Weekend Miscellany

Is it summer? Is it autumn? Is it winter? The weather in the UK this week is very unsure on that point, and so am I. But the windows are still open, and the blankets are out, so I’m making the best of fresh air and cosiness. The perfect reading weather. And perhaps the perfect weather to enjoy a book, a blog post, and a link…

1.) The book – I’ve never read Celia Dale, but I’ve heard great things and I totally trust the combination of (a) Daunt Books and (b) novelist Jenn Ashworth, who has written the introduction. I’m going to copy across a big chunk of the description from the Daunt Books website, because doesn’t this sound wonderful?

Middle-aged Josh and Maisie Evans lead an unremarkable, unassuming life. When Auntie Flo, who has lived with them for years, dies and leaves them her Estate, they head to Italy on holiday, to take in the sea air and let the sun soak into their bones. It’s there they meet Mrs Fingal. A wealthy widow, she lives with her grown-up niece Lena and it’s pretty clear that neither is happy with the situation. So when Josh and Maisie bond with Mrs Fingal, over ice-cream and gentle toddles, it’s only natural that they all decide she should must move in with them once home. It suits everyone.

Beneath the suburban respectability of cups of tea and genteel chitchat, however, emerges a different tale: one of ruthless greed and exploitation, and suffocating, skin-crawling terror.

2.) The link – the forthcoming film of Paul Gallico’s Flowers For Mrs Harris (aka Mrs Harris Goes To Paris) has led to the Guardian doing a list of ten books about cleaners. I’ve read three (Ibbotson, Stockett, Gallico) and haven’t heard of the other seven. I’m also struggling to think of any to add to the list? Unless we encompass domestic servants, then obviously there are dozens.

3.) The blog post – I’m not sure I’ve ever used this slot to link to Captive Reader’s Library Loot, so let’s do that. And scroll back through a few others – she always has such an interesting selection. I seldom use the library (basically just for book group books) because I have so many books unread on my shelves, but I try to go and chance my luck on something new every few months. (The most recent was a Bryan Washington novel – I was very grateful that I hadn’t bought it, because I gave up after a few pages when I discovered there were no speech marks.)

Join me in wishing Our Vicar’s Wife a very happy birthday today – it’s a big one, though I won’t say which because I’m a GENTLEMAN. Since I last wrote here I’ve had a weekend trip to Brussels – very handily, my friend’s boyfriend is a tour guide, so we were shown around excellently. Yes, I gorged on chocs and waffles, and took a trip of mourning to the EU Parliament.

Hope you’re having a good weekend – here’s a book, a blog post, and a link to take you into it.

1.) The book – “Fifty Forgotten Books [by R.B. Russell] is a very special sort of book about books, by a great bibliophile and for book-lovers of all ages and levels of experience. Not quite literary criticism, not quite an autobiography, it is at once a guided tour through the dusty backrooms of long vanished used bookstores, a love letter to bookshops and bookselling, and a browser’s dream wish list of often overlooked and unloved novels, short story collections, poetry collections and works of nonfiction.” That’s the description from And Other Stories’ website. I preordered it as soon as I saw it included Miss Hargreaves…

2.) The link – is to my brother’s movie podcast, The C to Z of Movies – because I’m a guest in the most recent episode. Among other things, we discuss the portrayal of twins in movies. I’ve linked to the SoundCloud, but you can find it anywhere you download podcasts.

3.) The blog post – I enjoyed Rosemary’s round up of recent reading, even if I didn’t agree with all the results…

Yikes, it’s hot. Here in the UK, we are not built to deal with these muggy temperatures (and almost no homes have air-conditioning), so I am spending my time feeling enervated in front of a fan. And reading, of course. And looking suspiciously out of the window, wondering if I should go somewhere or if that would kill me.

ANYWAY, hope you’re having a good weekend, wherever you are! The usual book, blog post, and link…

1.) The link – want to move to the Bennet family house from the 1995 Pride and Prejudice? I should warn you that it has a pretty sort of wilderness. Anyway, it can be yours for offers in excess of £6,000,000. Makes you wonder why Lizzie said “Beggars can’t be choosers”, doesn’t it?

2.) The book – I’m watching the growing list at Manderley Press with a lot of interest. Indeed, I’m currently reading one of their first books – Appointment With Venus by Jerrard Tickell – in an edition I’ve had on my shelf for a few years. The one that has really caught my eye is The Fly on the Wheel by Katherine Cecil Thurston. Click that link to learn more about this 1908 Irish novel – but that stunning cover (by Fatti Burke) and the promise of a spirited heroine are enough to have me looking forward to its October publication.

3.) The blog post – I love a themed list, particularly if it’s about types of houses in books. And so Susan’s list of ‘Five Books I’ve Read Set in Apartment Buildings’ at A Life in Books was a delight – as were all the recommendations in the comments. Go and explore, and maybe add your own?

Somehow it’s apparently July? 2022 is rushing past as quickly as 2021 was SLOW. Reading continues apace, and I have sailed past my 100th book of the year – helped, as with last year, but the volume of audiobooks I’m getting through.

I shan’t be helping your reading piles, as here are some weekend miscellany suggestions that might increase the tbr…

1. ) The blog post – I’m going to cheat and give you two, as two particularly stand out this week. Jacqui’s list of boarding house novels is kryptonite to readers like me, and the comments section has lots of great suggestions too. And then Girl With Her Head in a Book wrote a really brilliantly insightful review of David Sedaris’s new collection, Happy-Go-Lucky. One of the best book reviews I’ve read in a while, so had to share.

2.) The link – a lot of readers love the artist Eric Ravilious, and even more so when his paintings appeared on Furrowed Middlebrow books. Enjoy this interesting new article about his life.

3.) The book – I was watching a book vlogger the other day and she mentioned Indelicacy by Amina Cain. She sold it as a spin on A Room of One’s Own, so naturally I was intrigued. Here’s the description, which does sound winning. Has anybody read the book? (And what a shame that design is ruined by the puff quote in the middle.)

In an undefined era and place, a cleaning woman at a museum of art aspires to do more than simply dust the paintings around her. She dreams of having the security and time to use her mind, and the liberty to be a writer.

She escapes her lot by marrying a rich man, but having gained a husband, a house, high society and a maid, she finds that her new life of privilege is no less constrained. Not only has she taken up different forms of time-consuming labour social and erotic but she is now, however passively, forcing other women to clean up after her. Perhaps a more drastic solution is necessary?

Reminiscent of a lost Victorian classic in miniature, Indelicacy is at once a ghost story without a ghost, a fable without a moral and an exploration of the barriers faced by women in both life and literature.

A very happy weekend to you! Hope you are spending it well, and not panicking about the fact that we are somehow almost halfway through the year even though I’m pretty sure it only just began? Quell the existential angst with the usual round up…

1.) The blog post – I love Jacqui’s list of books set in hotels, and the comment section is filled with brilliant additions. I’m already looking forward to her boarding house list.

2.) The book – Louise Finch’s The Eternal Return of Clara Hart would sound right up my street even if I hadn’t been to school with Louise. We haven’t seen each other since then, but Facebook is great for these updates – and when she mentioned that her young adult novel would be published in August, I looked it up. The synopsis sounds very up my street. I love the time loop concept, and this one is about a boy called James trying to prevent the death of Clara Hart at a party…

3.) The link –  10 books about things going horribly wrong on islands. Because why not? I’ve read numbers 6, 9, and 10 – you?

I have read a novella today, but I’ll write about it tomorrow alongside whatever I pick up for Day 13. I hope you have good plans for the weekend? I’ll be heading to my godson’s first birthday party and then, of course, watching Eurovision. I’ll be cheering on Estonia, because I got them in a sweepstake.

Speaking of all things musical, last week I was in London and saw &Juliet – if you get the chance, race to it. It’s the most fun I’ve had a show ever. It might have been custom made for me – it’s a wonderful combination of Shakespeare and 90s/00s pop. The premise is that Anne Hathaway persuades Shakespeare to let Juliet live at the end of Romeo & Juliet – and then what happens next. Set to the music of songwriter Max Martin, who penned hits for people like Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Pink etc. Basically a total nostalgia dream for an older millennial like me, and enough Shakespeare to feel vaguely intellectual. I’m already planning when I’ll go again…

Anyway, let’s do the usual think for the weekend miscellany.

1.) The link – Emily got in touch to ask if I’d like to join one of her Emily’s Walking Book Club, which meets on Hampstead Heath. If I’m ever in London at the right time then I’d love to go – but if you’re London-based, do check it out. Particularly the next one, discussing Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov on 22 May, which is a fundraiser for Ukraine. More details.

2.) The blog post – it’s not too late to join in with Ali’s Daphne du Maurier Reading Week, or catch up on the participants’ reviews!

3.) The book – a new Ned Beauman is always of interest. This one, with the fairly horrible title Venomous Lumpsucker, is ‘a hilarious, terrifying novel in which Ned Beauman captures brilliantly the contradictory blend of urgency, paralysis, panic and resignation the climate emergency and its attendant mass extinctions inspire’, according to Chris Power, and it’s out in July.

Happy weekend – and, if you’re in the UK, happy long, bank holiday weekend. Hope you have a lovely one. I’ll be going to a bookshop on Saturday, so Project 24 might bulk out a bit. Watch this space. Here’s your usual round up – and keep an eye out tomorrow for a new reading project I’ll be doing with another blogger throughout May.

1.) The link – is about running an independent bookshop – I’d also love to read this article about being a celebrity book stylist, but I don’t have a New York Times subscription. Have it, if you do!

2.) The book – I still haven’t read the Nancy Spain reprint I bought a while ago, but that doesn’t stop me being pleased that there’s another – R in the Month – on the horizon.

3.) The podcasts – cheating this time, and including podcasts instead of blog posts. Because I’ve appeared as a guest on two brilliant podcasts recently! I was so delighted to be asked to speak about my beloved O, The Brave Music by Dorothy Evelyn Smith with Amy and Kim on the Lost Ladies of Lit podcast. And then I got to chat with Trevor and Paul on the Mookse and the Gripes podcast, talking about novels about books. What could be more up all of our streets? Check them out via those links, or wherever you listen to podcasts. (And, if you don’t know those podcasts already, subscribe to both pronto.)

Is it spring? Maybe? Almost? My apple tree is showing some lovely blossom, my wisteria is refusing to do anything, and my hay fever has kicked up a notch. So I would conclude – on balance, yes, but let’s not put away the jumpers yet.

Hope you have good weekend plans. Here’s a book, a link, and a blog post to cheer you along the way…

1.) The link – is really a book too (cheat!) – I wanted to alert you to the fact that A Pin To See The Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse is the British Library’s Book of the Month. That means the print edition is only £5 from the shop. As I wrote on Twitter, there’s a strong argument that this is the best and most important of the British Library Women Writers series – and now you can get it for a steal.

2.) The blog post – Is it cheating to send you to a blog post of links? I’m just always amazed at how Jenny at Reading the End finds so many links to share – check out her latest round-up.

3.) The book – You might have already heard about Latchkey Ladies by Marjorie Grant, but this description will sell it to you if you haven’t: “The latchkey ladies are the women who live alone or in shared rooms in London at the end of the First World War, determined to use their new freedoms, and treading a fine line between independence and disaster. A powerful and moving novel from 1921, about the lives and choices of single women, by Marjorie Grant, a Canadian novelist and reviewer, and a close friend of Rose Macaulay.”

Happy weekend – and, if you’re in the UK, happy sunshine! Well, there may well be sunshine elsewhere too, but it has been a long time coming here. I never realise what a difference it makes until the grey skies disappear for a bit, and blossom starts showing itself. Yes, hay fever too, but one can’t have everything.

I’m spending this Saturday at my college reunion – I was still an undergraduate (just) when I started this blog in 2007, and it’s odd and pleasing to think that it’s still going despite all the other changes in my life. Though rather fewer changes than many of my fellow Gaudy-goers will have experienced. Me? I live half an hour down the road.

Hope you have lots of lovely plans this weekend – or, equally lovely, no plans. Here is a book, a blog post, and a link to take you into your weekend.

1.) The book – I saw Hourglass: Memory, Time, Marriage by Dani Shapiro mentioned on Christina’s Instagram, and immediately added it to my wishlist. Some blurb: “The best-selling novelist and memoirist delivers her most intimate and powerful work: a piercing, life-affirming memoir about marriage and memory, about the frailty and elasticity of our most essential bonds, and about the accretion, over time, of both sorrow and love.”

2.) The blog link – Scott at Furrowed Middlebrow has the rare joy of adding a previously-unpublished novel to the roster of the wonderful Furrowed Middlebrow series from Dean Street Press! I won’t steal his thunder, but will send you to his blog post to find out what it is. (I’m hoping if I butter him up, he will read and review some of the British Library Women Writers titles, because I am LONGING to know what he thinks of them. Especially Sally on the Rocks.)

3.) The link – Bored Panda does a ‘weird buildings’ list every couple of weeks, and it’s always the same, but it is also always great. If you haven’t explored one yet, here you go. Enjoy a cat-shaped kindergarten, for starters.

Friends, I have Covid. At the time of writing (Friday evening) it isn’t too bad – coldy symptoms and exhausted – so hopefully it’ll stay that way. Hopefully the days of isolation will help me get through some books, though early signs suggest it might be better at tackling the Netflix queue.

Anyway, whether you’re at home or out and about, here is the usual Miscellany to help kick off your weekend….

1.) The link – I am heartbroken that Neighbours is facing the axe. For those not in the know, it’s an Australian soap opera – and, except my family, has been the longest constant in my life. I’ve been watching for 24 years, and love mocking how silly it is, but love it all the same. If you fancy signing a petition to keep it alive, then what’s the worst that can happen?

2.) The book – everyone is talking about the newly rediscovered They by Kay Dick, reprinted by different publishers in the UK and US in recent weeks. I only know Kay Dick for her interviews with Ivy Compton-Burnett and Stevie Smith in Ivy and Stevie, but if They is even a tenth as good as people are saying, then I’m sure it’s worth seeking out.

3.) The blog post – I was so delighted to see Asha’s review of Which Way? by Theodora Benson at her excellently titled blog, A Cat, A Book, and A Cup of Tea. And those are exactly the three things that are going to occupy the next part of my evening.