Cornflower Books

Looks interesting

       "Legendary Authors and the Clothes They Wore examines fifty revered writers—among them Samuel Beckett, Quentin Crisp, Simone de Beauvoir, T.S. Eliot, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Malcolm Gladwell, Donna Tartt, John Updike, Oscar Wilde, and Tom Wolfe—whose work and way of dress bears an idiosyncratic stamp influencing culture today. Terry Newman combines illuminating anecdotes about authors and their work, archival photography, first-person quotations from each writer and current designers, little-known facts, and clothing-oriented excerpts that exemplify their original writing style.

    Each entry spotlights an author and a signature wardrobe moment that expresses his or her persona, and reveals how it influences the fashion world today. Newman explores how the particular item of clothing or style has contributed to fashion’s lingua franca—delving deeper to appraise its historical trajectory and distinctive effect. Legendary Authors and the Clothes They Wore is an invaluable and engaging look at the writers we love—and why we love what they wear—that is sure to captivate lovers of great literature and sophisticated fashion."

    Published today.

    Postcards from 100 Writers and Artists.

Friday reads: heading north

  

    In advance of publication of La Belle Sauvage, the first volume of Philip Pullman's long-awaited Book of Dust trilogy, I am re-reading His Dark Materials. I'm well on with Northern Lights and loving it as much as I did first time around, 20 years ago, and I'm currently in the Arctic with Lyra, the gyptians, Iorek Byrnison the armoured bear, balloonist Lee Scoresby, the despicable Mrs. Coulter, and the witches led by Serafina Pekkala.

    It's a marvellously imaginative and thoughtful page-turner which, whether you read it for its wider philosophical commentary, for its use of the very clever concept that is the daemon*, for the breadth and depth of its world-building, or for its action adventure plot, makes rich and satisfying reading.

*See this post.

Latest acquisitions

    Gardens, trees, language, and storytelling: good reading ahead.

Mary, Mary

   

    My thanks to BR Wombat who kindly mentioned (in a comment) that many of Mary Stewart's books are currently available for Kindle at £0.99, with a few at a pound or two more. You'll find them here.

    For all things Mary Stewart, do follow Allison's Mary Queen of Plots blog; meanwhile we have Stewart-related posts here, here, and here.

Blythe spirit

   

 

    Oh, the joy of reading a writer with a light touch, few but perfectly chosen words, the easy ability to live simply but well, and an appreciation for the treasures of the world, whether they be natural or man-made, which is never precious but always uplifting.

    In the Artist's Garden is one of several collections of Ronald Blythe's Word from Wormingford columns for the Church Times, in which his short essays from and for each month of the year record his daily doings, recall times past, and reflect his musing on life. His perspective is informed by a lifetime's wide reading and friendships with artists, writers, musicians, farmers, craftsmen, theologians ... the list goes on. An eye for a detail, an ear for dialogue, cadence and rhythm, he captures in a line or two the essence of a place, a person, an event, and measures the passing of the seasons in evocative sketches.

    Here's an excerpt:

    "I have always been a fan of the morning, rain or shine. Waking up early, getting up early, is among my treats. I feed the white cat, take tea to guests, do not listen to spoilers such as the News, never watch television, but exist in a kind of tumult of plans and dreams which only chores manage to keep in some sort of order. [...]

 

    The garden is heavy with lilac and may, mown grass and fresh water, the latter pouring without stop to the river. The old rooms are still where once they would have been turbulent with farm children rushing to breakfast and then across the meadows to the village school. The windows are open wide to birdsong.

    According to Ken [see A Morning Hymn], I should be hearing the night's angels still singing in full voice. And I must 'guard my first springs of thought and will'. Or am I too ancient for this? Or can I not include myself, even now, in the morning's newness? Is not this the secret of living? [...]

    My old ash tree groans: 'I shouldn't wonder that I don't fall on your head one of these days.' My neighbours' bees from south and east are ravishing my borders, are classically industrious. I watch them idly. Observance is my occupation, I tell myself.

    'Direct, control, suggest, this day,' Ken tells his God. I like the 'suggest'. It leaves room for the imagination."

    Should you wish to delve a little deeper, here you will find a series of videos (interspersed with tiresome adverts, unfortunately) in which Ronald Blythe looks back on his life and talks of friends including John and Paul Nash, Benjamin Britten, Cedric Morris, and many others; a pleasure to watch.

Following on ...

    ... from yesterday's post, here is one of my favourites from the 'True to Life' exhibition I mentioned on the other blog, another evocative rendition of a farming scene of the wider period of which Alison Uttley writes, this one James Bateman's 'Haytime in the Cotswolds', 1939.

    A reviewer at the time said of it, "This is probably not a particular place as it exists, but that kind of place that you would like it to be." The Country Child is a similarly potent, imaginative recreation of a place.

    C.F. Tunnicliffe, whose work illustrates Alison Uttley's memoir, is the subject of a forthcoming exhibition at The Royal Academy of Arts.

    Following on from The Country Child, I'm now reading Ronald Blythe's In the Artist's Garden, which blends "literature, poetry, spirituality and memory as [the author] muses on the world from his garden gate." Perfect.

Three men went to mow

    "Morning came, cool and sweet with bird-song and white mists. At five o'clock when the corncrake whirred in the Whitewell field and the cuckoo called on every side, the mowers were up and in the meadow. A soft rain fell, a good gentle rain, blessing the fields, and the dew lay thick over the grass. The three men stood on the path and sharpened their scythes, and Tom stood watching them. The music of the hone floated up the field, in at the bedroom windows, ringing a strange familiar note which came into Susan's dreams and made her smile in her sleep.

    They took their positions, Patrick first, then Corney and last Andy, and they stayed in this order during the whole of the mowing, each mowing his own lane through the grass, yet overlapping by the tip of the scythe, so that not a blade of grass remained. The long rhythmic swish, swish, swish, filled the air, as the three men, with bodies curved and motion even and regular, worked, their strong arms sweeping the shining blade through the silken grass. Their voices, murmuring in Gaelic, made a bass accompaniment to the treble of the scythes. Their feet swung onward in time to the cut of the scythe, and behind them they left three deep swathes, pale green, and soft-coloured as the rain."

    From The Country Child by Alison Uttley - a simply lovely book; illustrations by C.F. Tunnicliffe.

Latest acquisitions

    Coinciding with Independent Bookshop Week (24th. June - 1st. July), I popped into Topping & Company in St. Andrews yesterday and came away with these.

    You can read about A Curious Friendship on Anna Thomasson's website.

Reading on a rainy day

Thought for the day

 

    "One goes through life [...] leaving books unread, music unheard, pictures unseen, and though it is very reprehensible, in some ways it is comforting to think that there are so many lovely things yet to be learned."

    Beverley Nichols, A Thatched Roof.

    

This and that

    -    Here's news of a lovely literary prize.

    -    Minette Walters has a major historical novel coming out in the autumn.

    -    Donna Leon's been on Meet the Writers. (Mr. C. recently read her last but one Brunetti book and speaks very highly of it.)

    -    The Walter Scott Prize is turning the spotlight on its shortlisted authors in a series of interviews beginning with Jo Baker.

    -    In this post, Adèle tells us where she gets (some of) her ideas.

A happy reader

    "Oh, Karen. I've just finished and can't remember the last time I've enjoyed a book more. Thank you so much for the recommendation. Margot and Steven and all of them will stay with me for a very long time indeed."

    Barbara kindly left that comment about Sue Gee's latest book Trio on this Instagram post today. She echoes many other readers who picked up the novel after reading about it here or on IG and then let me know how much they loved it.

    It's so gratifying to put books into readers' hands, in a virtual sense, to be able to spread the word about something good and share the enjoyment.

 

Edited to add: here is Barbara's post on the book.

Seconds

    The Nation's Favourite Second Novel, according to a recent poll, is ... Pride and Prejudice.

    You can find the list of the top ten second novels here, and writers write about their own second books here - I particularly like Hilary Mantel's piece.

 

Books in brief

    The White Hare by Michael Fishwick is a Young Adult novel which juxtaposes an urban, contemporary sensibility with ancient rural myth. I'd have liked a sharper focus to this tale of Robbie, a troubled lad who has moved from the big city to a small village in the West Country where he strikes up an unlikely friendship with the offbeat Mags and discovers - in very real terms - the legend of the white hare, but this coming-of-age story in which ghosts are laid to rest and there is resolution of sorts is an interesting read.

                                        ~~~~~

    Singing for Mrs. Pettigrew: A Story-Maker's Journey by Michael Morpurgo combines a collection of his short stories with the stories of their making. There's a snippet here to give you an idea, but all told this is very engaging and enjoyable, if at times heart-rending. "I [do not] go looking for stories," he says, "but I do go to places where they might find me." Long may he do so.

                                        ~~~~~

    The Art of Discarding by Nagisa Tatsumi is the book which inspired Marie Kondo. There's a lot of good sense here, but it needs a major edit. It suffers, as so many books in the wider 'self-help' line do, from the over-elaboration of an essentially simple message in order to fill pages and justify the price. I could go on but I'll leave it there.

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The way we were

    "Part of the reason to own books is that they create a record of our past: passions, missteps, aspirations and intentions. They are the physical manifestations of what we were thinking at the different times in our lives. People can look at our bookshelves and know something about us, who we are and who we hoped we would be. "

    Ann Patchett - from this post.

Waiting for the Albino Dunnock

 
  

    For me to even pick up a book subtitled How Birds Can Change Your Life is noteworthy, never having had any interest whatsoever in birds, and in fact having a fear of them, but references on the jacket flap of Waiting for the Albino Dunnock to mythology, philosophy, history, literature, and folklore caused me to open it and I was captivated from the first page.

    Rosamond Richardson writes with flair and sensitivity and with such knowledge of topics far beyond matters avian that her book is an engagingly multi-textured one and an example of nature writing at its best. She describes how a chance encounter led her to discover a fascination with birds which helped her at a difficult period in her life, but this is no confessional account of personal sadness - rather she is discreet and allusive -  it is far more about seeing, observing, appreciating, understanding, and making connections, and about the enriching effect of a year of watching birds in East Anglia and far beyond.

    When I was in Suffolk last autumn we went for a walk on Dunwich Heath, right next to the bird reserve at Minsmere. It was a very wet day and the keen birders in our party knew there would be little to see so they contented themselves with a ramble instead of a session with the binoculars, but even if conditions had been ideal nothing would have induced me to go and sit in a hide and try to spot birds (I did it once, years ago, and found it dull to say the least). But, having now read this book I would certainly join my bird-watching friends if an expedition were proposed, and I tell you this to illustrate the fact that Rosamond Richardson has opened my eyes and my mind, for which I thank her.

    Let me sketch the map of the book for you in the hope that there will be territory here which draws you to it as it did me: the author writes of John Clare, Montaigne, Thomas Merton; she quotes Graham Greene, T.S. Eliot, Shakespeare, and G.K. Chesterton; her chapters are subtitled "stillness", "silence", "music", "joy", "the consolation of beauty", and "the uncommonness of the commonplace". She is discursive but always to the point; she brings to her discoveries "the beginner's mind" but retains a clear sense of perspective; her "personal crossroads" led her to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, but she doesn't rhapsodize, she speaks with quiet containment.

    As to the book's title, it's inspired by R.S. Thomas, poet and priest, "who spent hours in wild landscapes in west Wales, watching for birds, never knowing whether he would see any or not". Alerted to the possible presence of an albino dunnock on the Lleyn Peninsula, "he muttered Waiting for birds is like waiting for God but I don't think I'd wait three hours for God." Rosamond Richardson closes thus: "the waiting is more about the search than the result [...] as much an inner journey as a field trip. Likewise 'waiting for the albino dunnock' is not about the achievement of spotting a rare bird and recording it on a list [...] but an intuition about what is mysterious and just beyond our reach".

    I commend this book to you.

Calling Henry Marsh fans

   

    Mr. Marsh has a new book out next week: Admissions: A Life in Brain Surgery.

    Here's the gist -

     "Henry Marsh has spent a lifetime operating on the surgical frontline. There have been exhilarating highs and devastating lows, but his love for the practice of neurosurgery has never wavered. Prompted by his retirement from his full-time job in the NHS, and through his continuing work in Nepal and Ukraine, Henry has been forced to reflect more deeply about what forty years spent handling the human brain has taught him.

    Moving between encounters with patients in his London hospital, to those he treats in the more extreme circumstances of his work abroad, Henry faces up to the burden of responsibility that can come with trying to reduce human suffering. Unearthing memories of his early days as a medical student, and the experiences that shaped him as a young surgeon, he explores the difficulties of a profession that deals in probabilities rather than certainties, and where the overwhelming urge to prolong life can come at a tragic cost for both patients and for those who love them.

    In this searing, provocative and deeply personal memoir, the bestselling author of Do No Harm finds new purpose in his own life as he approaches the end of his professional career, and a fresh understanding of what matters to us all in the end."

    For anyone who hasn't read Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery, there's a post on it here.

Of mice and men

    From 10th. May to 3rd. June, The Illustration Cupboard in London is showing an exhibition of Jill Barklem's original artwork for the much-loved Brambly Hedge books. You can find the illustrations here, and note, the sketches may be purchased - prices are to be released soon.

    Also on show at the gallery will be this Storyteller Children's Chair made by RhubarbLondon:

    Two-thirds the size of an adult's wing chair, its front legs have been carved from oak to recreate the Toadflax family's home, and there are speakers in the backrest powered by a self-contained battery system which 'broadcast' the Brambly Hedge stories to the occupier of the chair. Chequebooks at the ready, it costs £3,500.

                            ~~~~~

    On the subject of Brambly Hedge, you may not have seen this post.

Meet the Writers

    

    Aged just 21, Samantha Shannon made publishing headlines when she sold the first three books in a planned seven-book series for a six-figure sum. Now 25, and working on book four of the series, Samantha is in conversation with Georgina Godwin in the latest edition of Meet the Writers*.

    If you're not already acquainted with her work, here's my post on Samantha's first book, The Bone Season, and there's a little more on her here. Although it's quite off the beaten track for me, I am particularly looking forward to reading her forthcoming high fantasy The Priory of The Orange Tree which she mentions on the programme.

*See also, this post, this one, and this.

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The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction: the shortlist

 

A Country Road, A Tree by Jo Baker

Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

The Vanishing Futurist by Charlotte Hobson

The Good People by Hannah Kent

Golden Hill by Francis Spufford

Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift

The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain

    Read more about the prize here.