Library Booksale Haul

23 May 2013 23:47

Last Saturday there was another library booksale and although I’ve bought a lot of books recently I just couldn’t ignore the sale, as Jack said – you never know what you might miss if you don’t go.

Anyway, I ended up buying:

Double Vision by Pat Barker
Pink Sugar by O.Douglas
Rifling Through My Drawers by Clarissa Dickson Wright
A History of Britain by Simon Schama

I’ve already read Pink Sugar but as I had borrowed it from the library I thought it would be nice to own a copy, I’d like to have a complete set of O. Douglas books. Yes, they’re twee, in fact in this book the author is really defending herself from that criticism. Her books are couthie and looking at them from this standpoint, nearly 90 years after it was first published, it is a bit of social history of the times.

I enjoyed Pat Barker’s Regeneration trilogy about the First World War. Double Vision still has a war theme but it’s Afghanistan this time, the modern war. I’m not sure about this one but at 50p it’s hardly a tragedy if it ends up in a charity shop.

I enjoyed the Two Fat Ladies when they were jaunting about the place in their motor-bike and sidecar, and I couldn’t resist Clarissa Dickson Wright’s book Rifling through my Drawers – what a great title!

The Simon Schama, History of Britain from 3000BC – AD 1603 book was a replay of the moment when I spotted the David Dimbleby book at the last sale. About 15 minutes into the sale I spotted it and couldn’t believe that nobody had snaffled it – so I did. I enjoyed watching the BBC series of the book.

So, not a bad haul really, considering I shouldn’t have been buying anything at all.

3 Comments »

Categories: Books

Tags: , , ,

Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

19 May 2013 11:10

I turned to P.G. Wodehouse when I very quickly decided to give up trying to read something heavier, I just wasn’t in the mood for reading something I had to concentrate on. I already had Right Ho, Jeeves on my Kindle, if you want to have a go at it you can get it free here.

You know what’s coming, which of course is part of their charm. Bertie Wooster has been in the south of France, spending a lot of time with his cousin Angela. On his return to Blighty, Bertie pays a visit to Angela’s mother, his Aunt Dahlia. A couple of Bertie’s friends are included in the house party, Augustus Fink-Nottle and (gosh I’ve forgotten the other chap’s name, that’s Kindles for you! ) are both in need of help. Their love lives are not going well and Bertie is determined to sort them out. He advises them on how to win the hearts of their girls, you can imagine how well that goes!

Jeeves does his best to rein in his young master but of course Bertie thinks he knows best.

The BBC recently aired Wodehouse in Exile, with Tim Pigott-Smith playing the part of Wodehouse and Zoe Wanamaker as his wife. It was really well done and if you are interested in Wodehouse I think you’ll enjoy it.

I hadn’t realised that Wodehouse had neglected to leave his home in Le Touquet, France before the Nazis got there in 1940. The upshot of which is that he was sent to a prison camp, but when the Germans realised that he was a famous author they decided get him to broadcast talks on the radio which could be interpreted as being pro-Nazi.

It makes you think that Wodehouse himself resembled Wooster far more than Jeeves – how he could have been stupid enough to get himself into such a situation, and not even realise it, beggars belief – but he did. Anyway, you can view the programme below if you’re interested. I hope people outside the UK are able to view this too, but it might be blocked.

6 Comments »

Categories: BBC, Books

Tags: , , ,

Boswell Book Festival

17 May 2013 23:55

Have you read James Boswell’s biography of Samuel Johnson? Or even the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. The 16th, May was the 250th anniversary of their first meeting. So this weekend they are having a bit of a ‘do’ at Boswell’s home, Auchinleck House, in Ayrshire. It’s the Boswell Book Festival.

How I wish I could go but I can’t split myself in two, so I can’t be there. Apart from the house and grounds I would also love to be able to listen to the many interesting guest speakers, particularly Artemis Cooper, who has written about Patrick Leigh Fermor amongst others. Maybe next year we can get to Auchinleck and go camping or even glamping.

You can see images of Auchinleck House here.

You can read about the Boswell Book Festival here and listen to some BBC programmes on the subject.

4 Comments »

Categories: Architecture, Books

Tags: , , ,

Henrietta Sees It Through by Joyce Dennys

16 May 2013 22:29

This book is subtitled: More News from the Home Front 1942-45.

Obviously it’s a continuation of Henrietta’s War, and is every bit as good as that book. Joyce Dennys said that she didn’t know where Henrietta ended and she began. As Joyce was a doctor’s wife herself and living in the West Country she was really just embroidering her experiences, and as they were all so unusual in wartime she probably didn’t have to do too much embroidering.

In amongst the humour there is the odd bit of serious observation, sometimes explained by footnotes. One is about the up and coming White Paper which the government was preparing on the proposed formation of the NHS. In Henrietta’s April 19, 1944 letter to her friend Robert she tells him of a conversation about it which her husband has with his friend, Doctor Rival.

It makes you think, and I must admit that it makes me feel proud that whilst they were still busy fighting World War II they also had time and the inclination to set up the National Health Service. We were up to our eyeballs in debt, the financial debt to the Americans was only just payed off a few years ago, it took us about 60 years to do that. But they still managed to do it, and this crowd of politicians that we have in at the moment are doing their best to get rid of the NHS. Shame on them!

Anyway, back to the book. Spookily, the May 16th, 1945 letter to Robert reports that it is snowing, just as it was today in the west of England, so the weather wasn’t any better then. In this book Henrietta reveals herself to be a booklover and when there is a Red Cross campaign for book donations she has a difficult time of it, which books can she part with? She gets out her copy of The Princess and Curdie, but then thinks again as she might need it for future grandchildren. She sometimes wakes in the night, in anguish over the books which she has lent to people over the years – never to see the people or books again! We probably all know how that feels!

I was really sorry when the book came to an end, especially as she doesn’t seem to have written anything else in a similar vein. I enjoyed being part of Henrietta’s world, but it struck me that in reality the end of the war was a brief joy for a lot of people, then after the celebrations they were bereft because they knew that everything was going to be changing and terrible as it may seem, the war was the best time of many peoples’ lives. They felt useful, they all had a common enemy and there was always so much going on, organising to be done and fund raising for Spitfires and such. Joyce Dennys seems to have captured the atmosphere of her times in an amusing way, which obviously went down well with Sketch readers during the long hostilities. Another hoot and a comfort read, perfect for when your brain feels more akin to spaghetti than grey matter!

2 Comments »

Categories: Books

Tags: , , , ,

Book Sale at St Andrew’s and St George’s Edinburgh

14 May 2013 23:56

We got up early on Saturday morning so that we wouldn’t be too late in getting to the book sale in St Andrew’s and St George’s Church in Edinburgh, the proceeds all go to Christian Aid. It was Linda from Edinburgh who reminded me of the sale, so a big thank you to Linda!

St Andrew's & St George's Church
By the time we got to the church it was really chucking it down with rain and the books outside the church all had plastic covers over them and everbody had packed into the church – it was heaving with folks and it made it very difficult to see the books, but I persevered, and we went our separate ways. I ran out of money, had to find Jack, found him in the crowd, waved madly, he didn’t see me, he went in the opposite direction, the woman at the stall seemed to think I was going to nick her books, but in the end it was all sorted out and the upshot was I spent a lot of money and Jack didn’t spend nearly as much, that’s usually the way of it. As you can see from the photo above, by the time we got upstairs the rain had stopped and the crowd had thinned.

I couldn’t resist taking this photo of the newly redecorated church, it has had a lot spent on it recently and the organ has been refurbished.
St Andrew's & St George's Edinburgh

It was the ceiling which really attracted me though, beautiful, but I’m glad I didn’t have to paint it. Internally the church is really lovely with pale wood, maybe golden oak and the pews all have blue velvet buttoned cushions, I’m sure in my young day that would have been seen as being un-Presbyterian and just too comfy for church-goers. How times
change!
St Andrew's & St George'sChurch Edinburgh

Anyway, to the books, here they are.

books

The three in the middle are:
The House That Is Our Own by O. Douglas
The Provincial Lady in Wartime by E.M. Delafield
Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford. I’ve read it, but it was over 30 years ago I’m sure and was a library book.I want to read it again.

The other one which can’t be seen very well is:
We Are Still Married by Garrison Keillor. I’ve never read anything by him but I enjoy listening to him on Radio 4 extra on Sunday afternoons whilst cooking the dinner.

Two of the vintage crime Penguins I haven’t even heard of.

The Content Assignment by Holly Roth
Comes the Blind Fury by Douglas Rutherford

The third Penguin is Captain Cut-Throat by John Dickson Carr.

The Things We See is a Penguin book which just screams 1950s at you and is about design. It has some lovely photos and even the endpapers are 1950s design.

Civil To Strangers by Barbara Pym. I’ve read quite a lot of her books but most of them so long ago, I can’t remember if I’ve read this one or not. If so, it’s due a re-read.

Anna Buchan and O.Douglas by Wendy Forrester is a book which I’ve been looking for.

The Prince and the Pilgrim by Mary Stewart is one I’ve been meaning to buy for ages, it’s the last in her Merlin/Arthur series and I’m going to read it for the up and coming Mary Stewart readalong at Gudrun’s Tights.

Oasis of the North by Dawn MacLeod is about Inverewe Gardens in the north west of Scotland.

Scottish Highland Watercolours by Sutton Palmer is a collection of 16 watercolours of the Highlands, all very scenic.

I could have bought a lot more books and this week I’ve been restraining myself from getting on a bus and going back for another look because I really didn’t get a chance to look at the many gardening and craft books which were on sale. But I think I’ll be good and resist the temptaion, particularly as there is another library book sale locally on Saturday. The George Street, Edinburgh book sale continues until the end of the week.

18 Comments »

Categories: Architecture, Books

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Henrietta’s War by Joyce Dennys

13 May 2013 00:54

Well, I don’t know who to thank for pointing me in the direction of Joyce Dennys, but it was definitely a blogger, not that that helps much.

Joyce Dennys was a doctor’s wife who wrote comical articles for Sketch, and she illustrated them with cartoons. Her first article went down so well that she was asked to contribute regularly.

Her character Henrietta is really a thinly veiled version of Joyce herself, as she admitted she sometimes didn’t know where one ended and the other began.

The articles are all in the form of letters from Henrietta to her old schoolfriend Robert, who is doing something in the army – somewhere. Bloomsbury has reprinted them and I have to say that they are a hoot and must have fairly cheered up people in desperate times.

The usual wartime themes of rationing, and queueing, a lack of elastic and clothes in general are to the fore as you would expect. The small town in the west country, near Exeter, where Henrietta and her husband Dr Brown live, is inundated with evacuees and soldiery and it’s all jolly good fun! However, there is a serious side now and again, such as the complaint that women who were caught up in bombing raids and lost legs or whatever were given less compensation than a man with the same injuries. Mind you, it was news to me that anyone got compensation at all, I thought it was just put down to tough luck and there’s a war on you know!

You can see some of her cartoons and illustrations here.

And there’s more of her work on the BBC Paintings site here.

8 Comments »

Categories: Books

Tags: , , , ,

Take Two at Bedtime

10 May 2013 23:27

The American version of this book seems to be Deadly Duo, why do they give books in the UK and the US different titles, I can’t help thinking that they hope we will end up buying the same book twice.

Anyway, the two taken at bedtime are novellas, or long short stories if you prefer. The first one is called – Wanted: Someone Innocent and this one was my favourite. It’s set in London where a young penniless woman, Gillian Brayton, who has no family is trying to earn her living making hats, but she has realised that she has no talent for the work.

Whilst at a school reunion she gets an offer of another job, as a sort of housekeeper/secretary for an old schoolfriend who seems to have married very well. And so the mystery begins!

Last Act, the second novella didn’t appeal to me so much, mainly because I disliked Madame Zoffany, who was a bit of a diva but apparently everyone ended up adoring her, no matter how bad her behaviour was. Well that everyone didn’t include me but apart from that I felt that there were just too many characters, but that might be because I haven’t been able to concentrate much on my reading recently. The blurb says that – this is a fascinating study of personalities, as well as an absorbing mystery.

4 Comments »

Categories: Books

Tags: , , , , ,

Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor

6 May 2013 23:53

This was one of my recent library sale purchases and it jumped the long queue because I’m just not in the mood for anything that I have to concentrate on at the moment. So this one fitted the bill perfectly.

Agatha is divorced from James in this book, in fact I have yet to read one in which they were married, I’ve only read pre and post marriage books. Anyway, Agatha hasn’t got over James and is still living in hope of a reconciliation. When James, who is now earning a living as a travel writer, invites her to go on holiday with him she thinks this is her big chance and sets about preparing for a wonderful, exotic destination. Floaty, skimpy clothes and underwear are bought and packed. Imagine her disappointment when James drives her to Snoth-on-Sea, the small Sussex resort where he had enjoyed holidays as a child. James is on a nostalgia trip, but things aren’t what they were, well we could all have told him that I’m sure!

Everything is really run down and grotty, in the way that only coastal resorts can be, and within a few minutes of Agatha and James entering the hotel dining-room Agatha is abused and threatened by a fellow guest.

Agatha being Agatha, she gave as good as she got, which didn’t help her when murder ensued!

Yet again, another amusing romp from M.C. Beaton.

4 Comments »

Categories: Books

Tags: ,

Amberwell by D.E. Stevenson

4 May 2013 00:23

Amberwell book cover

If you have only read D.E. Stevenson’s Mrs Tim books you might be a wee bit disappointed that this one is not more of the same, it doesn’t feature humour at all, but I still found it to be an enjoyable read.

The Ayrtons are what many families are nowadays, a bit of a dolly mixture family. The two boys’ mother died after having her second son and Mr Ayrton remarried, his new wife had three daughters. Desperately disappointed at only having girls, the second Mrs Ayrton showed no interest in them and left it to her staff to bring them up. School for the girls was not allowed and they were never taken out for treats, no pantomimes for them, they hardly ever left the grounds of Amberwell, which is the name of the house and estate which their father owns.

The parents were completely self-centred and autocratic and the children grew up with a strong love for the house and their surroundings and little contact with the outside world.

Eventually world affairs break into Amberwell, with the start of World War 2 and the boys, Roger and Thomas go off and ‘do their bit’. Mr and Mrs Ayrton are really only concerned about the loss of their workforce as able bodied men join up.

Set on the west coast of Scotland, which is where I grew up, this book has exactly the right feel of how it was to grow up in such a society, where girls were only seen as being useful for doing the housework. Obviously D.E. Stevenson had this same experience herself as she was not allowed to go to university, her father did not want an educated daughter.

Things moved slowly in that society and it was only fairly recently that I realised that amongst all of my schoolfriends, the only girls who got to university were the girls who had no brothers, and that was in the 1970s. I remember reading in one of Mary Stewart’s Merlin books the phrase – girls don’t count in Scotland – so I suspect that she had noticed that too.

Anyway, it’s a bit of a comfort read, despite having a serious storyline about the damages inflicted on young lives when they don’t feel cherished.

One other thing which I have noticed about D.E.’s books is that she always seems to make a point of mentioning her famous forebears. Often it’s Robert Louis S, her second cousin but she was obviously equally proud of her lighthouse engineer Stevensons too, I find it very human and somehow charming that she gives them a name check in passing.

6 Comments »

Categories: Books

Tags: , , ,

Library Book Sale

1 May 2013 22:55

It must have been more than a year since there was a library book sale in Kirkcaldy so I was really looking forward to last Saturday’s at the Adam Smith Theatre. I could have bought a lot but I find I’m getting quite choosy in my old age. Apart from anything else, I have so many books in my TBR pile, so I’m really trying not to add too many more, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to buy these ones.

Agatha Raisin and Love, Lies and Liquor by M.C. Beaton

Loving and Giving by Molly Keane

The Gravedigger’s Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates

Sleeping Tiger by Rosamund Pilcher

How We Built Britain by David Dimbleby

Josephine – A Life of the Empress by Carolly Erickson

How To Be A Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

AA Leisure Guide to Scotland

Jack didn’t buy anything at all, he did see three which he had just bought online a few weeks ago, Sod’s law of course. The same thing happened to me when we were in the Lake District.

Anyway, that lot should keep me busy for a wee while. Having just read the blurb, I’m now not sure about the Joyce Carol Oates book, has anybody read it?

I think the book I’m most chuffed with is the Dimbleby, How We Built Britain. We both enjoyed watching his TV programme with the same title.

Books

10 Comments »

Categories: Books

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

« Older Entries