Cornflower Books

Have you read ... Violet Needham?

   

     Rachel Kelly's book You'll Never Walk Alone: Poems for life's ups and downs (which I'm reading at the moment) has as entry no. 24 a four word "all-embracing philosophy of life": 'The password is fortitude' is "the key to dealing with whatever may trouble you", and comes from The Black Riders by Violet Needham, a book and author I'd not come across before.

    Rachel goes on to explain the significance of the quotation to her own family, as, put simply, "strength in the face of adversity ... is the answer to all of life's challenges." She helpfully provides brief biographical notes on all the writers whose work is included in the book, and from this I learn that The Black Riders was Violet Needham's first novel, published when she was 63. She went on to write a further 18 novels and inspired Antonia Fraser and AS Byatt, among others.

    If you want to know more, there is an article by Katie Grant in Issue 53 of Slightly Foxed, and an Oxford podcast episode by Jane Bliss.

Have you read ... Barbara Willard?

 

    I saw these books in Catherine's shop the other day, and despite knowing nothing about them or their author I ordered them on impulse as something about them suggested they would suit me.

    They are the Mantlemass series by Barbara Willard, a family saga set on a manor farm in Sussex from the 15th. to the 17th. century, and the author's "undoubted masterpiece", as her obituary says. This article tells us a lot more, although comparatively little is known about the very private Barbara Willard herself.

    Have you read her?

Have you read ... Wilkie Collins?

    Born on this day in 1824, William Wilkie Collins is best known for his novels The Woman in White, No Name, Armadale, and The Moonstone, all published in the 1860s. The Moonstone is regarded as the first detective story in English, while The Woman in White, his 'must read text', began the vogue for 'sensation' fiction which "peered beneath the surface gentility of Victorian domesticity and revealed a world of bigamy, madness, murder and violence supposedly lurking there," (Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide).

    "Make 'em laugh, make 'em cry, make 'em wait", is the serialist's motto, attributed to Collins (according to John Sutherland's Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives), and he did all that and more, becoming a great popular success in the process, and in Dickens' view, writing one of the two best scenes in English fiction with the opening of The Woman in White.

    The Moonstone has been nominated as a book for the beach, "its unhurried episodes perfectly paced for stints on the sand," while readers here put Collins in the 'fireside reading' category.

    Have you read him, and if so, which book would you especially recommend?

Have you read ... Robin Hobb?

   

    I confess I had not heard of Robin Hobb until recently, but a 5* review (by Jane Shilling) of her latest book, Fool's Assassin, caught my eye, and I was intrigued.

    Should you look at the sidebar on the left there you'll note that I don't have a 'fantasy' category in the archive, and that's because I happen to read so little of it - other books put themselves in my orbit more, but now this one has appeared, it "transcends the genre," apparently, and it sounds so good I want to know more.

    The new book is the first volume of a trilogy which features characters from the author's previous series: "Fitz ... is preparing to celebrate Winterfest with his wife, Molly, when a messenger arrives at their rural retreat of Withywoods. In Fitz's old occupation, the arrival of a messenger was invariably the preamble to a testing adventure. But either he has lost his edge, or he prefers not to recall the past, for he ignores his visitor, who vanishes, leaving nothing but a sense of disquiet. The vanished messenger had something of momentous importance to impart, but it takes Fitz almost the entire book to realise it. In the headlong final pages, when the slowness of the opening chapters comes together, the reader realises with a mixture of exhilaration and dread that the adventure is just beginning."

    "Hobb is always readable," Jane Shilling sums up, "but the elegant translucence of her prose is deceptive. What interests her is not fine writing per se, but writing that offers the least resistance between reader and story. Groping for comparisons, you find yourself in the company of the great compendious literary novelists. As the best writers do, Hobb shows us ourselves in her characters. Their longings and failings are our own, and we find our view of the world indelibly changed by their experiences. That is the ambition of high art. The novelists in any genre are rare who achieve it with Hobb’s combination of accessibility and moral authority."

    Is it necessary, I wonder, to have read The Farseer and The Tawny Man trilogies, to better appreciate this new book, or can one begin here?

    Have you read Robin Hobb, and what do you think of her work?

Have you read ... Catherine Gaskin?

    Alice has, but I haven't - yet!

    Catherine Gaskin's is a name I know from years ago as I have a feeling my mother and grandmother read her books. I have never done so but I do now have The Property of a Gentleman waiting on the Kindle, and judging by Alice's post this "poignant, thrilling tale, full of intrigue, mystery and romance" is great fun, so I must get to it soon.

    I have done a little reading around, finding out a bit about this bestselling author, and I learn that although she was born in Ireland she grew up in Australia; despite early ambitions to become a pianist she wrote her first novel when she was only 15; it came out when she was 17 and sold 50,000 copies in its first two months, so her path was set. She moved to London shortly afterwards, married an American, and lived in the US, Ireland and the Isle of Man before returning to Australia in her later years. She died in 2009 at the age of 80. You can read more about her here, and do listen to her Desert Island Discs on which, in conversation with Roy Plomley, she comes across as a very vivacious lady.

    What of the books, though? There are 21 novels, published between 1946 and 1988, and despite the very high profile she had while active, selling 40,000,000 copies, Catherine Gaskin said that she "was resigned to becoming obsolete in her own lifetime". She's been proved right, as far as I can gather, in that "the girl with the golden pen", as she was once called, is now out of print here except for the recently released The Property of a Gentleman.

    A popular success, dubbed "the queen of storytellers"; have you read her?

Have you read ... Elizabeth Goudge?

    I'm just approaching the end of my first Elizabeth Goudge book - her autobiography The Joy of the Snow - and I'm coming away from it quite charmed and thinking what an unusual and interesting lady she must have been!

    Although she says little about them in the memoir, I'm keen to read some of her novels now and I know there are Goudge experts among you, so which books would you particularly recommend, or where would you suggest a new reader might start?

Have you read ... The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets?

    Eva Rice's novel The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets was a big hit when it first came out a few years ago. Set in 1950s England and featuring a young girl and her eccentric family, it drew comparisons with Nancy Mitford and Dodie Smith, reviews constantly referring to it as "charming" and "enchanting".

    I've had the book on my wish list all this time and have still not got a copy, but it came to mind today when I saw this short interview with Eva Rice in which she's talking about her next novel - a sort of sequel to The Lost Art ... - The Misinterpretation of Tara Jupp which is due out in January.

    So, have you read The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets? Does it indeed appeal to fans of I Capture The Castle and The Pursuit of Love? Do men tend to like it or is it very much a girls' book?

Have you read ... Philip Pullman?

   

    I've been watching the BBC documentary, The World of Philip Pullman. First broadcast in 2001 and written and narrated by novelist and bographer D.J.Taylor, it's an incisive appraisal of the work and beliefs of a man who, from a garden shed in Oxford, conjured another world. I'm referring, of course, to His Dark Materials, the trilogy for which he is best known, children's books which have found an enormous adult readership.

    Northern Lights, the first book in the series, was recommended to us by a publisher friend not long after it came out. I read it avidly, unable to put it down, and went straight on to volume 2 The Subtle Knife. Then we had to wait for the third book The Amber Spyglass, but when eventually it was published it was one of only a handful of novels I've bought in hardback on the day of release - I had been so captivated by the earlier ones that I was impatient for the conclusion. That it went on to be the first children's book longlisted for the Booker prize, and is a work which "bridged the divide between age and gender", says much.

    The documentary refers to Philip Pullman's range, likening it to that of Beethoven in moving from "the delicate and light to the hugely tragic and enormous", and it praises the sophistication of his writing. Interestingly, Pullman describes himself as a realist, not a fantasist, interested in how real people behave but finding "the mechanism of fantasy useful".

    It's been 12 years since I turned the final page of the trilogy and I'd love to read it again. Have you read Philip Pullman - any of his books - and if so, what did you think?

Have you read ... Bernard Cornwell?

    If you were to take a look at the books in my son Will's room - though I wouldn't venture in there if I were you as it's not exactly what you'd call spick and span - you'd find a very masculine mixture of military history, things like the Flashman series and John Le Carré, general history, and biography with a military leaning (this is a young man who plans to join the army). You wouldn't therefore be surprised to find that the collection includes a large number of novels by Bernard Cornwell - all of them read and greatly enjoyed.

    When I heard that that most successful and prolific writer of historical fiction had a new book coming out (it's published today), I asked Will whether he thought I'd enjoy it, "or is it all battles and of interest only to men?" He assured me that I'd admire the solid research which informs the books and saw no reason why I wouldn't be thoroughly gripped by the story, too; Bernard Cornwell has, I learn, a large female following!

    1356 features the Battle of Poitiers in which England won her second great victory of the Hundred Years War, but the novel centres on Thomas of Hookton, "leader of a mercenary company of bowmen and men-at-arms who ravage the countryside east of Gascony. Edward, Prince of Wales (the Black Prince) is assembling an army to fight the French once more, but before Thomas can join, he must fulfil an urgent task. La Malice, a sword of mythical power guaranteeing victory to its owner, is thought to be concealed somewhere near Poitiers. With signs that a battle is looming, others are seeking the treasure too, and some are pursuing their private agendas against Thomas, but all concerned - and the fate of La Malice - become swept up in the extraordinary confrontation that follows, as the large French army faces the heavily outnumbered English."

    I have been reading the opening of 1356, the Prologue in which the sword is snatched from a tomb during the sack of Carcassonne, and the first chapter which sees a young English monk on his way to the Cistercian house at Montpellier caught up in violent scenes, and it's much as I expected: taut, vivid, dramatic, very 'cinematographic', so to speak. Am I inclined to read on? Yes, I am.

    Best known for his Sharpe series, Bernard Cornwell is the author of over 50 novels and he is a hugely popular writer. Have you read him?

Have you read ...

 

    ... Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader?

    "Had the dogs not taken exception to the strange van parked in the royal grounds, the Queen might never have learnt of the Westminster travelling library's weekly visits to the Palace. But finding herself at its steps, she goes up to apologise for all the yapping and ends up taking out a novel by Ivy Compton-Burnett, last borrowed in 1989. Duff read though it proves to be, upbringing demands she finish it and, so as not to appear rude, she withdraws another. This second, more fortunate choice of book awakens in Her Majesty a passion for reading so great that her public duties begin to suffer. And so, as she devours work  by everyone from Hardy to Brookner to Proust to Samuel Beckett, her equerries conspire to bring the Queen's literary odyssey to a close."

    An utter treat!

Have you read ... Gladys Mitchell?

    Vintage Books' Clara mentioned the writer Gladys Mitchell on Twitter this morning, and the name rang a faint bell so I looked her up. She was certainly prolific - look at the list of her books here - and variable (see this 'best to worst' catalogue headed by When Last I Died), while this article brands her "a mad combination" of Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie, and goes on:

'The Spectator described her as a "tiresome old trout" whose mannerisms were the most trying in detective fiction, but many adored her work. Her murder cases have ambiguous solutions, and an air of the supernatural is never entirely banished from them. Her plots are on the farthest side of credulity, but to worry about realism is to miss the fun of her storytelling. In Merlin's Furlong, a necromantic don runs a coven of witches. In The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop, the victim is minced into sausages and hung from hooks.'

It concludes, 'a flawed gem can still sparkle'.

    Vintage are currently running a competition to win a selection of cosy crime classics with some of Gladys Mitchell's books included, so you may like to throw your name in the hat for that, but meanwhile, have you read her, and if so, what would you recommend?

Have you read ... Adrian Mole?

 

    The series is thirty years old and has sold eight million copies, but I have never read any of Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole books. Now's a good opportunity, though, because to celebrate that milestone anniversary, Penguin are re-issuing the books on 19th. January (the first volume has a foreword by David Walliams), and they have most kindly sent me a full set.

    Beginning as a half-hour piece on Radio Four entitled The Diary of Nigel Mole, the publication in 1982 of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 followed two years later by The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole made Sue Townsend the bestselling author of the 1980s, and Adrian came to life not just on the page but through various adaptations for radio, television and theatre. I hadn't realised that there were as many as eight books in the series now with the latest being Adrian Mole and The Weapons of Mass Destruction (2004) which sees AM working as a bookseller and finding time to write letters of advice to Tim Henman and Tony Blair, and Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (2009) in which our hero is facing troubles at work and on the home front.

    The reviews have been rapturous: "One of the great comic creations of our time" (The Scotsman), "Effortlessly hilarious. Brilliant satire ... " (The Times), "Richly comic ... stuffed full of humour, tragedy, vanity, pathos and, very occasionally, wisdom" (The Guardian), "What words can one use to describe Sue Townsend's prism-like view of 20th. century Little England? Funny, witty, human, anarchic, perceptive, cringe-making" (Zoe Wanamaker).

    The books' following is clearly large and loyal, but are you part of it? Have you read Adrian Mole?

Have you read ... Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell?

   

    I am bookless at the moment - betwixt and between - and just like having "nothing to wear", no book seems to fit or suit or 'do'. Contrarily, while looking for something short that might fill the brief gap before another deadline-related book looms, I've picked up something very long indeed, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. We've had a copy since it first came out, but it was a sudden notion to be in a very different world, book-wise, that made me think of it today and take it from the shelf.

    I'm not sure whether I'll have time to read it now, but I love the sound of it, the early nineteenth century England with its magical element, the "dark and stormy nights", the "elegant, witty and utterly compelling" story.

    Have you read it?

Have you read ... We need to talk about Kevin ?

 

    For reasons which will become clear soon, I'm about to read Lionel Shriver's million-selling, Orange Prize-winning novel We Need To Talk About Kevin. The film version, starring Tilda Swinton as Eva, is due out later this month, so there will be renewed interest in this "powerful cautionary tale", this "most excruciating, thought-provoking book" which "knocks you sideways and takes your breath away".

    Have you read it? If so, I'd very much like to know what you think of it.

Have you read ... Norah Lofts?

    I got an email today from The History Press to tell me that now available in e-book form as well as in paperback are several historical novels by Norah Lofts. That name was a whisper from the past as I'm sure my mother had - and most likely still has - several Norah Lofts books, but she's not an author I've ever read, nor even seen mentioned for many a year.

    Keen to know more, I looked her up and discovered that she was certainly prolific, and that her Suffolk Trilogy comprising The Town House, The House at Old Vine and The House at Sunset, first published in the late 1950s and early '60s, follows the history of a specific house and those who lived in it. According to this site, on which you can see a picture of the house which is believed to have been the inspiration for the books, these are meticulously researched historical romances beginning in the late fourteenth century and ending in the mid-twentieth, but click here and you can read a very comprehensive article about them.

    So, have you read Norah Lofts?

Have you read ... Barry Unsworth?

   

    "The historical novel should do three things: make tangible the period in question; reflect it into the modern world; and, like all novels, entertain. Barry Unsworth is a master of all three concerns." TLS

    Long on my wishlist, a Barry Unsworth novel is at last on my desk with the arrival of his new book The Quality of Mercy. This begins in the immediate aftermath of the events of his Booker prize-winning Sacred Hunger, and opens in the spring of 1767 where it follows two of the main characters from the earlier book, Sullivan, an Irish fiddler, and Erasmus Kemp, the son of a disgraced Liverpool slave-ship owner.

    Sullivan has absconded, escaping trial for mutiny and piracy while on Kemp's ship, and is on his way to the village of Thorpe in the East Durham coalfields, there to visit the family of Billy Blair, a dead former shipmate, and tell them how he met his end. Kemp, meanwhile, wants to spend some of his sugar and slavery fortune investing in coal-mining and steel; tipped off about an investment opportunity in East Durham, he, too, makes his way to Thorpe...

    I've heard such praise for Barry Unsworth's work that I'm greatly looking forward to becoming acquainted with it at last. Have you read him?

Have you read ... E.M. Forster

    Time for an admission of another gap in Cornflower's reading: I've never read E.M. Forster. Often studied at A level, I wonder how widely read he is otherwise nowadays, although doubtless the various film versions of his novels have brought many to the books themselves.

    My Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide says Forster's plots all turn on "the disastrous results of emotional inexperience, of people blundering about in each other's sensibilities", and goes on, "His intuition for emotional nuance and his compelling characterization (especially of women), give his books fascination despite their narrow focus".

    "Only connect" was the epigraph to Howards End (1910), reflecting his "impulse toward understanding and sympathy", shown also in his other works such as A Room with a View (1908) and A Passage to India (1924). Have you read them, or are you content with seeing them through the eyes of Merchant Ivory and David Lean?

Have you read ... Tracy Chevalier?

    Of Tracy Chevalier's novels, I've read only her first, The Virgin Blue, and that was so long ago I remember little about it (and have no notes to fall back on), but I do know I enjoyed it very much and intended to read more of her work. Such is the way of these things I've still not gone back to her, despite the enormous success of Girl With a Pearl Earring, and praise for recent books such as her latest, Remarkable Creatures, about the fossil hunter Mary Anning (video clip on that here). 

    This short video, filmed at the V&A and made with reference to a short story Tracy Chevalier was writing for their magazine - hint: the needlewomen amongst us might like to take a look at it - is relevant to her books generally and to the novel she is currently working on, and there's a little more on that new book here (scroll down to January 2011 and September 2010), though it sounds as though it's quite a long way from publication.

    However, there are six Tracy Chevalier novels available - have you read them, and if so, which of her books is your favourite?

Have you read ... Kate Atkinson?

    The first episode of Case Histories, a drama series based on Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie novels and "set amidst the iconic landscapes of modern Edinburgh" is to be aired later this evening. Naturally, the Edinburgh tag gets my interest, but I've long been keen to read those books and others by Kate Atkinson who cropped up as one of the Cornflower readership's most popular writers last year. I don't possess any of her books, though I've heard nothing but good about the likes of Case Histories, Behind The Scenes At The Museum and One Good Turn, but what do you think?

     Have you read them, and which would you particularly recommend?

Have you read ... Bill Bryson?

 

    I see that Bill Bryson's At Home: A short history of private life will be out in paperback this week, and as he's a writer I've never read but have long intended to get to know, I wondered if I might start with that book. Notes From A Small Island - Bryson's view of Britain and the British - also appeals, as does Mother Tongue: The Story of the English Language.

    According to 'my sources', he is eclectic, wide-ranging, perceptive and very entertaining. Have you read him?