Stuck in a Book

Just a quick note to say that I’ve added a link to Bookrabbit on the side – I’m still a little confused by this whole affiliates thing, but apparently if you click on it and buy a book from them, I’ll get a few pence every now and then! I might be adding something more personalised to certain books, with Amazon. Anyone else used these schemes and got useful feedback?

Firstly, for those looking out for daily updates on Miss Hargreaves and the rest of the Bloomsbury Group from Bloomsbury – click here to see the Miss H page with added cover image and review section (and see who is in the review section!) Searching for ‘Bloomsbury Group’ will get you the rest of the novels.

And the little quiz was one Ruth posted on her blog – click here – which tests how well you recognise Biblical quotations used in literature. I thought, since books and The Book are the topics I know most about, I’d do pretty well… turns out, no. Just six out of ten. Go on, do better than me.

I emailed this to Our Vicar and Our Vicar’s Wife, who’ve yet to respond. Don’t know whom my money’s on. OV might know more about the Bible, but I suspect OVW has read more of the books in question…

Nothing quite equals the joy of Miss Hargreaves, but the rest of ‘The Bloomsbury Group’ – the four others listed on the Bloomsbury website – are also pleasures to await.

The Brontes Went To Woolworths – Rachel Ferguson
This one has proved quite popular across the blogs over the last year, but secondhand copies were getting scarce – how wonderful to be able to recommend it knowing that people can actually buy it! I wrote about it here, a post which also has links to several other people’s reviews. Rachel Ferguson is also represented by Persephone Books, who reprinted Alas, Poor Lady – a book I own but haven’t yet read.

Henrietta’s War: News From The Home Front 1939-1942 – Joyce Dennys
Hadn’t heard of this one before, but I’m definitely looking forward to reading it, sounds right up my street. ‘Told through letters and charmingly illustrated by the author, Henrietta’s War is a hilarious, wry, but often very moving, epistolary novel of life in rural wartime Britain’. As with all the other titles, more on the website. (Once you’re there, and have searched for ‘Bloomsbury Group’, just click on the titles)

A Kid For Two Farthings – Wolf Mankowitz
Another new one for me – the combination of the East End of London and unicorns isn’t to be missed! From the 1950s, so edging out of my comfort zone. I look forward to trying it.

Mrs. Tim of the Regiment – DE Stevenson
I know DES has fans as fervent as Jane Austen’s and Barbara Pym’s, and my one dalliance with her (see this post) was, with a few small reservations, a very happy one. Mrs. Tim sounds a little Provincial Ladyesque – diaries with self-deprecating humour, trying – and failing – to keep up with those around her. Difference is, she’s an army wife. Also looks like it contains a sprinkling of romance.

To finish with an utterly irrelevant aside – I’ve been painting again. I did three of my housemates, to go on the living room wall, and finally did my self-portrait (much harder)

I warn you now, this post is going to come in breathless enthusiam, rather than the carefully worded eloquence one might hope from a magazine or newspaper (incidentally: I’ve noticed a few bloggers also write for magazines as a result of a blog… I would so love to do this, how would one go about offering oneself?)

My exciting news is something I’ve known for a little while but had to keep secret. The good people at Bloomsbury emailed around the bloggers a while ago – in the wake of the success of Mary Ann Shaffer’s The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and Emma Smith’s The Great Western Beach, they thought the early 20th century could be a good area for potential reprints. Not a view likely to meet with disapproval here at Stuck-in-a-Book, of course. And Bloomsbury obviously recognised that bloggers were also obsessive readers, and might be able to put a title or two in their direction. They were looking, mostly, for things which hadn’t been reprinted by other reprint publishers.

Those of you who know me well will know that one name came straight to mind.

Miss Hargreaves.

And, guess what, they’re going to republish Miss Hargreaves (by Frank Baker – see my ravings about it here). It’s on my list of 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About and, although that list isn’t in any order, I’d probably put Miss Hargreaves at the top. I don’t think I could be more excited if my own (hypothetical) novel were being published.

Miss Hargreaves is going to be one of six novels called The Bloomsbury Group – I think they’re intending to bring a set out every year. More on the other novels tomorrow.

Now the not so good news: it’s not until August, according to their website. We’ll have to be patient. Don’t worry, I’ll be reminding people. A lot. For those who don’t know the novel – I can do no better than quote the brilliant blurb on the Bloomsbury website:
.
An endlessly surprising fairy tale from the 1930s, introducing an unforgettable heroine and a story that shows that anything is possible with a little imagination

Part of The Bloomsbury Group: A new library of books from the early twentieth-century chosen by readers for readers

Patch has given me a helping paw, as usual, in doing a book draw – we’re drawing for the winner of Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, an irresistible Persephone Book, and far and away their bestseller.

And the winner is…

Sarie!

Congratulations – could you email your postal address to simondavidthomas@yahoo.co.uk and I’ll get the book off to you as soon as possible. As always with these book draws, it would be lovely if you have time to report back on the novel when you’ve finished it – be that next week or next year!

One of my favourite things about bookish blogs – their raison d’etre, I guess – is that you can pick up recommendations for books across different periods, countries, styles and prices. If I flick through the Sunday newspaper’s book selection, it’ll be a couple worthy biographies, a novel by a very well known writer, and some popular science. All of them will be published in the last month, and all of them will cost a fortune. Blogs tell us about books from the last three centuries, and can be either rare or available for pennies, about my hometown or about Sweden or Japan or South Africa – an astonishing variety of possible books.

So what I’m asking today, and I definitely want it to be interactive, is for you to tell us about a book you’ve read based on a blog recommendation. I often find that my reading life is one big network of books leading into other books – and the odd mention in the comments on someone’s blog will lead me into another direction.

It would be lovely if it was a book I’d recommended, but I’d also love to hear about books reviewed on other blogs – if you have a link, so much the better. Or, better still, post this idea on your blog, and put a link in the comments.

I’m going to kick off with a few examples from my past couple of years, all books I’ve really enjoyed. (The links are to the blogger’s review of the book in question)

Elaine’s blog introduced me to the first Jane Austen sequel, Old Friends and New Fancies by Sybil Brinton.

Lynne’s blog was where I first heard of Jerome K. Jerome’s The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow.

Margaret at BooksPlease first gave me the heads-up on Crow Lake by Mary Lawson.

Karen made me pick up my copy of All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West

and more or less every blog under the sun pointed me in the direction of Rachel Ferguson’s The Brontes Went To Woolworths

That was fun. Comment here if you like, but otherwise do go and try this on your blog – it’s nice to look back and see how much of our reading experience is influenced by our blogging, and good to bring them together.

Elaine wrote a post about Capuchin Classics a week or so ago (if you follow that link, you’ll discover one back to me and the interview Emma Howard, the head of Capuchin, did for Stuck-in-a-Book a while back) – in that post she happened to mention that Charles Morgan’s The Voyage, which Capuchin reprint, won the James Tait Memorial Prize in 1940. The only Charles Morgan book I’ve read is A Breeze of Morning, which I remember enjoying quite a lot – and reading in the beautiful grounds of Wilderhope Manor Youth Hostel in Shropshire – but it reminded me that I wanted to blog about the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

Perhaps it was just a blind spot in my literary knowledge, but the prize is still being awarded, and doesn’t seem to get anything like the press and public attention that the Booker Prize does every year. But, for my money, looking through their respective awards over the years, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize has been rather wiser than the Booker Prize. Certainly a more interesting selection, to my mind. And it’s older than the Booker Prize too – by 50 years, since it started in 1919. (Just realised I mean Man Booker for all the times I’ve written Booker…) What’s more, they have separate prizes for novel and for biography – I’ve focused on the novels, but there’s lots there for those with more non-fiction-orientated minds.

As usual, Wikipedia offers valuable information – follow this link for a list of JTBMP winners since 1919. Too many to talk about them all, but Stuck-in-a-Book favourites Lady Into Fox (David Garnett) and Mother and Son (Ivy Compton-Burnett) both crop up, not to mention EH Young’s Miss Mole, in my tbr pile, alongside LP Hartley, Emma Smith, DH Lawrence, Rose Macaulay, Muriel Spark, Walter de la Mare, Kate O’Brien, EM Forster, Winifred Holtby, Evelyn Waugh, Margaret Kennedy, Elizabeth Bowen, Iris Murdoch… well, go and have a look yourself.

So why has it been given less attention? Perhaps because it has no official sponsor – the winner is decided by the Professor of English at Edinburgh University, assisted by his/her PhD students (how they have time to read so many modern novels, I have no idea). But while the Booker has produced many creditable winners, JTBMP’s historical and intellectual credentials put it head of the field for me, and I’ll be keeping an eye on it in the future.

Just a quick note – Jennifer Dee reminded me that a few people were interested in reading my essay from last term on ‘the Imperial visitor’ in Katherine Mansfield and Olive Schreiner – and you’re very welcome to! If you’d like a copy, please email me at simondavidthomas@yahoo.co.uk and I’ll email you back one.

Sorry to take a break without warning you all! I’ve spent a few days in lovely Ludlow with the rest of the Thomas clan. Ludlow, in Shropshire, is my favourite town – feels like stepping back in time. The buildings are all beautiful and old, the streets windy and the atmosphere calming. A delightful antidote to the bustle of Oxford, and some fun times with my family.

I came back to the news that I have a place at Warwick University to do my PhD! The next step is asking for funding, which is, of course, the deal-breaker – and I’m still waiting to hear from Oxford, so nothing has been sorted yet, but it is still very pleasing to have the offer on the table. Even if I have next to no time to sort out my funding application… has to be there by March 2nd. Could be tight. Fingers crossed!

Something remotely bookish should be in this post, really, shouldn’t it… well, why not return with a giveaway? I’ve managed to get two copies of Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day by Winifred Watson – Persephone’s highest selling book – and so I’m going to give one away. It’s in the grey cover, rather than the Persephone Classics cover, and for those who don’t know it, it’s a charming Cinderella-esque story about a governess who gets caught up in a world of sassy young things, nightclubs and romance. Written in 1938, Miss P is perhaps a little light and frothy, but at the very top of its field – a novel which it is more or less impossible to dislike. If you’d like a copy, pop your name in the comments.

Thanks everyone for your entries in the Ernest Hemingway / Mickey Spillane experiment! It’s the only time you’re likely to see some of those words on Stuck-in-a-Book… these Nobel Prize winners need to wash their mouth out with soap, sometimes.

The results. OV was so confident that he asked for his doughnut in advance this afternoon – I wonder whether that was justified confidence… let’s see.

1. ‘She was builty with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey.’
Ernie

2. ‘ “You bitch,” he said. “You rich bitch. That’s poetry.” ‘
Ernie

3. ‘In there was my best friend lying on the floor dead. The body. Now I could call it that. Yesterday it was Jack Williams, the guy that shared the same mud bed with me through two years of warfare in the stinking slime of the jungle.’
Mickey

4. ‘ “Love is a dunghill,” said Harry. “And I’m the cock that gets on it to crow.” ‘
Ernie

5. ‘The majoy did not marry her in the spring, or any other time. Luz never got an answer to the letter to Chicago about it. A short time after he contract gonorrhea from a sales girl in a Loop department store while riding in a taxicab through Lincoln Park.’
Ernie

6. ‘”They’re a funny fish,’ I told him. ‘They aren’t here until they come.”‘
Ernie

7. ‘He started to walk down the dock looking longer than a day without breakfast.’
Ernie

8. ‘ “How c-could you?” she gasped. ‘I only had a moment before talking to a corpse, but I got it in. ‘ “It was easy,” I said.’
Mickey

9. ‘I got him forward onto his knees and had both thumbs well in behind his talk-box, and I bent the whole thing back until she cracked. Don’t think you can’t hear it crack either.’
Ernie

10. ‘My hand smashed into bone and flesh and with the meaty impact I could smell the blood and hear the gagging intake of his breath. He grabbed, his arms like great claws. He just held on and I knew if I couldn’t break him loose he could kill me.’
Mickey

And now for the rankings…

3/10 – Lizzy Siddal
4/10 – Me
5/10 – Harriet (interestingly, with one exception, you made the same choices as me!)
5/10 – Our Vicar
5/10 – CallMeMadam
5/10 – _lethe_
7/10 – Beatrice Starr
7/10 – rz
7/10 – Anonymous

Apparently those who score under 5 and those above 5 are usually equal. I’m going to say ‘normal distribution’ and pretend that I remember what it means.

Beatrice, rz and Anonymous – expect a third of a doughnut in the post soon. Maybe.