dovegreyreader scribbles

The Greedy Queen - Eating with Victoria ~ Annie Gray

One of you recommended The Greedy Queen by Annie Gray and I thank you for it. The Village Book Group theme was 'Food', I had bought it especially and read it and it would have fitted the bill perfectly had I remembered to go. But it was back in the days of Tinker’s Cott preparations and we were knee deep in paint and curtains. It was only the 'Are you joining us?' text at 7.30pm that had me putting my brain back in and remembering. I walked over the next day to apologise (except everyone was out). 

Meanwhile you'd need some stamina to keep up with Victoria's appetite...

'Food was the only true constant in her life: it didn't judge, it didn't moan, it rarely disappointed and there was always something new to discover around the corner.'

Food it seems can often be a means of control for troubled Royals.

The book is awash with fascinating information and anecdotes...

En route to Balmoral the party would stop in York for an eight course lunch that had to be consumed in thirty minutes. I don't like to think how many times the coaches might have had to stop by some bushes on the next leg of the journey. 

There are some wonderful recipes for the adventurous to try, Lait de Poule for example...

Beat two egg yolks with 10 oz of pounded sugar and a teaspoon of orange flower water and stir in half a pint of boiling water or milk.
Lait de Poule should be taken very hot, and will be found very soothing for coughs and colds.

But what emerges are the sheer quantities of food consumed and the number of people required to prepare and serve, and all this  alongside a fascinating social history. The kitchen hierarchy ruled and created jobs for life but there were stark contrasts between the lavish wealth and gluttony at Court and the subsistence and poverty beyond the palace gates.

I was (being me) particularly interested in Victoria's ailments...flatulence, indigestion, trapped wind, ventral hernia, a prolapsed uterus; onset of the latter doubtless aided by successive pregnancies and impressive weight gain. These things, 'women's ailments', are rarely addressed with any openness because I'm guessing there are no factual details, but who can doubt the impact on Victoria's physical well-being. We tend to blame reclusiveness on mental state but I'd bet my last pound that her physical state felt equally precarious and vulnerable.

Seeing the old recipes reminded me of the Family Heirloom of which I only have a partial photocopy and I have no idea where the original went, but it is my great grandfather's hand-written recipe book. Born in 1866 in Liverpool, he was a successful confectioner for Barker & Dobson, the sweet manufacturers, before getting into the drink, losing his job and moving to work as a journeyman for Victory V Lozenges in Nelson in Lancashire, where family legend has it that he drank himself into an early grave in 1910. I often look at Alfred's picture and that of his wife Annie and wonder what their life together must have been like, and of course, perhaps it explains why their daughter, my grandmother, was such a tartar and a disciplinarian where my poor hen-pecked grandfather was concerned. 

But the recipe book is a gem of a thing. Nougat according to Anne Gray is devilishly difficult to make but was a favourite of Victoria's. Great Grandad Alfred's recipe for Best Nougat as follows...

10 tbs of Crystallised sugar
8 tbs of Glucose
4 tbs of Honey

Boil to 280

Vanilla flavour, almonds (something illegible) and pour slowly into the whites of twelve eggs well beaten.
Pour in a frame, wafer paper top and bottom.

Then there's Throat Essence but you'll have to decipher Alfred's handwriting for yourself...

Victoria would die in 1901 to be succeeded by her son Edward (known, for obvious reasons, as 'The Caresser'). Though 'jolly lovely but a bit dim' Edward would rework the monarchy and ensure its survival into the twentieth century but, as Annie Gray suggests, Victoria's culinary legacy would live on. 'A greedy queen was replaced by a greedy king', but what comes across throughout this fascinating and very revealing book is Victoria's ability to embrace her food wholeheartedly even when life and its attractions may have palled.

If you have read The Greedy Queen please do add your thoughts in comments...

Meanwhile... Victorian women's lives hindered by the unsayable physical consequences of childbirth...what do you think...

 

 

 

The Summer Book ~ Tove Jansson

'For a story to hold the child's attention, it must entertain her and arouse her curiosity. But to enrich her life, it must stimulate her imagination; help her to develop her intellect and to clarify her emotions; be attuned to her anxieties and aspirations; give full recognition to her difficulties, while at the same time suggesting solutions to the problems which perturb her...'

I have taken huge liberties with this quote from Bruno Bettelheim's book The Uses of Enchantment - The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales by substituting 'her' for 'him'. It was a book I first came across during a misguided dalliance with a Masters Degree in Children's Literature back in the day. I quickly realised that this was going to unpick and analyse everything I held dear about my childhood reading, and for what gain...a certificate and some extra letters, and so I withdrew and have never regretted the decision. The central theme of Bruno Bettleheim's book is the importance of fairy tales as a means for a child to explore the emotions and anxieties of life before they actually meet them for real. I didn't get much further with the book but the gist of that quote has stuck in my mind and its essence has relevance for six-year-old Sophie and her grandmother in Tove Jansson's exquisite novel The Summer Book too. 

Sophie's mother has died (this in common with many fairy stories) and she and her father and grandmother spend a long summer together on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland. This is no wicked grandmother though because Tove Jansson has spun a tale that is quite the opposite.  Whilst father is busy working, Sophie and her grandmother explore and create stories and magic and adventure for themselves; Sophie with her child's imagination and grandmother who has never quite lost sight of her inner child and can now bring it out to play. Whilst Sophie is growing up it could perhaps be said that her Grandmother is growing down.

They are two distinct personalities but with many similarities...

Sophie... assertive but unsure, adventurous and strong willed. Prone to those declarations of certainty that childhood permits and about which grown-ups are there to counsel and guide.

Grandmother ...ageing reluctantly, wise, rebellious at the right moment, reassuring when Sophie becomes volatile, daring but relaxed and equally up for an adventure.

Each chapter recounts a new event in their summer lives, I read one each day through August and marvelled at how astutely and wisely grandmother 'manages' Sophie. There will be stories to resolve difficult moments, inventions and actions to control anxieties, encouragement to try new things, the chance to take a few risks and the pair get into some hilarious scrapes too. It's clear to see how this might fulfil Bruno Bettelheim's idea whilst giving Sophie resilience and confidence to take into adulthood with her.

Rowing out to a nearby deserted island where Grandmother notices a house has been built, and thinking it to be deserted, the pair go ashore and peer in the windows..

'What we are now doing...is a demonstration. We are showing our disapproval..' she tells Sophie.

When the owner returns unexpectedly Grandmother's bravado dissolves, realising 'they had stooped to the unforgivable'. Panic sets in along with 'pure primitive flight' as they attempt to hide but fail miserably, and the whole event is hilariously portrayed by Tove Jansson.

The Summer Book is a microcosm of  love and family, courage, resistance, belligerence, curiosity, about taking risks, getting into mischief and finding a way out of it. The loss they have all suffered is mentioned but once as I recall (when Sophie realises she now sleeps on her own) but becomes the new bedrock to build on for their future as individuals and as a family.

I had a spare copy of the book which went off to a new home recently but it occurs to me that The Summer Book is a gift of a book for all seasons...for times of loss and sadness, for moments when life throws more at a person than the feel like dealing with, for those days when escape is required or just the pure pleasure of delighting in a child learning about life,  there can be no better place to visit than Tove Jansson's island and in such magnificent company.

If you have read The Summer Book I would love to know your thoughts...

And if you haven't read it can I warmly recommend it as the most perfect book for troubled or unsettled times of any description...

 

 

 

 

The Gown ~ Jennifer Robson

I seem to be happily becalmed in the 1940s with my reading at the moment and I'm in no rush to seek out the wind or the currents that will move me on. Contemporary fiction just isn't cutting it right now; everything I pick up seems to be ticking off the 2019 'woke' PC boxes and if I'm honest I'm a bit weary of it, maybe life seems real and uncertain enough without 'making it up'. I know it will pass, and that fiction is all about reflecting the moment, but for now becalmed in reliable waters is fine. When a visitor to Tinker's Cott backalong recommended The Gown by Jennifer Robson (alongside additional praise from a librarian in Canada) I was ready to disappear into a jolly good book, especially one that involves needlework, and this one more than lived up to hopes and expectations.

The engagement has been announced between Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten in July 1947 and tensions are running high in the Norman Hartnell workrooms as the decision about who will design and make the dress for the wedding on November 20th is awaited. Ann Hughes and Miriam Dassin, as the Mayfair fashion house's most accomplished embroiderers, would be obvious choices for the more intricate work. Whilst Miriam, having fled from the traumas of post-war Europe has a tragic past,
Ann (for reasons various) will have an uncertain future, but for this brief moment in time the women will forge a close and supportive friendship, heads bowed over the embroidery frames. Of course Norman Hartnell's design is the chosen one, Ann and Miriam are the chosen workers and what follows is a credible and intriguing account of those few frenetic months in which hundreds of silk motifs (silk...imagine the slip and the fray) must be appliqued invisibly onto the wedding gown and train and embellished with pearls and all sorts of precious. There was a small kerfuffle when it was thought the silk worms to make the silk may have been Japanese (until recently an enemy) so much relief when they were found to be Chinese in origin. 

Woven into this narrative is that of Canadian Heather who, in 2016, finds some embroidered samples in her grandmother's belongings after her death in Toronto. It slowly becomes apparent that the motifs closely resemble those on the Royal gown, but how on earth have they ended up in her Nan's possession on the other side of the Atlantic, and with n'er a mention of any connections to the making of the dress, being an embroiderer or perhaps working for Norman Hartnell.

My mum was born a month after the Queen in 1926, always had an affinity and so was immensely proud to have been married a month before the Royal wedding, and perhaps now I understand why. The excitement must have been at fever-pitch in a post-war Britain desperate for some cheer and a bit of pageantry, and that excitement is well-conveyed in The Gown. The smallest details adding to the whole...women across the country sent the Princess their ration coupons for the fabric. The coupons all had to be returned as they were non-transferable, but how desperate the women must have been to see their real-live Princess in a fairy-tale gown marrying the man she loves. The couple had been secretly engaged for some time but the King insisted the announcement could not be made until after Princess Elizabeth's twenty-first birthday; fever pitch doesn't cover it really.

There will be the secrets that must be kept, all the girls in the workroom sworn to secrecy about the dress, windows blocked out against prying eyes and predatory journalists doing their best to weasel their way into the lives of the girls in the hope of a scoop. The details about the stitchery were wonderful. The rules of the sewing room overseen by the strict but benevolent Miss Duley; washed hands, no nail varnish or make up allowed for fear of staining the fabric, the care taken in marking up the designs (nothing more than needle marks to guide), stitch-by-stitch needle-turned applique and women deeply immersed in the flow, oblivious to time as they created their gown and train fit for a Princess. Norman Hartnell makes regular appearances and by all accounts seems to be an all-round good egg. Approachable and understanding he knows talent when he sees it and nurtures it accordingly, and as the big day arrives both he and Miss Duley are keen for everyone to feel they have contributed. Both Ann and Miriam will be suitably rewarded with an unforgettable memory each and every  woman in the workroom, especially those who haven't been directly involved with the sewing, will be invited to place a stitch in the final motif to be appliqued so that they call all now say with pride 'I worked on the Princess's dress.'

For a while Ann and Miriam's lives are seamless (sorry) as they work all hours to complete the dress,  and through the men they both meet a sense of their futures starts to emerge. Will they both ultimately be happy and fulfilled, will there be sadness, well I couldn't possibly comment, however good and true friends are indeed for life and Jennifer Robson leads the narrative towards a very fitting and moving denouement that had me biting my lip with emotion at the end.

It was page 236 before I finally caved and looked up a picture of The Dress. I'd never really paid it much attention in the past, but once I had this image in my head it was a treat to check out pictures of it and by page 330 I was watching Pathé News film footage of the actual day. Jennifer Robson's descriptions of the crowds and the atmosphere within Westminster Abbey came to life and I loved it all.

Another book to add to the stitchery reading shelf but I'm intrigued...has anyone else read The Gown and if so did you enjoy as much as I have or not...

And the quest goes on for more stitchery reading if you have any more suggestions, my stack is growing...

 

 

 

The World of Wolf Hall

Standing at the check-out in Waterstones the other day and a little pile of books caught my eye...

The World of Wolf Hall - A Reading Guide to Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall & Bring Up the Bodies

A free 50 page booklet that will also be published free on Kindle. 

'Please do take one,' said the assistant.

'Ahead of the release of The Mirror & the Light, the stunning conclusion to Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall Trilogy, revisit two of the most celebrated novels of our time.

Bringing the opulent, brutal Tudor world of Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII to glittering life, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies have thrilled and delighted readers, critics and prize judges alike. Both novels won the Man Booker Prize and have sold over five million copies across the globe.

This reading guide takes you through the story so far, introduces you to the main players, explores the key themes and offers reading group questions to discuss.

The stage is set for The Mirror & the Light. After Henry’s marriage to his third queen, Cromwell attains riches, status and unprecedented power. But how long can his luck last – a blacksmith’s son who has risen to be an earl?'

'Your whole life depends on the next beat of Henry’s heart’ it said on the back cover and I thought, yes it absolutely does. I'm already in a state of feverish excitement about The Mirror & the Light  (all 864 pages of it) and this has helped fuel it no end. I've had a quick read through and, though I usually avoid them, this little book is splendid. Time lines, summaries, key dates, main themes, reminders and an interesting section on the 'the trilogy's relevance today'...

'Nothing makes a book more readable than discovering that a world a million miles away - or five hundred years ago - shares the same concerns as our own...'

A while back now Bookhound and I had nipped across the Tamar Valley to Cotehele on a Monday morning, assuming that it would be deserted, which it was but for another couple walking ahead of us around the garden. I knew instantly that I was following in the footsteps of Hilary Mantel and her husband...I nudged Bookhound, he nudged me...'You know who that is' we both whispered. They sat on a seat and we walked past and on. You'll be relieved to know that I didn't do the fan girl thing, because who knows whether Hilary was hoovering up some atmosphere for the final stages of the book (there could be no better place to do it) and far be it from me to jeopardise the unfinished project.

I'd better confess to this though...

'Sit on that step and I'll take your picture,' said Bookhound knowing full well that I was the least important player on the stage...

I've been suggesting to every bookshop I go in that if they will open at a minute past midnight on March 5th 2020 I promise I'll be there on the doorstep waiting to buy my copy.  After all, why should the Harry Potter children have all the fun. No takers so far but I'll keep on pestering until someone relents, and shouldn't March 5th be declared a National Day of Reading while were at it.

I had been wondering about a reread of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies and this little book has really fired me up to revisit and refresh my memory on how wonderful both books were. I know not everyone has pitched their tent in this camp but I certainly have. I've been in this for the long haul since I read the first page back in 2009. I'll admit it took two goes to get into Wolf Hall, but once in I couldn't bear to leave. I've downloaded both audio books too so I'm looking forward to some winter listening while I sew.

There was so much about the books to love. The Tinker read them too, I kept his paperback copies (just because) and we had some wonderful discussions about both. I think he would have agreed with these words of Hilary Mantel...

'The essence of the thing is not to judge with hindsight, not to pass judgement from the lofty perch of the twenty-first century when we know what happened. It's to be there with them in that hunting party at Wolf Hall, moving forward with imperfect information and perhaps wrong expectations, but in any case moving forward into a future that is not predetermined, but where chance and hazard will play a terrific role.'

Meanwhile, if you are a Wolf Hall acolyte too hie thee to your local bookshop and nab one of these while they have them...

Is anyone else planning a reread...

Did you love them as much as I did...

Or maybe you haven't read either book...

Or maybe you struggled with them...

Anyone else planning to camp outside a bookshop on March 5th 2020...

 

 

The Stopping Places - A Journey Through Gypsy Britain ~ Damian Le Bas

Bringing you up to speed on more of my deckchair reading, which now seems such a distant memory, the sunshine having been replaced by the torrential rain that we knew had to come. All we can say is God bless it for keeping the bore hole happy.

Bookhound and I spent a carefree day or two wandering around the very last Port Eliot Festival back in July. The Kayaker was doing all the outdoor photography workshops for the festival so we kept out of his way, rolled up as usual for Mik Artistik's set before wandering around all the 'talking' tents, dipping in and out of events various. This dipping in and out is fine until you dip in on the end of an event that you wished you'd dipped into from the start. And so it was with Damian Le Bas talking about his book The Stopping Places A Journey Through Gypsy Britain. Quietly spoken, thoughtful and considered in his responses and we were both impressed enough to hot foot off to the book tent to buy said book afterwards. 

Damian Le Bas takes to the road for a year in order to explore his own Gypsy heritage as well as find the 'atchin tans', or stopping places recounted to him by his great-grandmother. These the traditional camping sites around the country where the Gypsies would stop and find work for a while before heading off again. Replacing the horse-drawn with the combustion engine, Damian's transit van becomes his home as he starts to explore his own Romany heritage and somehow strikes a fascinating balance between the old and the traditional and the new and increasingly maligned travelling community of today. 

There will be horse fairs and cemeteries, lay-bys and grassy verges with much to learn from it all, as well as a road trip to the Camargue in the South of France. And then there's the Romani language and the origins of the Gypsies themselves, initially thought to have come from Egypt (hence the derivative name) though the language suggests a closer connection with India. But with layers of 'borrowings'  too, from Persian and Slavic and all hardly surprising for such a peripatetic community. The language is used freely throughout the book and a glossary at the end helped enormously when I get stuck on 'poshrat' ( half-blood, specifically a mixed-blood Gypsy), 'radgey' (mad) , 'ruvengo' ( of the wolves) and especially 'kushti chokkers' (nice boots). and now, of course, I see from whence Del Boy (Only Fools and Horses) borrowed his best lines.

And now of course I’m reminded of that 1970’s holiday in a horse-drawn caravan around County Mayo on the west coast of Ireland. The horse knew the way, which was fortunate, but also knew how to open its food box on the back of the wagon and had eaten most of it on the first day. 

The fair comes to Tavistock this week, and with it the Gypsy community. Their trailers will be parked in the Meadows and the town's annual Goose Fair will take over the Square and the entire length of Plymouth Road on the second Wednesday in October.  The geese come along and join in the fun too though no one mentions the C*******s word.

It's always a day of extreme weather, it will either tip down with rain or be gloriously hot, but we can cope with any amount of that because for a single day the town ignores the Rest of the World, is unanimously happy, plays games only one in a hundred can win and buys a load of things it might not necessarily need, but enjoys the day for the fun of it.

On the evening before the day itself the fairground offers free rides for local schoolchildren (every parents' worst nightmare...'Are you going to Free Rides?'....'I suppose we'll have to'...) schools are closed the next day and everyone heads into town.

Each year there is a common denominator gimmick toy that the children will all be playing with until it breaks. I well remember the year of the inflatable viking axes. The town was sufficiently armed to repel any Nordic invaders for weeks afterwards.

The fair lasts long into the night and when you wake up the next morning there will be no sign of it. Gone, stalls packed up until next year, but for the rides which stay for the rest of the week in the town car park before moving on. One of the joys of my health visiting life was the occasional new birth visit to a Gypsy baby during Goose Fair week, first find your trailer but never so warm a welcome as I sat surrounded by any amount of ornament and colour and a very frilly and doted on baby.

I've barely scratched the surface here but was intrigued about so much in The Stopping Places, not least the way that Damian Le Bas quietly made me examine my own prejudices. Maybe inculcated in me as a a child, when I remember my mum being distinctly unnerved when a Gypsy woman handed her a bunch of heather and then asked quiet aggressively for the money. I might even have come away from that encounter with a stern warning about  'avoiding Gypsies' and I think Damian Le Bas, as he attempts to square their present reputation with their traditional past, willingly admits to the problems. The community regularly gets a bad press but I am now mindful of so much more than I was...of their tradition and heritage, and the seriousness with which many quite rightly still hold dear to that.

If you have read The Stopping Places I would love to know your thoughts...

 

 

 

A Single Thread ~ Tracy Chevalier

Happy memories still of interviewing Tracy at Port Eliot Festival backalong and I always look forward to a new book from her.

A Single Thread, centred on the city of Winchester and its Cathedral, follows the life of Violet Speedwell in the early 1930s. One war barely over, another beckoning, and life for single woman is often precarious and complicated with many social constraints. There is loneliness, prejudice, fear, and in many cases poverty, so when Violet volunteers and joins the cathedral embroiderers there will be much to learn but also friendships within the cathedral community to be forged.

Woven into the book is the manifest and devastating impact of the grief of the First World War. It remains lasting and unresolved, deep and debilitating and it seems to touch everyone, as does the presence of fewer men. 'I'm so tired. I've been tired since 1916'.... but there is great solace to be found in tradition, in this case, church embroidery with its meticulous handiwork and demands for perfection alongside the age-old art of bell-ringing. It could be argued that perhaps both are a means for those who might be feeling dis-empowered to feel in control of a small fraction of a country's way of life. A life that has spiralled out of control and taken something of a hammering, but god willing some aspects may never change. The reliable fall-back position is always there, always will be.

I couldn't help thinking what a pleasure it must have been for Tracy Chevalier to research this book, and whilst I had a few issues with plots and their twists, and a nasty character who seemed relentlessly overwrought, this sat in a happy balance (for me) with the intricate and fascinating details of campanology and needlework. Violet will help make the hassocks and what a joy these are to see in so many of the churches that we visit.

We had the Blessing of the Bell Ropes in the village church a few weeks ago.

This might seem like rather a non-event, but in a tiny church with a tiny congregation, raising the funds to replace the ropes was a major endeavour and one worth celebrating....and really we don't need much of an excuse for a get-together. The tower and its bells were all that survived of a devastating fire in the 1950s and the church was rebuilt to half its former size. The new ropes are in the traditional Devon colours of green, black and white and the blessing was combined with the monthly Songs of Praise. We started with eight verses of The Bellringer's Hymn...

Ring out! ye bells below.
Your thrilling notes entwine,
Let music Heavenward flow
To blend with peals Divine.
God's praises sound
And without fault
His name exalt
With every round.

Written in 1947 and sung to the tune 'Tavistock' (you'll know it when you hear it) this hymn has been adopted by the Devon Bellringers Association. The organist lost count after five verses, and then after seven, but we all just called out 'Three more' and 'Last one' and we got there in the end with huge smiles on our faces. Thus the scene was set for us to sing our way through all the old favourites finishing with The Day Thou Gavest Lord is Ended. This one always makes me want to cry when I get to the verse

'As o'er each continent and island,
The dawn leads on another day,
The voice of prayer is never silent,
Nor dies the strain of praise away.

But how lucky we are that our bells are still rung and ring-able and that we can still gather and be pleased about it. The social gathering afterwards a wonderful chance to catch up on all the local news.

As Violet sits and listens, and William Carver makes the calls in the Winchester Cathedral belfry in the 1930s, it may be slightly less ambitious but little different in our village church belfry ninety years on.

'Rounds and then Grandsire  Caters...Look to. Treble's going...

Go Grandsire...and the order of the bells changed, then changed again...'

Thankfully Violet will find ways around the vulnerabilities and restrictions imposed on her, along with the courage to thrive and find happiness and fulfilment, and so as I turned the final page of A Single Thread I realised I was very pleased to have read it.

If you have read A Single Thread I would love to know your thoughts...

Do any other campanology or needlework-themed novels come to mind..

Footnote : I’ve just started The Gown by Jennifer Robson, a novel about two women working for Norman Hartnell and creating Queen Elizabeth’s wedding dress, and the first hundred pages have been excellent.

Tove Jansson

The Tove Jansson bus came and seemed to have gone for me quite a few years ago, or so I thought.

New translations were being published and much love for Tove was evident around the interwebs yet somehow I never quite jumped on the wagon. I've dipped in and out, and the shelf of books has grown year on year thanks to Nat at Sort Of Books. Nat has kept the faith and sent me new editions of each Tove Jansson book as they became available, but, as I think I may have mentioned a while back, it was the arrival of a proof copy of the forthcoming Letters From Tove which finally tipped the balance.

That and a summer of starting and stopping more books than I care to remember. 

I was in need of An Autumn Reading Project.

There is nothing I love more than to explore the life and work of one writer but it's something I have stopped doing in recent years. I end up gorging, finding out far too much and spoil it for myself, but I had a feeling this wouldn't happen with Tove. 

Born in Helsinki in Finland at the outbreak of World War One in August 1914, Tove Jansson would become famous for her illustrated Moomin books and perhaps less famous for her adult novels and short stories. Recent translations by Thomas Teal have rectified that. The Moomins, first made an appearance in 1945 and featured heavily in my library borrowing through the 1950s but it is only in recent years that Sort Of Books have made the adult fiction available.

A word of praise for the beauty of the books. French flaps...don't we all love a French flap and the Moomins reprinted in their original hardback format (for smaller hands) and iconic livery.

I have now read all three available novels and my thoughts on The Summer Book (third reading of that) The True Deceiver and Fair Play will appear dreckly over the coming weeks and I will be working my way through the short stories too. It strikes me that reading Tove Jansson is like stepping through the back of the literary wardrobe into a Narnia-like world of magic and difference. There's still plenty of snow but the landscape is changed, quirky, often eccentric but exciting too and so very refreshing for that. 

It is Letters From Tove, published this week, that currently has my heart.

'Out of the thousands of letters Tove Jansson wrote a cache remains that she addressed to her family, her dearest confidantes, and her lovers, male and female. Into these she spilled her innermost thoughts, defended her ideals and revealed her heart. To read these letters is both an act of startling intimacy and a rare privilege.

Penned with grace and humour, Letters from Tove offers an almost seamless commentary on Tove Jansson's life as it unfolds within Helsinki's bohemian circles and her island home. Spanning fifty years between her art studies and the height of Moomin fame, we share with her the bleakness of war; the hopes for love that were dashed and renewed, and her determined attempts to establish herself as an artist.

Vivid, inspiring and shining with integrity, Letters from Tove shows precisely how an aspiring and courageous young artist can evolve into a very great one.'

Reading volumes of letters is always fascinating for the insights. I prefer them to diaries which perversely often give me too much insight and Tove's letters are absolute treasures. She was a prolific writer and I'm currently enjoying her long, chatty and illustrated correspondent to her parents; her mother Signe Hammarsten, an artist and illustrator, and her father Viktor a sculptor, the letters as near as I think I could get to being in conversation with her. I have been known to write airmail letters like this to Offspringette...they start and I add to them for the next week or so...tiny little life events of home and family. 

Letters From Tove, will be serialised on Radio 4 in the week leading up to Christmas and, from the little I have read so far, it promises to be wonderful. A nod to a beautifully presented hardback book too, 500 pages of high quality paper and binding.

As I embark on my journey with Tove, please do come along if you would like to and I would love to know your thoughts...

Were the Moomins part of your childhood too...

Have you read any more of Tove Jansson's books...

And what about handwritten letters...

I fear books like this will be unknown for the future generations...

Can e mails possibly hold the same magic...