tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64877030067854595792024-03-06T05:56:33.276+00:00omnireader.netjayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.comBlogger276125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-29132271583367156312020-09-22T11:49:00.000+01:002020-09-22T11:49:40.124+01:00Escape to France<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-family: verdana; text-align: left;">We eventually escaped to France for a visit to our house and for a break from English news. The weather was beautiful, warm and sunny mostly, with few rainy days, and we felt we could relax. I could swim in an outdoor pool without having to make an appointment, my husband go for a cycle ride without having to deal with city traffic to reach countryside, and we could actually visit a supermarket together. The whole area is usually fairly quiet, except in August when a lot of people come and visit families, but this year it was exceptionally quiet.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div></blockquote><p> </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">On the 7th September we went for a walk up towards the Col d'Aulac (1288m) from the village of Le Vaulmier, and could see</span> <span style="font-family: verdana;">some of the preparations being made for the Tour de France which was due to pass through the village in a few days time. The local association of young farmers, Les Jeunes Agriculteurs de Salers, provided the manpower and the hay bales, arranged eventually in the shape of a cow's head. (The view from the helicopter shown on the TV broadcast is much better, showing the completed head)</span></div></blockquote><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9JQb-oBpNq6uVFjQuar6jnev_HW8VWeMn7xgjGPEe9oCOaskezP9yI_djwm6EM0OJfWBgXWDdRuY-yAQJYBrfAK7lf0ssJa93DAuP5wQt_PUaKOkfTcqrbJ5P2i1ZiqalseZKOSSGhUD9/s5152/DSCN0467.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3864" data-original-width="5152" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9JQb-oBpNq6uVFjQuar6jnev_HW8VWeMn7xgjGPEe9oCOaskezP9yI_djwm6EM0OJfWBgXWDdRuY-yAQJYBrfAK7lf0ssJa93DAuP5wQt_PUaKOkfTcqrbJ5P2i1ZiqalseZKOSSGhUD9/w400-h300/DSCN0467.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTIDZ5nTBniTZOquoBhv9B5wSvWNGaFByjT2ui36ipQLo2L7C4tfyrgCn2DPf9sD8Hog4RHRNEkbEgLeqj2dsco0_z9zqou_sc1FhBIASHpuxxKeaX_jQSOeSKzud394AhiNJsgz8F5d3j/s5152/DSCN0482.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3864" data-original-width="5152" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTIDZ5nTBniTZOquoBhv9B5wSvWNGaFByjT2ui36ipQLo2L7C4tfyrgCn2DPf9sD8Hog4RHRNEkbEgLeqj2dsco0_z9zqou_sc1FhBIASHpuxxKeaX_jQSOeSKzud394AhiNJsgz8F5d3j/w400-h280/DSCN0482.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">the Tour passes through Le Vaulmier</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBA67cmX_sT4HtPAWOIS9LFl2QbL5p0osHd6eXM0pJVy1dYxP4TbQxwznWFeD7LIJKaZaTpqYa_mZQ212M4J-SScihREU0lovNEmwDdpy5HBE9TEhzh_bC_WFUa1ZEOL-N-5Df870sGgMC/s5152/DSCN0502.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3864" data-original-width="5152" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBA67cmX_sT4HtPAWOIS9LFl2QbL5p0osHd6eXM0pJVy1dYxP4TbQxwznWFeD7LIJKaZaTpqYa_mZQ212M4J-SScihREU0lovNEmwDdpy5HBE9TEhzh_bC_WFUa1ZEOL-N-5Df870sGgMC/w400-h300/DSCN0502.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="font-family: verdana;">This stage of le Tour, Stage 13 finished at the Pas du Peyrol, altitude 1588 metres, and passes over the local roads we are very familiar with. The men in red teeshirts in te picture above are Les Jeunes Agriculteurs, madly ringing cowbells as the caravane passed, throwing out freebies, and as the cars and cyclists flashed by. As soon as the last of the cyclists and following vehicles had sped through the village , everyone rushed over to the little temporary bar and television, set up for the afternoon, to watch the final push. The evening finished with a barbecue in the nearby field and eventually fireworks. A day to remember for all.</span>jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-48459622412656180122019-10-23T17:24:00.002+01:002019-10-23T17:24:20.751+01:00How do you choose what you read?<br />
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When I worked in public libraries (seems a lifetime ago) we used have displays with accompanying posters, flyers and leaflets, which went round different libraries, called "Well Worth Reading". The comments that went with each title were short and to the point, aimed at encouraging readers to pick a title and read it. Most displays were based on a theme, such as "A Child's Eye View" with relevant recent titles. They were usually successful in that readers could easily find something fresh to read; one of the most successful was one containing humorous novels, which came to the library one rather bleak February - those display shelves were almost empty in a few days!<br />
I recently had to choose some books to take to France while visiting our house there, and while I find a Kindle e-reader very useful, I still like having access to some printed material. I could buy French paperbacks in the local town, but would find reading them fairly hard work , and would miss out on some English reading. I usually visit my local public library and take a few likely titles out, I download a few titles from A***** and can choose more from that source if necessary. I've just read <a href="https://dovegreyreader.typepad.com/dovegreyreader_scribbles/" target="_blank">dovegreyreader scribbles</a> , who recommends <a href="https://literaryreview.co.uk/" target="_blank">The Literary Review</a> as a source of information on the next good book to read. <span id="goog_5950304"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_5950305"></span><br />
Another useful source of reading matter is charity shops; some are better than others, depending on the area in which you live, but many have collections of paperback books, and if you're lucky, some new or at least new-ish titles.<br />
Personally I prefer a serendipitous approach to finding something new to read, and don't have a huge pile of to-be-read books by my bedside. There are titles in which I'm interested and would like to read, but don't always feel I must read it now this instant - sometime in the future will do.<br />
I have a list of a few sources of information about books on the page "a few links to help choose books"jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-62155284499917704322019-09-01T18:21:00.000+01:002019-09-01T18:21:23.968+01:00A visit to a chateauWhilst staying in France this summer, I took the opportunity to actually visit one of the local chateau open to the public, the <a href="https://www.salers-tourisme.fr/chateau-de-la-tremoliere" target="_blank">Chateau de la Tremoliere</a>, at Anglards-de-Salers. I've occasionally driven through this village and past this chateau, but never stopped to visit.<br />
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Although only a very small building by chateau standards, it has a small collection of tapestries, dating from the latter part of the 16th century. They were made at Aubusson and Felletin ( which is not far from Aubusson) using locally produced wool, and dyed with natural dyes, produced from plants from the area. The exhibition has a small sample of plants and the colours they produce on wool. The tapestries were discovered in the attic of the chateau in 1860, after the building had been acquired by the local commune to house parish clergy. They were apparently in a poor state, and were sent to Gobelin in 1923 for restoration and preservation. A dozen were sent, but only 10 returned.<br />
Because of the subject matter of the tapesteries, the collection is known as Le Bestiaire Fantastique: (the Fantastic Bestiary) most contain some sort of animal, real, imaginary or mythical.<br />
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Because visitors are not allowed to take photographs, and the lighting is kept at a relatively low level, I didn't take pictures, but bought the small booklet which shows the tapestries along with details from parts of them; a useful aide-memoire.<br />
There is also a garden attached to the chateau, Le Verger de Deduit, laid out along medieval lines and based on the Romance of the Rose, a medieval poem. It is very pleasant to wander in, and there is a handout giving details of the planting.<br />
Each the chateau also hosts an exhibition of contemporary art; this year the artist is <a href="https://davrinche.com/" target="_blank">Gael Davrinche</a>, a French painter and sculptor.<br />
There are a few small chateau in the Vallee du Mars, but all are private homes, not open to the public.<br />
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<br />jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-74390104546429482402019-07-07T17:17:00.000+01:002019-07-07T17:50:25.013+01:00A year of reading (to be continued..)<br />
Since I last wrote anything on this blog, almost a year ago, I've not stopped reading, but just didn't feel inspired to write about the books I have read.at the time. Much of my reading is picked pretty much at random from my local public library shelves - I look for authors I may be familiar with, but have a newish title I haven't yet read, or I will try an author whose work I've read reviews or blog posts about and which look interesting. I enjoy catching up with new authors, but I don't feel compelled to read a new author/book the minute its published.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYWNuRAOuDQ9n0aGFbQbWBRvW8nRQe2CVsbCcGVYp4Z0yoryJOJlCEnh3w5OhHop-q1iGUjkFkZLTfXE2e8y8337SFyi9aIS6HKDGc2VNZxPUv_79apxnd58k6uYnqRNGqK80eeEEYdBSg/s1600/The+Horseman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="654" data-original-width="420" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYWNuRAOuDQ9n0aGFbQbWBRvW8nRQe2CVsbCcGVYp4Z0yoryJOJlCEnh3w5OhHop-q1iGUjkFkZLTfXE2e8y8337SFyi9aIS6HKDGc2VNZxPUv_79apxnd58k6uYnqRNGqK80eeEEYdBSg/s200/The+Horseman.jpg" width="128" /></a>Some of the more memorable reads of the last few months have been <a href="https://timpears.com/books/" target="_blank">Tim Pears West Country trilogy</a>, beginning with The Horseman, continuing with The Wanderers and ending with The Redeemed. I loved the quality of writing, which although seemingly slow and gentle yet describes some violent actions and emotions quite plainly.Since the novels are set in the period just before, during and after the First World War, some of the events described are quite dramatic. He also seems to be able to imagine how life was lived at that time; how most people rarely went further than a few miles from their farm or place of work, how they communicated with each other without any modern methods, only talking directly or writing letters.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWIg5uodwApfUf97yT5pBxSeVb0JvhyMIVaQV726UD3WS-iCXL9qSqSSSmROB5V0YITnUkVtBMmPAP1tGSbj68IbOUdHBI3TnyB69GiCjD3QPyKdeyM6lw9l1kEl2b2f64MbQLIOzaoMfz/s1600/Our+souls+at+night.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="330" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWIg5uodwApfUf97yT5pBxSeVb0JvhyMIVaQV726UD3WS-iCXL9qSqSSSmROB5V0YITnUkVtBMmPAP1tGSbj68IbOUdHBI3TnyB69GiCjD3QPyKdeyM6lw9l1kEl2b2f64MbQLIOzaoMfz/s320/Our+souls+at+night.jpg" width="211" /></a>Another writer who has a similar quiet way of telling a story is <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00SN936BU/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i4" target="_blank">Kent Haruf,</a> several of whose novels I have read in the past. His last book, Our Souls at Night, is the story of Louis and Abbie, neighbours in the small town of Holt. One evening Abbie asks Louis if he can spend the night with her just for company. Their relationship develops slowly and gently. During the summer Abbie's grandson Jamie comes to stay with her, as his father Gene is divorced from Jamie's mother. However after a fall in which Abbie breaks a hip and is hospitalised, she moves away to be nearer Gene and her grandson. Both Addie's son and Louis daughter seem to be unhappy about the relationship between Abbie and Louis, which brings them both much happiness and joy in their later years. <br />
Is this disapproval because the young cannot conceive of older people having an emotional life,of finding happiness and joy in the company of a member of the opposite sex to whom they are not married, or is it perhaps jealousy at their parents happiness, while they themselves are feeling upset and unhappy?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijlEU08pQoiYbSjsES9iWHfiNnxCjs9MPVAWJ7JFZBZIwDErh07FkvL5tcG9dqYMRnrzVGq76Hgy5NH3RMPXZu1HE3-89tG0cgM-txN9evgCzM83VmLo-8W-6ATvOhndn9E2SiG5hCDBs6/s1600/The+Librarian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="324" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijlEU08pQoiYbSjsES9iWHfiNnxCjs9MPVAWJ7JFZBZIwDErh07FkvL5tcG9dqYMRnrzVGq76Hgy5NH3RMPXZu1HE3-89tG0cgM-txN9evgCzM83VmLo-8W-6ATvOhndn9E2SiG5hCDBs6/s320/The+Librarian.jpg" width="207" /></a>I picked up Salley Vickers The Librarian as soon as I saw it appear o the library's shelves, and although I enjoyed it, I finished it with a slight feeling of disappointment. Sylvia Blackwood, a young, recently qualified librarian, arrives in East Mole, a middle England country town in 1958. She is very enthusiastic about her role, re-arranging the children's library to make it more user-friendly, giving talks to local schools, and encourages any child she meets to join the library. She befriends Millie, her neighbours daughter and urges her to join the library.<br />
One of the themes of the story is the impact of the 11+ on children of that era, and their future life chances. ( There are still a few local authorities in England who administer the 11+ exam)<br />
Sylvia has an affair with a married man, who very bright young daughter leads Sam, a local lad ,somewhat astray, but all turns out well at the end.<br />
I have to say that this book left me with some unanswered questions., despite its enthusiastic support of children's librarians and all they did and still do to support and encourage children to read widely and with enjoyment. This may be because I can remember some of the things Salley Vickers describes, although my career in libraries started a decade later n 1968 and things were beginning to change.<br />
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<br />jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-26277946719268404642018-09-04T17:05:00.000+01:002018-09-04T17:05:19.885+01:00Some Summer Reading <br />
Although I haven't written about what I've been reading these past few months, I have read a fair selection of books, mostly novels. Some are more memorable than others<br />
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Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin tells the story of Angel Tungazara, a Tanzanian now living in Rwanda and running a small business making cakes for special occasions, parties, weddings, anniversaries and the like. The stories that people tell her about themselves as they choose their cakes form the basis of the book and also reveal the complexities of life in a modern African state, which has suffered a civil war and an AIDs epidemic. Although the tone of the writing is fairly cosy, this in some ways highlights some of the darker side of the tales Angel hears from people ordering one of her cakes, as well as some of the more difficult aspects of her own life - she is bringing up her grandchildren, as both her son and her daughter, their parents, are now dead. Nevertheless, there are several lighter tales in the book, such as how to ensure the tailor does not measure one too tightly for a new dress, so it fits more comfortably on one of traditional build!.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4V8g68epnr3jSViqs_HQsl8CE1ldhx71s-DTGJro4euCNOXfjHmx_xXlQBruIP5ZdN1htJbd2fqzXdqycNsjqu76kGzJhT1iVJdCk-47sDzQtsCl2U6dIPnFDVs85vIy8PyIPrZ3GKKIC/s1600/The+Shepherds+Life.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="326" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4V8g68epnr3jSViqs_HQsl8CE1ldhx71s-DTGJro4euCNOXfjHmx_xXlQBruIP5ZdN1htJbd2fqzXdqycNsjqu76kGzJhT1iVJdCk-47sDzQtsCl2U6dIPnFDVs85vIy8PyIPrZ3GKKIC/s200/The+Shepherds+Life.jpg" width="130" /></a>I'm a bit late to the party in reading James Rebanks The Shepherds Life: a tale of the Lake District, which came out to excellent reviews in 2015. It begins with young James Rebanks in school, listening to a teacher expounding on the Lake District, talking about the 'wild' landscape, but without really mentioning the farmers and other local workers, whose families had worked the land for generations and were no less proud, intelligent and ambitious as people elsewhere, and whose work over probably thousands of years, made the Lake District what it is today. The book roughly follows the seasons on the small hill farm owned by his family, raising Herdwick sheep. He explains the business of the farm, raising sheep for sale, either as breeding ewes or for meat. Although the author had an early disdain for education, when in his early twenties, he attended evening classes to study for A levels and went to Magdelen College, Oxford. He then returns to farming, but also has a job as a consultant to UNESCO.<br />
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When I came across The Reading Cure by Laura Freeman in my local library, how could I not borrow it. Laura Freeman was diagnosed as anorexic in her early teens and gradually and gently restored her appetite for food by reading about it, not in cookbooks, but in novels, whose appeal to the imagination is much more powerful. She describes her anorexia as the voice in her head, which reading managed to replace with a more positive one. Reading about a dish or a meal roused her curiosity to want to taste it, which led to actually eating it. The list of books included at the end of the book is both extensive and varied, and includes many titles by Dickens as well as Virginia Woolf. A beautifully written book about the power of novels to change a life.<br />
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While we were away in France earlier in July we went for a walk up above the Vallee du Mars, following part of the Grand Randonee 400, one of France's long distance walks. The views over the valleys and mountains are well worth the climb up.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrEAY6V_50GFDn6JKvTwIPPRhZln-1UWLYQakRxTWvJLcghtU-fNNd-SFkBP21tegG1dkrsHUMUXifPwb3YgVml6XH11i8L7Cze8MuvkPezp0RS_iedsrgx7y9VqXRJWUuEd3JiRUWfAZv/s1600/20180724_143231.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrEAY6V_50GFDn6JKvTwIPPRhZln-1UWLYQakRxTWvJLcghtU-fNNd-SFkBP21tegG1dkrsHUMUXifPwb3YgVml6XH11i8L7Cze8MuvkPezp0RS_iedsrgx7y9VqXRJWUuEd3JiRUWfAZv/s400/20180724_143231.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A view of the Vallee du Mars, Cantal. The yellow flowers in the foregroud are a variety of gentian, whose roots are used to make a liquer.<br /></td></tr>
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I read W G Sebald's The Rings of Saturn on my Kindle, as I was away at the time and couldn't get hold of the physical book. Apparently classified as "documentary fiction" this is a somewhat discursive description of a long walking tour through parts of Suffolk and Norfolk,particularly those near to the North Sea coast.<br />
There was a read-along on Twitter, hosted by <a href="https://twitter.com/RobGMacfarlane" target="_blank">Robert MacFarlane</a> earlier this summer, with some interesting points raised.<br />
The narrator, unnamed, raised many thoughts in his wanderings, with references to Thomas Browne, Roger Casement, silkworm raising in Europe, a hare which crosses the walkers path and is apparently terrified. The style is almost 19th century in its effect, although it was written in 1995, originally in German, (translated into English by Michael Hulse) and densely written, full of allusions and inferences. In many ways a visual book, as it has many photographs and illustrations, and many descriptions of what the narrator sees on his travels, it also considers listening and hearing. This is the first book by Sebald I have read, and will probably look out for others.<br />
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<br />jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-34104983822954413202018-04-18T10:26:00.001+01:002018-04-18T10:26:43.481+01:00Spring reading<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A quick round up of my recent reading.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ2dJPAsGAUgEI0VPCakNQ0CPcDlIusRXdWRsH6mMCDurijgEbDGkRRNNS-HLnqr9v8XVtoST9i8OlLSmO46E4xx2iyPpmOdr59ItqHdOfF-wOi7Lp-eH8152zJyZ_e1ei3gg2LXDcOax7/s1600/DSCN0134.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ2dJPAsGAUgEI0VPCakNQ0CPcDlIusRXdWRsH6mMCDurijgEbDGkRRNNS-HLnqr9v8XVtoST9i8OlLSmO46E4xx2iyPpmOdr59ItqHdOfF-wOi7Lp-eH8152zJyZ_e1ei3gg2LXDcOax7/s320/DSCN0134.JPG" width="240" /></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I finally read the third book in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Leigh_Fermor" target="_blank">Patrick Leigh- Fermor'</a>s epic walk across Europe in the early to mid 1930's, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/15/broken-road-leigh-fermor-review" target="_blank">The Broken Road: Travels from Bulgaria to Mount Athos.</a>, published in 2013. I'd read the two earlier volumes in the trilogy a long time ago. This volume describes his walk across Bulgaria, parts of Romania and Greece. It was published posthumously and is based on his diaries of the time, and an early draft written in the 1960's. It also has his reflections on his earlier behaviour and appearance during his travels. These follow a similar pattern to the two preceding titles, A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water. He sleeps in huts, shelters and peasants homes as well as staying with consuls, ambassadors and other well-to-do people from time to time, thus contrasting rural life with urban life. The final section details his visit to the monasteries on Mount Athos in Greece, their treasures, the monks and their welcome, how they fed him - food and drink are important to a young man! He eventually arrived in Istanbul in 1935.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The places he visited during his journey were changed absolutely after 1939 and changed even further after the rise and subsequent fall of communism in the area. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjxgxgIUDmXezADkniqTRoT4pOVTF9i3tx43XPhT5lutknXku238meL4TrW0ruzuvQL1CAPa5WA5BoYPv0pLyomiT91Q2hLnbUxy6OPmBlffGygUnWcO614GBAAi-oDbYC1lmLO305ZArd/s1600/DSCN0135+%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjxgxgIUDmXezADkniqTRoT4pOVTF9i3tx43XPhT5lutknXku238meL4TrW0ruzuvQL1CAPa5WA5BoYPv0pLyomiT91Q2hLnbUxy6OPmBlffGygUnWcO614GBAAi-oDbYC1lmLO305ZArd/s320/DSCN0135+%25281%2529.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Peter Carey's Jack Maggs was discussed enthusiastically by my Book Club, as most of the group had read other titles by the author. This story is a sort-of spoof on Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, but includes Charles Dickens within his own story, although with a different name. Although there are similarities to Great Expectations, there are a lot of differences too, and these make it an exciting, fast-paced read.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Jack arrives in London,after having been transported to Australia for his crimes, seeking out one Henry Phipps, his son, whose expensive education he has paid for. Jack manages to be taken on as a footman to Percy Buckle, next-door neighbour to Henry Phipps, who is away. Jack searches throughout England for Henry, aided by Tobias Oates, a writer with an interest in magnetism as a cure for various ills. After many adventures, Henry is finally tracked down, but Jack has a life to lead elsewhere. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ4QjPZ_tedgl4keMK_XpWOAwBFFB8TVckCcQrp6EaEXaxaI9qL3rBgMygbgiMkcw0UGyR0NovM1WJK8lMxAeKNQuU17MDRU0EyyB_2CHy_I72F2ul7KNPpu6HoE3FUUlBTxIdz8eVsQmU/s1600/9781472938978.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="254" data-original-width="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ4QjPZ_tedgl4keMK_XpWOAwBFFB8TVckCcQrp6EaEXaxaI9qL3rBgMygbgiMkcw0UGyR0NovM1WJK8lMxAeKNQuU17MDRU0EyyB_2CHy_I72F2ul7KNPpu6HoE3FUUlBTxIdz8eVsQmU/s1600/9781472938978.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/swell-9781472938978/" target="_blank">Jenny Landreth's Swell: a Waterbiography </a>is more than the author's own story of learning to swim and develop her swimming abilities, it is also a brief history of how swimming suffragettes, those women who were determined to swim and to encourage other women to swim as well. The waterbiography part is Jenny's own swimming journey, in which she progresses to becoming a cold-water swimmer in Tooting Bec Lido, which is unheated and open all year round, although winter swimming , from October to April, is only available to South London Swimming Club members. Jenny Landreth also describes sea and night swimming in Greece. There are several passages which had me laughing out loud as she describes various aspects of swimming behaviours of other swimmers as well as her own. She has strong and amusing views on these.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This book certainly brought back many memories of my own swimming, which I've been doing all my life. The only competitive swimming I did was at school, a lifetime ago. I've swum in the sea, in pools indoor and out, in rivers, especially in France and now swim regularly in an indoor pool and an outdoor when I can. This book was a must-add to my small collection of books on swimming.</span>jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-39370159884499193902018-03-15T17:16:00.000+00:002018-03-15T17:16:01.690+00:00Reading, not writing<br />
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<img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1JPw215_7Wdy9UExJ-QLEN-7s5Z1zgP9a-CUYMTxaIbrY2annF7iu9FtBp6LKHBloQiyZ6g14LuWOKfEvMQJ_X8e_JiBnbcIIC4vTiwJbRinOCri3t_-DHYjXl1pBUOOQfEH5myC-uixq/s320/DSCN0136.JPG" width="240" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span id="goog_50801499"></span><span id="goog_50801500"></span>A few short notes about some recently read books, which I have written about in my reading journal, but not here on the blog.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Set in Ghana and America, this debut novel by Yaa Gyasi is a really interesting read. The story concerns two African half sisters, one of whom marries an English slaver, the other being taken into slavery. The repercussions of these events continue down through subsequent centuries and succeeding generations, descendants of the two women. For instance, Quey child of James the slaver and Effia the Beauty is educated in London at his father's expense, but returns to the Gold Coast.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There is a good description of the Ashanti wars in the 19th century as well as grim details of the conditions slaves were held in at Cape Coast Castle before they were shipped off to the Caribbean or America.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There is also excellent detail about the power of the Asantahene, the head of the Ashanti ( and whose position still exists today), how he lived in his compound, the customs and complications of dealing with him and his courtiers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The author, a Ghanaian, doesn't shy away from including the involvement of Africans in selling slaves to the English, but presents an interesting read on a very complicated period in West African history.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I found it particularly interesting as I had spent my early childhood in Gold Coast/Ghana and found the images described by the author had a particular vivacity for me, conjuring up memories of long ago.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien is an emotionally demanding read, the background to the story being the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990's. The story set initially in a small Irish town, includes several themes about immigration;about how people are affected by events most of us only read or hear about through newspapers or television. Also about how a war criminal attempts to escape the law , but is eventually caught and brought to justice.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Edna O'Brien's writing is as strong as ever in this sometimes harrowing read, but it is also lyrical and</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've read most of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Macfarlane_%28writer%29" target="_blank">Robert Macfarlane'</a>s writings since his first book and enjoyed them all. This one is intriguing with its lists of words to describe local landscapes from many parts of the British Isles</span> . <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are chapters on various types of landscape, such as mountain, moorland, hill, stream,marshland to name only a few. Each chapter has a glossary of words from many places in the British Isles, from Shetland to Cornwall, Wales to Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex and include words and phrases from dialects which are now unspoken.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">He also cites other writers on the land, from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/sep/20/living-mountain-nan-shepherd-review" target="_blank">Nan Shepherd's book on the Cairngorm, The Living Mountain, </a>Jacquetta Hawkes' A Land and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Deakin" target="_blank">Roger Deakin's</a> books on nature. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">My Book Club recently read <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Change_of_Climate" target="_blank">A Change of Climate, by Hilary Mantel</a>, and had a fairly lively discussion on its varied themes and locations. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The novel is set in 1980 in Norfolk, where Anna and Ralph Eldred live in a rambling house, taking in good souls and sad cases as part of their charitable work, and bringing up their children. The story goes back in time to the 1850's , to South Africa, where Anna and Ralph were missionary workers and later to Bechuanaland after their deportation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">There are several themes, such as how religion makes people behave, how can children be protected from some of the awful events that happen around them, how relationships in a fairly long marriage can change. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hilary Mantel also gives clear, detailed descriptions of places and houses that the Elders live in. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-43821713631989644622018-02-12T17:39:00.001+00:002018-02-19T15:24:50.001+00:00Second novels<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6CQSz70Bf-E6E43vyZ4Pl5qRt8aiEY5wlML7DZFjSmg6Suyz-rLS76f7dG4NL8jViGlFhfqqGOzx9uNjHsF4xoWYmIMf1xYxJc8xos0Nm0cFtr7FeK1U_GDEH9qn7NHo3YTi1xIcxU2nD/s1600/WP_20161229_10_41_54_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="1600" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6CQSz70Bf-E6E43vyZ4Pl5qRt8aiEY5wlML7DZFjSmg6Suyz-rLS76f7dG4NL8jViGlFhfqqGOzx9uNjHsF4xoWYmIMf1xYxJc8xos0Nm0cFtr7FeK1U_GDEH9qn7NHo3YTi1xIcxU2nD/s400/WP_20161229_10_41_54_Pro.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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The second novel seems to be regarded with trepidation by many authors, or so we are told, and also with a certain amount of curiosity by readers - will it be as good as the first one. The three I've read recently are all as accomplished as the debut novels I enjoyed when they first appeared.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQpfS4AKYlLVaoxq1Q6GA8uoy44RF5Cq4z3k3lmwhVwxFfxbApWwLC-FLLxCfaRV6-RXXkFjhi68NMybBEjow5HFHC8Y5z_8nZ8KYATIRiQKoFMj3DR9X2SIihQbN1bXzpnKGrwmqhDYiP/s1600/Swimming+lessons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="325" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQpfS4AKYlLVaoxq1Q6GA8uoy44RF5Cq4z3k3lmwhVwxFfxbApWwLC-FLLxCfaRV6-RXXkFjhi68NMybBEjow5HFHC8Y5z_8nZ8KYATIRiQKoFMj3DR9X2SIihQbN1bXzpnKGrwmqhDYiP/s320/Swimming+lessons.jpg" width="208" /></a>Claire Fuller's Swimming Lessons is as accomplished as her first novel, Our Endless Numbered Days. The story is told alternately by narrative and letters. Gil and Ingrid are married, with daughters Nan and Flora. Gil is a writer, apparently typing away in his shed in the garden, while Ingrid keeps house and tidies up the garden of their home, which is the swimming pavilion of a much larger house, Gil's family's former home on the Dorset coast. Ingrid writes letters to Gil, hiding them in apparently random books in Gil's shambolic and vast collection, and whose titles reflect the subjectof the letter, before she apparently disappears in a swimming accident. Many years later, Gil thinks he sees Ingrid from a bookshop window, and has a fall with serious consequences for his health. His daughter Flora comes to help look after him.<br />
Claire Fuller's writing has many nuanced themes within the story: Ingrid considers herself a bad mother, but is she, while Gil's fatherhood is perhaps questionable.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwJZohk7ZZzQp5bTTBtfq72ZNSrfY2b3BgPH_Muks3m6s2xKv3rTQM6VIC4gEdqYtaMm6k9p8TL8XsIMXgr68CGySO7q5TeXI28MmipqDN0zogfg61suptyYdjFQNuUAugf7sHmtC5zYdu/s1600/Eowyn+Ivey.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="326" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwJZohk7ZZzQp5bTTBtfq72ZNSrfY2b3BgPH_Muks3m6s2xKv3rTQM6VIC4gEdqYtaMm6k9p8TL8XsIMXgr68CGySO7q5TeXI28MmipqDN0zogfg61suptyYdjFQNuUAugf7sHmtC5zYdu/s320/Eowyn+Ivey.jpg" width="209" /></a>Eowyn Ivey's second novel, To the Bright Edge of the World is another epistolary novel, and also is based on journals of an expedition to explore the Wolverine river in Alaska in the 19th century. The journal was written by Colonel Allen Forrester, and his wife Sophie, left behind, while the letters are apparently written in the present by a relative of Allen Forrester's to a small museum in a former mining town on the Wolverine river in Alaska. The journals tells of the difficulties of the expedition, and their contacts with the Athabaskan Indians in the area, while also telling of Sophie's experiments in photographing the bird life of the countryside around her. This story gives a wonderful impression of early life in Alaska from the American and Indian points of view, as well as Sophie's experiments in early nature photography.<br />
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Cecilia Ekback's second novel is an historical crime/mystery in a similar vein to her successful first tale, Wolf Winter. Set in the same area of northern Sweden, it tells of the difficulties Magnus, a minerologist, has when sent north from Stockholm to investigate the murders of three men and to survey Blackasen mountain during the summer of 1856. He is accompanied by his sister-in-law, Lovisa, who has been rejected by her family for her behaviour. Magnus and Lovisa react very differently to the long summer days and absence of proper night.<br />
There are several different points-of-view in this complex tale, with different voices telling their own version of events. This is a fascinating read, with much to engage the reader in a very different world to the current one.<br />
<br />jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-70357566287801764072017-11-21T16:28:00.002+00:002017-11-21T21:10:43.234+00:00Autumn reading<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGo_14T8iGQfFLMPlaaMPkY0zg7oGN5V4oIMsRegTjWySClabjINARnheEe3Q9qH__xaS2_PLexYivN6k9scNVF2nkW3FnOM2mmMyv8uZ9tFKZqmMD7s4mAo0E3upa6-wYN8WmfCizi0o8/s1600/IMG_3485.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGo_14T8iGQfFLMPlaaMPkY0zg7oGN5V4oIMsRegTjWySClabjINARnheEe3Q9qH__xaS2_PLexYivN6k9scNVF2nkW3FnOM2mmMyv8uZ9tFKZqmMD7s4mAo0E3upa6-wYN8WmfCizi0o8/s400/IMG_3485.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Although I haven't been writing much about my reading recently, I've been steadily reading, so here are my thoughts on a few of the non-fiction I've got through in the last few weeks.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhBKj79lrFVEeS23VtCm3A-RMUBX_Zd-UWVUIbqOuCLTE3ZfQm1vV1vPvg6xkRsleK2a9trQ_B1vK966jzct8YZ-KsEGnbpXXGSHbzsy-keqKQiXccxhdmNQ_A28kfhd2sBctCgSjbld-x/s1600/518-wJTnDLL._SX323_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="325" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhBKj79lrFVEeS23VtCm3A-RMUBX_Zd-UWVUIbqOuCLTE3ZfQm1vV1vPvg6xkRsleK2a9trQ_B1vK966jzct8YZ-KsEGnbpXXGSHbzsy-keqKQiXccxhdmNQ_A28kfhd2sBctCgSjbld-x/s200/518-wJTnDLL._SX323_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="130" /></a>Rebecca Solnit A Field Guide to Getting Lost is not necessarily about getting lost physically in the wilderness, although she does give some examples of this. It is more about losing oneself and changing, becoming someone other, which we all do to some extent as we age and change. Some people do change, having experienced a literally life-changing event. Some examples are people, both children and adults, who were captured by Native Americans in the early days of exploration and pioneering in North America and treated as members of the family. When found by their own kind, they often never returned to their former lives. Several chapters are titled the Blue of Distance, and in one , she discusses the blue pigment used to delineate distance by Renaissance artists.<br />
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I couldn't resist picking up a book titled The Art of Reading, by Damon Young in a local bookshop. It discusses how the act of reading, while giving the reader independence also makes certain virtuous demands of the reader, such as curiosity, patience, courage, pride, temperance and justice.<br />
The book starts with how we all learn to make sense of the words on the page reveal the story they are telling, how most of us are read to by parents and others and then read for our selves. Many of the chapters refer back to the virtues of the Greeks, to the necessity of applying reason, moderation, intelligent criticism in all aspects of life.<br />
The final chapter, called The lumber room, is a gathering together of the books and other items which inspired the author and which he considers may inspire us as fellow readers. As a life-long reader I thought this a useful addition to my shelf of books about books and reading.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaYNJCps5eOn1V5iXc84iP75kkUR6Xmn6B4qDEPfmX5mWWrapRer6tGF6fElTBaZNhIYMiQFpvVZSYaMQxhtvokV04iEJD1Q_b2ndGTCcTDqQxcuR4SpY-9AWVNeB-XWILcGMJx2RyL067/s1600/Fashion+on+the+Ration.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaYNJCps5eOn1V5iXc84iP75kkUR6Xmn6B4qDEPfmX5mWWrapRer6tGF6fElTBaZNhIYMiQFpvVZSYaMQxhtvokV04iEJD1Q_b2ndGTCcTDqQxcuR4SpY-9AWVNeB-XWILcGMJx2RyL067/s1600/Fashion+on+the+Ration.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="326" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaYNJCps5eOn1V5iXc84iP75kkUR6Xmn6B4qDEPfmX5mWWrapRer6tGF6fElTBaZNhIYMiQFpvVZSYaMQxhtvokV04iEJD1Q_b2ndGTCcTDqQxcuR4SpY-9AWVNeB-XWILcGMJx2RyL067/s200/Fashion+on+the+Ration.jpg" width="130" /></a><br />
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Although I didn't manage to see the exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in 2015 on which this book is based, it was nevertheless an interesting read, especially for anyone curious as to how people managed to clothe themselves and their families in a time of hardship.<br />
The needs of the armed forces were paramount, so clothing manufacture was directed to supplying uniforms for the troops, and in contrasting the three main services, the RAF uniform was regarded as smartest, especially if it had wings. Clothing changed to make most economical use of fabric and women were encouraged to rework and refashion clothes for themselves and their families, so that they could have something newer or at least a bit different to wear.<br />
The importance of looking smart in dire circumstances was seen as a morale-boosting activity, so everyone was encouraged to make an effort.jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-55273547879286020932017-08-22T17:28:00.000+01:002017-08-22T17:28:31.245+01:00Summer readingRecently read a right mix of books, some more memorable than others. Some are a considered read, others a bit like a quick snack, enjoyable but not particularly exciting. I sort -of plan a certain amount of reading for when we visit our house in France, as I like to take a few print books, but also have a Kindle, onto which I can download whatever titles I fancy while there.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQp7dAFyfK3-nrevAaiS6oytaBAWty17Z_HN7RzuwFhM54SExDxlhoOqei1APOoGLPnxYoLw_nBy8YRSKApfwfWaGggmfu-m1DhkyxNJeWiMUZtmed59M01t8pN3yNKVfxAAZusjlZ3e8Z/s1600/Humble+companion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="324" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQp7dAFyfK3-nrevAaiS6oytaBAWty17Z_HN7RzuwFhM54SExDxlhoOqei1APOoGLPnxYoLw_nBy8YRSKApfwfWaGggmfu-m1DhkyxNJeWiMUZtmed59M01t8pN3yNKVfxAAZusjlZ3e8Z/s200/Humble+companion.jpg" width="129" /></a> I've read a couple of titles by Laurie Graham, A Humble Companion and The Liar's Daughter. Both historical in their setting, but also about people and their complex lives. A Humble Companion focuses on Nellie Buzzard, daughter of brought into the palace to be a companion to one of George III's many daughters., Princess Sophia. Nellie is the daughter of the Prince Regent's major-domo, so not remotely aristocratic, and she eventually marries a confectioner, and works in his shop, while Princess Sophy leads a very cloistered and contained life. George III's illness and madness form part of the story, giving the reader a different point-of-view on this devastating event.<br />
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The Liar's Daughter is set in the early 19th century, and Nan Prunty's mother claimed that Nelson was her lover and Nan his daughter. Few people believed this, and Nan spends a large part of her life trying to find the truth of her mother's claims. Despite her working as an apothecary's apprentice, then being married to an Edinburgh qualified doctor, Nan persists in her search for the truth about her parentage. A story about how much our origins matter to us, and is truth better than not knowing.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitCyYXVucK9zHm3zOWaInUHrf9mFxmNpiD-iE9xcq6LlRzWvPXkNFwwhgqXm5D0DZvBBeVRm9l5Qc6NcYwVPD2byMJs3Qloqy3JELBhvajM_yMHMwu3TtGmcQ_WiidJ2LYiKeGHdHAUsGJ/s1600/Mysteries+of+Glass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitCyYXVucK9zHm3zOWaInUHrf9mFxmNpiD-iE9xcq6LlRzWvPXkNFwwhgqXm5D0DZvBBeVRm9l5Qc6NcYwVPD2byMJs3Qloqy3JELBhvajM_yMHMwu3TtGmcQ_WiidJ2LYiKeGHdHAUsGJ/s1600/Mysteries+of+Glass.jpg" /></a><br />
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I read and loved Sue Gee's The Mysteries of Glass, a gentle telling of bereavement, loss of faith and change in a lovely, tranquil rural setting. Sue Gee's descriptions of the natural world surrounding the small place, Lyonshall, where Richard Allen is newly appointed curate are lovely. Richard is but trying to be of service to the parish, but also trying to resist falling in love with Susannah, wife of the vicar. The writing is fairly gentle, but also reflects Richard's inward struggle, which becomes more intense as Susannah's husband draws nearer to his death from tuberculosis.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRnDVZLrrkdwjxZLqoYEfc_dhUejpk6TGZzCFaPJ0_NzicGjOu_jO0MAg8xX5HT2MYH3XgBAiMUdzvkXOCOAGSgf6R8hqw0GO90bXsh2ddKiWD_yzVl7HFkyeoE_ZEbK3tQn2zx4f6e8kD/s1600/Black+Rabbit+hall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="326" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRnDVZLrrkdwjxZLqoYEfc_dhUejpk6TGZzCFaPJ0_NzicGjOu_jO0MAg8xX5HT2MYH3XgBAiMUdzvkXOCOAGSgf6R8hqw0GO90bXsh2ddKiWD_yzVl7HFkyeoE_ZEbK3tQn2zx4f6e8kD/s320/Black+Rabbit+hall.jpg" width="208" /></a>For a different read, I chose <a href="http://www.evechase.com/" target="_blank">Eve Chase</a>'s debut novel, Black Rabbit Hall, a family story set in a large Cornish house, used as a summer holiday home by the family who owned it. There are two time-lines, one set in the 1960's and the other 30 years later, when Lorna is searching for her ideal wedding venue. The story is mainly told in flashbacks, with the past narrated by Amber while the present, Lorna's, is told in the third person. It 's an accomplished first novel, with engaging characters and dramatic events to keep one turning the pages.<br />
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jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-38312919678439284802017-08-08T14:29:00.002+01:002017-08-08T14:46:36.395+01:00Bird behaviour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Ne7gX6dv4TXrH0oLx5Hs5QeSlJZDQmgU8fkj2xszWirQ00DM59cqR-feLTST2H8XIbysdH8KDVxoixNiovbEQoAYR4GqEk-d0mAMSL77t2TIVcOqWxUwiytXmXJMJMBC0GBjnXei4EAZ/s1600/WP_20170808_10_17_42_Pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="899" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1Ne7gX6dv4TXrH0oLx5Hs5QeSlJZDQmgU8fkj2xszWirQ00DM59cqR-feLTST2H8XIbysdH8KDVxoixNiovbEQoAYR4GqEk-d0mAMSL77t2TIVcOqWxUwiytXmXJMJMBC0GBjnXei4EAZ/s400/WP_20170808_10_17_42_Pro.jpg" width="223" /></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We woke up to promised rain this morning,after a fairly mild thunderstorm last night, as thunderstorms go, and noticed the birds around our house. They looked like young house martins and were flying and darting around the windows, hiding from the rain under the eaves, and perching on the telephone wires. There must have been hundreds of them, we don't usually see them this close up. As the weather slowly improved during the morning, so the birds gradually disappeared.<br />
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</span>jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-81077585028483104652017-06-27T13:52:00.002+01:002017-06-30T14:08:33.227+01:00A visit to Lyons<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View over Lyons</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">On our way back from our last visit to the Cantal, we visited Lyons as although we have sped through it on the autoroute in the past, we have never actually stayed there. So we booked an hotel in the centre of the city, near the Place Bellcoeur, which was comfortable and easy to to walk to some of the places we were interested in seeing on a quick visit. Although the weather was mixed, we had enough dry spells to making walking round the city pleasant enough.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A street in old Lyon</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fourviere Basilica</td></tr>
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We walked up to the Fourviére basilica on Saturday morning, while it was still fairly cool, and met many joggers running up and down the steep, narrow passages that thread their way through this part of the old city. We didn't manage to follow any of the famous <a href="http://www.en.lyon-france.com/Things-to-do/Culture-Activities/Sites-Historical-Monuments/Historic-monuments/Les-Traboules-du-Vieux-Lyon" target="_blank">traboules</a> routes, but got a feel for those places on our way up and down. We made our way down and wandered towards the Opera, a magnificent mix of classical and very modern extension on top. By lunchtime it was raining so we found a small bouchon, for lunch, and following that walked to the <a href="http://www.mtmad.fr/fr/Pages/default.aspx" target="_blank">Musée des Tissus,</a> which houses a collection of beautiful examples of Lyons famous silks, many intended to decorate royal palaces, while the adjoining <a href="http://www.mtmad.fr/fr/Pages/default.aspx" target="_blank">Musée des Arts Decorative </a>contains many room sets, showing beautiful examples of how the Lyonnaise of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries lived and entertained each other. </div>
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We returned to the same bouchon , <a href="http://www.chabertrestaurant.fr/" target="_blank">Aux 3 Cochons,</a> we had lunch in, for dinner that evening, as it was a fairly short walk from our hotel and was very welcoming, and the food was fairly typical lyonnaise, hearty and very tasty, welcome on a cool damp evening. We left with a small book of their recipes, in English.</div>
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After dinner we walked across to the Rhone side of the city and followed the river for a while , passing a beautiful open-air swimming pool on the riverside, and admiring the lit -up upper old part of the city we had explored in the morning.</div>
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We really enjoyed our brief stay in Lyons and would thoroughly recommend it as an interesting city to visit.</div>
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</span>jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-17064490283084222102017-06-26T17:54:00.001+01:002017-06-26T19:38:34.446+01:00Miss Garnett's Angel <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgthRXwSamyiTDRIwdb1fCelTy6Btbeow8dkjWSSB_askdpEiskB-sPyobXfbKWxy4VaEAGi6-fgzSQcUssZiUyyLenoyd9G5hlln5RPC2MSu788R2YQlzxG2wFHJB6LZ0g7RiRDhQhjicY/s1600/Mis+Garnett%2527s+Angel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgthRXwSamyiTDRIwdb1fCelTy6Btbeow8dkjWSSB_askdpEiskB-sPyobXfbKWxy4VaEAGi6-fgzSQcUssZiUyyLenoyd9G5hlln5RPC2MSu788R2YQlzxG2wFHJB6LZ0g7RiRDhQhjicY/s1600/Mis+Garnett%2527s+Angel.jpg" /></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">I had somehow missed reading <a href="http://salleyvickers.com/" target="_blank">Salley Vickers</a> successful first novel Miss Garnett's Angel when it was initially published in 2000, but a good book will always find new readers. A fairly easy read, as Salley Vickers' writing and story telling flow beautifully, yet there is a lot to think about in this tale of Julia Garnett's stay in Venice after her retirement. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> I felt sympathetic towards Julia Garnett, intrigued by her wishing to live in Venice for six months and interested in the people she meets and in several cases, comes to love during her stay. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> I loved the descriptions of Venice, which made me recall the couple of visits I've made to that amazing place, the little squares with small bars and trattoria where we had lunch of just a snack and a beer, usually with a church on one side, the water buses, the walks alongside the smaller canals, many, many happy memories.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> The story of Tobias, Raphael, Sara and Tobit I was a bit hazy on, but Salley Vickers re-tells it clearly and had me hunting out a Bible with the Apocrypha in it, to read it for myself. The comparison of the behaviour of modern day Sara and Toby with that of the story from the Apocrypha is fascinating, showing how human emotions and reactions to them don't change much.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> One message I take from this story is to all retired persons: get out of your no doubt comfortable rut and do something -anything - a bit different. I don't think this is the intended message of the book, but it is one that appeals to me, as I am writing this while sitting in our holiday home in the Cantal department of France, listening to an approaching thunderstorm, the house we bought after our retirement from work ten years ago.</span>jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-1854145333525488802017-06-20T15:11:00.002+01:002017-06-20T15:19:01.752+01:00Fingers in the Sparkle Jar<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7xhQkjjm9dUPRzrmYOfzVV1utufhfXv2mJ9aa9nyAENsB9m4g-GPZP07MLXZpiXZ_f235pHaEiH1ak_j_3WUnXvWKESlbKDQZOq1m_jmvQL1PlagVHXpnup7ZnXi-HnfWsj2vWIRGE9aR/s1600/Cris+packham.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7xhQkjjm9dUPRzrmYOfzVV1utufhfXv2mJ9aa9nyAENsB9m4g-GPZP07MLXZpiXZ_f235pHaEiH1ak_j_3WUnXvWKESlbKDQZOq1m_jmvQL1PlagVHXpnup7ZnXi-HnfWsj2vWIRGE9aR/s1600/Cris+packham.jpg" /></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , "lucida grande" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">I didn't find <a href="http://www.chrispackham.co.uk/" target="_blank">Chris Packham's</a> memoir of his early life, Fingers in the Sparkle Jar, a particularly easy at first, with its constant changes from first to third person and the changes in chronology, but it was an interesting one and explains a lot about his character. He describes his obsession with animals and insects starting from a very young age and his despair at the death of the young kestrel he reared. His relationships with his supportive parents and sister are fairly briefly covered but to contrast these, there are very full details of wildlife and nature descriptions as well as a few obviously very special moments in his early life. I did have a slight problem with some of the discussions between Chris Packham and his therapist (shown in italics) as he seemed to be expressing thoughts of the therapist that didn't seem to be spoken- so were these thoughts really the therapists, or the authors interpretation of non-verbal communication? One the whole it was an interesting read about a local boy made good ( I live in Southampton) and gives us readers an insight into the early life of a successful presenter of nature programmes, e.g. Springwatch and its spin-offs. In the end, I didn't find the back-and forth chronology too distracting, as that is often how memory works anyway.</span><br />
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jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-90521522080645542092017-06-14T21:30:00.000+01:002017-06-14T21:30:01.264+01:00Read in May<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHyIww6V-0DD9Whr4X-jT02cflTGQGT7ttIGJv13hFxGFVm16IW9eF7We84TrR1-yM3NPayoN_CyzY0flrTOZIrDXFbUQSVwFE-C684z4lNUO0KvZE672wCknyhgGFIQgwqH9caM-sckVA/s1600/Mapp+and+Lucia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHyIww6V-0DD9Whr4X-jT02cflTGQGT7ttIGJv13hFxGFVm16IW9eF7We84TrR1-yM3NPayoN_CyzY0flrTOZIrDXFbUQSVwFE-C684z4lNUO0KvZE672wCknyhgGFIQgwqH9caM-sckVA/s1600/Mapp+and+Lucia.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I finally got round to reading E F Benson's Mapp and Lucia. I have read the earlier tales about Lucia's life in Riseholme,Volume 1 of a two volume paperback edition and enjoyed this tale of two socially ambitious women vying for supremacy over one another in a small seaside town, to the amusement of both other characters in the story and the reader. Widowed Lucia decides to take a house in Tilling for two summer months after making up her mind that after a year of grieving she needs to re-join society. The house is Miss Mapp's and thus Lucia sets in motion the social rivalry between the two ladies.There are several highly amusing set-pieces in the book, such as the fete at Riseholme, organised by Lucia before the death of her husband; the Art Exhibition at Tilling; the visit of the Italian Countess which revealed Lucia's lack of knowledge of Italian and finally the piece de resistance, the flood and its aftermath.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A clever and enjoyable tale, light-hearted enough, but also exposing the petty snobbery and shallowness of the main characters .</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyUULgpddFkX9fKSJ4NEZ0aO7VoLVTwuSqBbm9qyWJEjCaVQUeW1prGFANwKPHBTT9_OXGXd8F-kpkUp4XDyMKsV2qbC82dkGM3ghIcWRojXZM-oBYKmFYUfA1R1e_S9gii2mPuX1ry0fB/s1600/golden+hill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="325" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyUULgpddFkX9fKSJ4NEZ0aO7VoLVTwuSqBbm9qyWJEjCaVQUeW1prGFANwKPHBTT9_OXGXd8F-kpkUp4XDyMKsV2qbC82dkGM3ghIcWRojXZM-oBYKmFYUfA1R1e_S9gii2mPuX1ry0fB/s320/golden+hill.jpg" width="208" /></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I picked up my copy in a charity bookshop while on a short visit to my brother-in-law, as I had read some interesting reviews of the book, and had also read Francis Spufford's The Child that Books Built, a memoir of his childhood reading after a family tragedy. This is his first novel and for me a really good read. Set in New York in 1746, Richard Smith arrives from London with an order for £1000 in his pocket, but will not say for whom or what purpose the money is intended. Richard Smith has several adventures while waiting for the money to be sorted out: he is entertained by the important families in New York at the time, a mix of Dutch and English. He has his purse stolen, leaving without ready cash; he meets Mr Lovell, the banker who is to provide the cash for the money order, and Lovell's daughters, Flora and Tabitha; he gets into a fight, he is called to fight a duel with a man who is apparently friendly to him. Eventually we discover Richard Smith's real reason for his visit to New York. I enjoy historical novels and thought this a good read. The author has clearly done his research thoroughly, although sometimes near the start of the story I did wonder if the style was a pastiche, but the events carried my reading along for an interesting read.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">How can a former librarian who worked in public libraries for over 30 years not read a book of this title? The short stories in this collection all have something to say about the influence of literature, words, phrases, a particular writer on the author. These intriguing stories were interspersed with comments from librarians, library users and other who are and have been influenced by them as well as those affected by library closures that have taken place over the last few years and are still ongoing in many places. Although Ali Smith does not not say it in so many words, one of the contributors does -that closing public libraries affects the most vulnerable in society and that says something not very nice about those doing this - that they don't care about the poor and the vulnerable. Personally I think it is a bit more complicated; that local government who are the providers of most public services have invidious choices to make: do they provide social care for the poor, the vulnerable, the elderly or do they provide public libraries and other public services which have been cut. Their budgets have been slashed and choices have to be made as to how best to spend the money they do have. Nevertheless, it is wrong to close public libraries, as doing so probably contravenes the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1964/75/contents" target="_blank">Public Libraries Act of 196</a>4, which is still in force, but has been ignored by successive government ministers in charge of public libraries. Closure also impacts particularly on the youngest and oldest in society, as a local library is often one of the first places that children can go to on their own, as they are regarded as a safe place to visit. As some older people become unable to drive or travel on their own, so a local library becomes an important source of information and entertainment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">There are details on public library cuts at http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com/ as well as some good news about public libraries.</span>jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-77587877699009555492017-04-29T14:31:00.000+01:002017-04-29T15:10:58.386+01:00April reading round upI seem to have been doing a bit more reading than usual the past couple of months , but not so much blogging. Many of the books I've read have been garnered on quick sweeps in my local library; some are titles I've bought to read for the book club I belong to, others just acquired on a whim, such as <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Not-Diet-Book-Eating-ebook/dp/B01LWWT3BC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493217562&sr=8-1&keywords=this+is+not+a+diet+book" target="_blank">Bee Wilson's This Is Not A Diet Book</a>. I picked this up at my local university bookshop and read it that evening. It 's an interesting take on how to have a more rational approach to food and feeding ourselves as human beings - not depending on fast food and takeaways, but creating something nourishing from scratch, which is something I've tried to do for a very long time. There are a few useful recipes within and simple guidelines as to how to eat well.<br />
For a bit of light relief, I read a couple of titles by <a href="http://www.veronicahenry.co.uk/index.php" target="_blank">Veronica Henry</a>, How to Find Love in a Bookshop, and The Beach Hut Next Door. Both are easy stories, with enough about the characters for me to care for them and to want to find out what happens to them.<br />
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Fredrick Backman's " A man called Ove" is a beautifully told story about a grumpy old man called Ove, who lives in a small Swedish town. Ove makes several, fortunately unsuccessful attempts to take his own life. Ove's life story is revealed slowly, over the course of the book: his childhood, his meeting with his wife Sonja and her childhood in an isolated house. This book gives a picture of modern Swedish life in all its complexity, including the bureaucracy revealed when an old friend in need of care is being hustled off into a care home, despite his wife's pleadings against this action. Ove's daily inspections of his neighbourhood bring him into contact with the many people in the locality, including recent arrivals Parvenah and her husband. Parvenah is Iranian and forms a close bond with Ove, He even teaches her to drive. This story is a complete contrast to the Scandi-noir thrillers which have been popular for some time.<br />
Having recently watched the final of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006t6l0" target="_blank">University Challenge</a>, which I've been watching since its Bamber Gascoigne days, I picked up<a href="https://www.harpercollins.co.uk/9780008128302/a-life-in-questions" target="_blank"> Jeremy Paxman's A Life in Questions</a> ,(a sort of autobiography,) in the library and read it fairly quickly. It does give a picture of his family background and working life, but little of his personal, private life. Nevertheless, I found it an interesting read, despite its slightly limited scope on his life.<br />
I don't know how, over a long reading life I haven't read anything by <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Penelope-Fitzgerald/e/B000APGOPK" target="_blank">Penelope Fitzgerald.</a> however I have now made a start with her last novel, <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blue-Flower-Penelope-Fitzgerald/dp/0006550193/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8" target="_blank">The Blue Flower</a>, a story about the love of Freidrich (Fritz) von Hardenberg for Sophie von Kuhn, who was only 12 when they first met. Von Hardenberg went on to write poetry and philosophy under the name Novalis. Set during the 18th century, on reading it I became totally absorbed into the life of the characters: she makes the 18th century seem very real and immediate and describes beautifully Fritz's family's total bemusement at his falling in love with an apparently rather ordinary, plain young girl, who is also not of his class in society. It is good to find a new to me author who has a solid body of work to keep me reading.<br />
Note: there is more about Penelope Fitzgerald and her novel The Bookshop over on<a href="https://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/" target="_blank"> Vulpes Libris blog.</a><br />
<br />jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-47145838544363988252017-03-22T08:00:00.000+00:002017-05-05T18:08:44.265+01:00Swimming along<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I bought <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Leap-Woman-Some-Waves-Will/dp/0091959594/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490030668&sr=1-1&keywords=alexandra+heminsley" target="_blank">Alexandra Heminsley's book "Leap In: A woman, some waves and the will to swim </a>"on a whim, as I'd heard her talking about on the radio, and as a regular swimmer myself, it sounded interesting, and so it proved. She details her desire to not just swim, but to swim in the sea next to her Brighton home, and takes in other open water or wild swims as well. It also adds to my small collection of books about swimming - or perhaps that should be the literature of swimming, as there is nothing in the form of training manuals. There are a couple of guides to open water swimming, which in my young days was just called outdoor swimming. Brought up partly on the isle of Wight during the 1960's, swimming was for the majority of people a summer activity, in the sea or in the few open air pools on the island at that time. My sister and I were both in our respective school swimming teams, but training was fairly minimal, and we did quite a bit of leisure swimming in the sea during the summer. I've since swum in rivers and lakes as well as the sea, but only as a leisure swimmer, not competitively. However these days I mostly swim in pools, indoor or outdoor whenever possible.<br />
Alexandra Heminsley's book is enthusiastic about open water swimming and I have to admit it is a lovely way to swim, but not always accessible She includes several tips about how to swim in open water, recommends some places to swim in the open air and also has tips about equipment to use while swimming.<br />
There are some guides as to where to swim outdoors: this website has links and maps to hundreds of places in the UK and beyond:<a href="http://www.wildswimming.co.uk/" target="_blank"> http://www.wildswimming.co.uk/.</a><br />
Go on, leap in and enjoy the water.jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-14625153071081503542017-03-20T16:20:00.002+00:002017-04-29T15:07:47.265+01:00A boarding school tale<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqb9PQYE7pA1WPOEE2Mv3KhU-ZrkyK6jG4MRKYtTn6vdLIM3Lz7-GG-LbVjK9LbYgZQ6VrWuX7xEGEXAFWfu3_6DNSmAL9oa7o66kGYQ1aClEPN5Rx1QApw5nZG_mpoycEsQd0ZOO0lRds/s1600/Terms+and+conditions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqb9PQYE7pA1WPOEE2Mv3KhU-ZrkyK6jG4MRKYtTn6vdLIM3Lz7-GG-LbVjK9LbYgZQ6VrWuX7xEGEXAFWfu3_6DNSmAL9oa7o66kGYQ1aClEPN5Rx1QApw5nZG_mpoycEsQd0ZOO0lRds/s320/Terms+and+conditions.jpg" width="217" /></a><a href="https://foxedquarterly.com/products/books/" target="_blank">Terms and Conditions;</a> a history of girls boarding schools between 1939 and 1979 by Ysenda Maxtone-Graham was a must read for me on purely personal grounds. I attended a small boarding school in Berkshire during the 1950's, together with my sister. Some of the descriptions and events recalled in this book are highly amusing, some terrifying and others recall the boredom of times at school. We were sent to boarding school because our parents worked abroad, in West Africa, in the Gold Coast/Ghana and after about the age of 10, coming up to secondary stage education, what was available for English children in that part of Africa was somewhat problematic.<br />
The school we went to in England was small, with few teachers, but reasonably friendly. Accommodation was in small dormitories, with usually only about 4 -5 girls to a room, all the same age.The education was not terribly good and when I passed the 11+ exam, I went to the local grammar school, on the recommendation of the headmistress of the boarding school, while still boarding at the school,<br />
The tales Ysenda Maxtone Graham tells of life in a variety of girls boarding schools, all revealed by former pupils, now grown women, do reflect some of my and my sister's experiences and their lasting effects. These include a certain independence and self-reliance from a young age, few expectations and a tolerance of not very good food.<br />
For those of us who went to boarding school during the period covered by this book, I think this book will probably bring back a host of memories<br />
<br />jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-29138337168279381392017-01-30T18:22:00.000+00:002017-01-30T18:24:33.781+00:00Contrasting reads<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCGJTIMccZ5DvYvSOEpc8-Um6DQqXQRkL7KtxDAOUXifpcwf_5AlEspmDqBTvpRd0gMYsShtISNEwiBbsN82ssHwrA6QZlzLGJamDDAo5YTBwLSAdC0vlxuHbn13jwGBYl9-zJFSmHtp__/s1600/Benediction.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCGJTIMccZ5DvYvSOEpc8-Um6DQqXQRkL7KtxDAOUXifpcwf_5AlEspmDqBTvpRd0gMYsShtISNEwiBbsN82ssHwrA6QZlzLGJamDDAo5YTBwLSAdC0vlxuHbn13jwGBYl9-zJFSmHtp__/s320/Benediction.jpg" width="211" /></a>Kent Haruf's Benediction is a quiet, sad story about an old man dying. Put like that, it would seem to be not a book one would search out and read. But do search it out and read it, because Kent Haruf's writing about the daily lives of his characters is the best. His prose is spare, quiet, thoughtful and immensely readable. His characters are ordinary people living ordinary lives, which is what makes his books so sympathetic, because his characters and their lives are just like our own, immediately recognisable.<br />
Dad Lewis, retired businessman, is dying through a long, hot summer in Holt. Cared for by his wife and daughter, he is visited by old friends and looks back over his life in the small Colorado town. He also reflects on his relationship with his son Frank. The Lewis's next-door neighbour looks after her young granddaughter, and a recent arrival in town the preacher Rob Lyle has problems of his own.<br />
I have enjoyed Kent Haruf's writing since first reading Plainsong many years ago. He is not a prolific writer, but one who makes every word count .<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdT1Nc_av5hbLV90j0WBiSI1yin1cdmcqKvfDeXZkZq3dQXp8hYpKCT3jJXWRKoXw_PkadeDxo3jRzxi0oRg9nWq8loyIxZsL48ls1adtizRVuCYMifU_ev_qz4E6XvMoZ7O28-Atmx0RL/s1600/The+Outrun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdT1Nc_av5hbLV90j0WBiSI1yin1cdmcqKvfDeXZkZq3dQXp8hYpKCT3jJXWRKoXw_PkadeDxo3jRzxi0oRg9nWq8loyIxZsL48ls1adtizRVuCYMifU_ev_qz4E6XvMoZ7O28-Atmx0RL/s320/The+Outrun.jpg" width="195" /></a>Amy Liptrot's book The Outrun is a completely different take on life. Brought up on a farm on Orkney, Amy leaves the island for university and then life in London, where she throws herself into its vibrant social life, and the drinking that goes with it. Gradually as she becomes increasingly reliant on alcohol, she loses jobs, homes and lovers. Eventually she enters rehab and decides to leave London ,returning to Orkney for a summer job which involves counting corncrakes for the RSPB. She decides to spend the winter on Papay, the small island she had spent summer on and writes - marvelous descriptions of of the wildlife, the clear starry skies, sea swimming and snorkeling with a local group and meditating on how she can continue to be free of the alcohol addiction which blighted her younger life.<br />
Amy Liptrot comes across as warm, friendly and self sufficient. A wonderful read- part memoir, part nature description, showing how paying close attention to our surroundings can be a source of healing.<br />
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<br />jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-72856643159491157332016-11-18T18:02:00.000+00:002016-11-18T18:02:16.891+00:00Lloyd Jones<br />
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Wandering through my local branch of Waterstones, I picked up a copy of Lloyd Jones latest book, A History of Silence, on sale for £1. Never one to refuse a bargain, this one provided me with several days of slow, contemplative reading. I'm a fan of Lloyd Jones writing, having read a few of his novels, such as The Book of Fame, Mister Pip and most recently <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/not-from-round-these-parts-author-lloyd-jones-explores-the-disclocation-of-a-young-african-woman-2136896.html" target="_blank">Hand Me Down World</a>. This last was borrowed from my local library and was quite different to his other books, in that the story is about a young African woman, working in a hotel, who becomes pregnant and has her child stolen from her. Her story is told mainly through the eyes of those who she comes into contact with on her terrible journey as she searches to find her son again. Many people help Ines, as she is called, not all of them willingly. Eventually Ines reaches Berlin, where her son is living with his father, but her difficulties do not end there. She is homeless, without money, but manages to find work and help from other people from time to time. This story gave me an insight into the horrendous difficulties people overcome in their search for a better life when they choose to migrate across the Mediterranean sea and across Europe to their destination, and how they may be helped along the way, or treated unkindly, or worse.<br />
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A History of Silence is a family memoir and a reflection on the earthquakes in New Zealand in 2011. The family memoir tells of Lloyd Jones growing up in Wellington, New Zealand, his early life there, his brothers and sisters and his parents. His mother's life seems to have been complicated,, but her story is gently teased out from the silence and dissimulation that seem to have surrounded it.<br />
I enjoyed this memoir, which is not a traditional linear story, as a gentle, discursive read, as the writing is clear yet imaginative. It occasionally goes off at surprising tangents, but these are usually linked back to the family story or the authors reflections on it. The visit to Pembroke in search for the sailor who "died at sea" was unproductive, but gave Lloyd Jones a chance to consider his family connections with Wales.jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-53270474641306920162016-10-31T21:45:00.000+00:002016-10-31T21:45:56.671+00:00All the light we cannot see<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihz89QRu4alG1NQ7BUVaGA5G7G1GlK6-h3yKemYI5bRVMe6opDGwsPSXjgQp83hUVVjqrPG-nMjmL9G7u4LN0y2AiyPov4Xo_tNjLdqT57orM-q8fIp6iweMLYCdH-dx_YhPXIJPjlF8L2/s1600/all+the+light.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihz89QRu4alG1NQ7BUVaGA5G7G1GlK6-h3yKemYI5bRVMe6opDGwsPSXjgQp83hUVVjqrPG-nMjmL9G7u4LN0y2AiyPov4Xo_tNjLdqT57orM-q8fIp6iweMLYCdH-dx_YhPXIJPjlF8L2/s320/all+the+light.jpg" width="207" /></a>A recent read I really enjoyed is<a href="http://nudge-book.com/blog/2015/02/one-to-watch-out-for-all-the-light-we-cannot-see-by-anthony-doerr/" target="_blank"> Antony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See.</a> The title comes from the radio waves and other forms of electro-magnetic communication waves which we cannot see with our eyes, yet which surround us everywhere. Apparently Antony Doerr saw someone on a train beating his mobile phone on the armrest of his seat when the train entered a tunnel, thus losing connection, and thought how we take such communication for granted these days. This was one of our Book Club choices and I was really glad to see it on the list. ( We usually choose 5 -6 months worth of titles at a time, and meet every three weeks for discussion along with coffee and cake)<br />
I hadn't read anything by this author before, and will now seek out some of his other titles.<br />
Set during, before and after World War Two, this is a complex book, with many different themes, yet is so beautifully written that despite its length it seemed to be an easy read. Each chapter is fairly short, so there is time to really grasp the flow of the story. Partly a coming-of-age story, as both main characters, Werner and Marie-Laure, are very young during the story and only teenagers when they finally and briefly meet; partly about the impact of radio communication, Werner is a young German radio whizz; partly about blindness - Marie-Laure has been blind since the age of six; partly about the Nazi's hunt for art treasures in the countries they invaded; despite these varied themes the story combines them in elegant, lyrical prose. The discussion we had during our book Club meeting ended with a desire to have a group outing to St Malo, a place which some but not all had visited, and which is also an important character in the book.jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-88682023459076400442016-10-18T20:01:00.000+01:002016-10-18T20:01:43.438+01:00Last of the summer reading<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghb_680NGKTQgutDcXEjSQdHzHj_913bX9qomku7VGt1ky2HxWkXGvbAhEW82lP0QNDpeudfzmZ-hb7UtxR-azV5v_9N7YiDxFwItM42foZRjD3ZKXgB0MmbAnABHhvYpr6Sf2YFfO0iaN/s1600/IMG_3490.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghb_680NGKTQgutDcXEjSQdHzHj_913bX9qomku7VGt1ky2HxWkXGvbAhEW82lP0QNDpeudfzmZ-hb7UtxR-azV5v_9N7YiDxFwItM42foZRjD3ZKXgB0MmbAnABHhvYpr6Sf2YFfO0iaN/s400/IMG_3490.JPG" width="400" /></a><br />
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Autumn is definitely here now days are getting shorter with darker mornings and evenings and I need to catch up with comments on some of my late summer and early autumn reading.<br />
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Having read Lila, the last of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilynne_Robinson" target="_blank">Marilyn Robinson</a>'s trilogy set in the small rural town of Gilead first, I thought I'd better catch up with the others. Gilead is the first and a beautiful read. Written as a letter to his young son by John Ames who is now aged and recalling his past life. He often refers to "your mother" but never mentions her name when talking to his son, yet it is apparent that he loves and values her. The letter explains John Ames' whole life, his close friendship with the Presbyterian minster the Rev Boughton, his father and grandfather, who was an abolitionist and eccentric in his behaviour. The reflections on life in a small mid-western American town in the late 19th and early 20th centuries are eloquently described and the theology by which John Ames lives is almost more humanistic than Calvinist, although he frequently mentions the grace of God throughout his reminiscences.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6YyojdD3i9MXD3b7ZtL-I7ixb9LSVVyyirFc2ZedT5_cfCPb2h_raZmt4oeYlMLx9LyJe6dJ1PqPOHkhSmDNdYqsKzQ52k9uD4KJvFVnLD1FJZRA5dosL4LfcD8WpClVYnE5blmGJ1uAQ/s1600/Beloved.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6YyojdD3i9MXD3b7ZtL-I7ixb9LSVVyyirFc2ZedT5_cfCPb2h_raZmt4oeYlMLx9LyJe6dJ1PqPOHkhSmDNdYqsKzQ52k9uD4KJvFVnLD1FJZRA5dosL4LfcD8WpClVYnE5blmGJ1uAQ/s200/Beloved.jpg" width="129" /></a> Beloved by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilynne_Robinson" target="_blank">Toni Morrison</a> is a book that escaped me when first published, but the beauty of a trip to my local library and a browse along its shelves is that it reveals several titles that I feel like reading; this title was one such. Beloved won the Pulitzer prize in 1988 and Toni Morrison the Nobel prize for literature in 1993. This is a complicated story about slavery and its consequences in the Southern states of America. Sethe and her daughter Denver are living in a house which previously belonged to Sethe' mother-in-law and which is haunted. Paul D arrives, a former slave and friend of Sethe's husband who has disappeared, and manages to expel the ghost, but a real life girl appears, called Beloved, the name of the infant whom Sethe killed when she was found after running away from the plantation on which she was a slave. Beloved is welcomed into the household, and gradually seems to take over. Sethe loses her job which provided the only income to the household but still spends money on providing beloved with whatever she demands. Eventually matters come to head; Denver asks a group of local women to help. When the group arrive to visit Sethe, Denver's employer, a white man arrives to collect her for work, but Sethe thinks this is a re-enactment of a past event when she was escaping slavery. However a tragedy is prevented, but in the comings and goings of this event, Beloved disappears. There are a number of themes running through this novel, as well as slavery and its consequences for both black and white people America is shown at a time of change, just after the Civil war. Memory and how past memories are repressed for fear of what remembering might bring is another theme, as is the relationship between mother and daughters.<br />
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Yet another novel set in America, in the west as it was being opened up by pioneers is Willa Cather's "O Pioneers". I found this while browsing the local brocante fair in France and paid one euro for it.<br />
Set in the underdeveloped prairie lands of Nebraska, this is the story of Alexandra Bergson, who is sixteen at the beginning of the tale, and her family. Her father, a Swede who left his native land for a new life in America, is dying and leaves the farm to Alexandra, realising that she has the intelligence and ability to make it successful. Her two younger brothers each inherit shares in the land, while the youngest Emil is set to go to university and study law. The descriptions of family life on the farms, the social lives of those who have chosen to make their lives in this hard land are drawn from Willa Cather's childhood in Nebraska. There was a mix of immigrants from many European countries, all searching for a better life for themselves and their families, along with the Native Americans, original inhabitants of the prairies. Alexandra is friendly with another Nordic family, the Linstrums and their son Carl. However the Linstrums leave Nebraska during a prolonged drought. Sixteen years later, Carl returns, meanwhile Emil has fallen in love with Marie, who they have known since childhood and who is now married to Frank. this affair is ended brutally. Despite being written over 100 years ago, the descriptions of human behaviour show that we haven't changed very much. I have read the last in this trilogy, My Antonia, but have yet to catch up with the second.jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-7457207868235575532016-09-10T17:14:00.000+01:002016-09-10T17:14:40.027+01:00Summer reading mixtureA bit of a mixed bag of books have been read this summer ( but my winter reading is just as much of a mixture as well)<br />
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<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/07/marilynne-robinson-lila-great-achievement-contemporary-us-fiction-gilead" target="_blank">Marilyn Robinson's Lila</a> was a book club read, and provoked quite a bit of discussion on and around the story. Several others in the Book Club had read the author's other two books in this trilogy, Gilead and Home, although I hadn't at the time. I'm slowly reading Gilead at the moment. Marilyn Robinson' s writing beautiful, spare prose is a delight to read, with not an unnecessary word, but sufficient to build a picture in one's mind of the people and places she delineates.Lila is the focus of the story and sometimes the narrator in a sort of stream of consciousness. Lilais rescued from a traumatic and neglectful situation in early life by Doll, who is a drifter. Both Doll and Lila are taken and looked after by an old woman who cares for them both, helping to bring Lila back to normal health. Lila and Doll live a drifter sort of life, along with a group of others, finding work where they can and living rough. Doll does find settled work for a while, and sends Lila to school for a year, during which Lila learns to read and write and impresses the teacher with her innate intelligence. Doll kills a a man, possibly Lila's father and is put in jail,.Lila, after a job in a brothel in St Louis where she quickly prefers to do the cleaning, drifts away and finds shelter in a small abandoned cabin in Gilead. Eventually she meets the Reverend John Ames almost by chance, while he is preaching a sermon in his church- she takes shelter in the church during a rainstorm. I loved the writing and the thoughts about theology that the Reverend John Ames displays, as well as Lila's reactions to him and the people in the town.<br />
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<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/9712049/Winter-Games-by-Rachel-Johnson-and-Mutton-by-India-Knight-review.html" target="_blank">Rachel Johnson's Winter Games</a> was a completely different read. Set in the 1930's and 2006, it is a family story, of a sort. Daphne is the heroine of the earlier period, which is set mostly in 1936 and in Germany, where Daphne is sent to be "finished", aged 18. Francie, Daphne's granddaughter goes to Germany in connection with her job as a feature writer for a glossy magazine, and discovers a picture of her grandmother there. Francie is wildly attracted to her boss, Nathan and has a brief fling with him, despite being married to Gus. The story goes back and forth between past and present, although not in a confusing way. A good, light read with some very amusing comments about modern urban life, although given the subject matter of Daphne's part of the story, not too light -hearted.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBqbUlz8addT6737tLS9DaU8h4BxMfzsoOQgt8PvryVNzbpqkQ7tJSAn8Bgx64lwUp72UGyHaARFVYB7OEL4Uwc7MezZNClfrO4nhviJFURn6gAEKztqhmUEmXBpT3RF-BgY2bteINxOf7/s1600/Julian+Barnes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBqbUlz8addT6737tLS9DaU8h4BxMfzsoOQgt8PvryVNzbpqkQ7tJSAn8Bgx64lwUp72UGyHaARFVYB7OEL4Uwc7MezZNClfrO4nhviJFURn6gAEKztqhmUEmXBpT3RF-BgY2bteINxOf7/s200/Julian+Barnes.jpg" width="130" /></a></div>
Julian Barnes' Nothing to be frightened of is an interesting meditation and exploration of the fear of death and dying, combined with a sort-of family memoir. (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/mar/08/biography.julianbarnes" target="_blank">review here </a>)Although the subject of death and dying is serious one, this book is very funny in places, and I mean laugh-out-loud funny, especially some of the family memories and how truthful they actually are. Various family members of the author's family make their appearance, notably his brother, a professor of philosophy. There is also some discussion about the reliability of memory ( Julian and his brother often recall the same event quite differently) and the contrast between memory and imagination.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhgrpbvf3hPdyhdgWgdLOPDMAq3T2m5M2kc6HBDLYEL2E2cA95DuBxRwhSGVdoGj-nYloRp9GbjQZtppL2FKu5fiMfI5MZGMcTryKOiB_JNLgRrDk03Tw2jFWWV3KU4egicdLY9xtOBL0b/s1600/Lucky+Break.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhgrpbvf3hPdyhdgWgdLOPDMAq3T2m5M2kc6HBDLYEL2E2cA95DuBxRwhSGVdoGj-nYloRp9GbjQZtppL2FKu5fiMfI5MZGMcTryKOiB_JNLgRrDk03Tw2jFWWV3KU4egicdLY9xtOBL0b/s320/Lucky+Break.jpg" width="210" /></a>The last of this mixed bag of reading is <a href="http://www.estherfreud.co.uk/" target="_blank">Esther Freud'</a>s Lucky Break, a story of a small group of actors who meet for the first time at drama school. We follow their lives through their college days and their early acting careers. The group is mixed in many ways. Sita is Asian, Charlie has a Nigerian father and an Engkish mother, while Nell, Dan, Pierre and Jemma are all English. nell and Sita join together to do some work, Sita gets offered "Asian girl being forced into arranged marriage" parts too often for her liking. Nell eventually gets offered a lead part in a film, the premiere involves meeting Royalty. Charlie seems to be headed for success as soon as she leaves the drama school, but her career later apparently founders. Dan and Jemma marry and have 4 children; by the end of the story, he seems to be successful. An interesting look at behind the scenes of actors lives, the highs and lows, and the many and varied links they have with each other, those who mange to stay in the profession and those who leave for their own varied reasons.jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-11231187120256319632016-09-05T09:00:00.000+01:002016-09-05T16:03:01.791+01:00A reading medleyI've read a mix of books recently, but not yet blogged about any of them. Two of them were very interesting non-fiction , Coastlines by Patrick <b>B</b>arkham and The Edge f the World: how the North Sea made us w<span style="text-align: center;">ho we are by Michael Pye.</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">Patrick Barkham's Coastlines, subtitled The Story of our Shore is a ramble round those parts of the English coast which are owned by the National Trust under <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/fifty-years-of-neptune-coastline-campaign" target="_blank">Operation Neptune,</a> which was set up in 196, to protect those same parts from development - places such as Brownsea Island in Dorset, part of the Isle of Wight from the Needles, Tennyson Down and Blackgang Chine, part of the Durham coast, where coal mining took place. Many are popular spots for visitors, while others are small, less significant places, known mainly to local residents. </span><br />
<span style="text-align: center;">A bit of a rag-bag of stories, but an interesting read, especially if one has visited any of these coastal areas. The writing usually flows well and each chapter ends with references to walks in the area, relevant maps and further readings. Should one want to follow these up, they would provide a lifetime of excursions and reading.</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">The Edge of the World : how the North Sea made us who we are by Michael is an historical look at the development of Northern Europe after the Romans left, about AD 400 up to the latter part of the 17th century. The author's premise is that the North Sea was at least as important in the cultural, political, social and any other development of Northern Europe as the Mediterranean sea. He has chapters on the Book Trade, Fashion, the Invention of Money, and the Plague laws, all containing interesting anecdotes, and documented examples of how individual people or groups took part in these activities or helped develop them. But much of what he quotes is fragmentary and although the author puts a lot of emphasis on the sea and the development of trade and shipping, it is not very detailed. A very interesting read but at times frustrating, as for me it raised almost as many questions as it purported to answer. I think that most people with some interest in history and what happened after the Romans left Britain will enjoy it, but may also want to read more detail elsewhere.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcM5yL6Y3e4I9msA0Q1CA9f-QJN5yCwkgurpQjSDteFhqSJqUK6fbrJ4-337AAl_rqAhEHZ2rGMULzmgQISaK41UreG7jL-QK5rwohcjDrc_S_Ry2pDOBAc0tw1aGkMxcyse49SwBesnHn/s1600/Blood+and+Beauty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcM5yL6Y3e4I9msA0Q1CA9f-QJN5yCwkgurpQjSDteFhqSJqUK6fbrJ4-337AAl_rqAhEHZ2rGMULzmgQISaK41UreG7jL-QK5rwohcjDrc_S_Ry2pDOBAc0tw1aGkMxcyse49SwBesnHn/s320/Blood+and+Beauty.jpg" width="208" /></a><span style="text-align: center;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="text-align: center;">Sarah Dunant's Blood and Beauty is one of her historical novels set in the Renaissance about the Borgias, specifically Pope Alexander Vl and his children Lucrezia and Cesare. Although a novel, obviously much research has been done, but this does not impinge too much on the story, as Sarah Dunant tries to concentrate on the thoughts and feelings of the characters which are may not necessarily be part of recorded history. Lucrezia comes across in this tale as a more sympathetic person than the myths that have come down to us would make us believe, but Cesare and his father the Pope seem to be as bad as they have been described by history. An interesting and enjoyable read despite or because of the scheming , mayhem and numerous murders for which the Borgia papacy was famous.</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">I picked up The Parasites by Daphne DuMaurier on a visit to my local library, as it was one of her novels I hadn't read. It is the story of the Delaneys, Maria, Niall and Celia and their talented parents. Maria is a talented actress, Niall a composer of popular songs, Celia cares for her increasingly frail father, a renowned singer. Their mother was wonderful dancer, their childhood one of touring with their parents. It is Maria's husband Sir Charles Wyndham who describes them as parasites. This comment cause the three Delaneys to reflect on their lives, their relationships to each other and their parents. Maria and Niall are not actually related to each by blood, as each is the child of Pappy and Mama by previous relationships. Celia is half-sister to both. The novel moves back and forth in time from their reflections of the past to the weekend which changes all their lives. </span>jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6487703006785459579.post-55372270704606815952016-09-01T22:37:00.000+01:002016-09-01T22:44:28.554+01:00 Recent Doings<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Two concerts and a visit to an abandoned medieval village have been part of the entertainment recently while in France. The concerts, both held in small village churches were both delightful though very different from each other. The first concert we attended together with about 60 other people, local residents, second home owners and their visitors was in the church at Le Vaulmier, was part of a series organised by the Festival of Baroque Music in the Auvergne with Cantica Sacra. Concerts are usually held in some of the many Romanesque and other churches in the Auvergne region. The two women musicians making up a part of Cantica Sacra, Bogumila Gizbert-Studnicka (harpsichord)and Paulina Tkaczyk (flute and harpsichord) were excellent and played a variety of Baroque music. The second concert was by a solo pianist, <a href="http://jbmathulin.wixsite.com/pianiste" target="_blank">Jean Baptiste Mathulin</a> and was superb. This took place in the church in Trizac, a large village a few miles away, under the auspices of <a href="http://trizacpatrimoine.wixsite.com/trizacpatrimoine" target="_blank">Les Hauvergnales, </a> a local organisation holding a series of events celebrating the village and its area.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I also visited the site of <a href="http://www.tourisme-gentiane.com/index.php/en/cote-visites/patrimoine-naturel/patrimoine-naturel/item/2816-vestiges-de-cotteughes" target="_blank">Cotteughes, </a>an abandoned village on the plateau de Trizac. The abandonment took place during the latter part of the 14th century, possibly due to a variety of causes, including the Plague, the I00 Years War, which affected the Auvergne quite badly, and a change in the climate for the worse, making life up on the plateau which is over 1200 metres above sea level, that much more difficult. The site has been excavated, but few articles of interest have been found. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The guides to the visit were a lady who was very knowledgeable about the history of the site, and a gentleman who explained the local plant life, of which the former inhabitants made good use. Cotteughes is situated close to the Marilhou stream, which also has a small waterfall not far away through a pretty woodland path.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Marilhou cascade, September 2015.<br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"> This year the waterfall may not be so full of water, as this region has had no rainfall for several weeks now, and the local farmers are beginning to move their cattle down from the high summer pastures, they are now so dry the grass is insufficient to feed for the animals.</span></td></tr>
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jayceehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00252396018395433888noreply@blogger.com015380 Le Vaulmier, France45.189214000000007 2.568361999999979245.144446500000008 2.4876809999999789 45.233981500000006 2.6490429999999794