Weekend Miscellany

It’s sunny! I don’t have a cold! All the ingredients for a nice weekend are there. I hope your weekend is looking similarly nice, and that you have a nice pile of books ready to go. I’m finishing off a doorstopper for book group (note: set up a page limit for book club). Here’s your usual weekend miscellany trio:

1.) The book – The Remarkable Life of the Skin by Monty Lyman has just come out – it looks like a really interesting and accessible look at all the scientific and sociological implications of our skin. And, sidenote, Monty is a friend of mine. I’m gearing myself up to read it and hope that it isn’t too much for my squeamish soul.

2.) The link – is a month old now, but it’s a fun and encouraging look at the booksellers who are refusing to be beaten by Amazon.

3.) The blog post – is a follow up to a previous one – a round up of Sylvia Townsend Warner Reading Week. Lots of great links to reviews to hunt out!

Apologies for a very quiet week on the blog – consider it the reaction to 25 Books in 25 Days! It’s also because I’ve come down with a horrible cold. Which I also did last time I read 25 Books in 25 Days… coincidence?! So, despite the sunny weather forecast this weekend, I’ll probably be spending my time inside feeling sorry for myself. Though, tbh, that’s what I’d be doing during hot weather even if I didn’t have a cold. Hope you’re having a good one, though!

1.) The blog post – is really a reminder, that Sylvia Townsend Warner Reading Week is kicking off in a couple of days! At the time of writing, I haven’t quite picked what I’ll be reading. But I think it’s going to be one of her collections of short stories. More info here – let me and Helen know if you’ll be joining in!

2.) The book – my friend Claire is a fantastic writer, and I really liked her novel The Runaway. Her next novel, A Map of the Sky, isn’t out yet – but I’m excited for when it will be. There’s more info on her website.

3.) The link – I’m excited about the film Vita and Virginia coming out, and I’m even more excited after reading this interview with its two stars. And it turns out the director studied English at Oxford at the same time as me.

Happy weekend! Apparently it’s going to be very warm here in the UK, though hopefully not too warm to be sitting on a train to London, which I’ll be doing at some point. I’ll feed back on that in due course. For now, a book, a blog post, a link!

1.) The blog post – is Sheree’s very interesting discussion about what makes a book a classic. This is the perennial question, of course, but I really like how she goes about exploring it.

2.) The link – is another interesting discussion, this time from the Hay festival. Deborah Moggach was in conversation with Tracey Chevalier about having their novels adapted into films and Moggach has some very intriguing things to say.

3.) The book – there keep being new “Oliver Sack’s last ever book”, which can feel a little callous – but I know that I’ll need to get my hands on Everything In Its Place, which is a collection of essays that have appeared in various places online and in periodicals. Let’s face it, I can never get enough Sacks.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone – back late today with whatever I’m reading for 25 Books in 25 Days!

I hope you have good weekend plans – I’m seeing various friends, including a picnic, so fingers crossed for nice weather. I’ll also be making a baked cheesecake, so it’s ALL GO chez Simon. Anyway, whatever you have planed, here’s a book, a blog post, and a link to take you into it.

1.) The book – you KNOW I’m always happy to read books about reading, and Tim Parks’ Pen in Hand is right up my street. In fact, I’ve already read a few of the essays, and they’re really interesting – a little more academic than other titles in this sphere, but certainly not in a way to alienate the ‘common reader’, to sue Johnson’s/Woolf’s phrase.

2.) The link – I often enjoy the Guardian‘s ‘Experience’ column, and this one about managing the world’s last Blockbuster store is good fun.

3.) The blog post – is more of an entire blog, I think: ‘Reading Africa‘ is a project where Muthoni is trying to read at least one book from every country in Africa. There are loads of great suggestions in there, and it’s a very interesting challenge.

I hope you’re having a wonderful Easter weekend. It’s beautiful weather here as I write this, on Good Friday, and I’ve spent a happy hour or so reading The Hours while pulling out weeds. More exciting plans to follow during the rest of the weekend! For now, the usual miscellany.

1.) The link – is a wonderful article about Persephone Books in the New York Times magazine, including some really beautiful photographs of the shop. It probably won’t tell you anything you don’t already know, if you’re a Persephone devotee, but it’s lovely to read nonetheless. And, as a bonus, here’s a video for a pilot of ‘Fran’s Book Shop’, featuring bookish interviews in the Persephone shop.

2.) The blog post – another reading week opportunity! In the first week of July, Helen from A Gallimaufry will be running a Sylvia Townsend Warner reading week. I’ll certainly be joining in, probably with some more of STW’s exceptional short stories.

3.) The book – The Science of Storytelling by Will Storr. It’s another of those books I’ve seen mentioned on Twitter and can’t remember who by – but lots of people are saying that it’s already one of the best books about how to write. “If you want to write a novel, read this book,” say the Sunday Times, and reader, I do want to write a novel.

Is it spring? Is it not? I guess maybe? The weather as been very up and down recently, and it’s pouring with rain as I write. Hail, the other day! Oh well, books will never let us down, even if we have to heap ourselves with blankets and cats while reading. You know what else won’t let you down? The weekend miscellany. Here’s the usual trio of things to enjoy!

1.) The blog post – is Ali’s announcement of the upcoming Daphne du Maurier Reading Week, 13-19 May. Judging by the number of comments on that post, it should be very popular. I have lots of unread Daphnes on my shelf and, because of #ProjectNames, might go for Julius. Though I am a bit chary of reading it because of its reported anti-Semitism…

2.) The link – is a great article at Vulture about trying to live like Virginia Woolf, which also discusses Katharine Smyth’s brilliant All The Lives We Ever Lived (currently high in the running for my book of the year).

3.) The book – is Limbo by Dan Fox. I don’t know much about it, but I do know that I covet all of Fitzcarraldo’s non-fiction. I’ve only read one (Kate Briggs’ This Little Art, which was one of the best books I read last year) but I know I want to read more – and this one starts with a description of the Headington shark. If you don’t know what the Headington shark is, have a google – I used to live a few streets from it.

Happy Saturday, y’all. It’s another busy weekend for me – I’ll be in London today, seeing Betrayal, and potentially joining in the People’s Vote march if we can manage the timings. I’ll also be reading a great book on the train; more of that anon (or right now if you follow my Instagram). Hope you’re having a good one, and here’s a book, blog post, and link:

1.) The book – came up in the recent episode of ‘Tea or Books?’, where Rachel gave me a tour of her shelves. When I spotted Happily Ever After by Susannah Fullerton, I was rather baffled that I hadn’t heard of it before – or, more likely, heard about it and forgot. It’s a celebration of Pride and Prejudice, looking at the characters and story – but also the history of the novel’s popularity and various metamorphoses. Irresistible, no?

2.) The blog post – speaking of that episode, if you enjoyed hearing Rachel take me through her bookshelves then dive back into the Book Snob archive and see her flat for yourself. It really is lovely. If Rachel ever gives in the teaching, she could be an interior designer – bold and clever choices are all over the place, and she is rightly proud of it.

3.) The link – is a New Yorker article about a stack of books that the author’s father piled up over the decades – but it is, of course, about much more than that.

You know how I’m not buying books this year, except for special trips? Well – this Saturday I’m off on one of those trips, back to Astley Book Farm. It’s not been super long since I was last there, and I don’t know how quickly they replenish their stock, so who knows what I’ll come back with. But I suspect something. And I also think this might be the second and final bookshop trip of the year! I’d planned them both last year, which is why they were the caveats.

While I’m there, I hope you’re enjoying your weekends – and here’s a book, a blog post, and link to help you do just that:

1.) The link – is an ingenious idea for an article from the Guardian. They contacted five people who won ‘lifetime supplies’ of different things, from toilet roll to chicken, and learned how this affected their lives (and what ‘lifetime supply’ means in practice). Guys, one of them is books!

2.) The book – I keep going back to WhichBook (after testing out lots of book recommendation websites) and writing down book titles and not buying them – but I was particularly intrigued by Madame Verona Comes Down the Hill by Dimitri Verhulst. I can’t remember what I put in the sliders, but it did seem very up my street. Find out more! (Has anybody read it?)

3.) The blog post – Moira makes The Strange Case of Harriet Hall by Moray Dalton sound pretty appealing, but the main reason to visit Clothes in Books this week is those lovely pictures of 1930s clothes. Heaven!

That early summer sunshine we got last week seems to have hidden again, so I hope you have a nice March weekend planned. I’ll be visiting friends in various locations, and probably not getting much reading done. But I can leave you with a book, a blog post, and a link… (and don’t forget that the #1965Club is only a few weeks away!)

1.) The blog post – is Karen’s/Kaggsy’s excellent review of Olivia Laing’s wonderful book To The River. Go over and find out more…

2.) The link – I won’t often link to rap battles, but this one is an exception.

3.) The book – now that I’ve read Paul Collins’ excellent book about Shakespeare, I’m going to have to read Sixpence House, about the time he and his family lived in Hay-on-Wye. Since I’m not buying books this year, that could be tricky…

I’m kicking off the weekend with brunch AND lunch. Don’t believe anybody who says that brunch should replace lunch. And then hopefully a bit of reading, and probably quite a lot of sleeping. I hope you’ve got a good weekend lined up – and here’s the usual book, blog post, and link to help you get it started.

1.) The book – I don’t think I’ve mentioned yet that a new Helen Oyeyemi novel is coming out soon. Have I read all the ones I already have? No. Do I still really want this? Of course. Find out more about Gingerbread. (And isn’t it a lovely cover?)

2.) The link – want to know how many cows you could have bought with a certain number of pounds in 1600? More seriously, this currency converter from the National Archives will help out anybody reading historical fiction – if you’re trying to work out the wealth of various folk in the book you’re reading.

3.) The blog post – do check out JacquiWine’s excellent review of the extraordinary memoir More Was Lost by Eleanor Perenyi. Warning – you’ll want to buy the book.