Cornflower Books

The way we were

    "Part of the reason to own books is that they create a record of our past: passions, missteps, aspirations and intentions. They are the physical manifestations of what we were thinking at the different times in our lives. People can look at our bookshelves and know something about us, who we are and who we hoped we would be. "

    Ann Patchett - from this post.

Waiting for the Albino Dunnock

 
  

    For me to even pick up a book subtitled How Birds Can Change Your Life is noteworthy, never having had any interest whatsoever in birds, and in fact having a fear of them, but references on the jacket flap of Waiting for the Albino Dunnock to mythology, philosophy, history, literature, and folklore caused me to open it and I was captivated from the first page.

    Rosamond Richardson writes with flair and sensitivity and with such knowledge of topics far beyond matters avian that her book is an engagingly multi-textured one and an example of nature writing at its best. She describes how a chance encounter led her to discover a fascination with birds which helped her at a difficult period in her life, but this is no confessional account of personal sadness - rather she is discreet and allusive -  it is far more about seeing, observing, appreciating, understanding, and making connections, and about the enriching effect of a year of watching birds in East Anglia and far beyond.

    When I was in Suffolk last autumn we went for a walk on Dunwich Heath, right next to the bird reserve at Minsmere. It was a very wet day and the keen birders in our party knew there would be little to see so they contented themselves with a ramble instead of a session with the binoculars, but even if conditions had been ideal nothing would have induced me to go and sit in a hide and try to spot birds (I did it once, years ago, and found it dull to say the least). But, having now read this book I would certainly join my bird-watching friends if an expedition were proposed, and I tell you this to illustrate the fact that Rosamond Richardson has opened my eyes and my mind, for which I thank her.

    Let me sketch the map of the book for you in the hope that there will be territory here which draws you to it as it did me: the author writes of John Clare, Montaigne, Thomas Merton; she quotes Graham Greene, T.S. Eliot, Shakespeare, and G.K. Chesterton; her chapters are subtitled "stillness", "silence", "music", "joy", "the consolation of beauty", and "the uncommonness of the commonplace". She is discursive but always to the point; she brings to her discoveries "the beginner's mind" but retains a clear sense of perspective; her "personal crossroads" led her to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, but she doesn't rhapsodize, she speaks with quiet containment.

    As to the book's title, it's inspired by R.S. Thomas, poet and priest, "who spent hours in wild landscapes in west Wales, watching for birds, never knowing whether he would see any or not". Alerted to the possible presence of an albino dunnock on the Lleyn Peninsula, "he muttered Waiting for birds is like waiting for God but I don't think I'd wait three hours for God." Rosamond Richardson closes thus: "the waiting is more about the search than the result [...] as much an inner journey as a field trip. Likewise 'waiting for the albino dunnock' is not about the achievement of spotting a rare bird and recording it on a list [...] but an intuition about what is mysterious and just beyond our reach".

    I commend this book to you.

Calling Henry Marsh fans

   

    Mr. Marsh has a new book out next week: Admissions: A Life in Brain Surgery.

    Here's the gist -

     "Henry Marsh has spent a lifetime operating on the surgical frontline. There have been exhilarating highs and devastating lows, but his love for the practice of neurosurgery has never wavered. Prompted by his retirement from his full-time job in the NHS, and through his continuing work in Nepal and Ukraine, Henry has been forced to reflect more deeply about what forty years spent handling the human brain has taught him.

    Moving between encounters with patients in his London hospital, to those he treats in the more extreme circumstances of his work abroad, Henry faces up to the burden of responsibility that can come with trying to reduce human suffering. Unearthing memories of his early days as a medical student, and the experiences that shaped him as a young surgeon, he explores the difficulties of a profession that deals in probabilities rather than certainties, and where the overwhelming urge to prolong life can come at a tragic cost for both patients and for those who love them.

    In this searing, provocative and deeply personal memoir, the bestselling author of Do No Harm finds new purpose in his own life as he approaches the end of his professional career, and a fresh understanding of what matters to us all in the end."

    For anyone who hasn't read Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery, there's a post on it here.

Of mice and men

    From 10th. May to 3rd. June, The Illustration Cupboard in London is showing an exhibition of Jill Barklem's original artwork for the much-loved Brambly Hedge books. You can find the illustrations here, and note, the sketches may be purchased - prices are to be released soon.

    Also on show at the gallery will be this Storyteller Children's Chair made by RhubarbLondon:

    Two-thirds the size of an adult's wing chair, its front legs have been carved from oak to recreate the Toadflax family's home, and there are speakers in the backrest powered by a self-contained battery system which 'broadcast' the Brambly Hedge stories to the occupier of the chair. Chequebooks at the ready, it costs £3,500.

                            ~~~~~

    On the subject of Brambly Hedge, you may not have seen this post.

Meet the Writers

    

    Aged just 21, Samantha Shannon made publishing headlines when she sold the first three books in a planned seven-book series for a six-figure sum. Now 25, and working on book four of the series, Samantha is in conversation with Georgina Godwin in the latest edition of Meet the Writers*.

    If you're not already acquainted with her work, here's my post on Samantha's first book, The Bone Season, and there's a little more on her here. Although it's quite off the beaten track for me, I am particularly looking forward to reading her forthcoming high fantasy The Priory of The Orange Tree which she mentions on the programme.

*See also, this post, this one, and this.

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