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.

Go! Find! Buy!

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I’m pretty certain today, Monday, is the day the Bloomsbury Group books come out – Henrietta’s War by Joyce Dennys and The Brontes Went To Woolworths by Rachel Ferguson. Searches for those sorts of words will bring up my reviews of them, but suffice it to say I love them both. Henrietta’s War, especially, is a book which should never have gone out of print. I’m really hoping Bloomsbury reprint the sequel, Henrietta Sees It Through, but this of course depends upon the success of Henrietta’s War.

Usually I don’t force books on people, I just give my view and leave you to decide – but with The Bloomsbury Group I’m going to get a little pushier. It’s a bit of a bold move, doing a reprint series, and something we really need to encourage and support. With that in mind, do please buy buy buy these reprints! They’re great books, striking editions, and affordable too. Discounted to £5.99 from the Bloomsbury website, and even less from other online sources. How many new novels are that cheap?

Expect this sort of peer pressure at intervals through the year – the Bloomsbury Group are published in three instalments of two. So… buy online, buy in a shop, but get these books and read ’em – you’re in for a treat. No, sorry, six treats.

Parents and Children

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Few authors inspire excessive amounts of love and hate as Ivy Compton-Burnett. I first swore my love for ICB on this blog a year ago, but I do space out my ICB novels (they do have a tendency to be similar) and whilst on holiday I read Parents and Children (1941).

And what a lot of children there are – nine of ’em. I’ve left the book in Somerset, so I can’t remember all their names – actually, there’s a challenge, how many can I recall… Honor, Gavin, Graham, Daniel, James, Nevill [sic?]… and three others. They split neatly into three groups – three in the nursery, three in the schoolroom, three adults. As usual in ICB novels, not much happens – but when it does, it’s pretty drastic. Life-changing events are encompassed by lengthy, facetious discussions – gently vicious and cruelly precise, always picking up on the things said by others. Calmness permeates even the most emotional responses, and ICB’s writing is always astonishing in its use of dialogue. More or less all of it is dialogue, and though often sophistry, it is somehow also accurate about family dynamics.

Alongside the nine children, two parents and two grandparents are three governesses, various maids, a visiting family of three and a neighbouring family of three siblings. That makes at least 23 central characters – somehow each of them is individual, with their own distinct dialogue and personality. How she does this in fewer than 300 pages is astonishing.

As I said, giving plot would be a waste of time, especially since most of the major events happen in the last fifty pages or so. In fact, the blurb to my copy gave away more or less all the plot. What I will say is that any ICB fans will also love this one – I don’t think it as good as Mother and Son or A House and Its Head, so I’d recommend ICB newbies should start with one of those. But any ICB novel is so unlike any other author’s, and a real treat. Or, alternatively, a nightmare. Only one way for you to find out…

The Outside of Houses

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At the moment Pride and Prejudice is beating Persuasion (which is my way of thinking too) but I’ll leave the vote for a few more days to see if you Anne-fans can help her beat our Lizzie.

Yesterday I went with two friends from the Masters course on a road trip to Sissinghurst – we’re all fans of Vita Sackville-West and/or the Bloomsbury Group in general, so this was a post-dissertation-hand-in treat for us. And we drove for hours, including a scenic tour of Reading (if such a thing is possible?) only to discover that… it was closed. Whoops. We didn’t think to check the website… just thought, perhaps, in the middle of summer they’d be open during the week. It’s what Vita would have wanted. Regardless, we had a really fun day – we could explore round the outside of the buildings, walk down to the lake, have a lovely picnic and buy lots and lots of postcards. (Note – I will never be happy in future with a picnic unless there is a melon – it was perfect food for the weather). And then we also took a trip to Knole, a Vita tour of Kent – which was, again, beautiful. And there were deer roaming around the park too, so it was like a Magdalen home-from-home.

And I did 7 hours of driving! Including my first proper motorway. When in Devon we were briefly on a motorway, but it was a 50 mph stretch, so the M25 was a different kettle of fish. And it was mostly fine – except for one near-miss. Actually, that was on an A road – and it wasn’t even my fault. A van was coming on from a slip road; I was in the left lane and couldn’t pull over as there were a couple cars adjacent in the right lane. This didn’t deter the van – instead of giving way, or pulling behind me, the driver decided simply to move into my lane, where I actually was. So I had to swerve into the right lane, where the other cars were. Luckily they were both alert, and had also pulled over a bit – we had three vehicles in two lanes. Terrifying moment, but thankfully we were all fine, just a little shaken up. And the van sped off as quickly as possible, having almost caused a big accident. Goodo. (And sorry Our Vicar and Our Vicar’s Wife, who are finding out for the first time, reading this – I tried to call you yesterday!)

I must be a proper driver now, I’m complaining about other motorists. But the positives outweighed the negatives – a really fun day out with some good friends, and some great literary sites to be seen.

Year Three: Book Reviews

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Ashworth, Jenn – A Kind of Intimacy
Bailey, Jenna – Can Any Mother Help Me?
Baker, Frank – Miss Hargreaves
Beauman, Nicola – The Other Elizabeth Taylor
Bowen, Elizabeth – The Last September
Cannan, Joanna – Princes in the Land
Carey, Edward – Observatory Mansions
Cavanagh, Mary – A Seriously Useful Author’s Guide to Marketing and Publicising Books
Compton-Burnett, Ivy – Parents and Children
Compton-Burnett, Ivy – Manservant & Maidservant
Compton-Burnett, Ivy – Pastors and Masters
Comyns, Barbara – Sisters By A River
Comyns, Barbara – The House of Dolls
Cunningham, Michael – The Hours
Delafield, E.M. – As Others Hear Us
Dennys, Joyce – Henrietta’s War
Dennys, Joyce – Repeated Doses
Devonshire, Deborah – Home To Roost
Dominguez, Carlos Maria – The Paper House
Faulks, Sebastian – Pistache
Frame, Janet – The Lagoon
Frisby, Terence – Kisses on a Postcard
Garnett, Angelica – The Unspoken Truth
Gavron, Asaf – Croc Attack!
Graham, Virginia – Say Please
Greenberg, Michael – Beg, Borrow, Steal: A Writer’s Life
Greene, Graham – Travels With My Aunt
Hapwood, Dianne – Tea and Tranquillisers
Harman, Claire – Jane’s Fame
Hart, Elizabeth Anna – The Runaway
Hill, Susan – Howards End is on the Landing
Hill, Susan – The Beacon
Hill, Susan – In the Springtime of the Year
Ishiguro, Kazuo – Never Let Me Go
Jackson, Shirley – The Bird’s Nest
Jackson, Shirley – We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Jansson, Tove – The True Deceiver
Kundera, Milan – Immortality
Kundera, Milan – Identity
Last, Nella – Nella Last’s War
Lawrence, D.H. – The Fox
Lee, Hermione – A Very Short Introduction to Biography
Lelord, Francois – Hector and the Search for Happiness
Leverson, Ada – Love’s Shadow
Lindsay, Joan – Picnic at Hanging Rock
Longford, Christine – Making Conversation
Macaulay, Rose – Crewe Train
Macaulay, Rose – Keeping Up Appearances
Mansfield, Katherine – Selected Stories
Maxwell, William – They Came Like Swallows
Michaels, Anne – Fugitive Pieces
Miles, Susan – Lettice Delmer
Murray, Simone – Mixed Media
Nemirovsky, Irene – David Golder
Olmi, Veronique – Beside the Sea
Oyeyemi, Helen – White is for Witching
Panter-Downes, Mollie – Minnie’s Room: The Peacetime Stories
Saki – A Shot in the Dark
Sam, Anna – Checkout: A Life on the Tills
Sjon – The Blue Fox
Sinclair, May – Life and Death of Harriett Frean
Smith, Emma – Maidens’ Trip
Spalding, Frances – Insights: The Bloomsbury Group
Stevenson, D.E. – Mrs. Tim of the Regiment
Strachey, Julia – Cheerful Weather for the Wedding
Struther, Jan – Try Anything Twice
Summerscale, Kate – The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
Taylor, Elizabeth – Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont
Taylor, Elizabeth – A Game of Hide and Seek
Truss, Lynne – Making the Cat Laugh
Visman, Janni – Sex Education
von Arnim, Elizabeth – The Enchanted April
Wodehouse, P.G. – Indiscretions of Archie
Wodehouse, P.G. – Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen
Wolff, Tobias – In the Garden of the North American Martyrs
Woolf, Virginia – Flush
Young, E.H. – Miss Mole
Zaid, Gabriel – So Many Books
Various – Bayard Books

Another Vote!

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It’s been a while since we’ve had a little poll on Stuck-in-a-Book. In the past we’ve discovered that you prefer Jane Eyre to Wuthering Heights, Music to Art, and think that Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy are absolutely neck and neck.

So what this time?


It’s a Jane Austen head-to-head. Pride and Prejudice vs. Persuasion. I know some people will have other favourites from the Austen canon, but these are the two I hear mentioned most often, and I’m intrigued as to which will come out on top.


And, to whet your appetite (or does one wet an appetite?) expect thoughts on the following over the next week or so:

– some new children’s books
– Hallucinating Foucault by Patricia Duncker
– Sex Education by Janni Visman
– Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
– Dreamers by Knut Hamsun
– They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell
– Parents and Children by Ivy Compton-Burnett

Get voting on Austen, and do please tell me if there are any books in that list above that you’d particularly like to hear about first – supply and demand, doncha know!

Twins

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How are twins like amnesiacs? Find out below…

Hurrah, technology works! My neutral status is the assumption that things won’t work (computers, cars, biros) so it’s always a pleasant surprise when they do – my posts appeared as if by magic. It’s as though we weren’t away, but I can promise you that we were – Col and I had a fun time in Devon and Cornwall, seeing castles and beaches and a donkey sanctuary.

I read four and a half books whilst I was away, so will be getting you updated on them before too long. I also, surprise surprise, bought a few. One which I had to leave at home in Somerset, because it was too bulky to take back on the train, was Virago’s anthology of Twins and Doubles. I wish I could say more about it, but it’s a few hundred miles away from me… but it looks interesting.

And whilst we’re talking about twins, I’ve been rummaging through family albums, taking photos of photos, and I’ll leave you with a picture from our childhood. It is quite bizarre, going through family photographs with Colin and Our Vicar’s Wife, and often none of us were able to tell us apart. So I look at my family albums and don’t know which pictures are of me… this is how twins are like amnesiacs.

Henrietta’s War

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I’m sure it won’t have escaped your notice how excited I am about The Bloomsbury Group – not Virginia et al, but the reprints being published by Bloomsbury this year. Amongst them is my favourite novel, Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker – but they are coming out in instalments, and the first two are The Brontes Went To Woolworths by Rachel Ferguson, and Henrietta’s War by Joyce Dennys. I believe the latter was suggested by Karen at Cornflower (see the links on the left; she now has a book blog and a separate domestic blog) and is the first one I’ve read. Not published until 7th July, I believe, but available for pre-order in quite a few places. (I also wrote about The Brontes Went To Woolworths a while ago, a book I now have in three different editions, though looking back at that review it’s pretty vague and woolly, sorry.)

It’s just as well that I’m using stock pictures, rather than taking a photograph of my copy of Henrietta’s War, as it’s pretty battered. I took it up to London, and carried it around all day, loth to be apart from it. (And what a beautiful book it is too, I love the designs of this series, so well done Sarah Morris for your design, and Penelope Beech for your illustrations – delightful.) Quite simply, Henrietta’s War is wonderful, and I never wanted it to stop.

Henrietta’s War was originally a series of articles in Sketch magazine during the Second World War. In the 1980s (the year I was born, actually) Joyce Dennys was doing her Spring Cleaning and came across the articles – and they were published in two collections. Henrietta’s War and Henrietta Sees It Through. They take the form of letters from Henrietta to Robert, a childhood friend away at war.

It is very Provincial Lady-esque, which can only be a good thing. In the first few pages we had a Robert, a Lady B. and even advice concerning the planting of bulbs, which happens on page one of The Provincial Lady (EM Delafield, but I’m sure you knew that). They’re even both set in Devon. It took me a while to cope with a Lady B. we were supposed to like, unlike Delafield’s condescending Lady B. – but, of course, this hindered me little. The humour is very similar – self-deprecating, and appreciative of the ridiculous even while she is proud of England’s bravery. The letters are also accompanied by Dennys’ own delightful sketches – have a look at Elaine’s review of Henrietta’s War over at Random Jottings to see some examples (one of which I have stolen) as well as reading Elaine’s wonderful thoughts, of course.

Henrietta represents the middle-class women in England, plucky and determined to carry on as normally as possible. They garden and chat and squabble – resisting the overly-zealous scrap metal collectors, and slowing down the knitting bee so as not to finish too soon, can be slotted into their daily lives. ‘There’s not much glamour on the home home-front. Ours not the saucy peaked cap of our untrammelled sisters [in the ATS]. Ours rather to see that the curtains are properly drawn, and do our little bit of digging in the garden. Ours to brave the Sewing Party and painstakingly make a many-tailed bandage, and ours to fetch the groceries home in a big basket.’ In the background are Henrietta’s husband, Dr. Charles; friends and occasional enemies Faith, Mrs. Simpkins and Mrs. Savernack; Henrietta’s children Linnet and Bill.

I think this quotation demonstrates the mixture of pluckiness and ability to laugh at oneself, which characterise both Henrietta’s War and so much writing of the period:

‘I was thinking to-day,’ said Lady B dreamily, ‘that if all we useless old women lined up on the beach, each of us with a large stone in her hand, we might do a lot of damage.’
‘The only time I saw you try to throw a stone, Julia, it went over your shoulder behind you,’ said Mrs. Savernack.
‘Then I would have to stand with my back towards the Germans,’ said Lady B comfortably.

Henrietta’s War is quite simply a wonderful, witty, charming, and occasionally very moving book. It deserves to be in the company of Diary of a Provincial Lady and Mrs. Miniver as great chroniclers of the home-front – and I can only hope that Bloomsbury will reprint Henrietta Sees It Through at some point in the future.