Cornflower Books

The Big Readcycle

    W.H. Smith has joined forces with Marie Curie to launch The Big Readcycle, whereby until the 28th of August you can drop off books you've read and loved and would like to pass on at collection points within Smith's stores, or Marie Curie shops, of course. In return for your donation you'll be given a voucher for 25% off books at W.H. Smith, and all donated books will be sold in Marie Curie shops to benefit that charity and further the very important work that it does.

    You can find your nearest branch of Smith's by searching here and you can search for local Marie Curie shops here. The aim is to have 30,000 books donated over the next four weeks, so I'm filling a couple of bags to drop off later today. If you can do the same and want to spread the word on Twitter, use the hashtag #readcycle or link to @WHSmith and @MarieCurieUK; the latter is also on Facebook.

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    Later: I've delivered my load of books, and now would like to point you in the direction of some cake-related fundraising!

Now, there's a book I can recommend

   

    Following an Instagram mention of Stoner by John Williams just now I was prompted to look up my post on the novel. I'm astonished to see that I wrote it five years ago to the day, but I thought I'd link back to it now, not just because that's a neat anniversary, but because it is such a good book, and if you don't already know it I'd urge you to get hold of a copy. I've read very few novels lately that I can wholeheartedly recommend (hence the comparative dearth of posts), but Stoner is worth shouting about: it's a very fine work indeed.

The Man Booker Prize 2015 - the longlist

Bill Clegg (US) - Did You Ever Have a Family            

Anne Enright (Ireland) - The Green Road

Marlon James (Jamaica) - A Brief History of Seven Killings

Laila Lalami (US) - The Moor's Account

Tom McCarthy (UK) - Satin Island

Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria) - The Fishermen

Andrew O’Hagan (UK) - The Illuminations

Marilynne Robinson (US) - Lila      

Anuradha Roy (India) - Sleeping on Jupiter

Sunjeev Sahota (UK) - The Year of the Runaways

Anna Smaill (New Zealand) - The Chimes

Anne Tyler (US) - A Spool of Blue Thread

Hanya Yanagihara (US) - A Little Life

    156 books were considered by the judges, 13 make the longlist, and they will be whittled down to six for the shortlist which will be announced on 15th. September.

To be read: Where my heart used to beat

  

    "On a small island off the south coast of France, Robert Hendricks, an English doctor who has seen the best and worst the twentieth century had to offer, is forced to confront the events that made up his life.

    His host, and antagonist, is Alexander Pereira, a man whose time is running out and who has commissioned Robert to write his biography, but he seems to know more about his guest than Hendricks himself does and is more interested in Robert's past than he is in revealing his own. Together they explore whether a life comprises events themselves or the way in which an individual chooses to remember them.

    The search for sanity takes us through the war in Italy in 1944, a passionate love that seems to hold out hope, the great days of idealistic work in the 1960s and finally - unforgettably - back into the trenches of the Western Front.

    The recurring themes of Sebastian Faulks's fiction are here brought together with a new stylistic brilliance as the novel casts a long, baleful light over the century we have left behind but may never fully understand.

    Daring, ambitious and in the end profoundly moving, this is Faulks's most remarkable book yet."

    Where My Heart Used to Beat will be published on 10th. September.

    For more Faulks, click here.

Objets d'art

   

    Listen, if you will, to the latest edition of the Penguin Podcast: Author Notes, in which Richard E. Grant talks to Kate Atkinson about her new novel A God in Ruins (companion piece to the remarkable Life after Life) with reference to five 'objects' which inspired it in some way or are significant to it.

    I've yet to read the book, though it's a must after the brilliance of its predecessor, but my appetite's been whetted even more by hearing Kate talk about what's in it and what lay behind it.

The gift of a book

    " 'I thank you, sir, I thank you,' her murmured, and placed George Herbert between Spenser and Piers Plowman on the shelf. 'You give me great wealth for the gift of a book is the gift of a human soul. Men put their souls in their books. When one man gives another a book then three souls are bound together in that most happy thing, a trinity. "

    From The White Witch by Elizabeth Goudge.

Hands up, all H.E. Bates fans

    Who else is a lover of H.E. Bates' work but hasn't read any for years?

    If you're a fan you'll be pleased to hear that this year and next Bloomsbury are re-issuing the complete short story collections in ebook format with some of them to come out in paperback, too. I have the first of the set, Day's End and Other Stories, and I'm very much looking forward to reading it and becoming reacquainted with a writer I loved when I was in my twenties but haven't picked up since.

    Often described as the British Chekhov for his mastery of the short form, Bates was also a bestselling novelist with books such as Love for Lydia, Fair Stood the Wind for France, and the Pop Larkin chronicles (beginning with The Darling Buds of May). His work was also adapted for the big screen, the most renowned film being The Purple Plain starring Gregory Peck.

    His stories "often explore country life, the sadness, joy, humour and darkness in what may be seen as a simpler way of life. He writes intimate character studies against vivid rural landscapes and, in so doing, beautifully captures a spectrum of emotions from innocent childhood and early adolescence to wise and experienced old age."

    If you'd like to sample the short stories you can do so at no cost by downloading Castle in the Air, a humorous piece which was lost and unknown to the Bates family until 2013, and for more information on Bates and his work, visit the H.E. Bates Companion, or sign up to the newsletter, link at the bottom of this page.

Rapt

    Jungle Tales, 1895, James Jebusa Shannon.

    "Shannon studied in London during the 1880s and remained there, enjoying success as a society portraitist and figure painter. Jungle Tales portrays the artist's wife reading to their daughter, Kitty, shown in profile, and another child. The painting's title and date and its London origin suggest the little group is captivated by Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book, which had appeared in 1894...".

    I saw this painting in The Met the other day and loved it - the power of a story to engage and enrapture!

There once was an ugly duckling

      Hans Christian Andersen and friend, a 'climbing sculpture' in Central Park.

Holiday reading

    I've been in New York for a few days, staying - appropriately - here.

    Mr. C. and I occupied the Biography room at the hotel; each floor is dedicated to one of the ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal System, and within that each room reflects a topic and is lavishly supplied with books accordingly, so we had much good reading from which to choose.

    I raced through Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Unexpected Life of the Author of "The Secret Garden" by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, skimming parts, it must be said, due to lack of time, and coming away from it with the impression of a woman driven to write, extraordinarily prolific, hugely successful, but fundamentally unsettled and unhappy. A sad story, really.

    Although I'm not yet far into The White Witch, the Elizabeth Goudge novel I took across the Atlantic with me, it's clear that it's a tale of a very different tenor.