Cornflower Books

The nicest book of the year

   

    A few words on The Runaways (also known as Linnets and Valerians) by Elizabeth Goudge, which is as the post title says, the nicest book I've read all year.

    Quite simply, this was a delight - a story of 'setting right', of coming into one's own, of happy endings. It's about four siblings who find themselves at the home of their rather marvellous Uncle Ambrose and who thus become agents for change and a power for good prevailing over ill will, so that all becomes well with their somewhat magical world in the village of High Barton.

    It's full of delicious food, beautiful gardens, quirkily characterful houses, and a charming collection of people (and animals), all vividly drawn and described, but it's its warmth and joyousness which make it special.

    A book to lift the spirits and gladden the heart.

Wishing you a very happy Christmas ...

    ... and hoping Santa brings you lots of lovely books!

Old books of the year

       
   
    My post of a couple of weeks ago was concerned with new books, but some 'old' ones have given as much pleasure or more and have earned their Cornflower Blue too.

    In no particular order then come Cynthia Harnett's The Wool-Pack (I read it here), Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave (it turns out I knew Lady Stewart's editor), The Silent Traveller in Oxford by Chiang Yee (a man after my own heart), Rumer Godden's In this House of Brede (which many of us enjoyed), and although I've yet to finish it, The Runaways by Elizabeth Goudge. Each is special in its own way.

Delightful!

       Just a quick post to follow up on this one from a few months ago and to say that I am at long last reading a novel of Elizabeth Goudge's - The Runaways (also known as Linnets and Valerians) - and it is a joy, every page a delight!

        Thanks to everyone who left a comment on that earlier post; they show in no uncertain terms that EG was a writer who touched people's hearts and made a deep and lasting impression on her readers, and even at this early stage I can see why that is.

Cornflower Blues - books of the year, 2014

   

    This has not been a vintage reading year for me; I've read fewer books than usual, and of them only a handful stand out, so the number awarded the Cornflower Blue in 2014 is tiny compared to last year, say, but still, the honoured five are up there with the best of them.

    Esteemed runners-up in the fiction category are Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss (there's a post on it here), Little Egypt by Lesley Glaister (post here), and The Stories by Jane Gardam.

    The outright winner in non-fiction is Margaret Forster's My Life in Houses (see this post), and my novel of the year - no surprise to assiduous readers of this blog - is History of the Rain by Niall Williams (for the reasons given here and in the longer piece to which I've linked).

    My thanks to all those writers for the pure reading pleasure their work has given me, and for being true 'class acts', worthy of our respect and admiration.

A study

    "I like a great library next my study; but for the study itself, give me a small snug place, almost entirely walled with books. There should be only one window in it, looking upon trees. Some prefer a place with few, or no books at all - nothing but a chair or a table, like Epictetus; but I should say that these were philosophers, not lovers of books, if I did not recollect that Montaigne was both. He had a study in a round tower, walled as aforesaid. It is true, one forgets one's books while writing - at least they say so. For my part, I think I have them in a sort of sidelong mind's eye; like a second thought, which is none - like a waterfall, or a whispering wind."

J.H. Leigh Hunt, My Books, another passage from The Book Lovers' Anthology: A Compendium of Writing About Books, Readers and Libraries.

 

    The picture - perhaps a modern version of Leigh Hunt's ideal - is of the Scholar's Library by the New York architects Gluck+ which I found thanks to this blog.

Only a novel

 

   " 'What are you reading, Miss ---?' 'Oh! It's only a novel!' replies the young lady; while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. 'It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda'; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed; in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit or humour, are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language."

    Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, quoted in The Book Lovers' Anthology: A Compendium of Writing About Books, Readers and Libraries.

Snow

    Faber have recently published an edition of Walter de la Mare's poem Snow illustrated by Carolina Rabei. I haven't seen the book, but the trailer is delightful enough to make me seek it out.