I’m currently wading through Anthony Doerr’s All The Light We Cannot See for my book group – 400 pages out of 520 odd – and sick to death of it. It’s not necessarily that I think it’s bad (though others almost instinctively have); it’s more that I can’t really see the point of it. And it’s so long. Almost no novels need to be that long.
But it is emblazoned with a ‘Winner of the Pulitzer Price for Fiction 2015’ sticker – well, a sticker built into the cover. Which made me realise that I’ve never paid all that much attention to the Pulitzer. I know some awards are more likely to put me off a book (Man Booker) and some have traditionally been successes for me (James Tait Black) – so, what of the Pulitzer?
It has been awarded since 1917 (though, brilliantly, they decided not to award it to anything in its inaugural year) and you can read all the recipients here. Let’s see which I’ve read, and what I thought of them, because why not.
1921: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Found this one a bit of a disappointment. Much like the Doerr – just not bothered. More here.
1932: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
Really loved this one – indeed, it made it onto my 50 Books list.
1981: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Loved this one too – also for my book group. Unexpectedly adored it.
1999: The Hours by Michael Cunningham
One of my favourites too – a really spectacular novel that I have re-read and loved (and that doesn’t happen all that often).
2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Surely everybody knows by now how much I love and rate this novel. Robinson is extraordinary.
And that’s it. What I had not appreciated, until I read the Wikipedia page, is that it’s only awarded to American writers who depict American life. Which, given my relatively poor reading of American literary history, is probably why I’ve come up with so few titles.
But, of those, I loved almost all of them. And the ones I hadn’t read were nearly all familiar – they’ve certainly picked books and authors with longevity (which may or may not be self-fulfilling). By contrast, look up the Orange Prize and good luck if you know any of them.
How do you rate the Pulitzer Prize? Will it put you off and make you read? And – most importantly – will I ever, ever finish the final hundred pages of Doerr’s book before book group tomorrow?
It’s been a couple of years since I went to Hay on Wye, and on Saturday I went back. No matter how many times I go, I can never quite get over the joy of so many bookshops in one place – though there are fewer each time I visit, which is slightly sad. Still, I came away with quite a few gems, including some quirky titles I wouldn’t have heard about except through browsing.
And Even Now by Max Beerbohm Yet Again by Max Beerbohm Every time I do a book haul, I seem to have bought more books by Beerbohm. To date, I have only read two. But… well, those two were great.
Zuleika in Cambridge by S.C. Roberts
I read about this riposte in the introduction to Zuleika Dobson (tying in to the Beerbohm titles above), and it was fun to stumble across it in Addyman Books.
Our Heritage of Liberty by Stephen Leacock
READ MORE LEACOCK SIMON. I have so many unread. But I’ve never heard of this. And I’m intrigued to hear about what Canada’s heritage of liberty is.
Julian Grenfell by Nicholas Mosley
I thought I already owned this Persephone book, but LibraryThing tells me I don’t. I haven’t yet checked my Persephone shelf to make sure…
Essays in Satire by Ronald Knox
After a quick flick through, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of satire in this collection – but it looks like an entertaining read, and a really pretty book too.
The Scheme for Full Employment by Magnus Mills
I haven’t read a Mills book for ages, and I keep stocking up on them – are you sensing a theme in this haul post? (Sidenote: it’s relatively seldom that I buy a novel by an author I know nothing at all about.)
No Signposts in the Sea by Vita Sackville-West
This was the first VSW novel I read, back in around 2002, and didn’t much like it. But since then I’ve come to really love her, so… maybe now I’d like it? If not, a pretty Virago with a nice cover (painting by Kees van Dongen) ain’t a bad thing.
Corduroy by Adrian Bell
Yes, OK, I did already have a copy of this – but this is a Slightly Foxed Edition. Yum.
Memoirs of Emma Courtney by Mary Hays
I read a few of these Pandora titles back in the day (18th-century novels by women), and have long intended to read more. Mary Brunton was a great discovery back then.
The Pit Prop Syndicate by Freeman Wills Crofts
This green Penguin is beyond tatty, but I’m up for reading more FWC after finding him through the British Library reprints.
Guy and Pauline by Compton Mackenzie
After reading Poor Relations while I was in Edinburgh, I wanted to read some more by Mackenzie. Only £1 for this one, though I know nothing at all about it.
Tomorrow Will Be Better by Betty Smith
I haven’t read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn yet, despite meaning to for years, but this one leapt off the shelf into my hands.
The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington
This has been on my wishlist for many years, though I can’t actually remember why. Somebody presumably reviewed or recommended it? Anybody?
Simple People by Archibald Marshall
Seems to be witty essays about people’s professions, maybe? I love a witty essay. And the name rings a bell for some reason.
Friendship and Happiness by Arnold Bennett
A little volume about Christmas, I think, and how its meaning has changed. Bennett seems to have put pen to paper with every thought that crossed his mind, publishing them as little hardbacks, and I am not mad at it.
Fiction as She is Wrote by ‘Evoe’
Evoe is, I believe, E.V. Knox – and this collection of spoofs looks at different types of popular fiction in the 1920s. I just love this sort of thing. And I love the reference to archetypal English as She is Spoke.
Intimate Things by Karel Capek
I need to read more of the Capek books I’ve been piling up, and this collection of essays is probably where I’ll start. I think it’s quite similar, in conception, to Delight by J.B. Priestley.
The Novel and Our Time by Alex Comfort
This little book looks at different trends in fiction of its time – the time being 1948 – though a post-buy flick through suggests it might be more connected with Russian literature than I recollected.
Lives for Sale ed. by Mark Bostridge
A collection of biographers writing about their biographical experiences, which sounds fantastic. Names include Lyndall Gordon, Claire Harman, Hermione Lee, Frances Spaling, Hilary Spurling, Claire Tomalin, Jenny Uglow – basically everybody you could hope for. And will (fingers crossed) answer all the questions that come to mind when I read a biography.
Bestseller by Claud Cockburn
I read bits of this in the Bodleian during my DPhil – looking at the bestselling books of the first half of the 20th century – so it’s nice to get an affordable copy for my shelves.
First Editions of To-day and How to Tell Them by H.S. Boutell
I’m not that interested in finding first editions (or first impressions, as the note assures me is meant) – this 1920-something book is just an intriguing curiosity. Every publishing house of the day is listed, with descriptions of how you can be sure you’re getting a first impression – so it’s mostly interesting for an overview of the publishing industry at my favourite time for books.
Tea with Walter de la Mare by Russell Brain
I love personal, anecdotey memoirs of famous authors.
Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban
The Unpossessed by Tess Slesinger
Chaos and Night by Henry de Montherlant A whole bunch of NYRB Classics – which I can almost never resist.
Somehow it took me months and months to read To The River (2011) by Olivia Laing, having it on the go alongside lots of other books I was reading – and yet it is likely to be on my best books of the year. I think I was enjoying it so much, and realising what an unusually perfect book for me it was, that I didn’t want to read any of it unless I was in exactly the right mood.
I discovered that To The River existed when reading reviews of The Shelf, I think (just in case you’ve missed how much I loved Phyllis Rose’s book, have yourself a merry little read of this) – I quickly ordered a copy, but waited until it felt like the right time to read it. Why was I so excited about it? Well, I have two words: Virginia. Woolf.
To The River plays on the title To The Lighthouse, and it’s inspired by Virginia Woolf – at least partly. The loose structure of the memoir (for such I suppose it is) is that Laing is walking the length of the Ouse – the river in which Woolf drowned herself in 1941, but also (unsurprisingly) one which has a long and varied history before that. Laing mixes the personal and the investigative as she walks along this route – an area she knows fairly well already, but with plenty left to explore and unearth… and all while Woolf comes in and out of the narrative, always a reference point, if not quite the subject of the book.
I am haunted by waters. It may be that I’m too dry in myself, too English, or it may be simply that I’m susceptible to beauty, but I do not feel truly at ease on this earth unless there’s a river nearby. “When it hurts,” wrote the Polish poet Czeslaw Miłosz, “we return to the banks of certain rivers,” and I take comfort in his words, for there’s a river I’ve returned to over and again, in sickness and in health, in grief, in desolation and in joy.
I’ve kinda already spoiled which river that is (mea culpa) – and it was a form of grief that took Laing there this time: the break-up of a relationship, which she mentions throughout the book (though not in an Eat, Pray, Love sort of way – more as a series of memories threaded throughout). (FYI, I haven’t read Eat, Pray, Love and have no idea what it’s really like.)
Like Laing, I am very fond of rivers. I grew up in a village called Eckington, in Worcestershire, which is in a bend of the River Avon. That meant that it flooded every year, and two of the three roads that led out of the village would generally be impassable, but it also gave me a lifelong love of rivers – you could walk all the way around the village by river, or you could stroll down to one of the two locks. You could even follow the river for miles in either direction, if you so chose. And in Oxford I have usually lived relatively close to a river – it’s five minutes’ walk from my house now – and it’s where I instinctively go when I’m sad. This week, in fact, I was pretty miserable for a couple of days – and, in the first burst of it, I went and stood by the river, staring into it. Not in a Virginia-Woolf-throw-myself-in, I should add, but because I find rivers calming and beautiful, and somehow reassuringly constant.
Anyway, Laing walks along the river – or as near as she can get to it; a lot of the riverbank is privately owned – and it’s greatly enjoyable just to read about the places she stays, the people she bumps into, and her reflections on her surroundings. I love reading all this sort of thing:
I walked back through fields of sleeping cows as the dusk fell down about me. I was staying that night in an old farmhouse near Isfield church, in a room at the end of a long corridor separated from the rest of the house by a velvet curtain. It smelled smoky and sweet, as if apple wood or cherry had been burning for generations. I’d been lent a torch when I went out, and now, tiptoeing back in, I was given a flask of hot milk and a homemade truffle to take up to bed. It was nice to be coddled. I wrapped the duvet round me and ate my feast while flicking through a book I’d found hidden beneath a stack of Country Life.
But To The River is much more than a travel diary: along the way, Laing discusses all manner of things that happened near her route, or which she is reminded of. And I mean ‘all manner of things’. There is a brief history of the discovery of dinosaurs and the rivalries it entailed; the life of Simon de Montfort; Piltdown man; folklore about dancing nymphs – it’s really all there. And, weaving in and out of all of them: Virginia Woolf. The places she visited, the inspiration she gathered for her novels, and the way she would have experienced the area. To be truthful, I would have loved a bit more about Woolf and about Laing’s history of reading her books – but I can’t fault the exemplary way that Laing brings together all the disparate histories she discusses with the trip she is taking. It’s quite extraordinary. It somehow doesn’t feel disjointed at all – as each thought comes to the surface, naturally, she gives a brief and engaging summary of the topic. It’s conversational and (here comes the river metaphor) flowing.
It was a pleasure to spend time in To The River. Such an unusual premise for a book makes me applaud the good people of Canongate for being willing to publish it – and wonder what other books of this ilk might be out there. Thank you, Olivia Laing, for taking this trip – for being both a brilliant researcher and a vulnerable self-analyser, and for bringing the two elements together so beautifully.
I heard about But What if We’re Wrong? on a popular culture podcast I love called The Cooler – because they had an interview with Chuck Klosterman. I loved the idea of it, and it’s just the sort of quirky non-fiction title I pick up every now and then. So, what are you waiting for? Why not read my thoughts about it over at Shiny New Books? Spoilers: it includes some controversial opinions about the American Constitution.
How many non-fiction books do you come across which combine literature, music, television, sports, science, and aliens? Not that many, I’m going to wager – but, then, I could be wrong – as Klosterman’s book is continually reasserting. There are many kinds of wrongness, of course, but the focus of this book is clear in the subtitle: ‘thinking about the present as if it were the past’. How will the early 21st century be remembered in decades and centuries to come?
I’ve read quite a few war memoirs, but I’ve not read one quite like Sword of Bone before – this is the first of my reviews at Shiny New Books’ latest edition that I’ll be pointing you towards. Here’s the opening of my review; you can read the rest here.
They’ve done it again! Slightly Foxed have brought out yet another fascinating, entertaining, and well-written memoir – and another one that I would never have heard of without their curated collection in Slightly Foxed Editions. This time, it’s the memoir of a billeting officer during the Second World War – with the added interest that it was originally published in 1942 when, of course, the war was far from over.
Sorry that I missed episode 8 – the 1947 Club and a cold put paid to it – which was a shame because Tudor Week was unusual and amusing. Though also saw the loss of Benjamina, my fave; it’s probably just as well I didn’t recap through the tears. We’re back on more traditional ground for episode 9 with Patisserie Week – and when I say ‘traditional’ I of course, as ever, mean ‘offensive French accents and unlikely French puns’. But not before Mel and Sue have given the intro by reading every other word each. I once got moved in an English lesson for suggesting the same thing when we read out a poem in a group. See, Miss Webb, I was just ahead of my time.
As usual, with the semi-final, we get all the bakers telling us in various ways that it’s the semi-final. Take your pick, bakers, of whether you prefer ‘the last week before the final’, ‘the last time that somebody will be out’, and ‘the last time that somebody will be Star Baker’. The last of those (Candice’s bon mot du jour) is perhaps the biggest stretch, and only half true. Or SEMI true, if you will.
Mel and Sue embrace what I assume is meant to be an homage to French New Wave Cinema, but ends up looking like two Ray Charles impersonators have been co-opted into a Ronan Keating video.
I’m sure they had their reasons.
The bakers wish each other luck as the Signature Challenge starts (bless them), and for the FIRST TIME in Bake Off HISTORY (look, perhaps, I haven’t checked) we don’t get a face-on shot of the judges and presenters at this stage. I can’t do Blazer Watch in the usual format! IS NOTHING SACRED? Instead, here are those blazers from behind – which does enable us to see that Sue’s says ‘Happy’ on the back, which is either adorable or a bizarre Seven-Dwarfs-themed version of 20 Questions.
The Sig Chall (no?) is to make savoury palmiers. I’ve only had palmiers in the sweet variety, bought from Marks and Spencer bakery counter, and I could contentedly eat nothing but those for hours on end. With them in mind, I found it difficult to embrace a savoury version from the off, I’ll be honest.
With so few bakers left, we fill the time with Candice just saying ‘semi-final’ (with no attempt to elaborate in any way), and Andrew loitering suspiciously by the microwave, clearly about to swipe a lemon.
Paul kicks off a trend by talking about ‘layers’ (one syllable) which are apparently essential for a palmier. Without those dear, dear layers, it will apparently ‘just be pastry’. To clarify: the recipe is literally a pastry. It’s a puff pastry. I don’t know what Paul is trying to mean.
There is some debate about whether strong flour or plain flour or both should be used to make the pastry. Again, I am sure that this debate has been concocted entirely to get Andrew to say ‘flour’ as often as possible; it is wonderful in a Northern Irish accent. Candice is using both, and everybody gathered around the bench implores Paul to tell us whether or not this is correct – Mary quite literally clutches his elbow – but he will not be moved to speak.
Apropos of nothing, Sue at this point shouts “Old perma-tan!”
Candice is making red onion, cambozola, and walnut palmiers (yummmm), and mushroom, bacon, and parmesan palmiers (at which point I realise there will be a lot of meat in today’s offerings). Colouring Pencils Man opts to depict them in a singularly unappetising shade of grey/beige (greige is, you may be surprised to learn, a real word).
Apparently that swirly shape is ‘elephant ear shaped’, and it’s also what Jane is doing for some of hers – the others being in a ‘puffy flower shape’ which looks a little (though, admittedly, not a lot) like a capital E with an extra line.
“The key to puff pastry is chilling” says Selasi, almost as though he were deliberately serving up a ‘chilling’ pun. If ever somebody was chilling out max and relaxing all cool, it is this gentleman. He certainly seems to be having more success in the accuracy stakes than Andrew – who, rather surprisingly given his narrative of engineering addiction, has a bit of a messy pastry.
Paul sidles over to judge, and waves his eyebrows around when he learns that Andrew is only using plain flour. Or maybe only strong flour. I forget. I was rather knocked around the head with how many times Mary B says ‘dry’ in the next few moments – not, as one might immediately presuppose, ordering her sherry of choice, but observing that Andrew is putting dried dry bread crumbs into an already dry pastry.
Again, because there aren’t many bakers left, the time must be filled with the actions and reflections of just four of ’em. We are treated to lingering shots of Andrew putting something in the fridge, and Candice chopping mushrooms (did anybody else have flashbacks to mushroom forager Rob of a few series ago?). And then there’s the excellent bit where Selasi finishes Mary’s sentence (with, admittedly, the fairly guessable word ‘palmiers’) and she reacts with delight. She’s always been fab on camera, of course, but in this series she really seems to be enjoying herself in every moment.
Nat. Tresjz.
Selasi is definitely getting ideas above his station – and takes it upon himself to announce to all the bakers that there are two hours left. Sue gleefully lambasts him for taking his role (“It was all I had – I was like the talking clock with puns!”). Mel joins in, and they threaten to take over the baking. It’s all so wonderful and nobody on Channel so-called 4 will be able to live up to it. (Ditto Mel applying to lipstick to Candice in the next bit.)
Having less fun is Andrew, who has decided to start his pastry again from scratch. DRAMA.
Selasi says that you shouldn’t have too much filling (his somewhat lacklustre ambition is to make it so ‘the judges taste something’), while Candice wants it packed to the rafters. Andrew, meanwhile, says he would have done a lot of things differently, which sounds like the opening line to a musical number from Sunset Boulevard.
Pastry is rolled, palmiers are chopped, and bakers make the not-particularly-revealing confessions that they’d quite like to win. And just as I’m starting to wonder whether or not Jane has an obsession with comedy moustaches…
…her palmiers go flying!
I hadn’t meant this screenshot to be so redolent of The Graduate.
Selasi’s are scattered a moment or two later too (the spirit of Val remains in the tent), but by then it’s old news. He is also pacing with nerves – which Sue observes with the caring glee of somebody who realises that the cool kids get sad sometimes too.
And – they’re done! Most of the bakers have served their palmiers in baskets (and Jane has even thoughtfully served an entire basil plant alongside); Candice has hung hers in an ornamental birdcage. Because of course she has.
Does it fill you with birdrage? No?
Jane does well, but Candice’s has too much filling. “Is it palmier or is it a pastry?” poses Paul, meaninglessly. Selasi’s are underbaked – even raw – but the flavour is apparently good, while Andrew’s (served in a mini chest of drawers, as you do) and gets praise reviews from Mezza and Pezza. The bakers give their feedback in the bright sunshine, while Candice mournfully crams her palmiers – IF that is indeed what they are – into her mulberry-shaded mouth. Which sounds like a brilliant idea whatever the judges’ opinions, tbh.
Keep Palmier and Carry On
Paul advises, for the Technical Challenge, that they should make something that’s nice (Sue sends him off to Banalities ‘R’ Us) – and the challenge is a savarin – which is, I believe, French for ‘how are you, Rin?’. All the bakers seem to have dimly heard of it, but their descriptions are pretty vague, and some are clearly just read directly off of the recipe they’ve been given. Selasi “doesn’t think” he’s made one before – would that not be something one would recall? – while Andrew gives me an opportunity to highlight something I’ve been intending to highlight all series. Why does he always lean over the desk as though he’s eight feet tall? You’re not that tall, Andrew.
You’re living a lie.
Paul’s sample savarin (which he immodestly labels perfect) does look pretty good – though that sugar work is rather strange. Apparently it’s the sort of cake (bread? breakcake?) that requires a label.
It feels a bit like a National Trust flowerbed.
Early signs are that the amount of liquor spread throughout will be this week’s Arbitrary Decision-Maker. But for now, the bakers are having protracted monologues on what sort of hook to use in their electric mixers. Use your hands, people, or a wooden spoon. (I got mocked for this the other day – but I don’t have an electric mixer, and I always use elbow grease except for situations requiring handheld whisks, like meringues.)
While the doughs are rising, the bakers draw ovals and make chocolate labels – Sue mops down Selasi’s forehead – and they have to make caramels. Apparently caramel is Jane’s nemesis, as hers keeps crystallising. I never have trouble making caramel, which leads me to assume that I’ve probably been doing it with much lower standards than I should have been.
Of all my made-up tent romances (whatever happened to those #lingeringlooks between Candice and Selasi?), I hadn’t picked Jane and Andrew for a pair – but Mel alleges that Jane is all Andrew can talk about. To the best of my knowledge, all he talks about are dough hooks.
“If I were four years younger…”
It’s always fun to watch bakers try to pipe writing – but, sadly, they are pretty good at it. They also get to practise quite a bit, and it starts to look a little like The Shining.
The savarins are coming out of the ovens, all looking pretty impressive to me but in quite a range of colours – and the bakers start dousing their creations in liquory syrup – or, potentially, syrupy liquor. “It will come as a surprise to nobody that I’m doing another caramel,” says Jane, perhaps overestimating how much we recall about her caramel mishaps. She worries that her savarin might be shardless – much like an incomplete London skyline.
Aaaaand – time is up! Not before Andrew has managed to make plonking fruit on a cake sound like a complex engineering task. The displays look pretty impressive to me – albeit with some melting cream, but apparently Paul is (gasp!) willing to overlook that.
He’s weakening.
None of them have the syrup dispersed throughout quite as much as Paul and Mary would want, so they have to turn their attention to (of all things) the membrane of oranges. Sure, why not. On such things do kingdoms rise and fall – and the Technical Challenge concludes with Selasi limping into last place, followed by Candice and Andrew, with Jane taking the crown. She screams in delight in a meadow.
The final challenge is, but naturally, the Showstopper Challenge. They have to make… 36 fondant fancies! Which is rather recycling the fondant fancy technical challenge of a few series ago, but NEVER MIND. I don’t remember if these are British-only treats, but if so – rest assured, non-Brits, that nobody would dream of making these themselves. Thinking about it, nobody would really consider buying them unless they were entertaining their grandchildren or planning a picnic at the last minute in an almost-sold-out M&S local.
Andrew eschews the opportunity to use garish colours (see below), and opts for ‘Philharmonic Fondants’; Mel perjures herself by saying that they’ll be topped with sheet music and bow ties. If Colouring Pencils Man’s sketch is anything to go by, that is the least informative sheet music I have ever seen.
We haven’t had a Mary Berry Reaction Face for a while, have we? Well, Candice isn’t planning on thickening her cherry filling – instead, she’ll be putting individual cherries in the middle of her fancies. What does Mez Bez think of that?
Oh.
Paul has more or less given up pretending to be helpful, and dispenses advice including ‘do it well’ and ‘finish on time’. Handy, thanks Hollywood. Over at Selasi’s counter, Paul recycles the top tip to do well, and prods the bright pink sponge Selasi has made.
He decides to make the sponge again – because Mary makes a comment about sifting flour to avoid air pockets. I always sift flour, guys. Even if there’s no flour in the recipe, I just sift some on the side for good measure.
Mel makes references to Ultravox next to Candice, who is at least five years too young to understand them.
The fondant fancies are coated in butter icing, to help the fondant stick and remain neat. With 36 fiddly fancies to coat, this must be numbingly time-consuming. Enough so that Andrew completely and unblinkingly ignores Mel’s entire skit about his stance. Seriously, she asks him questions that he totally blanks.
One cannot entirely blame him, of course.
And those garish colours? Jane – who wins more of my love by determining that there’s ‘always time for a cup of tea’ (truth) – demonstrates the level of restrained tastefulness that one can expect from a fondant fancy.
It puts the ‘b’ in subtle.
The bakers coat icing all over the place while the GBBO orchestra merrily plonks along in the background, choosing the ‘something amusing is happening’ timpani arrangement – before we segue into the ‘everybody is busy busy’ strings arrangement. You could probably understand the whole show just by listening to the score.
And – with some scurrying – it’s all over! Candice’s are, naturally, displayed on a small pink piano. Where did she find it? Did she already own it? Did she borrow it from an orchestra or classically-trained church mice?
“It’s a very nice display,” says Mary, doubtfully.
She does rather well, and her cherries haven’t bled, so there’s that.
Selasi’s look rather classy for fondant fancies – well, they do in this level of lighting, and not so much from the side – but they don’t get great feedback from the judges. Paul says the sponge is good (“if I’m honest” – sounding rather like a guard in a ‘one of us can only lie, one of can never lie’ logic puzzle) but the overall fancy is too sweet, while Mary isn’t ‘madly keen’ on the flavours. What would her delirious response be if she were, one wonders?
The side of Jane’s fancies are a bit shambolic, but from an aerial view that decoration is very impressivo.
Word to the wise: putting ‘lemon’ in the name of the cake means it probs won’t be a surprise.
Andrew has arranged his fancies in some orchestra stands, which he also apparently had to hand. They do look nice, and get positive feedback from the judges – who are rather phoning it in at this point, as Paul more or less just says ‘good’ a few times.
After a quick debrief, during which the person leaving the tent seems completely evident, the Star Baker accolade is awarded to a very surprised Andrew.
And we say a sad farewell to…
I’ll miss him, cos he was fun, but I need the winner to be a crier. I think any of the others would cry. I need RAW EMOTION ON TELEVISION PEOPLE.
I hope you’ve enjoyed patisserie week. Only a couple of days before the final, everyone! I’m cheering on Jane now, but they’re all fab so it’ll be a nice outcome any which way. See you next time!
I’m off to spend the weekend with Sherpa – ahem, with my family – and to recover from the excitement of Emmerdale’s death week. Seriously, I have struck up conversations with strangers about Emmerdale this week; it’s been amazing. If you watch it, please fill my heart with delight by letting me know and talking about HOW GOOD this week’s storytelling was.
But let’s get back to books for the usual (is it still ‘usual’ when I forget to do it so often?) book, blog post, and link…
1.)The book – Susan’s review of Bookshops by Jorge Carrion, which Annabel pointed out to me in the comments to my previous post, has made me very much want to get hold of it. And I suspect you will feel the same.
2.)The link – an exhibition of Tove Jansson’s paintings is coming to Dulwich (yay!) next October (boo!). Read more about it here.
3.)The blog post – it’s all about writing the introductions to Furrowed Middlebrow books, courtesy of Woman and Her Sphere.
I am so proud of everybody for the response to my most recent post. You’ve really shown the positives that can come of people coming together on the Internet. It brings a tear to the eye! I’m excited about my Furrowed Middlebrow books arriving, and will certainly report back on what I think of the books.
But for today – let’s look at some books about reading. This has certainly my go-to comfort-genre of choice over the past year or so. I picked up quite a few in my trips to America, and I am endlessly entertained, informed, and charmed by them – thankfully there are plenty more to read on my shelves. As I often turn to them when I want episodic distraction, I don’t always get around to making proper reviews of them – so I’ve grouped three together for mini-reviews. Sound ok?
Why I Read (2014) by Wendy Lesser
The subtitle to this one is ‘the serious pleasure of books’, and Lesser is certainly not taking the role of the average reader. She wears her education heavily (if that is the opposite of ‘lightly’ in this instance), and it becomes rather farcical how often she mentions Henry James, BUT it’s still an enjoyable and extremely thought-provoking look at the different elements of reading. She divides her chapters in ‘Character and Plot’, ‘The Space Between’, ‘Novelty’, ‘Authority’, ‘Grandeur and Intimacy’, and ‘Elsewhere’ – make of those what you will – and her thoughts and arguments cover great swathes of territory and many writers and nationalities.
I would certainly need to re-read to familiarise myself afresh with her lines of argument, and this is closer to a scholarly book than most of the books-about-reading I enjoy, but is still certainly accessible to the non-scholar. Indeed, it would be infuriating in a scholarly context, because there are no footnotes or referencing
Why does she read? The whole book is, of course, building that answer – but I also liked (if did not agree with) the summing-up of sots of ‘I read […] for meaning, for sound, for voice – but also for something I might call attentiveness to reality, or respect for the world outside oneself’. I’d certainly recommend Why I Read – and it is also beautifully designed and printed – but somebody should have a word in her ear about how often one can get away with throwing in Henry James. I shall always wryly smile in recollection of ‘Very little in the world can compare with the experience of reading, or even rereading, The Golden Bowl, but we cannot always be reading The Golden Bowl‘. Well quite.
The Art of the Novel (2015) edited by Nicholas Royle
I asked for this collection of essays for my birthday last year – thanks Rhiannon! – because my friend (can I say that on the strength of meeting once?) Jenn Ashworth has an essay in it. You may recall I raved about Fell earlier in the year; in this collection she writes on ‘Life Writing / Writing Life’. Everybody in the collection discusses different angles on how to write, from genre (Leone Ross on magical realism; Livi Michael on historical fiction) to broader concerns like place, details, plot twists, etc. Besides Ashworth, I’d only heard of a handful of the authors (Alison Moore, Stella Duffy, and – believe it or not – two Nicholas Royles, whom I’d got confused on a previous occasion) but I am hardly the benchmark for knowing about modern literature. Only one contributor, one of the Nicholas Royles in fact, takes a weird tangent – into the concept of the death of the author – which has little to do with practical advice.
This was one of the books I read in Edinburgh, and it was entertaining – I was reading it more out of interest than seeking advice – but I did particularly like how each essayist ended their section with a list of books they admired or recommended. It was interesting how often Muriel Spark’s excellent book The Driver’s Seat came up.
The Whole Five Feet (2009) by Christopher R. Beha
The most personal of the three books featured today, and the most unusual in concept (is there a word for ‘gimmicky’ that isn’t negative?) – and by far the longest subtitle. *Clears throat* ‘What the great books taught me about life, death, and pretty much everything else’.
The great plants in question are the Harvard Classics – Beha decides that he will try to read all of the Harvard Classics in a year. They supposedly take up five feet on a shelf, hence the title. For those not au fait with the series (as I was not), it was created in 1909 to be the best literature, fiction and non-fiction, made available to the everyman, in 51 chunky volumes. It is quite an unusual collection of works; the blurb describes it as ‘from Plato to Dante, Shakespeare to Thoreau’, but it also includes some more idiosyncratic choices – like Two Years Before the Mast, an account of sailing by Richard Henry Dana, Jnr.
What makes this book so engrossing is how well Beha combines the reading experience with personal accounts of his own life – losses and illness chiefly – that accompany the year, writing with a empathetic dexterity that makes the reader warm to him and care deeply. The actual responses to the books become less important as The Whole Five Feet continues, and it ultimately seems more of an endurance test than an engagement with literature. In some ways, this is more memoir than a book-about-reading, but it is none the worse for that.
Such a flurry of blog posts recently! It’s become rather uncharacteristic, but I felt I had to post this one soon. It’s something of a call to action.
We are very lucky, in the bookish corner of the internet, that we are mostly immune from trolls and cruelty and unkind comments. Particularly blogs which focus on middlebrow literature or books from the mid-20th century – we are collaborative, interested, bookish folk who enjoy reading together and discovering new titles, as the response to the 1947 Club beautifully illustrated.
It thus surprised and upset me to see an attack on a new venture. That venture is the brainchild of Scott at Furrowed Middlebrow, along with Dean Street Press – they have recently reprinted books by Rachel Ferguson, Winifred Peck, and Frances Faviell. Any reprints are exciting to me – particularly when it’s an author like Rachel Ferguson, whose work I really like but which is impossible to track down. Nobody is better qualified, either in expertise or enthusiasm, than Scott. It’s all rather wonderful.
BUT – somebody going under the name of ‘Lally’ (though name may change?) has taken against it. She has gone systematically through all the Furrowed Middlebrow titles leaving 1 star reviews on Amazon. The reviews are all one or two lines, were mostly added on the day of publication, and is very unlikely that she has read any of the books. It’s spiteful, unkind, and unnecessary.
The publishers probably don’t feel they can address this – it might look petty. But I have no gains in this fight – so I can.
I’m not suggesting we go on a witch-hunt to unveil Lally. (It’s also, by the way, pointless down-rating or commenting on her reviews, as she then edits the reviews to remove the comment/down-rating.) But let’s fight negativity with positivity. If you’ve read any of the books in question (you can see them at the links above, or most of them on Amazon here) then please do rate and review them – I’ve done that for the one I have read, A Harp in Lowndes Square. We may be ambivalent about Amazon, but these ratings do matter. If any of the titles appeal, do what I’ve done and order them (some more Rachel Fergusons on the way!) – either ebooks or paperbacks.
Let’s not let spite win. Let’s turn this on its head. Let’s celebrate publishers who rescue these older titles, and show that enthusiasm on the internet can outweigh unkindness.
Phew, I feel like I’ve given a rallying speech! It was always kind of inevitable that my political voice would emerge in support of the middlebrow, wasn’t it?
UPDATE: the response has been wonderful – I knew all you lovely people would want to help support this initiative! I’m also pleased to say that many of Lally’s 1 star reviews have crept up to 2 star and 3 star reviews.
