A Book Meme

I don't get a lot of time for memes and now seems like a good time to apologise to anyone who tags me for one, I'm so sorry, I'm not ignoring them honestly but I seriously don't know where the time goes.
Did I used to go to work?
Well I still do that except I now work from home, barely half the hours I used to so no excuse. I met with a colleague yesterday bearing a message about a return to the coalface, I said no chance unless I could turn up in my pyjamas. Tempus does indeed fugit however carpe the diem and thus avoid any more mea the culpa I said to myself and stop and ponder this lovely bookish meme from Harriet.

The book that’s been on your shelves the longest.

This would probably be my Mum's copy of What Katy Did which she probably put on a shelf for me the day I was born along with a Ist edition of Vera by Elizabeth von Arnim (because she was called Vera.) This is the Herbert Strang library edition which seems to have been published by Oxford University Press.
The pictures sealed the characters in my imagination for ever, consequently Aunt Izzie is very tall and has a halo of wispy auburn hair, and now I see this book warranted a library ticket of my own making because playing libraries was what I did when I wasn't out on my roller skates or my Mobo scooter.
Just to repeat for any who may have missed it; What Katy Did responsible for many years of pronouncing Imogen with a hard 'g' and only being tactfully put right when I was about eighteen.
My apologies to all the Emowguns out there, now I know it's Immerjin.

A book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time).

So many of these but among the treasures are three books, film tie-ins for The Sound of Music , the real story of the Trapp Family Singers (by Maria von Trapp, not Julie Andrews)  and Born Free and then a copy of National Velvet that my brother bought for me for long-ago birthdays.
It will be thirty-four years next month since my brother died and, whilst he remains twenty-four in my memory and I've done the ageing thing, I will always miss him.

A book you acquired in some interesting way

I'm not sure how good I feel about this one.
I was trawling around eBay back in 2004 when I came across something that I knew I wanted badly, needed to be the guardian of for a little while. After Sylvia Plath's death you may recall there was a lodger living in the flat downstairs, Trevor Thomas, who was judged to have cashed in mercilessly on being the last person to see Sylvia alive by self-publishing Last Encounters, a series of poems about her death.
Living downstairs Trevor Thomas was also rendered unconscious by the gas that killed Sylvia but he alleged that a week later at about 2.30pm on 18th February 1963 he fell into a trance, not a sleep, and when he came to at 4.30pm he had unwittingly written six poems and was exhausted. This kept happening until, and with the added bonus of visitations from the late Sylvia, he eventually had enough poems plus his account of events and published this booklet in 1989.
Ted Hughes took out an injunction, libel writs flew over false accusations about noisy parties and unsold copies had to be withdrawn, but there were still a few of the 200 numbered copies out there and one with a genuine provenance came up for sale on eBay. I have collected Ted & Sylvia for years, and suddenly I had to have this and so I bought it. I was up against a US bidder but by this time I'd recklessly decided I needed to save this for the nation and so I did.
It's an amateur production and difficult to discern whether this is the work of a deluded mind or someone who genuinely believed what he wrote, but re-reading it again now no wonder Ted was furious. Janet Malcolm probably gives the best account of these events in her book The Silent Woman. Meanwhile now that I have a copy I never quite know what to do with it, somehow it seems wrong to shelve it in Ted & Sylvia's corner.

The book that’s been with you to the most places.

Well I've carted a whole heap of books with me wherever I've gone, a complete trunk full from nurses home to nurses home around the entire city of London and thence to Devon, so it's difficult to pick just one, but probably my old school prize copy of Jane Eyre. Apparently I was making 'Progress' in Form IE at Mitcham Grammar but then with the onslaught of comprehensives I had to change schools and never won a dickie bird after that.
Never mind, it's the taking part that counts.
The most recent addition to your shelves.

My most recent purchase (well actually Bookhound spotted this on Alibris and bought it for me) I Have What I Gave - The Fiction of Janet Frame by Judith Dell Panny to add to my ever- increasing Janet Frame shelf.
I'm desperado to understand the many nuances of Janet Frames writing because it's iceberg stuff I'm sure of it, 9/10ths concealed beneath the surface so I'm tracking down whatever commentaries I can find.

Your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next.

I'm reading a book by Peter Manseau whose name keeps cropping up everywhere right now (well admittedly not in the Tavistock Times, but just about everywhere else) Songs for the Butcher's Daughter and I'm loving it. Last read was The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley, loved that too, and next I'm looking at Songs My Mother Never Taught Me by Selcuk Altun (which suddenly seems like a whole lot of singing lately) unless something comes along and nudges it out of the way.

So that's me all memed out, please feel free to pick up and run with that in comments (or your own blog) if you want to, you know how nosey I am, I'd love to know.