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Me… on The Readers podcast!

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Thanks for the comments on yesterday’s pic of my haul – do keep ’em coming!

I was going to save this for a mention in another post, but I couldn’t wait. It’s no secret that I have long wanted to appear on an episode of The Readers (and actually had that privilege in its very early days, where I talked about my favourite books). I’ve not been subtle about it.

Well, this time I got to be a guest for the whole episode! I stayed a night with Thomas while in DC, and we recorded an episode in his beautiful library (with Simon replacing Simon for an ep, confusingly).

I was pretty nervous and stunned to start with, but relaxed after a bit and had a really great time discussing bookish things with Thomas – specifically (1) our ideal bookish holidays, and (2) how many chances you give an author before giving up on them. And all sorts of tangents.

If you don’t already subscribe to The Readers through iTunes or similar, you should – it’s always fab – but you can download the episode by searching there, or you can listen online here.

Thomas and Simon do it every fortnight, so do check it out. I had such a blast doing it, and it goes without saying that I’d always be thrilled to be invited back, if I haven’t disgraced myself. And it has rather given me a taste for podcasting… something I will mull over.

Anyway – go and have a listen, or download it and listen while walking/driving/etc. and let me know what you think!

The books I bought in the US of A

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I’m back! Thank you for your lovely comments on my previous post – and for those of you who emailed/Facebooked/tweeted because of Blogger being so hopeless with comments. Any sort of communication is always a delight :)

I had such a wonderful time in Washington DC (and bits of Virginia and Maryland too). I’ll be writing more about the trip soon, including meeting up with a whole heap of bloggers, but I’ll start with what you really want to know: the books I bought.

Well, dear readers, I bought a heck of a lot. 34, I think. And, since I’d brought 7 books with me, that meant carrying more than 40 to the airport – and a substantial percentage were crammed in my hand luggage. It was quite the feat. And… here they are, with a little bit about why I bought them. As always, do comment (or email/tweet etc.!) if you have read any, want to know more about any, etc. etc.

The World in Falseface – George Jean Nathan
I was partly drawn to the prettiness and neat size of this book, but (less shallowly), it’s about the theatre, and I always love that.

The Small Room – May Sarton
Big-time May Sarton fan Thomas (from My Porch) wasn’t even with me when I picked this up – but it seemed like it could be a fun one.

Last Leaves – Stephen Leacock
A Leacock I didn’t own, to join the piles of Leacock books I’ve yet to read… In fact, I don’t think I’ve read any for about ten years, so must get onto that.

Nabokov’s Butterfly – Rick Gekoski
A book about books – specifically book dealing with 20th-century classics. Called Tolkien’s Gown in the UK, I think.

The Pilgrim Hawk – Glenway Wescott
Someone recommended this… Anyway, an NYRB Classic and an intro by Michael Cunningham sold me on it.

Alien Hearts – Guy de Maupassant
And another beautiful NYRB by an author I’ve been intending to read.

Portrait of an English Nobleman – E.F. Benson
Janet – E.F. Benson
Two in a series EFB wrote about different periods in London, with beautiful dustjackets.

The Shelf – Phyllis Rose
Non-fiction, about an experiment where Phyllis Rose decided to read everything on the LEQ-LES shelf of the New York library. I read this one while in DC, and it’s BRILLIANT. More soon.

Soap Behind the Ears 
Nuts in May
The Ape in Me 
Dithers and Jitters 
Family Circle – Cornelia Otis Skinner
I really loved Popcorn by Cornelia Otis Skinner (and I’m going to write about it soon) but she’s quite tricky to track down in the UK. So I had a parcel of Skinner books delivered to my friend’s address, to take away with me…

Barrel Fever – David Sedaris
Naked – David Sedaris
Sedaris is another one who is readily available in the US, and a little less so here.

Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House – Eric Hodgins
This one went on my Amazon wishlist ages ago, and I can’t remember why. But this edition is a beauty, and the two things combined made it irresistible.

Classics for Pleasure – Michael Dirda
Book about books = sold.

Why I Read – Wendy Lesser
…and another.

Benefits Forgot – G.E. Stern
A really beautiful copy of one of Stern’s memoirs – which are piling up on my shelves now.

Bookends – Leona Rostenberg and Madeleine Stern
I enjoyed their book about friendship and book dealing, and, well – this one seems to be about the same thing.

The Ironing Board – Christopher Morley
Morley is everywhere in the US, and I nabbed this fun-looking collection.

By Nightfall – Michael Cunningham
On the plane, I read the Cunningham novel I bought last time I was in the US (A Home at the End of the World) so I thought I should replace it with another!

Mr Whittle and the Morning Star – Robert Nathan
The Enchanted Voyage – Robert Nathan
And last time I bought, read, and really enjoyed Robert Nathan’s Portrait of Jennie – so, this trip, I took the opportunity to buy a couple more.

Absence of Mind – Marilynne Robinson
I’ve never really tried any of Robinson’s non-fiction works (and am rather daunted by them). This one is on theology and science, and maybe one day I’ll be brave enough to give it a go.

Family Man – Calvin Trillin
Remembering Denny – Calvin Trillin
Trillin is another author to be found everywhere in the US, and these two caught my attention – particularly the intriguing Remembering Denny, about a high school star who came to nothing.

Literary Feuds – Anthony Arthur
I can’t lie, I love a literary feud…

Letters from the Editor – Harold Ross
I also love a collection of letters, and this one from the man who set up the New Yorker promises to be the best of the literary 1920s.

The Year of Reading Proust – Phyllis Rose
Another book by Rose that I bought and read while in America. It’s even made me think about give old Marcel a try…

The Faithful Servants – Margery Sharp
Despite intending to only buy books that were hard to find in the UK, I couldn’t leave this lovely Sharp behind.

Two-Part Invention – Madeleine L’Engle
This is another one that was on my Amazon wishlist for ages and I don’t remember how it got there – but now it’s all mine!

More on the bookshops, people, and activities soon – but, for now, let me know your thoughts on my purchases!

8 years of blogging!

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Yep, dear blog readers, today is 8 years since I started blogging at Stuck-in-a-Book. Every year it comes around more quickly, and I seem to be running through the numbers at a rate of knots.

Thanks so much to all the lovely people who read this, particularly those who have been reading for many years. I really do appreciate your comments, emails, links, and friendship – and, of course, your blogs (for those of you who blog).

As you read this, I am off on a ‘plane to America, visiting my friend in Washington DC. While there I am planning on meeting up with FIVE bloggers, three of whom I haven’t met before. I’m not back til the 20 April, so you may hear their reports before you hear mine – and I am intending on returning to Blighty with bagfuls of books, of course.

See you in a couple of weeks!

NYRB Classics: recommendations?

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Loving Alfred and Guinevere and Skylark makes me think… are there little-known NYRB Classics that you would especially recommend?

I find that their list is extremely varied, and there are lots that I probably wouldn’t bother picking up – but I am besotted with many of their authors, including Tove Jansson, Elizabeth von Arnim, Elizabeth Taylor, Ivy Compton-Burnett, and Rose Macaulay. And then things like those two novels aforementioned that I knew nothing about before being seduced by those NYRB covers. OH, and the extraordinary The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton.

(I have stolen Thomas’s image of NYRBs again, because I love it so much. Sorry, Thomas. And thanks.)

So please, dear NYRB fans, let us know your recommendations in the comments, please!

Alfred and Guinevere by James Schuyler

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There is something rather wonderful about choosing and reading a book while knowing very little about it. I knew nothing at all about James Schuyler or his 1958 novel Alfred and Guinevere when I picked it up in Hay on Wye last year – all I knew was that I loved NYRB Classics (and this one, from 2001, shows just how timeless their designs are – looking beautifully fresh 14 years later. Even though I can’t find out what the painting is). Not being a poetry buff, I didn’t realise that that was the arena in which Schuyler made his name – but I do now know that he had a knack with words that was rather extraordinary.

The eponymous Alfred and Guinevere are children who are sent to stay with their grandparents. Most of this slim novel is given in their dialogue, excerpts from Guinevere’s diary, and letters that she writes. The novella probably says their ages, but I must have flown past that section. Guinevere is the elder; Alfred is pretty unschooled in reading and writing.

Undoubtedly the greatest achievement in this novel is Schuyler’s ability to capture the cadences of children’s conversation, particularly the back-and-forth of sibling arguments, which leap from battle to truce to battle, weaving in long-standing disagreements, I-know-something-you-don’t-know novelties, and (most beautifully captured of all) snatches stolen from the conversation of adults around them, and novels the children probably shouldn’t be reading. This is a trick Schuyler uses throughout: they borrow idioms and metaphors that sound extremely out of kilter with their childish bickering, because – of course – that is exactly what children do do. Perhaps particularly those who feel adrift from the adults around them, and uncertain of the events that have occurred (more on that soon). Here’s an example from a letter Betty writes to Guinevere, her erstwhile friend:

Dear Guinevere,Thanks for the note. It is a shame boys make so much trouble and go around tattle-taling and spoiling intimate friendships. Of course your knocking me down like that made a permanent wound in my feelings which is slow to heal but it is not you at bottom I blame it is them. It was not me or Lois who told her mother or my mother what my mother told your mother she said you said. It was Stanley who told his mother and she told the other mothers. So you see how it goes.It is a shame what happens but I guess you have to take it as it comes and not spoil your life with vain regrets.More in sadness than in hate,Elizabeth Carolanne House
And there is this…

“You’re scared to walk across the bridge and look. I can tell you’re scared when you try to look like Mother.””I’ll run away and leave you in the gathering gloom at the mercy of reckless drivers and we’ll see who’s scared.””I’ll throw myself in the gutter and get sick and die, then you’ll be sorry.””No I won’t. I’ll go to your funeral and say, ‘Doesn’t he look sweet in his coffin,’ and cry, then everybody will feel sorry for me and give me things. I’ll wear a black dress with black accessories and a hat with a black veil. Black is very becoming and makes you look older. Then I’ll take your insurance money and go on a trip and meet a dark, interesting stranger.”
Lest you think that this is a cutesy book, I should say that – behind the well-observed dialogue – there is an indistinct darkness. I suppose Guinevere’s macabre callousness might already dismiss ideas of Brady Bunch levels of cuteness, but there is a much darker subtext. The children briefly discuss having found a dead body. At one very poignant moment, Guinevere blurts out “I’m sorry Daddy hit you”, but it is not explored further than that. Schuyler gives just enough shade to make clear that all is not sunny.

But, at the same time, this is a very funny book. It is the sort of humour that stems almost entirely from acute observation – and that, if coupled with a slight (slight) heightened tone, is probably the thing I find most amusing. In only 126 pages, Schuyler combines humour and darkness in a really exceptional way.

Alfred and Guinevere is deceptively quick and simple. But, oh, there is an awful lot going on – not least an authorial restraint and style that I heartily applaud. If I had to pick any other novel that it reminded me of, I would pick another NYRB beauty – Skylark by Dezső Kosztolányi.

Have you read this? Do you know anything about James Schuyler? I now want to find out much more!

Shiny New Books – one year old today!

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I can’t quite believe it, but Shiny New Books is a whole year old. Issue 5 is published today – which is, exactly to the day, one year since Issue 1.

It’s live! Go and explore; you’ll find a lot to love, and I’ll throw out some highlights over the next few days. (EDIT: actually it might be a while before I manage to post those links, for reasons that will be disclosed…)

As always, many thanks to my wonderful co-editors Annabel, Victoria, and Harriet – and our latest addition, Jodie.

We’re really proud of it, and I hope you enjoy it. The colours have come full circle and we’re back to purple and gold!

Happy Easter!

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He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

I hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend – and a Bank Holiday weekend if you happen to be in one of the countries that does that. The Shiny New Books editors are finishing off preparation for Issue 5 (coming out in a couple of days) – marking a whole year since our first issue appeared, believe or not.

And I put aside 11 novellas to read this weekend. I have so far read only one and a half…

Very exciting Milne in the post

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I wrote a while ago about my love of A.A. Milne, and how he had been the perfect author to set me off on a love of book hunting – being very prolific, with books ranging from in print to impossible-to-find. It’s rather wonderful (if sometimes frustrating) that, more than 12 years after I first started avidly collecting Milne books, there are still some that I’ve never seen copies of online.

One of his later plays, Other People’s Lives, was in the category until recently. It’s not even in the Bodleian Library. I’ve had ‘want’ alerts at abebooks.co.uk for more than 10 years, and it’s never appeared there… until a couple of weeks ago!  And here it is…

It looks very ordinary there, but you can’t imagine (or perhaps you can) how thrilled I am to have it in my possession now. And it was still cheaper than your average new hardback (somebody obviously wasn’t aware of its scarcity… or perhaps they thought nobody would care.)

Like a few other of Milne’s plays, it was never published for readers. The only versions ever made were acting editions published by Samuel French, intended to be used by theatre companies, amateur dramatics societies, etc. This one obviously found its way to Waltham Forest Libraries at some point, but (having not been taken out since 1965, according to the stamps on the sheet inside) was put out for sale.

And is now in the hands of the person who will perhaps appreciate it the most!

Apricots at Midnight by Adèle Geras

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My housemate Melissa (not to be confused with a different housemate Melissa, who has also written the odd book review for SIAB) wanted to borrow a book, and ended up with one I was given but have yet to read – Apricots at Midnight (1977) by Adèle Geras. As always, I encourage my friends to write reviews for SIAB. This is seldom taken up, but thankfully Melissa said yes, and wrote this fab review! Do (as always) make my guests feel welcome in the comments section… and enjoy the review:

Small pleasures. I picked this book off Simon’s shelf at his
first words of description, without waiting for the rest: ‘That one is a
children’s book.’ I love books written for children; the unpredictable-but-safe
plotlines, the freshness of the detail, the firing of the imagination; and this
one did not disappoint.

Actually, this is the sort of book that as a child I didn’t
really appreciate. It’s one of those books which describes someone’s childhood
memories, and why, I would wonder, should I read about another person’s
everyday life when my own was so interesting and there were plenty of books
about daredevil escapades, fantastic worlds, or true-to-life explorations? It’s
only through growing up (a little bit) that I’ve come to appreciate the beauty
of the everyday and of simple, happy memories.
This book is built around a quilt; a quilt sewn together,
patch by patch, by the narrator’s elderly relative Aunt Pinny, from fabrics
picked up throughout her life. Each patch is tied to a story, the cue to a
memory of long ago. The apricots of the title relate to the first ball Pinny
attended, a little girl sneaking down to join her working mother for a midnight
snack.
A child’s perspective is so different: everything is
fascinating, but nothing is truly surprising. For Pinny, the line between
make-believe and reality is not particularly important; there’s no
disappointment when the adventurer Major Variana admits his limp was gained by
dropping a crate of oranges on his foot rather than being bitten by a
crocodile, and no questioning of his reassurance ‘That was the only made-up
story, I promise you’. In her old age, Pinny retains this childlike ability to
take her experiences at face value, so that the tone of the book hinges
slightly on the fantastic.
The individual salient events, people and places slowly
build a picture of the beauty of Pinny’s daily life. The emergent character in
the backdrop is her mother: thrown from prosperity at the death of her husband,
and fighting to build a life for herself and her daughter on the strength of
her dressmaking skills. She is the constant in Pinny’s life, tying the book
together, providing stability and a structure. It is she who first suggests the
quilt and teaches a tiny Pinny to hold a needle and make her first stitches.
Like a fairy godmother, she can always produce something from whatever nothing
is to hand: a garden for a convalescent Pinny from scraps of flowered fabric;
an extra sixpence when Pinny’s allowance isn’t quite enough for the music box
she wants to buy; an overnight job at Mrs Triptree’s ball so that Pinny can see
the ladies in their beautiful costumes.
There is a chance for Pinny to be involved in everything she
does – sitting in on meetings with unusual and exotic guests, contributing a
not-so-successful stuffed zebra to the soft toy stall at the church fair,
cutting out the jam tarts for a picnic. Her tears and remorse on the day she is
delayed picking Pinny up from school, and gratitude to the teachers who took
the child home for tea and entertained her, is a moment of revelation for
Pinny:

It occurred to me then that I had not once, even in the
worst depths of my misery, thought what it must have been like for her, knowing
she would not be at the school gates, knowing that she was making me more and
more unhappy every minute she was not there.

Her selfless love and care for Pinny comes out at every
turn. On one occasion, she covers for her daughter, losing a rich client in the
process, when the little girl recovers a roll of cloth that she believes
belongs to the future king and queen of Borneo but was actually the client’s
curtains. I fell in love with her at the point when she stretches a tiny budget
to provide Pinny with bulbs for her garden:

I do not remember that we had trouble finding the money. I
was too excited at the prospect of my own garden. But now I can see that my
mother must have gone without something she needed or wanted, in order to save
what was necessary.

Her generosity is not reserved for her daughter alone: when
Pinny asks a visiting gentleman at a loose end to stay, she hesitantly but not
unwillingly opens her home to him until he is able to find his feet again.
To my delight, one of the stories turns out to take place in
Oxford. This is Pinny’s first taste of what she calls ‘the country’. ‘”It’s not
the proper country, Pinny,” my mother warned me. “Oxford is a large town, and
quite near.”’ Unperturbed, Pinny’s imagination runs wild: ‘Milkmaids in mob
caps and farmers in knee-breeches, small houses with roses growing round the
doors, stiles, carthorses, shepherds coming down from the hills at sunset,
wooden bridges curving over brooks.’
The reality is quite different, of course, but turns out to
be no less exciting. Not least, St Giles’ Fair, ‘the most splendid, exciting,
glorious fair in the whole world’, as Pinny’s Oxfordian friends, Miles and
Kate, delightedly inform her. The description is priceless, a snapshot of the
fair a century before I experienced it. Some things are quite different – the
long-banned prizes of live goldfish, the penny charge for each game, the steam
powering the organs. The exhilaration of the fair, however,
is unchanged over generations, and the bright colours of the rides which draw
the children’s attention, the reckless spending on hopeless attempts at
skewering a prize, the loud music and bustle of the crowd, sound tantalisingly
familiar.

Ten patches, ten stories; yet a quilt is so much bigger than
that. I’m left wondering what else is in there; the stories that Pinny would
not tell till her listener was older, the ones she perhaps would never tell at
all? 

Virginia Woolf’s Garden

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For one of my Christmas presents, my brother made a very impressive sacrifice – by buying me a book about an author he is, ahem, not fond of. Sadly, he does not love our Virginia, but that is not a unique perspective. (More on Colin’s reading, or lack thereof, another time perhaps… if I can bring myself to admit that my twin brother hasn’t finished reading a book in over six months…) (Sorry Colin!)
Anyway, this was one of my favourite Christmas presents, and will probably appear on my end of year favourite books – mostly because of how sumptuous it was to read. And by ‘read’, I mean ‘look at photos’.

 

Which isn’t to say that there is no writing – not by a long chalk. Caroline Zoob, who was tenant of Monk’s House for quite a few years and whose efforts largely helped restore the garden, writes winningly of the process and the Woolfs’ lives. But the beautiful photography by Caroline Arber was certainly my favourite thing about the book. It really is beautiful, and made me (with my complete ignorance of all things gardening) want to take up horticulture. I pretty swiftly shifted to wanting to take up visiting more gardens that other people have put effort into, but never mind.
Using Virginia and Leonard’s diaries and letters, alongside other resources, Caroline recreates what the experience of creating this garden was like for both of them, and traces its development alongside their lives – past Virginia’s death in 1941 and all the way to Leonard’s in 1969. There aren’t all that many contemporary photographs of V and L in the garden,but what resources there are have been wonderfully mined. And it becomes very clear that the garden was Leonard’s passion particularly – with his experimentation with rare bulbs, unusual arrangements, and complex garden design. Virginia’s primary delight was her writing shed, and she jokes about envying the garden for the attention it receives from Leonard.
If one knew nothing about the pair, there is enough biographical detail in Zoob’s writing to make the book completely accessible, but without overdoing it for those of us already very familiar with the Woolfs’ lives (which, after all, is probably a high percentage of those who would want to read a book called Virginia Woolf’s Garden). The area I would have loved more detail is what happened to the house after Leonard died; how it came to the National Trust, and how various residents experienced living there. There are only two or three pages which discuss Zoob’s life there – and, considering this is an almost unique perspective, I would have loved more…

When we arrived at Monk’s House we knew very little about Virginia. To begin with, I found the intensity of some of the visitors disconcerting. On a day when the house was closed, I came home to find a woman weeping at the gate, overcome by the thought that Virginia’s hand had touched that very gate as she left the house on her way to the river. I did not have the heart to tell her that Virginia had left the garden through a different gate at the top of the garden, long since disused. Instead I made soothing noises and offered to make her a cup of tea.

Perhaps Zoob modestly thought people wouldn’t be interested – but, oh, I would certainly have been!
Something I wasn’t quite so interested in was the element of garden design in the book. I certainly recognise that many people would love these sections, but it was like double Dutch to me – or, indeed, like Latin. At least they came with pretty pictures. And I was very impressed by the tapestry garden design, also (I think) by the photographer Caroline Arber, that appeared throughout – for example:

 

Of the making of books about Virginia Woolf there is no end – and I, for one, am delighted about it. This one has to go near the top of Woolfenilia, and I heartily recommend it as a coffee table book (if such things still exist) and as a fascinating, detailed account to read thoroughly too.