Cornflower Books

Extreme reading, anyone?

    You've probably heard of Extreme Ironing: "the latest danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt", and there's 'extreme reading', too, that is reading in unusual places, such as an enclosure at Whipsnade Zoo.

    I thought of this today when Mr. C. took himself up a tree for a quiet read. There's a balustraded platform about fifteen feet up in our Scots pine, and with the aid of a simple pulley you can haul up there anything you can't carry up to it, so today Mr. C. took a deckchair, some lemonade, and a book, and made himself comfortable. Hidden among the leaves (there's a silver birch and a couple of cherries to 'soften' the pine needled branches), he managed to remain undetected for quite some time.

    There's nothing particularly extreme about reading in a tree, though it's probably not an everyday occurrence for most people, but I wondered if you'd ever read while in a really unusual location. I can't say I have (not being a very extreme person at all) but maybe you all lead much more exciting lives than I do? If we can't run to anywhere outlandish, then how about the simply memorable: e.g. a hotel balcony in Wengen with a marvellous view of the Eiger (where I was reading the wonderful Arthur & George).

Royal reads

   

     I'm still not finished The Crimson Petal ... (it is over 800 pages) and I doubt I'll be doing much reading tomorrow as I'll be watching the wedding coverage, but on the subject of things royal, here's a book which might appeal if that's a subject you enjoy: The Golden Prince by Rebecca Dean (shortlisted for the recent RNA Romantic Novel of the Year Award) is about Edward VIII, and mixes fact with fiction in a story which sees the then young Prince of Wales - a real golden boy - embark on a love affair with the glamorous socialite Lily Houghton in the years before the First World War.

    This interview with the author about the background to the book sets out the intriguing idea that a real early romance in the prince's life was the cause, if you like, of his eventual affair with Mrs. Simpson which of course led to the abdication. When King George V would not countenance any match between his son and a commoner (even an aristocratic one), the loss of that love had a profound and lasting effect. How things have changed.

Talk amongst yourselves

    I've caught a bug and lost my voice, so as I'm not feeling up to much, I'm off to read a book (not what you might prescribe for the sick-bed, but I'm two thirds of the way through ...). Back soon, I hope.

PS Apologies to anyone who has emailed and not had a reply yet.

Cornflower Book Group - The Picture of Dorian Gray

 

    If you didn't know that Oscar Wilde was a playwright you could certainly guess it was so on the basis of his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. There are many declamatory passages, 'stage-y' scenes, melodramatic, 'back of the hand to the forehead' moments, and enough epigrams, aphorisms and sharp, barbed wit to keep an audience engaged throughout three acts.

    If it were a play, the sets and costumes would be beautiful (see, for example, the description of the little library in Lord Henry's Mayfair house at the beginning of chapter IV, and Sibyl's clothes as Rosalind in ch. VI), and noticeably, given so many exquisite details of dress, objets and decor, there is rather a lack of food - again, is this the dramatist's mind dwelling on what is most effective on stage and eliminating that which can't be easily done? Just by the way but on the subject of things, I was amused at Dorian Gray's interest in what I suppose was an early form of aromatherapy and crystal therapy in chapter XI!

    Those are the externals, while the internals - the aestheticism, the faustian pact, the corruption and immorality, make the familiar story, one set in a world in which everything is deceptively simple: "The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming." Everything leads back to that, it seems.

    Throughout the book there is a disconnection between narrative and reader, in the sense that as with a play in a conventional theatre, the reader watches and listens from a certain distance in the stalls and the circle - there's that proscenium divide, and thus none of the immediacy and close involvement that an apron stage or viewing in the round would provide. This is Wilde's natural habitat, both professionally and personally, and every word, every detail is arranged just so, to attract and retain the reader's attention. This artifice is almost like looking at the most beautifully dressed shop window - the passer-by may have no interest in the merchandise on show, but the display itself is arresting.

    I'm glad I've read the book, although at times doing so was a bit like sipping a particularly potent and somewhat bitter liqueur - enough was quite enough. What did you think of it?

(Edited to add: this book's cake is here).

Cornflower Book Group 2011: Volume 5

 

    I thought the Cornflower Book Group could do with something funny after reading Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, which we'll be talking about from tomorrow, so I've gone back to 1928 and Evelyn Waugh's first novel Decline and Fall.

    This social satire is a "comic, yet curiously touching account of an innocent plunged into the sham, brittle world of high society", as Paul Pennyfeather is sent down from Oxford for a misdemeanour, and then embarks on a series of bizarre adventures which begin in a minor public school where he meets the delectable Margot Beste-Chetwynde ....

 

    I have read it, along with a lot of Waugh's other books, though that was years ago and I have only the vaguest memory of it now (my old edition is pictured here). I'm hoping it will appeal as much to my adult self as it did to the teenage one, and I'm looking forward to the rediscovery.

    The book should be readily available in shops and libraries, but in case of any difficulty getting hold of it, The Book Depository will ship it worldwide post free. Let's reconvene to talk about Decline and Fall from Saturday, 28th. May, and everyone is welcome to join in, whether you've read along with us before or you feel like taking part for the first time.

Have you read ... The Crimson Petal and the White?

 

    Another book that hovers in the 'I'd quite like to read that' category, Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White, which has been dramatised recently (and is still on, I think, though I haven't seen it). Huge and unputdownable, apparently, according to reviews this Victorian novel from 2002 clearly makes a big impression, and as it's currently available for Kindle at the bargain price of £1.47, I'm swithering about it. Have you read it?

In the dark watches

 

    Adèle and LizF, by way of comments on earlier posts, were urging me to read Sarah Moss's new novel Night Waking, and I'm so glad I acted on their recommendation because it's quite superb.

    Historian Anna Bennet and her husband Giles Cassingham are spending the summer with their two young sons on an otherwise uninhabited Inner Hebridean island which has been in the Cassingham family for generations. Ecologist Giles is there to monitor the puffin colonies while Anna is trying to get on with writing a book, but the demands of her boys are such that she's struggling. Toddler Moth is funny and endearing, but his constant night waking and need for Anna are intensely wearing, while precocious Raph is worryingly obsessed with disasters and the destruction of the planet, and his endless questions and preoccupations are a cause for concern.

    While planting trees in the garden of the Victorian family house, Anna discovers a baby's skeleton. It is not prehistoric, apparently, which raises the question why that burial place was chosen rather than the graveyard by the old village church. With the police involved and suspicions as to concealed pregnancy or births on the wrong side of the blanket, the mystery of the baby's identity and strange resting place is yet no nearer to being solved, and the unsettling find adds to Anna's own disturbingly ambivalent feelings towards motherhood.

    Alongside the contemporary story is another narrative in the form of letters from May Moberley, an English girl and trained nurse who, in 1878, was sent to the then populated island by the Cassingham family on account of the high infant mortality rates. Her attempts at gaining the trust of the Gaelic-speaking women, to the point at which she can assist with childbirth and advise on the proper care of the newborn, are ill-judged and unwelcome, and she makes little headway. How May's account of her time on the island becomes relevant to Anna's family life is very neatly and beautifully worked out.

    Should you think this is a dark book, or another of those 'harassed mother at the end of her tether' stories, it is neither - and so much more! It's very amusing in a blackly comic fashion, and it's so multi-dimensional, so highly accomplished, that while it does concentrate on a mother torn between career and family, a mother so sleep-deprived she can't think clearly, its true scope is very much wider. Read it and you'll see.

    I haven't read Cold Earth, the first novel by Sarah Moss, but I must do so now as Night Waking was both impressive and enjoyable in equal measure; she is clearly a writer to watch.

On the trail

    A question for you: what do you think of book trailers?

    I'm talking about very short videos, viewable on Amazon or Youtube, say, which are there to help promote a book. Do you tend to watch them? If so, do they make an impression or help you to decide whether or not you want to read the book?

    I do like to see trailers as they can be very effective in giving something of the atmosphere of a novel, and I'm always interested in the music they choose to go with a book as that can be quite telling, too. Some are explanatory, 'piece-to-camera by the author' types, while others are very creative films. Below are a few examples (in each case, click on the links and scroll down a little to get to the video), but in general, what do you think?

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman - I haven't read the book yet but from what I know of it, the trailer looks very fitting.

Dark Matter: A Ghost Story by Michelle Paver - one of my favourite books last year.

The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance by Edmund de Waal - a most marvellous work of non-fiction.

The Taker by Alma Katsu - I don't know much about the book but I like the music.

Heresy by S.J. Parris - very dramatic!

Instant gratification

    It's been great to hear from those who took the plunge and downloaded the Kindle for PC or Mac app in order to read ebooks on their computer, and found that it worked splendidly. I mentioned this briefly the other day, but just in case anyone is confused about what the application is and what it does, I thought I'd say a little more, though I'm no expert, just someone who uses it.

    If you don't have a Kindle but would still like to read books which are published in electronic form, all you have to do is install the appropriate app (for PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad or Android). It is quite straightforward and it's free, and it means you can be reading a book on the screen in front of you within seconds. For each book, you can alter the font size and number of words per line to get a layout or density of text that is comfortable to the eye. You can make notes on the text (just like writing in the margin), highlight passages, search for words or phrases, e.g. should you want to return to a particular scene, and use the built-in dictionary to look up a word. The best bit is that, as with the Kindle itself, you just press a button and the book you want arrives in an instant, as if by magic!

    I read my ebooks on the Kindle, but I find the app very useful too, and if you're not currently in the market for an expensive device, it is a good substitute.

Tbr: Derby Day

 

    - Derby Day by D.J. Taylor.

    - Romance and rivalry, gambling and greed.

    - "In the heat of June all England seems to head for Epsom Downs - aristocrats and beggars, society beauties and street girls, bookies and gypsies, hawkers and acrobats, punters and thieves - whole families are streaming along the dusty roads, heading for the greatest race of the year. Hopes are high, nerves are taut, for this is Derby Day....In this exuberant, rolling novel, rich with the idioms of Victorian England, the mysteries pile high, carrying us up to the downs on the day of the great race, waiting with bated breath as the story gallops to a finish that no one expects."

    - From the reviews: "Taylor writes with such skill and aplomb that it's impossible not to be swept along by the intelligence and observations", Guardian.

    - From the author of Kept: A Victorian Mystery and Ask Alice, Derby Day will be published in June to coincide with the Epsom Derby.

Tbr: The Songs of Manolo Escobar

 

    - The Songs of Manolo Escobar by Carlos Alba.

    - "Why were Pablito, my elder brother, and I dark-haired with olive skin when the rest of my classmates were sandy and pale? Why did our family have a second way of speaking which I didn't understand? Why was ours the only home I knew where the walls were dominated with pictures of men in spangly waistcoats and tight trousers?"

    - For Antonio, growing up Spanish in Glasgow is a nightmare - one of shame and potential embarrassment on every front. But there is no hiding his ethnicity: his domineering father and his gentle mother's quest for olives put paid to that. As Antonio grows older and begins to unravel his father's secret past, he discovers a truth that shocks and heals him.

    - During his journalistic career, Carlos Alba was Scotland Editor at The Sunday Times and education correspondent at The Herald. His first novel was the acclaimed Kane's Ladder.

Tbr: State of Wonder

 

    - State of Wonder by Ann Patchett.

    - A dazzling tale of science and ritual, terror and love.

    - In deepest Brazil, an enigmatic scientist is developing a drug that could alter the lives of women forever by giving them lifelong fertility. Dr. Annick Swenson's work is shrouded in mystery; she refuses to report on her progress, especially to her investors, whose patience is fast running out. Anders Eckman, a mild-mannered lab researcher, is sent to investigate. A curt letter reporting his untimely death is all that returns. Now Marina Singh, Anders's colleague and once a student of Dr. Swenson's, retraces her friend's steps into the heart of the South American darkness, determined to track down Dr. Swenson and uncover the secrets being jealously guarded among the remotest tribes of the rainforest.

    - The reviewers write: "Expect miracles when you read Ann Patchett's fiction", New York Times; "Her books are so warm, so overflowing with love and affection, that when you've finished reading one your first inclination is to embrace it", Guardian; "Patchett's novels are remarkable for their generosity of spirit and deep sympathy for their characters", Sunday Times.

    - Ann Patchett's Bel Canto won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2002.

Tbr: Please Look After Mother

 

    - Please Look After Mother by Kyung-sook Shin, translated by Chi-Young Kim.

    - When and how do we understand the sacrifices our mothers have made, and what if it's too late to say thankyou?

    - So-nyo, travelling from the Korean countryside to the Seoul of her grown-up children, becomes separated from her husband when the doors close on a packed train. As her family searches for her, they recall So-nyo's life, and all they have left unsaid. As the mystery of her disappearance unravels, we uncover a larger mystery, that of all mothers and children: how affection, exasperation, hope and guilt add up to love.

    - Kyung-sook Shin is one of Korea's most widely read and acclaimed novelists, and this book has been a phenomenal bestseller in her native country.

    - Please Look After Mother is to be read on BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime.

The long tale

     

     I've been reading more of The Decision Book today (this post will tell you about it and the publisher's discount offer), and the part that struck a chord is the section called The Long Tail Model or How the internet is transforming the economy. This interested me because of one of the things we were talking about yesterday, that is, how publishing decisions are driven by an author's sales record. If you read Linda's first comment you'll see that she says one publisher's marketing department turned down her latest book because her sales track record "wasn't dazzling, merely respectable", and Linda goes on to describe the "rave rejections" she got for the book which editors loved but didn't think would make them a lot of money.

    To go back to The Long Tail Model, it claims that on the internet, on sites such as Amazon and Netflix, best-sellers and blockbusters account for only 20% of sales, while the other 80% is from a wide range of 'niche products', as they are termed. While of course a publisher hopes that the book they are bringing out will be the next big thing, if this model is correct, is it not also worth publishing a wide range of titles for which ambitions in terms of sales are lower but still good? The online aspect of this is key because lower overheads mean that a company like Amazon can stock thousands of titles in its warehouses, whereas a high street bookseller, with much smaller premises and higher fixed costs, requires a much larger proportion of its stock to be bestselling in order to earn its space on the shelf.

     With the advent of ebooks - no space constraints at all - the long tail looks like getting even longer as there is scope for more titles at less cost to the publisher. If this is so, why do not publishers, instead of turning down a book which they like and which, in a perfect world, they would publish, just bring it out in e-book form? Maybe this happens already, but I haven't come across it, and certainly not where the big, well-known houses are concerned. Granted, authors can do it themselves and cut out 'the middle man', as we've seen here with Linda, but then they lose whatever marketing boost inclusion on the publisher's list would bring. Either way, it looks as though in due course the tail will be wagging the dog!

If you like that, then you'll like this

    For everyone who is enjoying House of Silence so much, try Star Gazing next.

D-i-y

    Yesterday's post was not just about a single book, it was in effect about a publishing revolution as well. Self-publishing has been around a long time, and while of course dud books have got out that way, there are lots of great stories about writers who with justification believed in their work enough to put their own money behind it, despite the fact that the publishing world had turned them down. Deborah Lawrenson's The Art of Falling is a case in point - click here to read how Deborah got it into print, and how it went from 'do-it-yourself' effort to mainstream, mass-market success.

    If you've read the comments on yesterday's post, particularly those from Linda Gillard herself and Harriet Smart, and Linda's guest post over on Lyn's blog, you'll see that established mid-list authors are now turning to self-published e-books to keep their backlist titles available, and using this technology to get new works in print when publishers show no interest. Linda's story about getting House of Silence to the market - her loyal readership eagerly waiting, cash in hand, for someone to put the book out - is fascinating. So far, all the Amazon reviewers give the book five stars, and opinion on blogs backs up that rating - so readers are loving it, but if Linda hadn't decided to go the d-i-y route and publish it herself, we would never have seen it.

    I'm interested in the reasons publishers turned it down: as Linda says, "it belonged to no clear genre", it would thus be hard to market, and as Linda is a versatile writer whose books are not just carbon copies of one another, the follow-up title (already written) is different again, thus more difficulty in the 'pigeon-holing' department.

    Not interested in making money as long as costs were covered, Linda wanted "to let the book find its readers" because she knew they would love it, and she's right. Furthermore, publishing it herself meant she had artistic control - the cover is what she wanted - and she could decide on the price, and she says she makes more per copy at the absolute bargain rate of £1.90 than she would from a paperback costing £7 or £8.

    Self-publishing does of course mean there are no 'gatekeepers' in the process, no agent or editor to ensure that the book is of a standard worthy of being read - though, as we've seen so many times, conventional publishing is not a perfect means of ensuring that the good gets out there while the bad does not. Here again, perhaps the book blogs have their place, acting as filters, bringing good books, whether from a large house or a self-published author, to the notice of their potential readership - and after all, bloggers should have sympathy with an author's position as blogs themselves exist on a purely 'd-i-y' basis!

A stitch in time

 

    Linda Gillard's latest novel, House of Silence, is one of those books you'll put everything else on hold for. Twice, I sneaked back to bed after breakfast just to read a few more chapters before the day proper began - I didn't want to put the story aside, I wanted to find out what would happen next.

    It's a very intricately plotted book, and I won't give you many details for fear of saying too much because part of the pleasure is just watching the story unfold, but it's about Gwen, a wardrobe mistress who works in film and television, who falls for Alfie, an actor. Gwen has no family, her mother dying young, her other relations then falling prey to their self-destructive, indulgent lifestyles, so when she gets the chance to join Alfie and his mother and sisters for Christmas at Creake Hall, their Elizabethan manor house in the depths of Norfolk, she's keen to go.

    At Creake Gwen gets on well with capable Viv, the eldest of Alfie's siblings, and with the enigmatic Tyler, the cello-playing gardener, and she finds a kindred spirit in good-natured Hattie whose love of textiles and needlework matches her own, but there's something a bit 'off' about the set-up at Creake, something normal family tensions and rivalries wouldn't explain. As Gwen and Hattie set to work to complete a complicated piece of patchwork, a project that's been in progress for quite some years, Gwen finds disturbing evidence of subterfuge hidden within the quilt itself. What this deception has to do with Alfie and his mother - the famous children's writer Rae Holbrook - is something she will discover as the Christmas visit proceeds, but suffice to say there are revelations aplenty as the stitches which bound the family to their past are unpicked one by one.

    You can rely on Linda for a highly readable book, a true page-turner which has a very neatly finished ending, and as I said, I didn't want to put it down. It's been described as "a country house mystery ... a family drama ... a gothic romantic comedy", and it's all of these; warm as one of Hattie's quilts, yet with a dark underside, its themes of memory, identity, and sense of self the layers in between, it's beautifully put together and enormously enjoyable (and it's an absolute bargain, to boot!).

(Edited to add: with reference to Liz's comment, and Linda's reply, if you haven't got a Kindle, you can still get the Kindle for PC 'app' which is free, and easy to download. Any Kindle books you then buy will appear on it, and while reading a book on a computer may not be ideal, it's not bad, and it enables you to search the book, highlight passages and make notes, just as on the Kindle itself.)

Controversy with Charley

   

    Many of us loved John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley when the Book Group read it last year. While I took it at face value and believed every detail of that account of a journey across America to be faithfully recorded and true, some members of the group detected a novel-ish caste to the book, and if new research is correct it seems that may be closer to the truth than we'd thought.

    Journalist Bill Steigerwald retraced Steinbeck's steps and claims that the author's actual 'Travels' were quite other than the book makes them out to be. Luxury hotels instead of the camper van and sleeping under the stars, his wife Elaine for company much of the time and not just the odd night the book mentions, fictitious places, imagined conversations ... the list goes on, and you can read all about it - in slightly abbreviated form - in this article.

    If these allegations are correct, does Steinbeck's picture of the open road amount to poetic licence or complete fabrication? Has the novelist's imagination coloured the facts just enough to make 'a good, very readable story' - he did write it after the event - or have they pushed it closer to fiction than to fact? Whatever the truth of the matter, and that we may never know, it's an interesting question to ask about the creative mind.

Graven with Diamonds

 

    - Graven with Diamonds by Nicola Shulman.

    - The many lives of Thomas Wyatt, courtier, poet, assassin, spy.

    - This intriguing-sounding book tells the story of Henry VIII's court "from the perspective of a powerful but little discussed influence in the lives of those involved: poetry... Nicola Shulman interweaves the bloody events of Henry's reign with the story of English love poetry and the life of its first master, Henry's most glamorous and enigmatic subject, Sir Thomas Wyatt."

    - "A fluid, poised, quick-witted spin through the poetic and political career of one of the most elusive, glittering figures of Tudor England ....secrets are unwrapped, but the mystique remains." Hilary Mantel.

    - Get a glimpse of Nicola Shulman's world here.

The Sweetest Thing

 

    - The Sweetest Thing by Cathy Woodman.

    - "An irresistible story of life, love and cupcakes", Katie Fforde.

    - Jennie Copeland buys a ramshackle house near an East Devon market town, sets up a cake-making business, and prepares to get on with life with her children, a dog, a horse and some chickens. Will she last the year? Neighbouring farmer Guy Barnes doesn't think so, and when Jennie realises her rural idyll lacks one vital component, she wonders whether Guy could be the person to provide it.

    - Cathy Woodman was a small animal vet before turning her hand to writing fiction. Her other books include Trust Me, I'm a Vet and Must Be Love.