dovegreyreader scribbles

Springing a leak

There comes a day early each year when you go into town and suddenly everywhere you look, around the market stalls and all the florist's shops there are buckets and buckets of Tamar Valley daffodils, 50p a bunch, 3 for £1 and they are irresistible.Everyone carrying round great armfuls.
I tend to go mad and buy masses because this is always the first sign for me that spring may be sprung and winter may yet be passing.
This weekend we have vases and vases of them everywhere and they really do give a boost to that weary look that seems to pervade the house after a long dark damp winter.
They will also hopefully help dispel the gloomy roar of the de-humidifier going all day every day at the moment.
I had unblocked the filter on the washing machine which was quite a clever and technical thing to do given that I wasn't in tip-top household maintenance mode and it did yield quite a bounty of coins,spent bullet cases and several large rusty nails.Flushed with this success I then failed to replace it quite tightly enough before I shoved in another load of washing, switched it on and padded off to watch another episode of Deal or No Deal.
Sadly more a case of Seal or No Seal....
By the time I returned, the hall carpet and a great deal more was afloat as the entire water content of one complete wash cycle plus soap powder had drained quietly onto the floor, out of the utility room and meandered around the house.It's quite a salutary sight when you see there before your eyes exactly how much water a washing machine uses.
We decided against launching the lifeboat so Bookhound gamefully rose to the challenge, removed his shoes and socks, rolled up his trousers and swam into the rescue, looking for all the world as if, with a knotted hankie on his head, he could have been on a beach holiday.
I'm afraid I just sat on the stairs passing him an endless supply of bath towels and weekend newspaper supplements and whimpering pathetically.
This seems like just and due punishment for ever watching daytime TV and now I hate Noel Edmonds because really it was all his fault.

Moon Gazing

Hope you're all out moon-gazing tonight.
If there's one thing I love it's a really exciting eclipse or an abundant meteorite shower (sad I know) and as luck would have it we have clear skies here in deepest darkest Devon for tonight's total eclipse of the moon.The total eclipse of the sun a few years ago was memorable and very strange and very confusing for our chickens.
I'm reminded of all those diagrams we used to draw in Physics with circles and lines to demonstrate what was getting in the way of what.
Apparently the moon will be blood-red in tonight's sky from about 10.24 until midnight.
Imagine how scary that would be if you hadn't realised it was going to happen.
Now sitting here waiting for that first chunk to go.

The Tinker's Book

Now that news of The Tinker's book has broken and yes, Len Chester is indeed father of dgr, I can heave a sigh because the suspense has been killing me. Personally I think it's a great idea to work these pensioners hard, all this retirement stuff, feet up, lunch out with friends, free TV licence, heating allowance, honestly, we're molly-coddling them we really are.
Come on your only 81, write a book for goodness' sake, someone in the family's got to.
It was my Mum who started the ball rolling and made him write a few things down, and eventually me who started nagging mercilessly to have all this recorded for the grandchildren.
Why waste those sleepless nights when you could be writing I said and slowly but surely the stories started to arrive first thing in the morning in my inbox.
I think there have been lots of tears of the emotional sort (mostly mine at the very idea that all this happened when he was just 14) and he hasn't had any tantrums or been a temperamental writer at all.The photographs are amazing and each with its own tale to tell about a slice of wartime life that few people are even aware of.
Gradually it dawned that this could be something special and others think so too and we are delighted and grateful that Long Barn Books will be publishing it. We are now also more than a little overwhelmed that Bugle Boy is to have an introduction written by HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
The Tinker says he doesn't think the fame will change him and he'll probably keep the same car though he is busy practicing his signature, however he does think the whole experience may have aged him prematurely and he's not sure how he'd have managed if he'd been old.
Here we are this very day and actually I think it's me who looks and feels about 90!

Catalogues

"Come and take choice of all my library and so beguile thy sorrow"
That line from Titus Andronicus heralds the final book catalogue from Richard Budd, a second-hand book dealer we have bought from and met at many book fairs over the years. He probaby doesn't know us at all but we always browse his shelves, especially his first edition Ted Hughes' and Sylvia Plath's and usually a smattering of Virginia Woolf's on there too.With apologies to Richard we were the nuisance customers who wanted to lay eyes on the books but couldn't actually afford to buy them.
Catalogues must, years ago, have been one of the main ways for a bookseller to advertise their wares and you do still see them in those posh bookshops around the British Museum but they are very reluctant to let you have them. I did manage to rise to my full height, look loaded and interested and came away with a few from Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers a while back.They are a thing of beauty in themselves and here's where you'll find a Dickens for £10,000.
Since the arrival of the internet it's becoming increasingly unusual for a book dealer to regularly send out printed catalogues as detailed and as professionally produced as these and all for free and not dependent on purchasing, but this is Richard Budd's 94th and final one and that feels like quite a sad moment.
Whenever it arrives in the post I pounce on it as if I'd been sent an actual book, just reading about all those first editions, endpapers slightly foxed, some wear at the extremities, some fading to the spine, slightly frayed dust wrapper...these books could be human, don't we all feel a bit like that some days? Currently I think I'd just about pass muster as a reading copy.
But just reading about these old books is a joy.
Richard has decided to call it a day and so is selling his reference library of author bibliographies and literary biographies, calling his preface to this catalogue a biblio-suicide note because here go the tools of his trade,
"These books have been my constant companions, my friends and frequently my saviours.They have also been a permanent joy and solace and have given much pleasure"
Richard goes on to make some interesting points
" How dull it will eventually become when there are no more second-hand bookshops, no catalogue booksellers and no book fairs, with everything available only on the net...It is true we can find the vast majority of the books we want on the internet BUT we will never find the books we didn't know we wanted or those we used joyfully to chance upon in catalogues or at fairs or in shops.Such books sometimes changed our lives.The osmosis of information between collector, writer, academic and bookseller will be gone forever.We and bibliography will all be the poorer for that and, as rare books become just another commodity, our business will lose its humanity.Happily we have not reached that point and, with luck, we may avoid it."
Meanwhile Richard is off to do some birdwatching and who can blame him?

TFP new website...at last

I've just been having a late night stroll around The Friday Project's new website, it's very stylish and easy to navigate and some of the up-coming books look like absolute must-reads.
I want to get my hands on How To Bring Up Your Parents by Emma Kennedy before the sons or daughter do, and In Stitches by Dr Nick Edwards looks like a perfect dgr book.I love it when anyone else tells it like it is in the NHS.
I have In Search of Adam by Caroline Smailes in e book form and haven't got round to reading it yet for that reason, I'm not good at turning the digital pages and marginalia is tricky, roll on a paper copy that I can scribble in.The first few chapters I've read had me wanting to read much more.
Check out the links to the Author's Room which must have one of the best and most useful questionnaires ever devised for prospective writers and then go to About Us and read the biographies of the editorial team.
Now will some bright spark please translate those Latin blurbs for me...but is it Latin...I see no mention of amo amas amat amamus amatis amant,( to love) qui cessat esse melior cessat esse bene (school motto) or anything else even vaguely recognisable.My Latin teacher Miss Charity Vanstone would have had apoplexy.
Nice one TFP it all made me smile.

Kokoro

In amongst a package of books from Peter Owen publishers, a copy of a Japanese classic, Kokoro by Natsume Soseki. After a week spent feeling and sounding like Bambi with a 60 a day habit it's needed good reading to keep me going.
I've been threatening to go on a Japanese reading trail for ages now and have an occasional read of a story from The Tale of Genji just to prove it. Each subsequent Japanese novel that I read seems complete and sufficient in itself and the effect lasts for months.I don't want to pick another one up in quick succession.
Natsume Soseki was born in 1867, died in 1916 and has recently been voted Japan's best loved author and Kokoro rated as favourite book.I'm sure I wrote the same about my last Japanese read The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi, perhaps it was a different poll.
Kokoro, which translates as the emotional and spiritual heart, rather than the physical one, is a simple but deeply thoughtful meditation on a culture that is on the cusp of change. Events centre on the lives of the narrator and his friendship with the man he calls Sensei and part of the book is Sensei's account of the great tragedy of his life.This was strangely compulsive reading as slowly but inexorably emotional events were played out.
It's a book that has also courted much controversy, once deeply revered it has been recently critically dissected and become the source of much argument.
This edition has an introduction which I'm so pleased gave warnings of plot revelations because I chose not to read it until afterwards.Having allowed the book to make its first impression on me, quiet, thoughtful, philosophical writing, I then get two books for the price of one as I read just how differently it can be interpreted.
There are indeed many ambiguities in the novel and although they rise to the surface as you read, they quickly disappear from mind and are easily missed as you absorb the events.
On reflection this would make a great reading group read because there are countless facets to both the story and the characters that would make for excellent discussion, but you'll need this edition with its excellent introduction by Damian Flanagan to appreciate them all to the full.

On World Book Day dovegreyreader asks...Adele Geras

HAPPY WORLD BOOK DAY EVERYONE! Like many others, Adele Geras has been a source of great encouragement to this health visitor turned book blogger and so, as I said yesterday, I was delighted when she placed herself very sedately in the armchair for dovegreyreader asks...and I will now apologise for what happened next.
It was of course lovely to see Adele wearing the actual Costa Book Awards outfit and, had I known I would have suggested she brought some wellies too.I've yet to find out how to get that slurry-like mud, unique to the countryside, off her gorgeous teal suede shoes.We swear by the washing machine here (and Crocs go in the dishwasher and come out gleaming) but a 60 degree wash in Ariel Bio followed by a 1300rpm spin doesn't seem to have helped.
Things got worse as you'll see because Rocky took a real shine to his visitor and the cat fur just whoosed onto that black dress like iron filings to a magnet, we were busy with the sticky lint roller for ages.Nothing seemed to phase Adele though, not even bookhound in his apron bearing the tea tray.

Always a writer? If not how did it happen and who or what have been the greatest influences on you?

Absolutely not!I am a failed musical actress.
I was going to be someone like Judy Garland/Barbra Streisand till I got married. I was supposed to be a STAR! I spent most of my time at university on stage and appeared in musical reviews twice in the West End . Unfortunately, when I came up to Manchester after my marriage, there were no vacancies for stars, so I became a teacher instead. I taught French in a girls' secondary school. I fell into writing completely by accident. I went in for a competition ( I love competitions!) to write a story for children and though I didn't win, I enjoyed the process so much that I decided to persist with it. It took me about two years to get anything accepted. Influences? My father and my English teachers at school, Miss Godfray and Miss Sturgis. I imagine these two as ghostly presences when I read over anything I've written. They had fierce red pens and excellent judgement, which is a good combination. Thanks to my dad, I can't split an infinitive, never make mistakes like 'between you and I' and NEVER, EVER say 'phenomena' when I'm talking about one thing. I also always put apostrophes in the correct place. Pedantic? Moi?

Is the circulation to your feet OK with Rocky on your lap ? He is quite a phenomena… phenomenal… big cat isn’t he?

Rocky is lovely and I admire him on your blog whenever his photo appears. He's welcome on my lap any time. Almost any cat would be. I'm a great cat lover. I know you're doing tutorials on VW with the estimable Susan Hill but do you know Virginia's remark about Mrs. Gaskell? She said Gaskell wrote as though she had a cat on her lap. I'm not altogether sure whether she meant it as a compliment, but if anyone said it of me, I'd be overjoyed.

An ideal writing day for you...

A day when I get up, longing to continue the scene I've started the day before. I have no errands to run before I can begin. It's straight on to the laptop after breakfast, write for two hours or so and find it brilliant when I read it back, instead of thinking: oh, must do something about that later, or that'll have to be done again from scratch or any of the other, somewhat discouraging things one thinks. By then, it's half past twelve, I've written about 2000 words or so, which is plenty for one day. I then back up my work, close the laptop and take myself off to lunch with a good friend. You don't want to overdo it, right?

Well quite Adele, more scones, more jam, more cream, more tea?

Absolutely, always more of everything like that, which you can tell by looking at me, right? One of my many mottoes is: TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING CAN BE WONDERFUL...that's Mae West. My real top  motto, though, comes from Kaffe Fassett, the Californian knitting and tapestry wizard. Back in the 70s, the cry was always: If in doubt, add twenty more colours.

When you’re not writing…

I read all the time, like Dove Grey herself. I read fast and furiously. I read all sorts of things. I also watch an inordinate amount of tv, which I adore. I love cooking, I go to movies very often and the theatre, the ballet and opera whenever I can.I see my friends. I knit, though not nearly as much as I used to. I've never knitted a sock!

Your finest literary hour...

was the 23rd May, 2001. I was down in Birmingham at a day organized by the library for the children who'd been shadowing the Carnegie medal. This is the premier children's book prize and that year, my novel TROY  was on the shortlist. I was very elated about that. There were several of us there that day, including Philip Pullman and Jamila Gavin and Beverley Naidoo. She was the eventual winner, though Philip and I were joint runners-up with Highly Commendeds. It was a beautiful day, we had a splendid lunch in the Art Gallery ( do you notice a certain LUNCH THEME coming out here? Oh dear!) and best of all, I had to keep leaving the gathering to take calls on my mobile from my agent who was that very day organizing an auction for my first adult novel, Facing the Light. I had never had a book auctioned like this before. The sums I kept hearing about seemed astronomical and the little gifts ( Hodder couriered round some scented candles!) that came with the bids were amazing. At the end of the day, I'd already decided to go with Orion, but it was a heady experience and one I don't expect will ever be repeated. While I was at the Art Gallery I bought an address book and I'm stll using it.It's a reminder of that time.

Did you get a bus home or a stretch limo?

Good old British Rail from Birmingham New Street to Piccadilly.I adore trains

 
The book you most enjoyed writing...

The one I had most fun with was Made in Heaven. I didn't have a single problem with the plot, which worked itself out in a trouble-free way from the beginning. I loved doing the research for it, which involved emails to my pals asking them what their ideal wedding would be and also things like going to Wedding Fairs ( or Fayres, as they are sometimes called) and buying lots of glossy magazines full of STUFF. I didn't take long to write it and it was attended by none of the birth pangs, rewriting, etc that all other novels go through. It seemed to be completely trouble -free and I loved writing it. Another book I greatly enjoyed writing was TROY but that was for another reason. For the first time, I felt that I was tackling something big and in which I could spread myself. It was, I now see, an adult book to all intents and purposes: length, themes, etc, but like a lot of adult books, perfectly fine for teenagers

Recent good reads?

Too many to list, as I've been a judge this year for the Costa Book Award and have read lots of splendid novels. I won't talk about the category winners of that competition but rather about other things I've enjoyed. A lot of them will be familiar to Dove Grey readers, though I haven't gone the Woolf for Dummies route and I've missed out on Niall Williams. Will have to rectify that omission!
Recently, I loved Kate Atkinson's One Good Turn; Dissolution and Dark Fire by CJ Sansom; King Dork by Frank Portman; A Jealous Ghost by A NWilson; and all three thrillers, well known to readers of Dove Grey, by Arnaldur Indridason, who's a real find. These are: Jar City, The Silence of the Grave and Voices. Charlotte Mendelson's When We Were Bad is marvellous.

And of course you told me about Frank Portman and Arnaldur Indridason. Now the shoes, Adele leave them with me and we’ll sort those, can I offer you some wellies?

Yes, please to the wellies. I seem, with age, to have lost the ability to be comfortable in high shoes. But invisibility goes with age as well, so no one will mind if I appear at parties henceforward in rubber boots!

And with that Adele swept off elegantly to the World Book Day gathering at The Globe Theatre in London, expect her final party report of the season very soon and she’ll be easy to spot in the wellies (green Hunters, no pink spotty Boden's here)