Resolution

I'm in the mood to make a New Years resolution, and seeing as how I'm talking about it here, I suppose it'd better be book related.

I've just been updating my book spreadsheet. I've bought an awful lot of books in the past few weeks. I started out resolutely refusing to step into Borders as the closing down signs went up, but eventually the brightly coloured signs lured me in. Even if the staff seemed intent on playing depressing Christmas music to make themselves feel better.

I found a lot of Jean Plaidy and a few other things I'm sure I would have never picked up, had it not been for the empty shelves.

With all these purchases, I found it necessary to rid myself of a fair few books, and I was ruthless - stripping my shelves of things long since bought but never touched. Three gigantic bags went off to Oxfam, although I wasn't quite as ruthless as my father who got rid of 300+ books in one fell swoop.

Now - on to this resolution. I don't think I can stop myself from buying books. After all, there are bargains and true finds waiting for me out there, and if they present themselves, they'll have to be bought.

No - my resolution is to read nothing that I don't already own at this precise moment in time (that would be Sunday 27th December, 8.22pm). That gives me 430 books to choose from, so the phrase 'I've got nothing to read' should never pass my lips. Wish me luck, and strength, dear comrades in books - I think I'm gonna need it!

Christmas Eve

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring - except for the blogger rearranging her books.

So, it's Christmas time again, and I'm sure many of you will have a stack of books on your wish list. What have you stopped yourself from buying in recent weeks in the vague hope that someone else will have bought it for you?

In our family, we have a number of traditions. The party for my sister's birthday has in recent years made way for a trip to the pantomime for her children, so she can have a meal with her husband (and my other sister can finish off the last bits and bobs without fear of interruption). Christingle service is also a big part of the day, as well as forcing seven children between the ages of fourteen and three to sing carols around the tree. Actually - this year, they sang Jingle Bells instead of the usual Away in a Manger, which was different!

But the biggest tradition is the tree book. When my father was a lad, this consisted of the latest annual, and was a means of shutting the children up for five minutes. Nowadays, the whole family get a book (so that's about 15 books that need to be bought ... err, can I say that for once I was glad Borders had a huge closing down sale, or is that just mean?), and we all sit around as they are dished out. I was HUGELY pleased with mine, and I'd been dropping hints to dad for quite a while - and for that read, I sent him the Amazon link, so he'd get it exactly right. I am now the proud owner of 'Mary Poppins', which I've never read, and am quite excited about.

The clock has just turned over and it is officially now one minute past midnight, so I can now officially wish you all a very Merry Christmas and hope you all have a wonderful time and find yourself in possession of those books that you've been longing for!

Happy Christmas!

Poem of the week

I had this sent to me and I love it!

BC-AD

This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future’s
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.

This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.

This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.

And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect

Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.

by U.A. Fanthorpe

Is it snowing where you are? Oxford looks like it's been dusted with icing sugar, but there's not enough for snowmen or the like. Truly weather for sitting indoors curled up with a good book. I've got A.S.Byatt on the go, but I think a bit of Dickens is called for - Pickwick Papers perhaps?

Christmas Quiz

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a little something to test those brain cells, and so here is my round from my book club quiz, from whence I have just returned.

These are first lines from novels. All you have to do is tell me which novel, and who wrote it .... I know there will be great temptation to google, but as an incentive, I can promise a prize to the person with the highest number of right answers. And if you do feel the need to cheat, would you mind saying so - in the spirit of Christmas!

Also, apologies for the total silence - it's been mega busy at work. If anyone wants to know the complete ins and outs of the Oxford interview process, let me know, but I won't go in to details now!

Quiz time!!!!

1). The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

2). All happy families are alike but an unhappy family is unhappy after its own fashion.

3). It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York.

4). The Primroses were over.

5). Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.

6). Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours that they meant to murder him.

7). A strange melancholy pervades me to which I hesitate to give the grave and beautiful name of sadness.

8). No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own.

9). He – for there could be no doubt of his sex, though the fashion of the time did something to disguise it – was in the act of slicing at the head of a Moor which swung from the rafters.

10). I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.

11). It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.

12). Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

13). It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

14). The boys, as they talked to the girls from Marica Blaine School, stood on the far side of their bicycles holding the handlebars, which established a protective fence of bicycle between the sexes, and the impression that at any moment the boys were likely to be away.

15). Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

The Bright Star of Keats

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient sleepless eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors;
No yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever or else swoon to death.

I am just returned from watching a film about John Keats and his love affair with Fanny Brawne, named 'Bright Star'. I highly recommend you all to see it, for it is a beautiful testament to their short romance. I also highly recommend that you take a large box of tissues - you will use them all. I think it a testament to the film that as the credits rolled no one moved, until Ben Whishaw had spoken the final lines of 'Ode to a Nightingale'.

Historical fiction

There are certain authors who remain close to your heart long after others have arrived and stolen the genre for their own benefit.

For me, Jean Plaidy is one such writer. I discovered her at school and the library there will bear witness to my love, as each sign out card probably has my name on it at least five times.

Born Eleanor Hibbert in 1906, she started writing in the 30s, but wasn't published (under her maiden name of Burford) until 1941. Her pseudonym of Jean Plaidy was first used in 1945 until her final novel in 1993 - the year of her death. She had six other pseudonyms (including Victoria Holt and Philippa Carr) and over the span of sixty years, she wrote almost 200 books. She died at sea, somewhere between Greece and Port Said, Egypt - which seems almost fitting for someone who spent much of her writing life moving about various historical periods.

The reason I love Jean Plaidy, is because she creates the world of the time she is writing about so fully that you can't help be entranced. You feel the danger Henry VIII's wives are in; you understand the boredom Victoria feels as she is kept sequestered by her mother; the idea that Catherine de Medici could poison those closest to her is very real.

Before I realised that some of my favourite Plaidy's were written in the 80s and early 90s, I was going to say she was dated. That more modern historical authors like Philippa Gregory managed to get deeper beneath the skin of those times. But it's not actually true. Something continues to sparkle about Plaidy's writing and she will forever remain a favourite.

So - I have thirty of her books on my shelves, and I think I'm going to dive back into the worlds she writes about. Now to decide - Tudor, Georgian or Victorian era first?

In Memoriam

Aftermath - Siegfried Sassoon


Have you forgotten yet? ...
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same - and War's a bloody game ...
Have you forgotten yet? ...

Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz -
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench -
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, "Is it all going to happen again?"

Do you remember the hour of din before the attack -
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads - those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?
Have you forgotten yet? ...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.

The comfort of reading

It's been an emotional week. I've decided it's time to move out of the parental home - I moved back in when finishing my MA back in 2007, and I suddenly feel like it's the right time. I've been to look at quite a few places, and found a couple I liked. One in particular was great, apart from the fact I would be sharing with three guys. Now; don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with guys per se (and these were all lovely, tidy and old enough not to behave like idiots all the time) but it's not something I've ever done. Lots of soul searching was required.

Today, I finally made up my mind that this was the right move, and emailed them to say so. A couple of hours ago I had an email back saying that the girl that was moving out had changed her mind for the time being. So it's back to the drawing board. Heigh ho, these things happen, and at least I've not signed the contract or am all packed up and ready to go!

Throughout this week, I have been reading a lot to take my mind off things, and have been luxuriating in the wonder that is Susan Hill. 'Howards End is on the Landing' has made it to my house and has been making its presence felt.

The cover is enough to comfort, let alone what can be found inside.

So - what does this book have to tell you? Firstly, it's a tremendous explanation as to why Susan Hill disappeared from the web over a year ago. I noticed around June last year that the link to the left of this post that had led to Susan's blog, now led to nothing. I hoped it was a glitch but nothing ever surfaced.
Susan had, apparently, gone on a search for a book, and although she'd not found it, she did discover an awful lot of books she had either not read at all, or not read in a very long time. If there's one thing I can relate to, it's that! My shelves are crammed with books I've bought, but not read.

We are taken on a tour, not only of Susans' house, but also her life, peppered as it is with encounters with some of the best known names of the twentieth century. It's a charming book, full of recommendations that are made with fervour and a keen insight. I found myself almost able to understand her dislike of Austen (Susan, I'm a Janeite and I hate 'Mansfield Park' and 'Northanger Abbey'!!), and discovered a hunger to get back into Grahame Green, Thomas Hardy, Dickens, and all those other classics that are languishing on my shelves. I've been introduced to a lot of authors I've never heard of (and even found myself whilst up in London last weekend pondering whether I should buy a book she had passionately talked about ... I put it back. If Susan has taught me anything, it is that one should read the books one has!)

Simon and I are going to hear her talk later in November, so I'm sure this book will pop up another time. I could relate to the subject matter, and Susan, so much, that it almost makes me want to rush up to her at the event and proclaim affinity (as well as a passion for 'The Lady of Shallot'). This would probably end up being my equivalent of her experience with Edith Sitwell. Not a good plan!

Anyway, it's a lovely little book, with plenty to make one think. At the end, she lists the 40 books that she would choose if she could only have have 40 to last her the rest of her life. The fact that 'Learning to Dance' by Michael Mayne is listed twice is perhaps testament to the fact that she really cannot live without that book. (Only it's actually a misprint ... but like she says, it gives her room to tinker with the list!).

Susan Hill's copy of 'Howards End' is on the landing .... where is yours? (Mine is in the spare bedroom!