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( Sunday )
And that was it... though of course there's been lovely comments to read on the forums and elsewhere, and lots of photos to look at. And I will be putting together a final newsletter in the next couple of days...
( Friday )
Note: if you click on the photos you should get to my flickr account which has all the photos on it.
Letters between Nancy Mitford and Heywood Hill, who ran the bookshop at which she worked in the 1940s - they maintained a correspondance up until her death in the 1970s. As jolly but not as inpenetrable as some of the letters between the Mitford sisters, these give a lovely flavour of a close and supportive friendship.
A delightful set of letters that I've devoured over a few days (I thought I should get it read, lest it disappear into the TBR's yawning chasm) - I am having a bit of a Mitford Fest at the moment as also working my way through the complete letters, but this filled in some gaps and it was lovely having Heywood Hill's letters too. Intriguing how the editor of the book gets into its latter stages himself. Oh, and I'll definitely have a look into the bookshop, as it's still going apparently!
A rather battered but still readable classic girls' school story. Dear Patty is a delight to all, although she secretly struggles with the effects of her cousin Muriel's blanking of her, even though they're at the same school. In between improving her own self through patience and a stiff upper lip, and helping others do what is right rather than what is fun, will she get a chance to improve relations with Muriel? A classic seaside theme brings us to an inescapable conclusion - but it's fun getting there and a jolly and escapist read.
A new cosy mystery series, this time set in a Book Town in NE America. The usual quirky characters and a mystery to solve that's not too gruesome for me. I felt this was a little slow to start off with, maybe there's not as much to bookselling as to my usual needlecraft mysteries, but it certainly picked up in the second part of the book, and I didn't guess whodunnit. Looking forward to the next one!
Oh - knowing I'd finish this today, another bookring of Ali's appeared on my front door mat this morning!!
It seems everyone has read this except me. In fact, I think I had the author mixed up with Rosie Thomas. Anyway, this is a meticulously researched, affecting and engaging novel about a man from an unnamed Eastern European country trying to make it in the UK. The descriptions of London life are both familiar and skewed, as we look at them from an outsider's point of view, and as heartbreaking as I found it to live there. The book seems bleak, and there are indeed dark moments both in the UK and back home, but redemption is possible if you look in perhaps a different place, and the kindness of strangers is a slim, true strand. Excellent stuff.
Picked it up to read and release at Uncon, ended up finishing it on the train journey home and leaving it on the train - thanks for the emergency postit, Jen!
Read out of order so I could read it on the way to Edinburgh and release it there (it actually came back to the Midlands with another happy reader, but that's fine!). More No 1 Ladies' fun and more of a satisfying read than recent ones, I feel. Lots of lovely detail, a heartbreaking moment for romance, and a good train read.
I really enjoyed this cosy mystery set in Birmingham, Alabama! Having ascertained that the jokes about the statue of Vulcan's backless apron are indeed based in reality, I settled down to a jolly tale about mismatched sisters and their wider community, trying to track down a killer who has struck at a local art gallery. Light stuff but well done and I will look out for more by this author.
An excellent biography; Foot writes extremely well with a touch of the Andrew Marr about his style (obviously the influence would have run the other way really) and, although it is admiring, with Foot admitting to being a hero-worshipper, it's not hagiographical. Fascinating background detail about the strikes and WW2 makes this required reading, and I'm already searching for Vol 2!
An excellent book and one I wouldn't have dreamed of picking up a few years ago! Askwith both details the history and present of the sport of fell-running and his own involvement with the sport, alternating chapters about the old heroes with autobiographical pieces about his attempts, mixed with a month-by-month portrayal of a typical year in fell-running. This makes for an interesting and varied read, often very funny, but intelligent and moving too. While we road-runners are a lot more cossetted than the wild and woolly (and frankly often insane-seeming) fell-runners, there are enough parallels between the two branches of running (and Andi Jones, who won the last Bham Half-Marathon, makes an appearance on the fells) to make me able to identify with the trials, tribulations and triumphs depicted in the book. Certainly, this passage made a lot of sense to me:
"Great sports are about much more than the rarefied activities of their elites. Their souls come from the mediocre majorities who know how difficult the achievements of the superstars really are."
and he makes the point several times that you get to run with the elites in your sport, in the same run, if not in the same frame, and it's one of the few sports where you can do that.
There is also a discussion of the role mental attitude takes in achievement and it's inspiring to see things coming together. We also get to cheer Askwith on as he makes several attempts at a punishing 42 peaks in 24 hours Lake District challenge. Which brings a shudder to this nice warm road-runner with her clean trainers and full set of toenails!
An excellent sports and in fact general read.
Fowler approaches the difficulty of where to set the new book in a series without it getting stale by moving the action to Benni's other half Gabe's home town, family and friends. This allows us to explore Benni's reaction to a new environment, a new cast of characters (while keeping some older ones in the picture through a hilarious family road-trip) and her evolving relationship with Gabe, as well as a new murder and the issues around old and newer friendships. Good stuff.
Our May-June IM A Month read. It took me a while to get through it, mainly because I was writing my notes as I went along rather than festooning the book with postits and writing them up afterwards. Sophisticated and using different formats, such as disjointed cocktail party conversation, internal and external narratives and letters, it's also chapterless which makes it a little harder to read. Austin, perhaps the "accidental man" of the story, seems unlikely to get through the narrative unscathed. The young people are unlikely to end up in the pattern in which they started. Tragedy and farce will come along together and nothing and no-one will be untouched by the dread hand of Austin (pun intended) by the end.
I enjoyed this. Like some other people have commented, I don't feel I totally got to know the "real" Dawn, however at least this was pretty upfront, I am sure other, esp "celeb" biographies have the same effect, but maybe more hidden. She is clear about protecting her family and, indeed, her best friend, who is mentioned a lot but not pictured much or clearly - and you have to commend her for that. In other places this is very frank and open, also very funny but also touching and moving - and it's great to see friends celebrated and cared for very deeply as well as family. I didn't mind the Madonna letters so much, there weren't too many of them and although written in a fairly irritating style, what they had to say was quite serious underneath it all.
It's not damning the book with faint praise to say it was better than I'd expected it to be!
Scott takes a cast of common Last Days Of The Raj characters - the dissatisfied wife, the earnest, India-loving farmer, the portly sahib having it off with the local women, the self-hating Anglo-Indian, the elderly woman who doesn't want to leave, and the man of action (or violence - and sets an American on a mission among them. The dust, heat and portenteous times are vividly evoked and the psychology of the men laid bare. A twisting plot in a short read means it never drags like some of the Raj Quartet did for me.
Unlike some books I have had from ER recently, this was what it promised. Well, and a bit more too, actually.
Basically the story of small-town American Elaine, living in New York, who met Mohammed at University in the 1950s, fell for him there and then, married him and moved to Damascus in Syria to live in an apartment block with his extended family. The story covers the first fifteen or so years in detail, including both the good and bad aspects of expatriate life in a very different community.
Elaine is fortunate in her extended family, who welcome her with open arms and take great pains to help her settle in, guiding her gently rather than criticising, making allowances and providing her with a lot of emotional and practical support. While she gains a lot from her non-Syrian friends, her "support group", she grows to identify very closely with her family too. A lot of this is to do with the kind of person she seems to be - embracing Islam, learning Arabic and the local dialect, keeping her loves such as reading while bending into the ways of the family. She, and we, find this behaviour vindicated when she is accepted as a natural member of the family at a funeral. Interestingly, she also draws closer to her own sisters.
It's not all autobiographical and what I tag "immigrant experience" though. Where this book gains a lot is in the chapters interspersed through the book, where Elaine faithfully records the stories of her husband's family and, as a result, the history of Syria in the 20th century. These parts are told very well, using different idioms and styles which are evocative of the different people who told her the tales. I learnt a lot about Syrian history through these sections, and the history she recounts finds uneasy echoes in the experiences the family goes through during the conflicts of the 1960s and 70s.
Unsparing of the more difficult aspect of life in Syria, but ultimately positive and celebratory, this is both an excellent example of the Immigrant Abroad narrative, and a good introduction to the history of the area.
Clayton's novels are always delightful, with this one no exception; her lovely acerbic voice, reminiscent of Barbara Comyns', always lifts her out of the chick-lit canon. The usual scatty heroine, unusual hero, loopy secondary characters and mouldering old houses, mixed with gorgeous descriptions of clothes and food are all here, along with a jolly storyline and lots of atmospheric detail, in this case about the ballet world. Marigold spends the book agonising about putting her dancing before her parents, her love life and, in fact, her self, and is a lovely heroine we can root for as she comes to terms with the richer family her family has always been bound to, her mature feelings for her childhood crush and the injury that causes her to lose her greatest love, dancing, for a while. Add in a delightful and very much alive at the end pet rabbit, and there's a recipe for a lovely, escapist and enoyable read.
I bought this mid-1930s volume because of the horse picture on the front! It's not actually a pony book, although ponies do feature, but a rather moralistic but still fun tale of southerner Gundry, plunged into the wilds of the North Country (the Borders) and the lives of her neighbours, who have a Doom over the family. A bit of religion mixed in with the doom and teenage self-improvement - very much of its time but readable and with delightful illustrations.
This was a book I'd been flirting with reading for a while, as I loved Brick Lane, but I was never sure about it. I'm still not, really. Interlinked short stories set around a Portuguese village, some of the characters were interesting and beautifully drawn, others a little predictable, maybe. Quite a few icky moments but I was OK with them. I don't really think this was up to the standard of Brick Lane, although some of the descriptions and what she notices were very well done. I think I liked the story of Teresa the best, and wasn't that interested in the hippy family. Oh well, I've read it now so can stop wondering!
No 2 in the Benni Harper series.
Read on a short trip to Hay-on-Wye.
It's hard to review these cosy mysteries without giving the plot away, but a nice satisfying read where our feisty cow-owning heroine Benni gets too involved in another crime. This time it's two older folks in a home, and she has to recocile her involvement with her relationship with Gabe Ortiz, the acting chief of police. Details of her relationship with Gramna Dove and her best friend, the arts co-op and the research she's doing into Japanese internments in WWII make this far from one-dimensional, and I'm pleased I've got the next one lined up ready to read.
A historical novel, which didn't exactly work as we weren't told what period this was set in - early 19th century apparently. Second in a set of two, the whole of the first book is retold in the early chapters (and it seems a bit bleak!) We meet Ellen and Clara Fortune; initially Ellen seems the sister who the author is keenest on, but when a prank goes wrong and she injures a local landowner, she is sent away and comes back a different woman. Meanwhile, Clara has decisions to make and choices between herself and her family, although she always makes sure her horses are central to her life. A good story with common Peyton themes of the handsome but arrogant lord of the manor, the horsey girl and the miscreant.
Although my naievety about this book's central premise was made more realistic when I was told that there is a genre of "manifesto" books written by politicians (I've only recently taken an interest in political history as opposed to Politics Now, so I've tended to read analyses and the odd memoir so far), this is a fascinating book. It is a bit "Obama saves the world", as he takes different themes (business, foreign policy, family, race) and talks about the issues as he sees them, and possible solutions. A writer with a real skill for making the political personal and for explaining concepts clearly and understandably, as we saw with "Dreams From My Father", he engages in the same interweaving of statements on policy and reflections on his own experience. The section on foreign policy seems the most researched, as opposed to experienced, and the least confident, however this is to be expected, as he had experienced the other matters in hand as a community activist, lawyer and Senator.
One of Obama's chief moral standpoints is to not engage in negative campaigning. I was interested to see how he spoke about current Senators and Presidents, and yes, he gives them their due when they deserve it, whether Clinton or Reagan. This is refreshing, especially in contrast with the carping EU election leaflets we've been receiving recently, which only serve to do the other man down, it seems!
Having been written a relatively short time ago, I am now keen to find out if Obama is starting to put any of these putative policies into reality. He does seem genuinely humble, and to have an equally genuine and strong vocation for public service. He explains well the difficulties of remaining in touch with reality while a Senator; I hope he manages to now, as the President, and I'll have a bit more of an understanding of what drives the man and his policies having read this book.
I absolutely loved this book and can't understand how I hadn't read it before as it's been around for a while.
Rather than the classic "story of English", this is the storIES of englishES, looking at the development of dialects, pidgins, creoles, the whole kit and caboodle, as well as the "standard" forms and how they came about. A nice lot on Old English (I believe it should be taught in all English depts too!) and pitched just right, for both the more knowledgeable reader and the person who's just interested in the subject.
I think what shines through is Crystal's genuine love for linguistics, his real pleasure in picking at a tricky issue and his respect for and love of the variants of English in play all over the world and in the UK.
Thanks for a great read NCOT. I'm going to hang onto this till I find a copy for my Permanent Collection - available for loan though in the meantime!
I was a bit nervous of this one after my dislike of Second Honeymoon but actually enjoyed it. Six women friends meet every Friday for years, then are thrown into turmoil when an extra man is introduced into the mix. Really, this is an examination of the energies women throw into work or family, of whether they can have both and be happy. It is well balanced, with forms of family being non-tradtional as well as traditional and work being just as fulfilling, but no more, than family. The enigmatic Jackson is a cleverly done character who we only see in glimpses, and while there is a lot of telling and not much showing, the children are drawn beautifully and I love in particular the relationship between elderly Eleanor and eight year old Toby. A well-done storyline with enough surprises and, although some of the plot resolutions seem a little hasty, an enjoyable read.
This was in my Bonus Batch from LTER
Aponte, a Black American man who has been living in Japan for a number of years, messes up his life such that his only recourse is to sit down at the typewriter and write about his experiences of being poor and unemployed in Tokyo. Gradually he re-establishes his life and work ethic, and draws conclusions from the growing process he experiences.
I was a bit non-plussed by this book at the beginning. I thought it was going to be one of those books where somebody undergoes an experience on purpose (Julie and Julia, Nickeled and Dimed, One Red Paperclip...) and was then plunged into the author's chaotic and selfish descent into a life on the edge of homelessness. Admitting that this descent is caused by his own profligacy, short-termism and obsession with women, he proceeds to live off four different women, taking favours, money, meals and loans from each in turn in order to keep his head above water. While this is resourceful, it doesn't make for very pleasant reading, and some of the descriptive writing about the women is a little "strong" for maybe the average reader. He seeks to explain himself, and as he then starts to find "salvation" through hard work, we see his mental processes and interests change and become more conventionally mature.
Once you get past this rather grubby life that he's embraced at first then seeks to escape, there are some interesting points made about Japan (especially the differences between the Japan of the tourist and the Japan of the locals, and the way that the lack of interest in the "real" Japan from the rest of the world helps the Japanese retain their self-image of safety etc) and about the reasons non-Japanese people go and stay there, in the portraits of his fellow language-school workers. The view broadens out from the purely personal to a more wide and interesting canvas. When he goes back to his native New York for a visit, some good points are made about culture shock, about not fitting properly into either culture for at least a while.
While I am pretty sure the author would not like his reviewers to pause too long on the issues of him being a Black American in Japan, rather than just an American in Japan, he does give some interesting vignettes, examining his viewing of the portrayal of Black people on Japanese television, believing he must acknowledge all people he meets of his own colour in case they feel he is ignoring them, and his anger at being congratulated in a book shop for being a Black man reading a book. This does give an extra dimension to the usual "out of culture" books that exist in the genre.
Set in the mid-1990s recession in Japan, there are some interesting paralleles with today's financial crisis and i'm wondering if that was why this book was published now - it's a useful hook to hang it on. There's even a theme about those in financial straits turning on the outsiders in their society, which we've seen in the UK with the protests about non-UK workers.
I found this book interesting, and it's certainly brave to be that unremittingly honest about your ways before you mend them. It was a short book, and needed some editing work (this was not as far as I could see an ARC, but it had some repeated passages and messy tenses). I can't say I loved it, but it certainly improved as it went along.
I was thrilled to win this in the Early Reviewers programme and delighted when a fully-polished, lovely hardback book arrived in the post. Having recently developed an interest in history, and read with glee the Andrew Marr post-war history, I was eager to see what I could learn about this recent decade.
Like me, the author grew up in the 1970s and was keen to find out if it really was all disappointment, rubbish heaps and grey dinginess. Like me, he had a very blurred understanding of the political figures of the time. Unlike me, he's a journalist of some renown and, armed with a good strong nose for destroying myth (and some excellent contacts) he sets out to examine the time, both through original sources, books written at and about the time, including works of history, memoir and polemic, and then with modern day visits and interviews. This leads to a detailed and multifaceted book, which switches points of view and chronology often enough to remain interesting to the reader, while providing a good steady context and not confusing.
The picture of trade unionism and its relation with government is particularly strong in the book, but it also covers the various movements (gay and women's lib, ecology, free festivals) that grew or strengthened in the decade, as well as giving a very detailed picture of the machinations of government. There is a short chapter on Marxism which was mocked by a national newspaper reviewer for being a) short and b) about Beckett's cousin, but it does fit in to the general context, with plenty of source material and a revolutionary interviewed in his later, less radical years.
It helps, of course, that there are echoes of the seventies in today's crises - climate warnings, terrorist threats and stagflation. But this point is not laboured, and the book stands proudly on its own merits. Thatcher looms over the second part of it, and I would like to see Beckett tackle the Eighties next - I'm sure he would do a good job.
Evelyn Dixon moves from Texas to New England after her divorce leaves her reeling and lost. She's always wanted to run a quilt shop... and decides to do just that. Just as she's doing quite well and organising a Breast Cancer charity event, health issues hit and she's forced to fall back on the support of some women she's only just met, with her best friend and son at opposite ends of the country.
I enjoyed this read although worried at one point that it would go the way of the Friday Night Knitting Club. Although there were some editing details (Margot switched between being blonde and brunette a couple of times!) and there was a slight feeling of a historican novel writer trying to get into contemporary writing by using the common (at the moment. Trendy?) theme of sewing shops and craft circles, there was a strong storyline and some lovely musings on quilting and community.
I see the author is turning this into a series, so it will be interesting to see how that develops.
Thanks Julie!
Another one snagged after coming through my cataloguing hands! An excellent read - very funny - basically hints on novel writing hidden in hints on now NOT to write a publishable and readable novel - do make your characters boring etc etc. Makes it difficult to read even a decent, published, novel without hole-picking but my reading habit survived my English degree so I'm sure I'll be OK in the long run. I think this would be a valuable addition to a beginner writer's collection.
Nell has dim memories of being put onto a boat and arriving in Australia aged 4. She is seen trying to piece together the mysteries of her background in 1975, and her granddaughter Cassandra has another go in 2005. Set between these times, 1900 and 1913, and swapping between the UK and Australia, a complex narrative is maintained comprehensibly.
Like everyone else on the bookring, I read this pretty quickly when I got going with it. I did enjoy it although I guessed the plot pretty quickly. It isn't the most literary of works, and I think there were times when the author didn't know quite what genre she was writing in and got a bit carried away trying to cram all her research it. The "Secret Garden" parallels were a bit creepy; having read a biog of Frances Hodgson Burnett, she also started off poor, submitted stories to a magazine when young etc, so I thought Eliza was almost a portrait of her, then in strolls FHB herself... There were also a few oddities - Ruby's job would be either as curator or as tour guide, there was little filled in about Cassandra's mother, and what was with creepy Linus, who was not really developed and was a tad stereotypical (damaged man with damaged limb...)
So - hm, I was struggling to put something down about this. Like her other book, The House At Riverton, I think it was trying to be something it wasn't, a little. Readable but a bit, tacky isn't the word, but not as good as it could have been. A bit Rosamund Pilcherish, nothing wrong with R.P. but sometimes one is left wanting a little more. Would make a GREAT holiday read though!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/a
French's "The Women's Room" was hugely influential on me as a young feminist.
Virago Modern Classic No 5
I'm glad I'm not trying to collect all the VMCs as, although there are some I love, cherish and keep, I wouldn't re-read all of them, and that's my criterion for keeping a book as opposed to giving it away.
This is a slightly confused and confusing tale of Teresa, a passionate and unusual girl in 1930s poor suburban Australia, who yearns to be free, to practice free love and to study, in Europe if possible. She forms an unfortunate attachment to her Latin tutor, Jonathan Crow, and aims to follow him to England, starving herself of beauty, love and food in the effort to do so.
Set in Australia and England, this is reminiscent in the first half of a VMC called "Cindie" that I read a few months ago, and in the second half, of Patrick Hamilton's "Twenty Thousand Streets Under The Sky" trilogy. London is the London of my time there - Bloomsbury, Fleet Street, and interesting for that. Jonathan's theories are expounded in the first half to be destroyed in the second, and it is packed full of theory and feeling, which doesn't always make for an easy or coherent read.
Interesting, as much for the historical descriptions as the story.
I haven't read many running books and I suspect they have similarities, in that a large part of the beginning of the book was dedicated to telling us how excellent "Chi running" is. It's subtitled "A Revolutionary Approach to Effortless, Injury-Free Running". Basically, it's an anti- what he calls "power running" (building up muscles for running which are then a) heavy to move around b) restrictive of joint movement) and a call for a more flexible, tai-chi based idea of body-awareness, being in the moment and lightness of foot.
Amongst the tai-chi theory (which is not pushed down your throat) and the slightly alien concept of running while inclined forwards, which is meant to make gravity help you run and avoid heel-striking (I'm going to try that in my run today) there is a lot of sensible and useful stuff - some great exercises for loosening up the joints and tendons, which I will be taking on board (some of the "loosening up" exercises are suspiciously similar to the usual runners' stretches) and some good solid advice on building form then distance then speed and preparing for a race. I was pleased to see I am already an exponent of some of his theories (keeping loose, body aware and relaxed on a downhill run, keeping the arms relaxed etc) but I would imagine most runners would fit this category in some way. Nice to see he recommends looking at yourself in a shop window to check posture - how I miss our Woolworths and McDonalds on the High Street for that!
Still, an inspiring read, as I find the magazines and the other book I've read, and some good stuff to take away and try.
OK, TBR is down but I have some worrying reading order issues!
I had a BookRing (The Forgotten Garden, 650 odd pages) on Fri, obviously this needs to be read within a month
I had a LibraryThing Early Reviewer book (When The Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies) this morning, which needs to be read and reviewed within the month if I am to get a chance in the next round of giveaways
I borrowed a running book from a friend that I'm supposed to be reading over the weekend
Problem is, I am already reading:
A big Virago novel that is quite hard going and I have 400 p. to go
The letters of the Mitford Sisters, which I only just started and thus have approx. 600 p. to go
So what do I do? I do have a long weekend but I don't have infinite reading time; I do have a relationship, friends and other things to do! Argh! now I'm not reading ANYTHING cos I can't decide what to read...
I can see why this was bought for me, with my interest in local history, and it was interesting reading about life on the poverty line in post-war Sheldon. I would say that it was a little self-publishedy feeling, with a bit of an emphasis on redressing wrongs in her past rather than talking historically, and it ended *extremely* abruptly, but in general atmospheric and interesting.
Third in the Sisters Of The Quilt trilogy, set inside and outside of an Old Order Amish community in Pennsylvania. Hannah has always been headstrong and independent, but content to live within the community. But when trauma and tragedy strike, she is shunned rather than supported and ends up fleeing the community into the world of the "Englischers".
A great read and a good end to the trilogy. The book tends to be contemplative and progresses gently, rather than in big shocking scenes and sudden revelations, much like the lives of its characters. The author is good at "showing not telling", letting the characters reveal their strengths and weaknesses through their actions rather than being told how they operate. Taking up where the last book left off, we find Hannah on her way back to her Amish community, called there by her unstable sister Sarah after another fire has been set. As Hannah starts to build bridges with her home community, its values and differences from the outside world are thrown into relief. Is there a middle way, where she can hold true to her own values yet not be trapped into a sometimes hidebound and over-judgemental group? Is her love for Martin strong enough to deal with the 40 in TV and the dresses he wants her to wear? Hannah is a lovely character and so are Paul and Matthew, all shown as rounded people who make mistakes.
I will definitely look out for more by this author - there is mention of a new book in the back of this one...
An enjoyable book in which the author retraces the journey she took with her grandmother, Penelope Betjeman, seven years previously. Colourful impressions of India, then and now, and Betjeman herself, make for a decent read and Imogen's love for her grandmother and a country that is now dear to them both, shines through.
Previously published under another title and republished by Transita.
Lotte, divorced with three children, goes for a job as head gardener to the rich but vulgar Brody and his trophy wife. She restores the glory of the old garden, fighting with her employees and getting entangled with the local archivist.
I really liked the garden bits in this and felt the author would do really well writing a history of a real estate rather than having to be fictional - she really shone in her depictions of the real work of the place.
I found the characters pretty well one-dimensional and stereotyped - even Lotte (how *do* you pronounce her name? Lotty? Lottuh? Can't be Lot as that's what Brody calls her!) was the archetypal Transita heroine and I have read most of them. And if one more man comes up "triumphant" with glasses from a dusty cupboard I will eat my hat!
Anyway, the characters' actions were often unlikeable and poor old Peter too much the other way.
But I did like the gardening bits and an easy read.
A nice book about reclaiming the simple things in life such as baking your own bread, picnics, spending time putting your photos in order etc. There are ideas for different seasons as well as general things you can do at the weekend. Some of it was a little twee and there were some assumptions about how much money one had and having a car, but generally full of good ideas - and very sweet 50s style illustrations.
Another installment in the Elm Creek Quilts series and this time we find out what happened to the slightly mysterious Cousin Elizabeth, who set off for a new life in California with brand new husband Henry. But the farm they think they've bought isn't quite what it seems, and they settle into quite a different existence to the one they envisaged. Hard work and decency have their own rewards, and Elizabeth sticks up for a local woman and follows her heart as a mysterious pair of quilts are mended and cherished...
A very well written and entertaining autobiography, taking O'Grady up to his early years in London, with brief forays into times nearer the present,l too. It seems he didn't have a co-writer, if that's true then fair play to him as it's well put together (and also well edited) and both interesting and funny. You can see where he got the inspiration for Lily Savage, as he delineates his tough aunties and the milieux in which he grew up.
I enjoyed installment 4 in the Caper Court series more than the last two. At last we can gain some sympathy for Leo as he makes a few dodgy decisions and his life starts to unravel. It finishes very much on a cliffhanger, so hopefully I can obtain books 5 & 6 from Ali soon - or are you reading them first, Jen?
A truly delicious book and I think it could be the next Miss Pettigrew. Miss Buncle is the quietest resident of a country village. Who would have dreamt that, to make a bit of money to make up for her sagging dividends, she could have written a wickedly accurate portrayal of her neighbours - both as they are and, in a fantasy section, as they would perhaps like to be. As the book hits the village, hackles are raised as well as eyebrows.... but also something strange starts to happen, as truth begins to echo fiction. Miss Buncle observes, backed up by her lovely publisher Mr Abbott and her marvel of a maid, Dorcas. Will anyone realise who the real author of the book, one "John Smith" is? And what will happen when they do?
A lovely fairytale of a book; I particularly liked the more monstrous characters and the gentle satire of genteel novels of village life. Let's hope Persephone decide to publish some more of this author's work!
Another hitherto-unknown Streatfeild. Sporting the worst, most camp cover photo in the world (girl poses in front of strong man and jester) this is an excellent longer novel about a family living in a village at the end of WW2. Selina, plan cousin in a family of vivid and excitable siblings, is sent a party dress by her godmother. In order to have an occasion to wear it, the children plan a village pageant. Gradually the whole village gets involved, and all seems well until a few disasters striike. Will Selina get to wear her dress or will she have grown out of it by the time the pageant comes along? Great read.
A brilliant, unputdownable read. It reminded me, in tone and content, like a Scottish version of Bali Rai (one of my favourite writers, esp for YA readers). Nick's voice is utterly convincing and the portrayal of how, through genes and survival instinct, he turns into more of a hard man than he would really want to be is compelling and retains the reader's sympathy, even when his actions shouldn't. The violence, when it comes, is as inevitable as a Revenge Tragedy and, while brutal, portrayed in a way that makes it bearable, even for someone as weedy as me. The sense of tension that builds up to the climax of the story is palpable and makes for compulsive reading - a read "just one more chapter" book.
The characters are well drawn. Mum and Dad offer moments of comedy and pathos, balancing the hard edge of the teenagers' lives but present as full and rounded characters too. Ellie is memorable indeed, and Shuggie and Orla are fantastic characters in their own rights.
There's more to say but it would spoil the plot!
A word on the cover: The cover does indicate there is violence involved, but it made out to me that there was more ickiness than I could take, and I wouldn't have attempted the book if indoorrower hadn't pre-read it for me. Perhaps today's YAs are more able to reconcile scary covers with thoughtful and mature content.
Thanks again to Gillian for arranging and Ian at Bloomsbury for sending these two copies for BookCrossing.
This had been on my wishlist for four years - so I grabbed it to read before releasing it!
An interesting read - at times it strayed into the academic language of the PhD which it did start out life as, but mainly pretty accessible. A study of "wild children", it took an example of a feral child from history per chapter and looked at the child, the people around the child and what lessons we can draw. A clear-eyed but clearly fascinated author and probably an important addition to the literature on the subject.
Now available on BookCrossing.
In that week's Red Cross bags were two Streatfeilds I thought I hadn't read. This one is a short novel about an impoverished family with a promising ballerina the youngest daughter. As usuall important lessons about fairness and family are learnt along with a crackingly good storyline. And oddly, one of the illustrations took me right back to a craft project I did as a child, probably inspired by the illustration!
I pounced on this book as soon as I saw the green Virago spine. It was an interesting read, covering a few days of a vicar's interactions with his cousin, also a vicar, and family, as he prepares to leave after looking after the parish for a couple of months. Some things seem to have happened, which are a bit unclear, and in fact the whole book is wreathed in unclearness, half-disclosed "truths" and misapprehensions. Although a lot of the writing is focussed on the mental and emotional states of the protagonists, it felt a bit flimsy to me and fairly, in the end, plot-driven. I won't be re-reading it, so I'm offering it up to my fellow Virago-reading Librarythingers.
Griff's autobiography up to his first job after University. An interesting document of a fairly usual life (although he just drifts into the comedy work, oddly), quite sentimental and a little over-direct in places (with a curious emphasis on the word "smelly"), enlivened by his modern trips back to some of the places he lived and spent time.
There are a few irritating mistakes - the Hurricane in the SE was in 1987 not 1988 and I saw the Twelfth Night he directed in the 1990s not the 1980s, but these were minor and didn't affec the story.
Registered on BC and available.
I have decided that I would read the phone book if Marr re-wrote it. I was not hugely interested in the history of journalism, although I am interested in social history, politics etc - but this is another MARR-vellously readable, well-written, interesting and enjoyable work. I could hardly put it down. He looks at journalists and newspapers throughout British history then focusses in on various aspects - editors, polical writers, columnists, foreign correspondents etc, bringing bits of his own experience in as he goes, with a witty self-effacement that enhances rather than just goes into autobiographical wanderings.
Excellent stuff and a candidate for my top 10 non-fiction for the year. Unfortunately this book has a very loose binding with pages already falling out, so I'm going to have to retire it from circulation - but I'll be looking out for a copy to keep and some to share.
BAD FAITH Strident Publishing October 2008
CROSSING THE LINE Bloomsbury April 2009
DARKE ACADEMY: SECRET LIVES (Gabriella Poole) Hodder August 2009
www.gillianphilip.com
LB: Why did you start writing? Have you always wanted to be a writer?
GP: As long as I can remember! From when I was very young I'd sit in my room for hours, writing stories in which I figured together with a lot of horses, the Man from UNCLE and Captain Scarlet. I had my first imaginary friend early on (he was a Russian spy). Then as I got older, I got more self-conscious about writing, and more hung up about plotting, so more and more I told my stories in my head. It took me ages to realise that I was still writing - I just needed to sit on my backside and put the words on paper (or a laptop screen).
I also found that just as I did in my head, I could start a story and see where it took me; I didn't have to worry about the dreaded Plot. Since then it has never stopped being fun. It's sometimes impossibly frustrating and difficult, but it's always fun!
LB: Who is your favourite author?
GP: That's such a tough question. I have read almost everything by Ruth Rendell and PD James, and I can always rely on them for a great read. But for epic stories combined with incredible characters, I'd say Mary Renault. Her Alexander trilogy hit me between the eyes. I loved it and even though he was often an unsympathetic character, I loved him.
LB: If you could take a character from literature and write them into a book of yours, who would it be?
GP: I'm tempted to say Mary Renault's Alexander the Great. But I have a certain antihero of my own, who is as yet unpublished. He's a violent, stroppy, truculent faery and I'm head over heels in love with him. It would be fabulous fun to get him together with Bernard Cornwell's Uhtred Ragnarsson (from his Alfred series), with whom I am also pretty much in love. Sparks would fly, but once they stopped scrapping they'd be great mates.
LB: Bad Faith is a Young Adults book. Did you choose this age group to write for or did the book just come out like that? Is it a marketing decision by your publisher? Do you think it's only for "Young Adults"?
GP: Writing for Young Adults was a conscious choice. I was always going into the children's section in bookshops to find books for my own kids, and I was drawn to the YA shelves. There was such an incredible quality of writing, such a breadth of genres, and the stories were inventive and pacy. And though the styles were often quite literary, the emphasis was always on storytelling. I knew that was the kind of book I wanted to write. That doesn't mean they're only for Young Adults, though! I don't believe in 'writing down' to teenagers (or indeed any child) and I don't compromise language or themes or character development to make them more 'age-appropriate' (whatever that means). I write books I'd like to read myself, whether as a teenager or an adult, and I hope anyone over the age of 12 will read my novels. There's a statement I saw on a YA publisher's site - Young Adult is a point of view, not a reading level. I like that.
LB: How do you write? In pencil, first thing in the morning at a special desk, in a coffee shop...?
GP: At home I write straight onto my laptop. I try to do it first thing after the school run... but a little emailing and Facebooking usually gets in the way. I have my own little study which is a terrific place to hide away when I really need to concentrate - but often I'm in the kitchen instead (it's warmer), either sitting at the kitchen table or standing at the worktop. I seem to do a lot of work standing up...
When I'm out and about I keep notebooks for jotting down ideas in longhand. They are the one thing I'm terribly precious about. They're cheap and very basic A5 pads, narrow-ruled, that slot into a plastic folder. I can only find the right ones abroad, so I buy stacks at a time. And the pen has to be a very fine black fibre-tip. I can't get my thoughts straight with a biro. I know how sad that sounds.
LB: What do you think of book blogging and bloggers. Are they all just ignorant folk who only write good reviews, as the "official" reviewers seem to think? Is there a value in what they do, for authors?
GP: I don't know what we'd do without book bloggers: as far as I'm concerned they are jewels. It's very, very hard to get reviewed in a national newspaper. Besides, the review pages are always the first to be cut in a revamp (I was so disappointed when the Saturday Times recently got rid of its wonderful Books supplement). Book bloggers are always passionate about their subject, and they certainly don't write only positive
reviews - they can be very incisive.
LB: Tell us about your next book. What's in the pipeline after that?
GP: In April Bloomsbury publish 'Crossing the Line'. It's about a guy called Nick who has done some terrible things, but is trying to turn his life around. That's not easy because a boy died, and the girl he is in love and lust with is the dead boy's sister. Meanwhile Nick's having to keep half an eye on his own deranged sister and her imaginary friend, especially when a dangerous figure reappears from Nick's past.
Crossing the Line was the first book I wrote from an exclusively male viewpoint, and I absolutely loved doing it. Bad things happen, and in places it was difficult to write, but Nick was always vivid in my head and had his own very clear opinions, and he drove the story along all by himself.
What's next...? Just now I'm juggling two stories in my head, but one set of characters has scrambled up on top of the others and jumped the queue. I'd started to write one book when this crowd of upstarts came along, told me I was writing the wrong story, and demanded I write theirs. Who am I to argue? - so this lot will be next. I find it hard to describe the story – it exists in a rough and fragile state in my brain - but the working title is Winter Jinx.
Thanks, Liz, for great interview questions!
LB: And thank you for your excellent answers! We’re all looking forward to meeting you at the Unconvention!
