Mixed Media

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I wrote about independent and feminist publishers a bit last term, and Pluto Press very kindly agreed to send me a copy of Simone Murray’s Mixed Media: Feminist Presses and Publishing Politics. I enquired about it not simply because the Bodleian inexplicably didn’t have it (since it’s published in the UK, they should have…) but because I thought readers of Stuck-in-a-Book might also be interested.

As the title suggests, this book is about feminist publishing, and though an academic text, it is extremely accessible and very, very interesting. Though sadly with no mention of Persephone (and the book was first published in 2004, so Persephone could have been mentioned) this is more or less the only omission I’ve noticed in the chapters I’ve read. With these sorts of texts, I always find it easiest to give chapter titles – the topics are so wide and the chapter headings so comprehensively descriptive, that my paraphrasing will be pretty pointless. So here they are:

1. ‘Books with Bite’: Virago Press and the Politics of Feminist Conversion

2. ‘Books of Integrity’: Dilemmas of Race and Authenticity in Feminist Publishing

3. Opening Pandora’s Box: The Rise of Academic Feminist Publishing

4. Collective Unconsioucs: The Demise of Radical Feminist Publishing

5. ‘This Book Could Change Your Life’: Feminist Bestsellers and the Power of Mainstream Publishing

Though I imagine Murray must be a feminist (though whether first-, second- or third- wave, I wouldn’t be able to say) Mixed Media isn’t didactic or polemical. Not that those things are inherently bad – there’s no point in writing if one can’t be a little didactic now and then – but this book is a fairly objective reading of certain publishing situations. I find the whole background to publishing houses extremely captivating, especially, it must be said, Virago. The first chapter of Mixed Media discusses the origins of Virago, and also the indications of an independent feminist press being bought by a conglomerate (Little, Brown & Co.) – but, importantly, there is an underlying affection for the books themselves, which makes Mixed Media both scholarly research and accessible reading.

Mixed Media isn’t, I should add, for the completely casual reader. It’s not every page-turner which includes Darnton’s Communication Circuit, after all. But for anybody seeking a little extra information behind the phenomenon of feminist publishing, Murray’s book is fascinating. The publisher’s online catalogue isn’t currently working, but their books can be bought from Amazon – and while the hardback is quite dear, the paperback could certainly be within some people’s budget – or encourage your library to get a copy, perhaps.

Foxed

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Someone at Oneworld Classics has been reading my dissertation notes, methinks… I mentioned them in a big everything-piled-in-together post a little while ago, and I was expecting them to send me a certain book… instead The Fox by D.H. Lawrence arrived in the post the other day. Did the good people at Oneworld know that I was writing on 1920s novels? And that one of them was David Garnett’s Lady Into Fox (more here) published in 1922, the year before Lawrence’s? Serendipity often crops up in my reading life, but rarely with such happy results that I can read something for pleasure, for reviewing, and for my dissertation all at the same time. Talk about multi-tasking.

The Fox is under seventy pages, but rather powerful. Nellie March and Jill Banford (usually known by their surnames) are in their late-twenties, and live together on a farm in Berkshire and try, with limited success, to make a profit out of poultry and a cow or two. This is DH Lawrence rather than Stella Gibbons, so the mishaps are irksome rather than something narsty in the woodshed. Worst among these problems is a fox, slyly and unabashedly diminishing their livelihood.

And then a young soldier arrives. And stays. So fixated is March upon the creature ruining their farm: ‘to March, he was the fox. Whether it was the thrusting forward of his head, or the glisten of fine whitish hairs of the ruddy cheekbones, or the bright, keen eyes, that can never be said – but the boy was to her the fox, and she could not see him otherwise.’

How foxlike (or, indeed, vulpine) is the boy? And what effects will his arrival have upon the pair? The Fox is an excellent narrative of jealousy and disruption and wrestling over self-control, as well as having some wonderful moments of imagination and clever imagery. In the hands of any other author I would describe the novella as a passionate one, but by Lawrence standards it’s postively matronly. Which has to be a good thing, to be honest. When Lawrence isn’t showing off what a tough, sexual brute he is, he can actually write very beautifully.

And why choose the Oneworld Classics edition? (Which you can do here) Other than the gorgeous cover (well, I love foxes) the edition has a very thorough chronological guide to Lawrence’s life and works, four pages of relevant photographs including some manuscript, and even a select bibliography. Highly, highly recommended.

Making Conversation

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Persephone Books very kindly sent me a copy of Making Conversation by Christine Longford to review, and I actually read it a month or two ago, but was waiting for it to be available on the website before putting down my thoughts here. And, of course, that means I’ll have to search back into the depths of my memory…

The novel follows Martha from childhood through school and into Oxford University. She is an awkward girl, and, as the Persephone website says, ‘her besetting trouble is that she talks either too much, or too little: she can never get the right balance of conversation.’ This is evident from the opening pages, where she marvels at the inexpensive price of the brooch given to Ellen, the cook-general. (“You little idiot.. Now she won’t think anything of it. People like that don’t, if you tell them the price.”) Very intelligent but equally detached, she seems to meander through school and interaction with ‘paying guests’ at home (very definitely not a hotel) – where her mother advertises as an ‘Officer’s wife’: ‘This was mostly true. The military connexion grew fainter with the years. It was some time since Major Freke had written too many cheques, and disappeared.’ Martha isn’t quite precocious, but her indifferent responses at school and habit of repeating what she doesn’t understand (“Miss Spencer pulled my hair, and said I had committed adultery”) might give that impression.

Time passes, and Martha becomes a student at Oxford University. This was the part of the novel I enjoyed most, reflecting on the ways in which things have changed. Not least, apparently, the propensity to send people down all the time, and the illicit parties at men’s colleges offer a glimpse of the past. By the time Martha gets to university, her personality seems to have completely altered – which is probably true to life, but a little off-putting in what is tantamount to a Bildungsroman. She is pretty outgoing, even vivacious; jokey, flirty and chatty.

The new introduction by Rachel Billington compares the novel to Cold Comfort Farm, at least in terms of being a classic of English humour. Well… I don’t quite agree. Making Conversation is an excellent portrait of a character not often depicted sympathetically in the early twentieth century – the female academic, the intelligent but quiet girl – but isn’t ever laugh-out-loud funny. Lots of diverting sections, and a certain amount of amusing turns of phrase (for example the quotation below) but I don’t think Longford’s priority is hyperbolic comedy, as Gibbons’ was.

‘She would renounce all the lusts of the flesh. It would save a lot of trouble, and as she wasn’t a success on the carnal side, she might as well give it up. In that case, there would be no need to marry and have a family; and she could become famous as a Homeric scholar.’



And, as always, the presentation of the book is perfect. We know what to expect from the outside, but the endpaper (yes, Col, I’m going to talk about the endpaper) is one of my favourites from Persephone yet, apparently from a 1931 dress silk.

In conclusion – another welcome inclusion in the Persephone canon, and with invaluable, and quietly amusing, insights into another aspect of a disappeared world.

Jane

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Yes, I know I have lots of other books to read, but I couldn’t avoid buying and devouring Jane’s Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World by Claire Harman (who also wrote the Sylvia Townsend Warner book I just bought – the woman has taste.) Anybody remotely interested in Jane Austen will already have heard the premise of this book – about Austen’s evolving reputation and fame through the years, with especial focus on the peaks of the First World War and the post-Colin-Firth-in-a-lake interest. Harman starts off with a biography, focusing on the response given by Austen’s family and acquaintances to her writing, and the road to being published, involving the infamous publishers who paid her for the book which would become Northanger Abbey, advertised it for publication, and never actually released it. Tut tut. The book then documents her literary reputation after her death, and how this was created by her family – basically a portrait of a woman who cared not for fame, never let writing get in the way of domesticity, and who hadn’t a mean word to say about anyone. Which, of course, isn’t the witty, slightly sarky and very talented Jane we all know and love.

On the book goes, through the Janeites of the trenches to the 21st Century fascination with her, and even a mention of Stuck-in-a-Book favourite Lost in Austen (though she says it is an adaptation of a book Lost in Austen, which I don’t think is true… the book is a sort of choose-your-own-adventure, published in England with the title Being Elizabeth Bennett). Harman’s style isn’t particularly academic, which is nice when she throws a personal twist to certain aspects of Austen’s posthumous career – of the 1940 Pride and Prejudice film and it’s elaborate and anachronistic costumes: ‘when Darcy and Elizabeth sit together on a bench, it is not pride nor prejudice which seems to keep them apart, so much as their clothes.’

The idea of the book is great. There’s a wealth of fascinating material – where different possessions of Jane’s went, who bought them, who was responsible for Chawton being bought back or her books being reissued etc. etc. I was especially interested in her evolving reputation in the nineteenth century, and the amazingly prescient 1818 anonymous review in Blackwoods Magazine which predicted that Austen’s ‘familiar cabinet pictures’ would outstrip in interest even ‘the greatest historical pieces of our more eminent modern masters’. How right he or she was. The section on the search for a portrait of Jane Austen is also very interesting.

Yes, the idea was great… but somehow the book overall lacked *something* for me. I think it was the lengthy and pervasive strand of biography – which is all well and good if you haven’t already read a biography of Jane Austen, but I (like many of us) have read Claire Tomalin’s excellent and comprehensive biography, and I felt like Harman’s biographical details were clogging up the book. Perhaps she’d leave Austen newbies stranded without these bits, but I’d rather she’d gone whole hog on the reputation angle, and taken some bits of Austen’s life as read. And, despite a wealth of really great material, there was – how shall I put it – something a little lacklustre about the book as a whole. Can’t put my finger on it, but the style was occasionally dry and footnote-y, without being really scholarly. Again, kind of falls between two stools.

That sounds very negative, and I did very much enjoy reading Jane’s Fame. It’s just that, with such a fascinating potential, investigating why Jane Austen is idolised and ‘befriended’ in a way that no other author, not even Shakespeare, is… I’d still recommend this book to any Austen fan, or even anyone slightly interested in Austen, but I know that a better book could have been written. And now it won’t be able to be for at least a decade.

One other thing – Harman suggests that Jane Austen is the *only* author who can be identified just be their first name. I’m sure that’s not true… and was hoping you’d help me think of some others. In fact, just put their first names in the comments, that would be a good test… I offer Virginia as an example. And, in the right circles, Vita. Hmm. I’ll keep thinking…

Laureate

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So, Carol Ann Duffy has been made Poet Laureate. Doesn’t she look delighted?

Since I’ve read a total of one poem by her – yes, it’s that onion one – I can’t really comment on her credentials for the role, but it’s good that a woman has been given the title – and her poetry can’t be much worse than Andrew Motion’s. Perhaps I’m being unfair, I just remember his gem when writing an ode to Jonny Wilkinson – which apparently took three months because he couldn’t think of a rhyme for ‘Wilkinson’.

A Song For Jonny O Jonny the power of your boot
And the accurate heart-stopping route
Of your goal as it ghosts
Through Australian posts
Is a triumph we gladly salute. O Martin the height of your leap
And the gritty possession you keep
Of the slippery ball
In the ruck and the maul
Is enough to make patriots weep. O Jason the speed of your feet
And their side-stepping hop- scotching beat
As you touch down and score
While the terraces roar
Is the thing that makes chariots sweet. O forwards and backs you have all
Shown us wonderful ways to walk tall
And together with Clive
You will help us survive
Our losses with other-shaped balls.
Not immortal prose, is it?
I do wonder how much need there is for a Poet Laureate, but I’m the last to suggest eradicating any literary aspect of modern culture and society, since there is so little out there. And it also made me wonder how many previous Laureates I could name. Why not have a go yourself, as they say – I managed 4. Including Motion and Duffy. Give it a try, and check the answers here. I hadn’t heard of nine of them, and didn’t realise that 5 poets had turned down the position… a poisoned chalice, perhaps?

Getting to know you…

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I think a few different people have done this quiz over the past few weeks, but I spotted it on Simon S’s blog, and it looks like fun.

1) What author do you own the most books by?
That would be AA Milne, I think, or perhaps Agatha Christie pips him to the post. I’ve spent so long trying to find Milne’s books, whereas you stumble across Christies whenever you go into a charity shop, so it feels like I have more by Milne.

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
Hmm… probably Diary of a Provincial Lady by EM Delafield, of which I have four copies. I have three copies of Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker, which will become four when the Bloomsbury edition comes out.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Yes, quite a lot.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Wouldn’t be a secret if I told you, would it?

5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon does not count)?
Alway I re-read all the time as a child, it’s only the last few years that I’ve started re-reading again. Once more I think Diary of a Provincial Lady has been read the most. And I’ve never heard of Goodnight Moon.

6) What was your favourite book when you were ten years old?
Gosh. I didn’t list them in the way I do now. Ten years old… at that age I loved Goosebumps and Point Horror, actually, so it would have been something awful like The Girlfriend, which I’d be far too scared to read now.

7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
Looking at the books I’ve read in 2009 so far, there’s actually only one that I’ve really not liked – Blasted by Sarah Kane. Vile, graphic, disgusting, violent and horrible.

8) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
Excluding books I’ve re-read in 2009 – and there have been a lot this year – I think it’s The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim.

9) If you could force everyone you know to read one book, what would it be?
I don’t really like the idea of forcing everyone to read a book… but I would encourage everyone to read the Bible (or at least some of it) and Pride and Prejudice.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
Goodness, I know so little about living authors… I literally can’t think of anybody I think is worthy of it. All the authors I revere are dead.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Is it boring when I answer every question with Miss Hargreaves? I just see Maggie Smith in the title role, so vividly. Other than that, I think We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson would make an amazing film. Apparently it’s been almost filmed many times.

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Whilst I love Diary of a Provincial Lady, I don’t think it would work at all as a film. And I don’t want my cookbook to be made into a film.

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
What a strange question! I can’t remember any, but I’m sure I’ve dreamed about meeting Jane Austen.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
High School Musical: The Book of the Film, I think. I’ve never been tempted to try those awful celebrity autobiographies or cheap romances. I’m middlebrow through and through.

15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
That would be Ulysses I think, which was a real slog. There are quite a few books which aren’t technically ‘difficult’ but I’ve found too dull to get through quickly.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?
Is there such a thing as an obscure Shakespeare play?
I’ve not seen any obscure ones… All’s Well That Ends Well? One I want to see when I can is Cymbeline, which doesn’t seem to be produced much.

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
I’ve read two short books by ‘the Russians’ and one by ‘the French’, so I feel completely unqualified to answer…

18) Roth or Updike?
I’ve not read a word of either.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
I’ve not even heard of these people! Wow, I feel badly read.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Ah, this is more like it. Definitely Shakespeare. I admire Chaucer, was a little bored by Milton, but love so much of Shakespeare – though the comedies and ‘problem plays’ more than the tragedies.

21) Austen or Eliot?
There wouldn’t be many names to stand up to our Janey, so she is an easy winner of this category!

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
This questionnaire is providing quite a few… The more I read, the more I feel poorly read. To take a smattering, Great Expectations, Middlemarch, anything by Proust or Tolstoy or Hemingway or… so many.

23) What is your favourite novel?
Miss Hargreaves, Diary of a Provincial Lady and Pride and Prejudice continually fight it out.

24) Play?
Much Ado About Nothing or AA Milne’s Mr. Pim Passes By

25) Poem?
‘The Listeners’ by Walter de la Mare

26) Essay?
Something by AA Milne. Or Ginny’s A Room of One’s Own, if that counts as an essay.

27) Short story?
‘The Garden Party’ by Katherine Mansfield

28) Work of nonfiction?
AA Milne’s autobiography, It’s Too Late Now.

29) Who is your favourite writer?
Mr. Milne to the fore once more. I think. Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf are coming up on the inside track.

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Louis de Berniere, though I’ve only read one of his books, so perhaps the others aren’t so awful. Lionel Shriver also dreadful.

31) What is your desert island book?
The Bible, though that’s usually a given, isn’t it? I could read Diary of a Provincial Lady over and over again and never tire of it.

32) And… what are you reading right now?
At the moment I’m reading Jane’s Fame by Clare Harman, The Other Elizabeth Taylor by Nicola Beauman, The Paris Review Interviews vol.1. That’s it, actually. Only three and they’re all non-fiction.

I won’t tag anyone, but it’s a fun quiz and I recommend you have a go! Let me know in the comments if you have done so.

A Shot in the Dark

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The other day I mentioned, amongst my goods from Liverpool, A Shot in the Dark by Saki. This is a beautiful Hesperus edition, which initially I bought just because my collected Saki is unwieldly, and I wanted to have some in a pocket edition. (I should add that it’s actually Mum and Dad’s collected Saki, which I’ve ‘borrowed’… call it short-circuiting my inheritance) But then I discovered, upon reading the introduction, that A Shot in the Dark is a collection of works discovered after the Complete Ed. was published – i.e. they’re not in there.

A few are familiar. ‘The Miracle Merchant’ is essentially Clovis story ‘The Hen’ dramatised; an earlier published version of ‘Tobermory’ is included; ‘A Sacrifice to Necessity’ is very, very similar to ‘The Stake’. But A Shot in the Dark isn’t just for Saki completists – some stories have lain undiscovered. ‘Dogged’, which was published in St. Paul’s magazine in February 1899, is thought to be the very first story Saki had published – and has never been anthologised or collected before. And, what’s more, it’s probably the best one in this collection. To be quite so witty and brilliant from the off is a little astonishing, not to say irritating to us lesser mortals.

‘Dogged’ is about a mild-mannered man being cajouled into buying a dog at a church bazaar: ‘A rakish-looking fox terrier, stamped with the hallmark of naked and unashamed depravity, and wearing the yawningly alert air of one who has found the world is vain and likes it all the better for it’. The dog manages to take over his life, and the story is representative of Saki’s merciless style and exaggerated incident.

I’ve already eulogised about how wonderful Saki is – see this post – but I never got around to writing about Beasts and Superbeasts, which I read last year. I can’t imagine why it didn’t make my Top 15 of 2008 – I must have been feeling serious when I composed that list, as it is the funniest book I’ve read in a long time. His tales dabble in the absurd, the commonplace, the mystical, the down-to-earth – but always with a great understanding of humanity (especially children) and a fondness for hyperbole which I love. If PG Wodehouse had written short stories, and had a very slightly crueller sense of humour, these would be the result.

If you’ve never tried Saki, do so immediately. Even if you don’t like short stories usually, I can’t imagine anyone disliking these – if you’re the sort of person who keeps a book in the loo (and I am) then Saki could work a treat. If you think you’ve got a Complete Saki, then you’re missing this selection – which comes with an interesting Introduction by Adam Newell and Foreword by Jeremy Dyson. Rectify the omission as soon as possible.

Sisters By A River

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Continuing my Barbara Comyns interest, I spent my train journey back from Liverpool reading her first novel Sisters By A River. I bought the novel in Somerset, but there are loads available on Amazon. I say ‘novel’, but there is no structure to this book, really – lots and lots of little essays or vignettes or really just anecdotes. They’re vaguely chronological. I was especially interested by this novel as it’s openly based in Bidford-on-Avon in Warwickshire, where my very close friend Lorna was brought up, and I’ve been several times.

I can’t stand books which use incorrect spelling to reproduce the mind of a child (which put me off Our Spoons Came From Woolworths a bit) but I discovered in the Introduction that Barbara Comyns couldn’t actually spell as an adult, and the publishers decided not to edit her manuscript (the Intro says she couldn’ spell because her mother went deaf when Barbara was young… I couldn’t really see the connection).

This book is actually autobiography – never sure how accurate, and it certainly has all the surrealism I’ve grown to expect from Comyns. Her childhood makes the Mitfords seem dull. Quite similar, actually – six daughters in her case, in a rambling old house with an angry, mad father. The mother is also pretty mad, and the children are fairly uncontrolled, running riot over the house and area, making their own rules and creating their own world. This is representative of the insanity (spelling mistakes intentional! ):

‘Things at home were getting pretty grim about this time, Daddy was particularly mororse and glum through money worries, then he would drink and try and forget but it only made things worse, he never got jolly when he drank, just miserable, I can’t think why he did it. Mammie was always quarreling with him, they were the two best people at agvergating each other I have ever met, she was getting awfully sick of us too, more even than usual, she had got an awful new habit of thinking people were falling in love with her, it was very trying and embarising, we would come on her gazeing into space, her lips moving in an imaginaru conversation with a ficticious lover, she even went so far as to tell Daddy she had lovers and was unfaithful to him, this caused the most frightful rows, usually ending in him throwing all her clothes out of her bedroom window or Mammie running down to the river bank screaming and saying she was going to drown herself, sometimes waving an unloaded revolver above her head, but she never did commit suicide, sometimes the maids, if they were new, would run after her and drag her back to the house, but we would just sit on the chicken pen roof or somewhere peaceful.’

Long sentences, as you see! Everything in the book is told with a child’s calm indifference and no sense of causality. Difficult to know how disingenuous the writing is – either way, it is very effective, and this bizarre autobiographical- novel-anecdotal- chat is quite unlike anything I’ve ever read. At first I thought I’d find it too affected, but in the end I loved it. Would make great reading alongside Mitford stuff.

The tone throughout was rather surreal – ‘Daddy very much dislike finding odd human bones about the house, they had a habbit of getting tucked down the sides of the morning-room chairs’ is the comment on an archeological dig in the garden – but even more surreal when you realise it’s mostly true. Tales of ugly dresses and bad haircuts are told in the same captivating, undemonstrative style as those of Grannie dying and Father throwing a beehive over Mother. If this motley assortment of remembrances were made-up… well, I don’t think they could have been. Such a bizarre childhood, so of its time, and yet utterly fascinating. Completely devoid of charm, but somehow, in a way, it charmed me. I still think Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead is Comyn’s best book, of the five I’ve read (standardised spelling for a start!) but Sisters by a River is mesmorising, and a book I’ll return to many times from sheer incredulity and amazement.

Thought I’d just finish off these thoughts by quoting the blurb Barbara Comyns wrote herself in 1947:

The river is the Avon, and on its banks the five sisters are born. The river is frozen, the river is flooded, the sun shines on the water and moving lights are reflected on the walls of the house. It is Good Friday and the maids hang a hot cross bun from the kitchen ceiling. An earwig crawls into the sweep’s ear and stays there for ten years. Moths are resurrected from the dead and bats becomes entangled in young girls’ hair. Lessons are done in the greenish light under the ash-tree and always there is the sound of water swirling through the weir. A feeling of decay comes to the house, at first in a sudden puff down a dark passage and the damp smell of cellars, then ivy grows unchecked over the windows and angry shouts split the summer air, sour milk is in the larder and the father takes out his gun. The children see a dreadful snoring figure in a white nightshift, then lot numbers appear on the furniture and the family is dispersed…

Bits and Bobs

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All sorts of bits and pieces which I’ve been meaning to write about for a while, today…

– Telegram Books emailed me a while ago, wondering whether I’d consider their publishing house as one of my Places of Beauty (which reminds me that it’s not been updated for a while, actually). I must investigate them further at some point, but they look like a really fascinating translation press. See telegrambooks.com; they have works from Siberia to Egypt, Pakistan to Belgium. Some of them truly are beautiful, too – my favourite cover is on the right, The Old Man and His Sons by Faroese author Heoin Bru.

– do go and check out Smartish Place, a ten year old literary magazine. The website is really well laid out, and though I don’t know much about poetry, there seems to be a lot of potential interest there – interviews, reviews, original work and so forth.

– Alma Books launched, in March 2007, a series of Oneworld Classics, and have also taken over the Calder list, including authors like Duras, Ionesco, Celine and more. They blog at Bloggerel.com, and have books which range from Wuthering Heights to The Decameron, Oscar Wilde to DH Lawrence to some really lovely Jane Austen editions. Most of these editions have some new illustrations, apparatus about the author, and all sorts of other intriguing bits and pieces, and are beautifully produced. I love it when a publishing house puts real effort into the cover images – especially when it’s a book that isn’t too difficult to track down, this can really make an edition worth having. A couple of my favourites shown on the left, Great Expectations by Mr. Dickens, and The Italian by Mrs. Radcliffe.

– filedby.com emailed me about their website, filedbyauthor, for connecting readers and authors, check it out

– Steve Lee emailed me about his book What If… (which I mentioned back here) – if you buy copies from http://www.ChangingTheWorldToday.com they now give $4 to Save The Children for every copy bought. We used to put on ‘fun days’ to raise money for Save The Children, so it’s a cause close to my heart.

Liverpool has no books…

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…at least it doesn’t anymore. I’ve brought most of ’em back to Oxford with me – a quick list, with reasons for buying them, and do chime in with any thoughts! All of them are secondhand, though quite a few were from the most upmarket remainders shop I’ve ever seen – Blue Court Books (one in Liverpool, one in Chester)

Sylvie & Bruno – Lewis Carroll
Re-reading Alice books, and hungry for more…

A Shot in the Dark – Saki
Lovely Hesperus book of Saki stories found after The Complete Saki was collected

Prelude – Katherine Mansfield
Another wonderful Hesperus find. Nice to have it separated from the other collections.

Four Frightened People – E. Arnot Robertson
I now have three Robertson novels, none yet read… this one is much mentioned in Nicola Humble’s book on middlebrow literature

The Girls – Lori Lansens
I can’t resist a novel about twins… my first conjoined twins novel.

A House in the Country – Jocelyn Playfair
A London Child of the 1870s – Molly Hughes
Two Persephone books I’ve been umming and ahhing about for a while

After the Death of Don Juan – Sylvia Townsend Warner
Terrifying cover of what seems to be a dead woman with butterflies for mouth and eyes… but good for current STW interest

The Millstone – Margaret Drabble
When I wrote about Lynne Reid Banks’ The L-Shaped Room, Vivienne mentioned this novel, so I’ve kept an eye out for it since

Blaming – Elizabeth Taylor
With Nicola Beauman’s new biography of Elizabeth Taylor high up on my reading list, I’m stocking up

Sylvia Townsend Warner – Claire Harman
Biography by the author of Jane’s Fame, which is also on its way to me.