dovegreyreader scribbles

...twelve drummers drumming

Psst, Rocky again, bet you wondered where I was didn't you?
Well I've been everywhere, all over the shop, don't believe a word they say about me snoring in front of the fire here because we know different don't we. I've had a great time visiting you all, eating the delicacies which have been far nicer than anything I get here (huh) warming by foreign fires and meeting all your cats....sending love to Grace and Athena and all my new friends.
Anyway where are we, is it hens or geese or bagpipes today?
My thanks to Faber (and Faber) for this limited edition signed print by Axel Scheffler from that beautiful edition of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.



Don't laugh but these are Jellicle cats, honestly what self-respecting cat would be caught lying on its back asleep with its paws in the air?
Not me, oh no fear.



Jellicle Cats are black and white,
Jellicle Cats are rather small
The Jellicle Moon is shining bright -
Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball.

Jellicle Cats develop slowly,
Jellicle Cats are not too big;
Jellicle Cats are roly-poly,
They know how to dance a gavotte and a jig.

Names in comments for a chance to win this beautiful picture of me-like cats and then that's it, time to pack away Christmas until next year, down with the deccies, mothball the sleigh and thank you so much for joining in.
You may actually have noticed no sign of any books on the sleigh...sorry about that, all the publishers have been on two weeks holiday but it's all very organised here...well almost, only one or two natural disasters; the messages with winners' addresses are winging their way to the publishers now and the books will all be arriving any day.
It's probably a good moment to say a big thankyou to all the publishers too because I think we've given away over a hundred books in the last few weeks.
We'll close comments on all the draws this evening and announce the remaining winners later.

...eleven pipers piping

We're nearly there, our little Twelve Days of Christmas doors are almost all open and I hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have.
Tomorrow's draw will be for something slightly different but Rocky insists, so I'm giving him one last blog day while we take down the tree and co, before sending him up to the summerhouse to deal with the mice. I hear we have been invaded by a rodent battalion, latest reports from the Front suggesting that they have captured the bale of straw that 'someone' had put in there.
It is now occupied territory and I have no plans to go near.
I'm looking forward to getting back to talking about recent reads too, and pondering some new reading trails because I've had a bumper reading break over Christmas and New Year, lots of thinking time as well ...and I've knitted a cardigan (almost) so plenty to report eventually.

I hope you'll forgive me but I'm beyond looking for the links between the Twelve Days and the prize draw books now but I'll bet there's a bagpipe or a drainpipe or some other sort of pipe thing in here somewhere.

I am still enjoying Family Britain by David Kynaston and will continue to read it slowly through this coming year as well as catching up with the first in the series that I missed Austerity Britain.

And you can catch up too, or unlike me, start sensibly with Volume One.
My thanks to Bloomsbury for four prize draw copies of Austerity Britain, names in comments and the Utility Cat, whose biggest fear is food rationing, will do the honours.

...ten lords-a leaping

I have a feeling Garrison Keillor might be on of those 'love him' or 'loath him' writers for many people.
Mostly I have loved him since first discovering Lake Wobegon back in 1988. There was plenty to catch up on back then and I kept up to speed too, but then I read one I didn't like and Garrison headed off into the wilderness for me.
He's back on song with me though, after my recent read of  Pontoon, and I have done a lot of that old wry smiling with a bit of falling about laughing at good old Garrison Keillor.

It's classic Keillor territory. Everyone from Lake Wobegon who may have escaped is drawn back eventually and that includes Barbara, Evelyn Peterson's daughter who has returned home to Minnesota after a lifetime of failed relationships and a close encounter with alcohol of all descriptions and in time to deal with the death of her mother.
Who'd have thought Evelyn had quite such a secret life?

'To look at Evelyn, most people'd never guess she had a Raoul in her life. She was a quilter. Summer, fall, winter, and spring, she and the six others in the Ladies Circle gathered in the Fellowship Room, cranking out quilts until she finally turned in her needles: she was 78 and her fingers hurt and besides, there was a quilt glut in town.'

Having stipulated that her ashes are to be sealed in a bowling ball and dropped into Lake Wobegon there is little doubt as the story progresses, everything is set up for a gloriously farcical Keillor final showdown.
My thanks to Faber (and Faber) for four prize draw copies of Pontoon.
I seem to recall that in 1988, when I first stumbled across Lake Wobegon, I was emerging from that three babies in four years mayhem and a good laugh was always welcome, so names in comments if you feel in need of a good laugh to get 2010 started too.

...nine ladies dancing

...and I feel sure you'll agree there are likely to be at least nine ladies dancing in amongst today's wonderful book selection and eight of you (male or female!) dancing out there soon.
But first and very importantly I have to say a Happy Birthday to Bookhound and here he is with the Kayaker.

We'll be scraping the icing off the Christmas cake (or would be if I'd made one) sticking a candle in and singing that song for him. He is a one-man behind the scenes support crew here at dovegreyreader scribbles, we'd be unlikely to eat if it was left to me, he offers massive and very important encouragement and support for the whole endeavour and he's always found my typos on here by 8am. On that basis I'm sure you'll agree he deserves lunch at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen today...at Bovey Tracey...and perhaps I'll nip to Spin-a-Yarn while he reads the paper.

Talking of birthdays, my thanks to Virago for today's prize draw. the very special Margaret Atwood 70th birthday editions of some of her best books.
Even if you've read them I think these are something to treasure for the covers and the colours alone which are saying Make a Quilt to me already.

The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, Cat's Eye, Lady Oracle, Wilderness Tips, Oryx and Crake and a book of poems, The Door.
Everyone will have their favourite book and their favourite cover but these are design magic and I love them all.

One complete set for one winner and we'll split up the second set and send one book to another seven winners, again it will be too complicated to specify so that will be the luck of the envelope, but eight very fortunate readers today.

...eight maids-a milking

A Happy New Year to every single one of you and yours.

Here's raising another glass to us all, wishing you much peace and goodwill for 2010 and as much happy reading as we can all manage.
Now, the eighth day of Christmas and I'm sure the milking maids are all in here somewhere.

An Oxford World's Classics boxed set each to three luck winners today and I think it might have to be pot-luck as to which one the winners receive or we'll cause big headaches everywhere and they could be bad enough today as it is.

These are perfectly lovely gorgeous things of beauty.

Essential Austen...Persuasion, Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility

Essential Bronte...Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Wuthering Heights

Great Gothic Horror ... Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales , Dracula and Frankenstein

Names in comments as usual.

...seven swans-a swimming

We went to Exeter yesterday and saw far more than seven swans-a swimming, more like seventy, all very agitated, and with the tidal River Exe rather oddly overflowing its banks we had to jump and paddle right through them to get back to the car, none of this helped by a well-meaning person feeding them into a state of mass swan-upping madness and wing-flapping hysteria with added swooping-plopping seagull input. The Queen is Seigneur of the Swans on the River Thames, I'm not sure who has the privilege in Exeter but they wouldn't have wanted them yesterday.
Someone will have to help me out and find a link between swans and the moon somehow, because I can't and Rick Stroud doesn't seem to have one either, but is has to be The Book of the Moon today and you'll see why in a minute.
But first, Happy New Year's Eve.
I'm sure you're all in a terrible rush stuffing mushrooms and making the canapes but perhaps have a break, a calming moment, take five and have a listen.
There was a beautiful song I loved years ago and I was extremely happy to rediscover it for today, Once in a Very Blue Moon by Irish singer Mary Black
and what an incredibly soothing singer she is on the day when that rare event occurs, a blue moon.
Thanks to Rick Stroud I now know there are two meanings to the phrase 'once in a blue moon'.
The newer meaning refers to a full moon occurring twice in the same calendar month which happens about once every two and a half years, apparently there were about forty in the twentieth century and tonight there will be one of those.
This a picture from earlier in the year and I Want to See the Moon by Louis Baum, but I love it so any chance to use it again.

The older meaning refers to the fourth full moon in a quarter year that normally has three...are you keeping up...and we had one of those back in February 2008.
We'll have another one of these new versions on 31 August 2012.
Tides will be unusually high in the season of a blue moon which explains why the River Exe, was flapping over its sides yesterday.
Blue moons can also be caused by atmospheric conditions, Krakatoa's big event in 1883 caused the moon to appear blue for the next three years.
So all this and more I have discovered from Rick Stroud's fascinating The Book of the Moon and truly, you will never be stuck for something to read with this one to hand. The most incredible miscellany of all things lunar, a compelling combination of scholarly and readably entertaining and I'm amazed at how often I have picked it up to check something out since I've had my copy.
Lunar farming could be the way forward. The evidence for biodynamics is gathering out there thanks to people like Professor Frank Brown who put in over a million potato hours to discover that their metabolic rate rose and fell with the waxing and waning of the moon.
And now I have to find out which phase of the moon I was born under; gibbous (bigger than a semi-circle, smaller than a circle...at last I know that too) and I'd be a helper or a carer, waning gibbous and I'm a revolutionary tyrant in the making, balsamic and I'm going to be dreamy and contemplative.
Incidentally I'd never heard of a balsamic moon but it's the last phase before a new moon.
Now apparently care must be taken when releasing dreams under a blue moon as their potency will be very strong so perhaps that bodes well for the lucky winners of a copy of this book in today's New Year's Eve prize draw, but you'll have to concentrate...and don't ask how we've got this organised but somehow we have.
Three copies (from UK publisher Doubleday) can go to winners in the UK and Europe and three can go to winners in the US (from US publisher Walker) so names in comments and perhaps the US entries could mention they are in the US and somehow Rocky the Lunarcat will sort it this end.
And while you work all that out and before you head back to the canapes, here's a perfect little video produced by Rick Stroud who is also a film director.

...six geese-a laying

Six geese-a laying?
Easy, there's only one book for today.

Names in comments for one of four prize draw copies of The Snow Geese by William Fiennes if you missed out last time, and still happen to be one of the four people in the world who haven't read William's amazing account of his journey following the migrating snow geese across the United States and up to their summer breeding grounds on Baffin Island in Canada.

'The Snow Geese settled into a gentle and rhythmical octet of storytelling , eight alternating parts, journey – sojourn and finally a homecoming for both the geese as they arrive in Foxe Land and for Will as he contemplates what home means

‘Not all returns are retreats, and if I wanted to go home, it wasn’t a dream of escape, it was because love can’t exist without the pain of separation, and so much of what I loved was there.’

...five go-o-ld rings

It had to be a gem of a book today and I hope you think it is.
Discovering The World of Yesterday, the autobiography of Stefan Zweig this year has been to add one of those 'gold dust' books to my shelves.
It's Stefan Zweig's eyes that I am always drawn to whenever I see a picture of him; few have eyes that seem to show sorrow and joy at the same time but his do.
A man of great self-effacing humility coupled with a vast and unerringly perceptive and sensitive vision of the world around him. Casting that eye as he does over the early part of the twentieth century and offering his view of a world in turmoil makes for incredibly moving and enlightening reading.
I've read half in the old University of Nebraska edition and am reading the second half in the new Anthea Bell translation published by Pushkin Press and I'm not rushing this one, there is too much to miss and I don't want to miss a single detail.


My thanks to Pushkin for three prize draw copies of The World of Yesterday wrapped in this beautiful cover (and I agreed to add the Arts Council funding logo at their request)  and thanks too for news of more Stefan Zweig to come in 2010.
Fear will be published in January and I'll be first in the queue once the ink's dry.

'Finding her comfortable bourgeois existence as wife and mother tedious after eight years of marriage, Irene Wagner brings a little excitement into it by starting an affair with a rising young pianist. Her lover’s former mistress begins blackmailing her, threatening to give her secret away to her husband. Irene is soon in the grip of agonizing fear.
Written in the spring of 1913, and first published in 1920, this novella is one of Stefan Zweig’s most powerful studies of a woman’s mind and emotions.'

Names in comments for the chance to win a copy of The World of Yesterday and read up the early twentieth century in a way you may never have quite read it before.

...four calling birds

Right listen up everyone, Rocky here and if there are four calling birds out there I have my eye on them for dinner.

She's asleep on the mat in front of the Aga the sofa so I've taken the liberty of getting on here with my very own prize draw.
I mean it's all very well all these high falutin' posh books but really I know there's only one book you'd all really like to win and it's my favourite and the pictures aren't bad either.

Old Possum of course wasn't really paying attention and seems to have missed a trick with me but it's good to see me old mucker Mr Mistoffelees, or Mr Lotsoffleas as we used to call him when his tail was turned.
Then there's Old Macavity.
Do me a favour, the bafflement of Scotland Yard?
I don't think so, of course he wasn't there, never set foot outside the house, it was all a very clever attention-seeking ruse that the rest of just wouldn't stoop to.
I'm a bit sick of him actually, all this 'there's no one like Macavity' rubbish gets right up my snout.
Mongojerrie and Rumpelteazer did their best poor things, house-wreckers the pair of them but I see no point in going to that much bother to annoy the minders, I find one lick of the butter dish drives them wild enough here, minimal effort involved in that and I can get back to my mat (huh...£1 in Tesco's...that's what they think of me)
I of course can't possibly tell you my own 'deep and inscrutable name' we cats keep that to ourselves but I can tell you I was called Rocky after my predecessor Corky, they just swapped the letters round (is that lacking in imagination or what) and I do have a bit of a flat boxer's nose which they laughed at but I think it looks distinguished. I just have to bear it all with grace and dignity.
 
Anyway, look me old chums, names in comments and thanks to Faber (and Faber) you could be the lucky winner of one of four prize draw copies of this amazing book and trust me I'm going to take advantage again and I'll be back with an associated prize draw before Twelfth Night that you will not want to miss.
Meanwhile at least Old Possum knew something about me

I know a cat who makes a habit
Of eating nothing else but rabbit
And when he's finished, licks his paws
So's not to waste the onion sauce

...three French Hens

Are you fed up with the TV yet?
We've had to search around for good things but couldn't miss The Royle Family, everyone singing inanely in the car, the satnav dishing out the instructions and Sue Johnson as Barb pipes up from the back seat,
'Isn't it amazing how that woman knows where we're going when we only decided for ourselves on Friday.'
Priceless and unbeatable every year.
Today's book seems about right for the moment, the hysterically funny Shouting at the Telly Rants and Raves about TV by writers, comedians and viewers edited by John Grindrod, and this one is a wry trip down memory lane as well as a look at what's out there today.
Remember Howards' Way?
'...people in pastel clothes having extra-marital affairs and debating the pros and cons of fibreglass boat design. Whole scenes could consist of someone giving a flipchart presentation about tank-testing a lightweight catamaran.'
I could hum the theme tune if someone could give me the first three notes.
Everything gets an airing from Dallas...Lucy, the Poison Dwarf, 'even her fiance avoided her, preferring to stay in a coma' to Corrie and Deirdre's glasses...'the Hubble Space Telescopes' plus lots of hilarious takes on programmes you will have forgotten about but will quickly remember.
The only connection I can make to the theme of French Hens is a reference to The Good Life  and Tom and Barbara's chickens and yes I had a pair of dungarees the same as Felicity Kendall's too. Did you see the now annual repeat of the Christmas special with the hand-knitted jumpers the size of billowing spinnakers for Margo and Jerry and they'd bought Tom and Barbara a cow.
My thanks to Faber (and Faber) for four copies of Shouting at the Telly all needing good homes.
Names in comments.

....two turtle doves

Boxing Day, my favourite day of Christmas, after all the mayhem a day to rest and read and eat turkey sandwiches and force down another Quality Street, though all the good ones are going and soon we'll be left with the golden toffees which I don't touch fearing dental expenditure.
Despite my best efforts some of these Twelve Day links to the prizes on offer are a bit tenuous (if they are there at all) and I'm wondering if you'll see one here?
Hmm, two turtle doves.
Now you may recall the Reader Magazine send me a mystery classic every three months to read and write about for their Readers Connect feature and this time I was sent a great big fat lesser known Trollope.
I didn't name it and I'm going to keep it a mystery for now, but I am reading it and now I'm in, and past the scene setting and the people introductions, the story is shaping up into a wonderful read so it won't be leaving my side today and I hope for good progress. But why read in solitude?
It would be good to have some company so if anyone fancies the challenge of a mystery Trollope too, and be assured you'll know when it arrives through the letterbox, names in comments and the Oxford World Classics edition of ???? will be winging its way to three lucky winners.

...a partridge in a pear tree

Happy Christmas again everyone, and if anyone's out there and reading this we're here, raising a glass to you all and wishing you a peaceful and happy day with festive greetings from Devon.
The first of the daily Twelve Days of Christmas prize draws has to happen today or we'll be getting our partridges mixed in with our hens and that would never do, and the best book I could think of to set us off on our merry way had to be one of my favourite reads of the year.
Last year the Queen's Christmas broadcast came from her Music Room but I've been to a very different one this year, so for those of you who missed out last time four copies of The Music Room by William Fiennes,

'William Fiennes is the master of the poetic and lyrical memory, there is a gentle melody to this book which not only recalls his incredible childhood growing up in the inherited family seat which happened to be a castle, but also growing up with his older brother (by eleven  years) Richard. There is a brother who has died in a tragic but largely unspoken accident before William's birth and also some twins inbetween but this is predominantly about Richard who suffers from a severe form of epilepsy....
The castle provides a magical backdrop to an enviable childhood; water-filled, pike-laden moat, gatehouse, turrets and battlements, medieval chapel and acres of unlived-in rooms and attics stuffed full with not the normal stuff of lofts. Forget the Christmas decorations and Fisher-Price toys you can't bear to part with, William wanders around trying on old armour and rattling sabres...

Names in comments and Rocky will do his best once he's recovered from his bowl of turkey bits.

Mrs Scrooge by Carol Ann Duffy

Stuck for a stocking filler?
Well this might be the answer, a little 5" square edition of Mrs Scrooge - A Christmas Tale by Carol Ann Duffy, illustrated by the inestimable Posy Simmonds and published by Picador. What's not to adore about this little book which having read several times over and registering something new each time, have now offered a permanent spot on the Christmas shelf.
I'm really looking forward to taking dovegreyreader scribbles along to the inaugural Wenlock Poetry Festival in 2010 and my thanks to Anna at Wenlock Books for the invitation. Carol Ann Duffy is one of the patrons and I'm very excited about hearing her speak and read there.
The World's Wife has been on my Essential Book shelf for a very long time.
A whole festival dedicated to poetry will be a first for me, I'll be reading a lot more poetry in preparation and you'll be hearing more about it here in the coming months and of course during the event in April.
In the words of Carol Ann Duffy,

"The Wenlock Poetry Festival will appeal to two audiences; both committed readers of contemporary poetry and the 'open-mindedly curious' - those willing to allow their natural reservations about poetry to be overcome."

But back to Mrs Scrooge, old and alone but for Catchit the cat, the last sitting tenants in a block of boarded-up flats,

and living a curiously twenty-first century life of protest about everything from the annual Christmas turkey massacre to 'No Runway 3', to saving the planet, and very unpopular she seems to be for it. Whilst self-centred Scrooge may have ignored the ills of the world, Mrs Scrooge is his complete antithesis, every injustice requires her input and it is encouragement and solace that the Ghosts of Past and Present deliver to her on Christmas Eve, whilst the Ghost of Christmas Future has something very uplifting to reveal.
Posy Simmonds' illustrations are quite perfect for their detail and emotion.


When I read this... the Ghost of Christmas Past telling Mrs Scrooge

'This is the past, it cannot come again...it is the gift your soul gives to your heart.'

and this when the Ghost of Christmas Present takes her to the Arctic Circle

'Tears like opals,
                        fell then froze,
on Mrs Scrooge's cheeks as she looked.
She stood upon a continent of ice
which sparkled between sea and sky,
                                                      endless and dazzling,
as though the world kept all its treasure there;
                                                                  a scale
which balanced poetry and prayer.'

Well reading that I know why Carol Ann Duffy is the Poet Laureate and why I have loved this little book more than I can quite say and why you need to scroll down a bit further for gifts.

Prize draw copies of Mrs Scrooge by Carol Ann Duffy

.... and why I have asked for eight prize draw copies of Mrs Scrooge by Carol Ann Duffy for you, because I'd love you to read it too.
Names in comments on this post and Rocky and Catchit will choose the winners this weekend before they fall out and have one of those dreadful 3am yowling encounters 'neath the bedroom window.