A couple Bloomsbury Group (Virginia et al, rather than Bloomsbury publishing) things to mention today - one being the CD I got from Our Vicar and Our Vicar's Wife for Christmas. I think it was my friend Lyn in Australia 
who first mentioned this to me - thus creating something of a circle, since the CD is released by the British Library. Click this link to buy it (no, no commission for me...) It's basically lots of clips of Bloomsbury Group people speaking, and those who knew them well. A lot come from a radio broadcast on Virginia Woolf, but it also has previously unreleased recordings, and is a great resource to have in one place. Entertaining and useful - and unique. I don't know about you, but I rarely have an author's voice in my head when I'm reading. I certainly wouldn't be able to read Mrs. Dalloway with Virginia Woolf's actual, very posh, tones pulsating through my mind - but, nevertheless, it is fascinating to hear what they sound like. Just hearing the voices is so interesting - for the most part, they are also talking about the Bloomsbury Group, which would be captivating in itself.
Some names for you - alongside Virginia, there is everyone you can think of. Here are just a few: Elizabeth Bowen, Vita Sackville-West, EM Forster, Frances Patridge, Leonard Woolf, Harold Nicolson, Bertrand Russell, Vanessa Bell, David Cecil, John Maynard Keynes, David Garnett, Duncan Grant, Clive Bell.... oh, everyone. And then you also get people like Nellie Boxhall and Grace Higgins, servants of people in the Bloomsbury Group - another fascinating angle. Let's just say that Nellie's voice would give a lot of people now considered 'posh' a run for their money.
One of the people featured whom I haven't mentioned is Angelica Garnett. I wrote a rather hazy review of Deceived with Kindness a while ago - in fact, it's on my 50 Books... list, though it's not my best review (and led to one of the funniest comments I've received - I usually don't publish the mean-spirited ones, but this one was too amusing to ignore). Having loved her autobiography, I was very keen to get hold of The Unspoken Truth, 'A Quartet of Bloomsbury Stories' which is coming out in January with Chatto & Windus. I sent them a begging letter, and it is now by my bed. Can't wait to read this lot - fictional, but apparently heavily based on fact. I must confess I didn't realise Angelica Garnett was still alive, so I was doubly excited - I'll let you know what I think around the publication date. But, always important, the cover is beautiful...
It's one of those unusual (possibly unique?) trips where I come back without having bought any books. Perhaps not entirely unexpected, since the 'Englisch' section of the one bookshop I entered was less than inspiring - but, even without buying books, I loved my trip to Switzerland!
Thank you for all your reading suggestions, which have been stored away in my mind (and, less vulnerably, my inbox) - it was especially lovely to hear from Lewerentz who is actually in Switzerland - and for Lewerentz's benefit, I will try to remember where we were in the country... quite near Schaffhausen... I can't remember the name of the village, but it was that part of the world.
Here are just a few snapshots of the trip...
The view from my bedroom window was rather beautiful.
Lots of beautiful chalet-style houses, but I don't seem to have taken photos of them - this one isn't wholly representative, but it is charming.
We spent a day at Rheinfall, Europe's something-ist waterfall. Widest? Biggest? Shiniest? It was a wet day in many senses.
The highlight of the trip was our day up a mountain, having snowball fights....
Amusingly, my trash talk (or, appositely, 'sledging') of "You'll be going all kinds of down!" was misheard as "You'll be wearing all kinds of denim!" Which, of course, became the catchphrase of the trip. Here Mel is about to be fitted for a new denim jacket, courtesy of Liz.
All in all, a fantastic holiday - and Switzerland is a rather wonderful country. Plus, all the residents have tasteful Christmas decorations. How do they do this? No inflatable nativity scenes in sight, nor even coloured light bulbs. Lovely. Oh, and we crossed the border into Germany to go to church - so that's another country I chalk up on my tiny list of countries visited.
I'm off to Switzerland for the weekend with my housemates - all very exciting - so unless I'm very organised tomorrow, there won't be anything popping up chez Stuck-in-a-Book for a few days.
I don't know anything about Swiss literature. Either in Swiss or out of it - since I don't speak any languages but English, I'd have to rely on translations, but even then my mind draws a blank - any suggestions?
At the moment, just to keep you updated on my reading habits, I'm reading Civilization by Clive Bell (for university work) and Mrs. Tim of the Regiment by DE Stevenson, which I seem to have been reading for months - it's absolutely fantastic, I just haven't had opportunity to finish it. Also on the go is Try Anything Twice by Jan Struther (of Mrs. Miniver fame), a collection of articles and essays which is very amusing. Ruth (of Crafty People) gave it to me a couple of years ago. Thanks Ruth, these things work their way to the top of the tbr pile eventually!
Since I'll be out of the country for a few days, it would be lovely to have a list of suggestions to which to return - so I'd love to hear about anything Swiss (except the Family Robinson) and, failing that, any European novel you think I should read, so long as there's a translation. Scandinavian is my preference...
Yes, the Weekend Miscellany has been visiting a Great-Aunt for the past few weeks, and obviously it is now not the weekend - nor, in fact, is today's post going to take the usual form of a book, a blog post, and a link. And that's because I've read so many brilliant blog posts over the past week or so, that I just wanted to share them with you. Some you'll probably have already seen, but some might be new - and there's just too much wonderful stuff on the blogosphere for me to ignore it for a moment longer. Without further ado...
1.) Throughout January and February, Claire from Kiss A Cloud, and some of her friends, will be leading a Woolf in Winter readathon. This is for everyone, but primarily those who have been intimidated by old Virginia in the past, and need a helping hand to get started. Full details are here, but I'll just mention that the books in question are Mrs. Dalloway, To The Lighthouse, Orlando, and The Waves. The Big Four, and the right order to read them in. I still have soft spots for Jacob's Room and Between the Acts, in fact Jacob's Room might be my favourite Woolf novel (it is today, at any rate) but you'll be set in good stead if you read those four.
2.) Lovely Elaine at Random Jottings has been a Richmal Crompton fan for nearly as long as I have - I found Persephone through Richmal Crompton, and Elaine and I have shared our RC collections with each other over the years. We both champion her whenever we can ( I wrote about her back here) and Elaine the other day wrote another post in praise of this neglected author. Here it is. Her work is sometimes a bit variable, but there are many gems amongst her wide output. I'm currently reading The Innermost Room, and plan to re-read Matty and the Dearingroydes soon.
3.) Harriet Devine has an ongoing series on her blog, paintings of women reading. The other day she posted my favourite in the series so far, by a painter I didn't know - Tavik Frantisek Simon. (Great surname!) I hope she doesn't mind me reproducing it here... but do go and have a scout through her blog for previous paintings. This one reminds me of the Vanessa Bell painting on the Virago Modern Classics edition of Rebecca West's Harriet Hume. I can only find tiny pictures of it, and can't remember the title, but you can see it at Verity's Virago Venture.
4.) I love a bit of book serendipity, don't you? Simon Savidge picked up Lady Into Fox by David Garnett because the cover and title intrigued him - he read it, loved it, and then found out that it was in my 50 Books You Must Read! His review is so much better (and longer) than the one I wrote, and his beautiful Hesperus edition is a little bit nicer than my old one, found in a secondhand bookshop. The lady who told me about it was the same lady who introduced me to Miss Hargreaves - I have much for which to be grateful.
5.) And finally... Litlove at Tales From The Reading Room has compiled a list Reasons For Buying Books, which I happen to find rather convincing...
That's a small selection of my favourite recent blog reading - always such a lot to delight in around the blogs, and perhaps you'll be inspired to link to your five favourite recent blog posts... let me know if you do.
On Friday Becca (whom you will know as Oxford Reader) and I took a trip to Abingdon, to hear Susan Hill talk about Howards End is on the Landing. Anybody who has even glanced at book blogs over the past month or so will have heard about this non-fiction book, where Susan Hill goes through her bookshelves and reacquaints herself with books long-loved, never read, forgotten, or which have mysteriously appeared from nowhere. Reviews have been at both ends of the spectrum, and most places in between, but I'm a firm enthusiast - it's still prime candidate for my favourite book of 2009, and I waved my pom-poms for it here.
Susan Hill started off by, as she recognised, preaching to the converted - as regards the book industry. HEiotL makes it clear that Hill has no personal desire for an eReader or similar - and while she doesn't mind other people having them, she (like all of us) is horrified at the suggestion that books will consequently become obsolete. I'm certain that this won't happen, the Death of the Book has been predicted more or less since the book was invented, but I do worry that bookshops will have to close, and all transactions will have to take place online. Most of Susan Hill's audience were not, shall we say, in the first half of their lives - so the responsibility lies with the younger generation! What a great way to persuade myself that I need to buy more books.
At each of the different events where Suan Hill has spoken, she's apparently chosen different bits to read from Howards End is on the Landing. At our event, she read two extracts which demonstrate the book's scope in tone - one about Roald Dahl, one about Iris Murdoch. That she has known both these people (and shared a doorstep with TS Eliot) is quite something in itself - and she has turned both acquaintances into very different chapters. Her tales of working with Roald 
Dahl on judging panels were hilarious; her memories of meeting Iris Murdoch before and during her dementia brought a tear to my eye.
Susan Hill - both in this book and on her blog - isn't shy of an opinion, like any good Yorkshirewoman. What I'd forgotten, when I went to see her talk, was that this would come with a Yorkshirewoman's warmth and wit. It was a lovely evening, enhanced by seeing Annabel (aka Gaskella) again, and a completely unexpected bumping-into Margaret (aka Books Please). If you click on those links, it'll take you to their blog posts about the evening, as they've been quicker off the mark than me...
Oh dear... I was promising for so long to write about that book, the single woman in the 1990s, and I still haven't. And now it's too late for me to remember what I liked about it, but anyway, here it is...
This post has no pretensions to being a proper book review, because it could only fail, given my poor memory and the eclectic. After my not-particularly-favourable experience reading Diane Harpwood's Tea & Tranquillisers, you'll be relieved to hear that I had a much better time with Lynne Truss' Making The Cat Laugh: One Women's Journal of Single Life on the Margins. My Aunt Jacq gave it to me a couple of years ago, perhaps because of the cat theme, perhaps because she sensed it would be up my street. And this, ladies and gentleman, *is* the sort of book EM Delafield would be writing, were she a single woman living in a city in the 1990s, rather than a married woman in a village in the 1930s.
Here's a confession - despite being a grammar pedant of the first water, I haven't read Lynne Truss' bestseller Eats, Shoots and Leaves. I don't even own it - I know, you'd have thought that at least a dozen people would have bought it for me over the years, but no. I have, however, read Talk To The Hand by Truss, which my friend Holly gave to me for a birthday present a few years ago, since it was an expression we cordially shared with one another. It's a look at the rudeness in everyday society - quite diverting, but made me realise how terrifying it would be to be a shop assistant for Truss, since she seems to thrive upon confrontation, and I run from it as much as is humanly possible.
Anyway. Back to the book in question - Making the Cat Laugh was first published in 1995, and consists of columns which had appeared in The Listener, The Times, and Woman's Journal. That might make them sound a bit scattergun, but since they're all essentially about Lynne Truss' life, they all meld pretty well. And her life, throughout, is defined by two things: being single, and having cats. I'm reminded of a line from The Simpsons, when Lisa goes into investigative journalism: "Can a woman with this many cats really be mad?" But Truss is playing up to this image - oh, how she plays up to it. But I suspect there is a kernel of truth in her one-sided conversations with feline housemates, organising her life and living arrangements around them and their peculiarities. As the book continues, it becomes less about her single life and more about her views on life, the universe, and everything middle-class, domestic, and slightly bizarre in it. Supermarkets, paint names, Little Women, using friends in newspaper columns without their permission... they all get the treatment. And many more - and it's very funny. Nary a whiney note, not a glimpse of a sulk - just good old British self-deprecation and mild indignation.
As an example of her cat-obsessed life, this is the beginning of the final column in the book:
When night falls and she doesn't come in for her tea, I usually start to worry. So I go outside and call for her (the old story), and then feel helpless when she still doesn't come. I tell myself that probably she is "eating out tonight" - because I know how easily she insinuates herself into other houses, and then cadges a meal by acting weak and pathetic. At the end of such an evening, she will come home to me in a telltale over-excited state, not really interested in food.
Still, I will say this for her: she always makes sure I'm all right. Out comes the tin-opener, and there's half a tin of Felix, a handful of Kitty Crunch for my little jaws to work on, even a tub of Sheba if she's been drinking. But it's not the food I am worried about. It's just that I am only properly happy when I know she is safe indoors, curled up asleep on that warm hairy rug of hers, her ears flicking contentedly as she dreams of Jeff Bridges.
She was thirty-one when I got her. Mangy and with a bit of a whiff, but also affectionate. She took time to settle down, and it was clear she had been badly treated in the past, because her mood swings were abrupt and inscrutable - one minute running about like a maniac, the next flaked out in weird angular poses in random places on the carpet. But gradually I earned her trust (and she learnt some basic grooming), and now she has this peculiar habit of rubbing her face against my leg, which is quite pleasant actually, though a bit of a nuisance when you are trying to walk downstairs.
To friends who haven't got one, I always say, 'Get one.' I mean it, no hesitation. Yes, they are selfish. Yes, they moult. Yes, they yowl a bit in the night-time and they make it difficult for you to go on holiday. But they make it up to you in so many ways. For one thing, they can sometimes be persuaded to pose with ribbons around their necks. And for another, they are absolutely fascinating to watch. For example, mind spends hour after hour just staring at a big box in the corner of the living-room, not moving an inch, but silently grinding her teeth and tensing her muscles as if to pounce. I have said it before and I'll say it again: I am convinced they can see things we can't see.
Did anybody see the programme Enid this week, a biopic of Enid Blyton starring Helena Bonham Carter? It was on BBC4, and is still available as 'watch again' for UK residents. Apparently it got the third highest ever audience for BBC4. I've watched the first half, and it's rather good (though I've already spotted a mistake - the Famous Five are mentioned in 1939, when in fact she didn't start writing the series until 1942). The programme is on quite similar lines to the excellent 1992 biopic with Maureen Lipman, which (whisper it) is available on YouTube. Both, I think, are heavily influenced by Barbara Stoney's 1974 book Enid Blyton: The Biography, which I read years ago, and by which I was impressed.
None of these paint Enid as saintly, by any means - I think the fairy-like goodness of her author-persona means biographers (whether in book or on screen) relish the points of departure, but even so, Blyton seems to have been a far from ideal wife and mother. Not to be read/watched by those who want to keep an untarnished vision of the author, but fascinating if you can cope with it.
Whatever her character, I will cherish her as the author who introduced me to a love of reading. I know there have been bans over the years, but they are ridiculous - as book banning almost always is. Her output is extraordinary - 753 titles, according to Wikipedia, which have sold over 600 million copies altogether. And in fact, the Famous Five books continue to sell a million copies a year - the numbers are frankly astonishing. And yet, why are there no films? As far as I can tell, well-loved series like The Secret Seven, St. Clare's, Malory Towers, and The Naughtiest Girl in the School haven't even been adapted for television. Is there something in them that makes them addictive reading, but wouldn't work on screen? Surely not - I loved the Famous Five series on television... well, I'd be intrigued to find out why. But in the absence of these, at least we can watch works about Enid Blyton's life - perhaps while that takes the spotlight, the BBC and others are reluctant to show the happier side of her life. But I, for one, would love to watch both.
who first mentioned this to me - thus creating something of a circle, since the CD is released by the British Library. Click this link to buy it (no, no commission for me...) It's basically lots of clips of Bloomsbury Group people speaking, and those who knew them well. A lot come from a radio broadcast on Virginia Woolf, but it also has previously unreleased recordings, and is a great resource to have in one place. Entertaining and useful - and unique. I don't know about you, but I rarely have an author's voice in my head when I'm reading. I certainly wouldn't be able to read Mrs. Dalloway with Virginia Woolf's actual, very posh, tones pulsating through my mind - but, nevertheless, it is fascinating to hear what they sound like. Just hearing the voices is so interesting - for the most part, they are also talking about the Bloomsbury Group, which would be captivating in itself.
One of the people featured whom I haven't mentioned is Angelica Garnett. I wrote a rather hazy review of Deceived with Kindness a while ago - in fact, it's on my 50 Books... list, though it's not my best review (and led to one of the funniest comments I've received - I usually don't publish the mean-spirited ones, but this one was too amusing to ignore). Having loved her autobiography, I was very keen to get hold of The Unspoken Truth, 'A Quartet of Bloomsbury Stories' which is coming out in January with Chatto & Windus. I sent them a begging letter, and it is now by my bed. Can't wait to read this lot - fictional, but apparently heavily based on fact. I must confess I didn't realise Angelica Garnett was still alive, so I was doubly excited - I'll let you know what I think around the publication date. But, always important, the cover is beautiful...
