Guest post: Karen reports on Beverley Nichols Day

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I was sad that I couldn’t make it to a day celebrating Beverley Nichols recently – but Karen did and emailed me about it. I thought her report might appeal further afield, and asked if I could share it here. Photos also from Karen; thanks Karen!

On Sunday, a day which would have been his 120th birthday, I went to Glatton to the Beverley Nichols celebration weekend. It was wonderful! The Fenlands Trust and a local village man who enjoyed researching the local celebrity had put a lot of work into it.

The literary exhibition of his work was comprehensive and the hall was beautifully decorated with photographs, posters, mementos – they even had a video playing of Evensong. As well as novels, plays, poetry, autobiography and music scores it included ephemera such as a guide to Brighton, a review of the Coronation, adverts for menswear, introductions to many other works, and even the set of cigarette cards of which he was a featured writer. They had some letters, some journalism, such as his imagined, self-penned obituary (Here lies… Beverley Nichols, a column published in the Mirror in 1937 – very interesting if you can find it), his essay on euthanasia in the Spectator in 1975, copies of Woman’s Own, the Sketch magazine – I scarcely had time to see all of it. I practically squealed with delight when I found a summary of the Sweet and Twenties quoting my very own goodreads review of it. (Simon’s note: WordPress is doing that annoying thing of rotating pictures… but you get the idea.)

It was very much a village affair. The WI did teas and cakes, and lots of village people bustled about fetching more chairs when the village hall filled up. They had a small selection of books for sale (I picked up three titles I hadn’t already got, only £10 each) and then they handed out a free apple each from Beverley’s garden. One local lady told me when she moved to Glatton 40 years ago, she met someone who had known him. People should be banned – seriously, banned – from dropping this sort of teaser and then failing to elaborate ;).

There was a speech about Nichols’ life with lots of anecdotes and pictures of him at various stages followed by a church service celebrating his talent (a fine piece of irony given that he was hounded out of Glatton by the villagers who were growing ever more intolerant of his fast and loose metropolitan set and their wild parties, as well as the publicity his books were generating).

Officiating was the Bishop of Huntingdon who had read Nichols’ Christian polemic The Fool Hath Spoke in preparation for his address, claiming it raised only the occasional episcopal eyebrow. I saw the lovely stained glass windows in the church and then the unveiling of the plaque at the crossroads of the village. The local paper sent a photographer and hopefully there will be a picture in the local paper at some point of the episcopal robes, crozier and a bunch of diehard grinning Bev fans around the plaque.

The whole day was wonderful and the exhibition was totally absorbing!

Guest post: Our Vicar’s Wife on Honey Pot Books

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I’m posting a couple of guest posts this week – not just cos I’m lazy, promise – and the first is from my Mum aka Our Vicar’s Wife, about Honey Pot Books run from the Rectory garage. It may be rather too far for many of you, but anybody who can get to the West Country could be tempted. Over to Mum/OVW!

Honey Pot Books is one of those acorns which grew and grew and grew – turned into a good-sized tree, bearing all sorts of wonderful fruit, and now, sadly, is about to be felled!

 

It all began 12 years ago, with about 35 books, some empty bookshelves, a garage, and a broom. The garage was transformed into a weekly bookshop, open from 10-12 each Saturday. It offered fairtrade hot drinks, a chance to buy books, and to meet friends old and new. Its committee joined in the adventure – making opportunities to try new things, funding groups in the villages, and supporting activities with children and families. It was all small scale, but, like Topsy (or my oak tree) it continued to grow and develop.

 

We sold paperbacks at 40p or 3 for a pound; hardbacks 50p or £1, depending on size and condition. Drinks were free – ‘just throw some money in the basket if you want to’. There were jigsaws for the housebound, historical crime series to borrow for the hooked, children’s books (sold at two rates: half price for child shoppers!) were housed variously in a side room, a canary-coloured caravan, a shed and now, back in the garage. At one point we built a Kenyan Hut as part of our aim to link with a Kenyan charity. Akamba Aid Fund, but Storm Frank took away the last straw (well, the roof) and it was replaced by a resurrected shed. We held fund-raising breakfasts, on the driveway – read about the latest one here, held open weekends with literary installations in the garden, and themed refreshments (Mad Hatter). We worked alongside the church year, supporting initiatives designed to keep the festivals lively and relevant – helping with creative workshops and supporting the choir and ‘open the Book’ work in school.

 

 

The money we kept raising fed back into books, too  – supporting the local book club, which meets in the village hall and helping to pay for boxes of books, in its early days. And we love books – oh, yes, we love books! They poured in – sometimes only fit for retirement, others, with the pages hardly turned, but all with their place in the scheme of things.

 

So, the Honey Pot Book tree has flourished and still holds a magical assortment of books – BUT – now they have to go. The end is in sight. Retirement = a house move and the garage must, like Cinderella, return to its previous condition. So, for this week and next, it’s Open House at the Honey Pot – open from 10.30 – 4.00 most days, with books flying off the shelves at bargain prices – an art gallery to enjoy, a white elephant stall to laugh at, the hallmark fairtrade hot (and cold) drinks AND a fairtrade shop! We’d love to see you and tell you more about our journey, and about some of the things we have achieved through this venture.

 

You’ll find us at TA14 6TT, just a couple of miles south of the A303 near Yeovil.

 

We’d love to see you and hear about your book adventures, too!

 

OVW and the Honey Pot* Committee
*Why ‘Honey Pot Books? I hear you ask… just ‘because…’

The Millstone by Margaret Drabble

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I bought The Millstone (1965) by Margaret Drabble in 2009, in Chester, but I think that must just have been based on name recognition – and on this extraordinary cover. Penguin really did have some interesting cover designs in the 1960s. But what made me pick it up recently is how often people have told me that it is very similar to my much-loved The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks. I recently re-read it, and it seemed like a good time to tackle The Millstone. And, man, it’s similar.

I’m glad I’m so familiar with The L-Shaped Room, otherwise reading them so close to each other would have confused me a lot. Both are about young pregnant women; both are living alone; both are pregnant after their first and only sexual encounter (and didn’t particularly enjoy that); both consider doing a makeshift abortion by getting drunk on gin. It’s hard not to think that Drabble might have got inspiration from Banks. But there are certainly differences too.

My career has always been marked by a strange mixture of confidence and cowardice: almost, one might say, made by it. Take, for instance, the first time I tried spending a night a man in a hotel. I was nineteen at the time, an age appropriate for such adventures, and needless to say I was not married. I am still not married, a fact of some significance,but more of that later. The name of the boy, if I remember rightly, was Hamish. I do remember rightly. I really must try not to be deprecating. Confidence, not cowardice, is the part of myself which I admire, after all.

This is the opening paragraph, and the first person narrator is Rosamund. She is dealing with this pregnancy alone – but only because her parents have taken a convenient extended trip abroad. She is not in an l-shaped room; she is in her parents’ large home in a posh area. Her sister is not helpful, and she doesn’t want Hamish in the picture, but her friends are good and she can continue writing her thesis about Elizabethan poets. (The least realistic section of The Millstone is how easily Rosamund eventually gets her thesis published and then immediately gets a job in academia – perhaps this sort of thing was possible in the 1960s, but it certainly isn’t now. But I’m getting ahead of myself.)

Again, like The L-Shaped Room, there is not much plot. It is, instead, more of an emotional portrait – seeing how Rosamund copes with every stage of this new life. Unlike Banks’ novel, the birth of the child is not the end but the middle – we also see how she copes with being a new mother, with its own crises. There are certainly funny moments, or perhaps rather a wry tone, but what makes The Millstone impressive is the nuanced and interesting way Drabble takes us on Rosamund’s journey. There is very little dramatic, but there is a lot of life – not idealised, certainly, and Rosamund is too real to be wholly sympathetic, but I really enjoyed it. A great deal more than the only other Drabble novel I’ve read, The Garrick Year, which was rather tedious. Drabble is much better on motherhood than casual adultery, it turns out.

Is it as good as The L-Shaped Room? To my heart, no. It couldn’t be. And I think perhaps to my mind, too – but it’s still rather good and has made me want to explore more of her novels. Any recommendations?

Persephone Books in the order they were originally published

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Have you ever wanted to see the spread of Persephone’s publications in date order? Well, I have. Not least for when I’m trying to match Persephone Books to empty slots on my Century of Books.

Well, I couldn’t find this information online. I don’t think it’s there. And so I put it together myself!

There are GRAPHS. They are TERRIBLE QUALITY. But INTERESTING NONETHELESS.

Here’s the spread of them – you can see quite the cluster around mid-century, unsurprisingly.

And here they are in the order that Persephone published them – which shows that they’re getting slightly more modern? Maybe? But also I’m surprised by how few are published post-1950.

Where’s my data, huh? First, here are all their books with the publication date (if it’s a collection of short stories that Persephone compiled themselves, I’ve used the date of the last story.)

1: William – an Englishman by Cicely Hamilton 1920
2: Mariana by Monica Dickens 1940
3: Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple 1953
4: Fidelity by Susan Glaspell 1915
5: An Interrupted Life: The Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum 1941-43 by Etty Hillesum 1984
6: The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski 1953
7: The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher 1924
8: Good Evening, Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes by Mollie Panter-Downes 1944
9: Few Eggs and No Oranges by Vere Hodgson 1976
10: Good Things in England by Florence White 1932
11: Julian Grenfell by Nicholas Mosley 1976
12: It’s Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty by Judith Viorst 1968
13: Consequences by E M Delafield 1919
14: Farewell Leicester Square by Betty Miller 1941
15: Tell It to a Stranger by Elizabeth Berridge 1947
16: Saplings by Noel Streatfeild 1945
17: Marjory Fleming by Oriel Malet 1946
18: Every Eye by Isobel English 1956
19: They Knew Mr Knight by Dorothy Whipple 1934
20: A Woman’s Place: 1910-75 by Ruth Adam 1975
21: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson 1937
22: Consider the Years by Virginia Graham 1946
23: Reuben Sachs by Amy Levy 1888
24: Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton 1948
25: The Montana Stories by Katherine Mansfield 1923
26: Brook Evans by Susan Glaspell 1928
27: The Children who Lived in a Barn by Eleanor Graham 1938
28: Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski 1949
29: The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett 1901
30: Kitchen Essays by Agnes Jekyll 1922
31: A House in the Country by Jocelyn Playfair 1944
32: The Carlyles at Home by Thea Holme 1965
33: The Far Cry by Emma Smith 1949
34: Minnie’s Room: The Peacetime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes by Mollie Panter-Downes 1965
35: Greenery Street by Denis Mackail 1925
36: Lettice Delmer by Susan Miles 1958
37: The Runaway by Elizabeth Anna Hart 1872
38: Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey 1932
39: Manja by Anna Gmeyner 1939
40: The Priory by Dorothy Whipple 1939
41: Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge 1933
42: The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding 1947
43: The Wise Virgins by Leonard Woolf 1914
44: Tea with Mr Rochester by Frances Towers 1949
45: Good Food on the Aga by Ambrose Heath 1933
46: Miss Ranskill Comes Home by Barbara Euphan Todd 1946
47: The New House by Lettice Cooper 1936
48: The Casino by Margaret Bonham 1948
49: Bricks and Mortar by Helen Ashton 1932
50: The World that was Ours by Hilda Bernstein 1967
51: Operation Heartbreak by Duff Cooper 1950
52: The Village by Marghanita Laski 1952
53: Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary by Ruby Ferguson 1937
54: They Can’t Ration These by Vicomte de Mauduit 1940
55: Flush by Virginia Woolf 1933
56: They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple 1943
57: The Hopkins Manuscript by RC Sherriff 1939
58: Hetty Dorval by Ethel Wilson 1947
59: There Were No Windows by Norah Hoult 1944
60: Doreen by Barbara Noble 1946
61: A London Child of the 1870s by Molly Hughes 1934
62: How To Run Your Home Without Help by Kay Smallshaw 1949
63: Princes in the Land by Joanna Cannan 1936
64: The Woman Novelist and Other Stories by Diana Gardner 1946
65: Alas, Poor Lady by Rachel Ferguson 1937
66: Gardener’s Nightcap by Muriel Stuart 1938
67: The Fortnight in September by RC Sherriff 1931
68: The Expendable Man by Dorothy B Hughes 1963
69: Journal by Katherine Mansfield 1927
70: Plats du Jour by Patience Gray 1957
71: The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett 1907
72: House-Bound by Winifred Peck 1942
73: The Young Pretenders by Edith Henrietta Fowler 1895
74: The Closed Door and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple 1961
75: On the Other Side: Letters to my Children from Germany 1940-46 by Mathilde Wolff-Mönckeberg 1979
76: The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby 1924
77: Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting by Penelope Mortimer 1958
78: A Very Great Profession by Nicola Beauman 1983
79: Round About a Pound a Week by Maud Pember Reeves 1913
80: The Country Housewife’s Book by Lucy H Yates 1934
81: Miss Buncle’s Book by DE Stevenson 1934
82: Amours de Voyage by Arthur Hugh Clough 1849
83: Making Conversation by Christine Longford 1931
84: A New System of Domestic Cookery by Mrs Rundell 1806
85: High Wages by Dorothy Whipple 1930
86: To Bed with Grand Music by Marghanita Laski 1946
87: Dimanche and Other Stories by Irène Némirovsky 2000
88: Still Missing by Beth Gutcheon 1981
89: The Mystery of Mrs Blencarrow by Mrs Oliphant 1890
90: The Winds of Heaven by Monica Dickens 1955
91: Miss Buncle Married by DE Stevenson 1936
92: Midsummer Night in the Workhouse by Diana Athill 2011
93: The Sack of Bath by Adam Fergusson 1973
94: No Surrender by Constance Maud 1911
95: Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple 1932
96: Dinners for Beginners by Rachel and Margaret Ryan 1934
97: Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins 1934
98: A Writer’s Diary by Virginia Woolf 1953
99: Patience by John Coates 1953
100: The Persephone Book of Short Stories by 1986
101: Heat Lightning by Helen Hull 1932
102: The Exiles Return by Elisabeth de Waal 2013
103: The Squire by Enid Bagnold 1938
104: The Two Mrs Abbotts by DE Stevenson 1943
105: Diary of a Provincial Lady by E M Delafield 1930
106: Into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg 1967
107: Wilfred and Eileen by Jonathan Smith 1976
108: The Happy Tree by Rosalind Murray 1926
109: The Country Life Cookery Book by Ambrose Heath 1937
110: Because of the Lockwoods by Dorothy Whipple 1949
111: London War Notes by Mollie Panter-Downes 1972
112: Vain Shadow by Jane Hervey 1963
113: Greengates by RC Sherriff 1936
114: Gardeners’ Choice by Evelyn Dunbar and Charles Mahoney 1937
115: Maman, What Are We Called Now? by Jacqueline Mesnil-Amar 1945
116: A Lady and Her Husband by Amber Reeves 1914
117: The Godwits Fly by Robin Hyde 1938
118: Every Good Deed and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple 1946
119: Long Live Great Bardfield by Tirzah Garwood 2012
120: Madame Solario by Gladys Huntington 1956
121: Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane 1895
122: Earth and High Heaven by Gwethalyn Graham 1944
123: Emmeline by Judith Rossner 1980
124: The Journey Home and Other Stories by Malachi Whitaker 1934
125: Guard Your Daughters by Diana Tutton 1953
126: Despised and Rejected by Rose Allatini 1918
127: Young Anne by Dorothy Whipple 1927
128: Tory Heaven by Marghanita Laski 1948

 

And here they are in order of original publication – from 1806 to 2013 (though the 2013 was a novel that was unpublished many decades earlier).

 

84 84: A New System of Domestic Cookery by Mrs Rundell 1806
82 82: Amours de Voyage by Arthur Hugh Clough 1849
37 37: The Runaway by Elizabeth Anna Hart 1872
23 23: Reuben Sachs by Amy Levy 1888
89 89: The Mystery of Mrs Blencarrow by Mrs Oliphant 1890
73 73: The Young Pretenders by Edith Henrietta Fowler 1895
121 121: Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane 1895
29 29: The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett 1901
71 71: The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett 1907
94 94: No Surrender by Constance Maud 1911
79 79: Round About a Pound a Week by Maud Pember Reeves 1913
43 43: The Wise Virgins by Leonard Woolf 1914
116 116: A Lady and Her Husband by Amber Reeves 1914
4 4: Fidelity by Susan Glaspell 1915
126 126: Despised and Rejected by Rose Allatini 1918
13 13: Consequences by E M Delafield 1919
1 1: William – an Englishman by Cicely Hamilton 1920
30 30: Kitchen Essays by Agnes Jekyll 1922
25 25: The Montana Stories by Katherine Mansfield 1923
7 7: The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher 1924
76 76: The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby 1924
35 35: Greenery Street by Denis Mackail 1925
108 108: The Happy Tree by Rosalind Murray 1926
69 69: Journal by Katherine Mansfield 1927
127 127: Young Anne by Dorothy Whipple 1927
26 26: Brook Evans by Susan Glaspell 1928
85 85: High Wages by Dorothy Whipple 1930
105 105: Diary of a Provincial Lady by E M Delafield 1930
67 67: The Fortnight in September by RC Sherriff 1931
83 83: Making Conversation by Christine Longford 1931
10 10: Good Things in England by Florence White 1932
38 38: Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey 1932
49 49: Bricks and Mortar by Helen Ashton 1932
95 95: Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple 1932
101 101: Heat Lightning by Helen Hull 1932
41 41: Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge 1933
45 45: Good Food on the Aga by Ambrose Heath 1933
55 55: Flush by Virginia Woolf 1933
19 19: They Knew Mr Knight by Dorothy Whipple 1934
61 61: A London Child of the 1870s by Molly Hughes 1934
80 80: The Country Housewife’s Book by Lucy H Yates 1934
81 81: Miss Buncle’s Book by DE Stevenson 1934
96 96: Dinners for Beginners by Rachel and Margaret Ryan 1934
97 97: Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins 1934
124 124: The Journey Home and Other Stories by Malachi Whitaker 1934
47 47: The New House by Lettice Cooper 1936
63 63: Princes in the Land by Joanna Cannan 1936
91 91: Miss Buncle Married by DE Stevenson 1936
113 113: Greengates by RC Sherriff 1936
21 21: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson 1937
53 53: Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary by Ruby Ferguson 1937
65 65: Alas, Poor Lady by Rachel Ferguson 1937
109 109: The Country Life Cookery Book by Ambrose Heath 1937
114 114: Gardeners’ Choice by Evelyn Dunbar and Charles Mahoney 1937
27 27: The Children who Lived in a Barn by Eleanor Graham 1938
66 66: Gardener’s Nightcap by Muriel Stuart 1938
103 103: The Squire by Enid Bagnold 1938
117 117: The Godwits Fly by Robin Hyde 1938
39 39: Manja by Anna Gmeyner 1939
40 40: The Priory by Dorothy Whipple 1939
57 57: The Hopkins Manuscript by RC Sherriff 1939
2 2: Mariana by Monica Dickens 1940
54 54: They Can’t Ration These by Vicomte de Mauduit 1940
14 14: Farewell Leicester Square by Betty Miller 1941
72 72: House-Bound by Winifred Peck 1942
56 56: They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple 1943
104 104: The Two Mrs Abbotts by DE Stevenson 1943
8 8: Good Evening, Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes by Mollie Panter-Downes 1944
31 31: A House in the Country by Jocelyn Playfair 1944
59 59: There Were No Windows by Norah Hoult 1944
122 122: Earth and High Heaven by Gwethalyn Graham 1944
16 16: Saplings by Noel Streatfeild 1945
115 115: Maman, What Are We Called Now? by Jacqueline Mesnil-Amar 1945
17 17: Marjory Fleming by Oriel Malet 1946
22 22: Consider the Years by Virginia Graham 1946
46 46: Miss Ranskill Comes Home by Barbara Euphan Todd 1946
60 60: Doreen by Barbara Noble 1946
64 64: The Woman Novelist and Other Stories by Diana Gardner 1946
86 86: To Bed with Grand Music by Marghanita Laski 1946
118 118: Every Good Deed and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple 1946
15 15: Tell It to a Stranger by Elizabeth Berridge 1947
42 42: The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding 1947
58 58: Hetty Dorval by Ethel Wilson 1947
24 24: Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton 1948
48 48: The Casino by Margaret Bonham 1948
128 128: Tory Heaven by Marghanita Laski 1948
28 28: Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski 1949
33 33: The Far Cry by Emma Smith 1949
44 44: Tea with Mr Rochester by Frances Towers 1949
62 62: How To Run Your Home Without Help by Kay Smallshaw 1949
110 110: Because of the Lockwoods by Dorothy Whipple 1949
51 51: Operation Heartbreak by Duff Cooper 1950
52 52: The Village by Marghanita Laski 1952
3 3: Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple 1953
6 6: The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski 1953
98 98: A Writer’s Diary by Virginia Woolf 1953
99 99: Patience by John Coates 1953
125 125: Guard Your Daughters by Diana Tutton 1953
90 90: The Winds of Heaven by Monica Dickens 1955
18 18: Every Eye by Isobel English 1956
120 120: Madame Solario by Gladys Huntington 1956
70 70: Plats du Jour by Patience Gray 1957
36 36: Lettice Delmer by Susan Miles 1958
77 77: Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting by Penelope Mortimer 1958
74 74: The Closed Door and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple 1961
68 68: The Expendable Man by Dorothy B Hughes 1963
112 112: Vain Shadow by Jane Hervey 1963
32 32: The Carlyles at Home by Thea Holme 1965
34 34: Minnie’s Room: The Peacetime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes by Mollie Panter-Downes 1965
50 50: The World that was Ours by Hilda Bernstein 1967
106 106: Into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg 1967
12 12: It’s Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty by Judith Viorst 1968
111 111: London War Notes by Mollie Panter-Downes 1972
93 93: The Sack of Bath by Adam Fergusson 1973
20 20: A Woman’s Place: 1910-75 by Ruth Adam 1975
9 9: Few Eggs and No Oranges by Vere Hodgson 1976
11 11: Julian Grenfell by Nicholas Mosley 1976
107 107: Wilfred and Eileen by Jonathan Smith 1976
75 75: On the Other Side: Letters to my Children from Germany 1940-46 by Mathilde Wolff-Mönckeberg 1979
123 123: Emmeline by Judith Rossner 1980
88 88: Still Missing by Beth Gutcheon 1981
78 78: A Very Great Profession by Nicola Beauman 1983
5 5: An Interrupted Life: The Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum 1941-43 by Etty Hillesum 1984
100 100: The Persephone Book of Short Stories by 1986
87 87: Dimanche and Other Stories by Irène Némirovsky 2000
92 92: Midsummer Night in the Workhouse by Diana Athill 2011
119 119: Long Live Great Bardfield by Tirzah Garwood 2012
102 102: The Exiles Return by Elisabeth de Waal 2013

I hope that was interesting! I found it fun – and it will be a useful resource for me in the future. And maybe you too!

Tea or Books? #64: WW1 vs WW2 and Coronation vs Love of Seven Dolls

StuckinaBook Tea or Books? , 7 Comments

Paul Gallico and two World Wars – quite a mix!

 

In the first half of this episode, we look at the books of the World Wars – whether written at the time or later – and decide which we are more drawn to. Thanks to Faith for the suggestion!

In the second half, we compare two novels by Paul Gallico – Coronation and Love of Seven Dolls. I deleted the bit where we talked about books we’d do next time – we’d talked about The Demon Lover by Elizabeth Bowen vs The Devastating Boys by Elizabeth Taylor, but we might have to postpone that. Watch this space!

You can visit our iTunes page or our Patreon, should you so wish!

The books and authors we mention in this episode are:

The Millstone by Margaret Drabble
The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks
Sleepwalking Land by Mia Couto
Normal People by Sally Rooney
Vanity Fair by W.M. Thackeray
Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon
Memoirs of an Infantry Officer by Siegfried Sassoon
Sherston’s Progress by Siegfried Sassoon
Wilfred Owen
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
Regeneration by Pat Barker
A Curious Friendship by Anna Thomasson
Siegfried’s Journey by Siegfried Sassoon
The Weald of Youth by Siegfried Sassoon
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves
Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden
Diary Without Dates by Enid Bagnold
…Not So Quiet by Helen Zenna Smith
William – An Englishman by Cicely Hamilton
London War Notes by Mollie Panter-Downes
Doreen by Barbara Noble
To Bed With Grand Music by Marghanita Laski
Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski
The Provincial Lady in Wartime by E.M. Delafield
Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh
Henrietta’s War by Joyce Dennys
One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes
On the Other Side by Mathilde Wolff-Monckeberg
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
A House in the Country by Jocelyn Playfair
Love of Seven Dolls by Paul Gallico
Coronation by Paul Gallico
The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico
Flowers For Mrs Harris by Paul Gallico
Jennie by Paul Gallico
The Fur Person by May Sarton
The Foolish Immortals by Paul Gallico
Too Many Ghosts by Paul Gallico
The Snowflake by Paul Gallico
The Poseidon Adventure by Paul Gallico

Astley Book Farm: the books I bought

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I don’t know why it’s taken me so many years to get to Astley Book Farm. I first heard of it years ago, I think perhaps from this blog post that Hayley wrote in 2010. At the time, I didn’t have a car – and without a car, it wouldn’t be very easy to get to this bookshop. While it’s close to Nuneaton, it’s pretty isolated in transport terms – unsurprising, given that it’s a converted farm. I got a car in 2014, but somehow it didn’t happen – until last weekend!

Astley Book Farm is every bit as wonderful as you all told me it would be. Room after room after room, warren-like, with a wide variety of reasonably priced books. And an amazing cafe. And a snug at the end. And a barn of 50p books. It was all wonderfulllll. I can tell I’ll be back there often. But these are the books I bought while I was there…

The Poor Man by Stella Benson
I’ve been doing surprisingly well with Benson books on recent bookshop trips, and was delighted that the streak is continuing.

Encounter by Milan Kundera
Slowness by Milan Kundera
Yes, I have lots of books by Kundera that I haven’t read, but not these. Until now! Encounter is essays and Slowness is a novel. Yay Kundera!

Willa Cather by Hermione Lee
A Woman of Passion by Julia Briggs
Early Stages by John Gielgud
The Gift by H.D.
What is Remembered by Alice B. Toklas
I’m grouping all of these in a lazy way because I bought them all to stock up my biography/autobiography shelf. The Toklas is after reading Two Lives (which turns out to have kicked off quite a chain reaction), while A Woman of Passion is a biography of E. Nesbit. I started in the biography section, which partly explains why there are so many…

Family Matters by Anthony Rolls
Sergeant Cluff Stands Firm by Gil North
There turn out to be so many British Library Crime Classics I don’t know anything about, and I am grabbing all of ’em.

Mrs Carteret Receives by L.P. Hartley
I might not have bought this if I’d realised it was short stories, as for some reason Hartley doesn’t seem like an author I’d enjoy as much in brief bursts. But it’s mine now, so I’ll find out eventually!

A Wild Swan by Michael Cunningham
Whereas I did know this was short stories, and I’m more than ready to try out Cunningham at that!

Old Filth by Jane Gardam
I’ve only read one Gardam novel (God on the Rocks), but this is the one every talks about as being brilliant – so, since it was 50p, I thought it was worth a shot.

I’m pretty pleased with the haul I came away with! There are definitely a lot of modern paperbacks alongside the more unusual finds, but there’s plenty for everyone – and I’m looking forward to my next trip, if only because of the amount of cake options in the cafe that I’ve still got to sample.

Song for a Sunday

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Not to be all hipster, but I’ve known about Troye Sivan from before he was famous. He was one of a group of YouTube vloggers I enjoyed watching back in the day – most of them seem to have stopped vlogging now, but it was fun when he started his music career. But also a surprise when it was a success!

His latest album Bloom is out now, and it’s really quite good. It takes a few listens, as it’s pretty subtle – but I recommend ‘Dance To This’ with Ariana Grande. Enjoy!

 

Stuck in a Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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Guys. I’m SO excited. I’m spending my Saturday at Astley Book Farm! I will report back in due course – why is it called that? do they farm books there? – but just think of me madly shoving books into my bag and living my very best life.

I can’t promise that a weekend miscellany will be quite as good, but it’s better than nothing, right? Here’s a book, a blog post, and a link to help you out if you’re spending your weekend is less of a biblio-heaven.

1.) The book – is one I heard about during an episode of the Chat 10 Looks 3 podcast (essentially two Australian journalists talking about culture, food, books, everything in a very funny way). It’s called The Devil’s Candy by Julie Salamon, and is a non-fiction look at the making of a movie of Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities. Which was a massive flop and a terrible production. It sounds fascinating. (It’s also super long, which is why I haven’t quite bought it yet.) It’s from 1991 – has anybody read it?

2.) The link – Waterstones has been bought by Foyles. Eep. Apparently in a battle against Amazon? Sad to see an independent go to the wall.

3.) The blog post – I enjoyed this review of Memento Mori by Muriel Spark, over at 746 Books. Yay Muriel!

A Meaningful Life by L.J. Davis

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I was given a copy of A Meaningful Life by L.J. Davis by Frances (of Nonsuch Book) back in 2011 – I don’t even remember the context for that, but thank you Frances! We did eventually meet each other in 2015, which was lovely, but this book must have come across the Atlantic. When I was looking up which books I had waiting that would fit 1971, this one came up – and I knew it was about time that I finally read it. Though I had no idea what at all it was about.

Lowell Lake aspires to be a writer, but is actually in an uninspiring job and an uninspiring marriage. As the narrative later tells us, both he and his wife are married to the marriage more than each other – not only has love left their relatively-young relationship, but so has respect. In a masterpiece of writing a bit like the opening of Sense and Sensibility, Lowell’s wife gradually manipulates him into giving up a scholarship at Berkeley in favour of moving to New York – all while alleging that she doesn’t want to.

Their life in New York is no better. Davis’s writing is excellent, and we feel mired in this unhealthy, unhappy relationship – and stultified by Lowell’s mediocre life. Jonathan Lethem’s introduction to the NYRB Classics edition isn’t very good, but he does have one moment of brilliance where he describes Lowell as ‘chronically ill with self knowledge’. Lowell takes up writing full time, but does it largely at night – both he and his wife grimly determined that he will at least try to finish a novel. One of my favourite passages, because it rang so true, was Lowell’s response when he re-read his prose:

It read like mud. Totally by accident he had contrived to fashion a style that was both limp and dense at the same time, writing page upon page of flaccid, impenetrable description, pierced here and there by sudden, rather startling interludes of fustian and vainglory that neither adorned, advanced, nor illuminated the plot, although they did give the reader a keen insight on the kind of movies Lowell had seen as a child.

As you can see, hopefully, A Meaningful Life deals with unhappy people and a bleak situation, but it is very funny. I laughed quite a lot reading it – Davis has a turn of phrase that brings out the dark humour of a sad scene. He also judges just the right amount of surrealism to bring to the novel – and Lowell seems to have a small break down…

They spent the next couple of hours barricaded behind walls of newsprint, warily passing fresh sections back and forth as the need arose, and doing their best not to meet each other’s eyes. The last section to come before Lowell’s face was the ant ads. It was a moment before he realized what he was looking at. He wondered how it had come into his possession. Had he picked it up on purpose? Had his wife deliberatly placed it where he could reach it? Was he absolutely certain his shows were on the right feet?

This isn’t a turning point so much as one more milestone on a trek into misery. But a turning point does come, of sorts. And that’s when they decide they should buy property.

I have never come across a scene of house hunting that I didn’t enjoy – particularly in a comic novel. It provides such a rich seam of comedy. And in A Meaningful Life it is as strange as it is funny – particularly when they decide upon a rambling house that is currently occupied by seemingly dozens of people, each in their decrepit cells. It’s bizarre and dark and wonderful to read – and the rest of the novel looks at how the house affects Lowell and his marriage. It continues to be strange and funny and haunting right through to the final words – and Davis’s exceptional writing continues, perfectly judged. To pick one example, I loved the odd truth of something like this:

“My wife and I,” he began, striking an attitude, “bought our house six years ago.” He’d asked so many questions that this utterance of a simple declarative sentence sounded extremely strange, as though he’d begun to read aloud.”

I’d be intrigued to know what Davis’s other novels are like. This isn’t quite like anything else I’ve ever read. Good as it is, I don’t know how often I’d be in the mood for more of the same – but I can certainly see it happening at least once every few years. And to leave you with a word of warning: if you have the NYRB Classics edition, don’t read the blurb – at least, don’t read it to the end. It gives away something that happens in the final 15 pages. You’re better than this, NYRB!

What did I buy in August?

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I’ve missed these for a few months, which emphatically doesn’t mean that I’ve not been buying books. But I think I’d been a bit restrained over the past couple of months – and, indeed, had been pretty restrained in August until the last week or so of it… and I have a whole heap o’ books. But they’re pretty great. No regrets.

If Only They Didn’t Speak English by Jon Sopel
I saw Sopel speak at the Hay festival earlier in the year – the only thing I went to, in fact – and it was excellent. Saddening, but excellent. So I eventually got a copy of his book – which retreads a lot of the same ground as his interview, but is good reading nonetheless.

Portrait of Stella Benson by R.E. Roberts
My recent wonderings about Stella Benson led me to buy this – I’d seen it described as a personal account of her life, and I love it when the memoirist has a relationship of some sort with the subject.

Letters of C.S. Lewis
I found this in a charity shop, and apparently bought it shortly after it was put out on the shelves. Which led to a curious conversation with the person shelving books, who I thought wanted to take the copy from me. It was all very confusing.

In the Freud Archives by Janet Malcolm
Forty-One False Starts by Janet Malcolm
Psychoanalysis: the Impossible Profession by Janet Malcolm
The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
Yup, I was serious when I said that my recent read of Two Lives had sent me off on a Janet Malcolm craze.

The Snow Ball by Brigid Brophy
I really enjoyed her novel Hackenfeller’s Ape, and the Backlisted podcast did an episode that convinced me this novel was definitely worth buying – so I was pleased to find it in a charity shop recently.

The Trip to Echo Spring by Olivia Laing
Adding to my pile of Laing books to read, after really liking To The River. This one is all about writers and alcohol – intriguing, no?

The Bachelors by Adalbert Stifter
I’ll be honest, I don’t even remember buying this. But I love these boxy little Pushkin Press editions.

Reaching Down the Rabbit Hall by Allan Ropper and B.D. Burrell
The subtitle ‘extraordinary journeys into the human brain’ sum this one up – hopefully the sort of popular neurosciency type stuff that I find fascinating.

Rockets Galore by Compton Mackenzie
I want more and more Mackenzie. Though I think this might be a sequel. Which would be the second time I’d done that with Mackenzie.

Rosy is My Relative by Gerald Durrell
Sure, I need more Durrell waiting on my shelves.

Any you’ve read, or would recommend, or are interested in? I’ve already started the Sopel and one of the Malcolms…