Win a copy of Literary Lapses by Stephen Leacock

It's been ages... sorry; I'll make it up to you with a lovely little giveaway... from me, not from a publisher or company. And it's inadvertently to celebrate Canada Day (which I didn't even know was happening; thanks for telling me, Elizabeth!)The other day I found a cheap copy of a book I adore, Literary Lapses by Stephen Leacock - and I thought it would be a shame to leave it neglected on a bookshelf when I could be sending it somewhere around the world.  As you can see in my right-hand sidebar, it's one of my 50 Books You Must Read But May...

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Simon into fox

A quick post (and sorry for the sparsity of updates this week) to say that I have an exciting piece of news to share - I have become a fox!Yes, the lovely folk at Vulpes Libris have asked me to become one of their number - and I didn't even know I was under consideration!  You might have spotted the guest posts I've done for them over the past few months (on my favourite books, foxes in literature, and failing with poetry) and I've loved it, so I'm thrilled to be one of their number!  They'll be making mention of it soon, but I thought I'd...

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Winifred and Virginia

I'm sure that most of us have authors who follow us around - not literally, you understand, although I swear Ian McEwan keeps getting on the same bus as me and the authorities have been notified.  No, I mean the authors we keep seeing mentioned, or on the shelves of bookshops, or recommended to us, and we're sure that we'll love them, only... we never quite get around to reading them.Well, Winifred Holtby is one such author for me.  I've known about South Riding for about as long as I've been reading novels, and it used to be in more...

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Song for a Sunday

Not obscure at all, as 145 million views attest, but... oh, P!nk does sing some very catchy songs.  She might even write them... not sure, pass.  Happy Sund...

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Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

It's been a little while since I did one of these... and this one's going to be brief, because the painkillers I'm on for endless headaches have made me very sleepy!  (They're not especially heavy-duty painkillers, but... well, maybe I have a predisposition to sleepiness. It's been noted before.)1.) The book - is The Matriarch by G.B. Stern, which Daunt Books sent me a day or two ago - I've been wanting to read some of her fiction for ages, and this is a great opportunity in a lovely edition.2.) The link - oh, just Buzzfeed. I spend my life there now.3.)...

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Lucia on Holiday

Many of us sigh despondently when we reach the end of a much-loved book or series of books.  It seems unfair, somehow, that there is no third book in the Winnie the Pooh series, or that Jane Austen wrote no sequel to Pride and Prejudice, or that E.F. Benson, despite being incredibly prolific, only wrote six books in the Mapp and Lucia series - and only three featuring both heroines together.In each of these cases, other authors have stepped into the authors' shoes.  I wrote about David Benedictus's Return to the Hundred Acre Wood earlier...

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Peter and Alice

One or two of you (*cough* Samara *cough*) have been asking when I'll get around to writing about seeing Judi Dench in Peter and Alice and, truth be told, it's been on my conscience for a bit.  Considering I spent my undergraduate years writing theatre reviews for the student newspaper, and being drama editor for a couple of terms, this should really be right up my street, shouldn't it?  But I find student theatre rather easier to analyse and critique than theatre of this calibre - so this won't be a review per se, but more a blog about an...

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Books from Felixstowe

As promised, here are the books I bought in Felixstowe... I intended to take a photo of them on the beach, but I forgot, so... here they all are at Felixstowe train station...Almost all of these came from Treasure Chest Books (which was even more wonderful than I'd remembered - it looks like quite a small shop, but just keeps going on and on, room after room) but I'll start with the one that wasn't. I can't remember the name of the shop it came from, actually... a secondhand bookshop nearer the sea, anyway.  Having been to Guy's wonderful talk, I couldn't...

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Felixstowe Book Festival: reporting back

Well, what a wonderful weekend!Elaine and I in the lovely ex-stable venueFelixstowe Book Festival may be in its first year, but you wouldn't have guessed it from the polished organisation, public enthusiasm, and general success of the weekend.  It certainly looks encouraging that there will be many more, and I would definitely like to go along to future years.I should report back on my talk with Elaine - I'd decided that I would be happy if there were 6 people in the audience, so I was delighted with 14 - particularly since they were an incredibly friendly,...

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Bookish weekend

Oh dear! I seem to have opened a can of worms with my comments on Dorothy L Sayers... I've read two (Strong Poison and Gaudy Night), wasn't hugely impressed by the former, and liked the latter even less... I shan't go into much detail, because I don't want to upset her fans, but suffice to say that Sayers and Lord Peter are not for me! To propitiate Sayers fans, here is a piece written by Diana on the OxfordWords blog today, commissioned by yours truly.And another reminder that I'll be appearing (with Elaine) at the Felixstowe Book Festival on Saturday...

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Folio & Agatha

photo sourceFor those of us who love the book as a physical, aesthetic object, the Folio Society is spoken of with breathless delight.  They are the antidote to the ebook or the mass market paperback - their beautiful hardbacks with slipcovers, with exquisite paper and specially commissioned illustrations, are joys on anybody's shelves.  Since they're at the pricier end of the book market, I don't have huge numbers, although I do prize the first one I ever owned - Selected Stories of Katherine Mansfield, given by my friend Barbara, which not...

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Me, elsewhere...

Quick post today, pointing you in the direction of two posts I've written for other people!Today I appear on Vulpes Libris as part of their Poetry Week - explaining why I struggle to get on with it!  (I also throw in some of those poems about authors I wrote recently.)And last week I appeared on the OxfordWords blog, writing about Alanis Morissette. Great f...

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Some Tame Gazelle - postscript

Following on from my review of Some Tame Gazelle, below... I'm too late to enter Thomas's competition for designing your own Barbara Pym cover (it closed on 7 June) and nothing can compare to the beautiful Moyer Bell designs he posts here, but I couldn't resist giving it a go anyway.  And I only have MS Paint to work with...Teacup image from h...

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Some Tame Gazelle - Barbara Pym

I wasn't intending to join in with Barbara Pym Reading Week, which I've seen everywhere around the blogosphere (well done Thomas and Amanda!) and, it seems, I might be late to the party - because I hadn't spotted that the week ended on a Saturday.  Oops.  Well, hopefully they'll let me sneak in as a last minute participant, because I have just finished Some Tame Gazelle (1950) - Pym's first novel - because I realised Mum had given it to me, and thus it would qualify for Reading Presently too.This isn't my first Pym - although it is only my second. ...

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Books, Baguettes, and Bedbugs - Jeremy Mercer

First things first: I added an Oxford comma to the title of this book in the subject line, and I'm going to be doing the same throughout.  That's just how I roll.Secondly - I've found that any exercise which makes one turn to unread books on one's shelves, whether that be the TBR Double Dare, A Century of Books, or Reading Presently, brings up all sorts of unexpected joys.  That's hardly a surprise, perhaps, but it does give me pause for thought - how many wonderful books are waiting for me in my own room?  I have about 1000 unread books,...

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Four Hedges - Clare Leighton

I have no recollection why I put Clare Leighton's Four Hedges (1935) on my Amazon wishlist, but I'm assuming it was either because of a blogger or something Slightly Foxed mentioned (any guesses/answers?) - but it was enough to get my good friend Clare (not Leighton) to send this beautiful Little Toller edition to me for my birthday last year.  And where better to read a book about a garden, thought I, than in a garden.  So over the past few days, I've been reading it in study breaks from doing DPhil editing.  And reading it in a hammock....

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Sherpa vs. hammock

I'm enjoying some time in Somerset, cat-sitting and thesising - with breaks for lying in a hammock and reading a book!  If you sit in a hammock in the Rectory garden, chances are you'll be joined by Sherpa, who is not only the most beautiful cat, but the silliest, and the cat with the worst balance.  As you'll see in this brief clip...

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The Egg and I - Betty Macdonald

There are some authors, because of the influence of the online reading group I'm in, that I stockpile before I get around to reading them.  Elizabeth Taylor and Elizabeth von Arnim were among the number for years (and I love them now, of course) - on the other hand, so were Margaret Drabble and Iris Murdoch, and now I've tried them without success, I'm left with piles of their books to keep or give away...Anyway, long-winded introduction to: Betty MacDonald.  I believe it was Barbara or Elaine who first mentioned Ms. MacDonald to me,...

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