Printer’s Devil Court – Susan Hill

So I thought as it is Halloween and now here in the UK it is all dark and the witching hour approaches I would give you a second special rather apt post about ‘Printer’s Devil Court’, the latest ghost story from Susan Hill. I am sure many, many, many of you will have read ‘The Woman in Black’, which is one of my favourite ghost stories of all time, and then possibly gone on to ‘The Man In The Picture’, ‘The Mist in the Mirror’ (which I have yet to read), ‘The Small Hand’ or ‘Dolly’. Well unlike those other novellas, ‘Printer’s Devil Court’ is rather different as it is a Kindle Single, yes I have finally gone and bought an e-book… I know! More on that later, let us get to the ghostly tale.

Long Barn Books, 2013, Kindle Single, fiction, 44 pages, bought by my good self

As the short story opens we are greeted with a letter from a solicitors to the step son of the late Dr Hugh Meredith containing a manuscript he had written before he died, it is this that makes the tale of ‘Printer’s Devil Court’. It seems Hugh, who had become a country doctor had started his medical learning and career in London sharing  accommodation with James, Rafe and Walter in Mrs Ratchet’s lodgings of ‘Printer’s Devil Court’. Rafe and Walter are a rum pair, Hugh not knowing whether to trust them of not, one night however in trying to bond Rafe and Walter start to discuss doing some extracurricular experiments and research and in a bid to be more popular and liked Hugh foolishly decides to help, the consequences of which will change his life forever.

We have all seen it – the deep coma resembling death. People have been pronounced dead and taken to the mortuary or even to the undertaker and consigned to their coffin, only to have woken again.

I won’t give away any more than that small hint of what may or may not happen as I think it is well worth you going and discovering (especially on a dark night at a mere 99p) yourselves. Obviously it is a ghost story and all I will add is that it uses a rather well documented type of apparition and why such a spectre might appear.

I mentioned in a post earlier today that I love a ghost story that is short, sharp and builds on tension and chills rather than on blood and guts and gore. This is one of those kind of ghost stories, one that slowly chills you as you read and is also both slightly shocking and also quite sad too. I always think ghosts either haunt (yes I do believe in them) because they really loved somewhere or because they simply can’t rest which to me is rather sad. For me it also had elements of ‘The Woman in Black’, the initial solicitors letter, tales told of a night, the unascertainable time period which feels Victorian but could be anytime and the uneasy feeling that builds as you read on. Lovely spooky stuff.

So if you are looking for a quick frightening fix for Halloween or indeed just for the darker nights of you fancy a chilling thrill, then I would advise you to get your hands on ‘Printer’s Devil Court’. I am really hoping that Susan Hill will now release a few of these over the forthcoming months/year and then, and here I might have to cross my fingers for a very long time, we might just get a collection of Susan Hill’s ghostly tales in the years to come. Wouldn’t that be lovely?

What Makes a Great Ghost Story?

I do love a good ghost story, though I have to admit I don’t read enough of them. What better time of the year, well here in the UK, is there to read them? No, not just because of the obvious fact it is Halloween today (Happy Halloween). It is autumn, my favourite season of the year as the nights are drawing in and there is a certain chill in the air. Delightful.

Of course today is Halloween and whether you celebrate it or not you simply cannot miss the ghosts, witches, monsters and gargoyles in your local shops (and no I don’t mean the other punters). Naturally for a bookish sort this will lead to thinking about supernatural reads. Or even to the not so bookish as I mentioned the other day that it seemed the supernatural spirit (see what I did there) took over The Beard and two new spooky tales came home from the super(natural)market. I am on fire with puns today, like a witch on a stake. I am currently devouring ‘The Ghost Hunters’ by Neil Spring, all about the infamous Borley Rectory, and its very good. I am most impressed at how in such a long book he keeps the spooky suspense going as I normally like a shorter sharper shock for a ghostly tale. Which of course leads us to today’s (first, there will be another later when it goes darker) post as I was wondering what makes a truly great ghost story?

You see for me ghost stories are a tricky bunch. I am much more of a ‘chills and suspense’ kind of reader than I am a ‘blood and guts and gore’ kind of reader. As I mentioned above I tend to like a sharper ghostly tale, short stories in the main or novella’s maximum, as I find that prolonged tension doesn’t really work as well. For me. I also find ghostly tales set in modern times just don’t work. You can all too easily whip out your mobile phone or some gizmo and the fear vanishes, a good Victorian ghostly tale tends to tick all my boxes. (I actually threw a gauntlet down once that modern settings for a ghost story don’t work and guess what James Dawson was inspired to prove me wrong, this was confirmed from his own mouth!)

So to investigate what I think makes the perfect ghostly tale, whilst also using Neil Spring as a good example of a longer tale, I picked four titles from my newly restructured shelves that I thought I would dip into over this Halloween and autumn too…

Alfred Hitchcock loved a good spooky/horror story and this collection is of some of his favourite ‘Stories Not For The Nervous’. This appeals to me immensely as I love being made to feel nervous in fiction (not in real life, in real life nerves destroy me) and I think these twenty tales and three novelettes which are included will work wonders. Next up is a selection of ‘Ghost Stories’ chosen by Susan Hill (who to me is Queen of the Ghostly Tale) which features my favourite Mr Wilkie Collins and more surprisingly, to me at least, Elizabeth Bowen and Edith Wharton. ‘The Conan Doyle Stories’ are one of my most prized possessions in the world. My Great Uncle Derrick would memorise these and tell them to me when I was very young on walking holidays, ten miles a day roughly, and Gran always said she would desperately try to keep up with us so she didn’t miss the endings. I haven’t read these for ages and should. Finally a renowned author of all things horror (and quite weird), yet new to me, H. P. Lovecraft. I have no idea if I will love these or not but it will be fun finding out.

So before I head off and start reading these dark delights, and hopefully scaring myself silly, I wondered what it was that makes the perfect ghostly tale for you all and what ghost stories you would most recommend?

Almost English – Charlotte Mendelson

Why is it that families can be so fascinating to us in fiction? Is it because we all think our families are absolutely mental? Is it because we can’t choose them yet (I find sometimes rather annoyingly) we have this strange bond with them? Is it because in this modern forward thinking age the idea of a ‘normal family’ (with divorces, step parents, deaths, adoption, disowning) of two point four children simply doesn’t exist and the evolvement of it is strangely fascinating? I could go on, but I won’t – just in case my family are reading this. Family saga’s, though I don’t really like the word saga, especially the dysfunctional kind can make for great reading, such is the case with Charlotte Mendelson’s latest novel ‘Almost English’.

Mantle Books, 2013, hardback, fiction, 392 pages, kindly sent by the publisher

Marina is sixteen. She has decided to leave the comforts of her comprehensive and her family home in favour of boarding school, a place she believes will be brimming with adventure, midnight feasts, independence, boys and dare she admit it sex. What more could she need. It also means escaping her mother, Laura, and her crazy Hungarian great aunts and Grandmother, Rozsi. However boarding school is not what she expected it to be, she isn’t popular, she isn’t cool and she isn’t on the young men’s radars at all. In fact she is a bit of a loner and a seen as a bit of a geek. She is miserable.

Admittedly I am not known as a fan of the ‘coming of age story’ yet ‘Almost English’ is in many ways such a tale. Though it is just as a coming of age tale of a young girl, it is also a coming of age story for a mother in her mid forties, as Laura is also miserable too sleeping on her in laws couch, her husband having left one day, in a dead end job and having a very unfulfilling and unexciting affair. Laura is also miserable. It was the duality of this in ‘Almost English’ that I found really interesting and indeed one of the things that I liked the most about it, though truth be told there is lots and lots to like here.

As the book goes on we see how as a teenager Marina is struggling to work out just who she is and what she is made of. Also, after meeting the Viney family, Marina is looking at what she might be aspiring to be. She sees adulthood as being the most thrilling time ever, yet we see through Laura (and of course adding our own life experience into the mix) that adult life is just as hard, in fact sometimes all the harder. There is also, as an adult reader, a strange sense of nostalgia and hindsight which makes you feel all the more empathy with Marina as she bumbles, rather awkwardly, through her sixteenth year and the romanticism in her life wanes slightly.

She is shy; clumsy; short; fatherless; scared of cats, and the dark, and the future. She is going to be a doctor but knows she isn’t up to it, and if she doesn’t get into Cambridge her life will be over. And, unbeknownst to anyone at Combe, she lives with old people in a little bit of darkest Hungary, like a maiden in a fairy story. Or a troll.

In case I am making the book sound like it is depressing, it honestly isn’t. One of the things I really liked about the book was Charlotte Mendelson’s sense of humour throughout. Marina’s clumsiness and general teenage angst will make us laugh in hindsight, we have all been there. Importantly Mendelson knows just when to put a laugh in, when the book gets a little dark we get a titter, never a guffaw, to lighten the tension. This also works the other way will ‘the crazy Hungarian oldsters’, as Charlotte calls them, often provide a laugh yet as we read on their background story is a rather tragic one. Throughout the balance is just right, you will laugh out loud but it doesn’t descend in farce, the bleakness and black humour complement each other, laughter sometimes making a dark turn all the darker.

To the casual Englishman, were one present, she might appear as other grandmothers: reading glasses on a chain, worn wedding ring. Do not be deceived. Rozsi is unusually clever and fearless by her compatriots’ standards. Her younger son Peter, Laura’s former husband, used to call her Attila, with reason. Laura, whose references are more prosaic, thinks of her as Boudicca dressed as Miss Marple. This is not a woman one ignores. She has a white bun and black eye-brows, her cheeks are soft and age-spotted, but consider the cheekbones underneath; you think she forgives easily? Think again.

‘Almost English’ is also a book brimming with issues (depression, cancer, desertion, class, race) without ever becoming an ‘issue based book’, again this is a hard thing to pull off but Mendelson deftly combines these elements as she does the humour, nothing feels forced and even when another dramatic twist ensues it’s not melodramatic. I am wondering if Charlotte Mendelson should take up tightrope walking as her sense of balance is spot on.

Most importantly for me though was the writing. Not just the story telling (we all love a good story) and the characters, or indeed the late 1980’s atmosphere, but the prose. In almost every paragraph there was a turn of phrase, a characteristic, moment or just a sentence that loved, be it snigger inducing or thought provoking. It is one of those books.

What does madness feel like? Can you develop it quite discreetly on the bus home from Oxford Street, carrying mothballs? Can it be normal to cry in a department store toilet, at advertising hoardings or thoughts of distant famine? Somebody must know.

The best way I can describe ‘Almost English’ is that it is a human book. It looks at people and how crazy, selfish, funny, heartbreaking we can all be. It is also a novel that will take you back to those awkward school days and emotions and hopefully make you smile with a certain nostalgic affection whilst also inwardly squirming. It is also a novel where you will leave and breathe alongside the characters and their highs and lows. I thoroughly recommend giving this a whirl. I shall soon be off to head to Mendelson’s earliest works for more.

You can hear me talking about ‘Almost English’ in more detail with Charlotte on the latest episode of You Wrote the Book here. It might be one of my favourite author interviews yet.

Vote For Scotland, Well For Kerry Hudson and Tony Hogan…

So we are all agreed that we need brilliant books? We are also all agreed that we need brilliant authors to write these brilliant books? We also know that brilliant authors need money to be able to spend time thinking up and writing up these brilliant ideas (and occasionally eating sweets) too? Good. We are all on the same page.

So I know this rather brilliant author called Kerry Hudson and she has written a debut novel that might just have the longest title in the world (‘Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma’) and is one of those books that when you read it you find it really hits a chord and think ‘oh that was me too’. In fact on occasion you feel sure this author wrote this book for you, as I did with this book, even though they didn’t know who the flipping heck you were (at the time, oh how things change). Anyway for this reason, because we need more authors writing books for us, I am pretty much demanding or begging (whichever way you see it I don’t care just do it) for you to vote for it to win the Scottish Book Awards. You see if it does Kerry might win £30,000 to help towards writing more bloody good books (not eating Krispy Kremes) and even maybe finally buy me that sodding ice cream float she’s been promising me forever. It only takes takes about thirty seconds and it is the last day to vote today so… Do. It. Now. HERE.

Time for a picture and some more subliminal messaging…

Just in case you missed it, here is where you can vote http://www.scottishbookawards.com/vote/

Future Book Thoughts…

So all the shelf moving and book sorting has been completed and it has been unnervingly cathartic. I say unnervingly as who would have thought I would enjoy getting books out of the house to new homes? Yet strangely I did. Now that the shelves have all been trimmed down and reorganised (some possibly by the height of the books, is that really anal?) I have also created some kind of system. Whilst I haven’t organised them in exact release date order (which I freely admit I contemplated before telling myself a) I have a life b) not that much of one as I actually have a file with book press releases in date order – let’s move on shall we?) there is a vague sense of when they have come out, sort of. As I was doing this I noticed that I had quite a few books that are coming out in 2014 already, sixteen to be exact. This made me ponder about books of the future and how much I should talk about them or not?

You see what worries me is that some people might come across this post and think of it as showing off, bragging or being a book tease if I am putting pictures like the above up here. I myself have often thought ‘oh stop showing off’ when on twitter I have seen the umpteenth tweet of a picture of some big book of the year six months in advance or when someone is going on about how they are flicking through the brochures of the next six months/year and all the books they will be asking for. Maybe it is all down to the way it is delivered? Which makes me ponder where the line between enthusiasm and excitement and simply showing off is? I hope it is in the intention and that, like with the incoming posts I have brought back, you know that my intention here isn’t to brag – I just love books and get excited about them.

However, the other thing that I have been thinking about in regard to these advance copies of books is just what the point of reading anything too early is? I will admit I read Natalie Young’s book on the train back from London as I couldn’t resist it. I am desperate to read the new Armistead Maupin because ‘Tales of the City’ is one my favourite series (same for Yrsa Sigurdardottir) and I am busting to read Emma Healey’s, because it is about Alzheimer’s which is something close to my heart and having met her (and hearing how her mum reads this blog, hello Ms Healey, and apparently ‘loves it’ – which authors take note; I am that easy to please) and she was lovely. Being a lovely author matters, just to throw that out there, which is why Naomi Wood and James Smythe’s books are also calling to me – not that any authors pictured above aren’t lovely, I just haven’t met them yet. Anyway… BUT. BUT. BUT.

The big issue with all this is, who will I have to talk about them with? If I see a blog about a book coming out in 3 weeks, let alone 3 to 6 months, I either think ‘oh lovely, might come back to that review later’, which realistically won’t happen as a few months or weeks down the line having not read the post in full I will most likely have forgotten where I saw it, or as above  think ‘stop showing off’ depending on who the blogger is.

I can understand it from the publishers point of view. They want people to read their books. The market is really competitive, advance books can get a buzz building nicely. It can also be a bit alienating. There is one title at the moment, which I won’t name, that I am already bored of seeing the hashtag for and it isn’t even out for three months. I actually saw the lovely Jojo Moyes tweeting only today (maybe yesterday or the day before) about Mrs Hemingway and wanting to talk to someone about it, anyone, but have that many people read the advance proof that has come in yet? I am keen to read mine but not too early, so who did Jojo find to have a chat about it with? That was a rhetorical question to which sadly I don’t know the answer.

What I do know though is that (despite my lax commenting of late, which I blame just on catching up on life since post-Gran but is constantly on my to do list) I really like to have a chat about books on here and out in the lands of social media. I have read Natalie Young’s ‘Season To Taste’ and it was brilliant, but apart from the author (who actually I am interviewing in advance for next years You Wrote The Book episode) and the publishers and one or two bloggers, who do I have to chat about it and how cliquey does that make us look? It is the same with the Emma Healey novel ‘Elizabeth is Missing’, I am desperate to read it but who will I have to talk to about it before June? Well, actually, there is Emma’s Mum – hello again Ms Healey! It makes it tricky, how to get the equilibrium right?

So I thought I would ask you lovely lot, after all you are the ones who pop by and most of you aren’t in the bookish industry so it would be really interesting to hear how you all feel about hearing about books in advance. Do you like it, are you put off by it, do you really care? How far in advance is too far in advance? Would you rather hear about paperbacks over hardbacks (this links into something else I have been thinking about) or be reminded of the review when the paperback comes out? All thoughts welcomed and I promise to reply to all of you whilst also going back over last month (or maybe two) comments whilst I am at it. Looking forward to discussing what you think.

The Explorer – James Smythe

With Halloween on the way in just a few days I have saved telling you about ‘The Explorer’ by James Smythe in case you are hankering after a book that will chill you and is a little different from you average tale of horror, as it is in space, but will quite possibly horrify you all the same. After all, I don’t think any one of us would like to be left alone floating through space would we? I know I wouldn’t, which is part of the reason I found this book so terrifying though I am jumping the gun a bit.

I’ve thought about killing myself, but something stops me. Just think, it says, you’ll go further than anyone else has ever been. You’ll see deeper into space than anybody else has ever seen. You’ll make history. ‘But nobody will ever know,’ I reply, and the something doesn’t say anything back to me, just sits there in the dark. I take my place in the front of the ship and decided to ride it out.

Harper Voyager, 2013, hardback, fiction, 264 pages, kindly sent by the publisher

I don’t normally start my thoughts with a quote but this was on the back of my edition of ‘The Explorer’ and I think it marvellously sums up the feeling of the book and where we are at as it opens. We are in the head of Cormac Easton a journalist who has been selected to join a crew of astronauts as they head into the deepest parts of space as yet to be reached by man and document it. Think Big Brother, only not every night and with the whole world watching, along with a website brimming with interactive blogs and videos and that is what Cormac has really been sent to create, the story. As things pan out, and we know this from the first line, something has gone horribly wrong and Cormac is heading out into the furthest parts of space but everyone else is dead and he has no way of turning back.

Now if everyone is dead, there is no way of getting home and all you have is Cormac sitting alone waiting to die himself, however that might happen, you might think that there isn’t really much story to tell from the off. You would be wrong, like the slight sceptic inside me was. First of all there is the ‘how on earth (well, how in space) did the other members of the crew all die. This of course leads you to pondering just what sort of a person we are in the head of, clever Smythe, clever. As it goes on though any possible working out that we try to do is completely undone as Cormac relives the days leading up to where he finds himself, both on the mission and before it.

Then, secondly, as Part One of the book ends and Part Two begins Mr Smythe does something that will totally mess with your head, quite likely make you shout out ‘what the hell?’ and then gives the book a whole new twist and, erm no pun intended, dimension to it all. What that is I am not telling you as I think you should go and buy the book and find out yourself you cheeky toe rags.

What I can tell you is that I thought ‘The Explorer’ was brilliant and I don’t really do sci-fi novels as a rule. I was thinking about how to explain how Smythe manages to make the book unravel forwards and backwards all at once, as the novel goes on we get more of the back story and some twists and turns in that shocked me in all sorts of ways. It is like when you drop a spot of ink and it slowly spreads on the paper in all ways, you have the central point/premise and as the book goes on it spreads in both directions making a bigger and bigger picture. That is what Smythe does with the book, only it seems linear as you are reading. If you understood what I meant there then well done, you speak Savidge.

The writing is also marvellous. This isn’t just a pulp ‘lost in space’ novel. Cormac is a wonderfully complex character who your opinion will run the whole spectrum of emotions. You will love him; sometimes you might loathe him, which is what makes him fascinating. The same goes for the rest of the crew. They might be dead at the start but as we read on and discover Cormac’s past, and through him theirs, they emerge and are just as complex and flawed as Cormac is, as indeed we all are as humans. I have to say I think that ‘The Machine’, if I am going to compare Smythe’s novels which it seems I am, has a slight edge on this one as it has more of an emotional impact overall, I found ‘The Explorer’ a very wrought book emotionally too along with the thrills, spills and chills. Also who knew anyone could make deep space and nothingness a character?

One of the first things I did when I realized that I was never going to make it home – when I was the only crewmember left, all the others stuffed into their sleeping chambers like rigid, vacuum-packed action figures – was to write up a list of everybody I would never see again; let me wallow in it, swim around in missing them as much as I could.

Along with the emotional elements Smythe also straddles the fence between literary fiction and genre he did with ‘The Machine’. This is at its heart a sci-fi novel of a space adventure gone awry, but it is also a story about a man alone looking back on his life and the things he has done. I also think it is a ghost story of sorts, why that is I can’t explain for fear of spoilers though. If I am also looking at it ‘deeply’ I wonder if, as ‘The Machine’ made me think Smythe was looking at memory and Alzheimer’s, ‘The Explorer’ is also a book about madness and mental health? Who knows, maybe he will enlighten us; there is that edge to it though.

Once again though James Smythe has brought me, as a reader not personally, a novel which not only tells a gripping, horrifying and tense story but also packs a punch emotionally, blows your mind a bit and makes you think a lot about it, and life, after you have read it. It also made this slightly sci-fi sceptic reader completely lost in outer space, so should you be wary of the genre this might be a good place to start. Lots and lots of reasons to read it really, even if you think it might not be your usual fare, give it a whirl. Highly recommended, could there be two Smythe novels in my books of 2013 later in the year?

If you want to know/hear more about ‘The Explorer’ you can hear myself, Gavin and James himself, talking about it on The Readers here. Be warned – there are some spoilers towards the end when we are joined by Rob and Kate of Adventures with Words.

Incoming (And Possibly Outgoing)…

It seems that I have rather belatedly cottoned onto the idea of a proper spring clean, just the two months late eh? It has all come about when after coming back from London I was rather strictly told that I better bloody had really ought to think about the amount of books that are in the house. Despite all those bookshelves that Gran bought me last Christmas, along with several storage boxes I don’t technically count, the space was running out. The tops of the shelves themselves, radiator covers and chests of drawers – pretty much anything that could house books has been. The words ‘sizing down’ reared their ugly heads, I hope they were aimed at my books anyway.

Strangely a day after this I was very sick with flu, it must have been the shock. Though whilst being sickly I came up with an amazing idea, how about swapping some of the shelves around? This would then mean I would almost double my shelf space logistically (I won’t bore you with how) I forgot that it would also then mean a proper full on spring/autumn clean. If it was to save the books though, what did it matter? Only weirdly in moving shelves I started to move books and notice some that I wondered why I had/didn’t fancy reading anymore/was sent unsolicited and thought I might try at some point but haven’t a few years on. I thought really it was a bit selfish to keep them when the library/friends/neighbours may want them so I started sorting… and it got quite addictive. As you can see I am still in the process.

This of course means there will be space for some more books. I am no fool. This is good as I have had some treats in during the last week and I thought I might share them with you.

First up some random treats have arrived in the last week. The only ones here I was expecting was Tom Sharpe’s ‘Riotous Assembly’ which is the book group read for next weekend and which I should really get a wriggle on and read frankly. Gran always used to tell me that I should read them as she thought the Wilt books were absolutely hilarious. I just remember them for having boobs on some of the covers. At last I am getting round to him, though really a little too late sorry Gran! The other two were the Natasha Solomons, I am a fan, and also the Suzanne Berne. I am wondering if I should read Suzanne’s Orange/Women’s Prize winning book ‘A Crime in the Neighbourhood’ first though. What do you think?

Next up were some suitably autumnal books. I seem to have ignored the fact that autumn is here when normally I am celebrating this on the blog as it means I can dust of some Victorian novels, get stuck into some darker crime novels, ghostly tales and revel in the dark nights. Well I think all four of these will be just the ticket. Gavin of GavReads has raved about Sarah Pinborough for quite a while and so I thought with theses retellings of fairytales ‘Poison’ (Snow White) and ‘Beauty’ (Beauty and the Beast) I am in for a treat or two. I need to get ‘Charm’ (Cinderella) to make the set complete. ‘Marina’ was Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s debut novel before ‘Shadow of the Wind’ (which I think I need to re-read – though maybe not with all the books I have yet to read, hmmm) and is the tale of a mysterious disappearance in Barcelona. I am not sure ‘Doctor Sleep’ really needs an introduction. Though it links to the next few books as I have been thinking of spooky reads for Halloween…

I have a small ritual of reading a ghost story on Halloween. I have been puzzling what to read this year and am now spoilt for choice with these four books. I managed to snag these copies of ‘The Rats’ and ‘Psycho’ in a random charity shop I fell into the other day. I have been meaning to read ‘The Rats’ since James Herbert sadly passed away earlier this year. I have only recently wanted to read ‘Psycho’ though having watched the movie ‘Hitchcock’ which suddenly made me want to read it instantly. I have also been greeted by treats only this very morning from the very person who said I should clear the bookshelves a bit. That naughty fellow called The Beard. Apparently when shopping today ‘The Ghost Hunters’ by Neil Spring and Adam Nevill’s ‘The House of Small Shadows’ sounded like they were very much my sort of books. I think that this may be the case; I am now spoilt for spooky stories over Halloween.

So what have you borrowed/bought/been given books wise lately? What books are high on your periphery? Any Halloween reads planned?

The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is one of those cult writers who I always think I would really, really like, I just have to read more of his books as so far the number of them that I have read is a little paltry. When it comes to authors of that stature, and being a relative ‘Neil-newbie’, it almost makes me feel fraudulent it write about his latest ‘The Ocean at the End of the Lane’ – one of the most hyped/anticipated/buzzed about books of the year and one I read for the Not The Booker Prize. I am also rather nervous because whilst it is a book I really enjoyed reading, it is one that had a few niggles for me on occasional, let me explain (before all the Gaiman fans come and hunt me down for blasphemy)…

Headline Books, 2013, hardback, fiction, 256 pages, kindly sent by the publisher

‘The Ocean at the End of the Lane’ is a book about memory and imagination and how these develop or fade as we grow up. It is also a corking story about a young boy, who starts the novel as an old (and unnamed) man, and one particular summer in his childhood when he met Lettie Hempstock. As a young boy his life was quite mundane, he was a bit of a bookish loner, and his family were ‘getting by’. One day they take in a lodger, who runs over the kitten and then kills himself in his car – not a spoiler as this happens very near the start – and it is during this debacle that the young lad finds himself being looked after by Lettie and her mother and grandmother while the police sort everything out. It is at this point that something magical is introduced into his life (at one point quite literally) and it is also when the greatest darkness comes as a new lodger, Ursula Monkton, arrives to change everything for the worse, if she can.

You might roll your eyes at what I am about to write, or think ‘oh for goodness sake why tell us about this book’, but I have to admit all the fantastical elements of this book really didn’t gel so well for me. I really liked Ursula as a villain (though she did feel very similar to the Other Mother in ‘Coraline’ at times) yet I couldn’t conjure her as the tent/marquee/thing that we first meet. I liked the hunger birds very much but the whole worm thing (even though it was brilliantly squeamish) didn’t work for me either. I couldn’t quite get it to 100% form itself in my head. Most of all though I didn’t really get ‘the Ocean’ of the title, apart from just after the denouement when it was so needed – no spoilers – as I didn’t see the point to it overall yet it is the title feature. Also did anyone else understand why the suicide at the start leads to Ursula/the worm/tent appearing? I think I missed that, or maybe it just was there because it was there? So why do, after saying all that especially about the ocean, I then think people should read it? Well…

Firstly when Gaiman writes in the ‘real world’ the book is very emotive, reminiscent and nostalgic. The scene with the bath was actually quite upsetting, as was the whole scene with his dad and Ursula by the fireplace (for some reason that really, really unsettled me). Also the emotions of feeling adults don’t understand you, hating your siblings, feeling a disappointment to your parents was all fully evoked. There is also a certain horror to the book that the ‘younger you’ inside you will be really hit hard by. Interestingly these both involve the dad, one also involving the bath and the other involving Ursula and a wall and things that shouldn’t be seen. Both had a real impact with me and left me feeling quite uncomfortable and also incredibly moved and almost bruised, it is hard to explain.

Then there is also the element of the book that I loved the most; the fact it took me back to my childhood, and I thought that this was what Gaiman was setting out to do, give us as readers a serious case of nostalgia and the memory at the route as to why we love books. All the things that appealed to me most as Simon aged 31 were the things that would have appealed to me as Simon aged 11. I loved the Hempstock’s and could think of one of my Gran’s friends who I thought (and sometimes still do) was a real life good witch, and all those old ladies who had that wry smile and spoilt you who were probably only 50/60 but seemed about 110 years old. I also thought that Ursula Monkton, or anti-Poppins, was a fantastic character I would have loved to have had in many a books when I was a kid. That of course brings up the question is this book a book for adults, for children, both? Should it even matter?

Whilst I don’t think (and here I type almost wincing with fear) it is one of the very best books I have read all year, it was a true delight as it is one of those books that will remind you of your own imagination (which sounds silly but true) and how we must stretch it unquestioningly sometimes as we would when we were younger. This seemed the biggest message I got from the book, to look back at myself and how I felt at a time when anything and everything was possible and hold that memory now all these years later. It is a book that in looking at the narrators nostalgic memories makes you look at yours and I really, really liked it for that.

In ‘The Ocean at the End of the Lane’ our narrator states ‘I liked myths. They weren’t adult stories and they weren’t children’s stories. They were better than that. They just were.’ I have found myself thinking about this a lot since I read the book as I wish that the older me could occasionally find the younger me and give myself over to the fantasy side a little more as maybe if I had, with the brilliance of Gaiman’s family drama in this novel and getting lost in the ‘beyond magical’ elements of the book, this would have been the perfect book for me. Which is of course the point of the book I think. One thing I do know for sure is that I must read more Gaiman. Should I head to ‘American Gods’ or ‘Neverwhere’ next? Or another of his titles entirely?

Spineless Classics

If you like blog posts brimming with pictures then you are in luck today (if not jog on), especially if you like pictures of books. However these pictures of books are pictures of books with a difference, as they are pictures made up of books… well the words from books. Lost? Confused? Well let me illustrate to you what I mean…

Yes that is really a rather beautiful picture of The Phantom of the Opera using all the words from the book. How clever is that? Let’s see another one shall we?

That is one of my favourites as I think it conjures an image of the book up amazingly and rather instantly, I also really love the book Matilda. While we are on the subject of Roald Dahl, you can even get a few coloured pictures now including this one…

 Yes the words are even in the seagulls flying over the city. Isn’t that just amazing? These bloody marvellous creations are made (by the aptly titled) company Spineless Classics who have basically created a wonderful selection that any bibliophile would simply love to have adorning their walls. I am currently in the process of moving my bedroom around, as it is huge (22ft squared) and am planning on not only putting a free standing bath in one section but also having another ‘study section’ which is going to be sectioned of, and screened, by really tall bookshelves. Guess what I am going to have hanging over my desk? One of my very favourite tales of all time (it is off getting framed at the moment) in a very iconic shape…

It will certainly be a talking point, well if people can take their eyes away from the bookshelves that surround it that is. I will report back when it is up and the room is all done – might be late spring 2014 the way things are going. Anyway, I thought I would share these with you, even if some of you have most certainly heard of them before. You can get kids classics, modern classics, Austen and Bronte’s, all sorts. Though I was just thinking, wouldn’t it be amazing if they could do you your favourite book to order in an image you think reflects the book, for example I would love ‘Rebecca’ in the shape of Manderley or with Mrs Danvers silhouette. (If they now do this you know where the idea came from.) What book would you most love to have on your wall in words and what would you choose the words to create an image of?

The Trader of Saigon – Lucy Cruickshanks

I was going to start something new this week and do a mid-week selection of mini reviews, as I have realised that I have a mountain of books I have read this year and might not end up reviewing until 2014. The first of which was going to be some of the Not The Booker Prize shortlisted books. There need be no secret on my thoughts on these as it went live over the interweb last week. However, as on said day, I had dragged myself out of my sick bed to do that and so didn’t think I was as eloquent as I would have liked. So I thought I should give them each, maybe bar one, a review here and try and sound a little more compos mentis. Plus the Not The Booker helped me discover some great ‘new to me’ authors and I would like to pass some of them onto you. Starting with Lucy Cruickshanks…

Heron Books, 2013, hardback, fiction, 336 pages, kindly sent by the publisher

‘The Trader of Saigon’ is a tale of three people all in Vietnam in the 1980’s shadow of post war. Phuc is a business man who has fallen on hard times and with a family to feed resorts to desperate measures in his hope to save them. Hanh is a young woman who is working in order to keep herself and her ill mother barely away from starvation by working at the street toilets where her manager sits opposite constantly drinking yet claiming he can never pay her wage. Alexander is a US army deserter who now deals in women, that’s right, he deals in snatching and selling women. Cruickshanks weaves their story together though, obviously, if you want to know how you need to read the book.

There was much that impressed me with this debut novel. Firstly I liked the fact that whilst the book was set in Vietnam you knew where you were without having the author having to spoon feed you. It wasn’t smacking you over the head all the time (because this isn’t a history text book, it’s a novel), it simmered in the background. It was the same with the war, it didn’t get mentioned all the time yet was the cause for why everyone was in the situation they were in after all – again the scenes with Alexander at war I found very atmospheric and vivid. It didn’t need a lot of show and tell I didn’t think, and actually made me want to go away and find out more about the war as I realised I have very little knowledge of it shamefully.

At the start of the book I was a little concerned that I wasn’t going to get into the heads of any of the characters. Just as I felt I was getting to know either Alexander, Hanh or Phuc we would suddenly be thrown into the others narration. I also couldn’t quite work out what the book was trying to do, was it wanting to be a thriller or was it trying to be a literary novel? As I read on I realised it was aiming for both and that I myself was desperately trying to second guess what the novel was rather than just get lost in it. My fault more than the book itself!

Yet the more I read the more the characters became defined and Alexander started to really intrigue me. Note; if any of you who have read it, please explain the baby in the formaldehyde he carried around, I was a bit puzzled whilst also being oddly fascinated. He is really a bit of a bastard and I worried he would thaw and fall in love with Hanh (not really a spoiler, it is laid on a bit thick this might happen from the off) and for a period of time it looked that way but then Cruickshanks pleasantly surprised me by not doing that at all. I would have liked more psycho-Alexander though and his back story, but maybe that says more about me and my taste for the darkest aspects of fiction.

However she did make Alexander switch quite a lot for the purpose of the plot rather than letting the character lead the narrative, I thought, and Alexander was the most fascinating character for me out of the lot, especially at his most repugnant. I must admit I was secretly hoping he was going to become a fully blown psychopath after hints of his youth in America and behaviour during the war in Vietman, it wasn’t do be but I did find him rather fascinating. I did also have this huge worry, especially after the Phuc gambling incident you describe, that the book was going to become a huge cliché. It never does but I would say that towards the end almost too much happens and as it went on I found I was a bit confused with all the sudden high drama, but hey it was the denouement, it was going to be dramatic wasn’t it?

Overall though I found ‘The Trader of Saigon’ to be an interesting and enlightening read and one which ultimately combines a sense of literary with thriller to great effect. It is one of those books that gives you a peek into another place, time and culture and leaves you wanting to rush off and find out more about it. I know that Lucy is currently working on her second book at the moment and I will be one of the first in the queue to see what she does next as this book shows so much promise for the future of an author to keep your eyes on.

I should add here that I have been slightly lazy (though not ridiculously so as I have extended and expanded on quite a lot) and tweaked, not twerked, my thoughts from the Guardian website. Just so you know. Have any of you read ‘The Trader of Saigon’? What are your thoughts on the new genre of ‘literary thriller’ if such a thing exists? And if it does are there any you would recommend?

Your Country in Ten(ish) Books…

I don’t want to call this a challenge, or even worse a meme (do you remember when we all did those back in the day?), yet I am thinking that this could be a fun exercise if you lovely lot would like to join in. What the funk am I talking about, well you would be right to ask as once more I assume you dear reader/s get updates from me telepathically. Enough waffle Savidge, just get on with it. So as some of you will know I host/co-host a couple of book based banter podcasts; You Wrote The Book, Hear… Read This and The Readers. My normal co-host for the latter, Gav, is having some time off and so I have been joined by the lovely Thomas and seeing as Thomas is in Washington we have been looking at America and the UK, or even America vs. the UK. A fortnight ago we discussed American classics and I came up with the idea of both Thomas and myself creating two separate lists of the ten books that sum up our countries for us and ones we would give to someone if they moved to their country to ‘read up on it’. So I thought you lot might like to join in…

Initially I have to admit that I thought this would be stupidly easy. The British Isles are relatively piddly in comparison to the mammoth size of other countries. I didn’t envy Thomas and his 50 states to cover in ten books. As I thought about it more and more though I suddenly realised it was actually much more of a mission than I had supposed. For a start we had agreed to only have authors from our own counties books. So instantly one of my choices ‘The Year of Wonders’ by Geraldine Brooks was discounted, as it is set in Eyam (the only place outside London to get the Black Plague and self sacrifice itself to save others) which is just down the road from my home town in Derbyshire but she is from America. First hurdle.

Second Hurdle. I wanted the book to reflect a current vision of the British Isles, as I went through my shelves I was surprised (especially as I think I don’t like them, clearly I am a liar to myself)  how many of the British Isles books I owned were about WWI or WWII. This then meant a book like Sarah Water’s ‘The Night Watch’, which depicts war torn London, was therefore banished. However eventually I got there, though I have since realised I missed Edward Hogan’s bloody brilliant ‘The Human Trace’ out of it, and found my eleven books – yes I cheated a tiny bit with an additional novel, but I made this game up. I wonder if Mr Monopoly ever tried that at Christmas gatherings, anyway here it is with the book title, author, place and mini summary for you…

The Room of Lost Things by Stella Duffy (London) – Set in Loughborough Junction in South London, this is the tale Robert, owner of a dry cleaners, as he says goodbye to his business and the area he knows. It also looks at the customers who come, from all walks of life, to his shop and the little things they leave behind that they forget yet which tell many a tale.

The News Where You Are by Catherine O’Flynn (Birmingham) – Frank is a local news presenter and personality. Recently he has become rather obsessed both with the people and the places of his city that others seem to forget. What about all the people with no one to care for them, who die alone and what of the bits of our cities architectural and cultural heritage are we all too quick to gloss over or tear down  and cover with something prettier?

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (Norfolk) – Not officially set in Norfolk, that is just my guess, this is the tale of Arthur Kipp as he settles the eerie estate of Eel Marsh House and Alice Drablow. A book which wonderfully conjures the atmosphere of some of Britain’s coastal villages, and the literary heritage of a cracking good ghost story.

One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson (Edinburgh) – Possibly not the most evocative tale of Scotland but this is something I clearly need to address. This is set during Edinburgh’s famous festival and really brings the hustle and bustle of that place to life as well as being a great crime novel with a very good sense of black humour, you will laugh.

The Long Falling by Keith Ridgway (Northern Ireland) – Grace Quinn is a woman deeply unhappy living in the rural wilds of the North Irish countryside. However after a turn of events (which will make your jaw drop) she heads to Dublin and the home of her son. Ridgway looks at the differences between city life and rural life in Northern Ireland and also the differences between the generations.

The Proof of Love by Catherine Hall (The Lake District) – One of the most ‘earthy’ books I have ever read, yet if you asked me to explain the term ‘earthy’ I would find it very hard to explain. Set in the infamous heat wave of the 1970’s Spencer Little is a stranger who settles in a village in the middle of nowhere, but why? A tale of suspicious townsfolk and one which also lifts the lid on the secrets behind closed doors, especially as the heat makes people do unusual things.

The Claude Glass by Tom Bullough (Wales) – Set in the Welsh Countryside this tells the story of two very different neighbouring farms and the sons of which who make friends. One, Robin, from a hippy family the other, Andrew, from a family so impoverished he is almost feral – why does he choose to sleep with the farm dogs rather than his family?

Agatha Raisin & The Quiche of Death – M.C. Beaton (The Cotswolds) – A bit of light relief amongst these books with the no nonsense former PR Director now come amateur sleuth as she moves from London to the idyllic Cotswolds only sometimes people don’t welcome an outsider… Murder and mayhem ensue in the most wry and cosy of mysteries with a thoroughly modern Anti-Marple.

Rough Music by Patrick Gale (Cornwall) – A book that celebrates Cornwall and also a sense of everyone’s nostalgia from younger years. We follow Julian back to a fateful summer holiday in Cornwell which leads to many family secrets being revealed and how we see things differently as adults.

My Policeman by Bethan Roberts (Brighton) – Going back in time a little and looking at the place no deemed the gay capital of England, and a celebrated seaside resort, when it had a much more underground and shady sense of place. We follow Marion and Tom who are both in love with the same man and how society at the time informs their decisions and their lives.

Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma by Kerry Hudson (Great Britain all over) – My slight cheat as I think this book, which travels all over England and Scotland, really looks at English society from the 80’s which is very similar to today and the real sense of what it is to grow up working class in our country rather than the often emphasised ‘Hampstead’ view.

So there you have it, that is my list of books that encapsulate the British Isles for me. I know that Thomas is working on his list of ten books which as soon as it goes live I will link to, its is now live here. I can say I have read two of them (one a major hit, one a bit of a dud with me) and am really excited about trying all of them. In the meantime you can hear us talking about them on this fortnight’s episode of The Readers.

What do you think of the list? I know it might not be the most conventional but to me it seems the truest for me personally. Which of them have you read? Who fancies giving this a go themselves? I would so, so, so love if some of you did be you in the UK, America, Australia, Japan, Canada, India, France… anywhere, and spread the word. Basically have whirl, over a few days (it took me four) and link back to it here so I can come and have a nosey, go on, you know you want to…

The Home-Maker – Dorothy Canfield Fisher

FINALLY! After what feels, probably because it is, far too long I have managed to get on the saddle of the Persephone Pony. Okay, as I don’t really care for horses that is a dreadful analogy, I shall simply say that I am back on the Persephone Project and am really pleased that Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s ‘The Home-Maker’ a novel which at first simply reads like a grimly fascinating story about an unhappy family and yet as you read on (and think on) it is a book with many hidden depths. Basically it is another typically marvellous Persephone novel.

Persephone Books, 1924 (1999 edition), paperback, fiction, 288 pages, bought by my good self

The Knapp family is not a happy one yet to anybody looking on, and many do where they live, they seem the perfect one. Mother, Eva, is the home-maker (or housewife to Brits like me) of the title and she is a woman with a serious case of OCD when it comes to cleanliness. So much so that not too far into the book she has a full on breakdown in the kitchen when one of her children has accidentally dropped some meat-fat on the floor trying to tidy up. This breakdown also makes it very clear that she is incredibly depressed. But so is her husband, those poor children.

Lester, the father, is one of life’s drifters (many see him as being a bit strange and rather ineffectual) and who simply goes to work, in a job that is clearly making him miserable, to bring home the money yet when he does get home he must abide by the strict rules his wife imposes. The children; Helen (a bit dreamy and bookish but too timid to talk about it), Henry (an early worrier and sickly child who has issues with certain food substances) and Stephen (a child with serious determination and spirit, who everyone thinks has the devil in him) all also live under this rule. They are all miserable.

When Mother was scrubbing a floor was always a good time for Stephen. She forgot all about you for a while. Oh, what a weight fell off from your shoulders when Mother forgot about you for a while! How perfectly lovely it was just to walk around in the bedroom and know she wouldn’t come to the door any minute and look at you and say, ‘What are you doing Stephen? and add, ‘How did you get your rompers so dirty?’

However, as with every good tale, something happens which completely alters their lives and indeed turns it upside down quite literally. How so I don’t want to spoil as when I came to the end of ‘Part One’ my jaw almost hit the floor, especially as Canfield Fisher has a darker twist on it at the end. I can say that Eva ends up becoming the bread winner, at the very department store her husband hated, whilst Lester becomes the home-maker. You will have to read the book to see if either likes the switch…

What I thought was so brilliant about ‘The Home-Maker’, which I should add was written and published in the 1920’s, is how it looks at gender and gender roles. A subject still current today, I mean how any house-husbands are there really? It also looks at what the accepted norm of these are. The rule seems to be that, bar the odd exception, women should stay at home where they clean, cook and look after the children and are expected to love it. The men on the other hand must be hunter gatherers, there is no real place for a man who has artistic flair or simply lacks the drive to get to the top. This is still the opinion of some people today, many of us have met many a character like Mrs Anderson who sees anything out of the ordinary or slightly left of the centre as being suspect or weird.

He supposed that Harvey Bronson would die of shame if anybody put a gingham apron on him and expected him to peel potatoes. And yet there was nobody who talked louder than he about the sacred dignity of the home which ennobled all the work done for its sake – that was fir Mrs. Harvey Bronson of course!

One of the themes of the novel I also admired greatly was how we should never assume that what meets our eye is the truth. As I mentioned the Knapp’s are seen as the perfect family and Eva the perfect mother and embodiment of womanhood, neither is true. The assumption that women want to stay at home also false, yet unthinkable. The other aspect of this novel that I thought Canfield Fisher was very brave to cover at the time was that no matter how much one might read or hear through other people nothing can prepare you for parenthood and that no matter how many children you have two will never be the same.

As I mentioned to you earlier there are many, many levels with this book beyond a tale of a dysfunctional family in the 20’s yet that is indeed what it is too at its heart and there is so much to love when it is. Set pieces like an episode with Henry where he lives up to being a sickly child, along with a brilliant scene as Helen and Lester wonder how on earth one must open a raw egg (as no cookbook ever tells you), are hilarious. As is the marvellous world of the department store in which Eva finds herself working with the slightly daunting Mrs Flynn, in fact I could have had more of that.

All in all, as you might have guessed, I found ‘The Home-Maker’ a multifaceted read as well as being a wonderful tale of a family lost in society. I know I will often think of the Knapp family and what might have happened after the last page, especially as the ending is left much to any readers interpretation.

Who else has read ‘The Home-Maker’ and what did you, erm, make of it? I would love to talk about the ending in the comments below so please feel free to (if a bit vaguely so not to ruin it) discuss that down there. Have you read any other Dorothy Canfield Fisher novels? I am most keen to read more, especially ‘The Bent Twig’ actually. Next up in the Persephone Project are the wartime stories of Mollie Panter Downes in ‘Good Evening, Mrs Craven’ which will be my first Persephone re-read.

Incoming Thoughts…

Be warned this post contains a lot of incoming books, my thoughts on them and a bit of an angry rant. First Note: If you love this sort of post then carry on, if you don’t then hopefully you will be back tomorrow for the return of The Persephone Project. Second Note: I have decided Savidge Reads might be going rogue over the next few months in preparation for 2014, partly brought on by the books I have received and the thinking they have made me do, and a more no nonsense style is required which if you a) scroll quickly down to the bottom of this post before you leave b) reach after looking at a bit of book porn you will spot. Savidge by name*… where was I? Oh yes these incoming book posts.

It is funny how these kinds of posts can divide people. Some people see them as delightful posts of Book Porn and some see them as a blogger or reviewer just showing off. I go both ways with it dependent on the blog. I would assume by now you know which of those camps I am in, if you need to be told it is the Book Porn camp then I suggest you leave and don’t darken my blogs door again. Ha! So who is ready for some bookish nattering…?

So last week I was in London. This was in part to interview the amazing Jennifer Saunders, who I was very nervous of meeting and who was really lovely and I bonded with over psychopaths, for the Christmas special of You Wrote The Book, go to a press event of Penguins (where I met Deborah Levy and had a moment of mutual fandom, very strange but very lovely) as well as going to the Not The Booker event on The Saturday. I decided to make an extended break of it and catch up with friends I had not seen for a while. Naturally one place I had to go was Persephone Books to see Nicola Beauman, its founder, who I have been writing to for the last year or so since The Persephone Project started. We had a lovely cup of coffee chatted about books old and new and I was even allowed into the printing room (with a sneaky peak at one of their possible future books) and down into the Persephone cellar where the damaged books live. I didn’t leave empty handed…

Now the picture here —> actually is missing a book as I left having bought almost as many books as I was given… I decided as a thank you to my lovely friend Catherine who let me stay she simply had to have a lovely new copy of ‘The Shuttle’ by Frances Hodgson Burnett, my favourite Persephone so far as it has a sensational feel, whilst I saved one from the damaged shelves. I also saved a copy of ‘Julian Grenfell’ by Nicholas Mosley as it is the next Persephone I don’t have, well apart from ‘Few Eggs and No Oranges’ by Vere Hodgson (Persephone’s biggest book so far) which I bought a pristine copy of as a treat along with the one for Catherine. The final one I left with was ‘The Mystery of Mrs Blencarrow’ by Mrs Oliphant which Nicola insisted I take as it has a lot of Liverpool in it. She was far too kind and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

There is something so special about smaller publishers, like Persephone, and how they go the extra mile to make their books look even more appealing as well as having a certain uniformed identity. Between all the Not The Booker chatter this is something I had been talking to Sam Jordison (the chair of the inaugural judging panel) about along with the fact that I was beginning to get this real urge to go rogue and off the bloggish beaten track and read some more undiscovered or off the radar gems. He introduced me to Galley Beggar, a publishing house he co-founded which I had no idea about till then (sorry Sam) and promptly delivered me with two of their latest titles; ‘A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing’ by Eimear McBride and ‘Everlasting Lane’ by Andrew Lovett. Aren’t these gorgeous editions, I know I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but we all do. I am now very excited about discovering both a new publishing house and two new to me authors. If you fancy reading books a little of the bookish path I thought you might like to know these guys are about.

I did leave London with a few more books than that but they aren’t out till 2014, something which I am actually going to talk more about next week. I can say that I think 2013 has been a bit of a safe year in publishing (that will get me emails, sorry but its true – some lovely books have come out, only one or two of which have made me think ‘wow original’ or blown my socks off) though from the looks of things 2014 is looking really, really, really exciting – especially for more off the road novels. Anyway one additional book I got —> ‘My Brother Jack’ by George Johnston is extra special as it was from Kim of Reading Matters and had come all the way from Australia and is one of her very favourite books. No pressure on me to like it then, ha! I was really touched when we meet for a few pints, and a whole lot of chatter, and she whipped this out as I wasn’t expecting it. Odd but delightful fact, I had taken a load of proofs for her from Penguin yet neither of us had told the other we had treats. Lovely stuff.

Finally, when I got back from London I discovered the postman had had some arduous labour whilst I had been away as there were a lot of books awaiting me. Why mention these too? Well I have started doing something new. When books come in the following happens…

• If I have asked for it, and I maybe ask for two or three books a month if that (just to clarify), then of course they go straight onto a special set of shelves for reading ASAP – with a little ‘when the mood takes me’ thrown in.
• If it is for work it goes on another shelf. Almost a high priority one as I need to separate these for fear of going mad.
• If they are unsolicited I now read the blurb (which I never used to do) and the opening page and then if I think the book is a must read or a must try it stays…
• If I don’t it goes.

For extra clarity, the ones pictured have stayed or are work books and the only ones I asked for were Ciaran Collins ‘The Gamal’; because it is a bit off the beaten track and five people I trust have told me I must read it, ‘Mr Loverman’ by Bernadine Evaristo; because they ran out of proofs at the Penguin bloggers night way back in February and I waited for the paperback, ‘The Woman in Black: Angel of Death’ by Martyn Waites; for obvious reasons that I am obsessed with the Woman in Black and am interviewing Susan Hill soon and want to discuss this with her. Blimey that is a lot of books isn’t it?

You can see why I am going to be having a small cull when the final shreds of this lurgy have passed. I have clarified this all for you more than I normally would because of this…

*Just to underline something. I have blogged for six years and do this free of charge simply for the love. Six years, not six months. Secondly I work freelance on several book pages in several magazines. Thirdly I created a book prize because I love books. Fourthly I make three podcasts free of charge discussing books with other co-hosts or the authors of said books. These are the reasons I have built up delightful relationships with publishers and they send me books, many unsolicited. This has all come through passion, dedication and hard work, leading to a good presence. I do not condone the new attitude of constant ‘book blagging’ – publishers give books out where they want to – but when I hear that a blogger or two have been slating me to several  publishers for getting sent ‘too many books’ and yet also telling some publishers that I said they could ask for books I have to address it. Naturally I am very upset to have heard about this and felt it needed addressing as it has put me in a very awkward position in the last few days.

Right, issue addressed, back to the lovely books and your thoughts… Which of these have you read or fancy reading? What is your favourite Persephone Book? What was the last book you gave to a friend? What books have caught your eye lately? What have you bought, borrowed or been sent of late?

Norman Geras of NormBlog

I was very sad to learn this morning of the passing of Norman Geras. Norman was a writer, academic and wrote the wonderful NormBlog which is, and will remain, much respected for its insights on a bit of everything but always with a lot of bookish thought behind it. It is a blog I have followed and respected for many years. Norman was also an extremely generous person. I sadly never met him (though have had the pleasure of his daughter Sophie’s acquaintance for some time and his wife Adele and I have communicated through comments on this blog and many others) yet we would email on occasion or tweet about bookish bits and bobs. Not regularly but now and again. He was one of the very old school of bloggers who I was slightly daunted by back when I began, Norman made me feel most welcome, the moment I was asked to take part in his NormBlog Profiles in 201o I knew I had made it, ha!

Norman has left a literary legacy behind though for us all, both in his blog and in particular this list of 100 books that he loved which I think you should all go and have a gander. I am off to email some bloggers of old and see if we might get a project in his honour going.

If there is a book club ‘up there’ (if up there exists) I like to think that Granny Savidge Reads will seek him out and make him join, as I am sure she joined as soon as she arrived, and they can sit and banter about books.  His presence is going to be much missed around the blogosphere and in the bookish world. My thoughts go to his wife Adele and daughters Jenny and Sophie and all his loved ones.