How many days to Christmas?

I know that I’m not the first person to mention Christmas. The local garden centre is already unpacking Christmas decorations which seems a little premature but it probably isn’t too soon to start gathering ideas for books to buy for family and friends.

Grubson Pug’s Christmas Voyage by Jane Anne Hodgson, published by Whistling Cat looks like it may well be an ideal Christmas present that could become a family favourite to be re-read every year as the Christmas anticipation builds.

Whistling Cat Books is a new publisher, based in Oxfordshire, that “believes in nourishing children’s imaginations through amusing, engaging, original stories which are traditionally illustrated (hand-drawn rather than computer generated) and produced with care and attention to detail.”

Should I tell Timoleon Vieta to go away?

The cover of this book and the intriguing title,  ‘Timoleon Vieta Come Home A Sentimental Journey”,  caused me to pick it up and bring it home with me in the first place. The shape and taste of the words and the feel of the paper enticed me to choose it as my “on the train to work” reading. And so I began ……

On Monday I was lucky as my usual morning travelling companion was absent and so I had a good 15 minutes to make a respectable start. So far so good.

I really like this book. I love the deceptive simplicity of the way it is written. The words don’t get in the way of the experience. But… can you feel the “but” worming its way to the surface? Here’s the part where I confess to being more than a lapsed reader. I am also a certified prude. I don’t enjoy explicit sex in books, which is one of the reasons that  what is  often disparagingly referred to as “middlebrow fiction” has been such a safe area for me in the past and was instrumental in introducing me to some of my favourite bloggers in the days before they actually had blogs.

In theory I could skip over the explicit parts of the book. That’s difficult to do. Like watching a scary film, you hav eto keep peeping through your fingers to see if it is all over so that you can get on with the main part of the story. And I do want to carry on, if only to find out why the dog is called ‘Timeoleon Vieta”.

Is there anyone out there who wants to share their thoughts with me on whether or not they would continue to read a book that contained large passages of descripion they they found distasteful?

The Artist’s Widow by Shena Mackay

I’m still not sure what to make of this book. Apart from the main protagonist, the artist’s widow I just didn’t really believe in any of the characters. The book was published in 1998 and set in the preceding year. there can be no doubt about that as the final few pages fit the events of the story around the death of Princess Diana on 31 August 1997. It just didn’t come across as a rounded portrayal of that decade.

As far as I’m aware, I haven’t read anything by Shena Mackay but her name is very familiar and I don’t know why. I wanted to abandon this back but I couldn’t. Now I’m trying to work out exactly why I couldn’t put it down. The story wasn’t compelling. Nothing really happened. A woman’s artist husband has died and she is still alive and misses him. Apart from a few glimpses of their life together this is not the story of a marriage, rather the tenuous connecting thread of the widow allows us to be introduced to a range of stereotypical characters. So perhaps that was the point? But if that was the point it didn’t sit well with the more rounded portrayal of Lyris Crane, herself an artist but now seemingly existing only to others as ‘the artist’s widow’.

Though the book was not a page-turner I had to read to the end and I will certainly pick up other Shena Mackay titles if I stumble across them. And as an aside I wonder if anyone, anywhere has compiled a list of books that refer to iconic moments in popular history such as the death of prominent people or momentous events?

The Scent of Spies

“The third week of June, and there it is again: the same almost embarrassingly familiar breath of sweetness that comes every year about this time. I catch it on the warm evening air as I walk past the well-ordered gardens in my quiet street, and for a moment I’m a child again and everything’s before me – all the frightening, half-understood promise of life.”

“Spies” by Michael Frayn is one of those books that lurk on the TBRBOH (to be read by other half ) pile. TOH spends a large part of his day travelling on public transport and so consumes vast amounts of the written word during hiis progress. Our reading tastes hardly ever overlap, the works of Brian Moore being one notable exception.

The one-word title “Spies” coupled with “Germans” and “infiltrated on the back-cover blurb led me to believe that this book’s rightful place was on the “his” rather than the “her” TBR pile. How wrong could I be. The blogosphere has been rumbling with mention of this book recently with one much-respected blogger threatening to read this in the next few days. So realising that I was probably missing out on a good thing I picked up my forked stick and went book-divining around the book stashes. Having a dim memory that the cover was green I set out on the trail of this book determined to discover its secret.

The writing is deceptively simple. Once we have moved from the adult world of the narrator to his child self we could be forgiven for assuming that we were now in an Emil and The Detectives or a Nancy Drew mystery. For half the book we remain in this world until almost imperceptively the emphasis shifts and our eyes are opened. With the advantage of age our suspicions are well ahead of our child protagonist but this does not shield us from the anguish that we will feel as intently as he as our initial suppositions are overturned.

To say anymore would be to run the risk of publishing too many spoilers, so just take my words of advice. As well as avoiding the pitfall of judging a book by its cover be sure not to judge a book by its title.

Stealing a kid from “Stuck”

There are some bloggers that just seem to be writing for me. Top of my list is Simon at Stuck-in-a-Book. He will insist on writing things that make me scream “me too” or, worse than that, I end up stealing borrowing snippets and putting them on my own blog. So here we go again. S-i-a-B’s posting today is about the other five books that Bloomsbury are going to reprint (the first is “Miss Hargreaves” by Frank Baker.

S-i-a-B had not heard of “A Kid for Two Farthings” by WoldMankowitz so finally I know something that he doesn’t. Phew! I’m more than twice his age so it’s about time that age won out over beauty. AKFTF is one of those books that I picked up a million years ago in a bin/box outside a shop (probably charity shop but who rememebers). Usually those bins contain nothing but dross or what looks like dross and to be honest my copy of AKFTF (as above) certainly looked like pulp fiction. it gave the appearance of being nicotine-stained even if it wasn’t. I was about 14, actually thinking about it, probably more like 12 when I picked this book up and it widened my knowledge of the world considerably, but in a very innocent way. I remember being appalled at the way pets were sold on the market because, although I was born at the tail end of the 1950s, I think I must have lead a sheltered life and been protected from some of the upsetting things in life. I also rememebr being fascinated by dealing in antiques in this story. If I remember correctly then there is a touch of the Lovejoys in one strand of the stories that weave together. So if you are up for a bit of magic, in an era before everyone wore jeans everywhere then stand in line and wait for the Bloomsbury reprint of “A Kid for Two Farthings”.

Is the grass greener on someone else’s TBR pile?

Whether you have 3 books waiting to be read or a giant range of TBR (to be read) mountains in your home it is always difficult to decide what to choose next. Now i am going to make it even worse for you.

Go to  flickr.com and search for “TBR pile” and you will find over 50 images of other people’s TBR piles.  Can you read the titles that other people will be reading soon?  Do their covers tempt you? Will you have to go out and get your own copy?. If those piles aren’t enough then go and do the same “TBR pile” search on google images. Oh my goodness! Can there be that many books in the world.

Puffins on Parade

I thought I’d share a glimpse of some of my old puffins with you. Here they are – enjoy!
The extremely well-loved one 4th from the right on the top shelve is “The Grove of Green Holly” by Barbara Willard. The most-battered on the lower shelf is “The Wardens Niece” by Gillian Avery.

I found a piece about Barbara Willard that you may like to read: “The Pleasure of Her Company – Remembering Barbara Willard” by Lance Salway.

The Enjoyable Reading of Brian Moore

What do you do when you go on holiday? Go to the library of course, especially if you are tempted in by a notice saying, “BOOKS FOR SALE”. Two hours later you scrape yourself off the floor of that municipal building and pay up for a stretched armful of books that you can’t possibly leave to be unloved.

And so it was that I acquired my first Brian Moore. It was a very slim volume, its purple, plastic-protected jacket faded to mauve: “Catholics”.

The book begins:

The fog lifted. The island was there. The visitor walked to the end of the disused pier and saw it across three miles of ocean, riding the sea like an overturned fishing-boat. morning sunlight moved along a keel of mountain, above valleys black as tarred boatsides. He thought of Rome. Surprisingly the Order itself had little descriptive information. In the Lungoterre Vaticano he had been handed an out-of-print book: Weir’s Guide to Religious Monuments.

Though I picked the book up in the library in Padstow, Cornwall, the beginning of this short novel reminded me of the first time I had travelled to Caldey Island, off Tenby, South Wales to stay at the guesthouse of the Cistercian (Trappist) Caldey Abbey.

So if you have never read any Brian Moore, or indeed visited a monastery, then Catholics would seem a good place to begin.

Now I know that I have promised not to buy any books but after I have shepherded my Brian Moore’s together, I will make a list of those I need to look out for, and I will carry it with me, because if you see a book that you know you need then you have to buy it. don’t you.

Meanwhile, in preparation for my Moore hunt, I will share my list of books with you. Brian Moore also wrote as Michael Bryan and Bernard Mara but I’m not sure if I will start on those just yet.

BRIAN MOORE 1921-1999 “his books often have a religious motif, without religious intent” “‘every tale should tell itself’. Story is everything… the writers we remember were dedicated story-tellers.”
Wreath for a Redhead ( in US “Sailor’s Leave”)	1951	writing as Michael Bryan
The Executioners	1951	writing as Michael Bryan
French for Murder	1954	writing as Bernard Mara
A Bullet for My Lady	1955	writing as Bernard Mara
Judith Hearne	1955	read & seen film
This Gun for Gloria	1956	writing as Bernard Mara
Intent to Kill	1956	writing as Michael Bryan
The Feast of Lupercal	1957
Murder in Majorca	1957	writing as as Michael Bryan
The Luck of Ginger Coffey	1960
An Answer from Limbo	1962
Canada	1965
The Emperor of Ice Cream	1965
I Am Mary Dunne	1968
Fergus	1970
The Revolution Script	1971
Catholics	1972		read
The Great Victorian Collection	1975		read
The Doctor’s Wife	1976	have ? but not read yet
Two Stories	1978
The Mangan Inheritance	1979
The Temptation of Eileen Hughes	1981
Cold Heaven	1983
Black Robe	1985		read
The Color of Blood	1987		read
Lies of Silence	1990		read
No Other Life	1993		read
The Statement	1995		think I’ve read
The Magician’s Wife	1997		have but not read

First Book of 2009

Last year finished well. I received the slim and beautiful PITMEN PAINTERS play by Lee Hall thanks to the bounty of DoveGreyReader and delivery skills of Rocky, the ReinCat with his DoveSleigh. If you have no idea what i’m talking about then pop over to the wonderful blog that is DoveGreyReader and, sooner or later, all will be revealed.

I still have TWO CARAVANS secreted in my bag and will be continuing to tow the book along behind me, to and from work until I finish it or one one of my ancient axles rusts away.

Yesterday, New Years Day, I bent down towards the bottom of the shelves just inside what is euphemistically called “the dining room” and ANGELS FLYING SLOWLY  by Jill Roe, caught my eye. It must be the influence of the Christmas season with its surfeit of angels and no doubt if these heavenly beings indulged as much as humans then they would indeed fly slowly.

I wasn’t sure quite what to make of this book as I read the first chapter. It was extremely easy to read and could sit comfortably alongside Noel Streatfeild’s “A Vicarage Family”. Was this a children’s book? It chronicled the lives of two sisters whose lives are changed when their father leaves the family home and their mother remarries. The Vicarage family do not come from a broken home, the girls are not sent away to a convent and most of the time are not unhappy but the way in which we learn about the daily routine of the children in each book has striking similarities.  Jill Roe’s book is set in the late 1940s and the early 1950s whereas Noel Streatfeild’s account leads us up to the start of the First World War in 1914 but to all intents and purposes there is not much difference in the way the children are expected to behave. One set of children have a father who is a vicar and have the torment, as Victoria, a thinly disguised fictionalisation of Noel, sees it of learning her collect every Sunday. Isobel in “Angels..” has to learn pages of her catechism.

There is an innocence in “Angels ..” that could leave this book firmly with a children’s book As we progress to what cannot be called a climax  there are sexual overtones, perhaps better referred to as undertones, Even though they have been there all along, we together with most of the girls in the convent, have not picked up on them.

The last few pages provide what I can only call an appendage, rather than a twist. I was not convinced and I do wonder if these few words were added at the behest of an editor, publisher or author’s advisor of some sort.

I’m interested in hearing from anyone who has read this or any other of Jill Roe’s novels.

Angels Flying Slowly (1995) A New Leaf (1995) The Topiary Garden (1996) A Well Kept Secret (1998) Eating Grapes Downwards (1999)

Honey, I Read a Book

Even a lapsed reader has to read sometimes, so over the last few days I have been reading two books. The first, snatched in the few minutes of train travel from home to work and back home again, is “Heroes & Villains” by Angela Carter. The book is slim, an attribute I appreciate. I don’t share the publishers outlook that a book has to be a doorstep to be worthy of publishing. It’s not that I can’t read a lengthy tome, I proved my stamina with “Pinkerton’s Sister” by Peter Rushforth, when all around were falling by the wayside, rather, I choose not to if something wonderful can be contained in just a few well-crafted pages.

I picked up “Heroes & Villains” because it is by the blessed Angela Carter, a writer who died too soon, so of course all her books shoul be read and treasured. I find that I am continuing to read “Heroes & Villains”  because I should, rather than because I can’t put it down or because I find reading it such a joy. I’d never heard of the book until I stumbled across it on the shelves of a charity shop and I wonder what other readers think of this work of hers? Was it one of her best books, or one that should be allowed to lurk in obscurity. It is slim and so I shall persevere. Now that I have two “free” days a week maybe I should stretch my mind a little, do some guided reading or even enrol in an adult education class. There are many references to art, literature, philosophy and disciplines I have probably never heard of. Perhaps I am just too dim to see what the book is about.

The other book that I am reading is still only in working manuscript form. It is my baby sister’s first novel. I have seen it in many pieces, rearranged and reordered. Currently the game is to find a title that gives an indication of the content. The working title, the one we all know and love, tells the prospective reader nothing and so we have been brainstorming to find one that magically makes this oeuvre the book that must be published.

Somehow I don’t think “Honey I Shagged a Crow” will turn this new work into  the fastest selling best-seller since “The Da Vinci Code”.

Blame the alphabet

Back in April, Simon of Stuck in a Book listed his A-Z Favourites, one favourite author for each letter of the alphabet. Of course some letters had too many authors to choose between and Xylophone was not allowed as the name of a author. SiaB’s post came to mind during one of my lunchtime forays to the Oxfam bookshop. I decided that I would like to join the members of Cornflower’s Book Group who are about to read “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak. The Oxfam bookshop helpfully arranges their contemporary fiction alphabetically by author so I was concentrating my search on the final shelf. Alas not a Zusak in sight but I came away with five books tow of which were by authors beginning with “Y”. I haven’t read them yet as they are reserved for my holiday reading horde but I must at the very least commit the authors names to memory in case my life ever depends on finding an author for each letter of the alphabet. I suppose you all want to share my secret “Y” entires, do you?

Mo YAN – The Garlic Ballads
(apparently he has been referred to as the Chinese answer to Franz Kafka or Joseph Heller

Banana YOSHIMOTO – Kitchen
In an interview, the author states “I have in mind sensitive, somewhat adolescent people who are stuck between reality and fantasy. Young, rebellious people like to read my books, but I guess what I really like is to encourage adults who still have playful, adolescent minds”. This statement suggests that BY may have something in common with one of my favourite authors, Amelie Nothomb. After I have read “Kitchen” I will let you know if my supposition is correct.

I know, I did buy five books, didn’t I? The others are:

Dierdre MADDEN – The Birds of the Innocent Wood
Sarah STOVELL – Mothernight
Dan FESPERMAN – Lie in the Dark

I have instructed My Dearly Beloved many times to buy his books from the Oxfam shop. Until yesterday he has disobeyed me but he finally has to agree that some of my instructions are worth heeding. The lights in the OS are not harsh and intrusive, you don’t have to jostle your way past 2 for the price of 3 and promotional display hazards, the money goes to a good cause and the money you save can go towards ……. buying more books.