a similar setting, yet tell two quite different stories.

Next: I think it is time to move away from books set circa 1940-1950.

That is not to say that Nothing Ever Happens in Brooklyn. Eilis Lacey, our protagonist, goes to dances, finds a job, meets people and falls in love. Brooklyn has comedic touches too - some colourful characters, a baseball game, a stomach-churning journey across the Atlantic - but admittedly even the comedic touches are low-key. Oh, and there are some very, very big decisions being made by ordinary people in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn is about the the émigré experience. What does it really feel like leaving your country, your culture, your family and your friends for somewhere else? Reading Matters has an excellent take on this:

[Brooklyn] might be set in the 1950s but it touches on universal themes that resonate today, and I've yet to read anything that so perfectly captures the profound sense of dislocation you feel when you swap one country for another and then return to your homeland for the first time.

In short, Brooklyn is a superb paean to homesickness and the émigré experience. I think I identified with it so strongly because it shows, in an understated but powerful manner, how all emigrants have to make that god-awful decision about whether to stay or go (..).

I took my time reading Brooklyn, mostly because I did not want to become upset on public transport or in my workplace. I hesitate to use this word, but reading this novel was a profound reading experience - I put much of myself and my own life into it. It will stay with me for a long time.

I am now currently reading Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger. I have a little theory about Waters the novelist and so far The Little Stranger plays along with my theory. It is also very good thus far.

Mainly, though, I have been trying to finish my little red cardigan. I have had a couple of DVD marathons (verdict: Oh, I love Gregory Peck, the smallest gestures can be completely devastating, and Neil Finn should ditch the falsetto & Johnny Marr) and I'm now one tiny frill and a buttonband away from completion. I am thinking Synecdoche, New York might work for that. Then, it's upwards and onwards. New things to knit, new projects to fret about.

Oh, because I have certain weaknesses, these blog posts were really amusing: Create Your Own Regency Romance and Call In The Angry Villagers: 10 Clichés We Can Live Without. I swear I haven't touched any such reads in months.

And finally, I just loved this little throwaway line by John Cameron Mitchell: "There's no question (..) that Lady Gaga and Hedwig are from the same clan." So true and now I don't know why I didn't twig this earlier.

Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes, a book on how to make geometric models using needlepoint, has won a prize given to oddly-titled books.

Written by Latvian mathematician Daina Taimina, it was adjudged the winner of the annual Diagram Prize after a public vote run by the Bookseller magazine.

- Odd title win for crochet book

I think it says a lot about me that I didn't batter an eyelid at the title. Besides, Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes does not hold a candle to books like Highlights in the History of Concrete or Bombproof Your Horse, both previous winners.

I finished my Monkey socks this weekend. They are very pink/lilac, but they do warm my feet (perfect for that impending snow we are supposedly getting). I'm just happy I won't have to use the Yarn Yard Bonny again. Just too synthetic for my taste. I have wound two cakes of delicious sock yarn - The Thylacine's Wellington BFL/nylon and Old Maiden Aunt's merino 4ply - and have scoured Ravelry for sock patterns. Like Ms Mooncalf, I think it is time to admit that sock knitting is no longer abhorrent or strange. It certainly has a place in my life.

Some exciting news: I will be teaching knitting and crochet classes in Glasgow this spring. Topics include the usual beginners' courses in both knitting and crochet, but also some advanced courses such as Continental knitting, Fair-Isle knitting combining English & Continental techniques, beading, finishing techniques and, yes, sock knitting . I'll be posting more info on the Glasgow and Scots Knits Ravelry groups soon or contact me directly if you want to know more. All the courses will last one hour and are free. Woohoo!

Finally, two blog posts about how we relate to our bodies. Kate Davies writes eloquently about how to formulate and describe the relationship (particularly if you have fallen ill) whilst Lilith of Old Maiden Aunt writes about feeling disconnected from her body. Both posts ask pertinent questions to which I can relate. I wish I felt ready to write about my personal struggles in terms of body and mind, but maybe someday I feel comfortable adding my thoughts. I thank both Kate and Lilith for being bolder than me.

Only a handful of books make it to my all-time God-Awful Reads list.

Jonathan Myerson's Noise is one: wildly inconsistent pacing, one plot dropped in favour for another as Myerson seemingly got bored with his original idea (or found himself incapable of writing the novel he set out to do) and a constant sneering, smug sense of contempt running throughout the book (the only consistent thing about it). Julian Barnes' England, England is another. Barnes had two great ideas (England as a theme-park and a Baudrillardian take on said theme-park) but could not get them to work in the context of a novel. A cautionary tale that sometimes you need to write an essay rather than try to work your ideas out in fiction.  And then dear Ian McEwan with his Booker-winning Amsterdam, a book so contrived, self-indulgent and ill-executed that it has coloured my reading of everything else McEwan has written.

I think what bothers me about Never Let Me Go was the pointlessness of it. I cannot even pretend to loathe it as there is nothing there to loathe. I cannot point to any smug, self-inflated sense of importance (Myerson's Noise), any over-ambitious intellectualism running rampant (Barnes' England, England), nor any toe-curlingly bad writing and plotting (McEwan's Amsterdam). Ishiguro's book is just .. there. It doesn't challenge, doesn't engage, doesn't take a stand and doesn't make you think. I'm bothered by this (which could be argued is an achievement, of course).

By contrast I finished reading Larsson's novel this morning having raced through it over the course of the weekend. Män som hatar kvinnor is not my cup of tea. I am a squeamish reader who does not enjoy reading page after page filled with gory details or graphic sexual encounters. I also had real issues with the main characters (the main investigator, Mikael Blomkvist, was an author surrogate; Lisbeth Salander, Blomkvist's hacker sidekick, was a pile of clichés, or, as Joan Smith points out in her excellent review, 'a revenge fantasy come to life.'). Having said that, the book made me care. I cared about finding old photographs and piecing together what happened one afternoon in 1966. The plot was convincing (if too gory for me) and unpredictable. Larsson's real strength, to me, was his description of milieus: both the remote Hedestad community and the smart and educated Stockholm media intelligentsia were drawn with a strong, decisive hand. I do not think I shall be seeking out the two other books in Larsson's trilogy - I'm too squeamish and not much of a crime-writing connoisseur - but if you like your crime novels smart, well-written and compelling, I'd recommend Män som hatar kvinnor in a heartbeat.

Next: I need to read a book written by a women, I think. Mantel & Wolf Hall, here I come.

I finished reading China Miéville's The City & the City the other night, though. I had previously tried getting through Adam Roberts' Swiftly (which felt like a disastrous date set up by an online dating agency based upon our preferences and demographics, but the spark wasn't there and we disliked each other from the get-go) and Mark Slouka's The Visible World (which I'm pondering giving a second go), so when I flew through Miéville's novel, I was relieved. I'd recommend it - particularly if you like smart speculative fiction or want a detective novel with an added flourish - although it was a bit too plot-driven for my taste. Also, I liked Miéville's light writerly touches such as naming the border area between the two cities "Copula Hall" (grammar nerd alert).

I'm now awaiting the paperback releases of Colm Toibin's Brooklyn, Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall and, of course, Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood. What books are you looking forward to reading?

Knitting-wise, I have made some headway on my summer top (now forever known as "Frankie Says.." and I'm showing my age) and I have cast on for a second pair of socks(!) seeing as my first pair are lovely, warm and perfect for snuggling up at night (again, showing my age).

And now it is time to do said snuggling under the covers with a book. Have a lovely Sunday.

And in winter, the greenhouses provide great knitwear photo opportunities! Yes, 'tis my own Feather & Fan shawl. Apparently these shawls are like salted peanuts: you cannot have just one.

I finished reading Jonathan Coe's The Accidental Woman yesterday. Coe is one of my favourite contemporary authors and his What A Carve Up! is a brilliant dissection of Thatcherite Britain while I push the very affecting The House of Sleep on most of my friends. The Accidental Woman was Coe's debut novel and owes more to Coe's admitted obsession with experimental stylists like Alasdair Gray and BS Johnson than any of Coe's other books. From a technical point of view, The Accidental Woman is actually very good. The narrator decides to take an average, dull person, Maria, as his subject and the resulting novel is really about the narrator's attempt to construct "a novel", the writing process and the struggle to fit Maria into a conventional novel. The novel leaps confidently back and forth between the primary narrative and the behind-the-scenes bits which is rather astonishing considering this was Coe's first novel. However, the technical feat does make the book feel very dated (in a 1980s-high-on-metafiction sort of way) and the novel itself is deadly dull. Anyone teaching narratology might get a kick out of it, but, really, most people would do far better to read Coe's later books. They are equally well-constructed but also have the added benefits of plots, interesting characters, humour and political outrage.

Oh, and I watched the recent RSC/BBC production of Hamlet last night. I have seen several productions/versions of Hamlet in my time (that's what you get for the double whammy of being a Dane and studying English) and quite enjoyed the newest version despite a very, very, very hammy Ophelia. Oh, and I liked how the newspaper had headlines written in Danish..

Glen David Gold's Carter Beats the Devil was published around the same time as Chabon's novel. Like Kavalier & Clay, Gold's novel revolves around the idea of escapism in one way or another. Mainly taking place in 1920s America, Gold's book deals with illusionist Charles Carter who suddenly finds himself in trouble when President Harding dies shortly after having participated in one of Carter's illusions. Cue chapter upon chapter filled with vaudeville acts, flappers, Russian anarchists, baffling illusions, quirky scientists, and a lot of card-shuffling. It should be entertaining and it is entertaining - but unfortunately I have read Chabon's novel which not only shuffles similar cards better but also pulls off far bigger sleights of hand.

I did enjoy the book, though. I liked the description of vaudeville performers travelling around trying to entertain people but gradually seeing their audience fall prey to moving pictures (and, later, television). I liked reading about how illusionists worked: the patter, the agility, the teamwork behind the scene and how illusions were constructed (although they are rarely explained in the novel). I just have two main problems with CBTD. Firstly, the novel is too long for its plot. Gold tries to go for a Wilkie Collins-esque vibe and also gives world-building a fair go, but this results in a book about 150 pages too long. Secondly, the writing style is clunky at times. I know some people do not care about writing styles, but I do. I am one of those people who really do not care about the plot as long as the book is well-written (I like Alan Hollinghurst, for heaven's sake).

At the end of the day, Carter Beats the Devil was an entertaining read but it was definitely not The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (which you should read if you haven't already).

Next: Jonathan Coe's first novel, The Accidental Woman.