Cornflower Books

You do not need another self-help book

 

    What an inspired title for a collection of poetry! Sarah Salway's You Do Not Need Another Self-Help Book - which is being launched in London this evening (details here) - is pin-sharp, clever, funny, contemporary, and expresses in beautifully original style a unique way of seeing the world.

    If poetry is the distillation of observations, feelings, experiences and personalities, then Sarah's work is the equivalent of strong spirit - so much 'life' concentrated in so few perfect words.    

    Click here to read Love and Stationery and I'm sure you'll smile knowingly; from this page you can follow links to hear Sarah reading from the book; meanwhile, I'm taking the liberty of offering you one of my favourites,  

Business as Usual

The Ivy is creeping with poets today

while over at Sheekey's they're teaching

kids how to fish for themselves

and you can't move at Glyndebourne

 

for storytellers swilling champagne.

The auction house is hushed as a sonnet

sells for millions and no one cares as the banker,

freezing in his office, burns stocks for fuel.

 

Free versers dominate the Cabinet,

and the country operates efficiently

since the haiku writers shifted to law.

Yes, happiness has improved immeasurably

 

now surrealists look after the curriculum

and imagination became the single currency,

because a simile buys you a first class seat

and it's no longer a lack of metaphor

 

that keeps the suits in economy.

Writers' portraits - Beatrix Potter

    Beatrix Potter (Mrs. Heelis) by Delmar Banner, 1938.

Cumbrian farmer, conservationist, much loved author and illustrator - here, Peter Rabbit's creator is shown towards the end of her life, the background making reference to her second career as a countrywoman and noted breeder of Herdwick sheep.

    Has anyone read the fairly recent biography, Beatrix Potter: The extraordinary life of a Victorian genius by Linda Lear? From a quick whirl round some reviews, it would appear to concentrate less on her writing and more on her expertise as a naturalist, although "Lear does an excellent job in bringing all the various aspects of Potter’s life into focus," (The Spectator). I have only Margaret Lane's biography, read ages ago and enjoyed (and I do like the film, though I think the animated series Beatrix Potter - The World of Peter Rabbit & Friends is magical, especially The Tailor of Gloucester).

    As to the portrait itself, I know it well as I have it in postcard form (and used as a bookmark for many years), but if it's new to you, is the subject as you imagined her?

Portmanteau post

    The word portmanteau always brings to mind Mary Poppins' carpet bag, and I hope this post will include items as useful and diverting as Mary produced from her luggage. Here, then - with a flourish - are a few bits and pieces, hat stands not included:

    Food in fiction: novelists Joanne Harris (author of Chocolat, of course) and Donna Leon (creator of the food-loving Commissario Brunetti who features in an extensive series of novels beginning with Death At La Fenice) discuss "the evocative role that food plays in fiction" at the Oxford Literary Festival on Monday, 26th. March. Yum!

    Bloomsbury podcasts: five podcasts start this very promising-sounding series from Bloomsbury, among them Lucy Wood on her short story collection Diving Belles which I wrote about recently. I haven't had a moment to listen yet, but I shall certainly do so (standing up, of course!).

    Faber Academy have been running face to face creative writing courses for a while, but now they are launching the inaugural 'writing a novel online' course, to be taught over 28 weeks. Meanhwile, aspiring writers of non-fiction may be interested in this in-person course with Kate Colquhoun (Mr Briggs' Hat) and guest tutor Kate Summerscale (The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher).

    The RNA Epic Romantic Novel Award has gone to Rosie Thomas for The Kashmir Shawl. I mentioned recently that two of my favourite novels of last year (that book and Deborah Lawrenson's The Lantern) were in contention for the prize. My commiserations to Deborah, but congratulations to Rosie, and thanks to both authors for such enjoyable novels.

    The Song of Achilles: it is US publication day for Madeline Miller's marvellous book, another of my 'best of 2011'. I hope Madeline's home readership will enjoy her debut as much as I did.

Looking ahead - some non-fiction to come

 

    Publishers' catalogues are instruments of temptation, and with the latest one from Granta Books arriving this morning, my 'would like to read' list has got a little longer. Here are three non-fiction titles which particularly caught my eye and which I hope will interest you, too:

 

     I loved Sarah Moss's novel Night Waking (out in paperback early next month), and her new book Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland, her account of "uprooting her young family and moving to a country with an endless winter, few vegetables and and no sense of risk", gets a rave review from Adèle. Recording intriguing cultural discoveries in a fascinating Northern land, this is "inquisitive, beautifully written and often very funny", and will be out in July.

 

    A blend of memoir, literary history and travel book, Miriam Darlington's Otter Country: In Search of the Wild Otter (coming in September) charts her journey through the remote places of Britain on the trail of that shy and elusive animal. "Written in magical prose and with a wonderful warmth and wit", I hope this book will be as enjoyable as Robert Macfarlane's The Wild Places (post on it here)  - and by the way, Macfarlane fans will want to look out for his new book The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot in June.

 

    I haven't read Sara Maitland's A Book of Silence, although it has been on my wish list for some time, but her new book Gossip from the Forest: A Search for the Hidden Roots of Our Fairytales appeals just as much. This is "a magical exploration of the deep-rooted connections between forests and fairytales published [in November] to coincide with the bicentenary of the Grimm brothers' classic ... From the exquisite green of a beech wood in spring to the muffled stillness of a snowy pine wood in winter, Sara Maitland shows us how fairy stories grew out of the ancient world of the forest. Each chapter ends with the re-telling of a fairy story ... a unique and bewitching blend of nature writing, history and imaginative fiction".

The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price ...

 

    The Thoughts & Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals by Wendy Jones may win the prize for longest, most quirky title of the year, but in contrast the novel itself has a quiet grace and charm and simplicity about it, and I found that very appealing.

    It begins in the Spring of 1924 with a picnic in a garden, a young woman in a fetching dress the colour of lemon curd, and a young man, carried away by the emotion of the moment, who asks her to marry him. Grace Reece is the daughter of the local doctor, Wilfred Price is an undertaker, and news of their betrothal will soon fly round the Pembrokeshire village of Narberth. But just as quickly, Wilfred realises he has acted impulsively, he doesn't love Grace and is now intent on dis-engaging himself; Grace, however, has a secret of her own.

    The book's epigraph is from The Mabinogion, the eleventh century Welsh epic:

"And he saw a tall tree by the side of the river, one half of which was on fire, from the root to the top, and the other half was green and in full leaf",

and that passage is relevant to Grace and her situation, and though I won't dwell on it here, therein lies the story's dark side, but it is handled very effectively in terms of weighting and balance between the slightly whimsical elements on the one hand and the much more serious ones on the other.

    The lighter side of the book is amusing and charming as we see Wilfred "lost in the maze of his own life", in love with the wrong woman, trying to make sense of a complicated situation. "Wilfred didn't know what marriage involved. Because his father was widowed, Wilfred had had no insight into the day-to-day goings-on of marriage, hadn't grown up enveloped in one. He imagined the worst ones were like Punch and Judy's marriage. He'd seen the puppet show once on the annual Bethesda Chapel Sunday School outing to Saundersfoot - the man hit the woman, the woman nagged the man, and they lived with an alligator. That was no good at all ...".

    Things will resolve themselves in time, but not so definitively that there isn't room for a sequel - due next year - which is good news. There's a delicacy about the book that suits its themes of reticence and what is hidden and unspoken, and there's a lightness to the telling, as unforced as its period setting, so all told, a lovely debut from Wendy Jones.

Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death

 

    Canon Sidney Chambers is a joy! Reading about him in this the first of James Runcie's Grantchester Mysteries is to spend hours in the company of a man one would love to know for real, and I am completely smitten.

    The story begins in 1953 with Sidney in his early thirties, vicar of Grantchester (just outside Cambridge), tutor at Corpus Christi, lover of jazz, cricket and books. He's an enormously likeable man, calm, compassionate and understanding, self-aware and conscientious, a good listener and a shrewd judge of character.

    Sidney is a reluctant detective, his involvement in the investigation of crimes coming about by chance but with the approval of his friend Inspector Geordie Keating  - with whom he drinks beer and plays backgammon - for the Inspector knows that Sidney's moral authority can carry weight, and a priest may go where a policeman cannot. But still Sidney worries that he is not doing enough for his parishioners and those he is called to help, and he chides himself for neglecting his real work for the distractions of his unofficial duties.

    "As a priest he was expected to be charitable and think the best of people, tolerating their behaviour and forgiving their sins; but as an amateur sleuth he found that the requirements were the exact opposite. Now his task was to be suspicious, to think less of everybody, suspect his or her motives and trust no one. It was not the Christian way."

    As with Alexander McCall Smith's Mma Ramotswe novels, the solving of crimes is neither the hero's raison d'être nor really the main point of the book, it's the prism through which we view the character and his struggle to do the right thing, see him develop and watch him progress - for the series will follow Sidney's career (and I hope his personal life) through to 1981. If you're looking for complex plots and intricate situations you won't find them here, but if you want a gentle, romantic book with a lovely period feel, and at its heart a charming character and a purity of thought that is very appealing, then look out for this novel when it's published in May.

A few things

 

    Firstly, thankyou for the many very supportive comments re. the choice of The French Lieutenant's Woman for the book group. I haven't replied to each one, but I'm glad to know lots of people are willing to read it, and even my husband has been persuaded!

 

     Next, and about time too, I've drawn a winner for the copy of William Boyd's new novel Waiting for Sunrise - and it is Susie (and do pop over to Susie's blog to see the pictures of lovely Otto!). Thanks to everyone who put their name in the hat, and to Bloomsbury for the book itself which will be on its way to Susie very soon.

 

    Still speaking of all things Bloomsbury, in association with the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook, they've just launched a crime writing competition with a difference: Short Sentence is about writing a crime story in fewer than 1000 words. Click on that link for the rules and submission and prize details, and you'll also see there that this month's theme for entries is 'Deception'. If you need inspiration, you might like to look at the crime list, one of which - James Runcie's Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death - I've just finished and recommend thoroughly (post on it coming soon).

 

    Crime fiction fans may also like to know about Bloody Scotland, Scotland's first international crime writing festival, taking place in Stirling in September. Here's the 'rogues' gallery' of participating authors, and from the home page you can sign up for the email newsletter.

 

    If history is more to your taste than crime, how about the Chalke Valley History Festival which is to be held in Wiltshire at the end of June and will feature some impressive speakers.