Cornflower Books

Remote and islanded

 

    I'd had Sarah Orne Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs in my sights for a while as so many visitors here had recommended it, and I'm not sure why I chose it as the first book for my Kindle except that it felt as though it would be a lovely way to begin a new reading experience, and so it proved to be.

    Less a novel and more a series of interlinked sketches of a fishing village on the Maine coast in the last years of the nineteenth century, its strengths seem to be in its author's heart and her feeling for what is inside a person: the inner life which may never be obvious but which informs so much. The unnamed narrator is a young woman who spends the summer in Dunnet Landing lodging with Mrs. Almira Todd, "landlady, herbgatherer and rustic philosopher", and through her she comes to know the small, isolated community and begins to hear the rhythms of its people's lives.

    This may sound a bit 'safe' and 'homely', for example, many events are remembered, referred to, not directly experienced within the narrative, so it's a book of recollections and observations, but the pen portraits of the people who feature show every line and mark of a life having been lived, and the stories told are every bit as affecting in their gentle, reminiscent style as if they'd been taking place, starkly, right in front of us.

     So we meet an elderly captain who had "overset his mind with too much reading" [a lesson to us all] whose voyage to the far north gives rise to strange experiences, and a widower fisherman who still mourns his wife but finds solace in his neat-as-a-pin home, and his off-season custom: "I lay in my winter's yarn an' set here where 'tis warm, and knit and take my comfort." There are others, too, who have grown to fit their lives, accepting, adapting and finding the peace that allows a settled existence.

     "In the life of each of us ... there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness; we are each the uncompanioned hermit and recluse of an hour or a day; we understand our fellows of the cell to whatever age of history they may belong."

    Nostalgic, comforting, heartening, this is a book to savour and return to.

Coco at the Balmoral

 

     I've written about attending the Scottish launch of Justine Picardie's biography Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life over on Cornflower today.

    More on the book anon, but for anyone interested in women's lives, fashion, design and influential figures of the twentieth century, this is a must!

Cornflower Book Group 2010: Volume 10

 

     Slightly later than it should have been posted, here is the CBG's October book:

Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey, "a little masterpiece", won the Pulitzer Prize in 1928. The story of the breaking of an Inca-woven osier bridge above a gorge on the road from Lima to Cuzco, and the investigation into the lives of those who perished by the Franciscan monk Brother Juniper, who witnessed the collapse, it examines whether "we live by accident and die by accident, or we live by plan and die by plan."

    This is a short book (124 pages in my edition) and one which has attained classic status and influenced many other writers. Described as having a "deceptive clarity of style that masks pellucid depths", it sounds intriguing and very worthwhile reading.

    This should be readily available everywhere, though as I always say for Book Group books, if you can't get it locally The Book Depository will send it post-free, (and there's a Kindle version, too). Let's 'meet' back here to discuss it from Saturday, 23rd. October - that should give us enough time to read it as it's nicely compact!

A bit more kindling

 

     I don't mean to go on about the Kindle forever, but I know some people are considering getting one so I thought a few more observations on it might be of some use.

     The discovery that I can read and knit at the same time has been great, but confining ourselves to the point of the thing, here's what I've found:

I've left the text size and number of words per page at the default setting which gives, as you see in the picture, a few paragraphs per 'page'. This seems to aid concentration; there is less to focus on, the eye isn't drawn to a word elsewhere or on the facing page, there is no temptation to skip ahead to see when the chapter will end - all to the good as fewer distractions mean I make the most of my reading time.

    Bookmarking, highlighting passages and making notes in the text is all very easy to do, and - always the note-taker - I'm using these functions a lot. If you have the Kindle app for PC, iPhone, etc., you can refer to all your notes (and read the book itself, should you wish to) on your computer or phone; use the 'Sync & Check for Items' option in the Kindle menu and your notes and marks will be transferred, as if by magic, to your other devices (I have found there is sometimes a delay with this, but that hasn't bothered me).

    The search facility means you can easily refer back to any passage just by typing in a relevant word, so if you have forgotten a detail you can go back and remind yourself of it, or indeed look ahead should you want to know if something (a name, a place, an activity, say) occurs again later in the text.

    You can sample any book you're thinking of getting; that comes free and can be sent to your computer rather than the Kindle itself if you have the app. and want to read it that way. I'm resisting cluttering myself up with lots of tempting chapters before I'm ready to acquire my next book, but it's great to be able to have a good look at a book before you buy it.

    Speaking of buying, there is so much material available for nothing or for very little that, depending on your tastes, you could read a great deal at minimal cost. For example, I paid only 74 pence for The Country of the Pointed Firs whereas the cheapest paper edition of the book is quite a lot more than that, and 'new' books are less expensive than their paper versions, too.

    If there's anything else you'd like to know, please just ask, or for those who are old hands at the Kindle, do share your tips if you have any. As you can see, I'm loving it!

Once upon a time there were four little rabbits ...

   ... and their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail and Peter.

   Literary history was made in the house pictured above. That is Eastwood, by Dunkeld in Perthshire, and Beatrix Potter was staying there when she wrote the letter to her young friend Noel Moore which would become The Tale of Peter Rabbit. The house is for sale (all details here), and if I had the wherewithal I'd buy it like a shot. I know the area well as my parents live close by; it's a beautiful place and its associations make it even more special.

Cornflower Book Group - Troubles

 

     J.G. Farrell's Troubles is quite the book! Drama, black comedy, pathos, farce - all are played out in the labyrinthine corridors and endless rooms of the Majestic Hotel in rural Ireland around 1920, as political unrest and violence increase and threaten the residents of this eccentric establishment.

    The book's characters are dwarfed by the vast edifice within which they live, though they and it combined make for a sort of grandly gothic Fawlty Towers with a touch of Gormenghast thrown in. For me, the hotel was the star  - never mind the ineffectual and increasingly distracted owner Edward Spencer, nor the Major who somehow cannot bring himself to leave the place - no, it's the cats in the Imperial Bar, the impenetrable foliage and "ambitious plants" of the Palm Court, the "Do More" generator which could hardly do less, the proliferation of old ladies and even older, more crumbly retainers, the piglets in the squash court, the dogs with their daube de mouton, the insidious decay and deterioration, the immensity of the place, all that is what is done so well and it's that which makes the book so memorable.

    I was interested in how J.G. Farrell constructs the story and therefore how it reads, e.g. the lack of chapters (there is just the occasional brief newspaper report to break up the narrative) means it's all of a piece and there are times when it feels not like hard going exactly, but more a lengthy trudge through a featureless bog! Progress - the story's and the reader's - seems slow. But then there are subtle shifts of pace and purpose and things begin to hot up in more ways than one until you reach the climax which, I think, is superb.

    How about you? Did you make it to the blistering finish, or did you pack your bags and take your leave of the Majestic somewhere along the way?

(Later: The Troubles cake is here).

Kindling

 

 

    A brief Kindle update after not quite 48 hours' use:

    I've read my first book on it (it's a lovely one!) and downloaded a second.

   The dictionary function is great, as to look up a word while you're reading (you can access the dictionary itself directly, too), you just put the cursor next to the word and up pops a brief definition; press another button and you have the full entry.

    Dark Puss suggested getting the free Kindle app for PC, and I've done so this afternoon and can now manage all my notes and bookmarks easily, something which will be particularly helpful when I come to write posts about Kindle books.

    What else? I know it's a new toy and has that novelty appeal, but I am so enjoying using it - as well as, but not instead of, paper books, of course!

(PS re. Linda's comment, it's this model I've got).

K is for ...

      ... Karen's Kindle!

    An unexpected parcel arrived yesterday and it turned out to contain a late birthday present from the super-generous Mr. C. He had heard me enthuse about the Kindle after having a go with a friend's one and then reading what Barbara has to say about hers, and he ordered one for me. I am thrilled!

I haven't had long to play with it yet but I've downloaded my first book and used the bookmarking, highlighting and note-taking features. It is so easy to read (text size, etc. is adjustable) and to operate, and even in its case it is thinner than a paperback, and yet it has enormous capacity.

   I began last night by getting a sample (a lengthy one) of Sarah Orne Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs to try, and then having decided I wanted the whole book I pressed a button and it arrived a few seconds later - amazing!

   I'm off to sample a few more things and try out other features, but as you can tell, I am quite delighted with it and look forward to its extending my reading in all directions!

Total immersion

 

 

     Mr. C. read Troubles from cover to cover while on the train to and from London yesterday - and so I've told him he can write Saturday's post on it as I haven't finished it yet!

     My reading of it has been in short sharp bursts, perhaps 10, sometimes up to 70 pages at a time, but I've had to put it down to do other things and - crucially - put it aside to read other books. I'll go back to it today but I wonder whether taking it in in that rather drip-fed way will mean I have absorbed less of the book than I otherwise might so that its effect is diluted, while Mr. C., with his total immersion and saturation, will be far better prepared for the discussion.

    What do you find is your best way of getting the most out of a book: little and often, or 'all in one go', if life permits, or is it far more variable than that, depending on the genre, the particular book, your mood, and so on?

Good lines: on being uprooted

 

     "In 1935 Farve's money worries came to a head. Swinbrook House and its estate were extravagances he could not afford, and in April the house was let [...]. Three years later it was sold, together with all the land. I minded more than I can say. I have seen it happen elsewhere, when children are uprooted from the place they love just when they are at their most vulnerable, when all their antennae are out and they have become almost physically attached to a house and its surroundings: the loss of all that is familiar is a kind of amputation. As one who becomes hopelessly addicted to sticks and stones, gateways with their ruts and puddles, anthills, thrushes, freshwater springs, kingcups, dog roses and may (soon to be hips and haws), wood anemones under oaks, silent woods in August, milk-white walnuts in autumn, the smell of new creosote on chicken houses, saddle soap and horse manure - having to abandon all these made leaving Swinbrook, 'the land of lost content', hard to bear."

From Wait For Me: Memoirs of the Youngest Mitford Sister by Deborah Devonshire.

And Flavia goes to ....

    ...Jackie!

    A copy of Alan Bradley's excellent The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, the second Flavia de Luce mystery, will be going off to Jackie very shortly. Thankyou to everyone who entered the draw and listed their favourite detective novels - that's quite a reading feast you've given us there.

Good lines: on teaching

 

     "Furnivall's instruction to Andy went beyond teaching him how to twist a ball through the air and what to read. Almost what Andy liked most about him was that he did not preach or give advice, but by his passion and engagement set off fires in his students; each of his thoughts cast out like his trout line, without effort, and landing at the right distance above your head to make you want to rise up and understand it."

From Inheritance by Nicholas Shakespeare.

The book of the moment

    Dovegrey touched yesterday on the subject of a book's brief window of opportunity, and as that's something which has been preoccupying me for a while I thought I'd mention it here and hopefully get people's thoughts on it.

    As I have said before, I am in the happy position of being sent lots and lots of books and I do my best to read as many of them as I possibly can. Sometimes I manage to synchronise my reading and posting with a book's publication; occasionally, I write about a book way ahead of its coming out, as I did with Michelle Paver's Dark Matter, on the basis that if it interests readers they will then know to look out for it and look forward to it and I in turn shall flag it up again when release day arrives. More often than not, however, I am wildly out of sync. with the book's timetable, because with the best will in the world I cannot read to fit the schedules of the many publishers with whom I am in touch, and so you may get a post here on a book which has been out for some months (I'm not, of course, referring to 'old' books, but ones still on front lists, still 'current') and with which you are already familiar.

    Now, I can see why the publisher wants their latest book to make a big splash - particularly so if it's one of their lead titles and they are putting a lot into its marketing. If it's a best-seller list contender they will want sales concentrated into a period which will have an impact on the chart, not spread more thinly over the months, so 'saturated' coverage - whether in newspapers or on blogs - will be what they are after. If you are a writer, the same thing may apply, but I'd have thought you'd be glad to see your book being written up on a blog at any time, and particularly a while after publication, so that the momentum is kept up and sales (and income) continue. Looking at things from the point of view of a reader, and a reader of blogs as well as of books, we want variety, do we not? We don't want to see the same book featured on every blog we visit in a given week, even if we are interested in comparing opinions on it and we respect the views and enjoy the postings of those who've written about it.

    My point, then, is this: it may serve a publisher's interests to have a blogger post as close to publication day as possible, and to a lesser extent that applies to a writer's needs, but for readers - and it is that group for whom this blog is written, after all - that 'window of opportunity' I referred to earlier should be as wide as possible.

    What do you think?

Star!

   

     Breaking news: a poll to find the most romantic novel of the last fifty years has been conducted by Woman's Weekly in conjunction with the Romantic Novelists' Association. The results were announced this morning, and the runners up are Barbara Taylor Bradford's A Woman of Substance and Trisha Ashley's Every Woman for Herself, but I'm delighted to see that the winner is the wonderful Star Gazing by Linda Gillard!

    I'm not sure how many times I've written about Linda's novel - there was the original post and subsequent mentions when it was up for various awards, but it's a super book, enormously enjoyable, and I'm so pleased that it and its creator are getting some of the recognition they deserve. Congratulations, Linda!

Edited on Friday to add: do read Linda's comment on this post, and you may also like to visit the RNA website which has only today mentioned her win.

Simple pleasures

     The planets must be aligned in some auspicious way, as far as my reading is concerned, as I have two delightful books on the go just now. The latest instalment of life in 44, Scotland Street, Alexander McCall Smith's The Importance of Being Seven has me chuckling from the off, and here's a little (reassuring) exchange that amuses in typical McCall Smith fashion:

"Couples with an Aga stay together,"

"How do people know that?"

"They just do. It's the attitude that does it. A person who buys an Aga is going to be ... how should one put it, solid. They want a solid and reliable cooker because they are solid and reliable themselves." He paused. "Do you get flashy types buying Agas? How many flashy types do you know who have an Aga?"

    And now for a bit of Debo, and her new book Wait For Me: Memoirs of the Youngest Mitford Sister which was a very welcome birthday present. Here is a bit about her father:

"He walked to this holy of holies in Victoria Street [the Army & Navy Stores] with a lurcher and a Labrador at heel - no leads. He put the dogs to sit in the entrance and waited with them for the doors to open at 9 a.m. My mother asked him why he had to be there so early. 'If I am any later I am impeded by inconveniently shaped women,' was the reply."

    Simple pleasures!

Venice in peril

    

    What fun this book is! Sparky, highly imaginative, extensively researched: a very original kind of guide book to Venice, and a well-paced story for older children, or indeed anyone who enjoys a jolly good yarn.

    Michelle Lovric's The Undrowned Child is set in 1899 and features Teodora, an eleven-year-old Neapolitan girl with special gifts who comes upon a magical book called The Key to the Secret City, and with the help of Renzo - who, according to an old prophecy, is the city's "Studious Son" - saves Venice when it's in great peril. That's to simplify events enormously - it's so richly inventive that there are all manner of twists and turns and marvellous devices such as curry-loving mermaids who speak in the most saltily distinctive manner, vicious seagulls, "Baddened Magic", potions, curses, spells and whatnot.

    The book's sequel, The Mourning Emporium, is due out next month and I am looking forward to reading it after this delicious introduction to Teodora and Renzo and their adventures. Michelle's writing is so fresh and lively and there's a great deal of humour throughout which provides a nice balance to the cliff-hanging danger and the fantastical goings-on, but there's also much history at the book's roots, and given the author's obvious love for Venice, the unique setting is most convincingly presented while the foreground story fairly runs away with the reader. As I said, it's tremendous fun, and you'll get a flavour of it on this lovely website.

The Reading Map

    I'm often asked how best this site can be searched in order to find posts on specific books, and up to now I haven't had a very reliable method to offer in answer to that query. I thought the best thing to do would just be to list all the review posts, but there are quite a few and getting them all organised is proving to be a long job. However, I'm part way there and aim to add the rest as soon as I can so that we end up with a comprehensive catalogue, if you like.

    Fitting the list into this site was going to be tricky and would make things look cramped so I've added a sort of extension to house it and to do a little something else besides. If you go over to Cornflower Books - The Reading Map you'll see what I mean. Now, what I have in mind there is probably a bit mad, and I may find that technical difficulties make it impossible anyway, but I'm going to have a go. Obviously it's no more than a beginning thus far, but I hope I can develop it as I plan to do and that you'll find something of interest if you pop in there.

Overheard

    You may find this collection of bookshop exchanges amusing; please let us know if you have any gems of your own. Reversing the roles for a moment, with all due respect to bookshop sales assistants, there are occasions when they are not quite as familiar with their stock as they might be, e.g. look here.

    Another good story, just by the way - an Oxford philosophy don was taken to task by a colleague on the narrowness of his reading: "your problem is that you don't read novels", "on the contrary", said the philosopher, "I read all six every year".

A winner and another draw

    

     Thankyou to everyone who entered the recent Cornflower birthday book draws - I so enjoyed reading about all the fictional characters you'd most like to meet and I noted with interest that Mr. Rochester cropped up several times! The winner - drawn at random - was Nancy, and her prize (I'm not saying what it is so that Nancy gets a surprise when she opens the parcel) will be on its way to her soon.

   

     As luck would have it, a duplicate copy of the delightful The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag (the second in the Flavia de Luce series) by Alan Bradley dropped into my lap this morning, so let's have another draw and I'll give that away to the winner. I wrote about the book a few months ago and I know a lot of you will have read it already, but if you'd like a copy, or an extra one to give to a friend, just leave a comment, this time giving us the name of a favourite mystery/crime/detective novel if you have one.

    Good luck!

Of mists and mellow fruitfulness

    

     I mentioned in passing the other day that Diane Meier's The Season of Second Chances was a treat of a book, and I'm saying it again now that I've reflected on it, and with even greater conviction! It's one of those novels in which you want to live for a while - getting to know the people, exploring the place, and delighting in what you find with almost every encounter. Beautifully, intelligently written, full of insight into human nature and dressed in sophisticated style, it is an interesting and inviting book in which to spend time.

    Dr. Joy Harkness leaves New York and Columbia University to take up a post in a ground-breaking educational program at Amherst College. Under the clear-sighted leadership of Bernadette Lowell, "a kind of Julia Child of academia", the team will teach the liberal arts in a cross-disciplinary context. As Joy settles into her new department, warmly welcomed by colleagues, she discovers a small-town closeness she never experienced in the big city, but having habitually kept most people at arm's length, this takes some getting used to.

     While work absorbs Joy, so too does her new house, a large Victorian villa which she is renovating with the help of local builder, Teddy Hennessy. As Teddy's skill and eye for detail transform the ramshackle old place into a welcoming, comforting home, so Joy's life opens up to new relationships and in "a world outside of ideas, of letters and literature", she discovers things she thought had passed her by.

    I'll give you no more of the plot than that, but I will tell you what 'furnishes' the novel: books do, literary references abound, food does, clothes too - though there's a telling twist to that strand - and interiors and objects form an exquisite backdrop to every scene.  The whole is warm and elegant, fluent and absorbing; a grown-up coming-of-age story, but a witty and unpredictable one. This is Diane Meier's first novel - and a most assured one at that; I hope her next book is well on its way as the fans she will have acquired with her debut will be eagerly awaiting it.