dovegreyreader scribbles

The Village Play ~ 2011

A very Happy New Year's Eve to everyone and scraping in under the wire that is the year end, I have been very lax in bringing news of this year's annual village play. I'll be in trouble if I don't mention the Milton Abbot Players sell-out production of It Runs in the Family by Ray Cooney because I think the Players may have been waiting very patiently since November to see the pictures on here.

Bookhound was enlisted by Jim the Postie (peeking through at the back...yes that's Jim who delivers all the books) to help with the props and scenery this year and here's the backstage crew with props various...

This seemed to be the cue for bits of furniture to go missing from home in order to populate the Doctor's Common Room of St Andrew's Hospital, London. And it was a funny thing when the curtains opened on the stage in the village hall, (with the customary hand appearing around to pull them back when they got stuck, which they do every year)  funny in that it was all a bit familiar, a sort of deja vue stage set.

The synopsis of It Runs in the Family is glorious...

Dr David Mortimore is preparing to address a conference of neuro-surgeons with a speech certain to guarantee him a knighthood. In rushes a visitor. A nurse he had a fling with 18 years ago. Mortimore learns that as a result of their tryst she bore him a son. A son who is at this moment rampaging round the hospital searching for his wayward father! Attempting to cover up such a catastrophe on this important day sets the fibs fizzing. “If you’re going to tell a lie, tell a whopper,” yells Dr Mortimore as events begin to spin deliriously out of control. He enlists the help of hospital staff. In the ensuing chaos his best friend is passed off as the boy’s father! Fierce matron falls off the window ledge with a hypodermic needle in her rump! And several doctors end up in nurses’ uniform! There are more twists and turns in this outrageously funny farce than the Monaco Grand Prix. An evening of delicious and uproarious fun for all.

The programme that accompanies the play is always hilarious with potted biographies of the actors...

'Having studied at RADA (Royal Academy of Doing Acting) Tim left the bright lights of London in search of a more rewarding acting career in Milton Abbot Village Hall.
Some comments in praise of Tim:
"nobody does it quite like Tim ...thank heavens" - Kenneth Brannagh
"His Annie Get Your Gun was not so much a 'tour de force' but 'forced to tour'..." - Maggie Smith

I recognize that desk...

I'm sure I've seen that drinks trolley somewhere before..

Dr Mortimore's son discovers his father and falls on his knees...just as the Consultant walks in. Yes it was as dodgy as it looked and by this point we are crying with laughter...

...now beside ourselves as Matron, out on the windowsill takes a direct hit in the left upper outer quadrant

With perfect timing Doctor Bonney pulls the curtains on a lanced Matron as the Consultant walks in to ask yet again why Doctor Mortimore is not giving his lecture...

...Dr Mortimore is busy digging himself out of a hole and the front row is about to get a soda-syphon soaking... as is the Police Sergeant sent to investigate the disturbance ...as is our desk..

....Drs Mortimore and Bonney reappear as duplicate Matrons, now we are almost in need of oxygen...

...and now in need of resuscitation...

..hats off to Matron for holding this pose in the wheelchair..

Cue thunderous applause and cheering.

And though we curl up laughing every year I don't think we have ever laughed quite this much. I'm not sure the pictures do it justice and if they are blurred my apologies, I really was in hysterics. but congratulations to the Players for a brilliant production.

The Players have been in existence and producing a play each November since 1928 on a stage supplied to the Village Hall by the Duke of Bedford. November chosen because the cast would often be made up of members of the local farming community who had time to rehearse during September and October after the harvest.

AmDram alive and well in the Tamar Valley for another year. Does this sort of thing happen where you are??

 

 

 

Friday Finds ...

I was having a clear out of half-written blog posts still in draft, ones that will never make the cut when I found this one from November, and with a pile of books that seem too good to pass over so I'm squeezing them in before the year's end.

Perhaps I had subliminally absorbed all the beautiful autumnal colours outside and my mind had taken over, but I happened to glance at the pile of books on the table and noticed that they were all of a match...

and then I realised that they all actually also matched my very lovely Orla Kiely notebook which stays around for a quick bookish jot now and again.

So if you have a room in your home that can take autumn colours here's the very stack of books for you and today's selection includes gifts, possibles, permanents and keep meaning tos.

The Country Diaries edited by Alan Taylor and Roger Deakin's Notes From Walnut Tree Farm are a permanent bedside fixture. I am now on my second year of reading and following the seasons with Roger  and I doubt I will ever tire of doing so...

'It's mid-November and crickets are still singing outside the kitchen door...and bumblebees are still visiting the nasturtium flowers.- 11th November'

And whilst I love Roger's contemporaneous thoughts I also enjoy reading what people were doing each day in 1876 or 1928. The Country Diaries are a microcosm of life through the ages.

'Rain last night and the morning not very promising, tis surely dreadful weather. Briffet is here to kill the sow. A horrible looking fellow, his very countenance is sufficient to kill anything, a large hulky fellow, a face absolutely furrowed with small pox (a very uncommon thing in these days of innoculations)... 11th November 1799.

My thanks to Carol for A Year in the Woods by Colin Elford, a gem of a book that has now been enrolled in this happy band of daily reading and which I will start on Januray Ist 2012. It is the diary of a forest ranger, and of course in Colin Elford I recognise the Gamekeeper who also spends his days helping to keep the balance that is required for those of us who live in such close proximity to nature red in tooth and claw.

Someone else who enjoys the solitude and with a great deal of nature read in tooth and claw to contend with is Philip Connors, one time Wall Street journalist until he responded to the call of the wild...

'For nearly a decade, Philip Connors has spent half of each year in a small room at the top of a tower, on top of a mountain, alone in millions of acres of remote American wilderness. His job: to look for wildfires.'

And now the author of another wilderness read that has joined the stack, Fire Season Field Notes From a Wilderness Lookout. This is a book about fires obviously, though Philip's job is to report them rather than rush off with a hosepipe, none of which sounds too promising. But think again because it is also rich with the joys of solitude and the freedom of the independent spirit along with surprise encounters from black bears to abandoned fawns. And no picture can really convey the beauty of the cover because what looks orange is actually burnished shiny copper foil, it's a handsome looking book.

Solace by Belinda McKeon has been working its way to the top of the mountain and I will make a start the minute I am ready for another trip into Irish life. The novel has been getting consistently solid and favourable reviews as well as winning the Best Newcomer in the recent Irish Book Awards. From what I can gather Solace is about the timeless themes of love and loss with a bit of feud thrown in,  the collision of the old with the new in contemporary Ireland and there will be grief for sure. I'm still recovering from my last trip into Irish writing but I'll be ready for this one any day now.

A lovely volume of poetry had also slipped into the Farrow & Ball-like autumnal pile. I wrote about Christopher Reid's A Scattering a while ago, his volume of incredibly moving elegies written after the death of his wife, so when I was standing in front of the poetry shelves at Faber Towers recently and asked if there was anything I wanted (child ...chocolate factory)  Selected Poems jumped right into my hand.

 

 

 

Finally I think it really is time we all started using words like fopdoodle (though use with care) and dilly dally (fling that one around) again, and I am intrigued on a daily basis at the moment by The Story of English in 100 Words by David Crystal. Each entry brief enough to read while the washing is spinning or the bath's running, and you'll then want to go and off and find someone to say 'Did you know that...' and share the fact that fopdoodle is a fool (fop) and a simpleton(doodle) so a fool twice over... as I said...use with care. But the book is a wonderful conglomeration of linguistic nuggets with examples of origins, and how word use has slipped and changed or disappeared completely. How do we manage without bespirtle (to spot with vice) and fubbery (cheating) and glibbery (slippery) in these days of economic disaster, words that would all bring much needed joy and colour to Robert Peston's business news reports I feel sure.

Any suggestions that would complement this stack very gratefully received, especially books that would offer a slow, day by day read through the year.

 

 

And the winners are...

26  47  29 18  38  5

Random numbers generated Dec 28 2011 at 18:22:57 by www.psychicscience.org

So the Mary Seacole First Day Covers will be going to

26 - Barbara

47 - Maggie Wallace

29 - Margaret 46

and the postcards of Mary Seacole's portrait signed by Helen Rappaport will be winging their way to

18 - Lyn

38 - Aarti

5 - Jenny Ryan

Check it's really you and as soon as we have your address at dovegreyreader at gmail dot com Bookhound will open up the packing department, pack attentively and nicely and whizz the goods up to Hilary in the Village Post Office for dispatch.

Great Downton Expectations...

With apologies to anyone who can't access current UK TV programmes any which way, but after the confection that was Downton, I'm wondering what the verdict is on this latest dramatisation of Great Expectations??

Downton (look away now anyone in the US who is waiting for it to arrive) was predictably glorious and ...well... predictable, but we loved every minute, and half the fun is guessing where the plot will go in the next series...any guesses??

Great Expectations, first episode of three last night, second tonight, and it's definitely far removed from any cosy Dickensian pastiche. I kept saying 'I'm not enjoying this' and thinking how remote it felt from any comfortable notions I may have of the book, whilst knowing I had to watch what may well be a much truer representation of Dickens's intentions. Claire Tomalin suggests the book came

'out of a deep place in Dickens's imagination which he never chose to explain, and perhaps never could, and it is all the better for that...it is a great book, delicate and frightening, funny, sorrowful, mysterious....'

Magwitch was convincingly terrifying as was Mrs Gargery's incredibly abusive behaviour towards Pip, which all had me wincing, as did Estella's cruelty. That moment when Miss Havisham so purposefully binds Pip to his apprenticeship and then heralds it to Estella as the way to treat those you love...a sort of 'hurt them before they hurt you' approach was heart-wrenching. The landscape of the Kentish marshlands was magnificently expansive and murky and bleak, laden with menace and completely lacking in colour. When there was a splash of colour it drew the attention, most noticeably Magwitch's red lips after he is captured.

I'm not sure about Gillian Anderson as a younger Miss Havisham, but sufficiently hollow and ghostly to convince and I am very sure about her prodigious acting ability. Impressive as she veers between the edge of sanity and the brink of madness...a real tightrope for any actor to walk.

And I have been thinking about it all day and pondering it in amongst my Bleak House reading, and odd because of course I have Gillian Anderson in my mind's eye as Lady Dedlock from the BBC series too ...more madness over thwarted love there.

If you have watched either Downton or Great Expectations I'd love to know your thoughts...

The Candle and the Books

I love doing the dovegreyreader prize draws and if I am lucky enough to win something somewhere else then I think I get that same thrill of excitement that you probably do if you win here, and I have been lucky thrice in recent weeks.

My thanks to Tracy for the book and the book bag. A signed copy of Vicki Lane's Signs in the Blood, an Appalachian mystery, Vicki an author who Tracy met and heard talk recently, and a very lovely book bag from The Fountainhead Bookstore in Hendersonville, North Carolina. A girl can never have enough book bags I have found, and I'll bet there aren't many of these in the country. I shall flaunt it.

And thank you to Simon at Savidge Reads where I discover I have won a copy of The Great British Bake Off. I shall be cooking up a storm from that one.

And more thanks to Badaude and London perfumery Ormonde Jayne for the candle.

This latter involved me having to say what I most wanted for Christmas and anyone who suggested world peace was immediately disqualified, so in amongst the serious wishes about love and gifts was mine, asking for the cat not to be sick on the kitchen floor and for the Kayaker not to take his eyebrows off again with the "brandy + Christmas pudding + more brandy because that's never enough + a match" debacle. It was a close run thing again.

So my Ormonde Jayne Navidad Festive Candle has arrived and oh my word...

I've been given permission to light it which is nothing short of a miracle because after the New Year's Eve bonfire of a few years ago it seemed unlikely I would ever be allowed a candle again. It had burned beautifully all through New Year's Eve, one of those with half a hedgerow arranged attractively within the wax, all of which chose to spontaneously combust whilst we were outside at midnight enjoying everyone else's fireworks....be warned, it means what it says on the base about not letting them burn to low and not leaving them unattended (which I spotted afterwards in the charred remains)

'Gosh,' I exclaimed to Bookhound as we came back indoors...

'Who'd have thought smoke from that far away would get indoors...'

The contents of the coffee table were nicely ablaze, it bears the scorch marks to this day...

...and there was a great deal of clearing up to do which included the river of molten wax set solid across just about every surface in the room as Bookhound flung the blazing mess out of the front door and I dealt with the other bits starting to catch. A few minutes later and we would have been in serious trouble.

I took the plunge, trimmed the wicks as per instructions and lit the most expensive candle I am ever likely to own before taking one picture with a gorgeous book cover in close proximity for effect, and then swiftly moved (Folio Edition of Letters to Vicky)

Bookhound has now relaxed his grip on the fire blanket thanks to the soothing and calming aroma of Clementine, Cardamom, Amber and Tonka...delicious.

And for anyone sat twiddling their thumbs for want of a good old-fashioned bookish Christmas quiz and the chance of more prizes, twiddle no more and head to normblog for his fourth annual brain teaser and the lure of book tokens.

 

 

Happy Boxing Day

Our favourite day. A quiet one, a nice long walk, fires lit and reading reading reading. I have been saving the latest Persephone, Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple which I will mix in with some Bleak House (to which I am now addicted...in case I hadn't told you)

My home made gifts went down well this year..

Offspringette's cowl knitted on a circular needle using some gorgeously soft silk-rich yarn in our favourite colour, but a ridiculously complicated stitch that never found its way into my memory because it changed with every round. Knitted up through an entire series of Downton and Strictly (and unpicked as many times) but very well received.

A scarf for the Gamekeeper in his favoured colour range of sludge..

And a snowboarding beanie hat for the Kayaker. Now as you can see this looks a little on the large side...well I doubled up the wool but forgot to halve the stitches (as you do) and by the time it became obvious that this would be large enough to fit around the bottom of a budgie cage I was beyond the point of no return.

And as you can see I'd gone to a great deal of trouble over the diminishing stripes...

Anyway, he's calling it his 'house hat' (plus it will fot nicely over his snowboarding helmet) and hasn't taken it off since, and we have laughed ourselves silly over it... as we did over my disappearing joke teeth, which shot out of my homemade cracker and couldn't be found anywhere, until Offspringette picked up her drink...

And of course not forgetting these two in their Poundshop Bah Humbug hats...

 

Eggy Missmass...

...as the Baby Gamekeeper used to say, and a Happy Christmas morning.

Forget the turkey for a minute, we must quickly talk books because to my complete surprise I am quietly making good progress towards the summit of Bleak House at the fifth attempt. I can only assume that reading Claire Tomalin's book may have been the best preparation plus about two attempts ago I had bought this lovely Everyman Classics edition thinking that good equipment might aid success.

So having spent a quiet night in the Chesney Wold mountain hut after traversing the Skimpole ice field and the Pardiggle crevasse, I would now be making much better progress had I not spent too long browsing in Peffer & Snagsby's, the Law Stationery shop in Cook's Court in Cursitor Street...

'...paper, foolscap, brief, draft, brown, white, whitey-brown, blotting; in stamps; in office quills, pens, ink, India-rubber, pounce, pins , pencils. sealing wax, and wafers; in red tape and green ferret; in pocket books, almanacks, diaries... string boxes, rulers, inkstands, - glass and leaden, penknives, scissors, bodkins and other small office cutlery...'

Dickens's scene setting is perfection here and some laugh-out-loud comedy too, both wry and downright funny.

I spent an age choosing the right book mark and in the end plumped for two. The first is Winter Landscape by Caspar David Friedrich which is making up for the lack of same outside the window ...

...and also Manfred on the Jungfrau by Ford Madox Brown, and my thanks to Barbara who sent the postcard from the exhibition in the Manchester Art Gallery, it seems fitting given the impossible mountain that Bleak House had become in my mind.

I hope you too have some good reading on the go... please do let us know which books have your attention and which ones Santa managed to get down the chimney.

Just to say...

Thank you for all your kind Christmas wishes and this is by way of covering all bases for the card that we meant to send to so many of you and somehow Christmas Eve is upon us already.
We are decorated, the tree is an over-laden confection as usual, so nothing designer about it but still very special...

An accumulation of thirty-five years of our own family additions and some from my childhood too... that fairy at the top given to me at the age of three months as a Christening present, December 20th 1953.

And the bough has happened in the corner of the kitchen, thanks to the Gamekeeper who chooses and cuts it, and Bookhound who manouevres it into position whilst silently mourning the once-pristine state of his ceiling which always takes a direct hit ...

And decorated this year thanks to Offspringette and a Skype video link to some sleepless friends in Christchurch, New Zealand where she had spent the first half of this year. There had been two more earthquakes in quick succession a few hours previously followed by a night of aftershocks, and the fear and anxiety of 'what may happen next' something that Offspringette understands only too well. New Zealand suggested the bough 'needed more on the right' and so that is what it got... what a lovely collaboration, and our thoughts and good wishes are with them all.

The turkey, having lived that happy free-range life is now deceased and pending, and we've had a lovely calm run up to Christmas since last Sunday evening.

Me: 'I'd really like to go to Nine Lessons and Carols tonight...'

Bookhound : 'But I'll miss Country File...'

Tsk.

So we wrapped up warm (good decision) went to call for the Tinker and walked down to the candlelit Parish Church and nabbed our pews early which was good thinking because the church was packed to the rafters (and it's huge) with extra seats at the back and standing room only. We wondered whether it is a sign of hard times and people wanting to feel part of their community. Anyway we sang our hearts out and I hit the high notes now I have done three years back in a choir and got my breathing sorted, and the church choir (the one I sang in for many years until I lapsed) sang a lovely selection of my favourite John Rutter carols too. With indecent haste we shot out after Hark the Herald and the Vicar's blessing, first in the queue to shake his hand and say 'Happy Christmas', before zooming across to the Bedford Hotel for our window seat and a pot of hot chocolate, and decided that we did indeed feel exceptionally seasonal.

Stage Two of the process will commence with Carols from King's this afternoon.

We are having another one of our £1 maximum or Home Made Christmases with extra points for innovative wrapping (expect feed sacks from the Gamekeeper) having agreed that for us Christmas has become a much anticipated mid-winter solstice time of respite from the day to day, time to stop work and hunker down as a family with some nice food, keep the home fires burning, read books, watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Danny the Champion of the World  and The Railway Children and see if we can all say 'Daddy, my Daddy' at the same time,  go walking, play daft games and generally re-charge our batteries. This rather than an extravagent party and present fest...  we are hopelessly anti-social at Christmas. One of those years when all 'children' will be home, as in sleeping here, but I doubt we will see much of them as they catch up with friends also back in the Shire for Christmas, and the Tinker will join us on Christmas day as usual.

So how about you... all safely gathered in and as ready as you need to be??

I'll be here with the odd festive post over Christmas through to New Year because I still have books from 2011 to share, and I know every year I get e mails from those of you who may be on your own, or miles away from family and friends, saying thank you for still being there. So here's raising a glass (or cup of tea) to every one of you, and wishing you all a gentle and peaceful Christmas season with books of course.

See you on the other side of the giving, the sprouts, the Queen, the snooze, the Monopoly fight, the turkey sarnies and Downton.

Prize Draw and a chance to win...

My thanks to Helen Rappaport for her wonderful Christmas in the Crimea guest blog post and also for this rather different prize draw to accompany it.

You may recall the story of Helen's discovery of the portrait of Mary Seacole which now resides in the National Portrait Gallery.The gallery collects portraits of those who have made a signifiant contribution to British life, recognising both historical importance but also popular culture and it's a place I love to visit.

The portrait of Mary Seacole was one of a set of special stamps issued on the 18th July 2006 to celebrate 150 years of the gallery, and Helen has donated three signed and stamped First Day Covers together with three signed postcards of Mary Seacole's portrait.

The other portraits included in the collection of stamps are Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Joshua Reynolds, T.S.Eliot, Emmeline Pankhurst, Virginia Woolf, Sir Walter Scott, William Shakespeare, Dame Cicely Saunders (founder of the Hospice movement)  and Charles Darwin so this collection and this prize something very special indeed.

Something really special to prop on your book case or tuck inside a copy of Helen's book No Place for Ladies if you have it or can locate a copy. I can recommend it highly as a fascinating read but currently sadly out of print so you may have to chase your library... Devon have 5 copies and the audio version ...or take out a mortgage on a second-hand copy, which should be all the incentive a publisher needs to bring it back into print perhaps.

In order to spread the prizes around a little further, the first three numbers drawn by our usual random number generator method will win the First Day Covers, the second three the signed postcards. We have them here safely, they are very lovely and we will happily pack with care (Bookhound's speciality) and post to winners worldwide after Christmas.

Names in comments as usual.

 

 

Christmas in the Crimea ~ a guest blog post by Helen Rappaport

My sincere thanks to Helen, we hatched this special piece for you as we sat looking and talking about Mary Seacole's portrait in the National Portrait Gallery a few weeks ago and please do come back later for a rather special prize draw.

The Crimean plain in winter is a bare, windswept and utterly unforgiving place.  For the British troops who had marched off to war so optimistically early in 1854, the prospect of Christmas in the trenches before Sevastopol was a desperately bleak and cheerless one. Those who had survived the three terrible battles of Alma, Balaclava and Inkerman that autumn, or who had not by now succumbed to wounds, disease, hunger or frostbite had no respite from the cheerless environment they found themselves in.

Exposed to the elements on the bare hillsides, many of the rank and file had only the most makeshift of shelters, no proper winter clothing and what they did have was by now threadbare and thick with mud. Worse, they had very little food and no wood at all to make fires to warm themselves or roast the otherwise useless green coffee beans supplied by an incompetent Army Commissariat.  On duty in the trenches, the men were perpetually and intensely cold. Yet the snow was more tolerable than the drenching rain that turned their camps into a quagmire and covered them in the grimmest, most tenacious mud any of them had ever known. Their pack animals and horses were as exhausted and starved as they were and lay dead and dying all around them, while food and essential supplies even now were rotting on the quayside five miles away at Balaclava.

On Christmas Eve 1854, as he watched his men brace themselves against the weather, George Bell – Colonel of the Royal Regiment and a veteran of the Peninsula Wars – expressed his outrage at their sufferings, in words that are endlessly echoed in the letters and diaries of many other Crimean soldiers.  Nothing but rain, sleet and snow: ‘1,200 men going down on duty, wet to the skin … The young lads cannot endure the fatigue,’ he wrote, ‘they lie down wet on the wet sod, unattended and shiver away their young lives in silent sorrow.’ All around men were sickening with diarrhoea, frostbite, rheumatism and severe coughs.

There were no rations for Colonel Bell’s men that Christmas Day. ‘I kicked up a dust about this neglect,’ he tells us, but what little meat finally arrived, came too late: ‘no fires, or means of cooking’. With no sign to an end of the war Bell’s prognosis was grim: ‘another twelve months will pass away, and there will be more widows and fatherless children, and weeping and lamentation’.

Back home the women of England were rallying to the defence of what an enraged Frances Anne, Lady Londonderry had described to her friend Disraeli as the willful neglect of  ‘this little heroic wreck of an army’. The Queen and her daughters headed an army of women who were turning out warm mittens, scarves, gloves and socks by the score. Even on Christmas Day the knitting needles were clacking at Windsor: ‘The whole female part of this Castle, beginning with the girls and myself … are all busily knitting for the army,’ Victoria wrote with pride.

The tragedy of that first Crimean winter of course is that all the warm clothing, the prefabricated huts and tents, the all-essential food parcels that would have given the starved rank and file some consolation so far from home that miserable Christmas all arrived too late, the following spring.  But spring 1855 also brought an extraordinary woman to the Crimea who rapidly became legendary there and who with her warmth and humanity, her medical skills and good home cooking soon brought the kind of creature comforts to the beleaguered troops that ensured their second Christmas on campaign would be quite different.

Mary Seacole was a one-woman band: nurse, doctress, cook, shopkeeper, entrepreneur and – most important of all – consoling mother figure. She was the only black woman to witness the war in the Crimea, indeed the first and only black woman to describe any war of the nineteenth century. In her account she brought to life with vivid, idiosyncratic candour her lone mission to be of service to Queen and country, as well as to her ‘sons’ – the men of the British Army whom she had already so loyally served as hotelier and doctress in her home town of Kingston, Jamaica.

 Mrs Seacole’s on a campaign map just above the Artillery Camp, bottom left

From her endearingly but absurdly named ‘British Hotel’ – a collection of ramshackle huts and outbuildings located about two miles inland from Balaclava towards the front lines – Mary Seacole set up a home-from-home offering general supplies, a range of alcohol (from beer to champagne) and hot dinners to both officers and the rank and file. Her establishment soon  became known as ‘Mrs Seacole’s’ as word rapidly  spread across the Crimea of the kindness and generosity of its energetic and enterprising proprietor. In addition to her culinary offerings Mary ran a daily surgery for the sick and wounded, where they could get free medical treatment (subsidised by the well-off officers who bought her champagne). As an accomplished and experienced nurse, Mary could deal with anything from cholera and diarrhoea, to frostbite, to extracting a bullet and stitching a wound. 

The Crimea that Christmas was transformed: ‘I think there was something purely and essentially English in the determination of the camp to spend the Christmas-day of 1855 after the good old “home” fashion,’ Mary later wrote. All over the Crimea the food parcels were pouring in – Christmas cakes miraculously arrived unscathed all the way from doting families back home; officers with money could buy  food hampers from Oppenheim’s and Fortnum’s who had by now set up shop in the Crimea.

Huts were festooned with artificial flowers and decorations made of coloured tissue paper, bows of bright calico and spruce and fir branches. Some soldiers rode out in search of mistletoe that grew in abundance on wild pear and apple trees. Across the tented camps of the peninsula there were parties and theatricals (with dresses loaned by Mrs Seacole for officers performing in drag) and even balls at which the few army wives in the Crimea took centre stage.

As for Christmas dinner – although wild turkeys were found in the Crimea, there was also an indigenous bird – the bustard (apparently a tasty cross between woodcock and wild duck) and hunting parties were out in the run up to the festival, bagging as many as possible for the occasion. Mary herself had one for sale – so the British press reported – weighing nineteen and a half pounds.

In the weeks before Christmas she was besieged with demands for festive fare – especially her plum puddings and mince pies – as she recalled in her 1857 memoirs, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands:  ‘I can fancy that if returns could be got at of the flour, plums, currants, and eggs consumed on Christmas-day in the out-of-the-way Crimean peninsula, they would astonish us.’

In the days before Christmas Mary was found ‘deep in the mysteries of baking and boiling’ by one army chaplain. From early in the morning till long after nightfall, she and her two black cooks worked flat out to fulfill her  many orders. And it didn’t stop there; on New Year’s Day she baked another large batch of puddings and mince pies and took them to the sick and wounded in the nearby hospital of the Land Transport Corps. 

This was just one of many acts of kindness freely made by Mary Seacole that Christmas ‘to remind the patients of the home comforts they longed so much for.’  No wonder the men in the Crimea all loved her and spread the fame of her legendary good works when they returned home to England. At Christmas, of all times, Mary Seacole’s humanity and simple Christian charity shone through; they were –  and remain – an example to us all.

My thanks to Lynne for inviting me to write this special Christmas blog, and to all dovegreyreader followers for their interest in and support for my work. Happy Christmas!    Helen Rappaport

Christmas 2011

Bookish Delights of 2011 No 5 ~ Random Spectacular from St Jude's & The New Artisans by Olivier Dupon

If you recall that chair I was coveting from Angie Lewin's design company St Jude's a while back, then it was a fortuitous wander around their website that also alerted me to the forthcoming limited edition of Volume One of the St Jude's design journal to be known as Random Spectacular. I had already spent ages coveting the fabrics on the site before very naughtily cutting off a virtual yard of Mark Hearld's 'Doveflight' fabric in grey as the obvious and only suitable background for my Twitter page, and I am grateful to Mark for designing it especially for me. (I'm sure)

But I can rarely resist a design-based journal, though finances dictate that I really should. I adore Selvedge and buy a copy whenever I see it and have the £10 lurking and unspoken for and it all segues perfectly into a book from Thames & Hudson that I have been enjoying for a while now.

'Looking' books are on an equal footing with those 'journey' books we were talking about on Monday I think, and in terms of value just keep on giving, and The New Artisans by Olivier Dupon is a treasure trove for anyone who warms to the notion of restoring noble status to the very word 'artisan'.

'Highly talented crafters around the world have been working laboriously and passionately, experimenting with techniques and materials, to produce high quality, modern, desirable, one-off objects of creation...History, vision and feeling are incorporated into each and every piece, and that clearly distinguished these products from mass-produced goods.'

Sounds (and is) poles apart from my selection of home-made Christmas gifts this year (can't reveal for obvious reasons) but there was nothing I was going to dislike about a book whose production values are stellar and which shares page after page of inspiration with me. I plan to share much more of this book and the designers, their goods and their websites on here through next year... in the meantime, it's obvious I would love Andrea Williamson who had stopped me in my tracks by page ten.

 So I could see no harm in at least enjoying the first edition of Random Spectacular and giving something back to assuage my guilt for making off with that yard of virtual fabric, whilst getting some inspiration and wonderful colours and designs for the back of my eye in these dark and chilly winter months. I instinctively knew I wouldn't be disappointed; Angie Lewin's designs have really come to my attention on book jackets this year and they sit very comfortably with my gaze....

and talking of artisans, my thanks to Fran H-B for those hand-crafted snowflakes in with the card...yes indeed, move over Kirsty Allsop:-)

Published in a limited edition of 750 copies and with profits being donated to Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres, I signed up for the St Jude's notification e mail and then kept a track on Twitter for news of publication, because I had a feeling these would sell very quickly indeed. Up came the tweet last week, my order was placed within minutes and as I had thought Random Spectacular No 1 had sold out by the next day. News spread quickly that this was indeed spectacular and disappointed buyers gnashed their teeth, whilst I held my breath hoping mine would arrive...which it did last Saturday.

It's a journal that engages at every level, what I would call a 'looking' journal with writing which, measuring 14" x 9.5" and with 104 big pages, offers sufficient space on each to achieve something true to its name. The contributors have donated their time to the project and include...sorry in the end I thought I'd better name them all.... Hugh Aldersey-Williams, Richard Ardagh, Simon Beckmann, Graham Bignell, Paul Bommer, Adam Bridgland, William Brown, Chloe Cheese, Ellie Curtis, The Gentle Author, Jonathan Gibbs, Peter Green, Hand & Eye, Jonny Hannah, Mark Hearld, Ed Kluz, Justin Knopp, Angie Lewin, Ceri Levy, Maggie Li, Markus Lloyd, Jon McNaught, Alex Malcolmson, Simon Martin, Emma Mason, Joanna Moore, Justin Partyka, Tim Rich, Rob Ryan, Neil Sentance, Emily Sutton, Jake Tilson.

This is clearly a wonderful collaboration showcasing a wealth of design, artistic and writing talent that creates a truly spectacular and very harmonious whole. But one to single out... to my pleasant surprise Ed Kluz, the artist whose illustrations first drew me into A History of England in 100 Places.

So here are just a few sneak pics from my copy to share with you, a feast for your winter (or summer for those in Oz) eyes too and on or around the Winter Solstice.

 

Bookish Delights 2011 No 4 :: Charles Dickens - A Life ~ Claire Tomalin

So I read it and loved it and it's weeks since I finished it, but I haven't stopped thinking about Clare Tomalin's magnificent Charles Dickens - A Life.

I doubt a day goes by at the moment without some reference to the Dickens 200 and the website is well worth exploring if you don't want to miss any of it. I'm back in London in March and have a list of exhibitions to see including a visit to the house in Doughty Street and the Museum of London's Dickens and London which I have on good authority is excellent, and a must-see.

Has anyone else seen it yet...or planning a visit??

And I am poring over the Christmas schedules to make sure I don't miss anything, especially the new BBC three part adaptation of Great Expectations currently being advertised to the music of Leontovych's Carol of the Bells, completely haunting and catching my attention every time I hear it, so it might as well catch yours too...

And might Great Expectations be my favourite Dickens' book after Our Mutual Friend??

I'm still not sure I have read enough of them to decide but I did read Claire Tomalin's book with an idea that I would see if I could tell which her favourite might be, but true to Hilary Mantel's observation on the back cover..

'Claire Tomalin is the finest and most disinterested of biographers.'

...well I couldn't second guess so I'm relieved to have seen a television interview where I'm sure Great Expectations snatched Claire Tomalin's vote.

There is no idolatory here, no judgement passed and the whole felt sufficiently non-directive to allow space for the reader to think for themselves too, perhaps draw a few conclusons of their own which I like a biography to allow me to do. An excellent well-balanced journey through the life of undeniably our most famous author whose bi-centenary we are celebrating... and yet for all his gifts and my admiration for the novels I just can't help but have misgivings about the man.

I sensed ultimately a fear of entrapment. Every employment situation that required commitment led to eventual extrication so little wonder that the entrapment of serial writing caused such stress in his life. Whilst two more aspects struck me as disingenuous, the first, the obvious hot potato about Dickens' behaviour towards his wife Catherine and his children. Catherine permanently pregnant and discarded when prettier young blooms in the shape of Nelly Tiernan arrived, but also the children. The poor children who seemed to have a performer for a father, one who was writing like crazy to keep his family afloat, but alongside emerged the impression of Dickens as the extrovert who needed to be the centre of attention with all he did and with everyone he knew.

Eventually no one but no one stole Charles Dickens' limelight.

Worse, and no matter how hard I try to bury it I can't help but sense that his philanthropy was of that slightly self-serving  variety, charity that needed to be noticed. So the more extreme and seemingly insurmountable the cause the better for all the attention it would draw ..like the fallen women of London, or the plight of the city's children.

I'm feeling bad for making such a call, especially given that I trained at the hospital he helped to found, and where he may still be mentioned in reverential tones, but it has all been sufficient to make me want to reappraise some student nurse brain-washing and read Jules Kosky's book again... Mutual Friends - Charles Dickens and Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in the light of my new knowledge.

Emotionally labile, impulsive, one moment effusive, the next withdrawn, driven by a work ethic that would keep him at the centre of a world that revolved around him, a childlike trait that Charles Dickens seems to have cultured for his entire life, a man who needed to be needed, and needed to be loved, and by as many people as possible. An audience was required 'to nourish his spirit'.

Claire Tomalin is nothing but frank and honest and very much on the case as Nelly moves into the picture...

'... the darkest part of his character was summoned up. He was ready to be cruel to his wife. A raging anger broke out at any opposition to his wishes. He used lies as weapons of attack and defence. His displays of self-righteousness were shocking. He was determined to be in the right about everything. He must have known he was not but he had lost his judgement. The spectacle of a man famous for his goodness and his attachment to domestic virtues suddenly losing his moral compass is dismaying.'

All I can sense is that this was barely concealed all along and it's interesting to speculate quite what opprobium the media of today would rain down on such behaviour... would Charles Dickens be a national treasure??

So thanks to Claire Tomalin  I have a renewed perspective on Charles Dickens, one still laced with the utmost respect for the writing and its legacy, and much respect for the skills of a biographer who may have wanted to cry as she wrote...

'In September 1860 he performed a ritual act. ridding himself of the past by burning thousands of letters accumulated over the years on a bonfire at Gad's Hill. His appointed biographer, Forster, was not consulted.'

Dickens had much to hide it would seem, perhaps much of which he was ashamed, and much we will never quite know for sure, including events on the day of his demise which I had quite thought was the stroke on the sofa finale. In fact Claire Tomalin suggests that Dickens may well have been taken ill at Nelly's home, was bundled unconscious into a two-horse brougham and sent home to die at Gad's Hill.

If the eyes have it, this single picture expresses more than a million words in my mind....there is kindness but there is a self-reflecting sadness too, a pleading sort of melancholy.

Eventually buried in Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey apparently against his wishes (which seems very out of character with the Dickens I had come to know throughout this book) and with just fourteen mourners present, no singing, no eulogy, just the words of the burial service. A tragically strange and underwrought departure at odds with the man who loved to be centre stage and worshipped, and all sufficient to make me wonder whether perhaps in his ending and his clear instructions for how it would be managed, Dickens was finally facing up to and acknowledging to himself the truth about his flaws. Did he see himself as ultimately undeserving of the respect and the audience he had sought and courted all his life, thus denying any opportunity for the public displays of mourning which his death would surely engender??

I am so pleased that I have read this book before the Dickens 200 really swings into action because I suspect I may have been drawn into the myth which as Claire Tomalin argues, Dickens had desecrated himself by his own behaviour. I have two feet firmly on the ground, romantic notions dispelled, and remarkably reading Charles Dickens - A Life has left me mad keen and wanting to launch yet another attempt on the mountain upon which I have been left impaled and floundering at base camp for about the last four Christmases.

Yes it's time to rope up for Bleak House Summit Attempt No 5, and this time I'm quietly hopeful. I have already passed all those heaps of previously discarded equipment and moved on from Tulkinghorne - Dedlock base camp, stared up at the North Wall of the Jarndyce and have just traversed the Jellyby crevasse. I'm roped up and on my way and the conditions seem favourable.

 

Bookish Delights of 2011 No 3 :: Thin Paths - Journeys in and Around a Mountain Village ~ Julia Blackburn

'Before we begin to eat, Herman pours out glasses of prosecco and I give a little speech. I say that I hope everyone will like the book if it is eventually translated into Italian and that being here in the valley has made me think that time past and time present and time future is like a vast landscape and we are walking through it on a tracery of thin paths. To my surprise everyone says, yes, it's true, and they burst out clapping.'

Having met Penelope Lively on that memoir writing course it was my delight to discover that the other tutor was Julia Blackburn, there with husband Herman Makkink, and Thin Paths the book, in its infancy, that Julia described during her tutorials in France in that September of 2008. I loved The Three of Us , and Julia had also sat in the dovegreyreader asks...armchair so I had been really looking forward to this one.

It is now the summer of 2010, the book is complete and the guests are gathered on the terrace of Julia and Herman's home high in the mountains of Liguria . Armando and Ida, Adriana and her daughter Eliana and the baby along with the ghosts of Arturo and Old Tunin and La Muta and me too ...well it felt like it, in spirit at least, having travelled those thin paths of memory alongside them. All the people that I have come to know during the six months I have been reading Thin Paths - Journeys in and Around an Italian Village.

I have been watching too much Strictly (Come Dancing) of late, where the 'journey' word has become the cliche that makes even Claudia Winkleman groan, and so I heaved out the enormous Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary just to see if I could find another word... peregrination (1548)... fizgig (1594) ... scoterlope (1583)... scamander (1864) perhaps. I wanted something to describe my own travels with this book because now I have turned the final page I do feel as if I am at the end of...a.... a..... well it will have to stay as a journey. You might remember that wonderful literary 'journey' we took to Italy on here back in June, so many wonderful reading suggestions from you all and I have travelled little further than this single book, but it has been a complete and very fulfilling trip in itself.

Journey books are just the best value, those books that you pick up whenever you feel like it and wander through a few more pages of landscape and people who become so familiar. With no rush to finish, a book like this becomes a treasure, and in fact time and space seems to be written into these pages to linger and ponder, to walk slowly.

Thin Paths is a collection of personal and community memories about life in the Italian mountains, each piece just a few pages long, the text  interspersed with black and white photos (and my thanks to Julia for these colour ones, this the view from the terrace of their mountain home)

Thin Paths travels to the heart of a remote community. A supportive community and not only with regard to present-day troubles but also the tribulations of the past, because this is about recollections of the life of the partisans fighting the Germans and Mussolini in these mountains during the Second World War. How a community copes with conflict, treachery, betrayal, illness, death, starvation (you will never ignore a chestnut again)  and poverty... but don't be alarmed because this isn't misery. Julia has a calm and measured inflection to her narrative voice which can convey such details with huge respect and sensitivity for the people, the landscape, their traditions and ultimately huge respect for what they choose not to say, so no over-dramatising; it's unnecessary, the impact is sufficiently profound in its simplicity blending with the whole seamlessly to create a really beautiful and moving book.

Celebration and mourning reflect life and sit side by side, along with humour and a real love of the landscape and the people, whilst giving a real insight into life under occupation. Lives and homes infiltrated by soldiers with all the indignity and concealed resentment as they take your best rooms, your food, your warmth plundering the lives, the minds and the pride of those you love. Yet there is that sense of an indomitable spirit of survival despite the often futile attempts at retaliation, the merciless punishments and the overwhelming sense of helplessness... and as Julia gains their confidence and learns their language (from scratch) her neighbours confide their deepest memories, the pain long-buried in the way that those who have suffered during war so often do for their own sanity.

I often liken it to a suitcase full of crumpled washing, one that can become a heavier burden the more years you carry it around. To open the lid and look inside becomes even more frightening, because what if you couldn't get it all back in again...then what. But I sense a relief amongst those Julia has talked to, a lightening of that burden shared with someone who will listen, and who in turn will share it with many many more who will do likewise. And for Armando who writes his stories each night only to burn them the next morning, there is still that sense of a powerful release.

There is a gentleness and enchantment to Julia's writing. I find it magical to read, poetic and meaningful, carefully chosen words to create something very exact. Julia observes nature like no other, the only person I have ever met who can willingly pick up a slug, stroke it and love it,

and so her observations about the natural world that surrounds her mountain home are pitch perfect ... as is the tent, because Julia and Herman walk the terrain and camp out frequently.

Nature weaves a wonderfully timeless thread throughout Thin Paths, somehow grounding everything that has happened in people's lives with an unchanging permanence.

And then there are moments that made me want to stop and think about the implications of something that may have been told at a slant.

There is a moment with a cake, cooked for Adriana by the wife of a German man who lives locally. Whilst Julia looks on Adriana protests that she doesn't like it,

'and she makes a sweeping gesture with her hand over the cake as if she hopes it might disappear...'

As the conversation draws to a close and Julia tries some of the cake...

'Adriana watches me eating it to see if it tastes as good as it looks.'

And the chapter ends...and I know so much from what has not been said, and from what hasn't happened, about whether Adriana will ever be able to forgive the German atrocities she witnessed as a child in these occupied mountains.

Adriana will be unfailingly polite and accept their cake, but she doesn't have to eat it.

The far-reaching impact of Adriana's childhood fear is plain to see, and the fact that Julia has dedicated the book to her surely a testament to one woman's courage and tenacity.

Within Thin Paths, but not overtly so, Julia and Herman also walk the narrow path of illness following Herman's diagnosis with throat cancer, but this is lightly done with a fortitude and humour that surely belies the fear and anxiety, and as you can see Herman is in fine form, (read more about Herman Makkink here)

But like every aspect of this book there is perspective and containment in the words of illness, all of which makes the reading even more powerful...the 'what is not said' echoed and reverberated again and again as I read.

On reflection neither am I surprised that Edmund de Waal chose Thin Paths as his Book of 2011 because its trail through 'the present moment of the long ago past' chimes wonderfully with The Hare With Amber Eyes, the book I read in a similar journeying way for the first six months of this year.

What a grace-filled year of reading I have had from these two books alone.

 

 

A History of English Food ~ Clarissa Dickson Wright & Penguin Shorts...

No not Clarissa wearing Penguin Shorts...sorry, all will become clear.

'Bring me a brace of pheasant my good man' I said to the Gamekeeper the other day.

He looked as me a little askance because we could trip over pheasant here and I don't usually pay too much attention.

'Minus the feathers and the innards of course,' I added,

'Because I have a late fifteenth century recipe for game casserole and I'm in the mood to try it. The mood will have passed by Wednesday so be quick....and bring some red wine in with them.'

In fact the birds only shuffled off their mortal coil yesterday, and then have to hang until they are almost coming back to life but I am readying the cinnamon, cloves, saffron and ginger etc.

I am reading A History of English Food by Clarissa Dickson Wright and I am liking it. I have had a soft spot for Clarissa since those Two Fat Ladies days, and then listening to her reading her autobiography, Spilling the Beans.

I'm not a great one for food writing, or cookery books, or reality chef TV, though even I was riveted by the Masterchef semi-final this week. It's the music mainly isn't it, really cranks up the anxiety to fever pitch. Will  Steve's jellies make the transition from cold room, up in the lift to the heat of the main kitchen, and get plated up without melting and thence to thirty of the nation's top chefs for eating. I was beside myself with worry for Steve's jellies, and then Michel Roux offers that piercing gaze and does some chivvying and that ought to be enough to have jelly on the ceiling. I tell you I was exhausted by the end. We missed the final but our virtual money would have been on eventual winner Ash who stirred things with both hands, took a direct hit in the eye with some boiling oil, stuck his head under the cold tap and just kept going.

Clarissa's tome romps through from the cuisine of the Crusades right up to the present-day and thus far I am finding the book fascinating, engaging and very lovely to pick up and read after a stint of fiction. I've already learnt the origins of eating Umble Pie. The umbles were the kidney, liver, lights, hearts, testicles and parts of the tripe left over when a deer had been killed and the select cuts had gone off to the select people, leaving the bits and bobs for the huntsmen or the beaters on the shoot. If I tell you that on yesterday's shoot the Gamekeeper, with his father Bookhound the Beater in tow, lunched on pheasant and leek pie followed by a delicious coconut and almond tart with custard then you can see that the days of Umble Pie for beaters are long gone here.

I will carry on ambling through A History of English Food because flicking ahead I can see news (to me) that curlew, lapwing and lark should be served with salt, sugar and water, whilst sparrows and thrushes require salt and cinnamon to taste their best (Tudors) and a cracking recipe coming up for calves feet (Elizabethans) and I love Clarissa's informed but humourous tone, just right for a non-serious foodie like me.

Meanwhile my attentions have been also drawn a little closer to the season, and thanks to the arrival of a Kobo e reader from Penguin loaded with the new selection of Penguin Shorts I have been able to see what I think of a touch screen e reader whilst reading Felicity Cloake's Perfect Christmas Day 15 Essential Recipes for The Perfect Christmas.

The Penguin Shorts are billed as a 21st century legacy of those early days of Penguin Books which offered affordable, quality books for a mass audience, and for the cost of a cup of coffee these latest editions for e reader are taking up the cudgels in the busy digital books market. I of course am the only numpty not to have noticed that Kobo is an anagram of Book, but I have no complaints about the very readable touch screen which saves all that energy wasted pressing the page forward button, whilst the battery charge life seems to be everlasting. Having originated in Canada ( I think) this is the e-reader now supported by W.H.Smith's and clearly an attempt to challenge the Kindle juggernaut (a million Kindles a month being sold... a million...). I haven't got as far as registering it yet, or seeing what else may be available because when I do I will lose the Penguin Shorts and I am enjoying them, but I'll let you know my further Kobo thoughts eventually.

Priced at £1.99 the Penguin Shorts are designed to be read over a 'long commute or a short journey' or in a lunch hour and as a means of providing a new angle on an old subject, or a new subject or perhaps a short story. Interestingly I discover that Shorts can also be produced very quickly, within four weeks of commissioning a work, so the series could be very contemporaneous, a slew of writers are working on them and we are also promised essays. I for one would relish more essays so I like the sound of all this and will be keeping a close watch.

But enough of that we have Christmas dinner to think on. Felicity Cloake runs through all the basic Christmas recipes on the basis that many of us are welded to our traditions and have a hard fight to persuade the family into new ones, so we might as well do what we do as well as possible. Mulled wine, prawn cocktail, sage and onion stuffing, bread sauce, pigs in blankets, turkey the lot. Each recipe offers a resume of past and present methods and comes up with the best. Now I don't cook the Christmas dinner here, Bookhound does it but I have read out the muslin steeped in melted butter and draped over the turkey for the duration method and he'll give it a go, so we'll see what happens.

Felicity Cloake says this and it rings true here...

'Some Christmas traditions deserve to be quietly laid to rest, and the turkey thing is long past its sell-by daye. We all eat turkey. We all complain about turkey. Well, it's time to man up and opt for something else instead or finally learn how to cook this majestically sized bird properly.'

Every year we say we'll have beef...or a goose, and every year our turkey finds its way home. Ours is still trotting around. The Gamekeeper has been to visit it and says it has been living a happy and fulfilled free-range, rural life and they will read it poetry in its final minutes, so we can eat it safe in that knowledge, which I find always helps.

How about you...any Christmas food traditions to share??

Any tips for complete success??

 

 

And the winners are...

Signed copies of Helen Rappaport's wonderful book Magnificent Obsession will be on their way to...

68 72 29

Random numbers generated Dec 16 2011 at 14:58:37 by www.psychicscience.org

Which translates into ...

29 ~ Gillian Davies

68 ~ Janice

72 ~ Diane

Thank you for entering everyone, and keep an eye out for a very seasonal piece and another rather different prize draw from Helen early next week.

The Fear Index ~ Robert Harris

Right, so the first thing to be very clear on is that  The Fear Index is about the world of finance... DON'T ALL RUSH OFF.

I can't even feign the vaguest interest in or understanding of hedge funds, and liquidating shorts and futures, and this despite Robert Harris's painstaking inclusion of some explanations in his latest novel. It all really did pass right over my head, but this is a thriller and this is Robert Harris so none of that matters because everything else more than makes up for a bit of financial ennui.

There is much debate around the social networking sites this week concerning Alice Oswald's withdrawal from the T.S.Eliot poetry prize, on the grounds that funding is coming from sources connected to hedge funds. Whilst I don't pretend to understand the implications or the whys I will always respect anyone who makes a decision of conscience, and to be frank, if you read The Fear Index you might be a little chary of hedge funds too... but then this is fiction... isn't it?

Dr Alex Hoffmann is the Midas man, I'd have him slightly on the autistic spectrum for his rather sparse social skills combined with a brilliant computer brain. He's married to Gabrielle, an artist and his complete antithesis in accordance with the theory of Opposites Attract, and yet in some ways Alex's skills are extremely creative. Transferable skills have seen him move from work on the development of the CERN Large Hadron Collider into setting up his own Geneva-based company, Hoffman Investment Technologies, utilising his own self-managing computerised algorithmic trading programme.

Yes, I can see everyone's eyes glazing over fast... someone's even yawning, slap yourself around the chops and hang on in there with me, we can do this. Look there's a really interesting picture of the Hadron Collider to perk you up ... alright I know it remains a mystery, even though Professor Brian Cox had a good go at explaining things on the news this week. Gosh, if I even vaguely understood the thing I'll bet I could have made some really intelligent analogies about the collision of exploding particles within Robert Harris's narrative arc or something, but you'll just have to read it and find those for yourselves.

Hoffman's life slowly unravels when it appears that someone has infiltrated his own security systems and stolen his identity. His money is being spent for him, he seems to be sending invitations to things he can't remember inviting people to and there are hints that he may be suffering from the early stages of some form of memory-loss or dementia. Meanwhile it would seem nothing but nothing can stop his algorithm from making money. The computer is in charge and with minimal human interference is left to decide all financial transactions, recognising and analysing market trends and sometimes, with split-second timing, buying and selling stocks and shares and making billions for the company. In the poorly regulated world of finance the algorithm's power goes unchallenged, to say nothing of its ethics, and then of course you start to question exactly whose ethics they are.

This is toxic and unimaginable wealth shared amongst the privileged few; wealth on a scale it is hard to take in and a financial world ruthlessly immoral in its pursuit of the next billion (which can be made in about ten seconds). Men blinded by the money-making process and of course it is all going to end in tears. But forget any potential for boredom here because this is a pacey thriller that had me thinking on a regular basis 'I can't believe I am enjoying this book so much.' It is about the enfeebling nature of technology too and about the dependency on systems that are fallible and can fail, but at a point when human intervention may have been eroded and disempowered to such an extent that any hope of recovery and extrication is impossible. So the book is full of possibilities in reality too, and given the state of the world's finances right now the scare factor is that none of it seems beyond the realms of the imagination, even for a financial market klutz like me, who is beginning to think she might be able to afford to buy Greece this week and Italy next with some spare Tesco Clubcard vouchers.

The twist when it comes is unexpected and clever, well it was for me, and left me knowing that I had just read a really good book and it was time to seek out some more Robert Harris because I'm a bit out of touch with his recent writing. Even though I was an early adopter of Enigma, Archangel and Fatherland Robert Harris seems to have mysteriously dropped off my radar whilst writing his Cicero Trilogy, Pompeii, Lustrum and Imperium (not necessarily in that order) and I never really caught up again, so I've Kindled some samples of those to see if I might enjoy them.

Books like The Fear Index feel essential in the grand reading scheme, those books that Alan Jacobs, in his book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction suggested we all needed, books where I get lost in the story and look up and wonder what time it is. I guess that category will be different for each of us, but The Fear Index certainly did it for me.

Any recommends for more books like this to 'get lost' in ??

 

Prize draw ~ Signed copies of Magnificent Obsession by Helen Rappaport

'For you all, the loss of such a father is totally irreparable! I will do all I can to follow out all his wishes -to live for you all and for my duties. But how I, who leant on him for all and everything - without whom I did nothing, moved not a finger, arranged not a print or photograph, didn't put on a gown or bonnet if he didn't approve it shall be able to go on, to live , to move, to help myself in difficult moments?...'

In a week when I seem to have been reading books about obsessive love (Julia by Otto de Kat & Damage by Josephine Hart both of which will come highly recommended on here eventually ) it seems apt that plum in the middle should come the anniversary. One hundred and fifty years ago today, December 14th 1861, and the death of  Victoria's beloved Albert, the Prince Consort, and two days later Queen Victoria writes that long grief-stricken letter to her eldest daughter Vicky, now  The Crown Princess of Prussia.

And Helen Rappaport's book Magnificent Obsession still gathering well-deserved plaudits along with stellar reviews, and definitely one of my most enjoyable non-fiction reads of 2011.

So on this anniversary day I am very grateful to publisher's Hutchinson who have made three copies available for a prize draw for you.

Helen is in London doing various events this week. Today Peter Snow's Random Edition on R4 at 11 am (prerecorded) and Robert Elms show on Radio London live 1-1.30 ish and then tomorrow, December 15th a book signing and Victorian evening at Blackwell's book shop in Charing Cross Road. In amongst all that Helen will have very kindly stopped off at her publisher's office to sign these copies making them even more special.

Names in comments as usual which will get you a comment number and the Number Generator, does the rest. The books can go worldwide and we will do the draw within the next couple of days in the hope that the books can be on their way to the lucky winners, and with a chance of arriving before Christmas... forget cooking the dinner etc, you will just want to immerse yourself in this one, though I'm sorry you don't get the cat and the woodburner as well.

And keep an eye out for a specially-written piece from Helen on here before Christmas which will come with another rather unusual prize draw donated by Helen herself.

 

Watching...

You may have noticed a sidebar titled 'Watching...' over here >>>>>>>> and it may then be obvious that, along with the multitudes, I have succumbed to the tempation of the £20 Amazon gift voucher if I took out a one month trial subscription to LoveFilm. I could reserve three films in that time and if I didn't like it I could cancel the subscription before I paid the £5.99 fee.

With the £20 Amazon voucher burning a hole in my computer screen I invested in a boxed set of all Jacqueline Du Pre's cello recordings. Seventeen sublime discs which have been playing non-stop in the Bookroom as I work and play.

Now getting to the cinema is quite a palava from here. We do have a local Arts Centre and I know a few people who read here and who love it and support it. I would if the seats were more comfortable, but fifteen minutes into a  film my back is killing me, Bookhound's feet are under his chin and we have the sweet paper rustlers fore and aft, so we walk out at the end all irritable and bent double and are hobbling around for a week afterwards. Nearest after that would be Plymouth and not much change from £50 for a night out, so this £5.99 a month for three films arriving in the post and viewed from the comfort of my sofa seemed quite appealing.

I didn't get off to a particularly auspicious start because having settled down to watch The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the first in the Stieg Larsson series, it quickly became apparent that I had ordered The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by mistake, the third and final film in the series. Now this was all fine for me because I had at least read Book One so could get the drift, but I made a quick decision not to own up to Bookhound, who had reluctantly started watching in a fog of confusion and then drifted in and out of consciousness for the rest of the film. So we have made the decision that I won't try and please the pair of us with my selections. I'll just wallow in a vat of nostalgia on a winter's afternoon, with a pot of tea and some knitting, and catch up on everything he hasn't really wanted to see.

My rental list currently stands at fourteen films in the queue and I'm having a lovely time, and I suspect there may only be about two people out there who haven't seen these next two films.

Julie and Julia was a complete delight as a young woman in New York decides, whilst in a spate of the doldrums, to cook every recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Childs within a year and to blog about it. So cue some five hundred recipes, a husband who keeps saying 'You won't put that on the blog will you' and the parallel life of Julia Childs as she was writing the book in the 1950s, and played magnificently by Meryl Streep... and you have the makings of a really enjoyable film, some of which I could identify with (not the recipes, not the book writing). It was delightfully funny and completely absorbing, the lives of two women trying to find their feet in alien worlds, Julia as the travelling diplomat's wife, Julie in a post 9/11 New York city. And with the food as a central character, seriously hilarious when it came to the murder cooking of the lobsters and best not to have any chocolate in the house or there would be precisely none by the end of this film.

The Devil Wears Prada was actually not on my rental list, it's been lurking here for ages, but now that I don't have to ring up a child to tell me how to work the new DVD machine, and having realised it wasn't working because the scart lead had fallen out of the
back. I've been round the back of the television and probed the morass of wires which takes a lot of guts I can tell you, so I'm good to go and getting a bit more adventurous. But it also demonstrates how woefully far behind I am with the film world...2006 to be precise for this one. More Meryl the Magnificent as Miranda Priestly, the glamorously ego-centric editor-in-chief of Runway magazine. Miranda the high-priestess who runs the world fashion scene with a nod, a shake of the head or a pursing of the lips, and inexplicably and most reluctantly takes on a rather geeky-looking deputy personal assistant who to her horror is 'fat' at a size 6 and with little dress sense. Andrea reluctantly starts to fit into a world she has held in disdain, enjoys dressing accordingly whilst being at Miranda's beck and call and unwittingly slaying the opposition, namely the head personal assistant. But of course Andrea will have to decide whether to be true to herself and take arms against a sea of Chanel or live in this overtly aggressive world.

But just how does Meryl the Magnificent do it??

I know she's an actor and that's what they are supposed to do well, but two entirely different film roles played to perfection... the whacky, quirky, eccentric Julia Childs and the cool, elegant understated Miranda Priestly and perfect comic timing in both. And it would seem Meryl can make herself look, sound and talk like just about anyone, we have her much-vaunted take on Margaret Thatcher to come.

Yes, I love our Meryl and I love LoveFilm, here's my rental list so far and I would really welcome some more suggestions from you. I doubt I will have seen it.

The King's Speech
Mildred Pierce
Revolutionary Road (next up)
Enchanted April
A Handful of Dust
Girl With a Pearl Earring
The English Patient (have seen this before but ages ago)
Children of  a Lesser God
Vera Drake
Possession
Another Country
A Handful of Dust
Tea With Mussolini
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky

and some of your suggestions copied from comments so you can cut and paste ...thank you!

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe
Steel Magnolias
A Room with a View
The Flight of the Red Balloon
The Red Balloon
It's Complicated
Strictly Ballroom
Amelie
Big Night
Bull Durham
Good Night and Good Luck
Shadowlands
The Belstone Fox
Tess (Polanski version)
Testament of Youth
Deep Blue Sea
Balck Swan
Archipelago
Bagdad Cafe
Paris Texas
Metropolis
Ran
Hairspray
A Fish Called Wanda
Terminal
Innocence
McCabe and Mrs Miller
Wings of Desire
Bicentennial Man
The Pianist
Life is Beautiful
84 Charing Cross Road
Into the Wild
Mrs Brown
The Bucket List
Chariots of Fire
Remains of the Day
Atonement
Crossing Delancey
The Station Agent
The Visitor
The Reader
An Education
The Chorus
Paint Your Wagon
The Nativity
Living in the Material World
Gosford Park
Winter's Bone
Il Postino
Cinema Paradiso
Priscilla Queen of the Desert
The Shawshank Redemption
Let the Right One In
Truly Madly Deeply
Fanny and Alexander
The Others
Sissi
Out of Africa
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
The House of Sand and Fog
The Age of Innocence
Shakespeare in Love
Dirty, Pretty Things
Die Marquise von O
Klute
Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Hilary and Jackie
Easy Virtue
The Last Station
Eat, Drink, Man, Woman
The Story of the Weeping Camel
Tous les matins du monde
Wings of Desire
Downfall
The Lives of Others
I've loved you so long
Hidden
Notes on a Scandal
Another Year
The American President
Mrs Harris Goes to Paris
Bright Star
Precious
Midnight in Paris
The White Ribbon
Captain Corelli's Mandolin
The September Issue
Mamma Mia
Etre et Avoir
House of Angels
Jour de Fete
M.Hulot's Holiday
Fur
Oscar and Lucinda
Out of Africa
The Illusionist (Sylvain Chomet)
Belville Rendezvous
Max and Mary
As It Is In Heaven
Keeping Mum
The Help

 

 

 

How It All Began ~ Penelope Lively

It was my good fortune to meet Penelope Lively back in 2008 when I was invited to take dovegreyreader scribbles to a memoir-writing course in France. I have long been a devotee of her writing so that rates as 'one of those moments' and it was a pleasure to get to know Penelope a little better through the week, and to listen as she talked about her life and her writing.

I always make a point of travelling to hear Penelope speak if she is down this way and to say hello to her afterwards, and though I've said it here before, it is worth repeating. Penelope Lively is a consummate public speaker, measured, graceful and assured and always but endlessly fascinating to listen to. I always come away quietly inspired and renewed, informed about literature and writing, and raring to follow some new trails.

So me eyes light up when a new Penelope Lively novel arrives, especially since someone somewhere has thought carefully about this and given her book jackets a wonderfully refreshing lease of life. I've spent ages looking at this one. I want to sit in that chair because perhaps it was me who left that copy of What Maisie Knew open at the page whilst I went off and made that cup of tea. And I have pored over the books on the shelves because they are there for a reason...as is Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, all of which will become clear if you decide to read How It All Began.

Penelope Lively has taken the theory of the Butterfly Effect and translated it into human lives with all its unpredictabilities, from the moment that retired teacher Charlotte is mugged and finds herself face down on the pavement. Daughter Rose, PA to the ageing Henry, will have to be informed. In which case Henry will now need his sister Marion to escort him to that lecture he is giving in Manchester instead, which means Marion's date with her lover Jeremy will have to be cancelled. Thus does Stella hear the  text arriving on husband Jeremy's mobile phone and thence do lives unravel.

And with wry, funny moments and wonderful contrasts.

The two ageing characters, Charlotte and Henry and the frailties of increasing years mixed in with the life certainties that age offers. As Charlotte reflects on her situation Penelope Lively defines her past as the 'abiding ballast without which she would capsize' and Charlotte revisits it with appreciation. Both characters are perfect mediums for an exploration of the reluctance to go gentle into that good night, as Charlotte yearns to be back living independently in her own home rather than hobbling around on crutches at her daughter's home. Henry meanwhile, resolutely trapped in his academic past, remains oblivious to any notion that time may have passed him by, or that his popularity may have waned....and for heaven's sake why on earth won't the BBC give him one of those talking heads TV series, he feels sure the nation still adores him.

The younger characters still have much to learn, the slimey Jeremy (who I really would have been happy to see buried alive under a pile of his own reclaimed marble fireplaces), the disempowered and helpless wife Stella who, bolstered by family and solicitor, embarks on a rather wavering divorce. Then there's go-getter mistress Marion, whose interior design business becomes embroiled with a con man, alongside the will-she won't-she drama of giving up on the slimey Jeremy. Charlotte's daughter Rose and shadowy predictable husband Gerry... and then Anton, the immigrant who Charlotte is teaching English, all of them at points in their lives when there is still time to change direction, and all perfectly plotted and executed by Penelope Lively as I wondered which route they might all take.

What is more compelling is the meticulous way that Penelope Lively writes it all out. Characters came to the fore and were delicately fleshed out with enlightening and subtle detail and I became increasingly engrossed as I listened in on their innermost thoughts. Any writer struggling to bring characters to life on the page would benefit from the master class that How It All Began provides. This isn't showy bells and whistles writing, this is good,solid storytelling as the vulnerabilities are quietly exposed, the chinks and cracks in everyone's armour explored and exploited to the full, and those deliciously juicy warts-and-all aspects of human nature exhibited for all to see.

There's a wonderful explanation of why life speeds up as you get older too,

'...by a psychologist, which attempted to explain the phenomenon... One persuasive explanation is to do with the changed nature of experience itself; when we are young novelty abounds. We do, see, feel, taste, smell newly, day after day; this puts a brake on time. It hovers while we savour each fresh moment. In old age, we've seen it all, to put it bluntly. Been there, done that. So time whisks by...'

And on that subject please confirm that I am not the only one who feels they have only just become accustomed to writing 2011...

It all makes me want to go back and revisit Penelope Lively's earlier books, which I haven't read for years and so I plan to do that slowly. This is a writer in complete control of her art, still very much at the top of her game and How It All Began a worthy and highly recommended addition to any Must Read list.

Any more devotees out there with a favourite Penelope Lively novel to recommend to others??

 

Security knitting alert... start casting on everyone.

My thanks to the Tinker, I don't know where he finds these things but I just had to share this one, and with apologies to anyone who logged on earlier and saw no pictures... I couldn't see what my hands were doing.

Given the current climate and concerns for computer data and security, please take this message seriously. This is for your own safety and security.

If your workplace has been assessed and determined to be at low level of risk, the following method is recommended to ensure that no one can see your passwords or what you are typing...

For a moderate level of risk, this method ensures no on can see your passwords, what you're typing, or which website you're visiting...

For a high level of risk, this method ensures ultimate security:

Be safe...you know it makes sense.

 

Bookish Delights of 2011 No 2 ~ Candlestick Press & poetry

So after I had read that piece in Slightly Foxed about Sebald's Austerlitz, the piece that followed was about Candlestick Press and Jenny Swann's really innovative poetry series set up with a small inheritance left by her mother, so I thought I might as well read that again as well.

Each immaculate twelve-page poetry collection is themed (dogs, cats, tea, birds, bicycles, puddings, lovely unusual things that will mean and convey something to both givers and recipients) and at £4.95 as reasonable as any gift card, and far better perhaps for being the card that keeps on giving rather than the one that goes in the bin.

Jenny (or someone, thank you whoever anyway) sent me some of these back in 2008 when they first came out and I still have them here in the Poetry Dresser having always meant to send them onto people, because these are meant for sharing. And even more exciting to read about the Candlestick Press collaboration with Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, who has undertaken to contribute a selection The Twelve Poems of Christmas every Christmas for the years of her tenure.

Poetry has featured very large in my daily reading this year. Several collections that have captured my heart and my imagination and several poets who have secured their comfy armchair in my personal pantheon of Greats.

It was a revisit of The World's Wife for the A Good Read performance that brought Carol Ann Duffy right back into perspective for me, as well as The Bees of course. I have been reading Selected Poems throughout the year too and doubt I go many days now without reading something by Carol Ann because I keep this volume, with its distinctive Angie Lewin cover design, on my desk and at my right hand.

Alice Oswald is now part of my furniture too, and huge admiration to her for holding to her principles and the stance she has taken over the funding of the T.S.Eliot prize by withdrawing from the short list. I think it takes a particular sort of courage these days to look £15,000 in the eye, that you were in with a chance of winning, and turn your back on it.  Dart remains a treasure and I have become much more familiar with Woods etc through this year too.

I have Alice Oswald's latest collection Memorial, with the CD of Alice reading it, set aside for Christmas listening.

And talking of T.S.Eliot I have focused on getting to know Four Quartets this year. Shame on me for not reading it properly and sooner, and to my surprise how many lines from that have found their way into popular parlance. I have the CD of Ralph Fiennes reading it and so Ralph accompanies me on my walks occasionally.

This extract from East Coker is being quoted frequently this week in support of Alice Oswald's stance...

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,
The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters,
The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers,
Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees,
Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark,
And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha
And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors,
And cold the sense and lost the motive of action.
And we all go with them, into the silent funeral,
Nobody's funeral, for there is no one to bury.

I've ventured into more Philip Larkin with fiction and letters alongside the poetry and then of course deeply into the life and poetry of Edward Thomas.

Don Paterson's collection Rain is always in my sights (and not just outside the window this week) and of course Don offered me a new perspective on Shakespeare's Sonnets this year with his new commentary.

I have now progressed from Christopher Reid's A Scattering to his Complete Poems. The title poem of A Scattering continues to amble around in my head and I read it often and with Christopher Reid's own thoughts in my mind too... 'What appealed to me...as the mixture of clumsiness and grace in the elephant's behaviour. My grief was clumsy, but I hoped that grace would come of it.'

        I expect you've seen the footage: elephants
finding the bones of one of their own kind
dropped by the wayside, picked clean by scavengers
and the sun, then untidily left there,
        decide to do something about it.

        But what exactly? They can't of course
reassemble the old elephant magnificence;
they can't even make a tidier heap...

...elephants at their abstracted lamentations -
may their spirit guide me as I place
        my own sad thoughts in new, hopeful arrangements.

So now I'm looking for some new poetic directions for 2012... whither next dovegreyreaders??

I await your usual brilliant suggestions, meanwhile back to Candlestick Press.... 

If any of you feel you could give a home to Ten Poems About Bicycles, or Ten Poems about Puddings, or Six Poems by Christina Rosetti, please tell me which and why in comments, we will choose three people to receive, and I will do what I should have done when they first arrived and post them on ...I get there eventually.

 

On a doorstep near you.... A History of England in 100 Places ~ John Julius Norwich

So there I was idly browsing A History of England in 100 Places - From Stonehenge to the Gherkin by John Julius Norwich, published by John Murray...

....whilst also admiring the illustrations by Ed Kluz. The latter, I would venture to suggest, deserves a bigger mention than his name in 6pt on the end flap of the dust jacket, because Ed's lino-cut-like drawings throughout, adding as they do a modern edge to our ancient monuments, give this book that extra eye-catching something.

Anyway I came across that illustration above and thought 'I'm sure I know that place...but it can't be, ' until I turned back to discover it was...entry number 30, Launceston Castle. Good heavens, we park our car 'neath its ramparts every Saturday when we go out for a read of the newspapers and coffee in Jericho's, what's that doing in this book.

And we have never walked up there..and we still haven't actually, but we will do very soon.

A typical Norman motte-and-bailey affair built on a natural mound and begun by William the Conqueror's half-brother within a year or so of the Conquest with some thirteenth century additions, and apparently the focal point of a bit of a rebellion over the Book of Common Prayer. Not something I wager would exercise the locals too strenuously these days perhaps, but they were a zealous Cornish-speaking crowd back in the 1540s and, making head nor tail of English, were most reluctant to surrender their more intelligible Latin forms of worship. Anyway there was a bit of conflagration down Helston way which resulted in twenty-eight Cornishmen good and true being brought to Launceston Castle for some hanging, followed by a bit of drawing and quartering.

Pitchforks at the ready the Cornish set off for Exeter to rally more support, but the Exonians were too busy standing in the queue outside Waterstone's waiting for James Corden to sign his book and were having none of it. There was a good old fashioned five-week long seige until the cavalry arrived in the form of the First Earl of Bedford, the Cornish rebels were finally routed in a valiant last stand at Launceston and the bloodshed was so horrendous it seems few returned home.

So my thanks to John Julius Norwich for enlightening me about my doorstep with his wonderful doorstop of a book (500 pages), and you'll find the other ninety-nine moments of telling you things you may not know about your own UK doorstep herein. It's a chronological, rather than a geographically ordered, trek of devotion around the famous as well as the lesser-known and more unusual corners of the British Isles, so your SatNav will earn its keep, and written in John Julius Norwich's typically warm and engaging style. Plus you will discover some very useful facts along the way...yes, the Romans did wear underpants, that's right George 1st couldn't string a sentence together, as we suspected Lord Nelson was 'vain,moody and something of an exhibitionist', and contrary to what we would all like to think Thomas Crapper actually only invented the floating ballcock not the rest of the flushing toilet.

Still we wandered on through the streets of Launceston wondering why we had never walked up to the castle before and trying to imagine some drawing and quartering in progress, but only came across the town band out playing carols...

and this rather macabre polar bear automaton with the saddest, maddest, panic-stricken countenance and swivelling its head from side to side in very melancholy fashion wondering what on earth was going on....

... before slipping into our favoured window seat in Jericho's with the papers, and 'neath the castle ramparts again.

How little we know our own doorstep after all this time.

Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books ~ Leah Price (Ed)

If there's one thing I love it's a good ferret around someone else's bookshelves, and I know people love to nose around mine too because when a book-lover comes to visit we might as well give up on conversation until they've taken it all in.

I realise it now, I've sat in other people's homes in the past and been far too polite, so when a copy of Unpacking My Library : Writers and Their Books arrived , it sort of made up for plenty of shelves I might have missed through good manners.

The first thing to note is that this an oblong book, perfectly suited to the plethora of landscape photographs of shelves which I hoped would be inside. I was not disappointed as editor Leah Price let me loose on the shelves of a range of predominantly US authors, perhaps lesser known to me (apart from Philip Pullman) but as this is Yale University Press book that is understandable.

But to honest, itmakes no odds, I'll nose around anyone's shelves and  now I feel as if the writers have given me a very personal guided tour around their libraries The introduction makes reference to several quintessentialy English libraries, including the one in the Queen Mary doll's house now at Windsor Castle, with its library of tiny but authentic replicas, and also the library at Chatsworth House, though no mention of mine. This corner currently adorned with a very select and tasteful set of colour changing dove lights from B&Q which I think gives it that much-coveted Griswold Christmas Vacation ambience.

Another snippet of information suggesting that the book is far from dead in this digital age is that Ikea has now manufactured twenty-eight million Billy bookcases. They need to make that twenty-eight million and ten because we are about to shelve out another room.

And talk about coveting...

Rebecca Goldstein and Steven Pinker have a ladder...I want one like this.

And I quite like their cube matrix storage system for its ease of categorizing.

Jonathan Lethem has a nice chair...

Actually Claire Messud and James Wood have a nice chair too.


I expect, like me, Philip Pullman knows just where everything is.

and could lay his hand on it straightaway.

Each author answers a series of questions about their respective libraries and bookish habits as well as choosing a Top Ten from their shelves. But the shelf contents are easily visible so I have spent hours browsing them. I was interested to read that Philip Pullman would throw his Kindle in the bin the minute the 'Big Crash' happened, but while he has one he revels in the ability to take hundreds of books with him as he travels...I had him down as a non-Kindler for some reason.

But back to reading chairs...

I am currently coveting this one from sofa.com to go next to my BookRoom stove..

Which took me on a terribly covetous journey to St Jude's Fabrics and some favoured designers including Angie Lewin, though really I should probably have the chair covered in this... Doveflight in grey by Mark Hearld.

and this low chair thing has all become an obsession since Fran sent me this picture of Clive Bell's study at Charleston, and Bookhound has it imprinted on his mind's eye and is scouring the sale rooms accordingly.

Do you have a reading chair?

Bookish Delights of 2011 No 1 ~ Slightly Foxed - The Real Reader's Quarterly

Slightly Foxed - The Real Reader's Quarterly has crept up on me again, v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y i-n-d-e-e-d but something funny happened yesterday...I just had to go out and buy the latest edition.

I'm a bit hand to mouth with Slightly Foxed.  Sometimes they send me a free copy for which I am always grateful, sometimes they don't, probably because I haven't written about my complimentary copies when everyone else has. But I have been biding my time in order to see exactly how Slightly Foxed might make an impression on me and inform my reading over the year, rather than waxing lyrical just because I have had a free copy.

I've been happily and willingly reeled in by the wily fox before but the thorny problem is that in these cash-strapped times £36 feels like quite a large layout for the annual subscription to what on first appearances seems like a modestly-sized quarterly magazine. I was in like a shot when it first set up, subbed for a year and then went peicemeal, and though ninety-six pages and 'modestly-sized' is to unfairly belie the contents of this vibrant and stimulating literary diamond I wanted to see whether it still had real staying power with me.

I blame two people for yesterday's dash.

Firstly Carol who sent me such a wonderfully enthusiastic account of the Slightly Foxed Literary Day held at the Art Worker's Guild in Queen's Square a few weeks ago. Penelope Lively talking to Sue Gee about their  writing lives, Daisy Hay on her book Young Romantics, Maggie Fergusson on Orkney writer George Mackay Brown, Juliet Gardiner on the Blitz, Ysenda Maxtone Graham on her grandmother Jan Struther of Mrs Miniver fame and more, plus this session which sounded wonderful...

Frances Donnelly (who made the cakes) and Jeremy Lewis on Graham Greene. JL was a real raconteur who told lots of funny little stories about the various famous and not so famous Greenes, and probably got the biggest round of applause of the day for his sort of  elderly-schoolboy enthusiasm.

In Carol's words 'terrific value at £45 for the day plus tea and cakes' so it's in my diary to look out for the next one too. Not to be missed, and I have had the Slightly Foxed book shop on my list of places to visit when in London for ever too, so that will be next time.

So with Slightly Foxed bleeping away quietly on my radar screen, a determined little glow, I happened to fly across to Will Rycroft's blog yesterday morning where there was a discussion in progress about Austerlitz by W.G.Sebald.

I love Sebald's writing and there's always a danger that I get overly effusive about it all and wrongly come across as 'trying to be an expert' when in fact I am nothing of the sort. But I had read about Sebald and Austerlitz recently and I was sure it was Diana Athill writing in Slightly Foxed  and much more of an expert.

So anyway I turned the house upsidedown looking for the right edition with the Diana Athill piece in it (Winter 2010, p61 Uncomfortable Truths) found a really great quote from Diana to assist those in comments at Just William's Luck who were procrastinating over whether to read Sebald or not, or had perhaps retired defeated from their own personal battle of Austerlitz. I wanted to be encouraging because I think perhaps once you 'get' Max Sebald you keep him close to your heart, and so I brought in Diana Athill who I think cracks it gently and enticingly with this..

'It is necessary to make an act of trust - to put yourself in his hands; and this may be a problem for anyone who has not yet learned to trust him by reading his wonderful The Emigrants, The Rings of Saturn and Vertigo. I doubt whether I would have persisted beyond the first thirty-odd pages of Austerlitz if I hadn't already learned that wherever Sebald led, I must follow him.'

So I left what I hoped was an encouraging rather than a 'who does she think she is' type of comment before settling back to read the rest of the article, and this is for at least the third time, may be even the fourth. By now I'm supposed to have started work (from home) and I'm still idling away the day reading an edition of Slightly Foxed I almost know by heart, when it dawned on me that I absolutely had to have the latest edition yesterday. I was suddenly overcome by the urge to see and hold the thing, browse through it, read a few articles and spot what else was in it to look forward to  and what it might prompt me to read. Worse, I couldn't bear the thought that it was out there and not here with me. Pitiful I know, covetousness in its worst manifestation.

The little pulsating thought of this purchase kept me going through a morning of everyone's saddest losses, bereavements, serious illnesses et al until eventually, online work hours (four) done and remembering to change out of my slippers, I hopped in the car, drove into town, parked in the nearest available spot and strode purposefully into the local indie bookshop,

 'Have you got the newest edition of Slightly Foxed?' I asked.

The shop owner pointed, I fell upon it, paid, walked back to my car and drove home.

Simples, only twelve miles, but I mean it all smacks of desperation and addiction doesn't it.

Does this happen to anyone else, perhaps about a book and the craving that can't be resisted??

In my defence I am using up all available willpower to lose weight at the moment (18lbs gone, 3lbs to go) and a book coming from Penguin in February Willpower - Rediscovering Our Greatest Strength, which I have been reading, suggests that you may only have sufficient willpower to focus on one project of deprivation at a time. I have now added to that evidence-base.

Anyway I dashed in the door with the spoils, threw a log on the fire, avoided tea and cake and settled down to read Slightly Foxed Winter 2011.

I knew it. I knew I was meant to go and buy this edition...

Louisa M. Alcott, J.L.Carr (A Month in the Country) , Jaroslav Hasek (The Good Soldier Sveck) Winifred Holtby, Dorothy L.Sayers, Paul Scott's Raj Quartet, Dodie Smith, Thackeray, Laura Ingalls Wilder and more, all the choices of authors and contributors various to this quarter's selection of books that deserve to be read and better known. Best so far a wonderful piece about the poet Charles Causley, born and lived all his life in nearby Launceston and to my shame a poet I know so little about and just waiting to be discovered by me.

And finally, the beautifully comic piece by Sarah Crowden on Bizarre Books, and Sarah's alter ego Dame Smut, and how she keeps that shop window we all love to stare at stocked with titles like Scouting for Boys and Indoor Games for Awkward Moments. For anyone who may not know it this is Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers in Great Russell Street, opposite the British Museum.

Meanwhile, though I am now firmly reeled in again, I can't decide whether a subscription is the answer or not. It probably is in terms of supporting the publishers financially with what, over the last eight years, has become an invaluable fix addition and resource for booklovers like me and thee, and one it would be a tragedy to lose. But then there's the complete pleasure (I don't get out much) to be gained from that impulse must-have-must-buy-now moment, or happening upon the latest edition unexpectedly in a bookshop. Mind you, I doubt any booklover would turn their nose up at the gift of a Slightly Foxed subscription and you could drop hints with your nearest and dearest accordingly.

And even better, there's a really must-have Slightly Foxed tea/coffee mug...and a bag...and special limited run numbered book editions...and slip cases to keep the quarterlies safely homed... and postcards and things. I'm sorry but if I have been tempted (and I have, one back issue, one bag this time round) it is imperative I share.

My only quibble would be this from the Editors...

So, Christmas is nearly here and we do hope you'll enjoy this winter issue, which comes to you with our very best wishes. Slipped into it you'll find another of our literary crosswords, designed for those inevitable moments during the festive season when you really can't think what else to do, and if you can, you're too exhausted to get up and do it.'

Entries in the hat by January 14th, free subscription to the first one drawn out. Oh brilliant. I love a good crossword me.

Turned every page... shook the thing by the spine ... looked again... no flippin' crossword.

 

The Family Fang ~ Kevin Wilson

'Amuse me,' I said to the pile of books sitting next to me.

Every so often I go to the What's New This Month shelf and pick out a pile of books, sit down and make a start on them all, just to get an idea of which may be for now, which for another day or which maybe perhaps eventually, and sadly some which may be never.

On this particular evening, after a run of serious reading I was in the mood for something funny.

I think we've discussed this before, that what exactly defines 'funny' may be different for all of us, and 'funny' is sadly not always as well-written as we may like either. It has to be harder to pull off than serious.

Well The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson seemed to suggest 'funny' before I'd even opened it, with a cover design that promised amusing, and with its different Picador binding, a shiny, self-bound cover and no dust jacket, semi-hardback but not quite.

And from the minute I met Family Fang I was won over. Parents Caleb and Camille and children Annie ( Child A) and Buster ( Child B). Caleb and Camille are performance artists who specialise in 'creating a situation to elicit extreme emotional responses in others'. A little sort of flash mob of their own and the children are the reluctant props in the act.

The art embraces daily life situations into which the Family Fang insert an element of surprise on the unknowing public, not unlike the TV series You've Been Framed..or does anyone remember Candid Camera... and despite the fact you can't help but know how damaging it all is for these little emotional wrecks, it is very funny indeed.

'Mr and Mrs Fang called it art. Their children called it mischief. "'You make a mess and then you walk away from it," their daughter Annie, told them. "It's a lot more complicated than that, honey," Mrs Fang said as she handed detailed breakdowns of the event to each member of the family....They were driving to Huntsville, two hours away, because they did not want to be recognised...'

I'm not going to pull any of the situations out of the context of the book because that would be to spoil the impact, but I was chuckling away merrily.

The book moves back and forth, between Annie and Buster's adult lives... Annie, in her parents' eyes, having sold her soul to the devil by becoming a film star, the lowest form of performance art, and Buster a reporter of weird and bizarre events... and their highly dysfunctional childhood mostly spent being highly embarrassed about their parents. Most of us parents fulfill that role unintentionally in our childrens' lives whilst Caleb and Camille take it to cringeworthy new levels.

It is a rare girlfriend of Buster's who puts her finger on the emotional baggage that both he and Annie carry

'...it's like your family trained you to react to the world in a way that is so specific to their art that you don't know how to interact with people in the real world. You act like every conversation is just a build-up to something awful....'

When Annie is unwisely talked into appearing topless in one of her films, and Buster, reporting on a rather whacky gang of amateur weapon-makers is shot in the face by a potato ( don't ask) the pair decide to return to the Fang family fold. Caleb and Camille take them out on a performance for old times' sake where it becomes clear the olds seem to be losing their touch, so when their parents suddenly go missing, Annie and Buster are torn between believing they really have gone missing, or is this all part of a grand performance.

At this point I guess Kevin Wilson could have lost a grip on his material but he really does maintain a balance between the humour and the pathos, as both Annie and Buster reflect on their parents, how they feel about them, whether they have ever been loved or not and what the future may hold if Caleb and Camille don't return. And then as they figure out a way to flush their parents out, if that indeed is what they are supposed to do.

I won't of course reveal the slightest hint about the ending, but to say it surprised me completely... as in feather knocked down with, is an understatement. The denouement subverted just about every expectation I had and I salute Kevin Wilson for doing something quite clever there. Because perhaps this was a way of including me, and my reactions as a reader into a piece of performance art a la Family Fang. I was that surprised onlooker, filmed by them so often in the past, registering shock and disbelief on my face as events unfolded.

So if you are on the lookout for something different and quirky, perhaps add The Family Fang to the list, and I had to laugh because for a family called Fang, surely the most obvious Christmas card to send is the one that Camilla and Caleb do... with the whole family posing wearing false fang-like teeth.

I mean, honestly, how daft is that, surely only the barmiest of families do that sort of thing??

Yes, we'll be doing it again this year too.

 

 

 

 

And the winners are...

Congratulations to the five lucky winners whose copy of The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy will be wiggling and buzzing its way to them as soon as they send their address to me dovegreyreader at gmail.com

Check it's really you and if you could put BUZZ in the subject line the clerical department would be thrilled skinny.

I tell you I hold my breath with excitement when I bring the numbers across to comments to see who's won...

13 - Gemma

32 - Tracy Garcia

42 - Jean

61 - Ann P

75 - Chris

And thank you to everyone who joined in the fun and wrote us a lovely peom, we've had great fun reading them all.

How many people does it take to make a bulb flower ?

By jove, I think we're on the way to sorting it.
Thank you for all the advice and yes, this is a casserole dish. I was running out of containers, and the trifle dishes will follow in due course. But the buds are peeking through and received wisdom suggests this is all about ensuring that the bulbs have put down a root system before bringing them out into the light and warmth. The roots will then be strong enough to push up the flower, rather than too many leaves, and there are indeed gorgeous flower heads ready and waiting on these.

And the bulb glasses seem to be a success too.

It was September 17th (on that trip to get the waders) when I bought the prepared bulbs, which I then forgot about and found in the boot of the car about two weeks later. So planted or started off around October 1st and all hidden away until November 12th  (six weeks, I'm remembering that for next year) when I asked your advice, and these have been out in the light since then...

... making another three weeks or so before they flower it seems. I'm bringing them out in stages thus hoping to have the next batch spot on for Christmas Day, and then the next to look forward to in January.

I have been delving into a lovely book The Language of Flowers - A Miscellany by Mandy Kirby and there is plenty about the Hyacinthus orientalis, which apparently came to Europe thanks to the Ottoman Turks. Initially highly prized specimens, but some eighteenth century cultivation doubled up the flowers and enhanced the perfume making them last for weeks and weeks, and by the nineteenth century hyacinths were two a penny and affordable by both 'queen and cottager'.

Traditionally the hyacinths were brought in from the greenhouse at Christmas to flower indoors, and the 'Hyacinth Bottle' was all the rage in 1860, so I'm feeling right on the Victorian money with my efforts this year and very pleased with my market finds at £1 each.

This picture, Morning Devotions by Edward Prentis, shows three hyacinths in bottles on the mantelpiece...

And don't miss this link because here's someone who really does know their bulb-forcing stuff and with an amazing collection of hyacinth vases, and just look at this lot on eBay. I really had no idea.

Mine now next to my desk and reminding me of that most treasured of Christmas gifts when I was about eight, a box of Cusson's hyacinth scented bath cubes.
Does anyone else remember those....
Scratch and sniff and it will all come back to you.

A Tamar Valley morning...

One day we might get fed up with this view I suppose (apologies, you probably are by now) perhaps we'll sell up and move, but I can't envisage that day yet awhile.

We were watching Escape to the Country this week (why?) which for those who don't know is a programme where people sell their house and the TV presenters find them their idyllic rural retreats.

We are usually saying ''For goodness sake don't buy that, it'll be damp' at the screen, whilst knowing that is exactly what we did.

'You can't put a price on a view,'

said the presenter as she splayed her arms around a bit of countryside, and the couple were oohing and aahing, and we were sitting there saying a bit smugly,

'Pshaw, call that a view...'

whilst wondering what price we might put on ours should the selling day ever dawn.

When we viewed this house back in 1994 it was the last week of June, the owner had gone off to watch Wimbledon for two weeks and forgotten to leave a key. So for two weeks we peered in the windows, wandered around the garden with the children, then aged thirteen, eleven and nine, sat at the picnic table in the garden and pretended it was ours, and by Day Two of the interminable fourteen had decided we had to have this house no matter what was wrong with it (quite a lot as it turned out) because of that view. Bookhound, being 'in the trade', confidently said he could put anything right that needed doing to any house (true) but we could never put right a rubbish view. Fourteen days have n-e-v-e-r g-o-n-e s-o s-l-o-w-l-y as night after sleepless night we sat up making pots of tea at 3am wondering what we might be letting ourselves in for (OMG), could we afford it and what we'd do if we lost it (even worse). No worries, it was ours and we moved in on the hottest August day for years to find the water supply had disappeared, but who cares we said as we leant on the gate and stared.

We woke up to one of those special misty Tamar Valley mornings yesterday, so I flung open the bedroom curtains and dashed off to find the camera...

We can't see the River Tamar from home but there it is tracked by mist in the distance, and the movement of the mist is mesmerising as trees appear and disappear.

A bit of zoom and that church looms out of the mist...

a bit more zoom and you could almost reach out and touch it...

and then, before you know it, it disappears again into its palette of John Caple-like colours
Eventually a glorious blue sky morning emerged as you will see from the new little cameo picture, top left. I'm sure you all realise that I change that every few weeks so that you share what we see, as we see it.

The Bees take flight...

I'm not sure I ever elaborated on the launch party I attended in London, and as I very kindly get invited to a great number of these, and probably manage about one a year, I really should tell you more because if there is one thing I like to do it is share the bounty and the good times with you all.

Carol Ann Duffy's most recent collection The Bees released into the world via a wonderfully warm and vibrant (oh alright then, buzzing) event at Goldsboro Books in Cecil Court, just off Charing Cross Road in London. If you know the area then you will know those little walk-throughs lined with bookshops on either side, and I don't know about you but I tend to window shop and browse the tables outside whilst feeling a bit nervous about going in, knowing that I am unlikely to be able to afford what I find.

All I can say is don't hesitate to go in and have a browse around Goldsboro Books.

Such a warm welcome, the most fantastic selection of beautiful books, and a bookseller who didn't flip and panic when it transpired that a bowl of olives had somehow upended itself and drizzled best oil over best books. The rest of us meanwhile were having kittens and using the nearest posh frock to mop it up.

Carol Ann Duffy was in fine form, talking to everyone and generously sharing bottle after bottle of her stipend, the Laureate's Choice sherry.

I was given a full bottle to bring home for Bookhound (now slightly less full) and an empty as a souvenir of a really enjoyable evening with plenty of great conversation. I clunked them home in one piece on a packed train and they now have pride of place in the Poet's Corner of my Bookroom.

From the label on the bottle this...

'From 1619 the Poet Laureate received as payment a Butt (720 bottles) of Sherry from the Crown. The custom ceased from 1790 until 1986 when the Sherry Shippers of Spain revived the custom for Ted Hughes, to mark the centuries old link between Sherry and the United Kingdom.
Carol Ann Duffy, 22nd Poet Laureate and first woman to hold the title, was invited to sign her Butt of Sherry in Jerez, where she wrote this poem...

At Jerez

Who wouldn't feel favoured,
at the end of  week's labour,
to receive as part wages
a pale wine
that puts the mouth in mind of the sea...

and not gladly be kissed
by gentle William Shakespeare's lips,
the dark, raisiny taste of his song;
bequeathed to his thousand daughters and sons,
the stolen wines of the Spanish sun...

or walk the cool bodegas' aisles -
where flor and oxygen
grow talented in fragrances and flavours -
to sniff, sip, spit, swallow, savour...

And finally I have heard  and seen Carol Ann Duffy doing a live poetry reading, because most appropriately she read At Jerez, and the Spanish Ambassador was there too, equally proud of his country's contribution to the evening because Carol Ann had actually had to do two tasting trips to Spain before she could make her final decision about her choice.

Meanwhile The Bees my runaway favourite poetry collection of the year. This is the poetic equivalent of a honey-laden hive stacked out with supers, and I feel sure I will never reach the limits of my understanding or my interest ... there will always be more to find here. If I was only allowed one book this might be it at the moment. I've had it months, been reading it frequently in that time and I'm barely a third of the way through.

Once a poet offers me the gift I grab it with both hands. It becomes mine to invest in as I please, and with each read of The Bees... perhaps only one poem repeated many times over several days, I accrue a little more interest and can withdraw some of the benefits, but so much left in reserve waiting for when I may need it. Each time I return I take away a little bit more as the poem yields its secrets...and it was only as I read the poem Hive aloud to myself this week that I became acutely aware of the carefulness (please can I have that word...it fits) of Carol Ann Duffy's choice of words. The 'v's that rushed me through the busy-ness of the work of the hive, then the long lazy 'nectar-slurred, pollen furred' and the 'milky, waxy caves' that slowed me down to a langorous, sleepy pace, me as drunken on the words as the bees were on their pollen.

And then there's Achilles and I have dwelt long on the mix of contemporary and mythical themes here whilst wondering what readers will make of this one in a hundred years time... and there are copies of this out there online so I'm hoping it's alright to snaffle it for here today.

Myth's river - where his mother dipped him,
fished him, a slippery golden boy -
flowed on, his name on its lips.
Without him, it was prophesied,
they would not take Troy.

Women hid him, concealed him in girls' sarongs;
days of sweetmeats, spices, silver songs...
but when Odysseus came,
with an athlete's build, a sword and a shield,
he followed him to the battlefield,
the crowd's roar,
                      and it was sport, not war,
his charmed foot on the ball...

but then his heel, his heel, his heel...

 

Will readers in 2111 know that the 'slippery golden boy' is David Beckham and that

'Without him, it was prophesied, they would not take Troy'

an overt reference to the fact that the England football team, without their star player nursing his injured achilles tendon, probably wouldn't stand an earthly in last year's World Cup. The nation mourned what might have been before it had even begun and not happened (rightly as it turned out of course). What will Class of 2111 make of that little reference to the 'sarong' which he once wore, or the 'days of sweetmeats, spices, silver song...' which harks of his marriage to Victoria Beckham, Posh Spice of the Spice Girls.

Will those 2111 students scratch their heads and wonder what this is all about??

And whilst I can't really share the Sherry with you unless you come to visit, I have managed to secure something a little less likely to break in the post, and it marks a celebration of our own of sorts and one worth toasting.

Now I just sit here in my slippers and write this, it's you who all have to commute your way across the crowded interwebs to read it and leave comments, and some time today one of you will take the dovegreyreader stats counter past the 1.5 million page view mark since it all began. So please accept that every single one of you is a very special 'one in one and a half million', thank you for reading and visiting, and what better way to mark a golden day at the end of a golden week than with gifts of honey-laden poetic nectar, so please do scroll down...

 

 

 

 

Prize draw copies of The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy

A copy of The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy to five lucky winners worldwide today and my thanks to Picador for sharing the buzz love.

So do a bit of a wiggle and dance along to comments to leave your mark ... in fact do write a little bee poem if you feel so inclined, though sadly it won't hold much sway with the Random Number Generator. However it will give us all a good laugh, and here's a picture of a bumbley one for some inspiration.... don't worry, Carol Ann probably needs help like this too sometimes.

Tweet, tweet ...and the winners are...

Congratulations to the ten lucky winners of a copy of Bird Watching With Your Eyes Closed by Simon Barnes, and here's dear old Rocky, still much missed, but as you can see a very keen bird watcher with his eyes closed.

So here are the winning comment numbers

9 29 40 18 42 46 12 17 57 35

Random numbers generated Dec 1 2011 at 21:55:23 by www.psychicscience.org 

 

 9     Carol Norton

12    Jilly

17    Irene from Emsworth

18    Katie Baxter

29    Emma

35    Cynthia

40    Rosie H

42    Mirren 

46    Hilary

57    Herman Makkink

If you could quickly open your eyes from all that listening and check it's really you in comments.

Then send your address to me at dovegreyreader at gmail dot com and mark the subject line TWEET TWEET which will help the clerical department no end, and the book will be winging its way to you very soon, and my thanks again to Clemmie at Short Books for arranging all this.

Team Middlemarch... On your marks...

It's Team Middlemarch day at last.

Miss Brooke, the first of eight serialised parts of Middlemarch was published on December 1st 1871 and so we are on the starting line, the Brougham (pronounced Broom or Browam apparently ) is laden with warm blankets for the knees, and baskets of food and drink are loaded up.

Now those of a nervous disposition had better look away now because what follows next equals book crime and desecration of the first order, and I may be arrested before the day is out. I will expect opprobium to be heaped on me from all corners of the globe.... so I'm going to run away until tomorrow and hope you've all forgotten about it by then.

A home really only needs so many copies of Middlemarch, six feels like plenty to me, so I sacrificed an old paperback edition for an experiment and sent it into Bookhound for surgery...

'Can you saw this up into the eight individual books for me?' I asked..

There was no pre-op preparation, no time to change my mind or seize the book back, Middlemarch was whisked off for dissection. And there followed some interesting noises off stage as the deed was done. I paced around outside, unable to watch whilst imagining eight hundred loose pages emerging from this chunkster of a book rather than a nice set of octuplets, even though this was all for your benefit and mine ... but perhaps don't try this at home unless you are made of stern stuff .

But isn't it also often the case that it is the sheer size of a book that can feel so daunting??

The Victorians had no idea it would be quite this big surely, they just had a nice little edition to read every two months, so when I saw our 'Study of Provincial Life' reduced to its eighths,

 I was really pleasantly surprised and encouraged by the comparison.

You've already glimpsed it, but I was even more delighted when Miss Brooke emerged from the recovery room post- reduction surgery, pocket-sized, light as a feather and clad in her original livery.
Clever Bookhound.

So where were we... oh yes... get set...GO, or should that be a quick click of the tongue and 'Walk on' to our horses.