Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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Claire (aka Paperback Reader) reminded me that I haven’t done Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekend Miscellany since… well, for a long time anyway. That wasn’t a deliberate decision, as I enjoyed doing a little round-up (and I hope that you enjoyed reading it) but somehow I only remembered about it in the middle of the week. But better late than never, and since we still have a little bit of the weekend left, here it is, in all its multi-coloured infinite variety! (Oh, and I’ve bought my first book of the year… but it was online, so I’ll give you an update when it arrives. If it ever does, given the current state of Oxford’s postal service – I’ve not received a parcel in ten days. Hmm…)

1.) The blog post – is without doubt the first round of Woolf in Winter, this fortnight reading Mrs. Dalloway and hosted by ‘What we have here is a failure to communicate‘ aka Sarah. Click on that link to take you to her thoughts, and a list of other people who’ve read the book. This scheme has been set up for both first-time Woolf readers and those (like me) who secretly think that Ginny is one of their best friends. I’d especially like to point you in the direction of Claire at Kiss a Cloud and her wonderful thoughts about reading Woolf for the first time. She’s bowled over by the novel in the same way that I was when I first read it, and it’s like reading my own thoughts from 2003 – only rather better worded. Though I haven’t re-read Mrs. Dalloway this time (I have read it four or five times) I might get on board for the next session, To The Lighthouse. Click on the picture for more details…

2.) The link – you might have already seen this on Elaine’s blog, Random Jottings, but I’m sure she won’t mind me copying it across here, in case you missed it. It’s about Waterstone’s, the UK bookshop chain, returning to its roots… click here for more. The cynical side of me realises any move they make is going to be motivated by commercialism rather than altruism, and it’s a terrible pity that so many genuinely local bookshops have gone to the wall, but still – the move can only be a good thing, right?

3.) The book – is a review copy from Oxford University Press that I’m definitely going to read before too long, but I might read it quite gradually, and I wanted to tell you about it sooner so you wouldn’t have to wait. It’s called Nine Wartime Lives: Mass-Observation and the Making of the Modern Self, by James Hinton, and uses the Mass-Observation diaries of nine ordinary people, during the Second World War, to look at the effects of the war to the individual as well as wider social issues. These people include Nella Last – I’m currently reading Nella Last’s War, about two years after everyone else did, and am stunned by how fascinating and how brilliantly written it is. That’s a strong early contender for 2010 favourites, and Nine Wartime Lives looks as though it might be equally interesting. (Warning: a bit pricey, might have to track it down in the library). More analytical than Nella Last’s War, but hopefully not textbook-style. From the outside, and from flicking through it and reading the odd excerpt, I’m hopeful.

In the Frame

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Thanks for all your contributions on the previous post, that was both interesting and reassuring – I thought I might be single-handedly holding up the biography market! I couldn’t think of any better way to express why I chose to read biographies (and their ilk) except the rather obvious one ‘to find out more’ – but Karen put it so adroitly when she wrote in the comments “A good auto/biography tempts a different part of the appetite from that which fiction satisfies.”

Onto another section of that appetite tonight – short stories. Those in the collection The Lagoon by Janet Frame, to be precise. I’ve said it before – every time I blog about a book of short stories, I come up against a brick wall, and find it more or less impossible to write coherently (or, rather, cohesively) about the book. But I’ll do my best…

I have Lynne (aka dovegreyreader) to thank for bringing Janet Frame to my attention, which she did with one of these posts. I’d been meaning to read more New Zealand authors, and so the name was stored in the back of my mind… when I found The Lagoon in an Oxford charity shop, I pounced. And I thought it was very good. This is Frame’s first published work, from 1951, and it went on to win the Hubert Church Award – which basically saved her from a leucotomy operation, which had been due to take place at the psychiatric hospital where she’d been diagnosed as schizophrenic. Gulp. As I wrote yesterday, an author’s life and experiences probably oughtn’t overly influence how I read their work, but with Frame she makes no secret of it. A lot of the stories take place in institutes, and the themes are often of seeking mental freedom, of experiencing life in independent and rich ways. This excerpt from ‘Snap-Dragons’ is quite representative: If you were free did you always fly away? Or were you ever free? Were you not always blundering into some prison whose door shut fast behind you so that you cried, let me out, like the bee knocking in the snap-dragon, or the people beating their hands on the walls of their ward.Frame often uses a sort of off-kilter stream-of-consciousness intended to reflect an mind going through imbalance, using structure to unsettle. Sometimes it works, sometimes it gets in the way of the narrative a little… it was a technique which didn’t really succeed for me in Emily Holmes Coleman’s A Shutter of Snow, but with Frame it is more subtle, and only sometimes irksome rather than effective.

A more successful way of unsettling the reader is Frame’s technique of disconcerting endings to her stories. They often end disjointedly, suddenly touching another topic or emotion. For example, ‘The Pictures’ is about a girl and her mother visiting the cinema. All the emotions they feel in response to the film are explored, and the world outside once they leave the cinema, and then the final words are: ‘But the little girl in the pixie-cap didn’t feel sad, she was eating a paper lolly, it was greeny-blue and it tasted like peppermints.’ It introduces a new tone, and shows that the close of a short story is only really the reader turning to face something else, it isn’t really an end.

I usually write in reviews of short story collections that they’re not as good as my first experience, with Katherine Mansfield – Janet Frame is no different, but she is perhaps closer than anyone else I’ve read. These stories, like Mansfield’s, are often very short, very perceptive and affecting. One of my favourites was one of the shortest – ‘A Short Note on the Russian War’. If people are interested to sample Frame’s work, I’ll type it out and post it in a day or too? Anyway, I wholeheartedly second Lynne’s recommendation. Once you’ve exhausted all of KM’s output, there is another New Zealander worth putting in the Frame…

Biographies – do you or don’t you?!

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I’ve just got back from Book Group, where we discussed Dear Fatty by Dawn French. Not much to say about this autobiography – general consensus was that we expected it to be funny, and it wasn’t much. Interesting in places, but mostly very guarded – and we were left wondering why she’d written it, since she seemed to hate revealing details about her life. But passed the time well enough…

But the reason I mention it is that the discussion acted as a springboard for today’s post – since I seemed to be the only person there who read biographies and autobiographies. For some people, this was the first biography they’d ever read – and I was rather surprised. I don’t read many, and the ones I do read tend to be by or about novelists, but I thought that every reader would pick up one now and then. It just seems logical, to me, if I’ve enjoyed an author’s books – to go and read a bit about their life. Not to judge their fiction-writing based on their life, but just out of interest. And if it’s not biographies, I always have some diaries or letters on the go (mostly because they’re broken up in good bathroom-size sections…)

I thought this was the norm for people who read quite a lot of books – but was I wrong? Or perhaps I’m fooling myself – when I look at my reading in 2009, I see that I only read twelve books in the biography/autobiography/letters/memoirs category. But that’s still a good 7 or 8% of my reads last year. And, having taken over a new bookcase on the landing at home with biographies etc., I know that I certainly own quite a few. It’s a genre that’s more or less impossible to recommend, because only the very best are of interest unless you’re interested in the person already. Biographies/autobiographies worth reading regardless of your initial interest in the person include, in my opinion, Shakespeare by Bill Bryson, The Great Western Beach by Emma Smith, anything by Claire Tomalin, It’s Too Late Now by AA Milne, The Enchanted Places by Christopher Milne. I’m sure there are others. (Links to posts on all of these can be found here).

Tell me I’m not alone in reading these sorts of books! What are you habits with biographies, and why? Let me know…

Tag!

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Approximately forever ago, Lisa at A Bloomsbury Life (the sort of blog which makes you wish you could become someone else for a while, namely her) tagged me in a ‘ten random things’ meme. I’ve put it on the back-burner, but since I did 100 Random Things about myself back here, I thought I’d put a little spin on it. And then invite you to do the same…

1.) Go to your bookshelves…
2.) Close your eyes. If you’re feeling really committed, blindfold yourself.
3.) Select ten books at random. Use more than one bookcase, if you have them, or piles by the bed, or… basically, wherever you keep books.
4.) Use these books to tell us about yourself – where and when you got them, who got them for you, what the book says about you, etc. etc…..
5.) Have fun! Be imaginative. Doesn’t matter if you’ve read them or not – be creative. It might not seem easy to start off with, and the links might be a little tenuous, but I think this is a fun way to do this sort of meme.
6.) Feel free to cheat a bit, if you need to…

I’ve tagged some people at the bottom of this post, but obviously anybody who wants to is welcome to give it a go.

I’ve no idea if this will work or not… mine won’t be wholly representative, because most of my books are at home in Somerset, and most of the ones I have in Oxford are those I haven’t read yet, but… here goes!

The Virago Book of Twins and Doubles – compiled by Penelope Farmer
I couldn’t have started with a better choice, but I promise you I didn’t cheat! I’m a twin, and love reading about twins – mostly to see whether or not I agree with the author’s depiction of being a twin. This anthology has many sections – Birth, Like Twins, Unlike Twins, Love and Hate, Separation and Death, Twins as Curiosities, The Myth of the Twin, Other Doubles…

The Cross of Christ – John Stott
I’m more of less acting out my little bio now! As well as being a twin, I’m a Christian. I haven’t read this book yet, I will confess, and it does look like it would need a lot of concentration, but I will before too long.

The Dangerous Book for Boys – Gonn & Hak Iggulden
And I’m a boy! This was a Christmas gift for Santa – this book is incredible! It has everything in it. I can now learn my naval flag codes, types of tree, tricks to teach a dog… even what a noun is, though I think I’ve got that covered already.

In Tearing Haste: Letters between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor – ed. Charlotte Mosley
I love reading letters, usually have a book or two on the go – and I love writing letters. Nothing beats getting a letter drop onto the doormat through the letterbox (or in the mailbox at the end of the drive, if you’re American). And then I can keep the letters in boxes on my shelves, rather than impersonal inbox folders…

The Sandcastle – Iris Murdoch
I never used to cry while watching films, until I saw Judi Dench’s amazing performance in the biopic Iris. That seemed to open the floodgates, and now I cry at every film I see. I’ve been known to cry at adverts.

The Leavises on Fiction: An Historic Partnership – PJM Robertson
I suppose this represents my study of English. I realised I wanted to study English when I was about ten… This turned to toying with applying for English and History, but I realised I didn’t love History in the way I love English – and look at me now, five years of university down the line, and no sign of stopping…

Vanessa and Virginia – Susan Sellers
I read my first Virginia Woolf novel in 2003, Mrs. Dalloway, borrowed from the mother of a family for whom I used to babysit. She’s since become one of my favourite authors – and this book also represents my blog, since it came as a review copy.

Vera – Elizabeth von Arnim
I bought this in a charity shop – Oxfam, in fact – in Evesham, the town where I went to school. As well as representing my love of Virgao Modern Classics, and the recommendation of dovegreybooks online reading group, this links to the my first job. I volunteered for Oxfam (in Pershore – a little nearer home than Evesham) sorting men’s clothes on Saturdays. When I asked if I could sort the books, they told me that they threw away any with yellowing pages… and I didn’t think I could do that.

Casting the Runes and other ghost stories – MR James
Tenuous on this one… I used to be obsessed with the Goosebumps books by RL Stine, and then the Point Horror books, and now I am completely incapable of reading anything scary. But my friend Clare loves MR James, so… I’ll read this when it’s very sunny.

So Long, See You Tomorrow – William Maxwell
No fact about me to accompany this one – but it does seem a fitting way to end!

Right – tagging ten people, but do have a go whether or not you’re tagged – and link to your results in the comments. Enjoy!

1. Elaine at Random Jottings
2. Simon at Savidge Reads
3. Karen at Cornflower
4. Rachel at Book Snob
5. Lyn at Prefer Reading
6. Hayley at Desperate Reader
7. Claire at Paperback Reader
8. Thomas at My Porch
9. Darlene at Roses Over a Cottage Door
10. Danielle at A Work in Progress

Print on Demand

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Has anybody else dabbled with Print on Demand publishers? That sounds like some sort of cult, but of course it is not… I have a few ‘abebooks alerts’ which tell me when certain books become available (like ‘richmal crompton’ + ~william – that’s Boolean searching right there, thank you Mr. Boolean, whoever you may be) and increasingly they’ve been obscure titles, with the addition ‘this book is printed especially for your order, and may take longer to arrive.’ Or something like that.

Anyway, the most recent one I got (not this year, I hasten to add) was Lovers in London (1905) by AA Milne. I have read this, but I had to do it in the Bodleian… it’s more or less impossible to find in non-print-on-demand editions. It was his first book, a series of little sketches of Amelia and the narrator having whimsical courtship and visits to the zoo, that sort of thing – later he decided he didn’t like it, bought back the copyright, and refused to let it be republished. Now, he died in 1956, and under copyright laws his books aren’t in the public domain until 2026, so I don’t know how they’ve managed to get hold of it – but Kessinger Publishing have reprinted it.

I saw reprinted it. What they’ve done, it seems, is photocopy a 1905 edition of the book, and stuck it in some cheap card. It’s even got a shelfmark written on the first page, so it was clearly from some library or other. Inside, the book has that beautiful font they so often used in the early 20th century – outside it’s about as cheap as a book can get, with a fairly flimsy cover and no cover design to speak of. Or even of which to speak.

So… what do you think of this phenomenon? If a phenomenon it indeed is? I would never choose this quality of book over an original edition, but I think it’s great for things like Lovers in London which I’d never be able to afford otherwise. It’s a way for publishers with tiny budgets to get obscure things ‘in print’ – though it will never create a buzz about the book, or new-found popularity for the author, in the way that Persephone Books or The Bloomsbury Group have the potential to do with their reprints. But it means I have a copy of Lovers in London on my shelves, which I wouldn’t have had a chance of otherwise – unless I resorted to larceny of course.

Have you bought any Print on Demand books? I’m thinking novels, rather than the other fields P-on-D works in. Or does their cheapness (in quality rather than price, I assure you) put you off? Or has the whole concept just never crossed your mind?

EDIT: do read the comments – my experience with PoD publishers isn’t very vast, and there are some good links and advice about better quality ones. Thanks for your comments, guys!

Wintery

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Before I forget – my dear friend Lyn has recently set up a blog. She’s been reading lots of blogs for years, and I’m delighted that she’s taken the plunge – do go and pay her (and her beautiful cat Abby) a visit: Prefer Reading.

Oxford is submerged in more snow than I’ve ever seen in Oxford before. Or, possibly, anywhere. Sadly I didn’t take my camera around with me today, but Harriet (who also lives in Oxford) has posted a couple. I should be experimenting with new referencing software I downloaded, but more of me wants to be reading this:

I mentioned it in one of my hauls the other day, and nobody yelped in recognition, but perhaps somebody has heard of Ib Michael? Do I have any Danish readers?! According to my ‘Around The World’ thingummy widget I’ve had 54 visits from Denmark since July. Doesn’t that seem incredible? Almost all my comments seem to come from the UK and US, but apparently people in countries like Bahrain, Namibia, Estonia have visited… in fact 147 countries worldwide. How many countries *are* there? And is ‘Reunion’ really one of them?

I’m getting off topic – what I was saying was that I feel like some wintery reading. The book I absolutely recommend, when it’s chilly, is Tove Jansson’s The Winter Book – hopefully Prince is from the same school. Maybe I’ll find out tonight, if the lure of BiblioExpress doesn’t work.

You’ll be pleased to know that I’m still on no-bought-books, but I have already been given two. Becca gave me a late Christmas present of Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks from Jane Austen’s Bath to Ernest Hemingway’s Key West, which looks brilliant – in fact, I almost bought it for myself a few weeks ago, but decided to wait and see if anybody had got it for me for Christmas! And yesterday I met up with Simon S, who very kindly gave me An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson. Since he’s buying approximately 24 books fewer than me this year, I think he’s very brave, and slipped him a book too…

I have a feeling that a lot of my friends will be receiving book parcels from me this year, as I need to feed my book shopping addiction support the book industry somehow…

In The Springtime of the Year – Susan Hill

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In the run up to Christmas, we briefly discussed Festive Reading, and I was relieved to see that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t prepare that much, and had never really thought about it. It doesn’t get much more unseasonal than the book I was reading in late December – Susan Hill’s In the Springtime of the Year. Look, another season is right there in the title… and, do you know what, I rather wish I had read it in Spring now. (I also rather wish I knew whether or not seasons should be capitalised, so answers on a postcard please. Or, alternatively, in the comments box.)

I’ve made no secret about my love of Susan Hill’s Howards End is on the Landing, and shortly after reading that I made my first acquaintance with one of her novels, the captivating and unsettling The Beacon (more here) – I can’t remember who recommended I try In The Springtime of the Year next, but thank you whoever it was – it’s another short, sad, and often rather brilliant book. Published in 1974, it’s theme is eternal – the loss of a loved one. In this instance, it is the sudden and accidental death of a young man called Ben, killed by a falling tree in the opening pages of the novel. The novel follows his wife Ruth, in her early twenties, coping with his death, and coming to terms with it.

I daresay that sounds quite slight as a synopsis, but some of my favourite writers are those who can weave an involving narrative without huge set pieces or plot turns. The biggest event having happened in the first few pages, this novel is more a study of grief than a rollercoaster of events. From the immediate aftermath; the funeral; Ruth’s difficult relations with Ben’s family; closer kinship with Ben’s younger brother; dealing with Ben’s possessions; moving onwards to the future without him – each stage is subtly and intimately shown – never too much introspection, and always writing of so high a standard that it doesn’t feel like cliche. This sort of writing (especially in the days of soap operas) must be incredibly difficult to do, for the path is so strewn with cliches, but Hill makes it look easy.

She thought suddenly, I am alone, I am entirely alone on this earth; there are no other people, no animals or birds or insects, no breaths or heartbeats, there is no growing, the leaves do not move and grass is dry. There is nothing.

And this was a new feeling. No, not a feeling. Loneliness was a feeling, and a fear of the empty house and of the long days and nights, and the helpless separation from Ben – feelings. This was different. A condition. A fact. Simply, being absolutely alone.
My one problem with the novel was that everybody in the village seemed to feel Ben’s death incredibly deeply – the novel states that even those familiar with death were especially affected by his. I suppose that isn’t a problem, but it might have been more realistic to contrast Ruth’s deep grief with those around who, though sad, cannot feel it to the same extent. For that is how such deaths affect neighbourhoods, is it not?

Nobody very close to me has ever died, not yet, and I still found this novel incredibly affecting. I also felt – though, again, I cannot support this from my own experience – that In the Springtime of the Year could be a huge comfort to anyone going through that. Or perhaps to those around them, to help them understand. I’m in danger of getting emotional here, aren’t I? And I shouldn’t forget that Susan Hill hasn’t set out to write a grievance counselling book – though there may be overlap, this is primarily a very well written, subtle, and touching novel, and that is certainly achievement enough.

Project 24

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Well, I’ve used the utmost of my technological wizardry (by which I mean copying things into MS Paint and… no, sorry, that’s it) and have replaced the Project 24 link with a pretty little picture instead. If you click on it, it’ll take you to the list of books bought this year – and I can use it to signify relevant posts. Here it is in what we computer types like to call ‘big size’.


You might recognise the sketch from this post. I’m still holding on strong at no books bought – my friend Lucy, who is also doing Project 24, is already one book down…

Pastors and Masters

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So far, bought nothing in 2010… but to be honest I haven’t had any temptation, since I’ve spent most of the New Year in bed so far, while my research work stares at me from across the room. Still, not feeling too awful right now, and hopefully I’ll be back on my feet before long. In fact, I feel well enough to try and catch up on reviewing some of the books I read in December…

First up is Pastors and Masters by Ivy Compton-Burnett, which Hesperus Press very kindly sent me. As you’ll have spotted in my recent purchases, I have enough ICB to last me a while – but I had to support Hesperus as they’re the only people keeping ICB in print in the UK. (Having said that, the New York Review of Books Classics series does have two in print, and they’re stocked in some bookshops in England – like the Persephone Bookshop off Notting Hill Gate, for example). Pastors and Masters is ICB’s first ‘proper’ novel, from 1925, and unlike the others I’ve read, doesn’t take place in a big, sprawling family. Instead, we are in a boys’ school, witnessing the interactions of teachers up and down a slightly bizarre hierarchy. Though there are also a lot of boys, they don’t get much dialogue, and hence not much of the novel concerns them – for even in her first novel, ICB privileged dialogue over description, though not to the same extent as in her later works.

Mr. Merry, the central schoolmaster, is prone to the deliciously and infuriatingly sarcastic speechs which ICB scatters throughout her books: ‘And get to your seats without upsetting everything on your way, will you please? Oh, who would be a schoolmaster? I should not be doing my duty to you all, if I did not warn you all against it. And I suppose it is a good thing to have the east wind from an east window blowing in upon forty people, thirty-nine of them growing boys, before their breakfast on a March morning? And… one, two, three, four, five, six, seven… it takes eleven boys to shut a window, does it? And I suppose I cannot make a few remarks, without having you all fidgeting and gaping and behaving like a set of clodhoppers instead of gentlemen? Get to your work at once, and don’t look up again before the gong.’ Though he feels himself in charge, there are also junior masters and those who own the school and their wives and governors and parents and… I must confess I got a little confused as to who was whom (or whom was who, or something). ICB’s character delineation matured in her later novels, I think. The plot running through this novel, aside from the everyday activities of the school, is that two of the teachers have written books, and intend to publish. I shan’t spoil the storyline, but it is rather more cloak and dagger than some of ICB’s later novels, and involves more Agatha Christie-esque guess-work – but alongside this, ICB’s style is unmistakable, though not wholly developed. I would describe Pastors and Masters as ICB-lite, if you will. Recognisable enough to please the ICB fanatic, but also sufficiently like a more ‘normal’ novel for those who find her style affected. It’s short, funny, and – though by no means her best work – I would recommend it to those who want to give ICB a go, and don’t feel up to one of her longer novels. If you like this, there’s a lot more to explore – if you don’t, at least it has one of Hesperus’ beautiful covers!