A road trip

Book reviews coming soon, promise - and those replies to your great comments which I promised last week.  But for today, I thought I'd show you the outcome of a road trip I took with my friend Mel recently.  We go to places with absurd names, and wanted to visit Kingsbury Episcopi and Curry Rivel (both amazing, no?)  We did manage to see both these Somerset villages, but also stumbled across somewhere rather brilliant on the way... and Mel took this pho...

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My ediction continues...

Remember a while ago, when I told you about my addiction to buying different editions of the Provincial Lady series by E.M. Delafield?  This was cleverly nicknamed an 'ediction' by Susan - and fed by lovely Agnieszka!  This arrived in the post the other day...Agnieszka, you are very wicked for being my enabler - but very kind as well!  Thank you so much - my edillection (can you work out what that is?) is a step nearer completion...

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One place; many Simons

I find the importance of places very interesting - as I'm sure we all do.  In literature, I am particularly fascinated by the resonances of houses.  I will rush towards any novel where a house is significant for itself, especially if staircases are involved (don't ask me why I love staircases so much, I have no idea.)  But recently I've been pondering about places which are neither very familiar nor unfamiliar - the sorts of places I go a dozen times over the years, but couldn't be considered a home, and how they may thus witness different...

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A couple of quick things...

I've never used a blog reader, but I know a lot of you do - and are probably aware that Google Reader will be shutting down soon.  Well, I've seen a few bloggers link to Bloglovin', which apparently does the same sort of thing (and you can import to it from Google Reader.)  If you'd like to add my blog to a Bloglovin' account, you can do so here.[cartoon by John Taylor, borrowed from OxfordDictionaries.com]The other link is from work - I put together a quiz called Bible or Bard?  As you might be able to gather, you have to work out...

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Ring of Bright Water - Gavin Maxwell

You know how I don't shut up about Miss Hargreaves?  (Have you read it?  It's great.)  Well, Hayley is (in a rather better mannered way) equally enthusiastic about Gavin Maxwell's Ring of Bright Water.  Since Hayley and I often enjoy the same books, I've been intending to read it for ages - but every copy I've stumbled across in charity shops has been rather ugly.  I wish I'd seen the beautiful cover pictured.  When Hayley lent me her copy (as part of a postal book group we're both in) I was excited finally to read it.Well,...

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A few more poems about authors...

the photo isn't relevant... I just like the colours...I had great fun writing these before, and really appreciated the comments people left.  I've spent a bit less time constructing these, but... well, I had fun!  I hope to make this a bit of a series.  Let me know if you have any ideas for others, or authors you'd like to see...What the dickens?Oh Charles, you sawThe humble poorIn such disarming detail -But somehow missedIn all of thisA single real female.Mary, MaryFor dangerous and wild men you had a predilection.You may have written Frankenstein,...

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Great British Sewing Bee

It's no secret that I loved the BBC's The Great British Bake Off - indeed, I've loved it since the first episode of series one - and my irreverent recaps proved surprisingly popular here last year.  I was a little more dubious about The Great British Sewing Bee, but I decided to give it a whirl... and got hooked.It's already three episodes into a four episode series, so there's not much time to get on board - but those of you in the UK can catch up on BBC iPlayer.  I won't be doing proper recaps of the episodes, but I felt that it warranted...

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Stet goes to...

...Belle!Congratulations, Belle - email me your address to simondavidthomas[at]yahoo.co.uk, and I'll get Stet off to you so...

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The Foolish Immortals - Paul Gallico

I don't think I've read any author whose work is as disparate as Paul Gallico (and I probably start all my reviews of his books by saying that.)  I started with the novel I still consider his best, of the ones I've read: the dark fairy-tale Love of Seven Dolls.  Then there is the whimsical (Jennie), the amusing and eccentric (the Mrs. Harris series), the adventure story (although I've not read it, The Poseidon Adventure surely falls into this category.)I started The Foolish Immortals (1953) hoping that it would be in one category,...

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Consider the Years - Virginia Graham

You'll see that I've tagged this as post as 'Persephone', for this Consider the Years (1946) by Virginia Graham is available in a dove grey volume - but my copy is the beautiful one you see below (and the gorgeous bookmark was made by my friend Sherry):Having read, and loved, Virginia Graham's hilarious spoof etiquette and 'how to' books Say Please and Here's How (click on those titles to read my reviews - or here for an excerpt from the latter on 'How to sing'), I thought I'd branch out and read some of her poems.  Consider the Years is a collection...

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Diana Athill... on two types of readers

I couldn't find an apt place to include this quotation in my review of Diana Athill's Stet yesterday, but it's so wonderful a quotation that I had to put it up somewhere: People who buy books, not counting useful how-to-do-it books, are of two kinds. There are those who buy because they love books and what they can get from them, and those to whom books are one form of entertainment among several. The first group, which is by far the smaller, will go on reading, if not for ever, then for as long as one can foresee. The second group has to be courted. It is the second which makes the best-seller,...

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year seven: book reviews

Athill, Diana - Stet Bawden, Nina - A Woman of My AgeGallico, Paul - The Foolish Immortals Gibbons, Stella - Bassett  Graham, Virginia - Consider The Years  Kennedy, A.L. - On Writing Kosztolányi, Dezső - Skylark Leighton, Clare - Four Hedges MacDonald, Betty - The Egg and I  Manguel, Alberto - The Library at Night  Maxwell, Gavin - Ring of Bright Water  Mercer, Jeremy - Books, Baguettes, and Bedbugs  Pym, Barbara - Some Tame Gazelle Stockett, Kathryn - The Help  Waugh, Evelyn - Scoop...

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Stet - Diana Athill (and a giveaway)

42. Stet - Diana Athill I've been savouring the all-too-few pages of Stet (2000) by Diana Athill, and now it's going into my 50 Books You Must Read - and it was so good that I had to go and buy another copy to offer as a giveaway (to anywhere in the world.) Just pop your name in the comments, along with the author you most wish you'd been able to edit. (You can interpret that in a positive way - how wonderful to get to see their drafts! - or a negative way - my GOODNESS they needed editing!)  I'll do the draw next weekend on 20th April.Right, now I'll...

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Song for a Sunday

First things first, I've been back and replied to comments from the past week or so - sorry it's taken me a while!Secondly - the Sunday Song.  I actually used to live in the same village as this artist, and I think we were in the local youth group at the same time - but I only discovered yesterday that she writes and sings really good folk songs.  Have a listen to Fade Away by Mae Bradbu...

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Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

Happy weekend, everyone! I'm feeling in a good mood as I write this on Friday night, because I went back to the first chapter of my DPhil thesis for the first time in 3 years, and I still felt inspired to see how I could edit and re-frame it!  It's been so long since I had time to work on my DPhil properly that I'd forgotten the thrill when planning goes right.  The only academic thing to compare is the thrill when archives turn up something wonderful.  There are plenty of downsides to spending four years earning very little money and working...

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Over with the foxes again

image sourceIn my birthday excitement yesterday (see below), I forgot to mention that my second monthly column for Vulpes Libris has been published - you can read my post about foxes in books he...

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Interview with a new blogger (and happy birthday me)

On 10th April 2007, Stuck-in-a-Book was launched... I don't know whether or not I thought I'd still be blogging six years later, I hadn't really thought about it, but I certainly hadn't imagined that I'd meet so many wonderful people (online and offline) or have such fun.  Thank you for making my first six years so lovely!I've done a few retrospectives, or thanking posts, at various anniversaries - so I'll do something a bit different today.  It seems appropriate, on a blog birthday of a longstanding blog (six years feels very longstanding in the...

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Innocent cat grabbed in garden

Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook will have seen these already, but I thought I'd share some pictures of me playing with Sherpa when I went home for Easter...  My hair, incidentally, is much shorter now.  I think Sherpy's is the same length.  (Photos taken by my brother Colin.  I deleted the ones he took of his feet.)Sherpa 'runs into my arms'.HUGS!Revenge of the cat... "I claim this land for cats!"  She's looking a wee bit drunken in this pic...but I reckon it's just happiness :)That's certainly what's lighting...

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Some recent books...

I thought I'd do a little round-up of various books that I've bought and been given, because... well, why not?  You usually have something fun to say about them.That Sweet City: Visions of Oxford - John Elinger and Katherine ShockKathy Shock is Our Vicar's Wife's dear friend from school days, and also lives in Oxford (my experience of Oxford for the first 18 years of my life was chiefly visiting Kathy and her family) - she is also a brilliant artist, and sent me a copy of That Sweet City.  It has poems by John Elinger and illustrations by...

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Song for a Sunday

A band I'm fond of, Texas, have come back with a new song I can't stop listening to - The Conversati...

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Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

Happy weekend, everyone.  It's finally starting to look a bit sunnier and - dare I say it - a touch less freezing here, so I'll be spending my Saturday... at work.  Oh well, it'll be nice to say hello to Bodleian people, and then I'm off to spend Saturday evening at my friend's house, watching The Voice.  Very classy, me.  You can treat yourself better, by reading a weekend miscellany.1.) The blog post - check out Hayley's response to my recent On Not Knowing Art post, entitled On Knowing Art.2.) The book - came courtesy of lovely...

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Alberto Manguel on.... Reading Aloud

The Library of the Palais Lanckoronski, Vienna (1881) - Rudolph von Alt"The humanist teacher Battista Guarino, son of the celebrated humanist Guarino Veronese, insisted that readers should not peruse the page silently "or mumble under their breath, for it so often happens that someone who can't hear himself will skip over numerous verses as though he were something else.  Reading out loud is of no small benefit to the understanding, since of course what sounds like a voice from outside makes our ears spur the mind sharply to attention."  According...

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Leaves in the Wind - 'Alpha of the Plough'

Leticia gave me the very best kind of recommendation earlier in 2013, on this post - a recommendation for a book which I already owned, and was keen to read.  Perfect!  The book was Leaves in the Wind (1918), the author was 'Alpha of the Plough'.  Not, as you may imagine, the author's real name.  Alpha is, in fact, A.G. Gardiner (not E.V. Knox, as I thought at one point) - who chose the name when writing for The Star, as several contributors were named after stars. What a serendipitous recommendation, seeing as I'd bought the...

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Penguin Bloggers' Night

I love an event for bloggers - always wonderful to see friends old and new - and was delighted when Lija emailed to invite me to the third annual Penguin Bloggers' Night.  I am a veteran of all three, as were several of the other bloggers there, and hopefully I'll be able to attend more in the future.Candid snap of Polly, Simon, and Kim... :)This wasn't just put on for us to hobnob with other bloggers - although it was fantastic to see friends like Simon S (Savidge Reads, Hayley (Desperate Reader), Annabel (Gaskella), Sakura (Chasing Bawa), Kim (Reading...

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Q's Legacy - Helene Hanff

Amongst those of us who write or read book blogs, there are two varieties: those who love Helene Hanff's 84, Charing Cross Road, and those who have yet to read it.  In case you have yet to have that pleasure, it's the (true) letters between Hanff in America and Frank Doel, who worked in a London bookshop.  It's charming and bookish, and a slightly can't-believe-how-stereotypical-they're-being encounter between brash American and restrained Brit.  I've bought a few Hanff books since I read 84, Charing Cross Road (and The Duchess of Bloomsbury...

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