Cornflower Books

The writer's life

    " [...] have brought Frodo nearly to the gates of Mordor. Afternoon lawn-mowing."

    J.R.R. Tolkien writing to his son Christopher, quoted in Humphrey Carpenter's biography.

Telling tales

   

    "I remember that as a child I was so absorbed in my tellings to others that they could see what I saw. I could always get an audience. Not that I looked for one, the telling was all, or rather, the seeing. I don't think I write for children, any more than the great Miss Potter. For what? Whom? Well, myself, perhaps; I never think of an audience, that would kill everything. I think all children's books are grown-up books. When children's books are children's books they are not worth reading."

    P.L. Travers, quoted in Tellers of tales: children's books and their authors from 1800-1964 by Roger Lancelyn Green.

    You can hear Pamela Travers' Desert Island Discs here.

To be read ...

   

     I'm very interested to read the previously unpublished novel The Theoretical Foot, a "long-lost gem" by the marvellous food writer M.F.K. Fisher, which will be out next month:

    "Susan Harper and Joe Kelly, in love and hitchhiking through Europe, never want this perfect, passionate summer to end. It is the late 1930s and society frowns on the slack morals of couples living in sin. But these tiresome strictures are swept away when they arrive at La Prairie, the elegant haven on Lake Geneva where Joe's enigmatic friend Sara and her lover Tim preside - where judgement is suspended and time ebbs deliciously away.

    Surrounded by orchards heavy with plums and meadows splashed with poppies, lunches are long, youth is languorous and wine flows. As morning gives way to afternoon and sunset brings the evening's festivities, the unseen tensions and desires of the group are revealed, the fleeting yearnings and the long-held resentments.

    [...] the novel illuminates moral attitudes in the 1930s and shows glimpses of a refugee-flooded Europe blighted by the rise of Fascism and the menace of another war. Enchanting, light, yet suffused with the darkness of what is to come, The Theoretical Foot is a witty and bold portrait of a bohemian life under threat."

                                                ~

    If you've never read Mrs. Fisher's food writing, you've missed a delight. The Art of Eating brings together her five most famous books, and is, in Julia Child's words, "the essence of M.F. K. Fisher"; it's to be read hungrily!

    Frank McCourt said of her, "If I were teaching high school English, I'd use Fisher's books to show how to write simply, how to enjoy food and drink but, most of all, how to enjoy life." He's right.

I must read ...

   

     ... Trio, the new novel by the excellent Sue Gee (which will shortly be out).

    "Northumberland: the winter of 1937. In a remote moorland cottage, Steven Coulter, a young history teacher, is filled with sadness and longing at the death of his wife. Through a charismatic colleague, Frank Embleton, and Frank's sister, Diana, he is drawn into the beguiling world of a group of musicians, and falls gradually under their spell. But as war approaches a decision is made which calls all their lives quite shockingly into question. Moving between the beauty and isolation of the moors, a hill-town school and a graceful old country house, Trio delicately explores conscience and idealism, romantic love and most painful desire. Throughout it all, the power of music to disturb, uplift and affirm is unforgettably evoked."

    If you're not already acquainted with Sue Gee's work, here are posts on some of her other books:

    Coming Home

    Earth and Heaven

    Last Fling

    Reading in Bed

    The Mysteries of Glass

Bargain of the day - Bodies of Light

   

    Lots of us are admirers of the work of Sarah Moss, and as her 2014 novel Bodies of Light is one of today's Kindle bargains, I thought I'd repost my thoughts:

    This is a very fine work indeed: tightly controlled and restrained, and all the more powerful for it; elegant, eloquent; founded on careful research, every fact used with skill and precision to make a point - and there are many to be made in this novel which is concise and self-contained but universal in its themes.

    It is the story of Alethea Moberley, sister of May from the historical strand of Night Waking, but it is also an account of the position of women in society in the second half of the 19th. century, of their rights and educational opportunities (or lack of same), of their gradual incursion into the world of medicine*, and of family life and maternal feeling and failings.

    I could go into greater detail regarding the measured plot, the characters who are all seen in relation to Alethea, the clever use of her father's paintings as allegory/commentary, the chilling epigraph which sets the tone ... but suffice to say there is a sequel in the offing, and that is good news on many counts, but chiefly - and simply - because this book is first class.

*See also this post and the book to which it refers.

More power to you, madam!

    Would that every publication had a Mary Norris.

Quick links

   Following on from several music-related posts on the other blog, I came across this article on classical music and crime fiction today and thought it might be of interest.

   Piano-playing Lord Peter Wimsey is of course mentioned there, and just by the way, here's a profile of him; going off at an Oxford tangent, here's a post on Oxford in crime fiction, should you have missed it first time round.

This and that

    Good news for all of us who are fans of the late Mary Stewart: to mark the centenary of her birth this year Hodder are to be reissuing her entire backlist with new covers. I haven't seen any of the designs yet, but I hope that putting her work centre stage in this way will bring in new readers and perhaps remind old ones that her books are well worth revisiting. I've linked to this video interview with Mary Stewart many times, but if you haven't already seen it do take a look.

                                                ~~~~~

   

   

    Unveiled today is this year's Books Are My Bag limited edition book bag designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith (who needs no introduction). The bags will be available at independent and chain bookshops around Super Thursday, which this year is October 6th..

 

                          

 

 

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    Many of us will know Natalie Fergie as the talent behind The Yarn Yard, purveyors of hand-dyed yarn and embroidery thread*. Well now Natalie has turned her creative hand to writing and she's penned a novel called The Sewing Machine. You can read all about it - and hear from Natalie herself - over on the book's Unbound page, and if you like the sound of it (as I do) you might consider giving it your support. To find out more about Unbound and how it works, click here.

 

*Unsurprisingly, the shop's empty just now as Natalie has been giving her writing her full attention.

Thought for the day

    "It was one of his strongest-held opinions that the investigation of an author's life reveals very little of the workings of his mind."

   Humphrey Carpenter on J.R.R. Tolkien.

Rambling, whimsical and picturesque

    Following on from last week's post on the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, I've been down to Abbotsford, Scott's Tweedside home, described by him variously as "rambling, whimsical and picturesque".

    This is his study, and interestingly it has no river view to distract him, but instead looks out on the entrance courtyard (above).

     The library,

"the most important and most complete writer's library anywhere in the world".

    Landseer's portrait of Scott's terrier Ginger,

and at the door, a likeness in stone of his beloved deerhound, Maida.

    If you visit Abbotsford, be sure to take an audiotour; there is more than one to choose from, but I found the version narrated by 'Scott himself' very interesting. Also, go early if you can - I was there just after opening and had the house almost to myself, but the coach parties were thronging the adjacent visitor centre by the time I left mid-morning.