The Book Buying Ban… The Update (Part II)

Only earlier this week I mentioned that though it was in many ways painful and was taking some serious avoidance my month of no book buying hasn’t been quite as difficult as I thought it would. This is both thanks to ReadItSwapIt and the Library as I mentioned in the earlier post. I also said I had received some lovely parcels from some lovely publishers and would let you know what had arrived and so I thought as its a Saturday and book shopping is so tempting I would tease you with these delights that you could run out and buy; as none of you are doing anything as silly as a self imposed ban like I am hopefully!! First up some classics…

I have been making a concerted effort to read more classics and two publishers you cant go wrong with are Vintage Classics and Oxford University Press. When a rather large thud resounded through the building from the letterbox I came down and found ‘The Bronte Collection’ which includes Wuthering Heights, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Villette and Jane Eyre. I will admit I didnt love Wuthering Heights but after reading The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan which is all about the sisters earlier this year I think a Bronte-Binge is on the way and the season after New Year seems perfect for this don’t you think? Might be a good Xmas pressie for relatives this Christmas maybe. (Hang on did I just mention the C word before December starts – I should be ashammed!) They also sent The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever and a huge collection of his letters. I havent read any Cheever but am thrilled about these two delights. Oxford University Press kindly sent the last of the Sensation Season novels (don’t cry they may be back again next year) in the form of Charles Dickens ‘Great Expectations’ along with George Moore’s ‘Esther Waters’ which hit my attention waves on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book show when they looked at neglected classics. Be warned – the neglected classics are dangerous list of books which could lead to a huge spree.

From the people at Harper arrived a very diverse collection of books in one big parcel, the postman is not a fan of this address – his arms certainly aren’t, quite an eclectic mix indeed. Two of the books are from thier new imprint Blue Door ‘The Ballad of Trench Mouth Taggart’ (great title) by M Glenn Taylor and Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames by Luis d’Antin Van Rooten the latter can only be described by a post on their new blog. Sounds bizarre but will give it a go. They also sent me Snow Hill a thriller by Mark Sanderson, who has written a memoir so heartbreaking I have owned it for years and never able to read, Mark will be doing a Savidge Reads Grills very soon. Last but not least by any means as actually this is one of the books I have been most excited about in weeks (as you know I am having an Agatha Christie binge) is ‘Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks’ compiled by John Curran, I had to stop myself reading it as soon as it arrived. It’s a treat for a very lazy Sunday.

Now in a few weeks I will be doing a piece on the books to look forward to over the next year, you can see the predictions I made for this year here should you wish. Already some are coming through the letter box and Sceptre have done some very clever marketing with a collection of three books and three characters “you simply must meet in 2010”. They are called Nevis Gow, Lindiwe Bishop and Jack Rosenblum and I shall tell you more about them in the forthcoming weeks. I just love how they have packaged it all, no titles or authors on the cover, intriguing.  Books already out arrived too and they are The Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt, which I think has a stunning cover, and Incendiary by Chris Cleave and you all know how I loved The Other Hand.

Another massive parcel has arrived from Orion. I have succumbed to the latest in the Twilight Saga and it seems more Vampire delights await me with the first two of Charlaine Harris’ series about Sookie Stackhouse (great name) which have become the incredibly successful True Blood tv series. I haven’t heard much on the blogosphere on these but am very much intrigued by them as have seen tonnes on the tube.  The final tome that you can see is one thats not out until June next year but I have been priviledged enough to be asjed to take a very early look at. ‘The Passage’ by Justin Cronin is massive, comes with very little, though intriguing blurb and has already had the film rites bought by Ridley Scott, more on that soon too as I think this is going to be huge (and not just in size) next year. And finally…

It’s always nice when a publisher emails you be they big or small. I have to admit I hadn’t heard too much about Honno Press when they emailed me asking if they could send me a catalogue. Honno Press is an independent publisher of Welsh Women’s fiction (so a bit like a welsh version of Persephone if you are a fan) and they have a wonderful selection of books, they also go the extra mile as they went through my blog and picked three books they thought I would love. A welsh sensation novel ‘A Burglary’ by Amy Dillwyn, a book where “each generation looks back into the tragic past, loves, secrets and lies are hauled into the open with surprising consequences for all” in ‘Hector’s Talent for Miracles’ by Kitty Harri and finally a collection of witty, wry and sharply observed stories about women with ‘Stranger Within The Gates’ by Bertha Thomas. Sounds like they have got me spot on!!!

Blimey. Now over to you… are Bronte’s and other classics the perfect pressies for Christmas and reading as Spring… erm… springs up? Who has read the Charlaine Harris books, are they like Twilight? Who has tried Honno Press and what did you think?  What will you be curling up with this weekend? What books have you accumulated of late?

The Taste of Sorrow – Jude Morgan

I wrote a while back about how this had pleasantly landed upon my doorstep from the lovely people at Headline and though only having read one Bronte novel (which I didn’t really like very much – Wuthering Heights) I loved the premise of a book all about one of the most famous families in English Literature, if not the most famous. Having stayed in Haworth, drunk at The Black Bull and most importantly getting to walk round the parsonage I can totally understand people’s fascinations with the Bronte’s. Reading ‘Daphne’ earlier this year and seeing that Daphne Du Maurier was also intrigued only made me intrigued further, though I have still as yet never read another Bronte book. That, thanks in the main to Jude Morgan, is definitely something that I am going to rectify. 

‘The Taste of Sorrow’ starts in some ways as it means to go on, this is no fairy story. Those of you who have read up on the sisters or been to the parsonage will know they struggled through life until they finally published there books, which actually happens very close to the end of the book. In fact Morgan concentrates very much on the times before they became household names. The opening chapter and scene is that of the Bronte children’s mother, Maria Branwell on her deathbed and is told mainly from the eyes of their father Patrick Bronte, originally Patrick Prunty, as he watches his wife die not knowing what to do about or for his children.

Growing up motherless though they have their mother’s sister in the house Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte and Emily (Anne being too young and Branwell being a boy) are all sent to Cowan Bridge and The Clergy Daughter’s School to train to become governesses. The family not being rich the girls will need to make money for themselves “a pittance” as securing them husbands is not going to be easy. This part of the book is very dark and leads you through grim corridors, itchy uniforms and the evil watching eye of Miss Andrews who see’s all children as ‘hoydens’ which I think is a wonderful word (one of my cats, sadly no longer with us, was in fact called Hoyden) and its this sort of language that Morgan uses, along with some profanity I didn’t think people would have known back in those days. In many ways its Morgan’s very real language and dialogue, which never sounds modern, always grounded and readable and added to the pleasure of reading the novel. 

Anyway I digress. From the poor school, as Patrick cannot afford better, great woe comes as the eldest two daughters, who I always forget about, Maria and Elizabeth become ‘consumptive’ and like many of the girls in the school of the time sadly pass away. The girls in actual fact died just over a month apart, something which shocks and partially destroys the Bronte family unit. It also adds to the pressure of all the remaining children that they must become great successes however the fantasy world of ‘Angria’ is much more interesting and they throw themselves into it to escape the real world, only the real world can never quite be escaped. We then follow them as they struggle to leave ‘Angria’ behind in their childhood as they grown up and try to make a success of their lives, which isn’t for a very long time writing as ‘girls don’t write books’ and won’t get published. Some of you will know what happens in that time other’s will not and I refuse to spoil it.

I will say it is absolutely wonderfully written. I found it hard to tear myself away from the book and in fact spent a whole day in bed with it (well I did have swine flu too, had it been the weekend I would have made some excuse). Morgan brings to life the three famous sisters and their different character traits. Charlotte who is strong minded, yet fearful, independent yet nervous. Emily is quite cunning and dark and often compared to a cat. Anne the baby of the family who is quite quiet and meek and yet has a lot going on in her head and once you get to know her is much wiser than her years. Branwell and his downfall are of course there but at the heart of it this is very much a book about Emily, Anne and Charlotte… and now I want to run off and read all of their books.

Well I have read Emily’s but after reading ‘The Taste of Sorrow’ I might have to give it another whirl as I think it would have more resonance with me now, strange how a fictional account of her has made me want to re-evaluate my thoughts on her work. I think that shows the power of Morgan’s writing, whose back catalogue of works I will be adding to the TBR along with everything Bronte. A truly wonderful book that anyone who loves books, let alone anyone intrigued by the Bronte’s, should read. I am gutted it didn’t make it onto the Man Booker Long List, I think its safe to say it will make it onto my favourite reads list at the end of the year. Have you read any Jude Morgan which one should I read next? Where should I start with the Bronte’s?

Bronte Fever Anyone?

A delightful parcel had popped through the gates (ok the letter box) of Savidge Towers when I got indoors last night, and you know I can’t hold back so swiftly I opened it and was delighted to see that it was a book that there is a definate buzz about at the moment.

‘The Taste of Sorrow’ by Jude Morgan is a fictional account of the lives of the Bronte’s in particular the lives of the three now world famous sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne. Now I have been excited about this since seeing a few reviews popping up on blogs. The blurb will probably sell it better than I ever could so…

“From an obscure country parsonage came the most extraordinary family of the nineteenth century. The Bronte sisters created a world in which we still live – the intense, passionate world of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights; and the phenomenon of this strange explosion of genius remains as baffling now as it was to their Victorian contemporaries. In this panoramic novel we see with new insight the members of a uniquely close-knit family whose tight bonds are the instruments of both triumph and tragedy. Emily, the solitary who turns from the world to the greater temptations of the imagination: Anne, gentle and loyal, under whose quietude lies the harshest perception of the stifling life forced upon her: Branwell, the mercurial and self-destructive brother, meant to be king, unable to be a prince: and the brilliant, uncompromising, tormented Charlotte, longing for both love and independence, who establishes the family’s name and learns its price.” 

 

Now is it me or does this sound a bit like every book-a-holics dream? The tale of one of the most literary families in the world who had difficulties living in the world outside their own fiction? So where is the catch? Well in terms of the book there isnt one, and I am hearing the murmurs of ‘Man Booker Nominee’ though of course none of us will know if this is indeed true for quite some time. However for me myself there is a bit of a worry… Will it matter if I haven’t read anything by the Bronte’s? I know, I know its a crime, actually what I am about to say may prove even more criminal as I have indeed read one of the Bronte books (and did so after having stayed for a lovely weekend in Howarth). I read ‘Wuthering Heights’ last year… and I didn’t enjoy it at all, in fact I may have mumbled ‘melodramatic and dislikable’ to close friends. So my ponderment is this…

Should I hold off and read more by the Bronte sisters, even after Emily put me off somewhat, or could this be the book that sends me into a Bronte Fever reading every Bronte book that falls in my book-a-holic path and therefore be one that I should devour instantly? What do you reckon? If I am to read any further Bronte novels, before or after this, where should I start, what are your Bronte thoughts? Also have any of you read Jude Morgan, I have had ‘Indiscretion’ on my TBR for a good while (possibly over a year I wouldnt like to say)? Do let me know, as ever your thoughts and recommendations are much needed.