Weekend Miscellany

I hope you have good weekend plans – I’m seeing various friends, including a picnic, so fingers crossed for nice weather. I’ll also be making a baked cheesecake, so it’s ALL GO chez Simon. Anyway, whatever you have planed, here’s a book, a blog post, and a link to take you into it.

1.) The book – you KNOW I’m always happy to read books about reading, and Tim Parks’ Pen in Hand is right up my street. In fact, I’ve already read a few of the essays, and they’re really interesting – a little more academic than other titles in this sphere, but certainly not in a way to alienate the ‘common reader’, to sue Johnson’s/Woolf’s phrase.

2.) The link – I often enjoy the Guardian‘s ‘Experience’ column, and this one about managing the world’s last Blockbuster store is good fun.

3.) The blog post – is more of an entire blog, I think: ‘Reading Africa‘ is a project where Muthoni is trying to read at least one book from every country in Africa. There are loads of great suggestions in there, and it’s a very interesting challenge.

I hope you’re having a wonderful Easter weekend. It’s beautiful weather here as I write this, on Good Friday, and I’ve spent a happy hour or so reading The Hours while pulling out weeds. More exciting plans to follow during the rest of the weekend! For now, the usual miscellany.

1.) The link – is a wonderful article about Persephone Books in the New York Times magazine, including some really beautiful photographs of the shop. It probably won’t tell you anything you don’t already know, if you’re a Persephone devotee, but it’s lovely to read nonetheless. And, as a bonus, here’s a video for a pilot of ‘Fran’s Book Shop’, featuring bookish interviews in the Persephone shop.

2.) The blog post – another reading week opportunity! In the first week of July, Helen from A Gallimaufry will be running a Sylvia Townsend Warner reading week. I’ll certainly be joining in, probably with some more of STW’s exceptional short stories.

3.) The book – The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr. It’s another of those books I’ve seen mentioned on Twitter and can’t remember who by – but lots of people are saying that it’s already one of the best books about how to write. “If you want to write a novel, read this book,” say the Sunday Times, and reader, I do want to write a novel.

Is it spring? Is it not? I guess maybe? The weather as been very up and down recently, and it’s pouring with rain as I write. Hail, the other day! Oh well, books will never let us down, even if we have to heap ourselves with blankets and cats while reading. You know what else won’t let you down? The weekend miscellany. Here’s the usual trio of things to enjoy!

1.) The blog post – is Ali’s announcement of the upcoming Daphne du Maurier Reading Week, 13-19 May. Judging by the number of comments on that post, it should be very popular. I have lots of unread Daphnes on my shelf and, because of #ProjectNames, might go for Julius. Though I am a bit chary of reading it because of its reported anti-Semitism…

2.) The link – is a great article at Vulture about trying to live like Virginia Woolf, which also discusses Katharine Smyth’s brilliant All The Lives We Ever Lived (currently high in the running for my book of the year).

3.) The book – is Limbo by Dan Fox. I don’t know much about it, but I do know that I covet all of Fitzcarraldo’s non-fiction. I’ve only read one (Kate Briggs’ This Little Art, which was one of the best books I read last year) but I know I want to read more – and this one starts with a description of the Headington shark. If you don’t know what the Headington shark is, have a google – I used to live a few streets from it.

Happy Saturday, y’all. It’s another busy weekend for me – I’ll be in London today, seeing Betrayal, and potentially joining in the People’s Vote march if we can manage the timings. I’ll also be reading a great book on the train; more of that anon (or right now if you follow my Instagram). Hope you’re having a good one, and here’s a book, blog post, and link:

1.) The book – came up in the recent episode of ‘Tea or Books?’, where Rachel gave me a tour of her shelves. When I spotted Happily Ever After by Susannah Fullerton, I was rather baffled that I hadn’t heard of it before – or, more likely, heard about it and forgot. It’s a celebration of Pride and Prejudice, looking at the characters and story – but also the history of the novel’s popularity and various metamorphoses. Irresistible, no?

2.) The blog post – speaking of that episode, if you enjoyed hearing Rachel take me through her bookshelves then dive back into the Book Snob archive and see her flat for yourself. It really is lovely. If Rachel ever gives in the teaching, she could be an interior designer – bold and clever choices are all over the place, and she is rightly proud of it.

3.) The link – is a New Yorker article about a stack of books that the author’s father piled up over the decades – but it is, of course, about much more than that.

You know how I’m not buying books this year, except for special trips? Well – this Saturday I’m off on one of those trips, back to Astley Book Farm. It’s not been super long since I was last there, and I don’t know how quickly they replenish their stock, so who knows what I’ll come back with. But I suspect something. And I also think this might be the second and final bookshop trip of the year! I’d planned them both last year, which is why they were the caveats.

While I’m there, I hope you’re enjoying your weekends – and here’s a book, a blog post, and link to help you do just that:

1.) The link – is an ingenious idea for an article from the Guardian. They contacted five people who won ‘lifetime supplies’ of different things, from toilet roll to chicken, and learned how this affected their lives (and what ‘lifetime supply’ means in practice). Guys, one of them is books!

2.) The book – I keep going back to WhichBook (after testing out lots of book recommendation websites) and writing down book titles and not buying them – but I was particularly intrigued by Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill by Dimitri Verhulst. I can’t remember what I put in the sliders, but it did seem very up my street. Find out more! (Has anybody read it?)

3.) The blog post – Moira makes The Strange Case of Harriet Hall by Moray Dalton sound pretty appealing, but the main reason to visit Clothes in Books this week is those lovely pictures of 1930s clothes. Heaven!

That early summer sunshine we got last week seems to have hidden again, so I hope you have a nice March weekend planned. I’ll be visiting friends in various locations, and probably not getting much reading done. But I can leave you with a book, a blog post, and a link… (and don’t forget that the #1965Club is only a few weeks away!)

1.) The blog post – is Karen’s/Kaggsy’s excellent review of Olivia Laing’s wonderful book To The River. Go over and find out more…

2.) The link – I won’t often link to rap battles, but this one is an exception.

3.) The book – now that I’ve read Paul Collins’ excellent book about Shakespeare, I’m going to have to read Sixpence House, about the time he and his family lived in Hay-on-Wye. Since I’m not buying books this year, that could be tricky…

I’m kicking off the weekend with brunch AND lunch. Don’t believe anybody who says that brunch should replace lunch. And then hopefully a bit of reading, and probably quite a lot of sleeping. I hope you’ve got a good weekend lined up – and here’s the usual book, blog post, and link to help you get it started.

1.) The book – I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that a new Helen Oyeyemi novel is coming out soon. Have I read all the ones I already have? No. Do I still really want this? Of course. Find out more about Gingerbread. (And isn’t it a lovely cover?)

2.) The link – want to know how many cows you could have bought with a certain number of pounds in 1600? More seriously, this currency converter from the National Archives will help out anybody reading historical fiction – if you’re trying to work out the wealth of various folk in the book you’re reading.

3.) The blog post – do check out JacquiWine’s excellent review of the extraordinary memoir More Was Lost by Eleanor Perenyi. Warning – you’ll want to buy the book.

Hard to believe it was snowing recently, given how sunny it is as I write this! I’m spending my weekend watching ‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’ at the cinema, playing board games, and (of course) reading. Hopefully recording another episode of ‘Tea or Books?’ if I manage to finish the enormouslyyyy long book Rachel chose.

I hope you’re having a great weekend – and here’s a book, a link, and a blog post to help you along.

1.) The book – is a reprint of What Not by Rose Macaulay. I’ve had it for years but have yet to read it – must rectify – and now you can get a lovely edition from Handheld Classics. Well, nearly now – it’s coming out at the end of March. (Fun fact: I apparently own more Macaulay books than anybody else on LibraryThing, at 24, though I’ve only read half of those.

2.) The link – British or Irish and want to find out if the NY Times can work out where exactly you’re from? Give it a go!

3.) The blog post – I love Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes – for an interesting and more ambivalent review, check out George’s at Reading 1900-1950.

What a difference a week makes! No more snow here, and Cornwall already feels a lifetime ago. What a lovely weekend we had there, though. And today I’m off to London to watch a couple of plays – I’ve not done a matinee and an evening performance in the same day before, so hopefully it’ll be fab rather than too much of a good thing.

I hope you’re really well, and I’ll warm those February blues with a book, a link, and a blog post…

1.) The link – I love reading about cover design and the creative process – and this New Yorker article provides.

2.) The book – I don’t buy a lot of cookery books (though I have lots for baking), but I sort of need this halloumi cookbook. Man, I love halloumi.

3.) The blog post – Ali is great on Barbara Comyns in her recent review of Mr Fox – it’ll make you want to read it, I guarantee.

Happy weekend! I hope you’re not snowed in. I hope, frankly, that I’m not snowed in (since I’m writing this a few days in advance). But I’ve stocked up on cat food, and that’s the important thing. I can always survive on plain pasta, if needed. But man cannot live by pasta alone, so here is a blog post, a link, and a book to complement it.

1.) The blog post – I loved Karen’s parade of her Beverley Nichols books (and coveted a few, of course). Go and enjoy!

2.) The book – I can’t remember where I saw this recommended, but The Reading Promise: 3,218 nights of reading with my father by Alice Ozma is so up my street that I don’t know how I haven’t heard of it. It came out in 2012, and should, by rights, be right here in front of me. But it is not. Yet.

3.) The link – ever wanted to see a painting of a painting of a painting of a painting…? This is an unexpected delight, and proves that corners of the internet are surprisingly lovely.