Rosemary’s review of Project Places

In 2019, Rosemary joined me in #ProjectNames – one of the most rewarding reading projects I’ve done. Last year, she decided to keep going with #ProjectPlaces. I asked if she wouldn’t mind sharing her experiences – and she has kindly written the guest post, below. You can find Rosemary’s blog at Scones and Chaise Longues.

Most of us haven’t been further than the Co-Op this year (not that I’m complaining, as I’m privileged to have beautiful countryside on my doorstep – and the ladies in my little local Co-Op are lovely..)   By some happy chance, however, I decided in January to set myself a reading theme, and having so much enjoyed Simon’s #projectnames in 2019, I hit upon #projectplaces.

Reading only books already resident on my sagging shelves, I would choose titles that either were, or included, the name of a place – though as you’ll see, I interpreted that requirement rather liberally to say the least. So throughout these strange stay-at-home seasons I’ve been to France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, North America and even once round the world.  The majority of my travels were, though, in the UK, from Cornwall to Cumberland and the Hog’s Back to the Highlands and Islands. It’s been great.

I didn’t set out to choose mainly English locations, but when I think about it, it’s hardly surprising that my preference for certain types of novels kept me firmly in the villages of everyday and the country estates of days past. I went with Angela Thirkell to Pomfret Towers and (Christmas at) High Rising, to (The School at) Thrush Green with Miss Read and to Turnham Malpas with Rebecca Shaw (Trouble in the Village, Whispers in the Village, The Village Newcomers.) Turnham Malpas is a bit like Midsomer without the murders; there’s always some intrigue going on, whereas I’ve lived in my fair share of villages and, much as I love them, intrigue is not their USP – or maybe I just don’t notice.)

Beginning, though, in my beloved Scotland and one of my very best reads of 2020: O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker;

‘Janet lies murdered beneath the castle stairs, oddly attired in her mother’s black lace wedding dress, lamented only by her pet jackdaw…’

I’d never even heard of Barker before, and without the project in mind this strange and compelling story of Janet, a misfit child growing up in Auchnasaugh, the remote Aberdeenshire home of her eccentric, dysfunctional family – a place where eagles fly and hogweed flourishes – would probably have languished, ignored, for evermore. Now I recommend this haunting novel far and wide. (My full review is here) and I was delighted to find that it is being reprinted by Orion in October 2021

Still in Scotland, the project encouraged me to take up Compton Mackenzie’s Monarch of the Glen, which may have been the inspirations for the TV series, but is quite unlike it. (And no it’s not, as my husband, ventured to suggest, ’the book of the film’…) Persevere with Mackenzie’s slightly convoluted style and you will be rewarded with a light and entertaining story, one that is very much anchored to a time, and especially to a place.

I often find short stories frustrating – ‘What happened next?’ is my plaintive cry – but Thomas Clark’s Selkirk FC vs The World proved the exception. Selkirk is a Borders football club struggling in the middle of serious rugby country, and in 2015 – for reasons impossible to fathom – it appointed Clark its first ever writer-in-residence. The result was this outstanding collection of stories and poems.  Clark captures the cynicism, resilience and grimly morose nature of the area perfectly; some pieces are funny, some sad, and there is even an outstanding science fiction story, The Keys of Paradise – definitely something I’d never have looked at without the project to take me there.

The US provided me with comedy (Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegon Summer, 1956), black history (Margo Jefferson’s eye-opening Negroland), sagas (Joan Medlicott’s Covington books, and even Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove series – yes, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not proud…) and academic intrigue in the form of my much loved Amanda Cross’s The Theban Mysteries. Set not in Greece but New York City, this is another outing for Kate Fansler, professor of English, lover of Austen, ardent feminist and (usefully) rich as Croesus.  In the 1970s Virago published many women crime writers, and I have to say some of them did not deserve this honour – but Cross (pen name of Carolyn Heilbrun, first ever female professor of English at Cornell) was one who did, and I still re-read her books with great joy.

Back in Europe I went to Florence with the late Diana Athill, and to Lake Garda with Rumer Godden’s Battle of the Villa Fiorita. The Black Forest Summer by Mabel Esther Allan may be a 1950s children’s book, but it changed my ideas about Germany, a country of which I have seen only Berlin. Now I want to visit Freiburg, the setting of this perhaps unlikely but most enjoyable story of an orphaned London family being rescued by their father’s affluent brother.

Irish writers seem to have a particular talent for the short story, and so it was that I read William Trevor’s brilliant, memorable collection The News from Ireland. And although Maeve Binchy may not be in Trevor’s league, she remains one of the great tellers of tales, with a perfect ear for her native speech; I enjoyed Dublin 4 immensely.

The British Library Crime Classics were, of course, a great source of place-name titles. I can’t say I enjoyed them all, and I do wonder if the ‘Golden Age of Crime’ is really my thing, but I still travelled to the South Downs with John Bude (The Sussex Downs Murder) and with Freeman Wills Crofts to Surrey (The Hog’s Back Mystery.)  Better reads for me came in the shape of the ever-excellent Mary Stewart’s Rose Cottage, Jennifer Ryan’s The Chilbury Ladies’ Choir, Elizabeth Taylor’s At Mrs Lippincote’s and Miss Read’s School at Thrush Green.

And finally, off I went with Phileas Fogg in his attempt to go Around the World in 80 Days. I’d always thought of Jules Verne as a ‘difficult’ writer – goodness knows why, as this tale of adventure positively flies along. Great and unexpected fun.

Three books stand out: the aforementioned O Caledonia, Marghanita Laski’s wonderful, quiet, beautifully observed The Village (review here) and (predictable to all who know me) Kenneth Grahame’s story of humble Mole, clever, kind Rat, sage and sensible Badger, jolly Otter and impetuous Toad, living their rural lives through the changing seasons on the riverbank and in the Wild Wood. In a year in which comfort has been needed more than ever before, The Wind in the Willows gave it in abundance:

‘As he hurried along, eagerly anticipating the moment when he would be at home again among the things he knew and liked, the Mole saw clearly that he was an animal of tilled field and hedgerow, linked to the ploughed furrow, the frequented pasture, the lane of evening lingerings, the cultivated garden plot. For others the asperities, the stubborn endurance, or the clash of actual conflict, that went with Nature in the rough; he must be wise, must keep to the pleasant places in which his lines were laid and which held adventure enough , in their way, to last for a lifetime.’

I’m addicted to reading projects now; they are such a great way to focus my wavering attention. I’ve already thought of one for 2021, and this week I spent a glorious hour sorting out the books to fit it. So thank you again Simon, for setting me on this happy path.