Weekend Miscellany

I’m off for part of the weekend – to visit Jane Austen’s house, no less – and so still haven’t caught up with answering comments yet. I will soon! But I shan’t leave you empty-handed; here are a few bits and pieces to tide you over.

1.) I wrote about A.A. Milne for the OxfordWords blog, which I’ve been intending to do ever since I started working at OUP.

2.) Margaret Kennedy Reading Week was good fun, and I’ve bought a copy of her book The Outlaws on Parnassus: on the art of the novel as a result of it. Enjoy a full round-up over at Jane/Fleur’s.

3.) It’s actually been ages since I submitted my DPhil thesis (last October) was vivaed (in January) and had my corrections approved (May) – but I still haven’t had my graduation (November). I have, though, finally got my thesis bound. One copy has been submitted to the Bodleian; another is here:

Hope you’ve all had a great weekend! There’s still a bit of it left, so there is time for a book, a blog post, and a link… and, you never know, I might even manage to review some books this week. I’m back in the position of reading lots at once, including some chunksters (Sarah Waters, anyone?) so I’ll have to dive into the backlog of unreviewed books. And I will reply to comments soon too, promise…

1.) The link – if you live near Oxford and want to abseil down a church on October 4th in support of Oxford Sexual Abuse and Rape Crisis Centre, then this link will tell you how. If you either don’t live near Oxford or (like me) could never be brought to abseil for anything, the same link will give more info anyway, if you would like to support. Thanks to my friend Sophie for sharing the link.

2.) The blog post – I adored Dodie Smith’s Look Back With Love, the first volume of her four-part autobiography, and bought a couple of the others immediately. I still hadn’t read any more, but Barb at Leaves and Pages has written lovely and glowing reviews of them. All got 10/10. And now I’m knee-deep in Look Back With Mixed Feelings.

3.) The book – I have heard much of Una Silberrad at middlebrow conferences, but not read anything by her yet – so was delighted to receive a copy of The Good Comrade from Victorian Secrets, and will report back in due course. Find out more here…

Well, the rains, they cometh. Hopefully that means I can curl up indoors and fight off Reader’s Block (I know I keep mentioning it, but it’s a bit of a worry with the pile of Shiny New Books to read, although mine is nothing compared to Victoria’s). But I’ve still rustled up a book, a link, and a blog post…

1.) The link – I put together another quiz for OxfordWords – this time, can you spot titles borrowed from other books? I think this is the post I’ve had most fun creating so far. Let me know how you did!

2.) The book – Can I be mammothly indiscreet for a moment? Almost every publisher has been wonderful about providing books for Shiny New Books – either to us or to a band of willing reviewers. The exception is Fourth Estate, who have ignored all of our emails – but, damn their eyes &c., they also publish some very intriguing-sounding books (and I’m sure they have v good reasons for not being able to reply!) It’s played in their favour, as we’ve ended up buying the books ourselves and sending them off to reviewers – and today I ordered a beautiful reprint of Penelope Fitzgerald’s Charlotte Mew and Her Friends. They’ve also reprinted lots of her novels in equally striking covers.

3.) The blog post – my Shiny New Books co-editor has done her own Q&A – you’re too late to ask the Q, I’m afraid, but you can read the A – part one and part two.

Another busy weekend coming up for me – I really must arrange one where I just lie around reading books – so I’ll leave you with a quick trio!

1.) The blog post – it’s been ages since I read a Richmal Crompton book, and Leadon Hill isn’t one of the 26 I have read (not including the William series), but Claire’s review has whetted my appetite for more.

2.) The link – I watched Twenty-Twelve long after everyone else (the BBC sitcom about a committee preparing for the Olympics), but I’m on board with W1A.  It’s a sort-of sequel, with Hugh Bonneville and Jessica Stevenson reprising their roles, set at the BBC – Bonneville’s character has become ‘Head of Values’. It’s just as brilliantly believable as before, with lots of verbal ticks (tics?) offering the most comedy. Watch here on iPlayer, if you can.

3.) The poll results – a slight change from the usual miscellany! Thank you for so many results; I found it really interesting to see how the different Penelopes fared (and loved the comment from Jill, on the poll, that her favourite was Penelope!)  The results are above – so far, anyway; the poll is still open – and I will report back on The Pumpkin Eater when I’ve finished it.

Hope you’re having a nice weekend – in the UK we finally have SUN!  It’s amazing.

1.) The book – have you read any of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s short stories? NYRB Classics have brought out a few with lovely covers (as per) and I’m currently reading The Autobiography of a Corpse, and finding it… interesting. Jury’s out at the moment. Anybody know anything more about his writing?

2.) The review – one of my biggest surprises in recent years was when Claire/Captive Reader didn’t love the (oh-so-lovely) Guard Your Daughters by Diana Tutton. So she’s moved down to my second favourite book read in 2012 – although I suspect that is a coincidence – and did end up loving the equally-lovely Blue Remembered Hills by Rosemary Sutcliff. Go and enjoy her review here. And then make sure you read the book.

3.) The link – this one has been doing the rounds in various places, so this is just the most recent place I’ve seen it. First brought to my attention by my friend Hannah, there is an app which will cleverly scroll through words, enabling you to read a book much more quickly than you would moving your eyes across a page.  Now, when it comes to reading novels I remain a technophobe, and I certainly shan’t be getting one, but I’m still impressed by the idea…

I’m off to Bristol for the weekend (as mentioned the other day) – but my quiz ability might be hampered by the fact that I’m not feeling very well.  Doh.  (That’s my excuse if I do badly, anyway.)

Here’s your usual (ahem) round-up of book, blog, and link!

1.) The book – I don’t know much about this one, but it arrived through my letterbox and looks interesting… Grace and Mary by Melvyn Bragg, from Sceptre. A quick google tells me that it was actually out in hardback and I missed it completely (or, more likely, read about it and forgot it).  Well, more info here!

2.) The blog – you probably all know and love Thomas of My Porch and The Readers.  Well, he can add a third string to his violin (which is, incidentally, the number of strings my violin has had for three years) with Lucy’s Forever Home.  It documents the transformation of his home (which was, frankly, already sublimely beautiful) – all the planning, reasons behind choices, diagrams, mood boards, and pictures of machinery that you could wish for.  I lived for property programmes during my teens, and still love them now when I’m in at the right time – and this is like watching one about people I know.

3.) The link – a neat segue. Terry’s Fabrics sent me a link to a fun infographic they’d made about homes in classic literature, from Jane Eyre to The Secret Garden.  Enjoy!

Short intro… enjoy!

1.) The blog post – don’t forget to be checking out Kim’s advent calendar of bloggers’ best books of 2013!  That link takes you to Kim’s blog Reading Matters so you can scroll through the choices; to see mine, which appeared on day one, click here.

2.) The book – another reprint publisher which got in touch recently was Turnpike Books, who sent A.E. Coppard’s short stories Weep Not My Wanton, which I’m excited to read as soon as I possibly can.

3.) The link – these are probably faked, at least some of them, but funny notes written by kids are always going to be funny, yes?

Gosh, it’s been a while since I did one of these, so I have quite a few things to catch you up on!  Here are just ten of them…

1.) Angela Young’s brilliant novel Speaking of Love is now available as an e-book for Kindle (etc.? I don’t know how these things work.)  You can see/buy it here, and it’s only £1.99, which is crazy cheap for such a good book.  Go give it a try!

2.) National flags created by the foods the countries are associated with!

3.) Daunt Books recently sent me a beautiful new edition of Virginia Woolf’s The London Scene.  I reviewed this collection of stories back in 2007, and highly recommend this really lovely edition – maybe as a Christmas present?

4.) Jura Whisky are running some flash fiction competitions #WinningWords – more info here.

5.)  If you haven’t see Blue Jasmine and get the chance, do.  It’s the best film I’ve seen this year, and Cate Blanchett is astonishingly good.

6.) Jennifer Walker has written a biography of bloggers’-favourite Elizabeth von Arnim (called Elizabeth of the German Garden: A Literary Journey) – I’ve not started it yet, but I’m excited about reading it.

7.) An interesting book bloggers’ survey (to which I contributed) has results here (four results posts linked from that link).  I was mostly surprised by what a high percentage of bloggers are paid to write reviews for publications or other sites.

8.) I loved Susan Sellers’ Vanessa and Virginia (review here) and thought that you might like to know that she has a new book out – Given The Choice – published by Cillian Press.

9.) I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t heard of Elie Wiesel, whom the good people of Souvenir Press assure me is one of the best-known European writers, but I shall find out more with The Testament (trans. Marion Wiesel) which they’ve sent me.

10.) Someone sent me Amazon.com’s 100 Best Books of 2013.  I have heard of 4 of them, and read none.  I do quite want to read three of those four – the Tartt, Rowling, and Humans of New York.

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend so far – I’m going to be seeing Felicity Kendal in Alan Ayckbourn’s Relatively Speaking tonight, which is pretty exciting (although I did start reading a book by him yesterday that gave away the plot, ooops…)  Entirely unrelated to that, this week’s book, blog post, and link come with a Shirley Jackson theme!

1.) The book – it was via Claire/Paperback Reader’s Facebook page that I discovered the obscure Shirley Jackson novels I’d hankered after were – gasp – soon to be reprinted by Penguin!  So, Hangsaman, The Sundial, and The Road Through The Wall will all come out over the next few months.  I’m starting to wish I hadn’t spent a pretty penny on The Sundial, especially since I still haven’t read it…

2.) The link – the New Yorker had a great interview with Shirley Jackson’s son last month…

3.) The blog post – hunting around for a recent Shirley Jackson post, I stumbled on a great review (and discussion in the comments section) of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, over at Estella’s Revenge.

Have you read any/much/all of Shirley Jackson?  Let me know your favourites, or you want to read next….