Cornflower Books

Novel of the week

   

    I've read three novels over the last week, all good, all to be recommended, all much enjoyed. Despite their finer points, however, one is overwrought, another is over-long, and both those two address the issues at their hearts uncomfortably earnestly and with an ill-fitting 21st. century sensibility, reflecting on their period characters a contemporary outlook rather than views in keeping with their time.

    The third book falls into none of these traps. Juliet West's Before the Fall is a highly accomplished debut with that integrity - sense of wholeness - which is so often lacking in novels of all genres and at all points on the literary scale. Based - tragically - on actual events, it is in essence a love story set in London's East End during the First World War, but it stands out for the quality of its writing, and for the way in which it depicts the moral spectrum of its period rather than ours. While my hand was twitching for the virtual editorial pencil where the other books were concerned, of this one I wouldn't change a word.

Fact and the unexplained

    From last month's Historical Novel Society London conference, here is the very interesting discussion Fact and the Unexplained: Myths, Fairy Tales, and the Gothic, chaired by Kate Forsyth with Prof. Diana Wallace, Essie Fox, Jessie Burton and Deborah Harkness*. (I loved Kate Forsyth's description of historical fiction as "history set to music".)

*I recently re-read A Discovery of Witches, the first volume in Deborah Harkness' All Souls trilogy, and enjoyed it just as much as the first time - it's a lot of fun. If you want to know more, watch this edition of Book Lust with Nancy Pearl.

Recommendations

   

    Back in May, on the recommendation of Lory, I added Hild by Nicola Griffith to my lengthy wish list. Browsing the latest edition of The Good Book Guide today I see the novel - which is based on the early life of St. Hilda of Whitby - is the 'Editor's Choice' in the historical fiction section, praised for its exhaustive research, page-turning qualities, characterisation, and the fineness of its 'cloth'. I've moved it up my list.

    From my own recent reading I'd like to offer you three recommendations (and these books will all be appearing in next month's Guide):

    Mr Mac and Me by Esther Freud, which I loved for its delicacy, its subtlety, its beautiful, restrained writing, and for the poignancy of its story, that of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in the Suffolk village of Walberswick at the beginning of the First World War; "a fine novel of art and nature, and of life's ebbs and flows."

    The Taxidermist's Daughter by Kate Mosse is the first novel of hers I've read, and on the strength of it it won't be the last. She describes herself as a storyteller, I believe, and this book clearly demonstrates that skill. A gripping gothic thriller again set on the south coast but this time in the very stormy spring of 1912, I was impressed by the way the central conceit is developed, and I admire the lengths the author went to for her research (the clue is in the title!) for this "compelling story of justice, and of a punishment to fit a crime".

    First Impressions by Charlie Lovett is indeed, as its subtitle has it, a novel of old books, young love and Jane Austen, and if you've read Charlie's The Bookman's Tale, its style will be familiar. It's a literary romp set in Oxford and London in the present day and in Hampshire in the late 1700s, and it features the genesis of one of the greatest novels in the English language and a dastardly plot to discredit the blessed Jane. It's fast-paced and fun, and if at times it recalls the old silent movie 'pretty girl tied to the railway tracks by the evil villain' trope, it's none the worse for that!

Quick links

    This is such an interesting post by Sophie Hannah on the challenges and, especially, the joys of writing The Monogram Murders, her Hercule Poirot novel which was published this week.

    Still on the subject of writing historical fiction, here are a few pointers from Philippa Gregory (including a guaranteed way of overcoming writer's block!).

    From the past to the future, and a highly novel library concept which will take shape over the next 100 years.

The James Tait Black Prizes

    The James Tait Black Prizes are Britain's oldest literary awards, having been in existence since 1919; they are administered by The University of Edinburgh, and in recent years the winners have been announced at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. The books which have scooped the prizes this year are, from the biography category, Penelope Fitzgerald: A Life by Hermione Lee, and from fiction, Harvest by Jim Crace.

    I haven't read the latter, which has certainly not been short of plaudits, but Dame Hermione's masterly biography was my non-fiction book of the year last year (I summed it up elsewhere as "a consummate piece of work, and a thoroughly absorbing account of a most unusual, highly gifted woman"); I commend it to you.

What are you reading?

    I have two novels on the go just now, Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, the first volume of her Merlin trilogy, and the recently published The Hundred-Year House by Rebecca Makkai.

    I'm deep in fifth century Britain with Merlin, and although it took me a wee while to get into the book, Mary Stewart is a storyteller of such skill and flair, and she has done her research so thoroughly, that I'm now caught up in this dark world of warring factions and conflicting beliefs, as seen through the eyes of the young prince with the gift of second sight; it's developing beautifully.

    In contrast, I'm also in Illinois in the twentieth century at Laurelfield, home of the wealthy Devohr family. The book is in four parts, moving back in time from 1999 to 1900, and at its centre is Violet Devohr who is introduced in the opening paragraph:

    "For a ghost story, the tale of Violet Saville Devohr was vague and underwhelming. She had lived, she was unhappy, and she died by her own hand somewhere in that vast house. If the house hadn't been a mansion, if the death hadn't been a suicide, if Violet Devohr's dark, refined beauty hadn't smouldered down from that massive oil portrait, it wouldn't have been a ghost story at all. Beauty and wealth, it seems, get you as far in the afterlife as they do here on earth. We can't all afford to be ghosts."

    Violet's great-granddaughter is married to an academic whose research concerns a poet who lived at Laurelfield when it was an artists' colony. Doug needs access to the colony records which are mouldering away in the attics, but his mother-in-law Gracie "guards the files with a strange ferocity, raising questions about what she might be hiding".

    So far this "literary scavenger hunt" is excellent, and I can't wait to read on, but if you're casting around for something new and you have a Kindle, may I point you in the direction of Niall Williams' wonderful, wonderful History of the Rain which is currently available for £3.08. I know I've gone on about it, but it's my 'best read' so far this year - there's a snippet of it here, and no, the irony of that passage quoted in conjunction with an e-book bargain is not lost on me!

    What will you be reading this weekend?

The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction

   

    The winner of The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, announced this evening at The Borders Book Festival, is Robert Harris for An Officer and a Spy, his retelling of the Dreyfus Affair, which has beaten very strong competition.

    I haven't read the book, but Barbara has and says she doesn't know when she's enjoyed a historical novel more!

Book of the day - Bodies of Light

 

     Fans of Sarah Moss's writing - and I am most certainly one - will be very glad to know that she has a new novel out:

    "Bodies of Light tells of the coming together and falling apart of a family of idealists in Victorian Manchester. Ally's father paints beautiful women while her evangelical mother visits the slums and campaigns against child prostitution, teaching Ally and her sister May [Moberley] to live for others. While May likes to pose for the artists in her father's circle, Ally devotes herself to her mother's ambitions, working hard to join the first generation of female doctors. But bitterness and tragedy divide the family, and Ally leaves home to escape the subtle terrors of her childhood and begin a new life in London.

    Bodies of Light is a profound and provocative book about family and a radically modern novel with a 19th. century setting. It is a gripping story told with rare precision and tenderness."

    Readers of Sarah's last novel, the splendid Night Waking, will recall the character of May Moberley from that book; Sarah's fourth novel, which is in progress, continues the story.

    Cover illustration is by Timorous Beasties.

Soon to be read

   

    I spent about two hours this afternoon writing a longish post on the books I'll be reading over the next couple of weeks, only to press 'save' and find that Typepad was down again, and my carefully crafted piece had vanished.

    So, to begin again, but more briefly this time, here's my 'soon to be read' pile:

     Going Back by journalist and broadcaster Rachael English is a debut novel which sees Elizabeth Kelly leave Ireland to return to Boston where she spent the summer of 1988. "Can she reconcile the dreams of her twenty-year-old self with the woman she has become?"

    Writing the Garden by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers is subtitled 'A literary conversation across two centuries', and is a collection of writings on the art of gardening by the likes of Vita Sackville-West, Elizabeth von Arnim, Edith Wharton, Beverley Nichols, Penelope Hobhouse and Margery Fish. Perfect for this time of year.

    The Collected Works of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin I have already introduced. I'm reading it now, and so far it's rather sweet and fun.

    The Steady Running of the Hour by Justin Go is another debut, this one a time-slip tale of an unclaimed inheritance, "part historical tour de force, part heart-rending love story," a breathless race from London archives to the battlefield of the Somme and the fjords of Iceland to piece together the events of a long-ago love affair and uncover vital proof of lineage. The author talks about it here.

    The White Russian by Vanora Bennett is "a sweeping, heartbreaking novel of illicit passion and family secrets set amongst the Russian émigré community in Paris in 1937". Evie comes from New York in search of art and adventure, but her grandmother's sudden death leads her on a quest to discover a mysterious man from her family's past. "With the world on the brink of war, she becomes embroiled in murder plots, conspiracies and more as White faces Red Russian and nothing is as it seems."

    Last but by no means least, The Stories, a collection of Jane Gardam's short fiction. Some of these I've read before, some are new to me, all come from the pen of a literary star whose work I love and admire. As the blurb says, "Jane Gardam shakes out life and finds diamonds in its folds." I can't wait.

    

    With the ongoing Typepad problems I hardly dare ask you to tell us what you're reading this weekend, but if you find you can leave a comment - and especially if you have something good on the go - please do let us know.

Reckless

   

    William Nicholson puts such thought into his novels. He's not 'just' a skilled storyteller with a screenwriter's ear for dialogue, his books are layered with themes, people and episodes which link one to another, although each stands on its own, and those common elements have so much heart behind them - emotional honesty, compassion - that the reader surely can't fail to respond to that openness in the writer himself.

    His latest, Reckless (which as I write is a Kindle bargain) moves from the 1940s to the early '60s, the Cuban missile crisis and the Cold War. Rupert Blundell is strategic adviser to Lord Mountbatten, Chief of Defence Staff, and as his confidant and wise counsel he has a part to play in the high stakes game of diplomatic and military manoeuvrings, but it's his personal life which preoccupies Rupert, and a relationship which develops from unlikely beginnings.

    Elsewhere in London, Rupert's young family friend Pamela Avenell is in search of 'life', and falling in with Stephen Ward's coterie, this beautiful but naive girl ultimately finds herself questioning her ambitions.

    International politics, real people and events provide the setting for a most touching love story, but it is in his fictional characters' personal predicaments and development that William Nicholson excels, and where his romantic idealism proves irresistible.

Books in brief: Hue & Cry

   

     Just to follow on from last Saturday's post, I loved Hue & Cry, the first of Shirley McKay's Hew Cullan mysteries set in 16th. century St. Andrews. It's the perfect mixture of Town and Gown - St. Andrews is the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in the English-speaking word - so as we walk among the colleges which sit by the ruined cathedral, above the harbour, and with their feet in the stoor o' the burgh, as it were, so we learn about life for the students and their tutors, and the merchants and tradesmen they live among.

    There's a compelling mix of domestic and social detail, legal matters and all things medicinal, not to mention the mores and philosophical thinking of the time, and within this context is the ingeniously plotted murder mystery in which our sympathetic young lawyer hero Hew plays detective and advocate. The author's extensive knowledge of the period and gift for language colour the book beautifully, and in the central character we're given a man of intellect and compassion whose personal story alone should be worth following. I'm greatly looking forward to reading the other books in the series.

Where's your reading taking you?

      This coming week sees the publication of Friend & Foe, the fourth book in Shirley McKay's series of mysteries featuring young lawyer Hew Cullan, set in St. Andrews during the reign of James VI. The arrival of that book reminded me that despite having had them on the shelves for ages I've still to read the earlier ones, so at long last I've made a start.

 

Click to enlarge

     Hue & Cry is the first one, and it begins in St. Andrews - a place I'm very happy to visit either in real life or on the page - in 1579. Hew has returned to Scotland from studying in Paris, to find that his friend, university regent Nicholas Colp, is accused of murdering a boy who was a private pupil of his. Hew investigates what appears to be an open and shut case, and in so doing he uncovers "a dark tale of duplicity and passion amidst a world of religious piety and the chilling austerity of university life."

    The book has been described as "not only a gripping mystery that holds the reader to the very last page, but also a marvellous portrait of St. Andrews in the sixteenth century," so I'm greatly looking forward to getting deeper into it, and to seeing the present day town through fresh eyes when next I'm there.

    Where's your reading taking you this weekend? The past, the present, the future? Close to home or far away?

                                            ~~~~~

    On an unrelated note, I was in a charity bookshop today and I happened to find a copy of Told by Eileen, a children's novel written by my great-grandmother's cousin Alice Massie. I didn't buy it as I already have one, but that's the first of Alice's books I've come across 'in the wild', and I was very pleased to find it. I'll continue to look out for her work.

Book of the day - An Appetite for Violets

    "In the dark heart of 18th. century England: a mistress, a maid, a mystery ..."

    Martine Bailey's An Appetite for Violets will be published later this month and it sounds like one to look out for:

    "Irrepressible Biddy Leigh, under-cook at the foreboding Mawton Hall, wants only to marry her childhood sweetheart and set up her own tavern. But when her elderly master marries the young Lady Carinna, Biddy is unwittingly swept up in a world of scheming, secrets and lies.

    Forced to accompany her new mistress to Italy, Biddy takes with her an old household book of recipes, The Cook's Jewel, in which she records her observations. When she finds herself embroiled in a murderous conspiracy, Biddy realises that the secrets she holds could be the key to her survival - or her downfall ..."

    The novel is billed as "an utterly compelling story of food, obsession and mystery, introducing a brilliant new voice in historical fiction, " and Maria McCann, author of As Meat Loves Salt and The Wilding (on which there's a post here) says of it, "I adored this novel: a delicious addictive mix of confectionery, skulduggery and crime, sprinkled with dark secrets and sauced with piquant comedy."

The Walter Scott Prize 2014: the shortlist

    Historical fiction (see yesterday's post) is in the news again today with the announcement of the shortlist for the Walter Scott Prize, the judges describing their deliberations as "the toughest choice, from the strongest longlist, in the Prize’s five year history":

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
Harvest by Jim Crace
Fair Helen by Andrew Greig
An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris
The Promise by Ann Weisgarber

    I am particularly pleased to see Ann Weisgarber's book there for - as I said here - there is so much to enjoy and admire in it. I made reference yesterday to the craft of writing historical fiction, and Ann's novel is a textbook example, economical, exact, beautifully judged in terms of the telling of the story and the recreation of the real events which form its setting. If you haven't already read it, I'd urge you to seek it out.

This and that

   

    I've said before that I always pay close attention to what Ann Patchett recommends in her Parnassus Books posts because she makes a compelling case for them. Today's is no different, except that the book in question is Joan Wickersham's The Suicide Index, a work which - on the face of it - could be a hard one to 'sell', but as I've read it and admired it I was especially interested to see what Ann had to say about it. Do read Ann's post and note her suggested leap of faith vis-à-vis recommendations.

   

    On the subject of recommendations, I'm pleased to see Kate Clanchy's novel Meeting the English up for another award: it has been longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. I was very taken with the book when I read it last year - as you'll see here - so good luck to Kate.

 

   

    Another book for which I have a high regard is Eleanor Catton's Man Booker Prize-winning The Luminaries, which is out in paperback today. "Highly original, meticulously constructed, thematically convincing, this is a richly evocative mystery," I said in my review, and here's my summary of what Eleanor had to say about the book when she came to Edinburgh last summer.

 

    If you fancy having a crack at writing historical fiction yourself, there is a masterclass on the subject taking place in London next month. Sarah Dunant and Celia Brayfield "will share their knowledge and experience of creating or recreating historical characters, of evoking period settings, of finding inspiration in archives, constructing a compelling narrative without sacrificing accuracy and finding voices for characters that are true to their time and place"; but if you can't attend the event, there is a book on the subject.

Books for the incurably curious

    The shortlist for the 2014 Wellcome Book Prize has been announced and it includes Elizabeth Gilbert's cracking novel The Signature of All Things (which I wrote about here). The prize "aims to stimulate interest and debate about medical science through books and reading", and that book certainly takes things botanical to a new level - it is wonderfully engaging and entertaining.

    The other shortlisted books are Wounded: From Battlefield to Blighty, 1914-1918 by Emily Mayhew, “ a homage to the courage and determination of the men and women who cared for – and saved the lives of – the hundreds of thousands of British soldiers who were wounded at the Western Front”; Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England Inconvenient People by Sarah Wise, which “brilliantly exposes the phenomenon of false allegations of lunacy (and the dark motives behind them) in the Victorian period”; Creation: The Origin of Life / The Future of Life by Adam Rutherford, "an account of the synthetic biology revolution"; Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks, "an investigation into the phenomenon"; and Far From The Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity: A Dozen Kinds of Loveby Andrew Solomon, "a book about how parents relate to children".

    The winner will be announced on 29th. April.

Cornflower Blues 2013 - the best of the best

  

    We've had the books of the year parts one and two, and now to conclude, here are the best of the best in fiction and non-fiction.

    Hermione Lee proves the art of literary biography is alive and well in her superb life of Penelope Fitzgerald, and Kate Atkinson has given us a tour de force in her complex, highly original novel Life After Life.

    Thank you, ladies, for such rich reading.

Bargain of the day

    One of today's Kindle Daily Deals is John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk. It was my top novel of 2012, and this post explains what makes it so special.

    Among the current monthly deals for Kindle are The Outlander by Gil Adamson (another superb book - post here), and Neil Gaiman's wonderful, multiple prize-winning The Graveyard Book (post here).

Future reading

   

     The next book in my reading queue is Hermione Lee's biography of Penelope Fitzgerald and I'm looking forward to starting it over the weekend, but Dame Hermione is in the bookish news today with word that her next biographical subject is to be Sir Tom Stoppard. There's no publication date in prospect yet, but I'm sure that that book, when eventually it comes, will make fascinating reading.

                                                    ~~~~~

    

    Blackwell's the booksellers have set up Giving Trees in their shops and online so that underprivileged children can receive a book this Christmas.

    For a small sum, you can either choose a book in the store for a child whose request is on the special tags hanging on the Giving Trees, or place your 'order' through the website so that a suitable book is gift-wrapped and delivered to a child in time for Christmas.

    I've bought a book by this means, and I hope that for the young person who receives it it will go some way to opening the door into the magical world of reading; there could hardly be a better gift.

                                                    ~~~~~

    In the post this morning - all beautifully wrapped and girded with an actual crimson ribbon - was The Crimson Ribbon by Katherine Clements who has been described as "the vibrant new voice of historical fiction". It won't be out until March, but it sounds like another to look forward to, "an extraordinary and mesmerising story of two women's obsession, superstition and hope".

    It begins on May Day 1646: "The Civil War is raging and what should be a rare moment of blessing for the town of Ely takes a brutal turn. Ruth Flowers is left with little choice but to flee the household of Oliver Cromwell, the only home she has ever known. On the road to London, Ruth sparks an uneasy alliance with a soldier, the battle-scarred and troubled Joseph. But when she reaches the city, it's in the Poole household that she finds refuge.

    Lizzie Poole, beautiful and charismatic, enthrals the vulnerable Ruth who binds herself inextricably to Lizzie's world. But in these troubled times, Ruth is haunted by fears of her past catching up with her. And as Lizzie's radical ideas escalate, Ruth finds herself carried to the heart of the country's conflict, to the trial of a king."

    Elizabeth Poole was a real person who appeared before the Army Council in the days before the trial and execution of Charles I and spoke of visions she had received from God. Her testimony didn't influence the outcome of the trial but her words were heeded, and why this was so is at the basis of the novel as Katherine Clements has sought to explain it using research, conjecture and imagination. Katherine came across the character in Antonia Fraser's biography of Oliver Cromwell and was intrigued by this woman who was given an audience with some of the most important men of the day. Research revealed "a dark, seductive world of illegal printing presses, extreme spiritual obsession and a mysterious scandal," and so for Katherine, Elizabeth's story "proved impossible to resist".

The Signature of All Things

 

    I'm not going to say very much about the plot of Elizabeth Gilbert's wonderfully engaging historical novel The Signature of All Things because to do so would be to spoil its leisured unfolding, but I will say that in Alma Whittaker it has one of the most unlikely and unusual heroines of this or any other genre!

    Alma is born in Philadelphia in 1800, the daughter of a renowned botanical explorer who has become a very wealthy man. Growing up on the family's White Acre estate, her privileged existence is also one of scholarship, for Alma is a cerebral girl for whom the life of the mind - in part compensating for a lack of emotional sustenance - is everything. She becomes a scientist, a natural philosopher, happy peering into a microscope or devouring the new thought contained in the books of her father's unique library, and when her interest in botany develops into a study of the little known field of mosses, a whole new world opens up to her.

    I'll say no more than that about Alma's life story except that it takes the reader far and wide, through almost a century and across the globe, into the questions of evolutionary theory and life itself, and down deep into what lies beneath our feet; and its portrayal of an intellect and an obsession, of human strengths and frailties, is infused with such joie de vivre that you will turn the final page with a satisfied smile. Full of warmth and wit, researched with such breadth and depth of understanding and attention to detail, this is quite a book!

    Here's Elizabeth herself to tell you more: