All

I shan’t lie to you: this isn’t quite the view I’m getting at the moment. It’s nearly midnight, and very dark outside – but I took this photograph a few days ago. One of the downsides of this room in college was that it faced a wall – a fair bit of distance between us, but hardly a botanical garden. “Great,” thought I, “nothing to look at there then.” Well, as the good people of 3191, and Cornflower, so often show (in a far superior manner) – often the mundance can be beautiful and fascinating. When I looked out of my window and saw this, I realised my wall wasn’t as dull as I thought.

Where am I heading with this? Views, that’s where. More specifically, the views which are directly ahead of you as you blog – I don’t know what many of the blogging community look like, but neither do I know their surroundings. Mine are open to the public, which makes them rather less secretive, but I’ve always been fascinated by what people are looking at when they write. Moreso for authors, novelists – we can pick up a Penguin Classics edition of, say, Austen, but the text becomes so divorced from her writing experiences – it wasn’t until I got to visit her house in Hampshire that I felt I could grasp the process slightly. I could see where she sat, which door she looked at, to hide her papers if she noticed an approach. The village green out of the window. The little lane – probably various siblings and local children dotted over it now and again.

Is this fanciful? Well, probably – but it does make a difference to me. Was the author glancing up to see countryside, or did they have a view of a road? A wall? No view at all? Amazing how little of this comes across in the final voice, but how important it must be in the creating process. It gives some depth to reading a novel, I think, but it is disappointing when I discover that such-and-such writer spent the entire writing period stuck in a bedsit, or even the suburbs. Noble places, I’m sure, but how much more wonderful is Wordsworth’s house? Hardy’s?

How about the bloggers out there? What do you see? A window, or a door, or do you just take your laptop wherever there’s space? Now you know what I look at while I type. I wonder if it changed your opinion of the blog at all…

Now to today’s sketch.

Pensive?

Or…
…Vain?

I spent a lovely day today, visiting a village I moved away from about two years ago. They have an Open Gardens weekend every year, which my Dad helped to set up, and it’s great fun – lots of people open their beautiful gardens to the public, there’s Maypole Dancing, old motor cars, Arts & Crafts… everything one could want from a village. See www.eckington.info for more, erm, info.

They also have a bookstall. And, along with a trip to a charity shop earlier in the week, this amounts to a Mini-Haul, I think. So I thought I’d share it with you.

I know very little about some of these authors, so if anyone else does…

She – H. Rider Haggard – a book I knew of beforehand, but haven’t read it. Have only properly come across ‘She’ as performed by Elvis Costello. I imagine this isn’t particularly similar.

Testament of Experience – Vera Brittain – I have Testament of Youth on my shelves at home, and have been recommended VB over and over again. Must be something in it… Somehow I never quite feel ready to go ‘over the edge’ with this author – but perhaps if I amass enough of them, my opinions will change.

Up the Junction – Nell Dunn – a Virago novel (or perhaps collection of short stories; can’t quite tell). But this claims to have ’caused much controversy’ when dramatised by the BBC, so perhaps not my cup of tea. We shall see. Like the bad librarian that I’m not quite yet, I’ve thrown away the plastic dustjacket. Hate ’em.

Anybody Can Do Anything – Betty MacDonald – do you ever get that a book stalks you? It’s there, in every secondhand bookshop; every charity shop; every… well, you get the picture. Winifred Holtby’s South Riding is one; Betty MacDonald’s The Egg and I is another. Thus far, I feel too oppressed to pick them up – I’m playing hard to get. But I’ve tentatively let Betty McD in another route.

Georgie Merton – F. Harrington – an old children’s book. I can never resist old children’s books – somehow they seem to have memories attached them much more overtly than other older books. Doreen Lamb of Dagenham, Essex once owned this. I hope it brought her pleasure. The frontispiece is of children escaping up a tree, from a bull. How could it be a bad book?

I do hate to harp on… but if you have an RMH come to mind yet, do mention it. One of the problems with comment boxes/stats counters is that I feel a little like a performer at times, counting the number of empty seats in the theatre…

But I’m calling on you all for help again, I’m afraid! This will be another little series, in the same line of my ’50 Books…’ But instead of my despotism coming through, a little blogging demoncracy will be introduced…

Wait one moment while I attempt to sound like a Heart-Warming Family Viewing Programme. *Clears Throat* “Bookshops give so much to us, isn’t it time we gave something back?” But it is true. Where would we be without secondhand bookshops? I’d still be reading Goosebumps, probably. Well, probably not – but I wouldn’t have come across half of my favourite books, and I’m sure the same is true of my visitors – so let’s celebrate some of the bookshops (secondhand or otherwise; even some on the internet, why not) which have given us such literary privileges.

Every family holiday is spent in search of secondhand bookshops, consciously or otherwise. Our Vicar will always be on the look-out for a Tourist Information, regardless of whether or not he’s been to the place eighteen times in the past month. The Carbon Copy will wander around Woolworths wherever he is in the country, rarely buy a single item, and clearly relish in the identical home-from-home that every Woolworths is. Our Vicar’s Wife doesn’t consider a walk down the drive complete without having stopped somewhere for “a nice cup of tea” (on this we are in accordance). But all the family will willingly spend time in a secondhand bookshop, however much our tastes and spending differ. True, my squeak of excitement is perhaps solitary, but the rest of The Clan are probably squeaking inside.

So, I’m going to start the ball rolling with Bookcase of Carlisle.

When did you find out about them?
We have friends who live in Cumbria, and I think we came across this shop when visiting in 2001. I think I’ve been back just twice, but next time I’m in Cumbria…

Why are they so great?
Scattered over three floors, every square inch of this huge, old house is covered with books. Lots of modern paperbacks, but also many old hardbacks – and lots of non-fiction, probably, but I rarely venture into those realms. Pricing is sometimes reasonable and sometimes not quite so, but a lot of books you’re unlikely to find easily elsewhere.

What did you buy?
Gosh, I can remember what I bought in 2001. If I May, Once a Week and First Plays by AA Milne. They were some of the first AAM books I bought, actually, and I was very excited. The next time I went, I’d set myself a budget for books bought (fool!) and so had to leave behind the Journals of Sylvia Plath. Did buy a Penguin guide to Twentieth Century Literature. (Does anyone else remember where their books came from, like this?)

Contact information?
Can’t find a website, but there is some information here. Also bookcasecarlisle@aol.com – but the best thing I can suggest is to visit if you’re ever in that part of the world!

Anything else of interest?
Like all the best secondhand bookshops, it’s down a backstreet and away from the town centre – and, if memory serves, opposite a church which has been converted into a printers. I happened upon the shop entirely by accident – thought it looked like the kind of street which might have a secondhand bookshop, though The Clan tried to dissuade me. Triumph, methinks!

Ok, that’s my first one. DO PLEASE HELP ME OUT! Would love to hear about your favourite bookshops, whether in England or elsewhere. If you’d be happy to help out, with answers to these questions, and perhaps a pic or two, then just email or say so in the comments. I’ll hopefully be able to make this a semi-regular feature. Let’s give bookshops the thanks they deserve!

Not many RMHs out there – still thinking, are you? Do add one if it crosses your mind – or go out and find one, if you don’t have it yet.

I’m afraid I’m entering the world of Book Memes. A ‘meme’, for those who don’t know, is something akin to a chain letter on the internet, though less obtrusive, as I’ve gone and sought it out myself. 10 questions, relating to books, which you can feel free to respond to yourself.

1. One book that changed your life
The obvious answer is the Bible. But that is 66 books, and I’m going to go beyond the obvious on this one. I think I’m going to say The Enchanted Places by Christopher Milne. Perhaps an odd choice, but it is this book that catapaulted my reading into a new sphere. Having read it, I sought out AA Milne’s autobiography, and other works, which in turn led to EM Delafield, Richmal Crompton and Stephen Leacock… which went to Persephone… and the rest is history.

2. One book you’ve read more than once
Hmm. I don’t do this much (so many books out there! So little time!) The ones I’ve re-read include Diary of a Provincial Lady, It’s Too Late Now, Miss Hargreaves… all of which have appeared in my ’50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About’. So I’m going to go for Diary of a Nobody, as it’s the only Victorian novel I’ve read more than once. Oh, wait, I may have read The Picture of Dorian Gray twice… well, take your pick from the above. The only novels I’ve read three times are Miss Hargreaves and The Provincial Lady Goes Further.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island
Bible again, but I suppose that’s a given? Other than the ones mentioned (Provincial Lady would never stop me laughing) I think I’ll go for Virginia Woolf’s The Waves, because there is so much IN there; I’d never run out of finding news things. Or Pride and Prejudice.

4. One book that made you cry
It takes almost nothing for a book to make me cry. Oddly enough, the one guaranteed to make me blub is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It is that one where we eventually meet Neville’s parents, isn’t it?
I wonder what Virginia would say about being mentioned so close to Harry.

5. One book that made you laugh
Anything by P. G. Wodehouse can make me laugh out loud. Sam the Sudden is the most recent I read, possibly. Reminds me, I must make sure I get some back to Jacq before long… after finals, I’ll have a Wodehousefest.

6. One book you wish had been written
Miss Hargreaves Returns. There simply isn’t enough of her. I know it’s quite common to wish Emily Brontë had written something else, or Jane Austen had scribbled a few more novels, but I think it’s quite nice to have a limited amount – think of someone like Wodehouse. If he’d written six books, they’d have been classics. As it is, with over ninety, most people can’t name any of them.

7. One book you wish you had written
Gosh. So many. I’m going to try not to mention authors or books mentioned already, because I’d put a tick by almost all of them. Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge, I think (a Persephone book) as it’s the perfect example of domestic fiction.

8. One book you wish had never been written
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Ulysses, The Lord of the Rings. The first because it’s so very wildly overrated, and bored me on my A Level syllabus (not to mention getting me my only B); the second because the IDEA was so good, and the execution so self-important and tedious, but means no-one can now attempt the same grand work and be original; the third because then people studying Science subjects might have read something else, and the cinema might show something else.

9. One book you are currently reading
One Pair of Hands by Monica Dickens. You may remember it from my ‘what shall I read next?’ post. Well, I caved and started this – so very, very funny. Quite the antidote to revision.

10. One book you’ve been meaning to read
Oh, all of them. Well, that’s not true. Other than the ones in my ‘what shall I read next?’ post, I definitely want to read To Kill A Mockingbird and Middlemarch and Great Expectations and The Innocents Abroad and Barchester Towers and….

I’m sure all of you who keep blogs have come across this quandary. You want to write an entry, but just… not a lot to say today. Haven’t read much interesting lately; spent most of the day doing routine tasks; didn’t meet any celebrities or alien life forms. And then you sit down in front of the computer screen, and think… I have an audience out there to entertain. They want a bit of an anecdote, a pic or two, and some tips as to the next Booker prize winner. Well, yes, mostly we visitors to blogs just want to share a little of the blogger’s world. Sit on the sofa, drink a cuppa, scan the bookshelves. But let me tell you, it’s a little different when it comes to cartoons. I love doing ’em, but nobody would appreciate looking at a blank piece of paper.

There. Not very interesting is it? So now I need ideas… Or… Hmm. Maybe I’ll just let Stuck In A Book himself give it a shot. Cartoon, invent yourself.It’s a start. I spy definite facial features. Funny how the nose always comes first…

h

And there he is, or rather I am. Even holding a pencil, ready to do some sketching or so forth. Happy little smile; tousled hair; a bit of stubble to make sure I look male. All is well.

But wait… what is that on the other end of the pencil?

d Don’t know why the writing has gone underlined, but mine is not to reason why. Perhaps in protest at what poor Stuck in a Book is doing to himself…

May 1st is coming to an end in England, and thus comes the close of Magdalen’s Big Day. May Day is quite a non-event throughout much of the country now (celebrated only through Maypole Dancing, which my First School still does with aplomb every year) but it’s the centre of the calendar for Magdalen College.

It all kicks off at 6.00am when the boys choir sing from the top of Magdalen tower, and the Dean of Divinity says some things in Latin, and then in English. Not sure whether or not they’re the same things…

This is the only time in the year when we’re allowed to stand on the Cloisters Lawn, seen in the first picture. I’m afraid most of the photographs in this entry were taken in Winter, so the beautiful weather we’re having won’t come across. The second photo is a Summer one, though – Addison’s Walk, where CS Lewis became a Christian, among other claims to fame. It’s a 20 minute stroll around the Water Meadow, site of the famous fritillarias. They’re all died down now, but will be back around the same time next year, I’m sure.

During the Winter the Water Meadow earns its name, and is flooded. Some of the most magical views in Magdalen are when this field turns itself into a lake. I’ve stolen the lake-photo from my friend Tom, but it’s stunning and I thought you’d like to share it. What’s amazing is that, even though that this is Magdalen tower you can see in the distance, this photo is taken within College grounds. We go a long way! And to get there, we go through this big gate. Indeed, Magdalen has something of a theme, when it comes to gates – all of them are metal, blue, and ornate. Nice touches.
Back to May Day. Well, I wasn’t in Magdalen for it this year, as I was helping the Christian Union with a a questionnaire/doughnut thing we were doing – but I did manage to hear the singing from the crowd on the High Street. The photo of the crowd is actually from last year, purloined from the Student Newspaper (I used to be a section editor, so hopefully they won’t sue me). It didn’t rain this year, so less eye-poking risk. I’m just the wrong height for other people’s umbrellas…

Having listened to the choir, and done some questionnaires, I must confess I headed back to my slumber. Four hours sleep does not a revision-ready head make. And how did I conduct this revision, you ask?

Well, we were allowed onto the lawns. May 1st is the turning point in the lawns’ calendar too, and we are now allowed on all of them except Cloisters and St John’s; can play Frisbee on St. Swithin’s; can play croquet on the second one from the left outside New Buildings…And we can also go punting now… but more of that another time, methinks. Would be too difficult to explain to the uninitiated, and too lengthy to defend the Oxford method, versus the Cambridge method. Instead, I’ll leave you with my favourite photo from the last year, taken on the day before snow descended onto Magdalen.

There are only a handful of authors who find themselves in the privileged position of having a whole shelf devoted to them, chez Stuck-in-a-Book in Somerset. AA Milne, Richmal Crompton, EM Delafield, Agatha Christie, and… Virginia Woolf. Perhaps an odd companion to those decidedly non-highbrow authors (though Milne was at university with Leonard Woolf, and Delafield knew the Woolfs enough to have them to tea) – but I can’t help loving Virginia Woolf. So much, that I’m slightly dubious about writing of Ginny when quite so tired… but I’ll give it a shot.

I’m aware that Woolf has her enemies as well as her friends – many based on the assumption that she was “that crazy, suicidal lesbian, wasn’t she?” Others have tried diligently, but simply can’t get on with her prose. Thank goodness for people like Susan Hill – I haven’t been taking her Woolf for Dummies, because she’d be preaching to the converted, but I know lots of people are giving it a shot.

But what do I like about Woolf? Mostly, it’s her style; the way she writes. All other authors seem to seek words to fit their meaning – Woolf’s words are always RIGHT; the meaning leaps to fit her words. That doesn’t quite make sense, but it is the feeling I get when reading her novels – which can be read as a form of poetry. I love to just sink into the language, even when I don’t quite know what’s going on – indeed, The Waves can be dipped into AS poetry, I think. I can’t quite remember where Susan Hill said one should start with Woolf, but my only advice is “not The Waves” – leave it until you’ve made a first acquaintance with Virginia. I think Mrs. Dalloway is a good a way in as any. Not a lot happens – Mrs. Dalloway organises a party, and remembers her youth – but… not a lot needs to happen when an author writes this well.

I’ve not put this in the ’50 Books…’ because it’s too well-known – but look out for a Woolf entry in there, sooner or later.

And then there’s the biography. Yes, she killed herself. Like Keats, a premature death seems to have preoccupied critics for decades – the only veto our Woolf tutors gave was “whatever you do, don’t write on Woolf and suicide”. I find the Bloomsbury group fascinating, and Virginia’s own life very interesting (though Hermione Lee’s recent biography was a little too thorough for my liking – every stroll down the hallway was documented, with footnotes) – but I hold these entirely separate to her writing. A little New Historicist of me, but there you are. Just find a Woolf novel, forget everything you know about the woman, and let the writing wash over you.

Something a lot of people don’t realise about Woolf is that she’s FUNNY. Very funny – in a dry, drole, upper-class sort of way, but funny nonetheless. One of my favourite bits is in her essay ‘Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown’ – in the section below she is mocking the novelist Arnold Bennett’s over-attention to detail in his prose.

So I leave you with that. What impression has Virginia made on you? Like or loathe? She’s a little different to the bulk of my reading taste, but an integral one nevertheless.

…He would notice the advertisements; the pictures of Swanage and Portsmouth; the way in which the cushion bulged between the buttons; how Mrs. Brown wore a brooch which had cost three-and-ten-three at Whitworth’s bazaar; and had mended both gloves—indeed the thumb of the left-hand glove had been replaced. And he would observe, at length, how this was the non-stop train from Windsor which calls at Richmond for the convenience of middle-class residents, who can afford to go to the theatre but have not reached the social rank which can afford motor-cars, though it is true, there are occasions (he would tell us what), when they hire them from a company (he would tell us which).