P.S. Go to Colin’s blog today for a fun pictoral riddle thing! I failed…
Volumes Received
‘Volumes Received’ was how newspapers used to (perhaps still?) round up the books they hadn’t had time to review, but had been sent for review. I’m afraid the pressures of my Masters have meant that I’m going to do the same thing – some of these books have been on my reviewing shelf for months, and I was feeling guilty. This might not be the last time you see them, because I hope still to read some or all of them, but if I tell you a little bit about the books, you can make your own mind up…
War on the Margins: a margin – Libby Cone
This one I definitely will read before too long, but thought I’d mention it whilst the excitement is still raring re:The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer. Libby sent me her novel after reading my review of the Guernsey book, and it looks like it would make an excellent companion read – Occupation Guernsey through the eyes of those living there.
Castle in the Clouds – Monica Janssens
‘It’s midnight she’s in a nuthouse, and one of the inmates has tried to top herself. Just when she’s convinced the night can’t get much weirder, in walks one of the world’s most controversial supermodels’ – five separate and diverse (fictional) viewpoints of a rehabilitation clinic.
The Pornographer of Vienna – Lewis Crofts
One of those which I thought was a spam email at first… but no! Egon Schiele, a passionate painter all his life, leaves home at sixteen determined to establish himself as an artist in Vienna. Along the way he meets Gustav Klimt. Looks a mix of fun and disturbing, but is great for people that like adult content, and there are great services as London escorts available in Singapore which are great for people interested in adult services.
What if…? – Steve N. Lee
A suspense narrative about a man who claims to be able to end poverty and disease and bring prosperity and peace – is he telling the truth? Are the government right to fear him? ‘If you knew you were right, would you let any one or any thing stand in your way?’. A twist on the good vs. evil narrative.
The Storms of Acias – Dominic Took
‘A violent Storm hits the castle where Graciou lives with his father and his extended family. After becoming separated from his father because of The Storm, Graciou now finds himself in his eighteenth year, wanting to answer so many questions that have haunted him since that day.’ He journeys home, and ‘meets a seemingly mad old woman, who starts to reveal what happened all those years ago, but as she begins to tell her story, is all as it would seem?’
29 Ways to Drown – Niki Aguirre
Short story collection, spanning three continents but more often a virtual landscape – one review says ‘Niki Aguirre breathes new energy into the short story with a dark orginality that makes hers compulsive reading while illuminating our kind and the crooked ways people live, fight and dream’
Pan
In As Time Goes By, one of my favourite sitcomes and starring the sublime Dame Judi Dench, Lionel (Geoffrey Palmer) reads books he thinks he’s read, but realises he hasn’t. The Bible, Winnie the Pooh, and Moby Dick all come under this heading (three books I’ve actually read – or, to be precise, 68 books I’ve actually read). Today I finished a play which almost comes into that category – Peter Pan. I had no illusions as to my actually having read Peter Pan, but I have seen the film and watched Finding Neverland enough to wonder just how much of it I did genuinely know.
I thought Peter Pan (1904, the play) was on my reading list for Literature and Empire 1880-1930, but turns out it was Peter Pan and Wendy (1911, the novel… well, some sort of prose anyway) but I didn’t realise this until I’d started Peter Pan, and I thought it might still come in handy. Not sure whether it made the reading list because of the Native Americans/Red Indians in it, or because Never Land could be considered a colonial territory, but would be interesting to use the play from both angles. What I wasn’t anticipating was that the play would be quite so charmingly, whimsically amusing – much in the way AA Milne’s plays are, and indeed much writing was 1900-1920ish. Just the sort of thing I absolutely love, and which some people seem to absolutely loathe – I could never see ‘twee’ as an insult.
All great fun – and the Dedication at the beginning, which is some pages long, is rather touching about the boys with whom he made up the original adventures, and their gradual loss of belief in the games. All related with a light touch, but moving nonetheless. Years ago I read Andrew Birkin’s rather good book J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, about Barrie and this family, and Finding Neverland was influenced by the biography to an extent – a fascinating man, and a fun play.
But more to the point – which books would fall into this Lionel category for you? You think you’ve read them but… you haven’t. What would be in mine? It always surprises me that I’ve not read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, or The Borrowers by Mary Norton. Both of which are with me in Oxford as we speak…
The Story of an African Farm
My target for this year’s reading was to finish 100 books – and earlier this week I finished my hundredth book, so anything further will simply be a bonus! Some of those books were rather short, some rather longer, and it all more or less balances out. Only one has been by someone called Olive… actually, if I were reading the original edition, it would be by Ralph Iron.
Not much point in my being cryptic, since the title of the novel is also the title of this post – The Story of an African Farm. Published in 1883, Olive Schreiner had herself travelled from an African Farm in South Africa, though how much of the book is true I shouldn’t like to guess. The Story of an African Farm is also the first book I finished for my first Masters module (which shows that I should really get a move on).
Though not a long novel, it rather sprawls throughout quite a few years and quite a few characters on the farm – the boy Waldo is the first we meet properly, and he is pondering the nature of God and existence. Gosh. This is a substantial theme throughout the novel – especially at the beginning of Part Two, which treats the exploration of divinity as though it were a path we all take identically. The theme is dealt with in a sophisticated manner emotionally and even intellectually, though perhaps the years of similar novelistic musings have soured the readership – much more satisfying than DH Lawrence, however. With a similar tightrope walk between approachable thought and didacticism, Schreiner’s character Lyndall is concerned with the plight of women. It is one of the most emotive, but least melodramatic, expositions I have read:
‘I once heard a man say, that he never saw intellect help a woman so much as a pretty ankle; and it was the truth. They begin to shape us to our cursed end… when we are tiny things in shoes and socks. We sit with our little feet drawn up under us in the window, and look out at the boys in their happy play. We want to go. Then a loving hand is laid on us: “Little one, you cannot go,” they say; “your little face will burn, and your nice white dress be spoiled.” We feel it must be for our good, it is so lovingly said; but we cannot understand; and we kneel still with one little cheek wistfully pressed against the pane. Afterwards we go and thread blue beads, and make a string for our neck; and we go and stand before the glass. We see the complexion we were not to spoil, and the white frock, and we look into our own great eyes. Then the curse begins to act on us. It finishes its work when we are grown women, who no more look out wistfully at a more healthy life; we are contented.’
Lest this sound too earnest, I shall hasten to add that The Story of an African Farm is often wryly amusing, with the comedy of characters – the large aunt who has a string of suitors come to propose marriage, and the weedy, bullied man who succeeds. The self-satisfied Englishman who is finally vanquished. Gentle misunderstandings and competing personalities amongst those on the farm. Both well written and thought-provoking, The Story of an African Farm isn’t your average Victorian three-volume novel, but it is authentic and purposeful, and I look forward to studying it more closely in the future.
Sony Reader: The Carbon Copy’s Verdict
To continue with the theme (and do keep the questions coming), Colin has emailed me in his thoughts on the Sony Reader. And you’ll see why he’s considered funnier than me :-) He blogs at www.colinjthomas.co.uk. Here goes with his verdict:
One of the chief problems of the literary world over the last few years has been Harry Potter. How is someone in their twenties supposed to read the adventures of the boy wizard, without losing all trace of credibility? No longer young enough to read it for pleasure, not yet old enough to pretend I’m doing it because I’m worried about what the kids are reading, the choices are few.
Bloomsbury realised this some time ago, and so introduced the ‘adult’ covers, enabling us to read the same text but with a dark, grown-up picture on the front. This worked well for about twenty minutes, but soon enough even these covers became easily recognisable as JK Rowling’s work (the big gold ‘Harry Potter’ emblazoned on the front didn’t help), and we were back to square one. And trust me, wrapping the dust jacket from Wuthering Heights round the cover doesn’t help, since sooner or later someone will ask you how it’s going, and you’ll tell them you’ve always preferred Emily Bronte’s other work. Embarrassing.
This is where the e-reader comes in. With no tell-tale cover, nobody on the train can know that the reason you’ve missed your stop is that you’re frantically trying to work out if Hagrid’s going to die or not – and if anyone asks you what you’re reading, it is but the click of a button to bring up The Merchant of Venice or Ulysses. Of course, the lack of cover art does have its drawbacks; most notably that you can’t tell which way up the book should be. I know I opened it upside down as often as not.
Of course, if you’re not actually reading Harry Potter (or the Famous Five, Postman Pat annual, etc) there is the opposite problem that you can’t silently show off what you’re reading. What point is there in reading Hamlet (as I did in testing the e-reader) if you can’t let everyone around you know that that’s the kind of intelligent chap you are? I tried to make up for this by quoting extensively at every opportunity, but that’s not always an option – and on public transport, people have their headphones in half the time anyway.
Speaking of which, this e-reader does offer the chance to listen to music while reading, though it’s only really possible to fit a dozen or fewer songs on, I believe – as default it came with a lullaby. Clearly someone in a boardroom had the tag line “If you like reading, you’ll love falling asleep!” in mind, though sadly it didn’t make it to final product. Lullaby or not, I find the music cute, but fundamentally unnecessary: anyone who buys an e-reader will already own a dozen other gadgets that they can plug headphones into.
In fact, the surge of the music industry is perhaps a good parallel with the book world: from vinyl through to mp3, steadily the physical product has been sacrificed on the altar of convenience – a shame, since album artwork, like that of Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper and Dark Side of the Moon, has lost its importance in the face of invisible downloads. Perhaps this is the direction that the literary world is headed.
Do I detect the sound of spluttering? This is probably not a wise arena in which to compare literature with popular music, and I know that there are those – and I can see my brother leading the way, banner held aloft – who regard books as sacred, and more than the sum of their text. I have heard Simon go into raptures about end-paper (whatever that is) and reject recently published books based on the their lack of mouldy smell – ay, there’s the rub. Book-lovers will not be won over, even if the e-reader does allow you to take your entire library with you on holiday (actually, book-lovers will not be able to take their entire library, since none but the best-known books will make it to download, I fear). While the manufacturers (Sony? I should know things like this, as a reviewer) have gone to some length to make it look as much like a book as possible, it’s not sufficiently distinctive (ie falling apart) to appeal to some. Not to mention the fact that the crossover of bibliophiles and technophobes is not insignificant.
Personally, I like the idea of computerising at least some of our books. Yes, it’s phenomenally annoying that whenever you ‘turn the page’ (press a button), the new page appears in negative for half a second before showing itself correctly, reminding you that you’re reading e-ink, not ink-ink. Yes, when I tried exploring it a little, it crashed – I bet the first folio didn’t do that – producing that unique feeling of helplessness and fury that only men with computers can know. And yes, it was rather vexing that the only Jane Austen book not on there was the one I was currently reading (Northanger Abbey, since you ask. But that’s definitely a book I want people to know I’m reading. Chicks dig guys who read Austen, I’m reliably informed). But the clincher for me – other than concealing my Harry Potter habit – is having the choice of hundreds of books wherever you are. Well, that and not having to dust so much. I won’t be re-downloading my existing books, but I’d certainly consider downloading future purchases.
The Reader – Questions?
A brief interlude whilst I wait for The Carbon Copy’s musings… to ask if anyone has any questions about the Reader? No use me blathering on if you have something specific to ask… saw this Q&A on someone else’s blog, and thought it was a good idea.
Of course, as Phil already found out, I might not know. If I don’t, I’ll forward your questions onto Those Who Will Know (probably nice Huw who sent the Reader to me) and get back to you!
Sony Reader: Stuck-in-a-Book’s verdict
Day One
The Sony Reader arrives about 11am with the postman, in the middle of a coffee morning/bookshop thing we do in our garage/drive every Saturday morning. I open the package excitedly, and the Reader gets a lot of interest from those sitting at the tables. My first thought is definitely favourable – it’s sleek, compact, not too look-at-me-and-all-my-shiny-buttons. I would be able to hold it and still feel like a book geek rather than a computer geek and that, my friends, is an important distinction.
One point. Yes, leather bound (hopefully, probably, faux leather) – is this to match the rest of my leather bound books? Cos I’ve gotta tell you, I don’t have a lot of them. At last count it was none. But I suppose this probably isn’t a snobbery thing; they couldn’t really put it in a Virago paperback cover, could they now.
I open the enormous instruction sheet – one large sheet, rather than a booklet – and see that my first plan of action is to plug it in and charge it up.
Day Two
I’m afraid my inital excitement subsided whilst it was charging. Didn’t take that long, but the novelty wore off whilst it was charging… I’ll be back to it tomorrow…
Day Three
Hugely impressed by the number of books available on the website – and some for only 80p. And I’ve loaded Kim by Rudyard Kipling. I’ve flicked through forty odd pages of introduction and other paratextual bits and bobs, before I realise that I could have gone through the Table of Contents function. My fault for not exploring everything first. Having looked at the Table of Contents, I see that I can select the Intro, the Note, the Map… can I choose somewhere in the middle of the book? Only by typing in that page number. Well, if I know it, that’s fine… Can I search for a phrase or something? Not that I can discover. But, then, I can’t do that with a normal book.
Day Four
Reading Kim. Perhaps doesn’t help that I’m not *loving* the book itself – more on that in a different post. I read recently that words on the screen encourage the ‘power browse’ – skimming over a section of text, seeking salient points only. Took a while to stop myself doing that. Once trained, though, the reading experience is surprisingly pleasant – it doesn’t feel like reading a computer screen (not back lit) and, though it doesn’t feel *exactly* like reading a normal book, it’s much closer than I thought. I do have to wear my glasses to read (I think it’s my astigmatism which makes anything on a screen go blurry….?) but that is becoming increasingly true whatever I read.
Day Five
What other functions does it? I like the ‘bookmark’ bit – I press a button and it folds down the corner of the page, and makes a record of it in a separate section on the menu. This I enjoy because I could never do it with a normal book – but here it’s only the pixels being moved around, not a book being damaged. Bonus.
I can make the text bigger, I can see which pages I’ve looked at recently. There are probably lots of other things it can do, but I’ve not worked them out yet.
To Conclude
Much better than I expected. The main quibbles I have are slightly silly – I found it strange to read something on the right-hand side only. The screen going black between each page turn, momentarily, is off-putting. But I anticipated finding the experience rather unpleasant and wholly unbookesque – and it was much nicer than I’d imagined. Still the only advantage over a normal book, that I can think, is being able to carry a lot at once (mine came with a CD of 100 classics).
Very glad to have tried it, but the future of the book is in no danger. I shan’t be transferring over just yet – but neither will I be quite so sceptical.
Sony Reader
Something to whet the appetite today, in a to-be-continued review…
I almost deleted the email which had the subject line ‘Sony Reader opportunity’, thinking it was one in the endless line of spam emails which purport to come from every bank or company under the sun. This one, however, was genuine – the very charming Huw was offering me a Sony Reader, gratis, as Stuck-in-a-Book had come up when they were thinking of bookish people to spread the word.
Cue crisis of conscience. ‘Dear Huw’ (quoth I) ‘I would very much like to try out a Sony Reader… but… I should warn you, I’ve not always been warmly in their favour on my blog.’ In fact, I was even more honest than that. Nothing daunted, Huw wrote back saying I could still have one – after all, it would be even more of a triumph if I was won over.
The Sony Reader has been put to the Thomas Twin Test. That is to say, while The Carbon Copy was at home for a long weekend, I asked him to try out the eReader. I’ve also tried it. Tomorrow you get my report – his will follow in a day or two. I should let you know the stats, I suppose. (What does one ‘know’ about horses before races? If I knew the correct word, I’d use it.)
Stuck-in-a-Book a.k.a Simon: Obsessively bookish; slight suspicion of technology; has been known to break an internet cable by plugging it upside down.
The Carbon Copy a.k.a. Colin: Not quite so bookish – it’s in there somewhere, but books have been supplanted by the newspaper of late; rather more capable with technology, but no more than the average 22 year old male.
So you see, we cover different bases. Both like reading; both willing to give the Sony Reader a fair go. What were we reading:
Stuck-in-a-Book: Huw said I could choose something from the list of books available to read on the Sony Reader. I toyed with The Daisy Chain by Charlotte Yonge, but my conscience once more got the better of me, and I chose something from my reading list – Kim by Rudyard Kipling.
The Carbon Copy: I daresay he’ll tell us about his choosing procedure in due course, but the one he ended up with was Hamlet by Shakespeare, fondly known around here as Billybob (remember this?)
Ok. We’re in our starting positions… more tomorrow, when you find out how I got along with the Sony Reader.
Sorted!
And here are some pictures of the completed sort-out!
This is the bulk of the fiction – sadly I had to double stack, but at least there aren’t piles of books on top of each other, as there were before… it’s important all my books are in a logical order, because Our Vicar and Our Vicar’s Wife are frequently asked to find a book and post it to Oxford!
Thanks for all your tips about LibraryThing and other cataloguing websites – I’m a little tired after this sort out, but might transfer it over at some point… I do have a LibraryThing account, but was surprised at their miniscule limit for the free account. What do they think I am?!
And to answer a couple of questions from yesterday – yes, I did get rid of some books! They’ve gone to Honeypot, the church bookshop thing Our Vicar’s Wife runs. Mostly duplicates, it must be said, but I was more ruthless with one or two…. And Peter asks simply “Why?” Hmm. Partly because Our Vicar and Our Vicar’s Wife bought me the filing cards and told me I should do it, partly because I like having the records, and partly because it might stop me buying books I already have! Because my collection is split between two different places, sometimes it gets tricky to remember what I have…
Having A Sort Out
Whilst I’ve been at home, with most of my books, I decided to embark on a project which has been waiting for a while. In the true librarian spirit, I’ve been cataloguing my books. ‘Cataloguing’, in fact, is rather an inaccurate term – my project hasn’t taken the smallest bit of specialist knowledge, or in fact any knowledge beyond the title and author. And, if I can find the record, the date I bought the book and the date I read it.
Our Vicar’s Wife was most in favour of this project because it involved a lot of dusting – my shelves and books are now cleaner than they’ve ever been, and I have little folder books filled with cards with book details. Sadly I’ve now run out of them… which might prove an incentive to stop buying books. Of course it will do nothing of the kind.
Always happy to invite you backstage at Stuck-in-a-Book, here is the sort-out in the middle of its activity. Tomorrow I might unveil the undusty, organised and respectable looking rows of books.
As you can see, each author gets a card, and then their books on that card… so, once I’ve done the ones in Oxford, I’ll be able to tell you how many books I own and how many authors there are – that’s got you on the edge of your seats, hasn’t it? The difficulty will be updating it… especially when I run out of cards… Asda have stopped producing these little books, you see.
So far the author with the most entries?
Agatha Christie. There you are.