Relatively Speaking

It seems a bit of a habit with me to see plays somewhere towards the end of their run.  I saw the brilliant All My Sons on its final night, and by the time I blogged about Peter and Alice, it was off the stage.  Well, you've got until 31 August to see Alan Ayckbourn's Relatively Speaking (1965), and I deeply encourage you to do so if you possibly can!We had a lovely surprise when we arrived ('we' is me and Andrea, my frequent theatre-buddy) at Wyndham's - our balcony seats were upgraded to brilliant circle seats, right in the middle of the...

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Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany: Shirley Jackson Special!

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend so far - I'm going to be seeing Felicity Kendal in Alan Ayckbourn's Relatively Speaking tonight, which is pretty exciting (although I did start reading a book by him yesterday that gave away the plot, ooops...)  Entirely unrelated to that, this week's book, blog post, and link come with a Shirley Jackson theme!1.) The book - it was via Claire/Paperback Reader's Facebook page that I discovered the obscure Shirley Jackson novels I'd hankered after were - gasp - soon to be reprinted by Penguin!  So, Hangsaman,...

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Remarqueable

Sometimes classic books are a bit of a disappointment, sometimes they're good but you can't see why they're considered better than others, and sometimes they play a real blinder, to use, er, sports terminology.  All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) by Erich Maria Remarque (see my hilarious post title pun?) is in the final category.  Of course I had heard of it, but it took Folio sending me a beautiful review copy, and my book group choosing to read it, for me to actually get down to it. And I'm so glad I did.I suspect it'll come as a surprise...

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Life in a Day

I'm greatly enjoying your comments on yesterday's post, so do keep them coming!Have I mentioned yet that I've set up a two-person film club with my friend Andrea?  I think I have, but I'll recap - we take it in turns to host and choose the film, and then put our comments and scores out of ten in a little notebook.  So far we've watched some truly wonderful films, and a few not-so-wonderful ones.  The list is: I Live in Grosvenor Square, And A Nightingale Sang, The Enchanted April, Secrets & Lies, Like Crazy, Separate Tables, On Approval, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Mildred...

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The Greats

This is an idle question, but perhaps an entertaining one too.  I was thinking to myself, while reading a biography of Ivy Compton-Burnett, which authors I would place among the Truly Greats.  There are thousands of authors who are good, hundreds who are very good, but I could only come up with a list of five whom I consider to be Great.  That is, their writing is not only better than other authors', but different somehow - and so different that even imitators seem to belong to another world, or perhaps another plane.On that list, after careful...

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A House in Flanders - Michael Jenkins

I wouldn't usually write a book review for the weekend (although this self-imposed rule might well be something nobody notices?) but today I am seeing a couple of lovely ladies from the internet, in beautiful Malvern, and one of them gave me A House in Flanders - thank you Carol!  (The other is Barbara, of Milady's Boudoir, so I expect to see a post about a Malvern trip there, in due course.)  Since I'll be seeing Carol, I thought I should write about the book she gave me about this time last year - which would mean it was during our trip...

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A trip to buy books...

I was having lunch with Naomi (of the erstwhile blog Bloomsbury Bell) the other day, and in amongst bookish chatter and catching-up, she happened to mention that she had found a magical bookshop in Wantage.  She described it as a sort of Aladdin's cave of literary wonder, and it was all I could do not to push my salads aside uneaten, and hope on a bus to Wantage immediately.  My self-control didn't last very long as, only a couple of days later, I found myself on that selfsame bus...  Since I haven't had a day away from my thesis for...

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The Flying Draper - Ronald Fraser

Out of all the books I'm reading for Reading Presently, this is the one I should have read before now... Tanya very kindly sent me The Flying Draper (1924) by Ronald Fraser, as she correctly thought it would be useful for my research (I'd actually requested a copy to the Bodleian library, and hadn't had time to read it there) - but somehow I have only just read it.  So it's going in the footnotes of my thesis...Before I get any further - compiling my list of sketches from year six made me keen to include more in future.  Often I just can't...

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Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

Hope y'all are having a great weekend, folks!  (I've been thinking about my autumnal trip to America, if that's any excuse for that sentence - although 'autumnal' has rather scuppered that line of thought.)It's getting rather too hot again, so I shall collapse in a heap - before I do so, here's a book, a blog post, and a link, as per.1.) The book - Janet Todd wrote a fantastic book called Death and the Maidens a few years ago, and the Shelleys and Wollstonecrafts (read my review here) - I've heard that she's now got a novel out reimagining Jane Austen's...

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Beautiful Barbara Comyns

I can't remember if I've already blogged about the beautiful new editions of some Barbara Comyns novels that Virago have brought out, but it bears repeating.  They tend not to send me review copies, and I can't justify buying myself duplicate Comyns books when I have zero income - and I'm not getting rid of my Stanley Spencer covers - so it's pictures off the internet for now... but I'm going to have to find someone to give one of these two, as I hanker to see one in the flesh.  (Hmm... do you think Waterstones would stock them?)They've reprinted...

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#GreeneForGran

A quick post to spread the word about Greene For Gran - an initiative started up by Simon Savidge.  If you're a fan of blogging Simons, chances are that you've also been over to Savidge Reads - his tastes are quite different from mine, but of course I love his blog - and through that, got to know the tastes of Dorothy Savidge, aka Simon's Gran.  We were all sorry to hear about her illness, and that she passed away recently. It is only befitting, for a woman who loved reading, that people get reading in her honour - and Simon S hit upon the excellent idea of #GreeneForGran -...

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Oranges (flash fiction)

I've been vaguely intending to include some short fiction on here ever since I started up Stuck-in-a-Book, but wondering how to go about it - it might be a bit of a jolt to those of you expecting a review.  But since I've put up some jovial poetry of late, I thought I might indulge myself with this, called 'Oranges'.  I actually wrote it with my friend Mel's flash fiction site The Pygmy Giant in mind, but that's on hiatus, so... it will be here instead! Be kind :)The ‘five a day’ campaign was a real blessing to folk like me. I can see people slowing down as they walk past, probably...

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Dumb Witness - Agatha Christie

I've mentioned a few times that I have spent the past couple of months immersed in Agatha Christie, being the only author who was able to circumnavigate my reader's block - everything else I tried was abandoned after a page or two, but I could tear through a Christie in a day or two.  Thankfully (for my general reading) I'm now having more success getting past p.1 with other authors, although it's still a bit impeded, but I did enjoy getting into Christie mode and wolfing them down. I haven't blogged about them, partly because Christie novels are often...

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Song for a Sunday

I'm a big Siobhan Donaghy fan, so was delighted when I heard that she would be reuniting with the other original members of (hideous band name alert) the Sugababes.  For those not in the know, Mutya Buena, Keisha Buchanan, and Siobhan Donaghy founded the Sugababes when they were about 15 with the fantastic song Overload, then left and were replaced one by one, so that the Sugababes now has no original members.  So the originals reformed, under the nicer but less imaginative name Mutya Keisha Siobhan, and will soon be releasing this lovely track - Flatli...

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The Red House - Mark Haddon

What with reader's block, moving house, and not having internet for a bit, it's been a while since you had a proper review from me.  And today is no different, because I'm handing over to somebody else to write about The Red House by Mark Haddon, which I was sent as a review copy.  Tom (who recently married my best friend) spotted it on my shelves, and commented on it, so I decided it would find a better home with him.  Whether or not he ended up agreeing, you can discover below... Tom, by the by, can also be found at the blog Food, Music,...

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Our future king is born!

Moving house has had its usual effect on blogging, but I just had to put up a celebratory post for the royal prince!Very, very thrilling - a great and momentous day in the life of our nati...

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Song for a Sunday

I've spent the past few days packing, and must have listened to this about forty times.  It just gets better with every listen - 'Losing You' by Solange.  (N.B. do not interpret this mournful title with my feelings about moving house - this time, I'm actually really excite...

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Leaving OUP (and which Jane Austen character are you?)

It feels as though it's only just started, but my time as blog editor of OxfordWords came to an end yesterday.  I was there on maternity cover, and the lovely woman who'd had her beautiful baby came back to the fore.  Although I was only there for just under six months, I've made some very dear friends, and was incredibly touched by the leaving gifts and cards I got.  As you'll see from my selection, I certainly didn't keep my love of the Queen (and kittens) quiet...Notice also that my friend Fiona is feeding my Agatha Christie habit - and...

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Oh, Hastings

I seem to be experiencing a bit of reader's block at the moment, struggling to 'get into' any novel I pick up (and it doesn't help that most of them are in boxes, as I'm moving house this weekend.)  One author is working for me, and I am chain-reading her... it's Agatha Christie.  I've read five in quick succession (Five Little Pigs, Crooked House, Cat Among the Pigeons, Lord Edgware Dies, and A Pocket Full of Rye) and I've just started The Secret of Chimneys.  I shan't blog about all of them, because they've gone back to the library, and...

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Sketches from Year Six

I passed my sixth anniversary back in April, and since then have been intending to put together my annual collection of sketches. I always intended these to be a running part of Stuck-in-a-Book, but they come and go, depending on me remembering I do them, finding time to do them, and if anyone says nice things about them!Clicking on the picture will, in each case, take you to the post in question... (the cartoons below include quite a few two-parters, but that should be obvious in each case...)              ...

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Song for a Sunday

My favourite singer, Kathryn Williams, is back with a lovely, lovely song - 'Heart-Shaped Stone'.  She made my all-time top two favourite albums (Old Low Light and Little Black Numbers) and this single is very promising for the next...

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Young Entry - Molly Keane

I usually run a mile from Irish novels of a certain period - memories of The Last September make me shiver at the thought of Irish Troubles novels - but I was attracted by Molly Keane's Young Entry (1928), very kindly given to me by Karyn when we met up in Oxford last year. Any sort of political upheaval seemed a distant irrelevance to the carefree heroines of Keane's first novel (written at the sickeningly young age of 20) - a dollop of romance, high-spirited teasing, and countryside dalliances seemed a fitting antidote to the more serious or tragic...

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Further poems about authors

Many of you were kind enough to say nice things about my previous little poems about authors, and so, in this hot weather, I have turned my attention to writing a few more... I hope you enjoy them!Not relevant... but nice.A reductive reading of Dorothy ParkerPoems, journalism, more -Yet you are remembered forAdvising, to the finer sex,A total abstinence from specs.GentlemenMen apparently declareTheir love based on a woman's hair.That is all they need, to choose(according to Anita Loos.)ReassuranceYou're my favourite of the threeAnd yet you have the faintest...

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Oxford by Edward Thomas

I think most book bloggers will identify with this situation: THE book we read and never got around to reviewing.  Of course, there are dozens that would fit that category, but I imagine we all have one in particular which we wish we'd reviewed at the time - either because it was so good, or because we've wanted to link back to it on many occasions.  But the memory of reading it has simply faded. That book, for me, is Oxford by Jan Morris, given to me by my father when I came up to Oxford - and read about five years later, which isn't...

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