Essays

Just before coming to France, I ordered Anne Fadiman's two books of essays, Ex Libris and At large and At Small, the confessions of a Literary Hedonist, and what delightful reading they turned out to be. I ordered them through The Book Depository, a speedy, efficient service. How could I as a librarian resist a title called Ex Libris? I found the essay on how the author and her husband combined their respective book collections intriguing, as my husband and I have never even thought about doing this - our collections are too dissimilar, and we have no room in our house big enough to house all the books we collectively own in one place. Instead, they are scattered throughout the house, in collections grouped by subject - my husbands books on clock and watch making and collecting in his workroom, my books on literature, fiction, and history on one set of bookshelves and books on crafts and sewing on another bookcase in my work area. My collection of cookbooks is elsewhere, but not in the kitchen, as it's too big a collection and the kitchen too small to house it. We seem able to find what we want most of the time, anyway. Here in France in a barely furnished house, we have just bought one small bookcase/ cupboard, adequate for the small collection of books we currently have here, mostly English novels imported by me, but a few in French acording to our interests.
I found Anne Fadiman's essays really good reading. I loved the range of subjects, including ice-cream and coffee ( both of which I also adore - my first coffee maker was a percolater that sat on the hot plate or gas ring of whatever digs I was living in as a student in Manchester - it made strong coffee) I've tried every variety of coffee maker, but seem to have settled for a filter, both here in France and at home, although I also have a cafetiere, a Moka espresso and a old wedding present of a rather posh Russell Hobbs percolater, unused for about twenty-five years. I must admit I've neve seriously considered using liquid nitrogen to make ice cream - I use a rather primitive electric churn machine, with bowls which need to be put in the freezer overnight to freeze them before you can even get round to making the ice cream or sorbet you have set your mind on making. A bit tedious but reasonably effective. It only makes tiny quantities, though, so OK for small households, useless for a crowd. This is the joy of Anne Fadiman's writing - it leads you into an examination of how, what, where, and why you live the way you do, think the way you think, and possibly consider a better way.
One thought that occured to me was the connexion with the French verb essayer, which means "to try". Almost too obvious to mention, really.

That Certain Age

My library based reading group wanted something light to read, so I chose Elizabeth Buchan's That Certain Age for us. It's a story in two intertwined parts, about two very different women and their different lives. One woman, Barbara is married to a former fighter pilot, now an airline pilot who flies off to exotic places, leaving his wife and children in their comfortable home. The other character, Siena is a modern career woman, married for some time to a husband who wants children, but does Siena herself want them? The comparison of the different periods that these women lived in ( Barbara' life is set in the 1950's) is interesting. Barbara's husband doesn't want her to work outside the home, while Siena's is quite happy for her to jet off to the States for a project. A novel to make one think about the delicate balances within any relationship, about what happiness is, and how it can differ from person to person and time to time, and also about the importance for a woman of her own money, to do with as she wishes. This last point has always been important to me, as it was to my mother, also a working mother in her time. Barbara's life is more restricted than Siena's by the fact that she has to rely on her husband for finances, and has to find devious ways to be her own self, in a way that Siena does not, although she has her own difficult choices to make in life.

Clothes at a certain age

Have recently read for a book club Linda Grant's The Clothes on Their Backs, which I enjoyed but felt ultimately vaguely disappointed in, and was not alone in this feeling. Nevertheless an interesting read with something to say about how much clothes can matter to an individual, male or female. The narrator Vivian is the child of Hungarian refugees from the Nazi era, and describes growing up in a mansion flat in London with her parents. The other residents of the block are beautifully sketched in. Her family has few visitors, except once her father's brother who stayed in Hungary during the war, only escaping during the Hungarian Uprising in 1956. Her uncle and his companion's clothes are described in loving detail. The story is told by the adult, looking back to her childhood, adolescence and early womanhood, including her first brief tragic marriage. I heard Linda Grant, who also writes The Thoughtful Dresser blog talk to Catherine Hill, also a concentration camp survivor, about the importance of appearance in such appalling circumstances. The group discusing the book were of mixed opinion about the idea of the importance of clothes, but most of us cared in some way about what we wore and how we looked.

Current reads

Having recently read Susie Orbach's Bodies, I have a whole lot of questions going round in my mind. Do all women think about their bodies as some of the cases in her book do? Does it matter whether your body has a bit of cellulite, fat, curves, call it what you will, as long as it functions in the way nature intended and you want it to? I think too many young women needlessly worry too much about their bodies and its state of perfection or otherwise. I'm just grateful to have reached an age when the perfect body is harder to attain and wonder if I can be bothered. I am still healthy and fit enough to carry on doing what I want to when I want to. I have dieted a couple of times in my life, consciously, but last winter manged to lose 4 kilos in weight without dieting, just by walking a bit more and keeping whatever I ate to a reasonable portion. I wasn't aware of being or feeling deprived, since I ate and drank whatever I felt like , but just not too much of it, and the weight seems to have stayed off too. Ultimately I don't feel this book provides answers to questions, just explores the subject of our apparent dislike of our bodies.
I zipped through Gok Wan's How to Look Good Naked fairly rapidly, as its not a difficult read being mostly pictures. At least he seems to be interested in making women look better and to accept their bodies how they are. I've also watched his television shows and found the part of the show where very overweight women criticize the clothes supposedly designed for them very heartening. At least he recognises that all women want to look good, no matter what their size or shape.

Random reading again

While away in France, I kept dipping into Mourjou: life and food in a village in the Auvergne, by Peter Graham, an Englishman who has spent most of his life in France. I found this through the Prospect Books website, a wonderful resource for anyone interested in food and its history. The village we have a house in is in the Auvergne, though further north than Mourjou, but much of the food is the same. The dish aligot is a regular at the evening fairs held in August, when all the villagers gather together to buy their supper and eat and chat at long tables set up outside the Mairie. The descriptions of past village life are fascinating and obviously the same for the villages in the region. However life has changed somewhat, as the author reports, and is more like life in the rest of France, as communications have improved a lot in the last century or so.

I picked out an old Katie Fforde book on a recent trip to the library, Living Dangerously. Published in 1995, it seemed to have passed me by, yet I'm a keen fan of Katie Fforde's writing. Her books are an easy read, and fall into the romantic category, but for me are ideal comfort reading in between something a bit more demanding. I usually borrow them rather than buy them however.

The more demanding read I read before this was Marcus Zusak's The Book Thief. It might seem strange to call a book written for young adults more demanding, but the setting of Germany in the Second World War, and the dreadful things that happen to the central character Liesel and to the family who foster her after her mother disappears and her younger brother dies on a train journey is an emotionally demanding read. The Book Club who chose and discussed this felt it was "I'm glad I've read this book" title, and it led onto various memories for one or two of the older members who'd lived through the same war in England, some as children and some as adults. Reading this made me feel much more compassionate towards those ordinary German people who didn't agree with Hitler, but had no means of expressing their disagreement outwardly - it was only expressed by hidden acts of resistance, like fostering the daughter of a communist, and hiding a Jew in their basement. Although I describe this as a more demanding read, the writing is beautifully simple and clear, it is the emotions aroused that are more complex and demanding.

Kitchen window view

The view from my kitchen window includes this beautiful wisteria, which flowers reliably every year, except one year a long time ago when we had a very severe frost in April just as the buds were just starting to develop. The scent is quite powerful too, as I walk underneath it, and the leaves when developed provide shade for the table and benches underneath.

I've just finished reading Celia Lyttleton's "The Scent Trail" in which the author describes her journeys to many different countries in search of the raw ingredients for her own personal scent. She travels to Grasse, in the south of France, in search of mimosa, to Florence for irises, to Turkey for roses, to Morocco for oranges and neroli, to India, Sri Lanka, to Yemen and finally Socotra in search of ambergris. She tells us a lot about te history of scent and how it was and is used in some of these places, and we also learn about how the scent is extracted from the individual flowers, how these flowers have to be picked at certain times of day for the best perfumes. I love scent and would love to have a personal one as Celia Lyttleton has done, but usually wear my favourite Yves St Laurent "Rive Gauche". Celia Lyttleton's writing is enthusiastic about perfume and lyrical about the scents and places she visits. An intriguing read for anyone who loves perfume.

Another recent read was Alexander McCall Smith's eighth title in his No 1 Ladies detective series, The Good Husband of Zebra Drive. The setting is familiar to those who have read others in the series. Although violence and death are mentioned, they are not dwelt on as in some crime novels. In fact I sometomes wonder if these are actually crime novels; they seem to be more philosphical musings on human behaviour in all its variety. Nevertheless,despite the deceptively simple writing I find them an enjoyable comfort read.

Reading Round-up

Although I haven't blogged much recently about my reading, I'm still there with a book in my hand or on my bedside table, although if I have any serious reading to be done, bed is not my ideal place for it. However it's a rare night when I don't pick up a book and read for about quarter of an hour or so before falling asleep.
Reading while in France included Nicola Beauman's "A very great profession", which is a very readable study of popular women's novels and their authors writing between the two world wars. Nicola Beauman has written the survey under several main themes, as to the subjects covered by the novels she describes so well. Persephone books, which was founded by Nicola Beauman, publishes many of these novels, some of which are familiar to me from my early years in the library profession as the authors were still popular during the late 1960's and early 70's. The books are not only a pleasure to read, but are also well produced, on thick cream paper with an elegant type-face, nicely bound with distinctive grey covers.
Julian Barnes' book Flaubert's Parrot was another read while in France, quite appropriately. I've had this on my bookshelves for ages and finally decided it was time to read it. The story is of a retired professor who becomes obsessed with finding which of the various stuffed parrots he comes across while researching Flaubert's life is the original. During the hunt, we learn a lot about Flaubert, the man and the writer, and his life, loves, relationships, habits, and writing. It is very funny in parts, both from quotes from Flaubert and the narrator. How much is actually true about Flaubert I'm not sure, not having read a biography of him. Good fun, though and worth waiting for.
I took The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, by Kate Summerscale to France with me and found it an interesting read. A complicated and true story about the murder of a young child, the youngest son of the father's second marriage. The setting is Road Hill House, which still exists, although now has another name. The family living in the house at the time of the murder, which took place in the Victorian period, were middle class, the detective eventually called from the Metropolitan police force was a working class man. Kate Summerscale gives us a lot of historiacl detail but manges to keep up the suspense and a desire to find out who dunnit. I found this a satisfying read.