Booking Through Thursday

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This week’s question is quite appropriate for me, as I’ve got next week off work, and shall be going home for a few days, starting tomorrow. Might mean blogging is sporadic, I warn you now…

Do you buy books while on vacation/holiday? Do you have favourite bookstores that you only get to visit while away on a trip? What/Where are they?
I can just about hear my parents’ hollow laugh from here about the first question… yes, I do buy books on holiday! Many, many books. I’m fairly familiar with the stock of my local secondhand bookshops – going away means there are wholly unmined sources. And I mine ’em. I try to leave my suitcase about half empty, to leave plenty of room for all the purchases.

Favourite bookshops visited only on trips? Well, before we moved to Somerset we used to pass by the Bookbarn on our trips to the South West, and that’s a truly wonderful place. Now we’re close to it, we don’t seem to visit all that much. Generally, the pleasure for me is finding bookshops serendipitously. Mmmm books.

Howsabout yourself?

Letter-Shaped Living

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Oh, but you’re good. Well done to everyone who correctly identified The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks, whichever method you used to spot it. It feels a bit fraudulent to label a book you May Not Have Heard About, but it’s so good that it’s going on my 50 Books nonetheless.

I read The L-Shaped Room back in 2001, having bought it on a whim for 10p, and utterly loved it. It was with some trepidation that I returned to it in 2008 – after all, though seven years may not seem like a very long time, I only really started reading Proper Books in 2000, so it’s a long time for me. I needn’t have worried – this 1960 novel of Jane Graham, unmarried and pregnant, moving into her L-shaped room, was still brilliant. I was just as gripped this time, though I knew (in surprisingly close detail) what would happen throughout the novel.

Jane is thrown out by her father when he finds out she is pregnant, and she must become independent. She chooses “an ugly, degraded district in which to find myself a room… in some obscure way I wanted to punish myself, I wanted to put myself in the setting that seemed proper to my situation.” Determined not to engage with the other occupants of the building, to suffer her solitude, she cannot help learn about them and grow to like them. There’s John, a kind, black jazz-player in the room next door; Mavis, an elderly spinster with a mania for collecting ornaments; Doris her constantly indignant landlady; even the prostitutes on the basement floor. Most importantly, there is Toby – a writer who hides his Jewishness and is irrepressibly friendly.

Banks’ strength is her characters – all of them had stayed in my head from 2001, and it was like greeting old friends. None are stereotypical (which makes it difficult to describe them, above, truth be told) and none are too nice, either – they are real people, with real motives and emotions and consequences. You love them for it, but it makes their trials and tribulations all the more traumatic for the reader.

I’ve read the sequels, The Backward Shadow and Two Is Lonely, back in 2001/2, and remember them both being good – though not as good. Last night I watched the film. I do love a black and white film – it makes one feel effortlessly intelligent. If I hadn’t just read the book, I’d probably have really loved it – but there are so many deviations. I can cope with a film missing out bits of the book, time constraints and all, but this one changed all sorts of details needlessly. Jane was French (actress can’t do an accent, I expect), her mother wasn’t dead and we never get to see her father, such an important aspect of the book. And why they gave her a baby girl instead of a boy, I can’t imagine. Still, the actors are brilliant – each looks and acts just right. Shame about the writing.

If you’ve not read The L-Shaped Room, do get a copy. Lots cheap on Amazon. And it’s also in print, which is rare enough for the books I recommend as favourites! Jane Graham will stay with you for years, as will her L-shaped room.

Guessing Games

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Tomorrow I’m going to add another book to the 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About – though I think some of you may have heard of this one. Not sure, really. So today I’m going to give you a mini-guessing game, to see if you can identify the book from the brief clues I give.


I’ve just watched the 1962 film – not a musical, you’ll be relieved to hear after yesterday,

The author also wrote children’s books.

Let’s
Just
Say
That
This
Is
Also
Something of a Clue….

A Personal Low Point

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How the mighty are fallen. What would Virginia Woolf say if she knew what I’d just read. Granted, the whole book took me less than an hour, but that’s still an hour I could have spent in the company of Laura Ramsay, Clarissa Dalloway, Miss La Trobe.

I’ve just read High School Musical : The Book of the Film.

My very dear friend Mel bought it for me, since we have shared (ironically, you understand) the rollercoaster of emotions that is Troy (basketball player) and Gabriella (Maths genius) discovering affinity through song. She asked me to write about it on here, and being the slavish man I am…

If you’ve seen High School Musical, then you’ve read all the dialogue in this book. N.B. Grace, who appears to have penned all manner of such books (though also looks like a note reminding about the Gospel) has turned his/her hand to writing a book in the easiest way possible. Grab a script, and throw “He said, thoughtfully”; “She said, inwardly groaning” and so forth, throughout. Repeat as needed. Surprisingly, however, it is done unobtrusively, and makes for an enjoyable enough read.

But why do I write about it here? Well, some of you may be the parents/grandparents/friends/siblings of someone who is reluctant to read much. If that person is a pre-teenager, possibly with a crush on Zac Efron/Vanessa Anne Hudgens, then maybe this book would lure them into the reading fold… Worth a shot, anyway.

Happy, Mel? ;-)

Self

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I spent this afternoon painting a self-portrait (which is above, and with which I’m currently not very happy, so it may get a bit of an alteration before long) and I thought it would be a good excuse for being unashamedly egoistical doing a self-portrait in words too. I saw the ‘100 things about me’ idea on Sarah’s blog, and I thought it was ideal for me. These ‘8 Random Facts’ memes are great, but each fact has to be interesting… like Miss Bates before me, I opt for 100 very dull things indeed. Well, perhaps I choose rather more than her. Do have a go yourself!

1. My name is Simon David Thomas.
2. I was born on 7th November 1985…
3…. in Billinge, Merseyside, UK.
4. I’ve since lived in Eckington, Worcestershire; Chiselborough, Somerset, and Oxford.
5. I have a twin brother called Colin.
6. I’m vegetarian.
7. I’m a Christian.
8. The countries I’ve been to, outside of Britain, are Ireland, France, Belgium, Spain, Qatar (briefly), The Philippines.
9. In The Philippines a group of us taught sock puppetry to a group of teachers…
10. I hadn’t been on a commercial ‘plane until I was 19.
11. But I had been on a four-seater ‘plane at our local airfield
12. Blue has been my favourite colour for as long as I can recall.
13. I’ve never broken any bones.
14. In fact, I’ve never been to hospital, except to be born and visit others!
15. My favourite singer is Kathryn Williams.
16. I cried a lot as a baby – Mum used to say “If you want to tell which one’s Simon and which one’s Colin, just lie them both down – the one to cry first is Simon” – !
17. I love spending time in my own company, but only if it’s my choice and not forced.
18. I love writing and receiving letters, but am quite slow at doing it.
19. I love weddings.
20. My favourite vegetable is red pepper.
21. My favourite animal is the cat (especially the kitten)
22. Next is the donkey.
23. I’m severely arachnophobic.
24. I don’t like the heat at all – if you’re cold, you can put on a jumper; there is nothing to be done if it’s hot!
25. I have a slightly irrational love of staircases, especially spiral ones.
26. But this is balanced by an irrational dislike of personal storage units…
27. I very rarely read newspapers.
28. I play the piano, violin and clarinet, though it’s been so long since I picked up a clarinet that it might not be worth including in that list…
29. Colin and I were once in a group called the ‘Elgar Junior Singers’ in Worcestershire
30. I don’t feel myself in a city – only truly happy in the countryside
31. As far as I’m aware, I’m not allergic to anything except fake transfer tattooes.
32. Spring is my favourite season, and Summer my least favourite.
33. I was a teenager before I realised that hens and chickens were the same thing, despite being brought up in the countryside by the son of a farmer.
34. That grandparent was known as Grandad Tractor throughout our childhood.
35. When I was very young I wanted to be a ‘tealady’ – though this has recently been trumped by a child who wants to be a ‘fire engine’.
36. I once proposed to a girl called Natalie, when we were both five, and gave her the ring-pull from a Coke can. Her Dad conviscated it.
37. Colin and I went through primary school with our initials sewn onto our jumpers.
38. We had to do sets of Work Experience at school – I spent time at an Interior Design company, and a Publisher. And decided against both.
39. My favourite film is The Hours.
40. I can’t stand the sound of shelves scraping against ice in a freezer.
41. And I also hate watching weather forecasts.
42. My favourite Bible verse is 2 Corinthians 12:9 – “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
43. The first song I ever bought was Five’s ‘When The Lights Go Out’. What a confession.
44. I always eat cereal without milk.
45. My favourite feature is my eyes.
46. They’re blue.
47. I can list all the States of America in alphabetical order.
48. Sadly, I bite my nails.
49. I learnt to click my fingers on my seventh birthday.
50. I had a brace on my teeth for three years.
51. The only sporting trophies I have are chess ones…
52. I’d love to go to Venice.
53. I can’t speak any other language except English…
54…. but multilingualism is the skill I most admire in others.
55. I love baking, especially if I can make up the recipes.
56. I was a pond monitor in first school.
57. 256 is my favourite number.
58. My least favourite word is ‘onyx’.
59. I don’t like peanut butter, parsnips or raw tomatoes.
60. I’ve been on television twice.
61. And was on the front cover of the local newspaper when I was born.
62. I love those TV programmes about house makeovers/buying/selling/building.
63. Despite an A Level in Maths, I still find my 4 times table tricky.
64. My first role in the school play, with Colin, was holding up the ‘sea’ for Noah’s boat to float across.
65. I’m anti-hunting, but not anti-culling.
66. I used the word ‘vicarious’ inaccurately for years.
67. I’m very squeamish.
68. But I’ve never fainted.
69. I hate having dry hands.
70. My attention span isn’t that long, and I almost always get weary of a film or play about three-quarters of the way through.
71. I planted a silver birch in a garden my Grandad (Tractor) helped to dig, and enjoyed having a growing race with it over the years. It’s long since won.
72. Eeyore is my favourite character from Winnie the Pooh.
73. I love painting and drawing.
74. And I always doodle on scraps of paper, or the backs of old envelopes, when I’m on the ‘phone.
75. If I had to pick any period to live in, it would be the 1930s, minus the World War.
76. I love torrential rain, when I’m indoors.
77. I sleep with my curtains open, because I like to wake up in the light.
78. Queuing is the British trait of which I’m most proud.
79. I used to go under the alias ‘syntrix’ on the internet.
80. My friend Andrew and I briefly made a comic in Year 3, including Sqare [sic] Eyes and Daniel the Spaniel.
81. I stopped reading the Beano on my 13th birthday.
82. Growing up in a Vicarage family has made me value privacy a lot, and make definite boundaries between my personal space and other spaces.
83. I don’t think I’d be able to leave the house in the morning without having had a cup of tea.
84. I love Ceylon tea.
85. My favourite food is crusty white bread cheese sandwich.
86. I love Ikea.
87. I’ve kept a journal since 2001, and would hate anyone to read a word of it.
88. I’ve also kept a list of the books I’ve read since about mid-2001.
89. I hate getting my haircut, and did it myself for a couple of years.
90. Almost every film makes me cry…
91. I get very shocked if people eat food off their knife.
92. I’m half an inch shy of six foot.
93. I sometimes correct people’s grammar when I barely know them.
94. Sight is the sense I’d least like to lose.
95. In fact, I’d rather lose the other four – because nearly everything I like is experienced visually.
96. I once accidentally invited myself on a couple’s date – and went…
97. I used to Maypole dance at school.
98. I carry a book with me more or less everywhere I go.
99. I’m quite tired, now, and
100. I found that really hard!

Overrated Classics Meme

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Kirsty at Other Stories has tagged me for a meme about classic literature (of the famous-and-good rather than Greek-and-Latin variety)…

What was the best classic you were “forced” to read at school, and why?
I never know why people complain about books they read at school, at least not for the most part. But I suppose my English degree pays testament to the fact that I like analysing literature as much as giving it a quick read – two very different activities, one rather more difficult than the other, but love them both. I think the best must be either Much Ado About Nothing by Billybob, or Hard Times by Charles Dickens. Both incredibly funny, though I must confess having a brilliant teacher for Hard Times gave it a good leg up.

What was the worst classic you were forced to endure, and why?
The only one I really didn’t like – and couldn’t respect, because it was more or less trash literature – was Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. But I don’t think anybody would call that a classic, would they? I didn’t think a huge amount of Of Mice and Men, though I don’t regret having read it. I do think they start students on Shakespeare far too early – Macbeth was my first, when I was eleven. What other Renaissance writer would they dole out at that age? Or anyone pre-Victorian, for that matter. Much though I revere Billybob, I’d like to see a wider range of authors from the 16th-19th Centuries. And by that I don’t mean a cursory mention of Marlowe…

Which classic should every student be made to read?
I suppose this invites the obvious retort that students shouldn’t be *made* to read anything, but let’s sweep that under the carpet for now. I don’t think you can truly appreciate the structure of a novel, or the potential for character and language, until you’ve read Pride and Prejudice. And perhaps they’d be able to hammer into people’s heads that it’s not a ‘girl’s book’…

Which classic should be put to rest immediately?
That’s a bit tricker. Whilst I don’t like Ulysses, for example, I think it stands as an interesting idea and shouldn’t be destroyed. I can’t quite see the point of The Catcher in the Rye, or why it’s been hailed as such a great book, nor The Bell Jar. Hmm. Can’t think of any I’d like to see put to rest immediately, but I daresay something will rear its head before long.

Soft amongst the macabre

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A couple of review books I’ve been meaning to write about, with very little in common except that I want to write about them together. These sorts of posts always remind about my favourite tutor, Emma, who had my friend Chris and me in joint tutorials. We’d often written on completely different texts with completely different topics and themes – and Emma would valiantly spend the tutorial trying to draw out unifying points from the two. Should be fun.

The first is Alternative Medicine by Laura Solomon, a collection of short stories published by Flame Books. They also published The Bestowing Sun by Neil Grimmett (which I wrote about here) and Tru by Eric (which I wrote about here). I was so impressed by these two novels that I had to read more from the publishing house. Perhaps I’d set myself up for a fall – while I enjoyed and admired Alternative Medicine, it has a very different feel to it. Those novels were at the forefront of emotional, real modern literature, exploring relationships between families and the elasticity of feelings – Laura Solomon is doing something quite different.

It’s always difficult to summarise a collection of short stories, and it’s illuminating to see what the writer of the blurb has chosen to represent Alternative Medicine: ‘A couple is torn apart by a renegade duvet, an upstaged Santa takes revenge on his rival, a girl’s father is abducted by aliens, a man is relentlessly bullied by his sister on their annual holiday, a manufactured genius turns out to be not so perfect after all’. The next paragraph talks abut the ‘entertaining and insightful journey into the shortcomings of being human, and the wonder of our graces’; ‘masterful central metaphors, sharp wit, and a beautiful simplcity’. For me, the title to today’s post says it all for a theme – ‘soft amongst the macabre’. I read each story with foreboding, expecting something strange or grotesque at every corner – to inject the writing with this menace is quite a talent – but alongside this was a soft, sensitive understanding of the characters and their motivations.

The Battle for Gullywith by Susan Hill appeared on more or less every blog known to man a few months ago, but I’ve only just finished it. It’s my first book by Susan Hill, in fact, though I’ve read thousands of her words in the form of her blog. It is inevitable that any children’s book now will be compared to Harry Potter, so I’m just going to use the words and get on with what I was talking about. The plot is probably familiar to you all, if not, pop over to Amazon (this must be the laziest reviewing ever!) I read The Battle for Gullywith in three bouts, and was thus rather confused at times, but that’s my fault rather than the book’s. I think it’s probably a book one has to come to as a child to truly love – I found it an enjoyable romp, with amusing, slightly predictable characters, some inventive plot aspects, and the most ingenious use of tortoises I’ve ever encountered. A few too many topical references to feel timeless, but enough good old-fashioned adventure to beguile a child who has exhausted JK Rowling and Enid Blyton. Say what you like about those authors, but I don’t think a child can do much better than them.

Mostly Persephone

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More Persephone chat today – because the other day I went to the event I forewarned you about, at Mostly Books in Abingdon. Nicola Beauman, doyenne of Persephone (is doyenne complimentary? It’s meant to be) gave a lovely talk on setting up Persephone in 1999, the highs and lows, and the Persephone Classics venture. The room was full with interested people – it was especially nice to meet Moira and her husband, so hello to you both! – and I am never happier than when surrounded by bookish folk. Such a joy to be able to hear and talk about a publishing house which I love so dearly, and books I cherish.

I’ve heard Nicola talk before, but it is always a pleasure. (Something I note is that, whilst when I was 18 and had loooong hair, people didn’t want to catch my eye at a Persephone event, here I obviously looked a lot less off-putting!) If you ever have the chance to hear about Persephone from the driving force behind it, do take it. From Nicola’s time with Virago and her book A Very Great Profession (recently republished by Persephone), to setting up Persephone Books, to the surprise bestseller of Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day to the Persephone Classics, it is a fascinating journey which I hope to see in her biography one day…

Persephone Classics is where Persephone lovers form two factions. They are further, slightly cheaper, reprints of Persephone’s bestsellers. The iconic dove grey covers, concealing beautiful endpapers using fabric from the year the book was published, are replaced with pictures of the covers. The content inside is identical. I confess, I was a little wary when I first heard about the venture – but then I saw this cover for Dorothy Whipple’s Someone at a Distance.


It is a wonderful book, both very well written and also addictive, which don’t always go hand in hand – and what an incredible cover. I think it’s the most beautiful book I own, not just to look at, but to hold and to read.

Some of the audience at Mostly Books were resolute that they wouldn’t buy a non-grey cover; some were entranced; all were grateful to Nicola for bringing these wonderful books back into print. It’s flared up my collectors’ instinct again – so many I’ve yet to own! One of these days I’ll give a list of the ones I’ve read and those I own, and will await your recommendations…

Thank you Nicola, and thank you Mark for organising such a wonderful evening.

BAFAB Results!

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Thank you Patch for helping me again with the BAFAB draw – highest number of entrants yet, so thanks all for joining. I loved how our favourite book-gifts were almost all ones we were given as children, ones which set us off reading or which we treasured then and now.

Patch took up his usual role of sifting through the entries.


He got a little excited…


But managed to come up with a name…



Congratulations Pamk! Please email me with your postal address – simondavidthomas@yahoo.co.uk

Colourful World

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(Not long to enter my BAFAB draw…. scroll down a bit if you’d like to enter… draw will be Monday evening!)

A bit tired after a weekend with The Carbon Copy (only bought a couple of books – including the Persephone book Operation Heartbreak by Duff Cooper) so a simple question for you. Don’t think I’ve asked this one before…

What is your favourite book with a colour in the title?

For my American readers, feel free to take a ‘u’ out of the word ‘colour’… ;-)

Mine is shown in the picture. Click on it for a review of the book written earlier in the year – but to be honest, I haven’t thought long and hard. Maybe there are others which should supplant it?