Author: StuckinaBook

A Century of Books: getting towards the pointy end

StuckinaBook All 9 Comments

I have rather failed on giving updates on how many Century of Books is going – though you can, of course, see what I’m updating in my list. I’ve been relatively good at keeping it up to date – there are 68 titles on there and, at the time of writing, I’ve read 71 books from my century.

On track

So, yes, I’m on track. I only need to have read about 65 century books to be on track – so I’m even a little in hand. But it’s getting to the time of year when it stops being quite so serendipitous and easy to fill out titles in ACOB. For the first half of the year, at least, I can just read what I want to read – jotting down the titles and dates as I go. I don’t even have to think about it. By the time we enter the final third, it becomes a maddening discovery that everything I want to read was written in (somewhat to my surprise) 1987 or 1978. Huh.

Pencilling in

I’ve been pencilling in titles along the way, particularly when I start reading them (so I don’t accidentally double up), but also other books that I’ve got in the pipeline – for book group, say. It’s a balancing act, because I definitely don’t want to write them all out in advance. Nothing kills a reading project dead for me like setting out all the titles in advance. BUT I do have another five ACOB books on the go, and have pencilled in a further eight that I’m intending to read. That still leaves quite a few gaps to surprise me.

Reading from my shelves

I definitely have unread books for every year of ACOB, often quite a few, so I am spoiled for choice and should be able to read just from my tbr. And I guess I largely have? But, with re-reads and audio and whatnot, it turns out that 55 of my 68 books have come from my tbr shelves. Not bad… could be better? But at least I’m not in the position of scrabbling around for suggestions, because there are plenty there.

Other commitments

And then there’s book group and podcast reading (it’s hard enough to find things Rachel and I can both read in time, without limiting factor of years!), and occasionally review books and whatnot. It looks like I’m going to get more and more overlaps as the year comes to a close… not to mention whims, like deciding today that I had to start Joy Grant’s biography of Stella Benson, even though it’s (you guessed it) from 1987.

Reading a lot

The 25 Books in 25 Days certainly helped my 2018 reading total, but I do seem to be reading more than previous years. I’ve always been around the 100 mark, so ACOB is a bit of a tightrope walk, but I get the impression I’ll be comfortably over 100 this year. I haven’t added up how many I’m on so far, but hopefully I won’t have to do too much desperate reading on New Year’s Eve.

Anyway, this is a sort of scattergun update. I’m really enjoying it, and I think I’ll get there successfully if I continue at this rate – but I think I’m also looking forward to completely unfettered reading next year.

Five from the Archive (no.14): Books about Missing People

StuckinaBook All 3 Comments

I’m getting back into the swing of Five from the Archive posts, where I dig up five previous reviews on my blog with a connecting theme. You can see all the previous ones in the index.

I’m not at all the sort of person who wants to read books about missing people usually, and the market certainly seems to be flooded with them – but these ones do appeal. And they’re not disturbing or unpleasant – at least not gratuitously. (Apparently I never wrote about Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey, but that is also very good.) Please do let me know your own recommendations!

1.) The Runaway (2017) by Claire Wong

In short: 17-year-old Rhiannon runs away from her aunt and guardian, living in the thick woodland near her Welsh village. Storytelling and memory play a big role in the community’s reaction.

From the review: “One of the reasons I really liked The Runaway is because of what it says about small communities. Too often these are treated as places to escape – claustrophobic, nosey, and repressive to creativity. It’s ironic that a novel where somebody literally escapes this community doesn’t suggestion that small-town life is an evil.”

2.) Still Missing (1981) by Beth Gutcheon

In short: Often mentioned as one of the more unusual choices for Persephone, this follows the trajectory of a mother’s panic, grief, and search as her son is missing and the world reacts.

From the review: “The premise has become worn through re-use, but Gutcheon takes it back to essentials, and the novel is the more powerful and personal because of it.”

3.) This is the End (1917) by Stella Benson

In short: Jay Martin has run away and become a bus conductor. This strange, funny, bizarre novel follows her family as they fruitlessly search for her – and it’s never clear exactly what’s happening.

From the review: “I want to say that This Is The End is not supernatural, but any definite statement about a Benson novel feels like a trap waiting to happen; the reader never quite knows which genre they’re reading, or what sort of response is required. Except that laughter will always be involved somewhere.”

4.) The Return of Alfred (1922) by Herbert Jenkins

In short: When James Smith (not his real name) tries to shelter in a house while on the run from his domineering father, he is surprised to be mistaken for the mysterious missing Alfred.

From the review: “I found The Return of Alfred all rather improbable – but also another total delight.”

5.) Little Boy Lost (1949) by Marghanita Laski

In short: During war, Hilary is told that his son (whom he has only seen once) – and he travels to Paris to find him. Once found, how can Hilary know it is the right boy?

From the review: “Although the plot is fairly simple, its handling is beautifully subtle, especially as the novel progresses.”

The Gipsy in the Parlour by Margery Sharp

StuckinaBook All , , , 13 Comments

After reading a lot of titles for A Century of Books during my 25 Books in 25 Days, I got too cocky and started reading quite a few that didn’t fit years. And my advantage slipped away. I tend to read about 100 books a year, so I can’t afford to get too distracted – so I went to my list of gaps and decided to pick one. It was 1954 and it was Margery Sharp – The Gipsy in the Parlour has been waiting on my shelves since 2011.

This is the fourth Sharp novel I’ve read – the first being back in about 2003 – and it is very different from those others. I really enjoyed the first three, but they were all comic novels, at least to some extent. The Gipsy in the Parlour is emphatically not a comic novel – but it is a wonderfully atmospheric and involving novel, and I think it’s absolutely wonderful. From the opening line onwards…

In the heat of a spacious August noon, in the heart of the great summer of 1870, the three famous Sylvester women waited in their parlour to receive and make welcome the fourth.

The novel is told from the perspective of a young girl (who, I only now suspect, might be unnamed) who is niece to the Sylvesters. She is a Londoner, but spends her summers in Devon with this family who all live together on a farm – the women are not related, but each has married a different Sylvester brother. The brothers are inconsequential in the novel and in life – essentially good-natured, easy-going, unexpressive men who work the land and let their wives run the house. The chief of these is Aunt Charlotte, who married the oldest son and is de facto leader of the household. It is she who has arranged for the other two wives to join the family.

But the youngest Sylvester brother, Stephen, has chosen his own wife – and Fanny arrives as the novel opens. She does not have the beauty of the other sisters – and she seems somehow wilder and less part of the domestic picture. Disconcertingly for the narrator, she sees Fanny wandering the garden at night, staring back at the house with an expression she cannot quite understand…

For the narrator, who is seven when the novel starts, this is a mysterious but halcyon world. She longs to return to the farm and to the security of her aunt’s plain speaking affection. (And, miracle of miracles for the reader, they speak in dialect but are neither unintelligible nor annoying.) She also longs to be at the wedding of Fanny and Stephen, but the timing is wrong for her start back to school – so she must leave shortly before it takes place, and waits to hear about it via letter in London. But the letter never comes.

On her next visit, the next summer, she discovers that Fanny is in a decline, of the sort common in the 1870s. She is weak, nervous, and spends all her time lying in bed or on the sofa – and tensions in the house grow steadily over the months and years, witnessed by the niece who sees all but does not understand all.

There are definite elements of The Go-Between in this novel. Sharp has drawn the child and her perspective so well – so she is never a dishonest narrator, but clearly cannot piece together all the different elements she witnesses. Her interpretations of characters are given to the reader, who must take a step back to try and understand the whole picture – it is all handled brilliantly, and with the feelings of rich nostalgia that a child would feel who can only return to a much-loved world once a year.

In fact, the whole of The Gipsy in the Parlour is pervaded with a wonderful atmosphere. I felt as though I were immersed in this 1870s farm, with the same limited scope and detailed canvas felt by those who seldom or never left the village. It is odd to read Sharp with so little levity, but her talent at this almost melancholic, elegiac domestic novel is quite something. It is not flawless, particularly in the later chapters, but it’s still an extraordinary achievement. If I had to pick between this and (say) Cluny Brown, I wouldn’t know quite which to choose – but I’m impressed that Sharp could do both so well, and delighted that I can read both.

Mrs Harris Goes to Moscow by Paul Gallico

StuckinaBook All , , 9 Comments

There are only four Mrs Harris books, but I’ve been gradually working my way through the series since 2012. Mrs Harris Goes to Moscow – known as Mrs ‘Arris Goes to Moscow in the US – is the final one of these, published in 1974, an impressive sixteen years after the first in the series.

Mrs Harris is a London char lady whose exploits started (in Flowers for Mrs Harris, or Mrs ‘Arris Goes to Paris, or indeed Mrs Harris Goes to Paris) with saving up money to buy a Dior dress in France. After that, she went to America and became an MP (in separate books, naturally). And, finally, she’s off to Moscow to reunite one of her employers with his long-lost Russian love. That’s when things start to get ridiculous.

By a series of miscommunications, mistaken identities, and misunderstandings of what ‘char lady’ could possibly mean, Mrs Harris and her friend Violet Butterfield (the wonderful Vi, who wants none of the adventures that Mrs H seems to thrive on) are believed to be spies by the KGB and believed to be aristocracy by others high up in Russia. What they actually are is two lucky women who won some sort of raffle.

I was feeling in the mood for something silly and light, and Gallico’s series is entirely reliable for that. If you liked the others, you’ll certainly like this – if you can face reading about Russian collusion in the current environment (it did feel oddly topical). I continue to be fascinated by the extraordinary range that Gallico has in his writing, from dark to frothy, poignant to funny, and (indeed) very good to not at all good. This one sits in the thoroughly-enjoyable category – completely ridiculous, but also entirely fitted the mood I was in when I picked it up.

A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy

StuckinaBook All , , 10 Comments

I’ve read four Hardy novels in my time, and three of those have been for book groups – which appear to be making a united effort to get me through his oeuvre. My experience with him is a bit chequered – I like Tess of the D’Ubervilles, really liked Jude the Obscure, and loathed Return of the Native. Along the way I also somehow stopped reading The Mayor of Casterbridge halfway through, without really giving up. How would I feel about A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873)?

Well, it battles out with Jude the Obscure for my favourite Hardy novel – and that’s probably because it’s the funniest one I’ve read. Don’t get the wrong idea – it still has its miserable moments – but there is also an irony and wit to the narrative that he seemed to gradually squeeze out of his writing over the years.

The main character is called Elfride Swancourt, which was almost enough to make me stop reading after the first two words. What an absurd name – and too close to Eustacia Vye for comfort. But I persevered – and learned that she is a clergyman’s daughter in Cornwall, new to adult life and very naive. The novel essentially tells of her romantic exploits – something of a love triangle, though not quite that simple – and how the decisions she can or can’t make in her youth are likely to follow her.

Her first suitor is Stephen Smith – who comes to work on the church as an architect. Their relationship is rather unconvincingly deep after they’ve talked to each other for about five minutes, and he mentions her blue eyes – which is about the only time they get a mention in the book; it seems a very odd title to me. They come very close to marrying – but she gets cold feet on the train to London. They part, promised to each other but not properly engaged.

In his absence, though, Elfride writes and publishes an historical romance (sure, why not) which gets savaged in a review by one Henry Knight. Who, naturally, comes along to visit – he is witty, artistic, and not easily offended by her frostiness. He is, to my mind, the most engaging character in the novel. Alongside his louche city ways, though, he is also at heart a naive innocent. Do they fall in love? Well, yes…

I never felt that I particularly cared about the characters, so I wasn’t sad or happy when bad or good things happen to them – but I still really enjoyed reading about them. They are perhaps too heightened to generate empathy in the reader (or at least this reader) but that doesn’t stop them being entertaining. There are even elements of sensation fiction, including one particularly absurd cliffhanger scene that I can only imagine Hardy writing with gritted teeth. In some ways, though, the novel is also a prototype of Tess of the D’Ubervilles, particularly in its discussions of hypocrisy about the different moral standards for men and women. It’s a real mixed bag.

The ending was a bit silly, in a different way, and doesn’t pack the emotional punch Hardy clearly wanted. Indeed, we came up with a much better solution in our book group. But we’ll let him off because it’s so much more entertaining beforehand. He’s not a completely different writer, of course; there are still very, very Hardy lines – like this:

Then Stephen put his hand upon Knight’s arm, and they retired from the yellow glow, further, further, till the chill darkness enclosed them round, and the quiet sky asserted its presence overhead as a dim gray sheet of blank monotony.

It was cloudy; we get it. But I jest – his writing is reliably good, and not too histrionic. I don’t know where this one stands with Hardy aficionados, but I would guess rather low, since it doesn’t get mentioned as much – but for Hardy newbies, it’s an enjoyable and pacy read.

Tea or Books? #62: Internet vs Bookshop and Mr Pim Passes By vs Four Days’ Wonder

StuckinaBook Tea or Books? , 6 Comments

Two novels by A.A. Milne and we get deep about Amazon.


 
In the first half, we talk buying books in bookshops vs buying books online – taking our cue from a suggestion by Karen – and then we wander into a discussion about Amazon that isn’t especially conclusive. In the second half, we compare two books by my favourite (probably) author – Mr Pim Passes By and Four Days’ Wonder. You can see a filming of the play Mr Pim Passes By on YouTube.

You can see our iTunes page, and you can support the podcast at Patreon. Or you can just listen via the sound file above or through any podcast app. The blog I mention is Indie Lit Fic.

The books and authors we mention – including a mass of Hardy! – are:

Heat Wave by Penelope Lively
A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Tess of the D’Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy
In a Summer Season by Elizabeth Taylor
Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford
Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers
Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Hackenfeller’s Ape by Brigid Brophy
Edith Olivier
The Dover Road by A.A. Milne
Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
R.C. Sherriff
The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne
Patricia Brent, Spinster by Herbert Jenkins
Chloe Marr by A.A. Milne
Two People by A.A. Milne
The Table Near The Band by A.A. Milne
The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald
The Education of Harriet Hatfield by May Sarton
Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley

Song for a Sunday

StuckinaBook All 0 Comment

Dolly Parton is one of those singers who is so prolific that it’s a bit daunting to know where to start. Yes, we all know and love ‘9 to 5’, ‘Jolene’, etc. – but there are albums and albums that I know very little about. But I was going through some of them on Spotify recently, and fell in love with ‘Jesus and Gravity’ – so that’s my Song for a Sunday today.

 

Stuck in a Book’s Weekend Miscellany

StuckinaBook All 1 Comment

Another very busy weekend for me, off to Bristol and then playing the organ in our local church again on Sunday (despite, yes, not really knowing how to play the organ properly) – but I can leave you with a book, a link, and a blog post.

1.) The link – is not an easy read, but as the first anniversary of the fascist rally and murder in Charlottesville comes around, this oral history from the BBC is worth reading.

2.) The blog post – Darlene has written about the letters of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West so winningly that I *really* hope I have them somewhere, as I suspect I do. I would hardly be me if I did not.

3.) The book – did you know that a novelisation of Shirley Jackson’s life existed? Or, rather, a made-up event using her real life as the surrounding, I think… It’s soon to be turned into a film, but the original 2014 book is Shirley by Susan Scarf Merrell and I’m very intrigued… anybody read it?

Six Degrees of Separation: from Atonement to The Enchanted April

StuckinaBook All 8 Comments

I’ve seen the Six Degrees of Separation meme going around a bit, and have been waiting until I spotted it starting with a book I’ve read. If you’re not familiar with it, there are guidelines over at Books Are My Favourite And Best – but, essentially, you start with one book and keep linking to another and see where you end up!

Atonement by Ian McEwan

I read this novel in about 2003 – my first McEwan, and one of my first “modern novels”. Still not a category I know an awful lot about, but I was struck years later by how similar the tale of a childhood action causing a person lasting confusion and regret was to…

Virginia by Jens Christian Grondahl

This short novel is about how a man fears he may have accidentally betrayed someone to the Nazis in his youth, and how haunted he continues to be about it. It’s brilliant. It’s one of the few Virginia books on my shelves that has nothing to do with Woolf, but… well, it obviously made me think of Woolf. But rather than go to one of her novels, let’s look at one which subtly puts her in the title…

Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar

Vanessa is Vanessa Bell and ‘Her Sister’ is Virginia Woolf. Framed through imagined recollections and letters, Parmar portrays the Bloomsbury Group rather well in her novel that puts the lesser-known sister in centre stage. I do rather love novels about closeness between two women – such as…

Fair Play by Tove Jansson

One of her quieter novels, this looks at two women who share a remote island – closely based on Jansson and her partner. It has Jansson’s trademark insightfulness and subtle poignancy – even more subtle than other of her books. And she writes rather wonderfully about the character of the sea too. And while we’re at the seaside, let’s take a trip to…

A Fortnight in September by R.C. Sherriff

This Persephone novel about a family holiday to the seaside somehow has all the ingredients of the perfect Persephone novel – extremely readable and relatable, but also funny, moving, unexpected. It’s a joy with a rough edge. And, as a novel about a holiday with a month in the title, it naturally led me to…

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

Her most charm-full novel, this depicts a group of women who try to escape their lives and unhappinesses by going away for a month to Italy, sharing a beautiful house and garden. At first, they don’t get on – but soon Italy and the atmosphere starts to work its magic…

That was fun! I look forward to joining in further months of this meme.

Five From the Archive (no.13): Books about Cats

StuckinaBook All 7 Comments

It’s #InternationalCatDay! Some of us would say that every day is cat day, but apparently they get one in particular to celebrate themselves. And it reminded me about Five From the Archive, which I did a lot in 2012, once in 2015, and never again. Until now! It’s a fun way to delve through the blog review archives and find links between books. You can see all the previous books I wrote about in the index – and, now that I’ve remember it, it might become a regular feature again. And you’ll have to forgive where the quote formatting of old reviews went awry…

Usually I only tried to include books I really love, but it turns out I haven’t read that many books about cats – so some of these aren’t my faves, but consider it an opportunity for you to tell me better ones to try!

(And do feel free to use the Five From the Archive idea and image for anything at all you fancy, if you like.)

1.) The Fur Person (1957) by May Sarton

In short: Tom ‘Terrible’ Jones is on the look out for a permanent house to live in, and tries various potential owners (or people to own) before he lands on the correct house. He is a very realistic depiction of a selfish, pragmatic, and entirely lovable cat.

From the review: “the movements of tail and paws, the stretching, the staring and waiting – everything it described with such precision and accuracy that any cat-lover (particularly those of us who love cats but don’t live with any) will thrill to the reading experience.”

2.) The Guest Cat by Takashi Hiraide (2001)

In short: A couple in their 30s find their lives and their relationship revitalised by the appearance of a visiting cat – though the novella is nowhere near as fey as that sounds!

From the review: “it is Hiraide’s writing that makes The Guest Cat the mini masterpiece that it undoubtedly is. You get the feeling that he could have turned his pen to any topic under the sun and achieved something equally poignant.”

3.) Jennie (1950) by Paul Gallico

In short: A little boy is transformed into a cat, and has to learn how to live as one by the teachings of Jennie – whose mantra is “if in doubt, wash”.

From the review: “It is the plotting and tone which made Jennie a bit of a disappointment to me. The characters of Jennie and Peter are great – and, as I’ve said, Gallico has really closely observed cat behaviour. But the tone is too sprightly, even with the sad aspects of the story.”

4.) Merry Hall (1951) by Beverley Nichols

In short: Not really about cats, but One and Four are such well-described presences in this book about doing up a house and garden that I think it counts. (I have his cat-focused books waiting on my shelves.)

From the review: “One is Siamese and Four is a black cat, and he writes beautifully about their character and mannerisms, with every bit of the devotion that cats deserve. They weave in and out of the narrative, and won my heart completely.”

5.) Dewey: the small-town library cat who touched the world (2008) by Vicki Myron

In short: This non-fiction book is dreadful, but hilariously dreadful, about a cat who lives in a library.

From the review: “Chapters can generally be divided into two camps: those which relate incidents of no notable interest, and those which relate incidents which couldn’t possibly have happened.”