Started at the Oxfam shop, where I was due to meet my friend after her Saturday morning volunteer shift ended at 1.00pm. Any excuse to visit a charity shop is most delightful, and to add to the pleasure there was an Age Concern shop right next door. I bought "My Dear, I Wanted toTell You" by Louisa Young, in the Age Concern shop. This is a novel set in the First World War, by the grand-daughter of Robert Falcon Scott's widow, Kathleen, (from her second marriage), and was serialised on Woman's Hour on publication, so I am looking forward to reading it.
Passing next door to the Oxfam shop, I was delighted to find there a set of two cassette tapes of Shirley Williams giving talks to Woman's Hour (didn't realise the common link until this afternoon), in 1996. She is talking about her childhood, about being the daughter of one of my favourite authors of all time, Vera Brittain, and then moving on to her life in politics. Great listening- thank goodness we didn't throw out our last ghetto blaster in a recent clear-out, as it is the only machine in the house which I can play the tapes on.
Next I picked up a copy of "The Mitfords, Letters between Six Sisters" (published 2007), edited by Charlotte Mosley, a Mitford daughter-in-law (the surname tells you which one). This, I nearly said, would add to my collection of Mitford books, but I don't actually have this collection. I have passed every book on to elder daughter, and she has enjoyed them just as much as I have. Jessica Mitford's famous "Hons and Rebels", two novels by Nancy, a biography of all six sisters by Mary Lovell, and lastly, Debo Devonshire's memoir, "Wait for Me".
The last is very recent, and I purchased it following a visit by elder daughter and me to Chatsworth, which we both enjoyed very much.
I was about to leave with my friend, when I spotted W Somerset Maugham's "Cakes and Ale", a very old book first published in 1930. I don't find WSM interesting in himself, but having just read some biographical works about Thomas Hardy, I have come across a reference to this book several times. Apparently it contains a descriptive parody of TH, which caused great offence to the latter's widow, Florence.
To my surprise, my friend told me her book group had read this book. As she is thinking of leaving her book group because they persist in picking boring books, this was not a great advertisement. However, as I said, I have a particular motive for buying this, and may not read all of it.
My friend and I then went for lunch and spent the next three and a half hours talking non-stop. This was most enjoyable.
Later, after I returned home. I was still in non-stop talk mode, and this annoyed hubby during "Strictly". He put up with it for so long, and then could stand it no longer. "Will you PLEASE stop talking!" He is, as I have said before, a man of few words.
However, nothing could detract from the pure pleasure of an afternoon spent with a very old friend, which included two charity shops, a kitchen shop, and much talk about books, our daughters, our holidays, families and a long shared history.
Sunday, 18 November 2012
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
My Library Book
So I now owned two copies of Thomas Hardy's "Life and Art", two copies of Thomas Hardy's "Life" and two copies of "The Young Thomas Hardy" by Robert Gittings. I had been searching for this last on Amazon, because our local public library had the companion volume, "The Older Thomas Hardy". I read "The Older", and returned it to the library with a suggestion.
Would they like to accept my donation of the younger? I explained my disappointment, on finding that only half the material was available. "I feel that other people who are studying TH may wish to have both the volumes available". The third person I spoke to (having been passed along a chain of command) agreed.
I was pleased.
Would they like to accept my donation of the younger? I explained my disappointment, on finding that only half the material was available. "I feel that other people who are studying TH may wish to have both the volumes available". The third person I spoke to (having been passed along a chain of command) agreed.
I was pleased.
Friday, 9 November 2012
Amazon Marketplace
Secondhand books! One of the greatest pleasures of life. I ordered 14 books about Thomas Hardy. Such was the enthusiasm with which I pressed "buy" that I later found out I had ordered the same book in different editions in three cases. Never mind, three of the duplicates cost the enormous sum of £0.01 each. I can scarcely believe that anyone finds it worthwhile to trade in books that they can only sell for one penny. I suppose that they make a small profit on the post and package costs which are £2.80 per book.
The most expensive book in the collection was only £7.49. Two are individually numbered copies of a book published in a limited edition of two thousand. That feels rather special, even if they are both ex-library books, with the old date-stamps still intact. The older of the two has date stamps going back to 1938. That is almost antique! They are from university libraries. One of these cost £3.99 and the other £2.49.
Another book cost £0.87. How does that work? How did someone arrive at that figure for an out-of-print copy of TH's Notebooks?
I am not complaining. It has been like Christmas here for the last two weeks - exciting parcels arriving by almost every post, and an absolute feast of interesting reading.
The most expensive book in the collection was only £7.49. Two are individually numbered copies of a book published in a limited edition of two thousand. That feels rather special, even if they are both ex-library books, with the old date-stamps still intact. The older of the two has date stamps going back to 1938. That is almost antique! They are from university libraries. One of these cost £3.99 and the other £2.49.
Another book cost £0.87. How does that work? How did someone arrive at that figure for an out-of-print copy of TH's Notebooks?
I am not complaining. It has been like Christmas here for the last two weeks - exciting parcels arriving by almost every post, and an absolute feast of interesting reading.
Sunday, 28 October 2012
Story
Friends moved house, a distance of about 12 miles: not far, but enough to unsettle the cat deeply.
After urinating in the car on the way to the new house, it hid behind the kitchen cupboards and was trapped behind the washing machine after the latter was fitted. It marked its first week in the house by keeping everyone awake yowling all night long.
Then it disappeared and hasn't been seen since.
I was rather upset by this.
I told my husband that the cat had run away and was possibly dead.
This is how he comforted me.
"Well that's the cat's problem, isn't it. The cat decided what it was going to do, and did it."
I regret to say that this made me laugh out loud.
After urinating in the car on the way to the new house, it hid behind the kitchen cupboards and was trapped behind the washing machine after the latter was fitted. It marked its first week in the house by keeping everyone awake yowling all night long.
Then it disappeared and hasn't been seen since.
I was rather upset by this.
I told my husband that the cat had run away and was possibly dead.
This is how he comforted me.
"Well that's the cat's problem, isn't it. The cat decided what it was going to do, and did it."
I regret to say that this made me laugh out loud.
Saturday, 27 October 2012
Lotte Kramer: New and Collected Poems, Rockingham Press 2011
Everyone should have a look at this book. See it Here
Every school should have a copy, and keep it in alive the curriculum.
There are many poems in this book, and all are incredibly accessible and easy to read. Some are only three lines long, but all the poems I read left a mark.
Lotte Kramer does not pretend to be a modern, an intellectual, or anything with a big handle on its name. She is a native German, who was born in 1924 and came to this country on a Kindertransport in 1939.
She writes from the heart about the emotions she still recalls connected with her lost family. Nowhere else have I read any account of how it felt to run down the stairs for the post each day, hoping a letter would come re-assuring her that her loved ones had survived. They did not.
She remembers her long dead grandmother each time she picks up the handwoven tablecloth her grandmother made, now darned and mended many times. Each year there is less of the original left.
In cold weather, she remembers how she sheltered behind her mother as they toiled up a hill in snow, then tries to imagine what her relationship with her mother would have been, had it continued through turbulent adolescence to adulthood and becoming a mother herself.
In the loft is the ancient suitcase her mother packed so carefully for that journey in 1939.
My mother was also born in 1924, and was evacuated during the war, from London to Sussex. I have a little tiny inkling of what it was like to be 15 years old and uprooted, in a time when no-one knew what the outcome was going to be. Many of those 15-year-olds are now dead, and most of those that are left (my dear mother-in-law, is one) cannot express their memories of that time.
Lotte Kramer's gift is that she remembers, and expresses with the simplest clarity, in a way that strikes to the heart.
Please read.
Every school should have a copy, and keep it in alive the curriculum.
There are many poems in this book, and all are incredibly accessible and easy to read. Some are only three lines long, but all the poems I read left a mark.
Lotte Kramer does not pretend to be a modern, an intellectual, or anything with a big handle on its name. She is a native German, who was born in 1924 and came to this country on a Kindertransport in 1939.
She writes from the heart about the emotions she still recalls connected with her lost family. Nowhere else have I read any account of how it felt to run down the stairs for the post each day, hoping a letter would come re-assuring her that her loved ones had survived. They did not.
She remembers her long dead grandmother each time she picks up the handwoven tablecloth her grandmother made, now darned and mended many times. Each year there is less of the original left.
In cold weather, she remembers how she sheltered behind her mother as they toiled up a hill in snow, then tries to imagine what her relationship with her mother would have been, had it continued through turbulent adolescence to adulthood and becoming a mother herself.
In the loft is the ancient suitcase her mother packed so carefully for that journey in 1939.
My mother was also born in 1924, and was evacuated during the war, from London to Sussex. I have a little tiny inkling of what it was like to be 15 years old and uprooted, in a time when no-one knew what the outcome was going to be. Many of those 15-year-olds are now dead, and most of those that are left (my dear mother-in-law, is one) cannot express their memories of that time.
Lotte Kramer's gift is that she remembers, and expresses with the simplest clarity, in a way that strikes to the heart.
Please read.
Tuesday, 23 October 2012
Electronic Equipment Seduces Me, but I Resist
I've commented before on the strange dissimilarity between myself and a very old friend (32 years and counting), concerning her dislike of second hand books. Second hand books are one of the greatest joys of my life. She already has a Kindle (150 books on it waiting to be read, when I saw her last week), and has now bought an I-pad. I asked her what she was going to use if for, and she didn't know. You can read books on an Ipad, as well as play games and do emails. She already has equipment to do all that, and I have to conclude that it was the aesthetic beauty of the I-pad which she could not resist. I thought the same myself, whilst waiting in PC World recently for the stock department to cough up a result for a new laptop I was considering purchasing. I was drawn to the display of Ipads, and picked one up. It was lovely to hold, lovely to look at, and the clarity of the graphics was just so brilliant. I was terribly tempted, but had to keep telling myself, "You cannot run Microsoft Office on this equipment, and the whole reason I wish to buy a new laptop is so that I can run the full suite of Office equipment and send documents electronically with ease to others using the same programmes."
The possibibility of reading books on an I-Pad was not a factor at all in my thinking. I love the feel of old books, I love the colour of old paper, and the distinctive character of different type faces. The physical weight of a real book tells you something about the contents. After Hilary Mantel won the Booker prize a second time last week, I retrieved from my bookcase my copy of her first win, "Wolf Hall". It's a hardback, which cost £1 in a charity shop. About eighteen months ago, charity shops were flooded out with copies of "Wolf Hall", presumably because people had found it to be unreadable, after being given copies for Christmas. The heavy, solemn dimensions give a preview of what the book will be like to read - not light or frothy.
At the present time, I am reading a copy of "A Pair of Blue Eyes", by Thomas Hardy. My copy, sourced in the excellent "Oxfam" Bookshop in Guildford, was printed in 1895. It is not a "First Edition" (the book was published in 1873), but a first "new" edition of the version printed by the American publisher, Osgood, McIlvaine.
Well over 100 years old, the spine is weak, and bits of old brown paper drop out of the binding when I prop it up in my book stand to read over meals.
The paper is yellow, the margins wide, the cut edges of the paper uneven, and the typeface small, hard to read without my reading glasses.
Wishing to find out more about the book, I went to the local library and took out a modern edition, "The Oxford World's Classics" version. This gives two maps of Wessex, a preface, an Introduction, a Note on the Text, a reading list, other historical notes, and an Appendix.
This is a pristine paperback, with a colour picture on the cover, and only one borrower has taken it out before me. It is printed in the Oxford Classics typeface, exactly the same as that used in its companion, "Jude the Obscure", also in my library pile.
The book smells of nothing, and gives out no atmosphere. I have read all the introductions and notes, but not the text (even though it differs slightly from the earlier, as TH revised it frequently during his lifetime, and this version has taken into account revisions later than 1895).
It does not stimulate my imagination. Reading the yellowing pages of the older book conjures up a time when women wore long skirts, had no vote and little chance of any education, and had to rely on marriage for a chance to leave the family home. Ladies, in particular, had to be shy, modest, able to play the piano and ride a horse, and had to have a spotless and unkissed past in order to impress a gentleman suitor. It is easy to connect with that long ago time when the book connects you with it. The new book, a uniform edition, has no such effect.
I do feel that a Kindle would have an even more dampening effect on my imagination.
Not long ago, on one of my now frequent visits to the library, an assistant approached me and tried to interest me in attending a lecture by Miriam Margolyes on electronic books. This lecture was free, and apparently designed to stimulate interest.
I was shocked, and told her I had no intention of moving over to electronic. This being in the actual library, I was rather worried that in ten years time there will be no books left on the shelves.
More encouraging was a small book I saw recently in the shop in the British Library. It was by former Booker Winner Julian Barnes, and was a hymn of praise in favour of real books, and particularly of second hand ones. I vowed to continue building up my stocks!
The possibibility of reading books on an I-Pad was not a factor at all in my thinking. I love the feel of old books, I love the colour of old paper, and the distinctive character of different type faces. The physical weight of a real book tells you something about the contents. After Hilary Mantel won the Booker prize a second time last week, I retrieved from my bookcase my copy of her first win, "Wolf Hall". It's a hardback, which cost £1 in a charity shop. About eighteen months ago, charity shops were flooded out with copies of "Wolf Hall", presumably because people had found it to be unreadable, after being given copies for Christmas. The heavy, solemn dimensions give a preview of what the book will be like to read - not light or frothy.
At the present time, I am reading a copy of "A Pair of Blue Eyes", by Thomas Hardy. My copy, sourced in the excellent "Oxfam" Bookshop in Guildford, was printed in 1895. It is not a "First Edition" (the book was published in 1873), but a first "new" edition of the version printed by the American publisher, Osgood, McIlvaine.
Well over 100 years old, the spine is weak, and bits of old brown paper drop out of the binding when I prop it up in my book stand to read over meals.
The paper is yellow, the margins wide, the cut edges of the paper uneven, and the typeface small, hard to read without my reading glasses.
Wishing to find out more about the book, I went to the local library and took out a modern edition, "The Oxford World's Classics" version. This gives two maps of Wessex, a preface, an Introduction, a Note on the Text, a reading list, other historical notes, and an Appendix.
This is a pristine paperback, with a colour picture on the cover, and only one borrower has taken it out before me. It is printed in the Oxford Classics typeface, exactly the same as that used in its companion, "Jude the Obscure", also in my library pile.
The book smells of nothing, and gives out no atmosphere. I have read all the introductions and notes, but not the text (even though it differs slightly from the earlier, as TH revised it frequently during his lifetime, and this version has taken into account revisions later than 1895).
It does not stimulate my imagination. Reading the yellowing pages of the older book conjures up a time when women wore long skirts, had no vote and little chance of any education, and had to rely on marriage for a chance to leave the family home. Ladies, in particular, had to be shy, modest, able to play the piano and ride a horse, and had to have a spotless and unkissed past in order to impress a gentleman suitor. It is easy to connect with that long ago time when the book connects you with it. The new book, a uniform edition, has no such effect.
I do feel that a Kindle would have an even more dampening effect on my imagination.
Not long ago, on one of my now frequent visits to the library, an assistant approached me and tried to interest me in attending a lecture by Miriam Margolyes on electronic books. This lecture was free, and apparently designed to stimulate interest.
I was shocked, and told her I had no intention of moving over to electronic. This being in the actual library, I was rather worried that in ten years time there will be no books left on the shelves.
More encouraging was a small book I saw recently in the shop in the British Library. It was by former Booker Winner Julian Barnes, and was a hymn of praise in favour of real books, and particularly of second hand ones. I vowed to continue building up my stocks!
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