I feel I should do an April's Fool... but I can't think of anything. So let's have a Song for a Sunday as normal, eh?Sometimes you can't do better than a bit of Barbra and Judy, can y...
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Friday, March 30, 2012
Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany
Happy weekend, one and all! I think mine will be spent justifying my thesis in a thousand words (fun) and - rather better - hopefully the first trip of 2012 to Jane's Teas. But I shall not leave you neglected, oh no - here is a miscellany to enjoy.1.) The book - the first I heard of Marilynne Robinson's new collection of essays was through a post at Mary's Library. Mary found When I Was a Child I Read Books a little uneven, and I've got to admit, the excitement I felt at the title (a book about books, yay!) was dampened rather when I discovered...
Thursday, March 29, 2012
P.D. James
This morning I went to the Oxford Literary Festival - only the third event I've attended in eight years in Oxford - and saw P.D. James talking with Peter Kemp (of the Sunday Times) about Death Comes to Pemberley. As I've grown to expect from James's appearances, she was a witty and wise speaker - even without having read Death Comes to Pemberley (or, indeed, any of her books) I loved it. My highlight from the event was the childhood story which revealed James's early propensity for crime literature: when her mother read her Humpty Dumpty, young...
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
The Rector's Daughter - F.M. Mayor
There are a few books which I expect to love, end up not loving, and then wonder why. I lean back in my chair, eye the novel sternly, and ask myself (and it) what went wrong. Was it timing? Would a re-read make me fall in love? Have I recently read something else which does the same sort of thing, but better? That's a sure-fire way to leave me unimpressed. Or is the book simply not as good as everyone tells me?Well, recently a novel joined the ranks of Hotel du Lac, Gaudy Night, and A Passage to India. All books...
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Read, mark, learn...
I sometimes think, regarding potential topics for SiaB, "oh, you've covered that Si, no need for another post." But then I remember how different my readership is now from when I started (although there is some overlap, of course) and it is entirely possible (ahem) that you missed my post from 2nd June 2007. I'll forgive you for that. It did, I should warn you, include the phrase 'independent, non-contingent paratextual elements' - but fear not, I was speaking in jest, and the topic was... bookmarks.I imagine there are few corners of the...
Monday, March 26, 2012
Your Views...
As promised, here are links to other reviews of A View of the Harbour - I'll keep adding reviews as they appear, so let me know if you've written one. I haven't included reviews written on LibraryThing, but they can be read altogether here."I love Elizabeth Taylor's writing, which so vividly evokes the shabby seaside town and the recent impact of the war on its inhabitants." - Laura, Laura's Musings"Elizabeth Taylor brilliantly illustrates that regardless of how banal or tedious our day-to-day lives may seem, a profusion of thoughts and emotions keeps...
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Elizabeth Taylor - A View of the Harbour
If you've read any bookish blogs this year, you're probably aware that it's Elizabeth Taylor Centenary Year, and Laura has wonderfully organised a year-long celebration of this novelist. I almost wrote 'underrated novelist', but she appears so often on lists of underrated novelists that I think she has to forfeit the title. I can think of plenty who are equally deserving with less fanfare. So let's just call her a very good novelist, and move onto March's book - A View of the Harbour (1947), published in the same year as One Fine Day,...
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Sunday Songs
Rather than have a load of posts tagged 'Sunday Songs' which you have to scrawl through, should you ever wish to see an overview of them, I thought I'd compile a list of all the songs that have featured... it's alphabetical by artist surname/group name. Enjoy!Tori Amos - Winter Julie Andrews - In The Bleak MidwinterBeck - Everybody's Got To Learn Sometimes Diane Birch - RewindBirdy - Skinny LoveBombay Bicycle Club - You Already KnowKate Bush - Running Up That HillLindsey Butler - I Don't Want To Talk About It The Cardigans - Communication The Carpenters - Rainy Days and Mondays...
Friday, March 23, 2012
Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany
I was quite miscellaneous (as it were) yesterday, so this feels a bit like an elongated weekend.... but there is always room for a book, a link, and a blog post!1.) The book - is Edgar Allen Poe's Murder at the Rue Morgue and other stories, sent to me by Penguin. It's part of their new Penguin English Library series, each of which comes with a rather funky patterned cover. (Yes, folks, that's right - I'm bringing back the word 'funky'.) They're not reinventing the wheel with their choices - there certainly aren't any undiscovered voices...
Thursday, March 22, 2012
A couple of reminders...
First reminder! There is one month to go until Muriel Spark Reading Week! Quite a long way off, yes, but perhaps time to put in an order at the library, or root through your bookshelves... or, if you have an e-reader, Open Road emailed me to let me know that they have just released eight Muriel Spark ebooks. More info here - but I'm pleased to see lots of rarer Spark titles have been included, alongside her most famous book The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Amongst the titles are two that I'm planning to read during the week (or in the...
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Opus 7 - Sylvia Townsend Warner
I'm reading around my next DPhil chapter, on Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes, and thus there might well be a little spate of Warner related posts coming up here over the next few weeks. I have an inkling that this might be one of those reviews which is very specialist, and might not attract much interest (1930s narrative poem, anyone?) but I shall plough ahead and see what happens!I read Opus 7 (1931) by Warner mostly as a counterpoint to Lolly Willowes, but it is also interesting on its own account. It's a narrative poem, about...
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Please Don't Eat The Daisies - Jean Kerr
After I read Shirley Jackson's Raising Demons, I went on a little Google spree to see what others had said about it. Well, turns out, not an awful lot. But I did find another name mentioned alongside hers once or twice - and that was Jean Kerr. She might well be very famous, but I'd not heard of her before... but I was looking for more in that amusing-tales-of-wife-and-motherhood line, of which E.M. Delafield's Provincial Lady will always be the doyenne, and so read Kerr's Please Don't Eat The Daisies (1957).It's very fun. It isn't...
Monday, March 19, 2012
Raising Demons - Shirley Jackson
Raising Demons is the 1957 sequel to Shirley Jackson's hilariously wonderful memoir/novel about being a wife and mother, Life Among the Savages (1953). I paid a steepish amount for a hideous paperback (pictured), and thus managed to secure Raising Demons, saving it for a treat - and I read it whilst recently beleaguered with a cold. It is an absurd indictment of the publishing industry that these books are so difficult to find, especially on this side of the ocean. They are brilliant, and deserve to be classics (please, some publisher or...
Sunday, March 18, 2012
A little about When God Was A Rabbit, but not really.
I've mentioned it before - I'm always fascinated by the behind-the-scenes of blogging. I know when, how, and where I write my own blog posts, but I'm aware that each blogger does these things slightly (or, indeed, very) differently. I've recently finished When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman, which I'm going to talk about a tiny amount, because my musing on it headed me off in a different direction - about how we structure blog posts. Yep, it's going to be a meta-post, if you will (stolen joke alert: I'm so meta, even this acronym.)How do you start? (Sorry, non-bloggers,...
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Song for a Sunday
Today's Sunday Song isn't my usual dreamy/folky choice - but rather a loud anthem sort of song. I still love it, but I wouldn't lie back in a hammock with a Rose Macaulay novel and hum along to it! Over to Gossip, and 'Heavy Cross'...
Friday, March 16, 2012
Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany
Hope you're having a good weekend! I'll be off on one of my trips to villages with odd names - this time it's the turn of Ready Token. Brilliant, no? I'll leave you with a book, a link (or two), and a blog post.1.) The links - I started writing a post last November on book covers (and by 'started writing', I mean I copied out two links and wrote 'COVERS' as the post title) but I've realised that it's not going to come to fruition for a while. So instead I'll just give you the links. The first is to an excellent Caustic Cover Critic ...
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Dear Octopus - Dodie Smith
When I was reading Dodie Smith's first volume of autobiography, Look Back With Love, the title which cropped up most (and most intrigued me) was her play Dear Octopus (1938). She didn't write much about its creation or production, since obviously she didn't write the play during her first eleven years, but she makes allusions now and then. My attention was grabbed by the mention of family reunions, John Gielguid, and that curious title. Actually, I'll instantly put you out of your misery, lest you think this is a play set in an aquarium. ...
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Short non-review today...
For the sake of A Century of Books, I must record that I have read Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (1966) - but I have no desire to write about it. I hated reading it. The writing was good. But it is a horrible book, about a horrible murder committed by horrible people. People will, I daresay, suggest that I am shying away from 'real life', but unpleasant actions are no more real than pleasant ones. The usual, indeed, is rather more real than unusual. There is a greater amount of reality in the Provincial Lady books...
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
One Fine Day - Mollie Panter-Downes
Back to normal now, folks! You'd think I'd have taken the opportunity to write lots of reviews, ready to post... but... I didn't. Although I hope you were suitably intrigued by the little clues I gave yesterday... the first one up is the brilliant re-read. So brilliant, in fact, that it's leaping onto my 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About...39. One Fine Day - Mollie Panter-DownesI do more re-reading now than I used to, but I tend towards books I already know I'll love. So there are some novels I'll read every two...
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