Time To Tidy The Shelves...

LibraryThing and Viragoing for August has gone to my head I think. Have started trying to tidy bookshelves – not something I attempt all that often! Now have two rows of Viragos and Persephones, which may not look a lot, but they’re double stacked, so there's a complete row of green Viragos behind the grey Persephones. (all my books are double stacked – no room otherwise). Who thinks I shuld put these in alphabetical order?

New Year, Resolutions and an Arthurian Sword

It's New Year's Day... And here is the Wart, on New Year's Day, pulling the
Sword from the Stone in the Disney cartoon of the same name. The film
 was based on TH White's The Once and Future King,

Happy New Year Everyone! Since people seem to be making resolutions and planning for 2015 I feel as if I should too, even though I know from past experience that I rarely stick to the lists I draw up. I’m toying with the idea of joining a couple of blogs. I like the idea of finding a bookish connection for every one of the traditional English counties, so Reading England 2015 sounds fun, but I don’t want to be tied down to too many books, so maybe I’ll aim for a lower level and just read half a dozen books for this one. And the What’s in a Name Challenge sounds fun - I could do this one easily using books from the TBR pile, and there aren’t that many books, so I’d still have plenty of time to read anything else that takes my fancy.

In addition, since most of my reading seems to be limited to British authors, and I am woefully ignorant about writers from other countries and cultures, I would like to try and read more foreign authors. I’ve got some Australian books on a shelf, and Zola and Balzac on the Kindle, so that would be a start!

Meanwhile, I seem to have gathered a pile of books by my armchair while ‘catching up’ on Radio 4 over the Christmas period– I love BBC Radio’s readings and dramatisations, and there have been some real goodies over the last couple of weeks. I’ve enjoyed TH White’s The Once and Future King, Thackeray’s The Rose and the Ring and The Diary of a Provincial Lady, by EM Delafield, which are all old favourites so, of course, so I had to hunt out the books for some re-reading. And I’ve also ended up with a stash of other Arthurian books, and a copy of Christina Hardyment’s biography of Malory, which someone gave my mother, and she gave me!


A Walter Crane illustration of Arthur pulling the
sword from the stone.

Then there was Susanna Hislop’s Stories in the Stars: An Atlas of Constellations, a fascinating mix of myths and science, which had me standing out in the garden gazing at the stars and contemplating the universe. This book has been added to my Wish List, and I’m considering taking a trip out one night somewhere with a better view of the night sky – there are too many roofs and lights where we are, which is a shame, because there have been some lovely clear night skies while the weather has been so cold and frosty.

I’m looking forward to listening to Fay Weldon’s The Girls of Slender Means, which is the current Book at Bedtime (I like listening to serials in one fell swoop – I get frustrated with them because I want to know what happens, even when I’ve read the book!). And I’ll be glued to the radio for much of today for a marathon session of Tolstoy’s War and Peace – though I’m not sure I’ll remain uninterrupted until the end!

Anyway, from this surfeit of riches TH White’s The Once and Future King seems the most suitable inspiration for New Year, because it is New Year Year’s Day when Arthur pulls the sword from the stone. If you remember, the newly-knighted Kay is to fight in a great festive tournament, but he’s left his sword at the inn, so he sends Arthur back for it. However, the inn is locked, and Arthur, determined to find a weapon for his foster brother, takes one from an anvil set in a stone in a graveyard.

Arthur, or Wart, if we’re following White (because, as he says, it more or less rhymes with Art, which is short for Arthur) must be the only person in the kingdom who knows nothing about this sword in the stone, which miraculously appeared on Christmas Day. According to White, the sword is ‘stuck through an anvil which stands on a stone. It goes right through the anvil and into the stone. The anvil is stuck to the stone. The stone stands outside a church’.

He pretty much follows Malory, who tells us in Le Morte d’Arthur of a ‘great stone four square, like unto a marble stone; and in midst thereof was like an anvil of steel a foot on high, and therein stuck a fair sword naked by the point, and letters there were written in gold about the sword that said thus:—Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England’.

Arthur, knowing nothing of all this, hands the sword to Kay, who initially lays claim to it, before admitting it is Arthur’s achievement But the noble lords of the realm are not happy and refuse to believe this seemingly base-born lad, a foundling, of unknown parentage, is really the son of dead King Uther. There are contests on Twelfth Day, Candlemas and at Easter when the knights gather to pit their strength against Arthur – but on each occasion he is the only one who can draw forth the sword, so he is finally crowned at Pentecost.

This is from an early 14th century manuscript, produced more than 150 years before
Malory wrote Le Morte d'Arthur. It shows the sword pushed  sideways into the stone.

A Little List of Books....

I’ve now finished the ‘treat’ books which I bought courtesy of my mother, and I’m  delighted to say there wasn’t a dud among them – I loved them all. Actually, when I say I’ve completed them, I’m lying, because I’ve got two Works in Progress where I opted for slow reads: Vere Hodgson’s wartime diaries, Few Oranges and No Eggs, and the Short Stories of Sylvia Townsend Warner. As a rule I’m a fairly fast reader (I want to know what happens, so I have to reach the end quickly, then I can go back and take my time with a re-read!). But Hodgson’s book is such a chunkster, and so packed with information and observations that it lends itself to a more leisurely approach, which gives me time to take everything in, and to think about what life must have been like, and to look things up, and find other books from the same period. And short stories, I’ve decided, should be read one (or possibly two) at a time, rather than racing through an entire book in one fell swoop, which means my brain gets overloaded, and I cannot appreciate the individual tales because they all get jumbled up together! I am sure I never used to have problems like that – it must be a side effect of old age and decrepitude!

Anyway, I’ve got a little list of the new batch of books collected from charity shops over the summer, and I’m looking forward to making a start on them. They are mainly ‘old’ books – vintage Penguins and VMCs predominate, and there is only one live author among them. What does that say about me I wonder? Sometimes I think I should read more modern fiction, but why change the habits of a lifetime!

First is Novel on Yellow Paper by poet Stevie Smith, which I’m reading at the moment, and enjoying immensely. It is one of the most extraordinary novels I’’ve ever come across, which will make writing about it quite a challenge, but I’m hoping to put up a post next week, however inadequate my thoughts may seem.

Next is another novel from another poet: Mr Petre, by Hilaire Belloc, who is known mainly for his Cautionary Tales (remember Matilda, who told such dreadful lies, it made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes, or Henry King, whose chief defect was chewing little bits of string). I knew he wrote more serious poetry, but hadn’t realised he was a prolific author, who also produced novels, travel books, political essays and all sorts of other things. This particular book is a very shabby old Penguin (number 633, with a dancing bird on the front) and I have no idea what to expect. According to the blurb on the inside cover:

Mr Petre was undoubtedly a financial magnate at whose name the stock markets of the world wobbled. And the Englishman in American clothes, who had landed at Southampton from New York was undoubtedly Mr Petre. Indeed, it was the only thing about which he has no doubt, that his name was Petre. Otherwise his memory was a blank.

Anyway, we shall see what I make of it. If I hate it, I’ll give it to Oxfam!

And I have another Penguin, though this one was published a little later – it’s a 1979 edition of The Enchanted Places, by Christopher Milne, and I have every hope that it will prove to be as enchanting as the title, and as pleasurable to read as the stories about Pooh and Christopher Rob written by his father, AA Milne. I’ve read reviews by other bloggers who adored this, but cannot remember who they were - Simon T at Stuck in a Book perhaps, or Claire at The Captive Reader. So, since I cannot refer you to a sensible writer, I shall have to quote from the Blurb on the Back, which states:

With deftness and artistry Milne has drawn a memorable portrait of his father, and an evocative reconstruction of a happy childhood in London and Sussex. It is a story told with humour and modesty.

And, while mooching around in a charity shop in Barnstaple I unearthed another autobiography, by author Noel Streatfeild. A Vicarage Family looks to be a gentle, nostalgic stroll through her Edwardian childhood, and I’m curious to see how it influenced her writing. I’ve yet to read any of her adult fiction, but I’ve read and loved many of her children’s stories, and would like to know more about her.

Hunt the Slipper by Violet Trefusis sounds very different. She and Streatfeild were born a year apart, yet their lives and writing are worlds apart. All I know about Trefusis is that she was the daughter of Alice Keppel (the mistress of Edward VII) and that she was the lover of Vita Sackville-West – didn’t they actually elope together at some point? And I seem to remember reading that their affair and its aftermath inspired Virginia Woolf to write Orlando. Anyway, once again my lack of knowledge means I’ll have to fall back on the Book Blurb for information:

Nigel Benson is a 49-year-old sybarite, living in comfort with his sister Molly in their gracious country house near Bath, occasionally indulging in the odd love affair. One day he visits his neighbour Sir Anthony Crome where he meets Caroline, young, restless, fascinating – and Sir Anthony’s new wife. They meet again in Paris, fall passionately in love, and their exquisite game begins!

Serendipity must have been at work here, because the very next book I came across was The Edwardians, by Vita Sackville-West, which I spotted in the shop at our local tip, or Household Waste Recycling Centre as it is now known! I liked All Passion Spent, which focuses on an elderly woman at the end of her life, but here Sackvile-West’s central characters are much, much younger. I’ve done nothing but quote from Blurbs in this post, but until I’ve read the books I can’t say anything else! For what’s worth, this one tells us that:

Sebastian and Violet are siblings, and children of the English aristocracy. Handsome and moody, ay nineteen Sebastian is heir to the vast country estate, Chevron. A deep sense of tradition and love of the English countryside tie him to his inheritance, yet he loathes the glittering cold and extravagant society of which he is part. Viola, at sixteen, is more independent: an unfashionable beauty who scorns every part of her inheritance – most particularly that of womanhood.

Finally, I bought a copy of Things That Are, Encounters with Plants, Stars and Animals by Amy Leach, because I picked it up in Waterstones in Birmingham, just to look at it, and ended up sitting on the floor reading it. On the back says: “This is a book about the Universe which begins with swimming salmon and ends with the starry sky.” That’s a pretty good description really, because it’s a series of short essays reflecting on life, the universe and everything, with snippets about nature, history, science, myth, and a host of other things, and as the author ponders them she also thinks about Man and his place in all this. She reminded me of Kathleen Jamie, and I’m enjoying this slender volume very much indeed.

In addition to my ‘new’ books I’m still exploring short stories, and will be posting my thoughts on Sundays (well, most Sundays), and I’ve been looking at Vere Hodgson’s diaries from January to June 1941, and trying to discover a bit more about life on the Home Front. And I’m trawling through my gardening books to discover what I should be doing in the garden – if I can spare the time from reading! All this will probably take me into October, but it’s nice to have a list, even if I don’t stick to it!

What plans does anyone else have for reading in September? Have you got a stash of new books to see you through the autumn, or do you turn to old favourites as the weather grows colder and the dark nights begin to close in?

Unwanted Books...

Unwanted books...

Somehow, reading, blogging, and life in general, seems to have got out of routine in recent months while I’ve been backwards and forwards to see my mother. I did manage to get the Internet up and running last time I was there, but the connection in her part of Herefordshire is dire. And in any case, when I am there I would much rather sit and chat to her, and get her to tell me about her childhood, or discuss books or something. What would be the point of going to see my lovely mum, then ignoring her, and spending all my time on the computer? But I can’t back into the swing of things when I’m back home either!

Anyway, I returned from a visit earlier this month with a box of old books she no longer needs  – volumes of poetry, cookery, history and needlework dating back to the 1930s and earlier, as well as some fabulous 19^th century books about flowers, with the  most incredible illustrations. Some of them belonged to her mother, and I can remember many of them from my childhood, so obviously, I want to keep them all, but finding shelf space was a problem, because we seem to have reached overload, and there is no more room.

More unwanted books...

 So I forced myself to have a cull, and I’ve weeded out two carrier bags of novels I know I will never read again. I hate getting rid of books, even those I don’t like, but sometimes it has to be done, and I’ve freed up space for the new arrivals, which is good. It’s so difficult clearing things out, but a couple of duplicates have gone on the ‘reject’ stack – do I really need two different Penguin editions of ‘The Great Gatsby’, I ask myself, and the answer, of course, is no, I do not.

And out went some titles that I enjoyed reading, but don’t feel I would want to read again. Geraldine Brooks ‘Year of Wonders’ was a moving account of what happens when the plague of 1666 reaches a small village, and to prevent the deadly disease from spreading, people isolate themselves from the rest of the world. Based on the true story of Eyam, in Derbshire, it shows how fear and superstition dictate the villagers’ actions, as the death toll mounts, hidden secrets come to light, and the world they know falls apart. The book follows the tale of Anna Frith, a maid, who emerges from the ordeal with new-found knowledge that enables her to find her own way in life. It’s beautifully written, and well researched, but so harrowing in places that I don’t think I could re-read it, despite the upbeat ending.

‘Quentins’, by Maeve Binchy, was another book I enjoyed, but wouldn’t necessarily want to read again. I can always immerse myself in Binchy’s work – she’s a warm, compassionate writer, who spins a good ‘feel-good’ yarn, and creates sympathetic characters, but her first novel, ‘Light a Penny Candle’, is the only one I have read, and read, and read over the years.

 I'm quite sad to part with this because even though
I don't like it, I love the cover, which shows a detail from'
Springtime in Eskdale', by J McIntosh Patrick.

 Then there were the books I hated, or which disappointed (I’ve reviewed some of them in past posts). Rose Macaulay’s ‘The Towers of Trebizond’ and Winifred Holtby’s ‘South Riding’ are two of my favourite books, so I had high hopes of ‘Told by an Idiot’ and ‘Anderby Wold’, but neither lived up to expectations, and both are destined for the charity shop, despite the fact that they are Virago Modern Classics, with lovely paintings on their fronts.   And I think it must have been the VMC cover that seduced me into buying ‘This Real Night’, by Rebecca West. I can think of no other reason for purchasing it, because it’s a follow-up to ‘The Fountain Overflows’, which I didn’t like, and I don’t like this one either.

I’m finally jettisoning ‘The Mandelbaum Gate’ by Muriel Spark which languished on shelf for years and years, until I managed to finish it during Muriel Spark Reading Week (and I only did that because it was the only unread novel, and I felt Simon and Harriet should have a full set!).

I have happy memories of reading my way through Susan Howatch back in the ’seventies (does anyone else remember ‘Cashelmara’ and ‘Penmarric’?) but I’m wary of revisiting them because ‘The Wheel of Fortune’ was terrible. And I couldn’t find anything nice to say about ‘The Irish RM’, by E Somerville & Martin Ross, which had me glued to the TV screen when it was televised in the 1980s.

Am I the only person who didn't finish
Jasper Fforde's 'The Eyre Affair'?

 Finally, out go various volumes recommended by friends, which I bought, tried to read, and failed miserably. So the time has come to get rid of them. I got ‘The Bourne Identity’, by Robert Ludlum, because a friend was reading it with her book group, but I never made it beyond the first couple of chapters. I hated everything about it – the style, the story, the subject matter, the characters. I know that’s a sweeping statement, based on little more than a glimpse of the book, but it not my thing at all, so why keep it?

And I’ve tried, and tried, and tried to read Jasper Fforde’s ‘The Eyre Affair’, and cannot get along with it at all, though it seems to be very highly acclaimed by everyone else. And the same could be said of ‘The Memory Keeper’s Daughter’, by Kim Edwards, which other people seem to really rate, but I just kept reading the same few pages over and over again, so I gave up and shoved it back on a shelf. Only now it’s with the other unwanted books and is in the boot of the car awaiting delivery to a charity shop where, I hope, it will meet with the approval of some other reader.

Does anyone else keep books they don’t like, or hang to novels they couldn’t finish because they feel that one day they might change their mind and enjoy that particular title? And do you ever cull books – and if so, how do you decide what should go and what should stay?

And more unwanted books....

October Reading - and Writing!

To celebrate the start of October, here
is the the illustration for the month from
the Duc de Berry's Book of Hours, which
was created in the 15th century.

Well, October is upon us, and what with holidays, various trips, visits from my Mother and Elder Daughter, outings with Younger Daughter, computer problems, and then mum being ill, I seem to be way off track with reading and blogging, and need to get myself organised again. August and September really didn't go according to plan, and while I seem to have read lots of books which weren't on the monthly list, there were things I meant to read and didn't - and I didn't get round to posting many reviews. So October is going to be a kind of mopping up month, caching up on writing, and reading things which have been sitting around for a while. Actually, I said that about September, but I can but try – and if I don't succeed, at least I will be well prepared for November!

I didn't get round to 'To The Lighthouse', because I loved 'Mrs Dalloway' so much that after years of being scared to read Virginia Woolf, I'm now afraid to read more in case I don't like it as much! And Kate O’Brien’s Without My Cloak' is still on the shelf, unopened.

My notes on Carol Ann Duffy's 'The Bees' flew away when Younger Daughter's old computer (which I used after my laptop died) ceased to function at all and, despite assurances from The Man of the House, they do not appear to be on the hard drive. Since this was a library book, I can't write about it until I can borrow it again - unless I buy it! A rough draft of my thoughts on 'The Provincial Lady Goes Further', by EM Delafield also disappeared into the ether in the great computer disaster, but I can remember what I said about that, and re-instate it fairly easily.

Meanwhile, the stack of books that are 'read but not posted' seems to have grown. There's 'Kilmeny of the Orchard', by LM Montgomery, for my Canadian Reading Challenge (I've got mixed feelings on this one), and 'The Third Miss Symons', by FM Mayor, which was difficult to get into – it was one of those books where I wanted to slap the central character (you can't possibly call her a heroine) good and hard.

Some of the 'read but not posted' pile.

But Madeline Miller's 'The Song of Achilles' and 'Fair Exchange' by Michele Roberts were both absolutely fantastic, and Diana Tutton's 'Guard Your Daughters' was one of the best novels I've read this year. And I mustn't forget 'Jabez', David McKie's account of the rise and fall of a Victorian rogue whose financial frauds rival anything dreamt up by modern scoundrels, and could come straight from a Trollope novel.

That sounds a lot of catching up, but they are books that I've read, and I've even scrawled out some some ideas about them, so it won't take long to turn my thoughts into proper posts (as long as I can decipher my writing!).

To be read...

So, hopefully, I'll have plenty of time for more reading. Susanna Moodie's 'Roughing it in the Bush' will put me back on course with my Canadian Reading, and I'm looking forward to 'The True Deceiver' by the wonderful Tove Jansson, which was just begging to be rescued from a charity shop. And I bought 'The Town in Bloom' when I ordered 'Guard Your Daughters' because I wanted to explore more Dodie Smith. In addition, although the Beryl Bainbridge Reading Week is long since fiished, I've acquired 'Every Man For Himself' and 'Injury Time'. And I got Carola Dunn's 'The Gunpowder Plot' from the library, because people keep telling me how good her Daisy Dalrymple mysteries are, so I thought I would give one a go. Finally, I'm just finishing Robert MacFarlane's 'The Wild Places', downloaded on the Kindle some weeks ago for an incredible 99p. I love a bargain!

My Perfect Library

A wall full of books.

This morning I have been at the Oxfam bookshop, then I met some friends for tea and a chat, so I spent the afternoon relaxing with EM Delafield's 'The Diary of a Provincial Lady' whilst eating home-made vegetable soup with cheese and wholemeal pitta bread (which I didn't make, but I'm thinking of having a go - I just need a decent recipe).

To tide you over until the next review, when I have finished reading, here are a couple of photos of the library in Lord Lichfield's private apartments at Shugborough Hall, in Staffordshire, which I visited recently. It was a bit awkward getting pictures, because part of the room is roped off, and the subdued lighting may help preserve the books, furnishings and decorations, but it makes it jolly difficult to take pictures without a flash. Still, I suppose I should be grateful that English Heritage allow photographs to be taken inside.


Anyway, this is my idea of what a library should like like, with beautiful purpose-built shelving all the way round, and a hidden door. Personally I'd like a big squashy armchair, with lots of cushions, so I could curl up, with my feet and legs tucked beneath me, but you can't have everything. I just hope that the Anson family who lived at Shugborough actually read and enjoyed their books, and that they weren't installed by some 18th century designer who was out to create an impression. 

A rather blurred photo of the door,
complete with handle.

Edited on Wednesday: I wrote this yesterday and scheduled it to appear today, and forgot to put yesterday in the intro instead of today, if that makes sense. Now it's actually tomorrow, and the wording sounds very sounds odd if you're reading it early in the morning. Sorry about that. 

A Right Royal Knit-Wit (Saturday Snapshot)

And now for something completely different for this week's Saturday Snapshot... a Not The Jubilee Knitted Queen! I spotted the pattern in Fiona Goble's Knit Your Own Royal Wedding (published last year by Ivy Press) and decided she would be perfect as Alan Bennett's book-loving monarch in The Uncommon Reader, but I altered her a bit.

I changed her face and hair, because when I followed the instructions she looked like an Oompa Loompa, from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the film starring Gene Wilder, that is, not Dahl's book, or the Tim Burton movie). And I made her a glittery, golden crown, studded with red jewels, because otherwise how would you know she is the Queen? In addition she has a book, and is wearing spectacles, so she can read it, and pink, fluffy slippers instead of shoes. because, she says, one has to take care of one's feet when one spends so much time standing and walking! Her cardigan is a little old and shabby and has probably been worn on too many visits - read the book and you'll see that her maid threatens to outlaw just such a cardigan.

Here, I'm afraid, my imagination took over, for this is not her usual chair. Ma'am as she is known around the Palace (to rhyme with jam or ham rather than charm or farm) prefers a nice upright seat, with a firm back, and likes to keep her feet on the ground. But her favourite chair was sent away for conservation and came back with a shiny, slippery satin seat, to match the gilt party chairs in her office. Her private secretary explained, rather sternly, that the chair had been restored, at great expense, to its original state, and is now an object of desire, much admired by those who know about these things. So the Queen gave a reception for the restorers and conservators, to thank them for their work at her various homes, and to show her gratitude she insisted that the chief conservator must sit on her own special chair, where he spent an uncomfortable couple of hours sliding around on its hard, slippery surface. The Queen smiled. If one thinks about it, she thought to herself, though it may be the kind of expression not suited to polite society, there is more than one way of skinning a rat.

Early the next morning the chair had disappeared, and in its place was this very battered and squashy 'recliner' belonging to the chief conservator, who likes to relax in comfort, if not style. Her Majesty, who is not given to lolling about, is disconcerted each time the back drops down but, as she says, one cannot be rude, especially when the chief conservator is 'unrestoring' her own chair. He did offer to put new covers on the gilt party chairs as well. However, the Queen said than you very much, but no thanks, And she smiled again, because one finds that those particular chairs discourage unwanted visitors from remaining too long.

I had such fun knitting the Queen (not not to say making a story to go with her) I'm now producing corgis who will chase and chew books. And I've some orange wool in the scrap bag, so I could knit ginger-haired Norman, the kitchen assistant who advises the Queen about books and reading, and is promoted to being a page! Reading this through, I fear you will all think that a) I don't have to do with my time, and b) I must be totally mad (and you'd probably be quite right). But should anyone want to try their hand at a knitted Royal, it's not that difficult – I'm only a novice knitter, but I managed quite well, and the pattern can be adapted fairly easily. And if you've never read Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Queen, it's very funny, and you can see my review here.

For more Saturday Snapshots see  Alice's blog http://athomewithbooks.net/

Do You Have An Odd Book Shelf? (Ex Libris, Anne Fadiman)

The late-great Flann O’Brien (aka Brian O'Nolan, aka Myles na Gopaleen) would, I feel have approved wholeheartedly of Anne Fadiman and her family. The idiosyncratic exponent of the art of Professional Book Handling (http://chriscross-thebooktrunk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/i-want-to-be-book-handler.html) would have been delighted by their belief that books are there to be read and enjoyed, and that it is quite right for them to look battered and well-used, because the content is more important than the book itself.

Anne’s family, as revealed in Ex Libris, Confessions of a Common Reader, are book handlers par excellence.  They leave open books face down on surfaces, break the spines, turn down the corner of pages, underline passages, and write comments in the margins. Anne’s father used to reduce the weight when reading on planes by tearing pages out as he read them, while her young son eats books.

The book is a beautifully crafted collection of essays on books, reading, language and writing, all originally written for the author’s Ex Libris column in the American magazine, Civilization. And it refutes my theory that one should never believe a book blurb, because it really is ‘witty, enchanting and supremely well written’ – just as The Observer’s Robert McCrum says.

Fadiman, who is both literary and literate, covers a range of topics. I had huge sympathy for the difficulties outlined in Marrying Libraries, which discusses the problems of merging your book shelves when you set up home with your partner. Do you discard duplicates, and if so which copy do you keep? And if each of you has a different system of storing books do you opt for volumes stacked in categories (Anne) or a miscellaneous jumble (her husband)? I’ve been through this: last summer, after nearly 30 years together, The Man of the House  have a lot of sympathy ... after nearly 30 years together, the Man of the House and I culled our books and tried to establish a joint ‘library’, with all the fiction together, in alphabetical order, irrespective of genre, but I am still not happy about the shelf full of Sharpe novels which has appeared in the middle of my classics. On the other hand, he questions whether Discworld, Harry Potter and all my childhood books need to be on general display.

Share and share alike: The nice neat row of Bernard Cornwell's
Sharpe novels belongs to to the Man of the House. My novels are
shoved in wherever I can find a space.

I particularly liked My Odd Shelf, though I cannot agree with Fadiman’s assumption that most people have an ‘odd shelf’ full of books unrelated to the main collection. On the whole, people I know are like me, and every shelf is an odd mish-mash!  However, Fadiman, who is obviously better organised, has an odd shelf which contains 64 books about polar expeditions, and her comments on Scott’s last journey are very moving.

Anyone who has ever been angered by misplaced apostrophes, double negatives, spelling errors,  and other mistakes of that ilk, will love the piece on language (I can’t give the title, because it’s got a printer’s ‘insert’ mark in it, and I can’t reproduce it on the compute, but it’s page 65 in my Penguin edition). Fadiman, her brother, father and mother are pained by such inaccuracies. Fadiman once wrote to Nabokov, listing the misprints in an edition of Speak, Memory; her brother offered to trade a complete list of mistakes in a computer-software manual for an upgraded version of the software; their mother collects newspaper mistakes, intending to send them to the editor, and before he lost his sight her father corrected menu cards, and library books.

Lost for Words by Johnny Jonas is a Medici
Card, which reminds of the Oxfam bookshop
where I am a volunteer.

Secondhand Prose, which discusses the joys of secondhand books is wonderful. Fadiman is the only person I have heard of who was whisked off to such a store as a birthday treat and returned home with a stash of books weighing nineteen pounds. Initially, explains Fadiman, she hunted out used books because she couldn’t afford new ones, but:

... I developed a taste for bindings assembled with thread rather than glue, type set in hot metal rather than by computer, and frontispieces protected by little sheets of tissue paper.  I also began to enjoy the sensation of being a little link in a long chain of book owners...

And, as you might expect from someone who loves ‘real’ books so much, she also enjoys writing with a fountain pen and ink, and has some fascinating tales to relate about writing in the essay entitled Eternal Ink. Did you know, for example, that :

One day, when Sir Walter Scott was out hunting, a sentence he had been trying to compose all morning leapt into his head. Before it could fade, he shot a crow, plucked a feather, sharpened the tip, dipped it in crow’s blood, and captured the sentence.

Writing on a computer cannot compete with that! All I can say is that if you love books, you should love this, so please read it - and I've posted this for the Essay Reading Challenge 2012 hosted by Carrie K. 

What a Blessing it is to Love Books - and Gardens

The cover on my 1992 Virago edition
bears a detail from Vase aux Anemones,
1942, by Marevn (Maria Morobieff)

This week I have been busy in the garden, trying to restore some kind of order by pulling up weeds, which always reminds me of Persephone, because in the version of the myth I read as a child she was tugging at a particularly tough plant, and when it finally came out it left a huge hole in the ground, from which Hades, God of the Underworld, emerged and carried her off to his domain. All things considered, coping with slugs and snails should be quite simple compared to what Persephone had to contend with.

Anyway, there I was, hot, tired and cross, all ready to relax with a good book – and I decided the perfect volume to read in the garden on a hot, sunny day was The Solitary Summer, by Elizabeth von Arnim, so I’ve been joyfully rediscovering it after an absence of several years. Published in 1899, it’s a follow-up to Elizabeth and her German Garden and is, I think, even better, linking the garden, life and books in a series of essays or discourses, rather than a conventional novel.

It’s written in the form of a diary, with two entries a month from May to September, and one for October, so I’ve decided to try and post a few short thoughts, or an extract, over the summer. I’m not always in favour of splitting books into sections, because I can never manage to restrain myself to a slow read over a period of time – once I’ve started, I have to find out what happens (unless, of course, it’s a book I don’t like). But this lends itself to that approach, and is worth taking a closer look at. So, having read it in one sitting I can revisit the individual chapters in a more leisurely fashion.

It’s an enchanting book, witty, light-hearted and beautifully written – but be warned, Elizabeth von Arnim is very much a product of her time and class, and on occasions she can come across as more than a little snobbish. However, she has the ability to laugh at herself, and her joy in life is infectious.

The book opens with her desire to be alone for the whole summer, so she can enjoy her garden undisturbed by visitors. In the first entry, for May 2, she tells us: “I shall be perpetually happy, because there will be no-one to bother me.” Her prosaic husband, the Man of Wrath, warns that she will get her feet damp, catch cold, and be dull. But she waxes lyrical about the joys of a solitary life, the peace she will find, and the beauties of nature.

Each chapter has one of these drawings at the beginning but,
sadly, there seems to be no attribution

I suppose these days many people might regard the way she writes about her garden as overly sentimental, but I enjoy her style, and she has a keen eye for nature. Describing her tulips, she says: “The only ones I exclude are the rose-coloured ones; but scarlet, gold, delicate pink, and white are all there, and the effect is infinitely enchanting. The forget-me-nots grow taller as the tulips go off, and will presently tenderly engulf them altogether, and so hide the shame of their decay in their kindly little arms.” Don’t you think that’s a lovely (and accurate) account of the way tulips go over, and get swallowed up by airy clouds of sky blue myosotis?

Elizabeth von Arnim was born Mary Annette
Beauchamp. Her first husband was Count
Henning August von Arnim-Schlagenchin

The Solitary Summer, like many of Elizabeth’s other books, draws on her own life, and reflects her love of the garden – and her love of books, as the entry for May 15 shows. For her, each author and book must be read in a particular place, at a particular time of day.  Thoreau, one of her favourites, is best savoured outside, by a pond, because he likes the open air, but Boswell is deemed unsuitable for the great outdoors.

“So I read and laugh over my Boswell in the library, when the lamps are lit, buried in  cushions and surrounded by every sign of civilisation, with the drawn curtains shutting out the garden and  country solitude so much disliked by sage and disciple,” Elizabeth writes.

Afternoons are for pottering in the garden with Goethe, while in the evening, when everything is tired and quiet, she sits by the rose beds with Walt Whitman and listens to what he has to tell her of night, sleep, death and the stars.

And who could argue when she says: “What a blessing it is to love books. Everybody must love something, and I know of no objects of love that give such unfailing returns as books and a garden.” 

Chained Books - Power or Protection?

"In most old libraries the books are chained to the shelves to prevent them from being damaged by people. In the Library of Unseen University, it's more or less the other way around." So says novelist Terry Pratchett in Sourcery, and I’m inclined to think if it’s good enough for Discworld, then it’s good enough for us.

However, I suspect custodians of the Chained Library at Hereford Cathedral would not subscribe to Pratchett’s reasoning - although I half expected a large, orange orang utan to swing in to view, eating a banana and shouting 'Ook'.  Anyway,  conventional wisdom would have us believe books were chained to prevent them being stolen. But after seeing them I’m puzzled. Many of the books are enormous – they are so large and heavy, often with covers of wood and leather, that it would be difficult heaving them down from the shelf, let alone carrying them any distance. Plus, I would have thought their sheer size would have meant a thief would be spotted fairly quickly – you certainly couldn’t stroll out with a book stuffed under your cotte.

I know books were scarce and valuable, but these volumes are not the kind of thing that could be easily flogged in a tavern or market and, since few people could read, they would only have been of value to monks, clergymen and scholars. All in all I can’t understand why anyone would have wanted to steal books, especially when you consider the draconian punishments imposed on wrong-doers.

So, was chaining books really the most widespread and effective security system in European libraries from the middle ages through to the 18th century? Or have we all missed the point and was the object of the exercise not prevention of theft, but a show of wealth and a demonstration of power? That thought takes me back to Patchett again, for according to him: “Books contain knowledge, and knowledge equals power, which according to the laws of physics can be converted to energy and matter, so the Library contains an extremely large mass that can distort time and space.” Forget about the distortion of time and space, but I think he’s right about knowledge and power.

Whatever the reason, Hereford’s 17th century chained library is fantastic, and is well worth the entrance fee. It’s housed in a new building (alongside the famous Mappa Mundi) and is an amazing place, very quiet, very peaceful, with centuries-old books stored in tall wooden cabinets, each with its ledge where books can be rested as they are read, still chained securely to their protective rail. These days, of course, common visitors like me cannot lift the books down, although I believe they are available (by request) to scholars, and there are smaller, thinner facsimiles in an excellent exhibition in a separate room.

The first thing you notice is that the books are stored upright, the wrong way round compared to modern custom – the spines are at the back of the shelves, where they cannot be seen, and it is the page edges which face you. Each book has a metal chain, attached to the front edge of the cover with a hasp, with a ring at the other end slotted over a metal rod which runs the width of the cabinet. The books can be lifted down and read, but the chain cannot be removed unless everything is unlocked.

Books are stored alphabetically, and at the end of each cabinet are index boards listing the contents. The bookcases and chains date from around 1611, but many of the volumes stored here are far older – the cathedral has had a library for 900 years or more, and contains hand-written illuminated manuscripts, as well as early printed works. The oldest book in the collection is the Hereford Gospels, created in the 8th century, at the same time as the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels.

The exhibition on the library was fascinating, with information about the way vellum was produced and manuscripts produced, as well as details about the development of printing and the way books have been stored over the years. And there were two fabulous book trunks, which bowled me over. One, beautifully carved, had three locks, and the key for each was kept by different people, so no-one could access it on their own. The other was plainer, with a huge iron ring at each end, to hold a sturdy wooden pole, so the chest could be carried along when high-ranking clergymen went on their travels – I wonder what they would have thought about modern, light-weight E-readers!

The guides manning the library and the exhibition were really helpful and informative (as was the man who told us about the Mappa Mundi), and we also enjoyed wandering around the rest of the cathedral, before treating ourselves to coffee and home-made cake in the cathedral café. A perfect day!

By the way, photography is banned in the library, so the pictures are from the guide book, Rare Treasures of Hereford Cathedral, Mappa Mundi, the Chained Library and Magna Carta, which is available from the Cathdredal Bookshop.

Mother's Day with Milly-Molly-Mandy

Well, it’s Mother’s Day, and I’ve had a bouquet of roses, some rose petal handcream, a beautiful bar of soap – and The Daughters also left messages on Facebook about two of their favourite childhood books, Joyce Lankester Brisley’s Milly-Molly-Mandy, and My Naughty Little Sister, by Dorothy Edwards, reminding me how I used to read to them and ‘do all the voices’.

Simon, at Savidge Reads, must have been thinking along similar lines, because he wrote a wonderful post, thanking his mum for making him read, and it set me thinking about my mother, who says she held me in her arms when I was a baby and wouldn’t sleep, and read aloud from whatever she happened to be reading at the time – novels, plays, poems.

And, of course, she read me children’s stories (doing all the voices), including those delightful tales about Milly-Molly-Mandy, which were among my favourites (and which she also loved when she was small) , so I rushed off to find More of Milly-Molly-Mandy, which seems to have been in the family’s possession for ever and a day. I have no idea where it came from – I think my mother may have bought it in a second-hand shop. It was published by George G Harrap & Company Ltd in 1944, ‘in conformity with the authorised economy standards’. I keep meaning to look this up, as I’d love to know more about wartime publishing. There’s even a little logo of a lion sitting on open book, on which is printed: BOOK PRODUCTION WAR ECONOMY STANDARD. Has anyone else ever come across this? And if so, can you tell me anything about it?

 I love this book just as much as when I did when I was a child. There are fabulous black and white drawing, by the author, and a map of the village showing where everyone lives,and a colour plate at the front, with Milly-Molly-Mandy making her bed with its green-painted ends, and the matching curtains and colourful rug on the floor. In fact Milly-Molly-Mandy Has a Surprise, where she sees her very own bedroom for the very first time is my favourite of all the stories. Her family turn the little storeroom up under the thatched roof into a room for her, so she no longer has to sleep in the corner of Father’s and Mother’s room. They decorate it with left-over paint, and Mother dyes old curtains and a bedspread to make them look like new, and they manage to keep the whole thing secret, even though Milly-Molly-Mandy helps with make-over. 

It’s such a wonderful surprise for the little girl, and you just know it must have been planned and organised by her mother, who must love her very much.

When she opened the door – she saw –

Her own little cot-bed with the green coverlet on, just inside. And the little square window with the green curtains blowing in the wind. And a yellow pot of nasturtiums on the sill. And the little green chest of drawers with the robin cloth on it. And the little green mirror hanging on the primrose wall, with Milly-Molly-Mandy’s face reflected in it. 

The room had ‘a little square window very near to the floor, and the ceiling sloped away on each side so that Father or Mother or Grandpa or Grandma or Uncle or Aunty could stand upright only in the middle of the room. (But Milly-Molly-Mandy could stand upright anywhere in it.)’  As a child I felt a sense of kinship with Milly-Molly-Mandy, for my own bedroom (decorated in blue and white) was up in the eaves of the house, with sloping ceilings and a tiny dormer window which opened on to the roof.

So there you are, a reflection on Mother’s Day – and a huge thank you to my mother and my daughters for their love, friendship, and our shared enjoyment of books and reading.

A Very Uncommon Queen

This knitted Queen, from 

Knit Your Own Royal

Wedding, by Fiona

Goble, looks such fun

I may make one

Well, it’s the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s accession to the throne, so here are some reading suggestions for those who want to escape the brouhaha which surrounds the event. Firstly there’s Sue Townsend’s ‘The Queen and I’, in which England has become a republic and the royal family has been banished to a grotty council estate. I am not a huge fan of Townsend (I’m always inclined to think one reading of any of her work is enough) but she is very funny, and this would be a good antidote to the current monarchy mania – although I think the ending is a bit of a let-down, and I most certainly would not have written it like that.

Better still is Alan Bennett’s ‘The Uncommon Reader’, which I wrote about on my other site when I first started blogging.  At the centre of this novel (or perhaps I should say novella, since it is very short) is the Queen, older, wiser and more human – albeit more selfish – than she appears in Bennett’s ‘A Question of Attribution’. Here, in pursuit of barking corgis, she stumbles upon a mobile library van which calls at Buckingham Palace once a week, and consequently discovers the joys of reading. Her first book, by Ivy Compton-Burnett, is selected because she made the author a dame.  “Yes, I remember that hair, a roll like a pie-crust that went right round her head,” she recalls.

Aided and abetted by kitchen boy Norman, Her Majesty becomes an obsessive reader, and begins to resent time spent on official engagements, although travel can be put to good use: in a state coach she waves with one hand while holding a book with the other, hidden from view – reminding me of the days when I wedged a book beneath the lid of a school desk. I rejoiced as ER enjoyed my own favourites and, spurred on by her enthusiasm, vowed to extend my own reading and try something new (though I have to admit I still haven’t got round to trying Proust).

The Queen soon realises what many of us already know, that ‘novels are not necessarily written as the crow flies. And that reading leads to more reading as you chase allusions, check out facts, hunt for answers and search for truths. Her staff may wonder if she is going senile, but she has a sharp wit.  “A book is a device to ignite the imagination,” she tells a footman who tries to tell her a missing book has been confiscated by security and may have been exploded. And when her private secretary suggests she would better to stick with reading briefings, she says – with some asperity – that briefing is not reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point” she adds. “Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject. Reading opens it up.”

Her Majesty is, says Bennett, strangely democratic and approaches books ‘without prejudice’. They are ‘uncharted country’, so initially she makes no distinctions, and she likes the fact that ‘all readers are equal, herself included. Gradually she begins to discriminate, She develop eclectic tastes, writes notes on what she reads, and takes to discussing books with the people she meets – to the horror of her staff, who disapprove of her hobby. They search for a way to stop her reading, but the solution disturbs them even more, for the Queen decides she will devote the rest of her life writing…

Alan Bennett

If you’ve never read this, please, please, remedy the omission as soon as possible.  It’s a delight from beginning to end, literate, understated, quintessentially English, and beautifully written and constructed. Bennett always manages to use the perfect word in exactly the right place, and this is full of his usual wry, detached observations of the minutia of everyday life and human behaviour.

And if the real Queen does not resemble the character portrayed by Bennett, then she should try a little harder to match the image – his creation is up there with the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas. Childish of me I know, but I really do want her to exist.