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My School Book Club

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At Stuck-in-a-Book I’m always happy to share exciting initiatives, and when Lucy emailed me about a new scheme for schools to run book clubs. I’ve copied and pasted the press release that she emailed – I’m all for anything which encourages children to read (more on that this week – some children’s books I’ve been meaning to write about for ages, and also the latest Harry Potter film to discuss, which has sent me off on a Harry Potter re-read).

‘The best new idea in school book clubs for years’ – Michael Morpurgo
My School Book Club is an innovative new literary initiative that benefits children, parents and schools.
The My School Book Club project represents the 21st century evolution of the familiar school book club concept. This new online service provides children with an engaging interactive literary community, offers parents direct access to a wide range of quality assured and competitively priced titles, whilst also delivering a significant new revenue stream for schools.
My School Book Club offers free registration and the development of a personalised school book club website. The site is free to run and is automatically updated each month with new titles. Significantly, the school earns 20% of the value of each purchase through its My School Book Club site in redeemable book vouchers.

For Parents… My School Book Club offers a hassle-free, online book club service. The books are competitively priced, with discounts of up to 50% off the most popular titles, and quality-assured, with each title individually selected by a panel of experienced literacy professionals and leading children’s authors. The books, which include perennially popular classics and the latest works from contemporary authors, are divided into categories covering Baby and Toddler to Age 9 and Upwards, with Pocket Money books for as little as 99p and Graphic Novels for less confident readers. The service allows parents to actively participate in the literary development of their child, whilst also providing the opportunity to enhance the literary environment of their school.
For Children… My School Book Club presents a child-friendly, interactive literary community aimed at engaging children with books and reading. Each site includes downloadable audio and video clips, informative and entertaining articles on all aspects of reading and literature, competitions, access to signed copies from popular authors and illustrators and a range of carefully vetted literary links.
‘A brilliant way of accessing 60 fantastic titles each month’ – Jacqueline Wilson
The Founder My School Book Club is the brainchild of David Teale, who founded the hugely successful Red House Children’s Book Club in 1979. He has four daughters and six grand-children and is available for interview and comment.
For further information please visit www.myschoolbookclub.com or contact Digby Halsbyat Flint Public Relations on digby.halsby@flint-pr.com or 0207 224 8191

Hours and Hours

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It is many moons ago that I promised to write about The Hours by Michael Cunningham, and the 2001 film adaptation. And now, finally, I’m doing it – I daresay you haven’t been nervously scratching away at the computer keyboard, wondering when it would be posted about, but it’s always good to keep one’s promises. (On a side note – my surname is Thomas, and my parents used the phrase ‘Thomases Don’t Cheat’ throughout our childhood, in a bizarrely successful attempt to instil partisan responsibility in us. It’s only lately that I’ve been thinking ‘Thomases Keep Their Promises’ would have been equally noble, with the added advantage of rhyme.)

Anyway. Onto The Hours. Like many people my age, I suspect, the film of The Hours was my first introduction to Virginia Woolf. Having really enjoyed watching it, but remaining rather confused, I went away to read Mrs. Dalloway and the novel The Hours – setting me off down a Ginny track which hasn’t stopped, and which has significantly influenced my research at university. Mrs. Dalloway remains one of the books I have read most often – I think four times, maybe more.

Does anybody not know the plot of The Hours? Perhaps. I’ll summarise the premise as quickly as I can… the novel follows three separate trajectories. In 1923 Virginia Woolf is writing Mrs. Dalloway; in 1949 Mrs. Brown is reading Mrs. D, and in 1998 Clarissa Vaughan’s life in many ways mirrors Mrs. Dalloway’s. Michael Cunningham had originally intended simply a modernising of Mrs. Dalloway, the thread with Clarissa Vaughan, but eventually decided to write a more nuanced, and much cleverer, novel. The strands are all complete in themselves, telling in miniature the struggles and triumphs of three different women, but the true greatness of this novel (and it is great) comes from the ways in which the strands reflect upon each other. Mrs. Brown is trying to cope with marriage to the war veteran, popular at school, who feels that he did her a favour by marrying her. The scenes where she tries to pull on the guise of motherhood for the sake of her son, while feeling utterly adrift, are powerful and excellent. Clarissa Vaughan, similarly, is trying to find her place in life – a lesbian regarded by others as abandoning a ’cause’, and another slightly bewildered mother, her qualms about the superficiality of her life are those shared with Mrs. Dalloway herself. And the difficulties of Virginia Woolf’s life are not secret – the novel opens with her drowning herself, in 1941.

As well as an involving and ingeniusly-crafted novel, I’d argue that The Hours is a fascinating piece of social history investigation, and a not inconsiderable contribution to an understanding of Virginia Woolf. No novel, least of all one with three competing heroines, could wholly encapsulate a novelist’s life – but Cunningham certainly develops a credible and well-researched angle from which Woolf can be viewed. (For another excellent portrayal of Woolf’s life, through fiction, see Susan Seller’s Vanessa and Virginia).


So that is the book, deserved winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1999. Onto the film. Did it do the book justice? Well, my quick answer to that is YES, since it’s my favourite film ever. I should add that I am not particularly well versed in film history, and my points of reference are probably not that sophisticated – but it’s still my favourite film, and you might well like it too, if you haven’t seen it.

Stephen Daldry’s direction is spot-on – what is best about the film, and impossible in the book, is the swift comparison of the three strands. This is best demonstrated in the opening sequences, the morning passages of the three women, viewable here (about halfway through). The scenes shift between Virginia, Laura and Clarissa going about their morning rituals, and is done very cleverly, as the actions of all three conflate.

The lead performances by Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and Meryl Streep are all quite brilliant, any of them would have been worthy of the Oscar (and, no, Nicole didn’t win because of the fake nose any more than she did for the fake hair. Why do people say that about her, and not about the make-up-frenzy – not to mention snooze cruise – that was Lord of the Rings? Cat now officially amongst pigeons). The Hours is one of those rare films where all the casting is incredible. Aside from the three leads, the film can also boast Ed Harris, Toni Collette, Claire Danes, John C. Reilly, Eileen Atkins, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Dillane, and Allison Janney. Quite an embarrassement of riches. The way it is shot, the script adaptation by David Hare, the beautiful soundtrack by Philip Glass – The Hours doesn’t put a foot wrong. The portrayal of Virginia Woolf may be simplified a bit (film doesn’t have the scope for characterisation that novels do) but, again, it shows an angle of her. Both book and film The Hours are exceptional, and should be classics of their respective media for decades to come.

The Latest

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I like to keep an eye on what people are reading, always good for suggestions and just to know what’s what – so today I’m simply throwing open the question: what was the last book you bought? Either in person, or which arrived through the letterbox.

And how did you hear about it? A trusty author, a new recommendation, or a complete impulse buy? None of the above?

I’m quite excited about my latest purchase, which arrived in the post this morning – Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey. I loved his novel Alva & Irva last year (and wrote about it briefly here) but for some reason hadn’t got around to buying this, his first book.


The cover pictured is the one I have, but there is also a more haunting edition which has lots of outstretched hands on top of one another. Ooo. This one is jumping to the top of my reading pile, so you should hear about it soon – otherwise more info, including a fairly comprehensive review, is at the book’s Amazon page.

More importantly – do let me know your most recent purchase, with as many details as you’d care to give! A later post will probably be devoted to your answers.

Prize Draw! (though not here…)

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You’ll probably have gathered that I’m rather a fan of Henrietta’s War by Joyce Dennys, and its sequel Henrietta Sees It Through which I read squirrelled away in the Bodleian. The good people of Bloomsbury are also rather passionate about it – well, they have published it after all – and if you go over to Elaine at Random Jottings you can be in with a chance to win a copy of Henrietta’s War. No, sorry, in with FIVE chances – there are five copies to be won if you click on this link.

Elaine does add some conditions – namely that you must read it, and enthuse to everything, animate and inanimate, that you encounter from then on in.

Mrs. Palfrey: The Film

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As promised, thoughts on the film of Elizabeth Taylor’s Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont. This didn’t actually get general release in the UK, though I believe it did in the US – it’s now available on DVD in both countries, though again we Brits had to wait a few years more. What would Elizabeth Taylor say. Or Dame Joan Plowright, for that matter. For it is The Other Dame J who takes the role of Mrs. Palfrey, and she is to the manner born. She perfectly demonstrates Mrs. P’s friendliness yet desire for privacy; her surprise at the Claremont; her loneliness which refuses to become melancholy. All are spot on. Only one confusing thing – in the film she answers to the name of Sarah Palfrey, rather than Laura Palfrey. I never know why film makers do these silly sorts of things. I can understand why they change certain elements (more on’t anon) but not little things which could be perfectly well left alone.


Grump over. The plot is more or less the same as the novel, for most of the film, so I shan’t repeat myself – this post a couple of days ago has all that information. Though they do play around with the novel a bit, changing details and adding a character or two, the main difference between the two is the tone. Where Taylor’s novel is quietly, bravely desolate, the film is more likely to make you cry, but in that feel-good way that films do. Equally sombre in terms of plot, the way in which the film treats the characters is more light-hearted, jolly and hopeful. Which is, I think, an acceptable distinction between a novel and its adaptation. Perhaps cheeriness is more expected from films than novels. Not, as I said before, that the novel is relentlessly cheerless – only that it leans more in that direction than the film does.

Plowright is not the only fine piece of casting – Rupert Friend (you may know him as Mr. Keira Knightley) is very good as Ludovic, and only a smidgen too un-bohemian. Anna Massey and Anna Carteret never disappoint, and made the most of their rather slim roles. My only problems with this charming (yes, that word) film are the few actors who appear to believe they’re in a sitcom. The porter doesn’t do much, but it will all have been much better in a Laurel and Hardy sketch. And don’t mention the ra-ra dancing (Mrs. Palfrey, thankfully, not involved). But these small issues aside, the adaptation is a worthy one, and I recommend it. But do read the book first.

How nice

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Verity (at The B Files – see my links, now ordered without the definite and indefinite articles, you can tell I’m back in the Bodleian) just emailed me this link. The good people of Cision, whoever they may be, have placed me in at no.10 on their Top Ten Book Blogs. Apparently it’s based on visitor traffic, searches, and mentions on other websites – as well as their ‘in-house expertise’ (which sounds frankly daunting). Thank you very much, Cision!

I’m in good company, with Juxtabook, Farm Lane Books and Dovegreyreader also in the top ten. I don’t really know who the others are, but lots to investigate…

… I’m just sorry the first thing they saw, whilst expecting something worthy of literary accolades, was a slanty window. Oh well. Even Jane Austen can’t have been brilliant *all* the time.

Mrs. Palfrey

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I read Elizabeth Taylor’s Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont a few weeks ago, but was waiting until I’d seen the film as well before writing about it here. Consequently I’ve forgotten all sorts of details, but I’ll do my best…

The novel concerns Mrs. Palfrey at, you guessed it, the Claremont – ‘One rainy Sunday in January Mrs. Palfrey, recently widowed, arrives at the Claremont Hotel in the Cromwell Road. Here she will spend her remaining days. Her fellow residents are a magnificently eccentric group who live off crumbs of affection, obsessive interest in the relentless round of hotel meals, and undying curiosity.’ So says the blurb on my beautiful Virago edition (I used a postcard of David Hockney’s My Parents for a bookmark, see below, and his mother is startlingly similar to the Virago cover Mrs. Mabel Whitehead by Margaret Foreman. Same pose, same hair, everything.)

The characters sharing the Claremont with Mrs. Palfrey are all in various stages of boredom and hopelessness, but Elizabeth Taylor is subtle enough with her pen to show these states as brittleness or insatiable nosiness or indulging in risque jokes. Mrs. Arbuthnot is bossy; Mrs. Burton drinks; Mrs. Post gossips; Mr. Osmond complains of the lack of male company. Into this web Mrs. Palfrey stumbles, her daughter too busy and grandson too selfish to care much about her. Again, Taylor doesn’t lay it on too thick – there are no villains in this piece, only humans. The life in a hotel, which acts as a retirement home in all but name, is beautifully observed, and perfectly nuanced. As an example (but how can one exemplify subtlety?) here is a couple of paragraphs from early in the novel:

The chief gathering-place for the residents was the vestibule where, about an hour before both luncheon and dinner, the menu was put up in a frame by the lift. People, at those times, seemed to be hovering – reading old church notices on the board, tapping the barometer, inquiring at the desk about letters, or looking out at the street. None wished to appear greedy, or obsessed by food: but food made the breaks in the day, and menus offered a little choosing, and satisfactions and dissatisfactions, as once life had.

When the card was fixed into the frame, although awaited, it was for a time ignored. Then, perhaps Mrs. Arbuthnot, on her slow progress to the lift, would pause nonchalantly, though scarcely staying a second. There was not much to memorise – the choice of two or three dishes, and the fact (which Mrs. Arbuthnot knew, but Mrs. Palfrey had not yet learned) that the menus came round fortnightly, or more often. There were permutations, but no innovations.

The stumbling minutiae of their lives, delicately and acutely portrayed. The central interest in their lives is the visitation of relatives. Each has a store of potential visitors, and an even more valuable reserve of reasons why they haven’t been able to visit. Mrs. Palfrey naively makes known that her grandson Desmond lives near the Claremont, and is sure to come and see her… which he does not do. When she falls outside a flat, and a young man comes to her aid, she finds in many ways a substitute grandson. Ludovic Myers (for it is he) gives her a cup of tea, and is kind. A writer, and a bohemian of sorts, he is enough unlike Mrs. Palfrey to make their friendship diverting, and enough like her to prevent it being ridiculous. Both alone, in their own ways, it is somehow not long before he is masquerading as her grandson.

Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont does not go in for high drama, and this fraudulence never provides it. What the unusual pairing does offer is a touching, but not saccharine, breath of life into Mrs. Palfrey’s old age – but this is no Disney transformation. Elizabeth Taylor brilliantly continues to tread the line between fairy tale and misery literature – the line, I suppose, of reality. And never has reality been more beautiful written nor more honestly and unmanipulatively told.

So, I loved the book. Come back tomorrow to see what I thought about the film…

Sorted Books Project

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Still lots of book reviews to come, some have been intended for months now, but I am a Bear of Little Brain and easily distracted. Today I was distracted by a Booking Through Thursday question from about a fortnight ago, but not one I’ve spotted much on the blogosphere. It’s called Sorted Books, and you can read all about it here. Do go and have a look, for this to make sense – and the link is fun. (Click on each photograph for a whole series by that photographer). Essentially, the idea is to go through your books, and put the titles together in amusing and revealing ways, not at all intended by the authors. My favourite from the website is Primitive Art; Just Imagine; Picasso; Raised by Wolves. Brilliant.

I could play all day. Most of my books are in Somerset, so I didn’t have the widest range to choose from – but I still put together three title-stories. Please do have a go yourself – it’s such fun, and I can’t wait to see what you come up with. If you do have a go, put a link in the comments.

(Speaking of sorting, keen eyes will notice that I’ve rearranged my blogs-to-visit list so that blogs beginning ‘A’ or ‘The’ are no longer under ‘A’ or ‘T’, but the first letter of the next word)

The first tells the tale of the Stephen sisters…


That’s:
Vanessa and Virginia – Susan Sellers
The Girls – Lori Lansens
A Kind of Intimacy – Jenn Ashworth
Cordial Relations – Katharine Moore
Uncommon Arrangements – Katie Roiphe

The sacredness of tea:


Tea at Four O’Clock – Janet McNeill
Jam and Genius – Angela Milne
Here Lies – Dorothy Parker
The English – Jeremy Paxman
Vision and Design – Roger Fry

And this one’s about the perils of road rage…


The Lady In The Van – Alan Bennett
Blaming – Elizabeth Taylor
The Crowded Street – Winifred Holtby
Fire in the Blood – Irene Nemiorvsky
Alas, Poor Lady – Rachel Ferguson

Lessons in Gender

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I’m proud of you all – everyone seems to be out buying their copies. I popped into Waterstones and Blackwells today – found one copy of each new Bloomsbury book in Waterstones, and about a dozen of each in Blackwells. Tick, gold star.

Now onto other recent reads – and another Bloomsbury book, actually. One of my favourite books read last year was Yellow by Janni Visman – to read my thoughts on that brilliant book about agoraphobia, jealousy, and cats, click here. It was only a matter of time before I went back and read Visman’s first novel, Sex Education. Now, usually I like to post a picture of the book cover, but with Sex Education I’m not going to… it’s a close-up of bikini-clad gals (and by close-up, I mean we just see neck-down, thigh-up). Not really the sort of picture I want to put on here, especially after somebody called me ‘knowingly old-fashioned’ (which I take as a compliment!) So you’ll have to make do with a sketch I’ve done for the occasion.

Sex Education is a tale of competition, jealousy, friendship and passion between friends Maddy and Selina. We see the girls from young childhood, through puberty, to adulthood – all the way through the characters have an uneasy balance of closeness and rivalry. Selina usually gets the better of Maddy, and is the more powerful of the two, destroying while Maddy creates. Throughout the novel various other characters are introduced as appendages to these – another friend, a boyfriend, a parent – but bubbling through is the intense relationship between the girls, and the effects it has on each.

To start with the good – I read it in one sitting, which is unusual for me and my short attention span. A very involving novel, which is very nearly very clever. But, having had Yellow, I can see how Janni Visman was on a stepping stone. The intensity is not quite as intense as Yellow; the insights not so insightful, the tautness not so taut. Occasionally Sex Education feels a little like a grown-up Jacqueline Wilson book. Which is far from the worst thing a book can be, since Jacqueline Wilson writes intelligent, involving children’s books – but where Yellow was starkly memorable, Sex Education is occasionally a little predictable. Yes, it’s a presentation of the rivalry between friends, and the damaging effects of jealousy – but a quirkier edge would have catapaulted the novel into a higher league. I’ve no idea how the quirkiness could have been added – but obviously Visman did, because she delivered it in Yellow.