The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke

'"Miss Parbringer, I will give you a piece of advice in return for yours (for I am certain that it was given in good faith). Magic, madam is like wine and, if you are not used to it, it will make you drunk. A successful spell is as potent a loosener of tongues as a bottle of good claret and you will find the morning after that you have said things you now regret."
With that he bowed and walked back through the orchard into the house.
"A magician in Grace Adieu," said Miss Tobias thoughtfully, "and at such a time. Well, let us not be disconcerted. We will see what tomorrow brings."'

I have seen so much about Susanna Clarke and her novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell that I really did not want to like her writing. I have this tendancy, to react against the things that everyone else thinks are wonderful. However, I could not help myself and loved this short story collection.
It was not what I expected, although I'm not sure that I had any clearly defined expectations of her writing, except that a book about magic and fairies (tall ones who aren't always that pleasant, rather than sweet little creatures fluttering around the bottom of your garden) was not it.
These stories are light and whimsical, but beautifully written. They are set in a world where magic is taken for granted as a part of every day life, if a slightly out of date part; fairies exist and magicians are people who do real spells, not sleight of hand tricks. Most of the stories are set in Regency England but not quite that of Jane Austen.
The first story is set in the world of her novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, about three young women who are constrained to act in certain ways by society but who use their knowledge of magic to subvert it and have their own way. It includes Jonathan Strange and has left me very anxious to read the novel which I have now bought.
One of my favourite stories was called Tom Brightwind or How the Fairy Bridge was built at Thoresby, about how a fairy creates a bridge for a small town, for the (passing) love of the wife of the local lord. Another I particularly enjoyed was called Mr Simonelli or the Fairy Widower, and was about a bookish young man sent to be a rector in the country who discovers he is related to a local fairy, and that the gentleman concerned is a dangerous character that he has to thwart.
A number of the stories have female main characters breaking social conventions. Mrs Mabb is a good example, where a young woman who was to have married a soldier who has thrown her off for a rich woman called Mrs Mabb determinedly attempts to visit the woman's house to see her rival for herself, despite the terrible things that keep happening to her whenever she tracks down Mrs Mabb's elusive home, and the resulting suspicions about her sanity.
The social constraints are also true of the fairy women, especially in Tom Brightwind, where their society is shown to be old fashioned and patriarchal compared to that of the humans. The fairy world, although magical, is not necessarily one to envy.
Although the stories are very different, they are all set in this world and there is a continuity throughout that is very satisfying. It feels less like a collection of short stories and more an introduction to a new world, and it is an absorbing and very real world, despite the presence of magic and fairies. The writing is charming and intelligent, and I defy anyone not to be enchanted by it. Expect to see a review of Jonathan Strange... here very soon, as I am missing Susanna Clarke's world already.

Cookery books and a culinary challenge

Not content with devising the Russian Reading Challenge for this year, Sharon at Ex Libris has created another great but completely different challenge, one that I was powerless to resist: The Soup's On Culinary Challenge.
The challenge is to review six cookery books in a year, starting from April 1st. You don't have to read them cover to cover but give an impression of the sort of book they are. And, since we are talking cookery books here, you also have to make at least one recipe from them. That was what swung it for me, as I am slipping back into prepacked ready meals already this year and need a push to get creative - and less lazy- in the kitchen.
I love food and I also love to cook; little makes me feel more contented and at peace with the world than baking a cake. And as a result I have quite a collection of cookery books, of many different types.
Some I love to read but am not so sure about the recipes, such as Jennifer Patterson's Feast Days which is a hugely funny book when she writes about falling off her motorcycle as she raced to get to Mass and other events in her life, but the couple of recipes I've tried have been less than successful. Then there are books which are just recipes with anonymous authors which tend to be more successful on the cooking front but which I find a little soulless to look through. I like to get to know the author a bit too, and read a bit of personal commentary about where they found/ came up with the recipe, or what it means to them. Elizabeth David's books are, of course, perfection and a wonderful read.
The queen of cookbooks for me is Nigella Lawson; I've mentioned before just how much I worship her and I don't care about any negative views anyone else has. I love her and always will, if only for her brownie recipe. I have a batch of chocolate fudge cooling downstairs at this very moment from a recipe of hers in Nigella Express. What I love about Nigella is a) she makes me feel that the disorganised and impatient way I cook is okay, and b) she's not afraid of a bit of butter. Or chocolate. Or all those other lovely things that the obesity police don't want us to eat. I would rather be fat than miserable and that is all there is to it!
I also have a large number of cookery books that belonged to my grandmother who died a couple of years ago and whom I miss very much. They mean an awful lot to me, even her cordon bleu recipe books which I suspect I will never cook from. A very special book is one from the 1940s that my grandad gave to her when they were first married.
So decision time, which six books will I pick for the challenge; I've tried to pick a mix of ones that I want to dip into and ones that I think may be interesting to other people:

First Queen Nige, and I'll go for How to Eat - her first book, and the one that I get on with least but I haven't spent enough time with it I think.
Jane Grigson's English Food, a book I want to read as much as cook from.
Feeding the Nation, a book of Wartime recipes by Marguerite Patten.
Delia's Vegetarian Collection by Delia Smith, because you've got to have a bit of Delia.
The Best 100 Tapas - a book J and I brought back from a holiday in Palma in Majorca that I just want to try something from.
And finally, The Dairy Book of Home Cookery, one of my grandmother's books and a volume that I always remember both her and my mother having around, so lots of personal nostalgia there.

I hope lots of other people will join in too as I hope to gather a lot of exciting new recipes from this challenge.

Spooky New England by S E Schlosser

I love the cover of this book of New England ghost and folk tales; there are illustrations in the same style throughout by Paul G. Hoffman. The book is published by The Globe Pequot Press, ISBN: 978-0-7627-2827-5.
It is unusual for a book of regional ghost stories in that it is portrayed as fiction rather than a series of experiences. Occasionally I felt I would have liked some of the stories to have been in a more reportage style, hearing genuine people's experiences, but I suspect the stories are ones that have passed into New England lore, and tracking down someone who claimed to have had the actual experiences would be difficult.
The stories vary but a number are around the sea such as one where a couple of girls sheltering in a strange house from a storm are woken by a figure of a man in the room and then in the morning find a piece of seaweed where the man stood - the ghost of a drowned sailor. There are stories of strange dogs that foretell tragedy and ghostly figures that relive it.
One of my favourite stories was from Connecticut, about Elvira Blood, a woman who flew into a rage when her husband went out to a sumptuous meal, with plenty of drink naturally, with his friends at a local tavern leaving her and her children to scrape by on a pittance. She goes to the tavern and upsets the table with all the food and drink laid out on it causing quite a scandal. Sam Blood takes her with him on his next voyage, the town's opinion being against him, but mysteriously returns a widower. However, it appears that despite being dead Elvira returned anyway, and whenever the group of friends have a get-together in the tavern, the food and drink laid out in the private room for them is thrown around again. And she is still at it; if any food is laid out in the room it is tipped onto the floor, despite her husband having died long before.
Another tale that I liked a lot was a magical one, about Uncle Kaler who lived in Maine and could make the weather. He creates a storm to help a young couple who are trying to elope escape her pursuing family. It is a sweet little story.
It was a good read, and a lovely souvenir of our trip to New England.

The allure of Mr Bean

No, I'm not talking about Rowan Atkinson, but Sheffield's finest, Mr Sean Bean, specifically as Sharpe. Apologies to male readers, this is going to be a girly post.
I didn't watch Sharpe when it was first shown in the mid-nineties as I was a flighty young twenty-something gadding about town, and it didn't interest me. The History Channel has been showing them recently though and I've caught a couple and have become obsessed in a quite unseemly way for an old married woman. Recently I have been finding Sean Bean more and more attractive, and in these programmes he is in his prime as the noble and brave Sharpe, fighting Napoleon's armies.
I decided to treat myself today; yesterday evening when I had had a day off and J had been let loose on his own in Sheffield he snuck into the house with a Playstation 3 tucked under his arm, reminding me very much of the way my first cat used to sneak into the house when he had a mouse in his mouth. So I decided I was due a little treat (although I will of course be using the Playstation a lot, but any excuse) and today looked for a DVD to quell my hunger for more and more Sharpe that the History Channel is just not feeding adequately.
It was my lucky day, not only were there loads of DVDS but there was a box set with all fourteen of the episodes. Twenty-five hours of bliss for only thirty pounds, which I reckon is about a pound and twenty pence an hour. Worth every penny it will be too, I'm sure. That was the sound of my lips smacking in case you weren't sure.
Seriously though, I wouldn't be watching the programmes if the stories weren't so good. I am in a phase of loving good adventure stories with lots of shooting and fighting and dashing heroes sorting out the bad guys, so these are perfect. Sharpe seems to have been quite unlucky in his comrades in the couple I have seen as he keeps finding out they have betrayed England to France (although not his special close little group, of course) - I hope to understand a bit more of the background when I can watch them in order. I may even read the books, if they live up to the TV series.
It will be a change from Columbo, but I need a change I think, especially as I am now convinced there is not an episode left (from the seventies, no others count) that I haven't seen, several times in most cases. Sharpe won't replace the rain-coated detective's place in my heart, but he will certainly enliven my Saturday afternoons for the next few weeks. Lovely.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

This is a monumental book but the thing that amazed me the most about it was how tightly controlled the plot was. I had got the mistaken impression that it wandered about a bit, and contained stories within stories but, although at times it appears to be heading in this direction, everything is ultimately connected to the Count and comes back to him.

The story is well known, a brief recap is all that is necessary: Edmond Dantès, a young man about to be made captain of his ship and marry the girl he loves is falsely arrested for being a part of a Bonapartist conspiracy and spends fifteen years in the prison on Chateau D'If with an Abbé who tells of a magnificent treasure hidden on the island of Monte Cristo. Some twenty five years after the arrest the mysterious Count of Monte Cristo emerges, pursuing vengeance against those who wronged him.

I spent a long time reading this not because I didn't enjoy it but because I found the first half easy to put down. The story was vivid enough to stay in my head so that I could leave it for a couple of weeks and then pick it up again without a hitch but it was not compelling enough to grip me. This changed at about the midway point and I read the second half of the book in a couple of days. I think the difference was that it began to centre on the personal relationships. The Count was meeting the people from his past, rather than being the aloof and mysterious stranger, and the emotions that he and the others went through, as well as the action as he exacted his revenge and the difficulties that faced the Count as he formed bonds with the next generation and realised that his actions were affecting them, were moving and fascinating. The second half is also more morally complex; in the first half he is obviously wronged but in the second he becomes as much the perpetrator of wrongs as the sufferer, and his internal struggles with this are very interesting, especially in terms of his relationship with his old love, Mercédès.

At first Edmond is not a particularly interesting character. He is simple but good and brave, really quite dull. The scheming Danglars is far more interesting in the first few chapters. The long spell in prison was also not that gripping although you saw how the character of Dantès was formed by his association with the old Abbé Faria and how his intellect developed. It made me a bit impatient though; I felt like I do when watching films of comic books where they insist on giving you all the background to how the character became a superhero for the first two hours, rather than just getting into the action and letting you find out the history as you go along. However, once transformed into the Count, regularly compared to Lord Ruthven from John Polidori's The Vampyre because he is so pale, distant and mysterious, he is far more interesting. His riches allow him to live as he wishes and he has anything he wants but the pain and torment inside him is evident as he will not allow himself to forget the past. Although always controlled when in company, the internal struggles which he gives into when alone are some of the most moving parts of the book as he sees not only the effects of his actions on others, but also realises what he has done to himself by his desire for revenge and the happiness he has sacrificed.

So, as I read this for the Index Librorum Liberorum Challenge, why was Dumas banned by the Catholic church? The Catholic Church banned both Dumas père and fils, and the list states that père is prohibited because of 'Omnes fabulae amatoriae' which with my rusty GCSE Latin, I translate as 'all love stories'. I imagine The Count would be part of this, as it is very much a story about love and hate. When reading it I could see why the Church may not like it; the Count is a man who sees himself as a vessel of God, doing His bidding when carrying out his revenge, a twisted view of religion. It also contains scenes of illegitimate birth and extra-marital affairs. It doesn't seem much of a reason to ban an author, but maybe it was enough in the mid- 1800s.

Dreaming of a white Easter

It's snowing, big fat beautiful flakes that float down from the sky, rather than fall. I am having comfortable visions of being snowed in for the weekend, as a number of American bloggers have written about over the past couple of months, where there is nothing for it but to sit in front of the fire with hot drinks and a pile of books.
Unfortunately, though, this is England in March, and I can already see blue sky where the wind has blown the snow clouds over and it looks as though the sprinkling of icing sugar on the garden is all we are going to get. This is a shame; I love the quiet of a day where there has been thick snow and as it is Easter Sunday tomorrow, with few shops open, there would have been even fewer people trying to drive past the house through the snow and disturbing the peace. Oh well.
Even without a snowdrift, I have done little today but read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, a wonderful novel and I am currently easily keeping up with who's who, unlike when I read War and Peace. I have read a lot of escapist fiction recently and felt like something a little more serious; I also realised that the year is almost a quarter gone and I have yet to read any of my choices for the Russian Reading Challenge. I did wonder if it was a bit foolish starting with a large book like this, but I don't think it will take that long, the story has absorbed me completely.
Good Friday was spent with my family and I left with an armful of Georgette Heyer books, having returned The Toll Gate. I managed to grab a couple of the titles recommended to me by Cath and Elaine in between my father handing me several of his favourites, trying very hard not to tell me the details of the stories but not quite succeeding in a couple of cases. Luckily I have no idea which story related to which book so they should still be a surprise to me when I read them.
Even if we aren't quite snowed in, I think I'll pretend we are and sit by the fire with a pile of books anyway.

A long overdue introduction to Georgette

There's a nasty stomach bug going around, which seems to have hit quite a few bloggers too, and yesterday I had a little dose and was sent home from work straight away by my manager with dire warnings of how much I was going to be ill over Easter. Luckily my iron stomach seems to have fought most of it off now, but I was very glad to be at home and near my own facilities. I also took the opportunity of an unexpected day at home to finally become acquainted with Georgette Heyer.
There have been so many reviews and pieces about her work in the blog world in recent months, and with Elaine's article in Estella's Revenge and another article in the Winter Slightly Foxed, I decided to finally see what these books are that my parents have been reading as long as I can remember.
I picked up The Toll Gate, which my father lent me a while back as a good introduction to her, and I have to say it began quite badly. I really think the first chapter was atrocious - so many characters were larded into the pages that I had to stop and go through them carefully to work out who were the uncles and aunts, who were the nieces and nephews, who was the brother-in-law of whom, and so on. And then, to add insult to injury, they all disappear never to reappear, but at that point I didn't care because the proper story had started and what a wonderful story it is - as Captain Jack takes pity on a toll keeper's son left alone and attempts to solve the mystery of his disappearing father, falling in love along the way with the the granddaughter of the local lord of the manor. She is fighting off unwelcome attentions from a friend of her cousin, a conceited swell with a dark side and obviously up to no good.
It is also, and this is always a way to my heart, set in the North Derbyshire Peak District, mentioning Chesterfield and Sheffield and other places I know well, so I am enjoying imagining these areas at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
It is fun, in the same way that Captain Blood was fun - pure, unadulterated escapism. It is a romanticised version of Regency England, certainly, where highwaymen apologise for holding up a carriage carrying two ladies on an empty road, and a hardened Dragoon Captain can fall in love in three seconds (and of course everyone can tell instantly that he is a gentleman and to be trusted) but who cares? It is very well written, the story is compelling and not too mushy, the heroine is tall (very important, as I am too and can never properly empathise with tiny heroines) and independent, and the hero is manly and handsome and will hopefully soon be giving a good thumping to the slimy villain when I finish it very shortly.
I spent the evening walking round the house saying 'Damme sir, what you at?' at every naughty thing the cat did, and am hopelessly lost - another Georgette Heyer fan has been born to carry on the family line.

More book buying

I am incorrigible and there is no way I will get the TBR number down this year. This nice pile of old books are my latest acquisitions.

On Friday I visited a charity shop; it was quite sad looking at the shelves, as a house must have been cleared of a person who had enjoyed books on Christian subjects there were so many similarly themed books there, especially on something called the Oxford Movement which means nothing to me I'm afraid. I thought a three volume autobiography of Bishop Hensley Henson looked very interesting as a social history of the late 19th century / first half of the twentieth century, as he himself says in the Foreword, even with little knowledge of the developments in the Anglican church at the time. He has modestly entitled it Retrospect of an Unimportant Life; I wonder if it will turn out to be mistitled when I find out more about him. He managed to fill three volumes after all.
I also picked up a 1902 copy of Thackeray's The Virginians and a little book called King Richard's Land by L A G Strong. This is subtitled 'a story for boys', but I didn't let that put me off, especially as the Richard in question is Richard II. He is one of my heroes as an intellectual king in difficult times, and also the first monarch to make a woman a Duchess in her own right.
Today we took a lunch time walk in the opposite direction to usual, taking the route that leads to Rare and Racy Books. There used to be quite a few second hand bookshops in this part of Sheffield but this is the only one now. I've been going there for years and always find something, it's a lovely bookshop.
As we reached it today, though, I was being very good and trying to resist the temptation to go in, but J knew I wanted to go in. He jokingly said I could have two minutes - I don't think I went much over and I still managed to find three books.
First I picked up an old Pelican edition of European Thought in the Eighteenth Century by Paul Hazard because it looked interesting. And then I found a two volume edition of Stendhal's Scarlet and Black. I have been following some very interesting posts on Stendhal on Wuthering Expectations, and was shocked to find, when I checked my catalogue on Librarything, that I don't actually own any books by Stendhal; I have put that right now. Life is so much simpler with Librarything; before cataloguing my books there, I would have spent hours searching my bookshelves as I was convinced that I already owned Scarlet and Black.
And this is all in addition to some planned book buying that I will be doing this week, as I enjoyed The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke so much that I will be buying Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell as soon as possible. As I said, incorrigible.

Time to fish or cut bait

I'm about half way through Margaret Atwood's Bodily Harm, which I am substituting for Cat's Eye because of the library's lack of foresight in allowing someone else to borrow it when I needed it for a reading challenge, but it's decision time, time to fish or cut bait (to use a lovely expression that I first heard on Three Men and a Little Lady).
I don't hate it but I can't say I'm really enjoying it. The main character Rennie, whom I initially found sympathetic because of the breast cancer that she is attempting to deal with, I now find irritating; she gives everyone mental make-overs and goes on holiday without any books! And then constantly whinges that she wishes she had a book, but not to read, to hide from conversations.
And nothing is happening. I can take books with little action, I've just read and enjoyed A Rebours after all, but this book seems constantly to hint that something really exciting and thriller-like is about to happen but then it never does. The man waiting in her apartment with a rope is gone by the time she gets there because the police scare him off; the threatening police at the airport just sell her a ticket to a charity event; the politician who takes her off in her car to goodness knows where just wants to talk to her about the history of the island. Even the scary crazy man chasing her down the street just wants to shake her hand.
I wouldn't mind nothing happening if it didn't constantly set up that something might happen. I'm sure that there is some deep reason for it I'm supposed to be getting, about her fragile mind imagining danger where it isn't, but I just don't care enough to think about it. I'm finding the story all a bit sordid and pointless.
I know lots of people really like her books, have I just picked a bad one? Or is this a good one but I am just not in tune with her writing? I think it is probable that I am not the right person for this sort of book.
On a brighter note, I have also dipped into Susanna Clarke's Ladies of Grace Adieu and, as Fiske predicted, I have fallen in love with it. This is doubly good as, with my feelings about Atwood, I was beginning to wonder if there were any living women writers (apart from J K Rowling) that I could stomach. It is making the Atwood harder to keep on with, though, as I would much prefer to be reading this. I think I may be cutting bait.

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L Sayers (BBC Audio ISBN: 978-1-846-071485), starring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey and Peter Jones as Bunter.
As a rather gruesome child, I read nothing but murder mysteries between the ages of ten and thirteen. I remember regular panic attacks at the thought that Agatha Christie only wrote about seventy books and what was I going to do when I had read them all? Luckily the horrible situation never arose as my tastes changed before I got there, but when I look back I'm surprised that, to forestall this, I never read anything by Dorothy L Sayers.
Nowadays I tend to enjoy murder mysteries only in TV adaptations such as Morse or Midsomer Murders; Sherlock Holmes and Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin are the only detectives I have read in the past few years. That perhaps explains why it felt safer and more likely to appeal if I listened to a dramatisation of a Sayers book, rather than a straight read, for my first audio book experience. But I can't say I made a mistake: this BBC radio production is excellent, and Ian Carmichael is wonderful as Wimsey. It must have been pretty exhausting work for him as I don't think there was a scene where Wimsey doesn't appear, but he was believable throughout, light and witty with a hint of steel in the background, and never once that slight stiltedness that some actors can fall into when performing for the radio.
My only problem was that I fell so easily into the world of early twentieth century clubmen that Wimsey inhabits, that I forgot it was a detective piece I was listening to and was mildly surprised when things got serious; I was thinking of Wimsey as more of an Uncle Gally character (from P G Wodehouse's Blandings books) than a detective, not helped by the fact that Ian Carmichael has played Galahad on the radio. I soon recovered my bearings though, and my prediction from the other day was was correct - after the first half hour I had to listen to the rest in one go.
The story started off very simply: old General Fentiman, who could always be found dozing in his chair in his club, turns out one day to not be sleeping after all, but dead. The trouble really starts when his sister's will is read; she died at roughly the same time and left the General the bulk of her fortune if he survived her, but if he predeceases her then a young companion of hers gets most of the money - half a million pounds, which was an enormous fortune in the days after the Great War. Wimsey is asked to attempt to narrow down the timeline and, as he does so, begins to uncover all sorts of skulduggery.
I can highly recommend this as a light way to pass a couple of hours, excellent casting and acting with a story line that hooks. It is a very comforting place to escape to. I don't particularly enjoy gritty crime stories set in modern times, I much prefer this rosy vision of the past where everyone was polite, unless they were a cad, and even a murderer can be relied upon to do the decent thing. Pure fantasy, but also pure enjoyment. If there are any more dramatisations to be had I will be snapping them up - this could well be my audio book niche - and I'll also be looking for books by Sayers to finally fix the omission of my twelve year old self.

Trying new things

Last night was a night for new things. I went to the library, not a new thing as I've been going to that library for over twenty-five years, although it is a rarity for me to borrow a book these days. As a teenager it was exploring the books there that formed my reading tastes as I discovered writers like Chekhov and Kerouac in my mid-teens. These days I have that collector's impulse that means I need to own books and have so many volumes waiting to be read that the addition of library books seems unnecessary.
However, as part of the My Year of Reading Dangerously Challenge I decided to read along with the March book of Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood. I have never had a desire to read Atwood and, although willing to try, do not have enough faith that I will be converted to want to buy it, so I decided to borrow it instead. As I am not a particularly organised person, it is mid-March by the time I go to get it out of the library, and of course someone else has it on loan.
There were some other books by Atwood there so I decided that, as for me Atwood is dangerous reading regardless of the volume, I'd pick another as a substitute. I picked Bodily Harm. The title was just the sort I normally avoid, so I figured that gave me extra points on the dangerous meter.
I started it yesterday evening and it's okay. The story is quite interesting and the character of Rennie is sympathetic. At the moment it feels a bit like serious chick-lit; I find myself identifying with certain phrases and sort of enjoying the story but not really engaging with it. I realise that I am going against the tide here, and that Margaret Atwood's writing is acclaimed and loved by many. It is purely a personal opinion which may well change as I'm only about 80 pages in, but there is a reason that I read mainly 18th and 19th century books; I just enjoy them more.
I also borrowed a copy of The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke, an author who has been recommended to me a few times. With the same hesitation about buying it I thought I'd give it a try and if I like it maybe buy Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell that I know a large number of people have really enjoyed. We'll have to wait and see with that one.
Another step into the unknown yesterday was one that I have been encouraged to take by the large number of bloggers, such as Danielle and Fay, who are using audio books as a way of increasing their book time. I have a Zen media player picked out for me months ago by my husband which I have been extremely girly about using - I just couldn't work the menus. I finally made J show me how last week and decided to explore using it for audio books.
When faced with choosing something to listen to, though, I find that my mind revolts at listening to someone read to me. I am glad that there are so many audio files of books out there, as I have a constant dread of losing my sight and being unable to read any more, but until that happens I don't want to listen to someone else's interpretation of a story when they may not give people the voices I would give them, or have the same sympathies with characters that I do. So I focussed on non-fiction or drama, as a radio dramatisation of a story is fine (I realise that this probably quite contradictory but can't do anything about it, it's how I feel).
Drama won out, and I am currently listening to a BBC dramatisation of a Dorothy L Sayers novel, The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, with Ian Carmichael playing Lord Peter Whimsey. Although at two and a half hours it doesn't give as much value for money as a novel read in full would (I could have had eleven hours of an Ann Widdecombe book) I thought it would suit me better. For once this morning I didn't grind my teeth when the train was late as it gave me a chance to listen to it and get used to the Zen, which I now realise is very easy to use and has a great bookmark facility so I don't lose my place. The story is great, at first seemingly simple but becoming more intricate as Lord Peter Whimsey tries to establish exactly what time General Fentiman died. The only problem is that I envisaged this filling the odd fifteen minute train trip but think I will end up listening to it in one go as soon as I can. To add one final thing to the list of new experiences, this is also my first ever work of Dorothy L Sayers, but it certainly won't be my last.

The Open Library

Thanks to So Many Books for pointing out this site - The Open Library which is just being developed.
The site has the wonderful aim of digitizing libraries' collections from around the world, and reproducing them on screen so that they look just like the library books for free - which is pretty amazing in itself. There are only a few on the site at the moment but they look great, obscure Victorian texts in the main which is just my cup of tea, and I am looking forward to seeing the site develop.
However, what makes this venture truly exciting for me, as someone who, as I wrote the other day, will never prefer e-books to the real thing, is that one of the partners in this venture is the print-on-demand firm Lulu.com. The idea is that any book in the collection that you like and would like to own a copy of will be printed and bound by Lulu for a few pounds and sent to you. This really appeals to me as a way of being able to find copies of obscure out of print books that even Abebooks might have difficulty with and of the few they have on the site I have already seen at least one that I would like to order, a novel by Gertrude Atherton. They seem to just have a sample of a Henry James book available from Lulu at the moment, I can't wait for it to be functional for all the books. My husband despaired when I told him, I think he foresees financial ruin ahead!
This is definitely a site to keep an eye on.

The problem with piles of books

The problem with piles of books, rather than adequate shelving where every book has its place, is that you inevitably want to read the book that is sat at the bottom of the pile. I have been greatly enjoying The Hanging Court this week, but yesterday morning wanted to read something else. Gazing around the bookshelves and piles my reading desires started to take form.
I have (shamefully) a copy of Alaistair Campbell's diary to read (I bought it for my father for Christmas knowing he would want to read it but would not be able to bring himself to buy it, and also knowing that I wanted to read it but could not bring myself to buy it for myself - buying it for someone else and then borrowing it somehow seemed okay, isn't it strange how we justify things to ourselves?) but this wouldn't do, it had to be fiction.
I had been awake since five AM, so didn't want anything heavy or challenging, so although I considered I, Claudius or finally picking up Remains of the Day I knew I wouldn't appreciate them properly.
I thought of re-reading a short novel, maybe a G K Chesterton or The Picture of Dorian Gray, but then the TBR panic set in and I decided I wanted something I haven't read before to get that number down.
So it came down to the usual, ghost or horror stories. But which ones, Oriental stories by Lafcadio Hearn or a collection of gothic short stories? I felt a need for the familiar, so that was Hearn out, and didn't want gothic atmosphere and drama, I wanted the chance of a real scare. I finally decided to go for H P Lovecraft, who has been in my thoughts after reading Neil Gaiman's A Study in Emerald recently. Lovecraft's The Picture in the House is one of the best heart-in-mouth stories of suspense I have ever read, as I wrote back in August.
I have a new collection of Lovecraft's called The Loved Dead and I found it, of course, at the bottom of the largest, most precariously balanced pile of books. My first idea was to try and yank it out so quickly that the books would just fall back into place, utter madness as I quickly realised, luckily in time to stop the whole lot toppling and crushing the cat.
Then I began the laborious process of removing the books a few at a time but, as always, was over confident and had a mini-avalanche. It appears that the Lovecraft was the keystone for this particular pile of books. After picking the books up and replacing them I realised I had this huge pile balanced on a delicate Hesperus Press paperback, instead of the chunky Victorians by A N Wilson that had been there before, so they had to be rearranged. All in all, by the time I had got the book free and in my hands I had gone off reading it somewhat, although that quickly passed.
In the future, when we have done a lot more work on the house, I will have many more shelves and the teetering piles will become a thing of the past, for a while at least. That's the dream anyway.

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

'One of the things that happens when you give yourself permission to start writing is that you start thinking like a writer. You start seeing everything as material. Sometimes you'll sit down or go walking and your thoughts will be on one aspect of your work, or one idea you have for a small scene, or a general portrait of the characters you are working with, or you'll just be completely blocked and hopeless and wondering why you shouldn't just go into the kitchen and have a nice glass of warm gin straight out of the cat dish. And then, unbidden, seemingly out of nowhere, a thought or image arrives. Some will float into your head like goldfish, lovely, bright orange, and weightless, and you follow them like a child looking at an aquarium that was thought to be without fish. Others will step out of the shadows like Boo Radley and make you catch your breath or take a step backward.'

I had no idea before I read this book just how famous it is in aspiring writers' circles, but it seems since I began reading it I have seen it and Anne Lamott's name mentioned everywhere on the net. I can understand why after reading it, too. This is not a book of 'thou shalt...'s. Instead Lamott shares her experiences as a writer, both struggling novice and successful published author, and gives advice based on this experience to encourage writers to have faith in their work and the benefits writing can bring to their lives even if they don't ever get published. I particularly liked this part; it was nice to see a writer talking about the way that that writing can improve people's lives and happiness, and this is why many people write, rather than just assuming that everyone wants to be J K Rowling.

I would describe this as a self-help book for would-be writers that lets you know that you are not alone; you are not the only one to go from ridiculous overconfidence in your abilities to complete depression and the desire to destroy everything you have ever written. She lets you in on some 'secrets' (self-evident to anyone except those like me who idiotically judge themselves against their favourite authors at the height of their powers with no consideration of how they got to that point) such as every first draft is bad, that there is never a point where you magically know your work is perfect and ready for the publisher, and that even successful authors like her are envious of the success of others (especially friends) - it's a natural human frailty, not a moral failing on your part.

This common sense advice is wrapped in anecdotes about Lamott's own life and career. She describes how she wrote her first book about dealing with her father's terminal illness, and how much it meant to her that he was able to read it before he died. She also talks about her experiences with a close friend who was dying of cancer and how this affected her writing. She has a strong Christian faith which she does mention but not in a way that overpowers the book, it is just a part of her life which is used with everything else to discuss her writing, such as her experience of being a single mother, or her past alcohol problem. It is not a sad book though, Lamott is quite prepared to take a self-deprecating look at her life and I laughed a lot while reading it.

The one issue I had with it is that Lamott is evidently a writer of serious literary, possibly semi-autobiographical work (please correct me if I'm wrong, this is just what I have gathered from her discussion of her writing) and at times I felt that she assumed that everyone would want to write similar stories. As an aspiring writer of ghost stories I'm not sure how helpful I found the exhortations about truth-telling. I appreciate that there is the truth of people's reactions to situations that can be set in any number of fantastic settings, which is, indeed, what I admire most in M R James' stories but it seemed that Lamott was particularly addressing 'literary' writers when she wrote the chapter on 'The Moral Point of View' making it feel a little excluding to anyone working in a less realistic genre. However, this was just a small point and for most of the book it didn't seem to matter what subject matter you choose to write about; overall I found it quite an inspirational book and will join the chorus of those recommending it to aspiring writers.

Getting your priorities right

I am beginning to have some sympathy for those young celebrities with drug problems criticised this week by the UN, as I have been self-medicating the past couple of weeks to deal with the stress of living up to expectations on the project at work, although I must quickly make it clear that my drugs of choice have been the odd glass of wine and vast quantities of chocolate.
Yesterday afternoon things finally clicked into place in my head and I got my priorities straight. What did it was a conversation where somebody mentioned that he had just read a book on business metaphors. At that point something inside me said 'Whoa, do you want to end up like him? Using your precious free time to read books on business metaphors?' I felt like shaking the man and saying, 'I've just read The Count of Monte Cristo - go and develop a life outside work!' (I didn't, I just smiled politely).
So now I am working on the project in my work hours but no longer stressing about it outside of them. There is so much more to life than work, I do not want to ever become one of those people who forgets that.
Now it's back to the TBR pile with added gusto, although I can't say I have really been slacking lately. I have a little pile of books read recently to write about which I am going to list now for the simple reason that I keep forgetting what I've read:

Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
Spooky New England - S E Schlosser
Fragile Things - Neil Gaiman

I think that's it. I am currently immersed in the murky world of eighteenth century crime, and read a wonderfully gruesome tale on the train home today about a head that washed up in a river; to try and identify the murder victim, the authorities stuck it on a pole in a public place to see if anyone would recognise it. After four days of no identification, it had started to smell pretty awful so they stuck it in a bottle of spirits. Not quite CSI!

Outmoded Authors Round-up

The Outmoded Authors Challenge ended at the end of February but the good news is that it will be running again later this year. I enjoyed it greatly, as it pushed me to authors that I knew of but never picked up; many thanks to Imani for running the challenge. Next time I think I'd like to try some completely new authors and I already have a couple of books from authors I knew nothing about before on the basis of other people's reviews for the challenge.
This was the first reading challenge I had ever joined and I was a little too ambitious with the list I picked; as a result I didn't complete them all, but you know what? It doesn't matter. And that's something, coming from ultra-perfectionist me! The challenge was a great success as far as I was concerned because I read some books I wouldn't have otherwise and enjoyed them, or at least felt that I accomplished something by reading them (David Herbert, I'm looking at you here!).
My favourite book was a tie between Cakes and Ale by W Somerset Maugham, and The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G K Chesterton. I think I might put the Chesterton just slightly higher because it was so much ridiculous fun, and chimed in with my own daydreams. I suspect I will always go for fantasy over reality when pushed.
My most surprising read was the Huysmans, A Rebours, because I had read another book by him recently which left a sour taste and I did not expect this one to have such an uplifting effect on me.
The 'meh' one was probably Pygmalion; nothing wrong with it, I enjoyed it, but I know Shaw too well to be surprised, I think; I've seen and read his plays enough to know exactly what I was going to get. Another reason to go for authors I'm not familiar with next time.
I feel that I really achieved something by reading Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence; I pushed my boundaries and it wasn't as bad as I expected, although I have to say the writing wasn't as good as I expected either.
I didn't get to Radclyffe Hall or Sir Walter Scott. The first I just couldn't raise the interest for, maybe next time. The latter, well, I think it just didn't feel right to read Scott for a challenge. Scott is one of my two absolute favourite authors (the other being Wilkie Collins), and his books are treats, not challenges. I think part of me rebelled at the thought of including him in an exercise that says 'I have to challenge myself to read this author'. Quite a few people read him for the challenge, so hopefully he will come off the 'outmoded authors' list for next time without my help and be whatever the opposite of outmoded is (moded, inmoded?), which will make me feel better. Now the reading challenge is over I suspect I will be picking him up soon.

Earthquake!

This was the week of the earthquake, and little else has been talked about. It was quite a strange experience, being woken by the bed being shaken. We went through the same thought-processes as everyone else we've talked to: one of us was having a seizure, no; then someone has kicked the front door in - no, as the cat was sat quietly at the bottom of the stairs looking up and wondering what on earth we had done to make the house shake. I think I eventually decided it must have been a big lorry going by, and went back to sleep; the thought that it was an earthquake never crossed my mind.
It's another sign of how lucky we are in this country; we really don't get extremes of anything. That was the biggest earthquake I've ever experienced simply because I was aware it was happening. In Rotherham somebody's chimney collapsed and hurt someone, but that was about the worst of it. There was not the chaos, collapsed houses and fires you'd see in a disaster movie, just a bit of a shaking that disturbed the cat!

The other big event this week is that I have finally finished The Count of Monte Cristo! After too many months of picking it up reading fifty or so pages and then putting it down for two or three weeks it finally caught hold at about page 450, and I raced through the second half as the Count's complicated plans of revenge began to tighten around his victims. I think the part where I got really interested probably coincided with when the Count met Mercedes again, which goes to show that I do have a spark of romance somewhere inside me. I enjoyed it, although I disliked one particular aspect of the ending, which I won't spoil. I feel like the story is still running around my head so I am shifting to non-fiction for my next read, Tales from The Hanging Court - eighteenth century crime and punishment.