Project 24...

Project 24 - #9

Just when it was getting to the end of April, and I was congratulating myself by being on track with my book count, I made the foolish mistake of wandering into the £2 bookshop in Oxford... and being confronted with this:


Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, may I make my defence?

- it's Sylvia Townsend Warner, an author I love (and who has made an appearance in Project 24 already, you may recall, with Summer Will Show)

- it has a foreword by William Maxwell, another much liked author in these parts.

- it was only £2

- it's so preeettttty


I rest my case. I think.

Bits and Pieces

A few bits and pieces today, all or a more or less bookish nature... something for all the family, I daresay. First off, I may have misled you in saying I'd handed my thesis in - it's only actually my 'transferal of status' essay, so they can decide whether or not to keep me on...

Read on for: Meet-up, Quiz Results, and the chance to be in a Postal Book Group.

---The UK Book Bloggers' Meet-Up (I keep changing my mind about the apostrophe... does it need to be there or not?) is taking place on Saturday 8th May in the evening. I *had* thought we were at capacity, but we've had a few cancellations, so if you want to be proud owner of a badge (oh, and meet other UK bloggers!) then email me at simondavidthomas@yahoo.co.uk for details and we'll see if we can fit you in...


---Peter/Dark Puss gave us a cat-themed quiz the other day - congratulations Mary, who has been contacted to arrange her prize - for those scratching your head, here are the answers (and click here for the questions):

1. Harry Cat from The Cricket in Times Square by George Seldon
2. Peter in Jennie by Paul Gallico
3. Saha in The Cat by Colette
4. Behemoth in Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
5. Yan in Yan and the Christmas Tree by Jun Machida

If you got more than none, then you did better than me!


---And finally, I have mentioned in the past that I'm part of a postal book group. There's a circle of readers from across the world; we post on a book every two months to the next person in the circle, and thus each book makes its way around the group. You get your own book after a year (or however long) with a notebook full of comments - and have read lots of interesting books, of course.

Well, Shannon wants to set her own up, and she's hoping you'll join her! Since Stuck-in-a-Book readers have, by and large, quite similar reading tastes, it seemed a good place to try and find readers to join in a worldwide postal book group.

Although I'm sure Shannon is happy to be a bit flexible, here is what she writes about her own reading tastes. If yours are fairly similar, and you fancy giving a postal reading group a try (and it's great fun!) then get in touch with her on dogindogout@gmail.com [not @hotmail.com as I typed earlier, sorry!] :

"I'm interested mainly in pre-1960 books or books that could have been written then. I like books about everyday life, relationships, humour, the way in which we do or don't make connections. I'm also okay with books that are haunting, such as Victorian ghost stories. I'm not interested in books about terrible childhoods or abuse...

Some favorite authors include W. Somerset Maugham, Carol Shields, Penelope Lively, Barbara Pym, Saki, P. G. Wodehouse, A. A. Milne, Joanna Trollope (bit of a guilty pleasure, that), Carson McCullers, Willa Cather, Dorothy Parker, Edith Wharton, Harriett Doerr, Muriel Spark, Jane Austen, Henry James, Anthony Trollope."

The Art of Gardening

No, I haven't come over all horticultural (my current back garden is entirely laid to concrete, although I did once grow a few nice flowers in pots - cue unnecessary picture of them, taken a year ago).


So, where was I - not horticultural, but almost equally unusual for Stuck-in-a-Book, because today I'm talking about poetry. I'll confess, I don't know much about poetry - but every now and then it just hits the spot. And today the poetry is The Art of Gardening by Mary Robinson. The collection is inspired by a whole spectrum of things - nature, memories, other writers such as George Orwell and Karel Capek - and even a series inspired by Gaston Bachelard's The Poetics of Space, chunks of which I read last year.

The Art of Gardening was sent to me by the publisher (Flambard Press) but I have to be completely open about this and say that Mary Robinson is a family friend I've known all my life. The Robinson family lived near us in Merseyside - and, while we've moved further and further southwards, they went northwards, and we're now at the extremes of the country. As a family with an arty Mum, a vicar Dad, and twin sons, they're not dissimilar from the Thomas family...

Anyway - that's the picture set, and it would feel far too weird for me to write a review of the collection, so instead I'm just going to type out my favourite poem in the collection and encourage you to go and get yourself a copy!


Apple Blossom

Don't go my mother said
standing under the apple blossom
wearing that long baggy cardigan
snagged and pilled like a neglected paddock.

How could we not go?
I was doing a last round of the house
checking for something forgotten
but in reality saying farewell.

The removal men had gone.
I looked out of the wash-house window
and there she was, unchanged
after twenty years.

The spring before I started school
she had shown me the alphabet
under the apple tree - pale petals fell on the paper
as she traced the shapes with her self-taught hand.

Years later I was reading my own books.
In the evenings she banged out campaigning letters,
the old manual typewriter resounding to the clack
of rage and the rasping roller of frustration.

Now my last sight of her will always be
under the apple tree -
Don't go she said.

Places to be, books to read...

As I mentioned the other day, I have a pile of books I've been meaning to read for ages and ages - and I'm taking this week off to indulge in them! Some are review copies, most are recommendations I snapped up a while ago. And here's the pile, as it stands... Let me know if you've read any of them, or have them on your tbr piles...


Brother of the More Famous Jack - Barbara Trapido
The lovely people of Bloomsbury sent me all Trapido's novels last September, and I've been keen to read them - but somehow more urgent books have always got in the way. Not any more, Trapido, love...

Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
My book group is reading old Jude for next month... to be honest, this could take most of my week, but I've been meaning to read it for at least five years and am glad to have a deadline proffered.

26a - Diana Evans
I'm afraid I can't remember who recommended this, but apparently it's one of the best depictions of twins in recent novels - and is written by a twin. Bonus.

Fragile - Chris Katsaropoulos
A review book I've been really intrigued by... which has now worked its way to the top of the review pile.

The Sandcastle - Iris Murdoch
I am absolutely DETERMINED to read some Iris Murdoch this year, having meant to since I saw the film Iris, gosh, nearly a decade ago. I can't remember who recommended this one, but I think perhaps it was my friend Lorna?

Secret Lives - E.F. Benson
I yield to few in my love of Mapp & Lucia, but have yet to read any other of EFB's novels. I'm pretty certain Nancy told me to read this one, but I could be getting my names mixed up...


It's a nice group of books, covering a wide span of years... half by men, half by women. Let's see how many I get through this week - kicking off with Trapido.

Oh, and you'll have noticed that Project24 has remained at 8 for the whole month, more or less - so I'm back on track!

Year Four: Book Reviews

Adams, Poppy - The Behaviour of Moths
Atwood, Margaret - The Penelopiad
Baker, Frank - Stories of the Strange and Sinister
Barbal, Maria - Stone in a Landslide
Barbery, Muriel - The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Barford, Mirren & John Lewes - Joy Street: A Wartime Romance in Letters 1940-42
Beauman, Ned - Boxer, Beetle
Benatar, Stephen - Wish Her Safe At Home
Benson, E.F. - Secret Lives
Brown, George Mackay - Andrina and other stories
Buck, Pearl S. - The Good Earth
Christie, Agatha - The Murder at the Vicarage
Comyns, Barbara - The Vet's Daughter
Comyns, Barbara - The Skin Chairs
Crompton, Richmal - Matty and the Dearingroydes
Delafield, E.M. - Gay Life
Delius, F.C. - Portrait of the Woman as a Young Mother
Dench, Judi - And Furthermore
Devine, Harriet - Being George Devine's Daughter
Devonshire, Deborah - Wait for Me!
Foer, Jonathan Safran - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Forster, E.M. - Howards End
Forster, E.M. - The Machine Stops & The Celestial Omnibus
Gallico, Paul - Love of Seven Dolls
Giono, Jean - The Man Who Planted Trees
Gordon-Cumming, Jane - The Haunted Bridge
Hardy, Thomas - Jude the Obscure
Hare, David - The Hours (screenplay)
Hill, Susan - A Kind Man
Hunt, Rebecca - Mr. Chartwell
James, Henry - The Turn of the Screw
Jansson, Tove - Travelling Light
Johnston, Jennifer - The Gingerbread Woman
Kaye-Smith, Sheila & G.B. Stern - More Talk of Jane Austen
Laski, Marghanita - Little Boy Lost
Laski, Marghanita - Love on the Supertax
Macaulay, Rose - Dangerous Ages
Macaulay, Rose - Personal Pleasures
Manguel, Alberto - Stevenson Under The Palm Trees
Mankowitz, Wolf - A Kid For Two Farthings
McHaffie, Hazel - Remember Remember
Miller, Arthur - All My Sons
Mills, Magnus - The Maintenance of Headway
Milne, A.A. - Once A Week
Milne, A.A. - The Dover Road
Mitchell, David - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
Morley, Christopher - The Haunted Bookshop
Munro, Alice - Too Much Happiness
Murdoch, Iris - The Sandcastle
Myers, L.H. - Strange Glory
O'Grady, Rohan - Let's Kill Uncle
Olivier, Edith - The Love Child (various)
Pheby, Alex - Grace
Playfair, Jocelyn - A House in the Country
Porter, Adrian - The Perfect Pest
Read, Herbert - The Green Child
Robinson, Marilynne - Gilead
Robinson, Mary - The Art of Gardening
Sagan, Francoise - Bonjour Tristesse
Shaw, Ali - The Girl With Glass Feet
Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
Sheridan, Richard B. - The Rivals
Solomons, Natasha - Mr. Rosenblum's List
Spark, Muriel - The Driver's Seat
Spark, Muriel - Loitering With Intent
Streatfeild, Noel - Saplings
Szymborska, Wislawa - People on a Bridge
Todd, Barbara Euphan - Miss Ranskill Comes Home
Trapido, Barbara - Brother of the More Famous Jack
Tsiolkas, Christos - The Slap
Vanbrugh, Irene - To Tell My Story
von Arnim, Elizabeth - The Caravaners
Waters, Sarah - The Little Stranger
Waters, Sarah - The Night Watch
Waugh, Evelyn - The Loved One
Whipple, Dorothy - High Wages
Young, E.H. - William

Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

So, my thesis is all handed in, and I'm taking the week off! I've amassed an implausibly high tower of books to read this week. I wonder how many I'll get through - since one of them is Jude the Obscure, I wouldn't be surprised if the answer is something around 'one'. There is (as my mother always told me) a time and a place for everything - and Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany is not the place to tell you all about the books I'll be reading. Look out for a picture of a tottering pile sometime on Sunday evening... and then you can weigh in and tell me the order in which I should read them.

Where were we? Oh, of course - the ole book, link, blog post malarkey.

1.) The book - is Ellipsis, arrived yesterday, and is a little unusual for these parts inasmuch as it describes itself as 'a disturbing thriller'. But I was intrigued by the blurb, and by the fact that the author (Nikki Dudley) shares her name with a girl who was at my school. I presume it's not the same person, but that's because I like to pretend nobody younger than me has achieved big things yet. Anyway, here's the blurb - it's not something the Provincial Lady would read, but perhaps intriguing enough to make a change?

"Right on time," Daniel Mansen mouths to Alice as she pushes him to his death. Haunted by these words, Alice becomes obsessed with discovering how a man she didn't know could predict her actions. On the day of the funeral, Daniels' cousin, Thom, finds a piece of paper in Daniel's room detailing the exact time and place of his death. As Thom and Alice both search for answers, they become knotted together in a story of obsession, hidden truths and the gaps in everyday life that can destroy or save a person.

I feel a little on edge just typing that... let's move onto a link.

2.) The link(s) - University Reviews Online keep emailing me, and at first I thought it was spam but now it looks like not. Persistance should be rewarded, should it not, so here is their link to 10 Important Writers Who Went To Jail For Their Work. Off the top of my head I can think of one (Oscar Wilde - yes, it was for 'immoral thought' in Dorian Gray not for, erm, anything else) but he doesn't make the list... and in fact I've not heard of any of them, but interesting nonetheless.

A few other bits and bobs to put under this umbrella, playing fast and loose with the normal arrangement of these weekend miscellanies...

---A new website called Books & Media has been set up by BDS: 'a new web-based subscription service for anyone who wants to know what the media is saying about books and authors'. There's a free trial period of two months on at the moment, could be worth a look. I'm not sure how useful this is for readers, as opposed to professionals, but... nice to know books are getting some attention!

---Carte Noire are trying to find their Ideal Reader. Not entirely sure how they're going about it, and I think - as someone who doesn't like coffee - I'm unlikely to be it, but there are more details on their website. I got side-tracked by watching celebrities read from the classics - fancy hearing Joseph Fiennes read Thomas Hardy or Dominic West read Pride and Prejudice? Well, there are some rather arty sepia-shots of them doing so (even if Mr. West wrongly states that Jane and Bingley were engaged before Bingley went off to London).

3.) The blog post - Danielle aka A Work in Progress is starting a read-along of Anna Karenina by Mr. Leo Tolstoy (are there two schools of thought on pronunciation of 'Karenina', or are my friends just wrong? I'm Kah-ren-ih-nuh all the way, none of this Kah-ruh-nee-nuh nonsense for me). See her first thoughts on it here... I'm tempted to join in, but with my pile of books to read next week... it'll have to go on hold for now.

The night before the day after...

Just a quick post to say that I'm in the final throes of editing my thesis - tomorrow is my big deadline for the year, and so I shan't be writing anything much here tonight!

Instead, I shall leave you with a lovely little song with a lovely little video, which I first heard here... no real reason for the post, other than that I was listening to it today! See you on the other side!