Not A Tricky Question

This week's Booking Through Thursday question is:

Do you have a favourite book, now out of print, that you would like to see become available again?

This might just rank as one of the easiest questions I've ever answered - yes yes yes! All of 'em! I used to naively believe that 'good' books (whatever they are) stayed in print - how much better do I know now?!

I'm too sleepy to write a proper post tonight, but tomorrow I'll be introducing a new book to the 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About. Thought this question warranted it.

A few clues. Well, not really clues, because you May Not Have Heard About this novel, but something to set the mood...

• published in 1922
• written by a man
• primarily about a woman
• reissued by the same people who reissued Miss Hargreaves
• this is a close-up of the cover:

• 

Christmas!

I know it's barely December, and at this rate we'll spend a fifth of the year celebrating Christmas, but I can't help it. Love the festivities, as I've said, and this year made even better by the revelation that I do like mince pies - have spent a decade believing my childhood dislike was unchanged. It's going to be a good year...

Anyway, Nan has tagged me for a Christmas meme (what a strange sentence, and shows just how much technology affects language... discuss) so here goes:

What is your most enduring Christmas memory?
I think it must be when we were eight, and Mum & Dad both had awful flu. They stayed in bed, except for a brief appearance to open presents, but had wisely procured remote control cars for Colin and me - we spent a contented two days playing with them, and the batteries ran out just in time to coincide with the parents being able to stagger down the stairs. How callous children are...

Do you have a favourite piece of Christmas music?
Nan says In The Bleak Midwinter, and I have to agree. Also love O, Little Town of Bethlehem, and, on a less classy note, All I Want For Christmas Is You...

Do you stick to the old family traditions?
I still have Christmas with the old family, so yes! I don't know if we do anything that my grandparents initiated. Most of the things we do on the day itself are dictated by Our Vicar being Our Vicar - Christmas dinner is on Christmas Eve, because he has so many services to do, and we open presents after a leftovers meal on Christmas Day. And there are certain cake decorations that must go on the cake every year. Oh, and we have a couple of Harrods Christmas decorations which are proudly displayed (when I bought the 79p I was actually moved to a less salubrious queue at the back of the shop) - in fact, in Worcestershire they stayed in place all year, hanging from the light fittings, so that people wouldn't bang their heads.

What makes your mouth water at Christmas time?
Chocolate pies (like mince pies, but with chocolate spread in - it goes all crumbly and delicious when baked), roast potatoes, brussel sprouts (WHY do we only have these once a year? They're brilliant), stuffing, mulled wine. Yet to find a vegetarian meat-substitute which gets me incredibly excited. Quorn roast is quite nice, but I defy anyone to get very excited about a nut roast. Going to experiment this year, methinks...

How soon do you put the Christmas tree up and when do you take it down?
Here's how it goes - every year I nag for the tree to go up on December 1st; the Carbon Copy says 24th December is the day; Our Vicar's Wife says perhaps we don't need a tree after all; the tree goes up about the 15th. I nag everyone to help me decorate it, the Carbon Copy helps a bit under duress, I criticise his efforts and re-do them, the parents subtly disappear. It stays up until the day before the annual Epiphany Party, usually.


Oh, I love Christmas.

The New Starbucks Book

Let me start by saying that I love Starbucks. Each morning as I walk to work I pick up a Vente Caramel Macchiato, and the first taste always makes me shudder in pleasure. In addition, I loved A LONG WAY GONE, the memoir by Ishmael Beah, the former child soldier of Sierra Leone, a previous Starbucks book selection, and their newest pick, BEAUTIFUL BOY by David Sheff, looks good.

However, I'm still not convinced about the way in which Starbucks selects the books for their program. Starbucks hired William Morris to scout books and negotiate deal terms. But if Starbucks wanted a scout, why didn't they hire one instead of a literary agency? And I'm not sure you can convince me that it's possible for an WMA agent to be unbiased when one of their authors end up competing against a book from another agency.

Findings...

I've been at it again. Another impulse buy today, but one which I might just impulsively read straight away... or at least as soon as I've finished the latest review books. And Book Group books. Oh dear.

Our Vicar and Our Vicar's Wife met me for lunch, and after a rather yummy broccoli and stilton soup (in a cafe, not my handiwork, I'm afraid) we browsed through the QI Bookshop. For any UK readers who also watch the QI television programme with Stephen Fry, yes, this is researched in the rooms above the bookshop. I've not been in before, and it might be my last chance, as apparently it's moving to the top floor, alongside the exclusive QI-members-only restaurant. Shame.

They have a small stock, but an interesting one - a stock which bears the signs of being selected by a discerning buyer. Some successful sellers; others more obscure. They even had a Persephone Book, so I was impressed from the off (The Wise Virgins by Leonard Woolf, since you ask) - my eye was drawn towards Findings by Kathleen Jamie. I haven't heard of her before, but I could tell immediately that this was A Sort Of Book. I don't mean that there was some ambiguity as to whether it was a book or a mantlepiece, nothing like that, Sort Of Books are a publishing house - 'distributed by Penguin Books', so they might be an off-shoot, I don't know. They publish the beautiful, beautiful Tove Jansson translations, and I thought I probably couldn't go wrong with another of their books. And so I bought it...

Findings is non-fiction, Kathleen Jamie (a poet) travels around her native Scotland watching, listening, observing - and these observations are in this book. Not the biggest fan of travel literature, or even books set in other countries, because they have so much extraneous detail. I find an author noticing her/his own surroundings afresh much more involving. Have already heard from e-friends that this was a favourite read, hope others have come across Jamie too. Perhaps I'm the last? Anyway, will let you know when I've read it, but I can't imagine not really liking Findings.

TBR

Chances are, if you read this blog frequently, that you understand the acronym 'tbr'. It probably brings tears to your eyes a little... that's right, I'm sure most of us have to-be-read piles, whether in reality or mentally. On the dovegreybooks Yahoo Group recently we were discussing the number of unread books we had on our shelves - I happened to mention that I had about 300 unread books (unread by me, that is - most of 'em have been read by someone). This was met with aghast amusement by another member, who couldn't stomach the idea of resisting books for so long, while a little bit later I was trumped by someone who estimated they had 4000 unread books in their home - ! Wow.

Here is my defence, if defence is necessary. During university I rarely had time to read books for pleasure (though I did derive a lot of pleasure from the books I had to read - subtle difference), but my buying rate didn't slow down... Secondly, when I'm in a charity shop and the books are 50p each, anything I *might* one day want to read, or loan to someone, or refer to, ends up being in my hot little hands. And the money goes to charity. It's like a generous donation, only I get something in return. (Denial is, they say, the first sign - am I right?) Also (I have no end of excuses) I try to read borrowed books as quickly as possible, thus leaving my own spoils to fester.

How about you? A backlog which would suffice for years, should someone dig a moat around your house, or just enough to keep you going until the kettle's boiled?

This is a long-winded way of saying that a whole new heap of books has entered my house... the nicest cover being the one displayed above, A House of Air by Penelope Fitzgerald. Lynne would be proud. Having heard so much about it, I couldn't resist donating some money to Oxfam, and receiving this book as a total coincidence.

The Harvest by Christopher Hart - not heard of it, but my friend Clare says it's one of her favourite books, and she loves A Lifetime Burning and Tom's Midnight Garden - how could I wrong with £1?

The other four were birthday presents, thanks guys!
-Love In A Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford, from Barbara-in-Ludlow - have read The Pursuit of Love but none of the rest, so thanks Barbara, and get well soon!

-Shakespeare by Bill Bryson, kindly given by The Carbon Copy, who knows me very well. My literati offering was a Mr. Funny T-Shirt. Only in our minds are Shakespeare and Roger Hargreaves akin.

-When We Were Very Young by AA Milne - of course I have a copy of this, but my lovely friend Mel bought me a 1925 edition, published less than a year after the first edition.

-Unbeaten Tracks in Japan by Isabella L. Bird - know little about this, but my dear English-student-friend Phoebe sent it, all the way from Japan, in fact. An autobiographical account of an Englishwoman touring Japan in 1878 - sounds wonderful, and may move nearer the very top of the tbr pile. And right now I have to leap out of bed with some vigour, to avoid the besieging books...

Advice on Freelance Writing

Want some good advice on how to achieve freelance writing success? Check out this article by my client Jonathan Bender, which will appear in The Writer in January 2008.

Adventageous

Happy Advent, one and all - although 10, Regent Street remains sadly undecorated, it has warmed my heart to see electric snowflakes appear over the lampposts of Oxford, candles materialise in people's windows, and holly, wreathes, tinsel, miniature soldiers playing miniatures parcels as though they were drums - the whole Christmas bumpf. As a Christian, Christ is always going to be the most important and exciting part of Christmas, but I love the tack and the good cheer which goes alongside. Yesterday I experienced one of my favourite Christmas pasttime - watching a domestic cat around a Christmas tree for the first time. I remember Bundle's reaction every year, (Bundle being our cat, who was with us from 1993-2006) bewilderment as the humans brought a tree inside, gradual recollection that we did sometimes do that, sniffing around the tree, playing with a few low-lying decorations, then generally accepting the incident as one of the many irrational things humans will do, like not feed cats when they're hungry, and get cross when you sit in the lovely bed they've prepared for a cat just because it's called "clean laundry". What a long sentence that was!

So, how have I been spending my Advent? This evening I have baked, washed up, and mopped the floor. Why, you ask? I'm not auditioning for Househusband of the Year (nor, indeed, am I a husband) but rather preparing for the visitation of Our Vicar and Our Vicar's Wife tomorrow. Our Vicar hasn't seen my house yet, so I thought I'd give the illusion that we live in cleanliness and hygiene. Well, we manage the hygiene bit, anyway. I'm only one pair of hands and there are three other males in this house... Before you award me Son of the Century, never mind Year, I must confess -I accidentally double booked the parents' visit with my library Christmas dinner, and thus shall only be seeing them for 2.5 hours. Bad son. These were placatory measures, which hopefully will be noticed by at least one of my parents...

The next chunk of Advent will be spent in Reader Services - as I mentioned, I've finished in the Science section - so it's a case of impressing new colleagues as well as parents. Better get some sleep then. Oh, and I hope you like my advent calendar - it's on a little card, bought by Our Vicar's Wife. The advent calendar used to be something Granny always provided for us, and it's still nice to have one, even if the pictures behind each door get increasingly tenuous. Even the specifically Christian ones tend to lose inspiration after star, donkey, angel and plump for items like holly, pigeon, wheelbarrow which seemed to have been missed out of my New Testament...