Project 24: Book One

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Project 24 – #1

As Susan spotted the other day, the first book of 2010 has found its way to my little home – and it’s Roofs Off! by Richmal Crompton. Possibly, though I won’t swear to it, the first novel I own with an exclamation mark in the title (quick trivia question: what’s the only place name in England with an exclamation mark in it? That’s not a trick question, by the way.)

I have some abebooks alerts which, indeed, alert me to various books which I might want. And one of them is Author=Crompton and ~william (hello Mr. Boolean, I hope you’re feeling well). As you probably know, I’m rather a fan of Richmal Crompton’s novels, and quite a few of them almost never come up in the virtual marketplace. In the six or so years I’ve tried to find Crompton’s novels, I’ve never seen Roofs Off! advertised, and it was a fairly reasonable price – I feel it’s a good start to Project24.


I’m tippy-tappy-typing this a few days in advance, and when you read it I’ll be off in Suffolk with Our Vicar’s Wife – and, if all goes to plan, soon to be meeting up with Elaine aka Random Jottings. And maybe, perhaps, buying book no.2….

Fellow Project24-ers, or anyone on book restriction – how’s it going? Be strong! Or, if you give up, make sure it’s a really good haul…

Choosing books…

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I was having a conversation with my housemate the other day, and she said she doesn’t really have a type of book that she likes to read, she’ll sample more or less anything. Which is doubtless very admirable, keeping ones horizons broad and so forth – but, wherever you stand on the virtues of broadminded reading, my question was: how do you choose what to buy?

I suppose it’s worth noting that she’s one of these insane individuals who only has the number of books they can feasibly read at any one time, and doesn’t remember every town in England based on the presence or absence of secondhand bookshops. Imagine. But still… I tend only to buy books if I’ve already heard of them, or the author – usually from recommendations of like-minded friends. Very, very occasionally, I’ll buy a book I nothing about. So what do you base this on? If you’re ever browsing old or new books, and pick something completely unheard of? I was chatting about blurbs yesterday with Harriet Devine, and we agreed that they were mostly useful for putting you off buying something. Here are some words that will make sure I put the book straight back on the shelf:

“This touching coming-of-age story…”
“Dystopic vision”
“disturbing”
“…politically astute…”
“It is Ireland in 1890…”
“…twenty-four hours to save the world.”
“You’ll learn to live, love, and laugh once more.”
Any character name which wouldn’t be found in My Big Book of Baby Names
Any character name which includes asterisks or hyphens or exclamation marks
“If you liked Louis de Bernieres…”
So what do I look for? I do base a lot on the cover. Proverbially you shouldn’t, but a whole industry is involved in cover design and it would be silly to ignore them. There’s a reason they’ve chosen the cover, and it tells you whether or not you’ll like it, probably more than the blurb will. If I’m enticed, I’ll flick to an arbitrary page and read a couple of paragraphs. And that generally makes up my mind – bad writing, especially bad dialogue-writing, is pretty clear pretty quickly.

And then? Usually I shelve them and forget all about them… but I have had a few successes. That’s how I first read the very excellent The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks, Yellow by Janni Visman, and Alva & Irva by Edward Carey – all of which have since become favourites (browse through the Authors tab, or click here, for reviews those books)

And I know at least three of you will tell me off for being a snob, or something, but – there are so many books out there! I need to be a little discerning, and if I know the sort of books I like (and it’s still pretty wide, and covers a few categories – I love quirky novels, for instance, but ‘quirky’ so rarely seems to come without ‘grotesque’) then I save myself a lot of time and money. And to those who think I’m a book snob, let me tell you that I’ve recently started The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. It’s got more pages than I’ve had hot dinners, and it’s fantasy, doncha know.

Anyways – let me know your book-choosing techniques, which blurb-words make you run for the hills, and whether you’ve had any great successes on books bought out of the blue.

The Unspoken Truth

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You know that disclaimer often put at the beginning of films or novels, ‘The plot and characters in this work are fictional, and any relation to actual people alive or dead is coincidental’? (I saw it the other day at the beginning of a Bollywood film about a camera which can see the future, where I thought it was perhaps superfluous… but if you are at a loose end, check out Aa Dekhen Zara, it’s good fun). Well, perhaps wisely, Chatto & Windus haven’t used that at the beginning of Angelica Garnett’s new book The Unspoken Truth: A Quartet of Bloomsbury Stories. You might recognise her name from her autobiography Deceived with Kindness, over there on my 50 Books You Must Read – as Vanessa Bell’s daughter (and consequently Virginia Woolf’s niece) she has a unique and invaluable viewpoint on the Bloomsbury group – one which sees them all as people as well as icons. 26 years after publishing that autobiography, and over ninety years old, Garnett is back with a book marketed as fiction, but just as clearly based in her experiences growing up.

Which, of course, is no bad thing – Garnett had such a fascinating childhood. We get unexpected glances on the legacy of her parents, throughout all the stories – ‘It may seem strange that, brought up in an eminently intellectual atmosphere, I learned only how to feel and not to think.’ These stories are roughly chronological, covering different sections of Garnett’s life. The first is called ‘When All The Leaves Were Green…’ has Bettina as the heroine, and looks at growing up in a bohemian, artistic household, without any companion of Bettina’s own age. It’s a great depiction of Charleston, through the lens of fiction. I love this first excerpt, which brings across the vivid quality of living amongst those who sought beauty so avidly, and lived so vibrantly. It also shows how this feeling for beauty has found its way into Garnett’s writing style. The second excerpt shows more the confusion and isolation which a young child can feel amongst bohemian adults.

In those years the house and the whole of life was bathed in colour: it mottled or streaked the walls and furniture and sang silent but powerful songs from room to room, space to space. In the morning, the pink and yellow curtains drawn across the window mendaciously promising a fine day even when the sky was water-filled, blowing inwards as the breeze explored the room, momentarily filling it with air, and the colours she knew so well answered each other like a game of ping-pong – they glowed and sizzled and almost shrieked with the pleasure – the black, the Indian red, the peacock blue or yellow ochre. She could never think of the house without them: it was as though they had grown there and when, later, she returned year after year, though imperceptibly faded, they rose again and struck their strange chords like a forgotten musical instrument.

When Nan said something, Bettina knew she meant what she said, and nothing else. It was dull, but there was at least no need to worry that she hadn’t understood. In the world of the drawing room or the studio, however, every word meant at least two things, and the uppermost meaning was the least important. Most things were said as jokes, but there was always a lick at the end like a cat’s tongue, which ruffled the petals inside her, and sometimes jerked something out of her which she wished she hadn’t said.The second story, and easily my favourite, is really a novella, at around 150pp. It is the only one where the story never feels dutifully paced, but flows – again, surely autobiographical, but feels more free than the others. It tells of a shy girl who goes to stay with friends of her parents in France, Gilles and Juliana, in order to perfect her French. We feel her discomfort at joining a family and society she does not know, but also the first flourishes of independence, and a portrait if an outsider’s view of a marriage: Gilles returned from London and our life resumed its previous pattern. I began to note the difference between Gilles and Juliana, his rapier-like decisiveness, her slow deliberation. Both witty and cultured, it was Juliana who occupied the centre of the scene, Gilles the wings. When Juliana was talking seriously she disliked interruption, but Gilles always broke in, fired into disagreement or wishing to qualify her statements. His manner was the opposite of hers – quick and concentrated, intense but rather as though, with each sentence completed, he had finished with it. Juliana, on the contrary, talked as though she were building a tangible structure, and when she paused, you could almost see it sitting on the table. I was going to talk about all four stories, but I’m going on a bit… the third is very short, and the fourth is about a friendship that went a bit sour. That will have to do! I think that ‘Aurore’ is the best reason to buy The Unspoken Truth, to be honest, and the other stories – good though they be – are bonuses to me. The long short-story is perhaps the most difficult length to do well, and the most difficult to find the right concentration for, but ‘Aurore’ is successful. It doesn’t feel like an abridged novel or an extended story, but rather the right content for its length.

As I said at the beginning, The Unspoken Truth is clearly heavily autobiographical – but it isn’t clear where the line is drawn. Anybody reading this book, even if they hadn’t heard of the Bloomsbury Group, would realise it is autobiographical, because the structure so clearly cries it out. So linear, and chronological, with arbitrary incidents introduced and never mentioned again; characters who come in for a paragraph or two, and fade away – all the sort of anecdotes which make sense in an autobiography, but not really in fiction. But somehow this isn’t just another autobiography – given the label ‘fiction’, Garnett flies in a different direction from Deceived with Kindness. Not compelled to give an overview of the famous names she mentions, The Unspoken Truth has richer writing, more introspection, a greater use of imagery. It’s not always wholly successful, and where it lags it doesn’t have the excuse that an autobiography does, its chronicling responsibility – but for the most part, these stories are quietly beautiful, and add another new dimension to an understanding of Garnett’s extraordinary family.

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…