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Books On Hold

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I’ve mentioned quite a few times that I’m one of those readers who can’t commit to just one book at a time.  I always have a few on the go – usually four or five that I’m reading in earnest, as it were – but there is also a second batch of books which I have started, and intend to finish, but somehow drift into the background of my reading.  Sometimes I started and the book got sidelined somehow, dropping from those four or five into the hinterland of will-finish-one-day; sometimes they’re books which, from the outset, I intended only to dip into now and then.  I thought you might like to see a list of the books I have on the go, not including the four titles I’ve started in the past week or so.

I was a little surprised at quite how many there were, I have to confess.  Here are all eleven of the books I have started, will finish one day… but haven’t touched for quite a while.  With each picture I’ve included a quick mention of where the book came from, why it got sidelined, and how far I’ve got…

The Memoirs of a Midget – Walter de la Mare
Pages Read: 64/378
I started this because I thought it might be useful for my thesis.  It turned out to be neither very useful nor very engaging… but I think I’ll finish it one day.  Especially since it turns out my housemate Rachel is distantly related to the author.

A Reader on Reading – Alberto Manguel
Pages Read: 92/291

The Library at Night – Alberto Manguel
Pages Read: 94/328

These Manguel books were always intended to be dip-in books for me – I have them on hand when I’m writing my thesis, as it seems a more productive distraction than browsing Facebook.

Gentleman Prefer Blondes – Anita Loos
Pages Read: 48/156

I bought this after seeing it mentioned in the Provincial Lady books, but stalled a couple of years ago – I will finish it one day (maybe even today, thinking about it) but I can’t remember thinking it very amusing.

The Kingdom of Infinite Space – Raymond Tallis
Pages Read: 52/291

Not my normal read, you’ll agree – a non-fiction book about the head – but I did find it fascinating when I started it last summer.  But I think I’ll have to read it in small doses.

The Eye of the World – Robert Jordan
Pages Read: 590/782

Colin lent me this about three years ago, and I read 550 pages in one weekend (a good way to make yourself read something is to take nothing else on a trip to Paris) but since then I haven’t been super-keen to get back to it.  Colin got so bored of waiting that he bought a new copy, and gave me this one.

Told By An Idiot – Rose Macaulay
Pages Read: 30/315

This was actually the first Rose Macaulay novel I bought, but I still haven’t read it – I started at Christmas, but somehow got sidetracked.  I think I’ll have to start it again next time, as I don’t remember anything from those thirty pages…

The Man Who Unleashed The Birds: Frank Baker and His Circle – Paul Newman
Pages Read: 82/239
Paul Newman kindly sent me a review copy of this book about Miss Hargreaves-author Frank Baker, which I’m enjoying – but somehow it went back on the shelf for a bit.  Its time will come!

The Novel in the Viola – Natasha Solomons
Pages Read: 254/391

I loved Solomons’ first novel, Mr. Rosenblum’s List, but I didn’t have the same urge to whip through this one… but one day I will finish this one.

The Snow Child – Eowyn Ivey
Pages Read: 112/404

I was really excited about this novel, and did enjoy the first hundred or so pages a lot – but I wasn’t in the right mood for it after a while, and… well, you’re getting familiar with this story now!

The Finkler Question – Howard Jacobson
Pages Read: 251/370

This is the only one on the list that I might well not finish.  It was for book group, and I didn’t get to the end in time for the meeting… I’m finding it very boring indeed.  One day I might make myself plough through those final 120 pages, but it doesn’t feel worth it.

EDITED TO ADD:

I forgot about The Chateau – William Maxwell!
Pages Read: 138/402

I bought up loads of Maxwell novels when I read They Came Like Swallows, and somehow stalled on this one… bringing my total up to TWELVE neglected books.  And four that I’m reading more actively.  So… SIXTEEN books on the go – argh!

Well, there you are!  Have you read any of these?
I’d be intrigued to see how many I’ve finished this time next year… and, if nothing else, this little investigation has helped me locate all sorts of bookmarks I thought I’d lost.

Song for a Sunday

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Colin, my brother, recently described something (I forget what) as “like your Song for a Sunday – people wish it wasn’t there.”  To heap coals on his head, today’s song is one he told me about.  We don’t share a taste in music any more than we share a taste in books, but occasionally there is something we both like – step forward ‘Rainy Days and Mondays’ by The Carpenters.

Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekend Miscellany

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I wonder how many Weekend Miscellanies I’ve done now?  It feels like nearly 100, but I daresay it isn’t that many yet.  I hope you’re still finding them useful – I know that I enjoy people’s round-up posts, and I also like being able to collect together bits and pieces rather than scattering them through the week.  This weekend I’ll be at work on Saturday, but not up to very much on Sunday.  I’m in a bit of a reader’s block at the moment – or, rather, reading a couple of books that I’m finding dull but have to finish – so perhaps I’ll indulge on Sunday and read something fun.  What are you up to?


1.) The link – if you happen to be in the Oxfordshire area at the end of June, why not go and see AA Milne’s brilliant play The Dover Road (PG Wodehouse’s favourite play, donchaknow) in Dorchester-upon-Thames?  More info here.  I’m hoping to go, if I can persuade some others.

2.) The blog post – if you’re not doing so already, you should follow Thomas on his tour around the UK.  He’s back in the US now, but is putting up glorious photo posts of his travels – he basically seems to have had the perfect trip (give or take potentially fatal car journeys) and has gone to many places I dream of visiting.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned on here that Thomas and I had cream tea at the Randolph whilst he was in Oxford – I daresay it will appear on his blog at some point, although we didn’t actually have a photo taken.  I met Thomas on his last visit, along with lots of other bloggers, but it was a real delight to have him to myself for a couple of hours.  I always get a bit nervous about these things, which either makes me very quiet or very voluble – well, just call me Garrulous Gary, because I chatted away animatedly all the way through, and Thomas did too.  It was so easy, and such fun.  We spoke surprisingly little about books (although we agreed to continue reading each other’s blogs, despite my dislike of Hotel du Lac and Thomas’s of Rebecca) – but we seemed to speak of many other topics under the sun.

3.) The book – I passed on my copy of Julie Myerson’s Then to my housemate Mel, who read it instantly (remember those days, of never having unread books on your shelf?) and tells me it is brilliant – and baffling.  Dystopia, amnesia, and hallucination were the words I grasped from the conversation – which sounds as though it could be enthralling, or could be a huge mess – sounds as though it’s the former.  Maybe one day I’ll have time to read it… thank you to Jonathan Cape for sending me a copy.  I’ll try to persuade Mel to write about it for me…

Daunt Books

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You may not know, but Daunt Books have branched out into reprints.  Indeed, they did so in 2010.  It’s been mentioned a few times around the blogosphere – I have an inkling that I may have mentioned it in passing here, actually – but today is the first time I have set eyes on the books they’ve printed.  Having seen my review of Ann Bridge’s Illyrian Spring, they very kindly got in touch and offered to send me a copy – as well as two novels by Sybille Bedford: A Favourite of the Gods and its sequel A Compass Error.  When I went to the Celebration of Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Jane Howard listed Taylor and Bedford as the two authors universally praised by other novelists – so I’m excited to try her out.  These books are (I quote the email I got) ‘about three generations of women living in Rome, London and the South of France in the first decades of the 20th Century.’  Sounds good, no?

Oh, and excuse my fancifulness with the images.  I’ve been envious of people who have Instagram, and then discovered that Picasa 3 is the Poor Man’s Instagram (as well as being the Poor Man’s Photoshop) so… yeah.  I’ll try not to get too carried away for future posts!

Aren’t they beautiful editions?  In terms of buying them, Daunt Books are primarily a bookseller, especially travel books, so they don’t have a publishing website set up – but you can buy these editions from them.  Let me know what you think of their style – and, of course, whether you have read Sybille Bedford’s work.

For Sylvia by Valentine Ackland

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When I started reading For Sylvia: An Honest Account by Valentine Ackland (published posthumously, in 1985) I was rather prepared to loathe the author.  I’ve recently read Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Diaries, and I haven’t come across more heartbreaking diary entries than those concerning the period when Ackland (STW’s partner for decades) decided to move her lover Elizabeth Wade White into their home, while Sylvia Townsend Warner moved out to a hotel, as some sort of experiment.  Although Warner is devoted to Ackland until Ackland’s death, and indeed until her own, she comes across as a selfish, cruel person.  It is perhaps unsurprising that when writing about herself, a more sympathetic portrait is drawn – and the fact that Ackland writes so well swept me along for a lot of it.  Although I have to say, a more miserable portrait than the cover photo I do not think I have ever seen.  I’m not sure a more miserable portrait is possible.  It didn’t make me immediately warm to her.

For Sylvia isn’t wholly an autobiography – it is, as the title suggests, an account of Ackland’s life, written for Sylvia. Having said that, the ‘for Sylvia’ bit doesn’t particularly influence the style or structure – she isn’t addressed as ‘you’ at any point, but remains ‘Sylvia’ – so perhaps it is safest to call For Sylvia a memoir.  In essentials it deals with two broad aspects of Ackland’s life – one being her romantic life, and the other being her battle with alcoholism.

Ackland starts by addressing that which every memoir needs: the pivotal moment of its subject’s life:

The ‘crisis’: it has been laid down that this should grip the reader’s interest, grapple him to the author, and amke it impossible for him to put the book down until he has finished it, or at least impossible for him to return it to the lending library by the next post.  But the ‘crisis’ in this particular life is very difficult to describe; for one thing, it is hard to know whether it happened in a flash or whether, in point of fact, it matured rather slowly and broke, as it were, creamily and in silence.  This ‘crisis’, too, is not directly concerned with a sexual upheaval, which makes it perhaps less enthralling to the reader than it was to the author.  However; it happened, and it was undoubtedly the sharpest possible crisis any life can know, for all it was so quiet and did not so much as cause a ripple on the surface of domestic life.

She is writing of her alcoholism, which had dominated much of her life for 19 years.  More particularly, the crisis is actually the end of this domination.  I know they say you cannot cure alcoholism, but the night in question – 8th October 1947 – was the last time Ackland felt the need for alchol.  Although with very, very little Christian faith at this point (she wavered quite a lot) she prayed to God.  ‘There was no reply.’  And yet, the following evening, after being ill all day, ‘I suddenly realised that I was walking in tranquility and with perfect confidence; and that tranquillity and assurance has never left me.’  I don’t wish to undermine the battles faced by those with alcoholism when trying to stop drinking; I am merely recounting the ‘crisis’ with which Ackland opens her memoir.

It is quite a structurally peculiar way to start.  Although Ackland does mention alcoholism at many points throughout For Sylvia (which, by the way, is short – 135 pages, including a 24-page introduction by Bea Howe) the rest of the memoir is structured chronologically, and focuses upon her various relationships, especially those with the anonymous R and X. 

I shan’t summarise Ackland’s accounts of her various love affairs – they take up most of the book.  I will simply write that (a) it is astonishing the number of women who throw themselves upon Valentine without the slightest provocation, and without knowing that she was a lesbian – Valentine herself didn’t know for the first few, and (b) that it can’t have made for very charming reading for Sylvia.  Although Ackland writes very well about her life, and has a simple, calm, flowing style which I had not expected of her, she isn’t being very kind to her intended audience.  I get the feeling that, just as I forgot that Sylvia had been apostrophised at the beginning, so Ackland forgot, and became too involved with the tangled webs of her love affairs.  And they are often very tangled.  Ackland got married to a poor, bewildered man after a lengthy engagement – saying, shortly beforehand, that she will either marry him tomorrow or not at all.  She refuses to consummate the marriage, but immediately commits adultery with her long-term female lover.  Indeed, there is barely a time when Ackland isn’t being, or considering being, unfaithful.  ‘I wonder,’ she writes at one point, ‘if anyone in the world was ever so idiotically vile as I was, for the best part of my youth.’  Ah!  A moment of self-awareness! (one thinks).  But one would be wrong.  Despite devoting paragraphs at various junctures to praise of Warner’s character and their love for one another, the reader then comes upon this:

I write this on a day when I have heard that I at any time now another one I love will come to live with me here, in this house where Sylvia and I have lived for twelve years together, through bitterness of private woe, through war, through my degradation and shame and throuhg the almost two years accomplished of my heavenly rescue and our increasing happiness and peace.  I do not know how this new thing has come about, nor whether it is the work of heaven of hell.  I cannot, for more than a moment at a time, realize what it will be like to be here without Sylvia – or anywhere without Sylvia.  But I have a conviction that this must be tried; although it is so dangerous that I can scarcely dare measure it even in my fancy.

I couldn’t remember, whilst reading For Sylvia, whether it has been written before or after this crisis in their relationship (for it was not permanent; Ackland chose Warner, and Warner came back to her own home, her own possessions) and was quite shocked that Ackland could write the above excerpt in the midst of eulogising their love.  I daresay I shouldn’t judge her, but it is difficult to read her wanton cruelty, having read Warner’s diaries.  In a book which centres on a person’s actions and motivations, it is impossible not to assess and respond to them.

Whilst I was reading For Sylvia, the genuine quality of Ackland’s writing, and (for some reason) its merit as good prose, made me feel a little more sympathetic to her.  I remain, of course, sympathetic to her plight with alcohol.  But in remembering her unkindness, her cruelty to Sylvia, and her absurd belief that it ‘must be’ done, I lose patience altogether.  It should be possible to separate writer and person, and I do admire Ackland more as a writer than I thought I would, but For Sylvia is an exercise in self-delusion – interesting, involving, but also infuriating.

Five From The Archive (no.2)

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Thanks for all your encouragement for Five from the Archive last week – it was great to hear your suggestions, and I think this will be a fun feature.  (If you missed my explanation for this new feature, click here for no.1.)  Now I’ve even made myself a logo for it!  Feel free to borrow it if you want to use the idea.  This week…

Five… Books Set in World War II


1.) Miss Ranskill Comes Home (1946) by Barbara Euphan Todd

In short: Published by Persephone Books, this novel tells of Miss Ranskill, a woman who was stranded on a desert island and returns to find England at war – and is mystified by this ‘brave new world’.

From the review: “Miss Ranskill Comes Home has plenty of comedy, but it is comedy heavily dosed with pathos and even a tinge of the tragic. Certain scenes, such as that where Miss R tries and fails to give a speech to a local society on Life on a Desert Island, are painful to read in their awkward sadness. But the novel still manages to have plenty of light-hearted moments alongside.”


2.) Put Out More Flags (1942) by Evelyn Waugh

In short: a satire on the War Office and its administration attempts – especially concerning evacuees, all with Waugh’s recognisably spiky humour.

From the review: “Waugh’s idea of humour is mostly on the mark, and he uses comic language superbly (I laughed out loud several times) but too often the undercurrent was too nasty for me. I need to read a Wodehouse or two as an antidote.”


3.) Suite Francaise (2004) by Irene Nemirovsky

In short: Two books in a planned trilogy, about life in Occupied France.  Written with an astonishing ability to see the human in everyone, especially since Nemirovksy would later tragically die at Auschwitz – the manuscripts for these novellas were discovered decades later.

From the review: “Nemirovsky is an incredibly gifted novelist. Had these been further edited; had the trilogy been complete, this could have been one of twentieth century’s most important works.”


4.) A House in the Country (1944) by Jocelyn Playfair

In short: Another Persephone title, about war and the home front – captivating, complex Cressida takes in paying guests, and awaits the return of her soldier husband.

From the review: “A House in the Country is not a cosy paean to countryside ways, but a deep, moving, and surprisingly controversial novel. […Playfair is] brave in her extremely honest, often critical discussions of warfare. Characters suggest that war is futile; that few soldiers know why they are fighting, and that ideals are far below blind obedience, when it comes to motive.”


5.) Henrietta’s War (1985) by Joyce Dennys

In short: The serialised diaries of an average woman during war, published in a magazine during the war and later republished together.

From the review: “Henrietta represents the middle-class women in England, plucky and determined to carry on as normally as possible. […] Henrietta’s War is quite simply a wonderful, witty, charming, and occasionally very moving book.”

Over to you – which titles would you suggest?

Can’t blog, too busy having a street party!

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At least that’s the plan, so long as it doesn’t rain too much…

Here’s the beautiful Queen during the Jubilee Flotilla.

I’m so delighted that the nation has got on board with celebrating the jubilee. I can’t imagine there is anyone else in the country who has been so dedicated, loyal, hard-working and wise – nor inspired such love and devotion – over such a long period of time.  I have nothing but respect for Queen Elizabeth II.  (Remember, you republicans are welcome back on Wednesday!)

Song for a Sunday

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This is where I fully anticipate losing half my regular readers, but… yes, I watch Glee.  I think it’s half dreadful and half entertaining (well, that ratio slips and slides) but occasionally they do rather interesting versions of great songs.  I love ‘Shake it Out’ by Florence and the Machine – indeed, it’s been a Sunday Song before – and I also love Glee’s take on it, below.

And, er, yeah I love Shakespeare and stuff too.  So don’t judge.  Ok, you can.  A bit.

Year Six: The Reviews

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Time to start up another place to record reviews, I think…  A bit like the fiscal year, the Stuck-in-a-Book year rolls around every April – somewhere in the middle.  If you’d prefer to see all my reviews in one place (alphabetical by author) then have a little clickety-click in this direction.  That link is always up to the top of the right-hand sidebar, by the way.

Ackland, Valentine – For Sylvia
Alpha of the Plough – Leaves in the Wind 
Ardizzone, Edward – The Young Ardizzone 
Bainbridge, Beryl – Injury Time
Bainbridge, Beryl – Sweet William
Bainbridge, Beryl – Something Happened Yesterday 
Baker, Frank – Miss Hargreaves : the play 
Bedford, Sybille – A Favourite of the Gods 
Benedictus, David – Return to the Hundred Acre Wood 
Blom, Philipp – The Simmons Papers 
Bodger, Joan – How The Heather Looks 
Bowen, Elizabeth – The House in Paris  
Braine, John – Room at the Top 
Brand, Millen – The Outward Room 
Campbell, Jen – Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops  
Carter, Angela – Wise Children 
Christie, Agatha – The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Christie, Agatha – One, Two, Buckle My Shoe  
Clapp, Susannah – A Card From Angela Carter
Colegate, Isabel – The Shooting Party  
Collier, John – His Monkey Wife
Camus, Albert – The Outsider 
Compton-Burnett, Ivy – More Women Than Men
Compton-Burnett, Ivy – Elders and Betters 
Dangarembga, Tsitsi – Nervous Conditions
Delafield, E.M. – Zella Sees Herself 
Delafield, E.M. – Three Marriages 
Dickens, Monica – The Winds of Heaven 
Dickens, Monica & Beverley Nichols – Yours Sincerely 
Drabble, Margaret – The Garrick Year  
du Maurier, Daphne – Frenchman’s Creek
du Maurier, Daphne – Frenchman’s Creek (OVW’s review)
Dunn, Mark – Ella Minnow Pea
Ferguson, Rachel – We Were Amused 
Fitzgerald, Penelope – At Freddie’s 
Gallico, Paul – Coronation
Gallico, Paul – Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris
Gallico, Paul – Mrs. Harris Goes To New York 
Garnett, David – A Man in the Zoo
Gillard, Linda – House of Silence  
Greig, Cicely – Ivy Compton Burnett: A Memoir 
Hanff, Helene – Q’s Legacy 
Hansford Johnson, Pamela – I. Compton-Burnett
Hart, Miranda – Is It Just Me? 
Jansson, Tove – Moominpappa at Sea
Jansson, Tove – Art in Nature
Jerome, Jerome K. – Three Men on the Bummel 
Jordan, Robert – The Eye of the World  
Kafka, Franz – Metamorphosis 
Kaye-Smith, Sheila – All The Books of My Life 
Kaye-Smith, Sheila and G.B. Stern – Talking of Jane Austen
Kundera, Milan – The Joke 
Lehmann, Rosamond – Dusty Answer 
Leverson, Ada – Love at Second Sight 
Lewis, C.S. – A Grief Observed 
Lickorish Quinn, Karina – Shrinking Violet 
Loos, Anita – Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Mansfield, Katherine – In a German Pension 
Maxwell, William & Eudora Welty – What There Is To Say We Have Said 
Maxwell, W.B. – Spinster of this Parish 
Medvei, Cornelius – Caroline 
Milne, A.A. – Not That It Matters
Milne, A.A. – Lovers in London 
Mitford, Nancy – Frederick the Great 
Moran, Caitlin – Moranthology 
Murdoch, Iris – The Sea, The Sea 
Murray, Margaret – The Witch-Cult in Western Europe 
Myron, Vicki – Dewey 
Nesbit, E. – The Railway Children 
Nesbit, E. – The Enchanted Castle 
Olivier, Edith – The Love-Child 
Olivier, Laurence – On Acting  
Panter-Downes, Mollie – London War Notes 
Potter, Beatrix – The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies 
Pritchett, V.S. – A Cab at the Door  
Read, Miss – Gossip From Thrush Green 
Reed, Myrtle – The Spinster Book
Riddell, Marjorie – M for Mother
Robinson, Marilynne – Housekeeping 
Sacks, Oliver – The Island of the Colorblind
Sacks, Oliver – Hallucinations
Sackville-West, Vita – The Easter Party  
Sagan, Francoise – Sunlight on Cold Water
Saki – The Westminster Alice 
Saki – When William Came 
Saki – Reginald in Russia 
Saumarez Smith, John – A Spy in the Bookshop 
Scharlieb, Mary – What It Means To Marry
Shaw, George Bernard – Man and Superman
Sinclair, May – Uncanny Stories 
Smith, Dorothy Evelyn – Miss Plum and Miss Penny 
Spark, Muriel – The Abbess of Crewe
Spark, Muriel – The Takeover 
Spark, Muriel – The Ballad of Peckham Rye
Spark, Muriel – The Only Problem 
Spark, Muriel – Reality and Dreams 
Spark, Muriel – Curriculum Vitae
Spurling, Hilary – La Grande Thérèse 
Stevens, Michael – V. Sackville-West
Stopes, Marie – Married Love  
Strachey, Julia – Cheerful Weather for the Wedding (readalong) 
Sutcliff, Rosemary – Blue Remembered Hills 
Taylor – At Mrs. Lippincote’s 
Trillin, Calvin – About Alice 
Trollope, Anthony – The Warden
Tutton, Diana – Guard Your Daughters 
Warner, Sylvia Townsend – Summer Will Show
Warner, Sylvia Townsend – Jane Austen
Warner, Sylvia Townsend – With The Hunted 
Warner, Sylvia Townsend – The Corner That Held Them  
Webb, Mary – Gone To Earth  
Webster, Jean – Daddy Long-legs 
Whitechurch, V.L. – Canon in Residence
Wolff-Mönckeberg, Mathilde – On The Other Side 
Woolf, Virginia – A Room of One’s Own 
Wyndham, Francis – The Other Garden