Cornflower Books

The cat's kittens

    You can see how much I enjoyed Touch Not the Cat because on the back of it I've bought the bargain Mary Stewart set! Despite the flaws that many of us remarked on, I found the book a very pleasant read, perfect for when something soothing is required, and so I'm looking forward to the pile here on the left.

    It seems clear that the novel we read was not Mary Stewart's best (vexingly, I'd found it listed as a favourite on one or two websites and so thought I was choosing a winner), but there were sufficient positive comments to indicate that most of us have taken something worthwhile from it, and we live to read another day.

    

    Of the rest of her work, The Merlin Trilogy has many fans amongst you - and I'm glad to say I've bought the first part, The Crystal Cave, as well as what's shown here; several people also mentioned The Moonspinners, and Teresa and LizF speak well of Wildfire at Midnight. Meanwhile Rosie likens Mary Stewart to Kate Morton and Rachel Hore, and that comparison spurs me on to get something by Rachel Hore whose books I've yet to read though they come very warmly recommended.

    Lastly on the subject, I'm very glad to hear from Barbara that Mary Stewart is indeed alive and well and still living in Argyllshire, presumably in the house we see her in in this television interview.

Reading in the bath

    All you need is one of these "luxurious bath stands" from Sarah Raven (though luxury comes at a price...).
    I do read in the bath, though not every time, preferring often to think or relax completely, but with one of these I might do it more often - not sure how well the book would stay open, though.

Good lines - when time stops

   

 

    "Mrs. Talbot sighed and sat back in her chair. Very faintly in the background there was the sound of a single-engine plane, perhaps a Spitfire, Geoffrey thought, on a training exercise from one of the grass airfields in Sussex. Considering the war for civilisation they were daily waging with the Luftwaffe, the noise was oddly peaceful, not much more than the buzz of a distant bee in the hot afternoon.

 

    For the moment the three of them, the small family unit, looked at one another and Geoffrey had the sensation of time stopping, as though all his childhood summers were rolled into that moment: the slow days when the sun glowed on the brick of the village almshouses with their fiery beds of dahlias and wallflowers tended by old men in cardigans; the bubbling white of the water that ran beneath the bridge by the church in which, flat on the grass, he would dip his hands to cool them, then splash his face; the road when he bicycled past the cottage hospital on his way home from school and saw the patients wheeled on to the grass to lie in the drowsy afternoon with a wireless faintly playing through an open door."

    That passage, from A Possible Life by Sebastian Faulks, has even greater resonance in the context of Geoffrey Talbot's later experiences (which I won't go into here). A third of the way through, I'm loving the book.

And another one

 
    Another e-book bargain is to be had with today's Kindle Daily Deal, Susan Hill's ghost story The Small Hand. This is what you'll get for your 99p:

    Adam Snow, a dealer in antiquarian books and manuscripts, takes a wrong turning while driving through deepest Sussex one evening and finds himself stopping at the gate of The White House in an effort to get directions. What he finds on walking up the drive is a deserted, half derelict house and a once grand, now wildly overgrown garden, but instead of turning back, Adam lingers a while in the Spring dusk, intrigued by the strange, sad place. All is still and quiet, nothing moves; but then Adam feels a small hand creep into his own.

    That is the first of a series of increasingly frightening experiences which Adam has in places as far apart as Oxford and a French monastery, and when what had first felt like a benign presence becomes instead a powerful and threatening one, Adam tries to discover the history of The White House and what binds him to it.

    Susan Hill's The Small Hand is - typically of the author - economical, clear and straightforward. No words are wasted, no fancy devices used, it is well-dressed, mannerly story-telling at its best. It's a short book, but I found myself taking it at a measured pace - which I think it demands for its full effect - not wanting it to end, keen for the next exquisite episode. I've read two of Susan's earlier ghost stories, The Woman In Black and The Mist In The Mirror, and I recommend them thoroughly, but there was something about the contemporary setting of this latest book which made it all the more chilling. It's simply, beautifully done.

                                                       ~~~~~

    Susan Hill's latest ghost story Dolly has recently been published, and I wrote not long ago about her 'mainstream' novels In the Springtime of the Year and A Kind Man. I'm way behind with her Simon Serrailler series, but I see that book 7, A Question of Identity, has just come out.

Bargains for Kindle

    I've spotted a few good things in the current Kindle books promotion, for example, the first four of Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody series as an omnibus edition (they come with glowing recommendations - have a look here), Julian Barnes's The Pedant In The Kitchen (there's a bit about it here), BB's The Little Grey Men (beloved by Mr. C. - and see his post on Brendon Chase), Nigel Slater's memoir Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger (there's a 'crumb' from it here), and Sarah Moss's Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland (which I mentioned re. knitting and quoted again the other day).

Cornflower Book Group - Touch Not The Cat

 

    Judging by all the comments on the post announcing that a Mary Stewart book was to be the group's October title, Lady Stewart seems to have a special place on many readers' shelves, often as a feature of our teenage years but still enjoyed decades on. I found all the remarks very heartening, not having read Mary Stewart since my teens but remembering her books as being very enjoyable and looking forward to a pleasant rediscovery.

    Touch Not the Cat was first published in 1976 and set around then, too, and some scenes or details wear their date less well than others (mink eyelashes, anyone?), but it's focus is of course a very old house and its garden, its history, artefacts, and the family which has always lived there, and this gives a solid centre to the book.

    I needn't go into the plot here but I was swept along by its twists and turns, though always secure in the knowledge that all would be well in the end, the baddies would be thwarted, the heroine would find happiness, justice of a sort would be done - that, to me, is satisfying, and my sense from the outset was that Mary Stewart could be trusted to deliver in that way. Some readers may find the reliance on telepathy stretched their credulity or tried their patience, though for my part, that was fine; there are some rather melodramatic moments too, and a slight leaning towards the 'rude mechanicals' stereotype (e.g. Mrs. Henderson), but for me it amounted to lovely romantic, escapist stuff, intelligent, very pleasant to read because the voice is right in tone and timbre, and the rhythm and pace are similarly regular and easy to fall in step with. It would certainly be a candidate for our "enchanted armchair", and would have me seeking out other Mary Stewart novels for moments when her blend of well-crafted romance and suspense is just what is needed (and there's a bargain to be had on them here, by the way).

    What did you think? Was this a welcome return to an author you hadn't read for years? Was Mary Stewart a happy discovery, and if so are you keen to read more? If you're a Stewart aficionado, where would you rank this book in terms of her others? Did the male readers among us feel she was not for them? Was the supernatural element not to your taste or did it add savour to the tale? Did you feel the plot and its references were unduly tortuous - in keeping with the maze at the garden's heart - or was that relative complexity welcome grist to the mental mill? Do give us your thoughts; and by the way, should this book have had little appeal for you, next month's promises to be very different.

                                                ~~~~~

    The 'Books and Cakes' post for Touch Not the Cat is here.

The perfect reading environment

 

    Over a year ago I asked you to list a few of your favourite book-related things, and we had such lovely responses with lists of simple pleasures that I thought it would be fun to do it again.

    If you would, please answer some or all of the following questions - or anything similar that comes to mind, for that matter; what I'm after is your ideal reading environment, and it can be a real one or a fantasy!

~ what is your favourite bookish location: a bookshop or library, a room in your own or someone else's home, somewhere out of doors*?

~ what is your preferred reading spot, e.g. a certain chair, your bed, a bench in the garden...?

~ do you prefer - in the background - music or silence, or the sounds of nature?

~ what about smells, do you want natural scents, homely ones such as baking and coffee, or just the smell of ink and paper?

~ related to that, what would you like best to eat or drink while reading?

~ when you look up from the page, would you like a view as such or is the place itself enough?

~ would you have a companion with whom to exchange the odd word about your reading, or do you prefer to keep the pleasure a solitary one?

~ any extra odds and ends such as a cosy blanket, a notebook, a particular bookmark, a stand to support a heavy volume, a special light?

~ in your ideal scenario, is having one book to hand enough, or would you like a shelf or two (or two hundred) within easy reach?

~ which author, alive or dead, might you want to join you for a grand old chat?

 

*The picture (click to enlarge it and you'll see the chair) is of a particularly lovely reading spot.

The Confidant

    

    The Confidant by Hélène Grémillon, translated by Alison Anderson, is a first novel that is a bestseller in France, an intriguing and atmospheric story about maternal instinct and identity, manipulation and conflict. Its epigraph is from The Premonition by Federico García Lorca: 'The past wears its armoured breastplate and blocks its ears with the wind's cotton wool. No one will ever be able to tear its secret away', and it's the past which, for the main character, will now inform and explain the present, as will be seen.

    The book begins in Paris in 1975 with Camille Werner reading the many letters of condolence she has received after the death of her mother. Reflecting on the fact that up to this point she had had little mail of any consequence, certainly nothing of the life-changing variety that she might idly have hoped for, Camille is puzzled to notice that one of these missives is unsigned and refers to people she does not know; she dismisses it as a mistake. But similar letters then arrive every Tuesday, and taken together they seem to tell the story of lives changed and loves lost during the Second World War and the German occupation of Paris.

    Camille is an editor at a publishing house and as she is drawn in by this tale told weekly she begins to suspect that it is a clever ruse by a writer, someone sending her chapters of their book aiming to get her attention, for what she is reading is a gripping, unsettling account of passion and obsession - but then comes the realisation that the story is not fictitious but true, and that the life-changing moment she had anticipated has actually arrived.

    The narrative moves back and forth between characters' viewpoints and the two time periods (the '70s and '30s/'40s), so by its very nature it is arrhythmic and fragmented, but still with sufficient coherence and a well-controlled building of suspense to hold the reader and keep them turning the pages. It's intricately plotted and at times relies perhaps too heavily on coincidence or contrivance, and the pull to the dramatic is strong, but I'd say that the odd 'rough edge' there is to Hélène Grémillon's style will be smoothed and polished as her work progresses because the promise is clearly there; in a book which relies on detail and necessary obfuscation, all the clues are carefully hidden and there's considerable satisfaction when the dénouement finally comes.

    For more on the book, read Stu's post or David's, see Hélène's writing room at Novelicious, and tomorrow pop over to Curiosity Killed The Bookworm.

I wonder, I wonder

   

    I've been thinking about our capacity to be amazed, in awe, in a state of wonder, how that relates to places we visit and things we see and also to what we read.

    For my part, I find enthusiasm very attractive; the facility for having - and crucially, showing - genuine intense interest or eager enjoyment without cynicism or any kind of cultivated nonchalance is a good thing in my book. I find the sort of attitude which is the equivalent of a dismissive shrug or a grudging acknowledgement of the 'it's alright, but ...' kind rather sadly dampening. That's not to say that a critical (in the wider sense) approach which recognises flaws as well as strengths isn't wanted - quite the contrary - but I suppose what I'm saying is don't burst the balloon for the sake of it, don't let artistic snobbery or the desire to appear superior by seeming unimpressed get in the way of a natural reaction, especially a chiefly positive one.

    To explain what I mean let me quote a passage from Sarah Moss's Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland, her account of a year spent living in Iceland, discovering its culture and way of life, a book I found enormously interesting and enjoyable. Sarah describes going out one winter night to see the aurora borealis, "watching the green curtain reach across the sky and contract, like the convulsive grasping of a palsied hand. It is the movement that makes them uncanny, as if there must be some consciousness directing the stroking and grabbing of the sky. I stand, and watch, and shiver, and watch some more. I want to stay until the end, but after a while find that there is a limit to how long an intelligent adult can be enthralled by green lights, and go home."

    Perhaps it's unfair of me to single out that example when there are, after all, many sound reasons to curtail even the best of experiences, but I suppose what I'm trying to get at is the idea of diminution, the sense of reducing something awe-inspiring or admirable or even simply thoroughly enjoyable to mundane constituents; the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and that is where the magic lies, and to be moved by that magic is a fine thing. That's why I rave about books as I do when I find a good one; my reaction may be childlike, but I'll defend that - should defence be needed - by saying that among the reasons for which we read is the hope that we will be affected, amazed, enthralled, uplifted, impressed, excited, and if we are then is it not good to show it?

                                                ~~~~~

The image is a detail from the cover of Geraldine Brooks's most excellent novel Year of Wonders.

Venetian reading

    Having read Jan Morris's Venice before visiting the city, I've come to the conclusion that it's better to read books about a place or set there when actuallly in situ or back home again - locations mean so much more when you've been there. I looked carefully at all your suggestions of Venetian reading, but for reasons of availability, practicality and mood what I ended up with for my trip over the last few days was Sarah Caudwell's entertaining Thus Was Adonis Murdered - perfect for reading on the plane and in the few moments we were resting our weary legs (we walked miles) between sights. A legal murder mystery in which the crime is committed in Venice but solved by an Oxford professor and a group of his former students - all now barristers - back in London, this was arch, intelligent, intricately contrived and a lot of fun, and I look forward to reading more from the series.

    For 'real' Venetian crime, I very much want to start Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti series, beginning with Death At La Fenice, although ironically we didn't actually get to La Fenice - that's on the list for our next visit - and I walked past the Inspector's Questura without noticing it (there's a helpful guide to some of the books' locations here). I spotted only one bookshop in Venice, in the window of which Ken Follett was very much to the fore; has anyone read The Pillars of the Earth, by the way? 1100 pages about the building of a cathedral rather appeals to me.

    Back home again, I've just started Jane Borodale's The Knot - quite literally back down to earth!

Three things

    ~    Writing my Oxford crime post a few months ago had me making several additions to my wish list, among them the novels of Sarah Caudwell. Happily, some of them (Thus Was Adonis Murdered, The Shortest Way to Hades and The Sirens Sang of Murder) are re-issued today in both paperback and e-book form, so a little purchase may be in order ...

    ~    When I give away books via the blog I certainly don't expect anything in return, but Alison - who recently won a copy of The Snow Child - has most generously sent me a gift. Helen Dunmore's The Greatcoat is a book I noted when I saw it reviewed recently, and I'm delighted to have this "elegant, literary flesh-creeper" and I'm looking forward to reading it. Thankyou, Alison!

    ~    Lastly today, 'social engineering' for the book business? I don't agree with this article's point at all: "Another prize for Hilary Mantel was unnecessary, and a missed opportunity to invigorate the books world". Whatever happened to merit? Surely it is the job of the judges to award the prize to the book they consider to be the best of those entered (see Ion Trewin, Literary Director of the Booker Prize Foundation, on the sole criterion here); their choice is not to be based on what might "invigorate the books world", support small publishers or smooth the publishing path for "innovative, genre-bending writers" - those aims or concerns are not part of their remit. "Mantel does not need a second Booker," says the article; since when was the prize awarded on the basis of need?

Keeping the faith

    Just another quick word on Hilary Mantel's win last night, this from Christopher Potter, former Publisher and Managing Director of Fourth Estate, the man who originally brought Hilary Mantel to the company:

    “This is evidence if ever it were needed that editors should put their trust in writers who they think are talented, and stick by them. It may take some time to get the recognition they deserve, but it does come.”

    In Edinburgh recently, James Runcie talked to the woman described - until her 2009 Man Booker success - as "a well-kept secret"; I was there, and you can read about that conversation here.

The 2012 Man Booker Prize for Fiction

 

    The 2012 Man Booker Prize for Fiction has been won by

    Hilary Mantel for Bring up the Bodies 

    Winning the prize "raises the temperature of your writing", says the 1991 winner Ben Okri - surely it couldn't go much higher!

                                                ~~~~~

    May I recommend this interview with Hilary Mantel, and its observation on her writing process:

"She writes the books in collage – distinct, hermetic scenes that she then arranges and rearranges and stitches together to make a whole, though the overall architecture is always in her mind and she has the chronology to lean on. History is useful like that."

Pithy comments

 

    There is much speculation, naturally, on which book will take the Man Booker Prize tonight - as far as the bookies are concerned, Hilary Mantel's Bring up the Bodies is a very narrow favourite at 6/4, just ahead of Will Self's Umbrella. There is also, as usual, a lot of talk on judging criteria and what the prize is recognising or seeking to reward, and I'd love to be a fly on the wall as the panel's deliberation and debate continues.

    You can download readers' guides to the six shortlisted books (and those from the longlist which didn't make the cut), but in the spirit of getting to the nub of things, I thought I'd quote from the nicely brief assessments of the final six which appear in the current issue of Country Life:

The Lighthouse by Alison Moore - "The originality, structure and neat prose of this first novel justify its shortlisting, but it doesn't do much to lift the soul." (Kate Green)

Umbrella by Will Self - "Undoubtedly, it's the work of a brilliant mind ... but uncompromising Modernism has always been a little hard to swallow. If this wins, I'll eat my copy of Ulysses." (Emma Hughes)

The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng - "This is a haunting literary novel, its writing as clear and poetic as a Japanese woodblock print, as well as a gripping story ... It deserves to win." (Leslie Geddes-Brown)

Swimming Home by Deborah Levy - "Language, imagery and recurring symbols cleverly evoke the surreal atmosphere, but for all the literary skill, I couldn't help feeling slightly annoyed by the self-consciousness, let alone exasperated by the pivotal character ..." (Mary Miers)

Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel - "... if the jury does choose it, it will prove it is guided solely by issues of quality." (Michael Hall)

Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil - "Mr. Thayil's ear is better attuned to subtlety than Aravind Adiga, author of 2008 victor White Tiger, which makes for fewer belly-laughs, but a more intoxicating read." (Emma Hughes)

Good lines: a taste of the sensational

 

     "Fido returns Friendless Girls to the pile of pamphlets on the bedside cabinet, and unlocks the lower drawer in which she keeps her fiction. Not that she has anything indecent; the spines all bear the Pegasus motif of Mudie's Library. Ridiculous things are said of Miss Braddon's novels*, or Mr. Collins's - that they harrow the nervous system and drive readers to drink or insanity. Fido finds them enlivening, in the small doses she allows herself; as with any stimulus, it's a matter of moderate use. Appalling secrets, deaths, bigamies, doppelgangers: there's nothing like a taste of the sensational at the end of a hard day."

From The Sealed Letter by Emma Donoghue; see yesterday's post for more on it.

(*The CBG read Lady Audley's Secret back in January; you can see what we made of it here.)

    Do you indulge in "a taste of the sensational at the end of a hard day"? Not, perhaps, the Victorian novels Fido has borrowed from Mudie's, but the modern day equivalent - crime, thrillers, psychological dramas and so on - or maybe something like Fingersmith which Sarah Waters says is meant as a tribute to the sensation genre, or Michel Faber's The Crimson Petal and the White?

Companion piece 2 - fact and fiction

    More companion reading*, this time of the 'if you liked that then you'll like this' variety. Emma Donoghue's novel The Sealed Letter has much in common with Kate Summerscale's recent non-fiction book Mrs Robinson's Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady. The latter (there's a post on it here) is an account of a scandalous divorce case; the former is a fictional version of a similarly sensational real-life action, one which has many similarities to Robinson v. Robinson and Lane, to the point where that case crops up in Emma Donoghue's narrative, cited as having set a useful precedent.

    The Sealed Letter is based on the daily newspaper reports of the 1864 Codrington v. Codrington and Anderson and it's a highly readable, detailed but brisk page-turner of a book which concentrates on the shocking allegations behind the case and the legal twists and turns, manipulation and intrigue which propelled it to its sorry conclusion.

    It begins with a chance meeting in a London street: Helen Codrington, recently returned to England after some years abroad, bumps into her old friend Emily 'Fido' Faithfull. Although the two women had once been close, the friendship had foundered and they had lost touch. Emily had gone on to lead an independent life as the proprietor of a printing press and a pioneer of the Women's Movement, while Helen had become increasingly unhappy in her marriage to a vice-admiral, but having met again after so long, cordial relations are restored and all appears well. However, things are not quite as they seem, and 'Fido' soon becomes the unwitting accomplice to Helen's obsessive affair with an army officer. As events take their inevitable course, no party will emerge unscathed.

    There are accusations and counter-accusations, secrets, lies, betrayals and shaming facts. "This isn't a sensation novel," Helen reminds herself as she listens to her husband's barrister in court, but of course it's the stuff of one, and Emma Donoghue has used her material very skilfully in this historical recreation.

                                                    ~~~~~

    *Companion piece 1 is here.

Writers' portraits - Edna O'Brien

    I have a lot of recent arrivals to talk about, similarly a lot of recent reads, but the catching up will have to wait for another day.

   Today, with many thanks first of all to Mary without whose post I might have missed it, let me point you in the direction of an excellent programme on Edna O'Brien (who, at an unbelievable 81, still looks amazing!). I had the chance to meet her at publishing event a few months ago but sadly I couldn't go: she is a fascinating person and the documentary is one not to miss. As for her books, I have many of her novels, all read when I was in my 20s, I think, and of course her memoir Country Girl has recently been published. Just by the way, Edna O'Brien has been the guest on Desert Island Discs twice, and you can hear the programmes or find her choice of music here. I wonder whether any castaway has ever chosen a recording of Edna O'Brien speaking - hers is a lovely voice to listen to, whether you're marooned or not.

Out now ...

    ....The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe, one of my top favourite books of the year, as you'll see here.

Cornflower Book Group - November 2012

    The Cornflower Book Group's October book, Touch Not The Cat, is set at the charming old English manor house Ashley Court. The book I've chosen as our November read also features a house, but one of a very different period and kind; it is a gleaming modern building which is at the heart of Simon Mawer's The Glass Room.

    "On honeymoon in Venice in 1928, Viktor and Liesel Landauer face a new world when they meet brilliant architect Rainer von Abt. Soon, on a hillside near a provincial Czech town, the Landauer house with its celebrated Glass Room will become a modernist masterpiece of travertine floors and onyx walls, filled with light and optimism. But as Viktor is Jewish, when Nazi troops arrive the family must flee.

    The house slips from hand to hand, Nazi to Soviet and finally to the Czechoslovak state. It becomes a laboratory, a shelter from the storm of war, and a place where the broken and the ruined find some kind of comfort until, with the collapse of Communism, the Landauers can finally return to where their story began."

    I was going to quote from some of the reviews of the book, but if I begin I'll be here all day - they are starry indeed. The novel was shortlisted for (among others) the 2009 Man Booker Prize and the 2010 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, and as Wolf Hall won both of those, we know the competition was stiff and it was in exalted company. But considering the book now from the point of view of 'the casual reader' rather than that of the critics or a panel of judges, it is heartening to know that the members of the Mainstreet Trading Company book group voted it a favourite! I hope we shall all enjoy it as much as they did.

    If we set our discussion date as from Saturday, 24th. November, we should have plenty of time to read it, and as to availability, it seems to be easy enough to get hold of both from libraries and retailers here and abroad, though The Book Depository will supply it with free worldwide delivery if local sources don't have it. Everyone is very welcome to join in, sharing their thoughts and impressions of the book, come the day, in as succinct or discursive a manner as you choose!

    By the way, if you'd like to see the real modernist house which was the inspiration for the Landauers' home, click here - others may prefer to let a mental image develop as they read (though there are line drawings in the book).

A bargain, and some books to look forward to

   

     ~   Anyone who, like me, has had their eye on Jane Borodale's recently published novel The Knot (which I mentioned here) may be interested to know that it is currently available at a bargain price. I've just bought it.

 

     ~   Neil Gaiman fans will be glad to hear that he has a new book due out next summer: The Ocean at the End of the Lane is, he says, "a novel of childhood and memory. It's a story of magic, about the power of stories and how we face the darkness inside each of us. It's about fear, and love, and death, and families. But, fundamentally, I hope, at its heart, it's a novel about survival".

    ~    Kate Atkinson's next novel is to be published in March. Life After Life is about a woman who lives through the most turbulent events of the 20th century, and it asks: "What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?"

 

 

    ~    Maggie O'Farrell is another very popular author with a new book out in the coming months. Instructions for a Heatwave is a portrait of an Irish family in the heatwave summer of 1976: "Robert Riordan tells his wife Gretta that he's going round the corner to buy a newspaper.  He doesn't come back.  The search for Robert brings Gretta's children - two estranged sisters and a brother on the brink of divorce - back home, each with different ideas as to where their father might have gone.  None of them suspects that their mother might have an explanation that even now she cannot share."