Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekday Miscellany

Yes, the Weekend Miscellany has been visiting a Great-Aunt for the past few weeks, and obviously it is now not the weekend – nor, in fact, is today’s post going to take the usual form of a book, a blog post, and a link. And that’s because I’ve read so many brilliant blog posts over the past week or so, that I just wanted to share them with you. Some you’ll probably have already seen, but some might be new – and there’s just too much wonderful stuff on the blogosphere for me to ignore it for a moment longer. Without further ado…

1.) Throughout January and February, Claire from Kiss A Cloud, and some of her friends, will be leading a Woolf in Winter readathon. This is for everyone, but primarily those who have been intimidated by old Virginia in the past, and need a helping hand to get started. Full details are here, but I’ll just mention that the books in question are Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, Orlando, and The Waves. The Big Four, and the right order to read them in. I still have soft spots for Jacob’s Room and Between the Acts, in fact Jacob’s Room might be my favourite Woolf novel (it is today, at any rate) but you’ll be set in good stead if you read those four.

2.) Lovely Elaine at Random Jottings has been a Richmal Crompton fan for nearly as long as I have – I found Persephone through Richmal Crompton, and Elaine and I have shared our RC collections with each other over the years. We both champion her whenever we can ( I wrote about her back here) and Elaine the other day wrote another post in praise of this neglected author. Here it is. Her work is sometimes a bit variable, but there are many gems amongst her wide output. I’m currently reading The Innermost Room, and plan to re-read Matty and the Dearingroydes soon.

3.) Harriet Devine has an ongoing series on her blog, paintings of women reading. The other day she posted my favourite in the series so far, by a painter I didn’t know – Tavik Frantisek Simon. (Great surname!) I hope she doesn’t mind me reproducing it here… but do go and have a scout through her blog for previous paintings. This one reminds me of the Vanessa Bell painting on the Virago Modern Classics edition of Rebecca West’s Harriet Hume. I can only find tiny pictures of it, and can’t remember the title, but you can see it at Verity’s Virago Venture.

4.) I love a bit of book serendipity, don’t you? Simon Savidge picked up Lady Into Fox by David Garnett because the cover and title intrigued him – he read it, loved it, and then found out that it was in my 50 Books You Must Read! His review is so much better (and longer) than the one I wrote, and his beautiful Hesperus edition is a little bit nicer than my old one, found in a secondhand bookshop. The lady who told me about it was the same lady who introduced me to Miss Hargreaves – I have much for which to be grateful.

5.) And finally… Litlove at Tales From The Reading Room has compiled a list Reasons For Buying Books, which I happen to find rather convincing…

That’s a small selection of my favourite recent blog reading – always such a lot to delight in around the blogs, and perhaps you’ll be inspired to link to your five favourite recent blog posts… let me know if you do.