Once upon a time I sort-of specialised in Modernist literature - early 20th century experimental literature, if you like, which broke away from realist modes of expression. I mainly focused on Modernist poetry (I had major problems with prose at the time and abandoned fiction for several years - it's a long and dull story why) so I have big gaps where you might expect otherwise. Hardly any Virginia Woolf, very little James Joyce, just a smattering of DH Lawrence and no Djuna Barnes or Marcel Proust. I have been playing catch up ever since I rediscovered prose.

So far I am really enjoying Ulysses. I used to be slightly frightened of the novel - it is the big mythical beast of 20th century English-language literature after all - but I am relaxing into it in a most enjoyable way. A not-so-small part of me is itching to sit with a concordance and jot down marginalia as I slowly work my way through the book, but I am mostly just enjoying the reading experience. It is a more immediate way of reading the book and while I know I am missing layers of meaning, I like this informal way of reading. Because I was trained to read in a methodical, almost-clinical manner I am sometimes struggling to connect with some books, and I really enjoy when I can lose myself in a book.

(I did put an exclamation mark next to the bit which I'm convinced Ezra Pound "borrowed" for his Cantos. You know, just for old time's sake.)

Wholly unrelated, but then again: The Best & Worst Job Prospects in the Urban Fantasy Economy for 2011. Years ago I kept borrowing books from friends hoping that I could get into genre reading - specifically urban fantasy, supernatural romance and Celtic fantasy (the genres most popular with my friends) - but I struggled to get past the clunky writing. I still remember reading Laurell K. Hamilton's Guilty Pleasures (which came highly recommended to me) and being unable to get past the sentence: "He laughed bitterly, like shattered glass". When I learned that Guilty Pleasures were supposed to be the best book Hamilton has ever written, I twigged that I should probably just go about reading the kind of books I like and stop trying to emulate others' reading patterns.

I continue to be wary about reading recommendations, but Five Books looks useful: "Every day an eminent writer, thinker, commentator, politician, academic chooses five books on their specialist subject." I thought these looked intriguing: Sara Maitland on Silence, James Meek on The Death of Empires, Rebecca Goldstein on Reason and Its Limitations and Thomas Keneally on Russia.

But somehow I've still found time to cast on a small baby cardigan for a pregnant co-worker. I'm using oddments of Rowan Extra Fine Merino for a top-down raglan cardigan (I'm using this pattern for numbers but not for much else) and it is zipping along just fine. I have done so many top-down garments now that I find it difficult to think of something new to say, so suffice to say that I think it'll be done by the end of this week .. which is not bad going seeing how hellishly busy I am.

And when things calm down once more I will proceed with a proper autumn knit. I've been eyeing some gorgeous new autumn clothes in various shops. I'm head over heels with this little dress and I'm loving the fact that purple + moss green appear to be this season's musts. I never used to pay attention to clothes or fashion, but since I began getting into knitting/crocheting again, I'm noticing things that I never noticed before: necklines, shoulder construction, drape, fit, ease, fabric, fibre etc. And I feel silly because I used to feel that fashion was something I was expected to be interested in because of my gender - and I rejected this due to being a raging feminist - and now I stand around cooing over a neckline or colour.

If I ever start going on about shoes, shoot me.

But seeing the new autumn lines going into shops do make me yearn for a real, proper autumnal knit. I think it'll have to be purple (and not moss-green because some people claim green cardigans are all I ever knit) and be a really snuggly knit. Just a few more days and I can see the end of the tunnel.

You know, I might even have time to read. I caught up with Anne Donovan very briefly today and we had a lovely conversation about knitting and books. Although I do love knitting and yarn, nothing beats a good book. I miss my books and I want to return to my current read. It is one of those books you have to keep in touch with or it leaves you. And then my next read will be David Mitchell's new novel and I'll have words to share about the Man Booker Prize (as always).

I'm not one of those knitters who walk through a meadow and decide to knit a scarf inspired by a particularly beautiful tree. I designed 'Larisa' because I could not find the right pattern for an elegant, yet straightforward, scarf which I could give away as a present. I wanted a scarf which would dress up an outfit, a scarf which was classy rather than fashion-forward. And so I simply sat down with a partial ball of Kidsilk Haze, some beads and my trustworthy notebook.

I would say, though, that I am one of those knitters who love their art and fashion history. I drew some inspiration from Art Deco - in fact, the horizontal line of the beading contrasting with the vertical lines of the lace is a design element I picked up from all those hours I spent reading about sky-scrapers many years ago. I tried out various severe lace patterns with super-vertical lines before opting for a lace insert which combines some vertical design elements with a V shape (or heart-shape depending upon your mood). I just think the pattern looks much softer and more inviting as a result.

Meanwhile, I have finished my crochet bag and meant to get some shots of it today. Unfortunately the weather was not on my side and it proved impossible to get enough light(!) for a good photo. I hit a snag with the lining, actually. It turned out that my sewing machine which I was "not entirely sure actually works" did not work. Maybe you will understand if I show you which machine I have.. I'm not sure why it does not work, except that the bobbin case keeps falling out when I use the machine and the 'overthread' doesn't want anything to do with the 'underthread' (I'm not sure of my English sewing machine terminology - does it show?). So, anyway, well. I had to handstitch the lining and I'm not a fantastic handstitcher. I'm going to rip out the part of the lining I have already attached and wait until I can afford a new machine (or work out why my machine does not work - whichever comes first).

Finally, if you reading smart women writing about what it's like to be a smart woman (i.e. a person), you will enjoy The Anti-Room. I found this little post on Harlequin romances and inherent misogyny.

PS. Faithful readers, do you think me and my full-busted short-torsoed peasant-woman body could get away with this cardigan?

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.

Let us recap what happened last time I read one of Ms Thomas' books:

I do not know why I’ve read three Scarlett Thomas novels because if you take away the colourful packaging of a) metafiction (“The End of Mr Y”), b) anti-consumerism (“PopCo”) and c) popculture (“Going Out”) you get pretty much the same novel. New Age health solutions? Check. Schrödinger’s cat? Check. Main protagonist being into her math puzzles? Check. Slightly deviant sexual orientation painted in a fairly vague way? Check. C-category drug use? Check. Vegetarianism or some variant upon it? Check. Internet featuring heavily? Check.

But I still like her novels (..) even if they feel like a Linda McCartney meal. You know, easily digested vegetarian fare with a touch of celebrity to it?

Our Tragic Universe? It reads like a diluted version of the above padded with Narratology for Dummies, Tarot cards, jam-making and pages about how difficult it is to, er, knit socks. Everything falls into place once Scarle Meg figures out how to knit socks on double-pointed needles. I wish I were making this up.

Okay, a more sophisticated approach:

Clearly Our Tragic Universe wants to have a plotless plot or even be that paradoxical beast: an approachable antinovel. Whatever plot it has, it revolves around our protagonist attempting to write a hip, Zeitgeisty novel without a plot. Ah, funnily enough the novel itself mirrors the non-existing novel within. So far, so refreshingly clever (or depressingly metafictional, depending upon your mood). Sadly, Scarlett Thomas knows how to do this intellectually (we know this because the books bangs on and on about the theories) but her novelistic chops let her down.

Our Tragic Universe is a mess, and not even an entertaining mess.

Scarlett Thomas thanks Andrew Crumey in her notes. Crumey writes the sort of novel that Thomas thinks (or wishes or pretends because her books are all about pretending) she is writing. Go seek them out. I'm currently thirty pages into David Mitchell's number9dream - he is that rare beast: an author who is a chameleon but also is constantly himself. Mitchell does marvellous things with narrative structure and is essentially a storyteller at heart. Another author I would recommend you read instead of spending time/money on Our Tragic Universe.

(Our Tragic Universe is actually worse than my other recent read, Julia Quinn's Splendid, which is terribly sad because Splendid is set in Regency London and has characters slipping  in and out of 1990s Valley-speak.)

Having said that, I am mostly the same person I was fifteen years ago. I am older with a few new scars and bruises. I am also a bit wiser, less sociable, and more forgiving. I like the same things I did fifteen years ago (books, computer games, cake, my bed, old Hollywood musicals, vintage clothes, typography, Eurovision, and dogs) but I have added new things (my gawjuss Scottish boyfriend, yarn, coffee, philosophy, and matching colours). I think my 1995-self and my 2010-incarnation would get along just fine, although I bet my 1995-self would be appalled at my hairstyle (I just had my hair cut this past week and I am appalled).

In fact, almost fifteen years ago I made a deal with a good friend (who I miss dearly over here in Scotland). She would cook me a fancy three-course dinner if I wrote a book. Now it could not be just any old book - it had to be a special kind of book. My friend did not expect me to write an academic treatise nor did she want me to write a big literary sensation. She wanted me to write a frothy piece of Regency Romance.

I have read a lot of RRs - they are my comfort foods, my security blankets. I grew up in a household devoted to the weeklies' feuilletons, our local library's stash of Jalna-like books and, of course, Barbara Cartland (who I blame for my youthful infatuation with Lord Byron). Later I discovered Georgette Heyer who may be frothy but never nauseating (unlike Cartland). Today I go through phases: I may read a lot of RRs over a few weeks but then several years pass before my next RR frenzy. These phases usually coincide with stress, feeling homesick or going through a rough patch. Comfort foods and security blankets, indeed.

Could I write a passable RR? I think I could come up with a suitable plot involving, say, a Scottish laird's daughter who is sent to London for the season - on the way she meets a dashing highwayman who happens to be a notorious rake settling a wager. Add a couple of dogs, a duel, a dollop of gambling debt and a waltz at Almack's and I think we have a winner. Now all I have to do is write the darn thing and that fancy three-course dinner will be mine, MINE!

.. My younger self would be tempted, my 2010 self will probably just make the three-course dinner and skip all the writing.

In other time-travel-related news, Doctor Who made me cry this week with an episode about Vincent van Gogh, of all people. Your mileage may vary - the episode has divided fans in various online fora - but I took a great deal from it about beauty, art and life.

Completely unrelated: Congratulations are due to SoCherry who is on her way to becoming an honest woman and to Paula who ran a charity race today. Two of my best friends here in Scotland and they keep on amazing me.

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.

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.