Other Stories

Facts and Links

Fictional reading is still taking somewhat of a battering, and at times like this, poetry is a god-send. Recently I have been reveling in Emily Bronte's poetry, especially "No coward soul is mine", which in itself is very high up in my list of favourite lines from poetry.

I'm still ploughing on with The Victorians by AN Wilson, which is proving to be one of the very best history books I have ever read. The scope is incredibly far-reaching without the reader feeling short-changed on any particular topic: it really is an incredibly well-written book - and much funnier in places than you might expect. If you've any interest in the Victorian period, then I implore you to look past its bulk and settle in.

Did you know that during the Irish famine, many adults starved because potatoes were the only crop they were able to grow, and even then they could only grow enough for personal use? Many people ate literally nothing but potatoes - up to 13 or so POUNDS per day - so no potatoes = no food. Meanwhile, the UK government were still having Irish corn exported. Tragic stuff.

My other fact of the day - and this is nothing to do with Victorianism - is that today in the UK there are more members of the National Trust than of any political party. How awfully British.

In other news, here are some links I have loved recently:

• Literary tattoos!
• Bookmooch rocks. Free book swaps mean new books without the environmental impact of making more paper. Have picked up some excellent Virago Modern Classics in original green livery.
• Really interesting F Word discussion on having children late in life.
• This is a BRILLIANT piece from The Observer about Fern Britton and her gastric band.
• Freelance Mum is one of my new favourite blogs.
• Lorrie Moore: A Life in Books.

Right, I'm off back to the 19th century.

Feminist Feasting

Typepad seems to have undergone a transformation, so forgive me if this post takes on a random variety of incarnations before it looks like usual. There are all sorts of weird buttons here in the "compose" page, and it may take me a while to get used to it.

Of course I may get it right first time and you lot will never know the difference, in which case, ignore me.

I am not at work. I am at home. I am sitting on my bed with my laptop on my knee with an open notepad and a pile of table-thumping feminist books beside me. It's a beautiful thing. Having reached the end of my first year of the MA, I am being a disgusting swot and doing some reading around what I want to do for my dissertation next year, ie, Victorian feminist literature. My self-prescribed reading list between now and October includes:

• Cassandra by Florence Nightingale
• The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination by Sandra M. Gilbert & Susan Gubar
• The New Woman and Other Emancipated Woman Plays
• The New Woman: Fiction and Feminism at the Fin de Siecle by Sally Ledger (who teaches on my MA, I am such a goodie-goodie)
• The Feminist History Reader edited by Sue Morgan
• A Widening Sphere edited by Martha Vicinus
• Suffer and be Still: Women in the Victorian Age also edited by Martha Vicinus
• Criminals, Idiots, Women and Minors: Victorian Writing by Women on Women edited by Susan Hamilton
• A New Woman Reader: Fiction, Articles, and Drama of the 1890s edited by Carolyn Christensen Nelson

Never mind some re-reading of various novels and short stories by Victorian women. There's no doubt I've set myself quite a task, and I fear that as a result there will be fewer contemporary fiction reviews within these blog pages, but this is nothing if not an honest account of what I read. I'm sure I'll manage to slip a few contemporary treats in along the way. :)

Nearly finished The Story of a Marriage - only about 60 pages to go. Had a busy day yesterday and so didn't get the chance to read quite as much as I hoped. Today, hopefully more. Am going into London soon and hopefully the journey each way will give me ample time to polish it off.

A duck on his own

I still can't seem to finish a book, though I promise I have been reading. This weekend, for instance, I read:

• two short stories by Grace Paley
• the first chapter of A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing by Elaine Showalter
• the first chapter of Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction by Jonathan Culler
• The Observer Book of Books, which came free with the newspaper, and was worth the cover price alone

So, reading continues, it just seems to be all over the place at the moment.

We had Boyfriend's mum and stepdad down for the weekend too, which is always nice. Lots of lovely food and wine and much laughter. On Sunday we went all went for a really long walk round Oxford, taking in the usual tourist sights such as the Radcliffe Camera, Christ Church, Botanical Gardens etc. Oh, and Blackwell's the book shop. I managed not to buy anything! Was tempted though. They have whole shelves JUST for Victorian lit crit. It's a beautiful thing.

Anyway, favourite sight of the day was when we were at Christ Church. We walked up through the Memorial Gardens, over the little bridge. And what should we spy as we did so? This fellow here:

There were no other ducks in the immediate vicinity, he was just there himself, having a bit of a sit down. He was a vocal little chap, no doubt wondering why all these people were idly watching him as he took a rest from his ducky business. Several minutes of quacking later, he took flight, almost cuffing Boyfriend right in the face, but to be fair, it's probably Boyfriend's fault for being so tall.

Guest Blog: The Black Strat - Phil Taylor

Another guest post today on Other Stories. Boyfriend isn't a big fan of fiction - something to do with an inability to suspend his disbelief and forget that "it's all just made up" - but give him a book about guitars and he's a happy chap. Today, then, I am posting his review of The Black Strat: A History of David Gilmour's Black Fender Stratocaster by Phil Taylor.

The Fender Stratocaster is probably the most famous and popular electric guitar in the world and there have been many notable examples in the history of rock music; George Harrison’s psychedelically painted one from The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper/Magical Mystery Tour era, the white one that Jimi Hendrix played at Woodstock, Rory Gallagher’s one that had almost all the paint worn off and, perhaps most famous of all, Eric Clapton’s ‘Brownie’ and ‘Blackie’ which fetched around $500,000 and $1,000,000 respectively when they were sold at auction in recent years.

Perhaps less famous, but no less notable, is the black guitar that Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour has played on and off since 1970 and which is the subject of Phil Taylor’s book. Taylor has been Gilmour’s guitar tech since 1974 and has restrung, tuned and handed this guitar to Gilmour on countless occasions at concerts and in studio sessions since then. This guitar was played on Floyd albums ‘Meddle’ ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, ‘Wish You Were Here’, ‘Animals’, ‘The Wall’ and ‘The Final Cut’ and during that time it went through several changes of neck, pickups, scratchplate and vibrato bridge. The only original parts still remaining are the body and two of the pickups.

Gilmour retired the guitar in 1984, just after the tour to promote his second solo album, ‘About Face’ and just before he played as part of Bryan Ferry’s band at Live Aid in 1985. In 1986 the guitar was loaned to the Hard Rock Café in Dallas, Texas where it remained for the next eleven years until Taylor requested it back on Gilmour’s behalf. It was restored to playing condition and was eventually seen again in Gilmour’s hands, with yet another neck, in the Classic Albums TV show about the making of ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ in 2003, the album’s 30th anniversary.

The guitar was next seen at the momentous and emotional reunion of Pink Floyd’s classic lineup of Gilmour, Richard Wright, Nick Mason and their long estranged bass player and principal lyricist Roger Waters at 2005’s Live 8 concert and Gilmour continued to use it (with another neck!) for the recording of his 2006 ‘On an Island’ album and the subsequent tour.

Taylor’s book is a dream for guitar geeks with loads of detailed pictures of the guitar (and some others from Gilmour’s collection) from every conceivable angle. It’s also oddly moving to read about a musician being so attached to one instrument for so long, even after lengthy periods of playing other guitars and, as a Pink Floyd fan, it was nice to see the best parts of their career nicely bookended (Live 8 almost certainly marked the end of the band) with Gilmour playing the same guitar. Well, almost the same!

Childhood Delights

I confess that my recreational reading has slowed to a mere crawl over the last couple of weeks. In my defence, when I've not been zooming all over Oxford like a publicist possessed, I have had my head stuck firmly in academic books about the early poetry of WB Yeats (and just occasionally crawling as far as the pub for a brief, rejuvenating pint or two). The essay is due in on 18 April, so just a couple of weeks to go, then five intense weeks of a group research project on the Opium Wars, before the summer vacation stretches out before me like a shimmering pool of gorgeousness. Then, and only then, will I be able to catch up properly on all the lovely books waiting for me, tempting me to cheat on WBY with them.

Who knows, maybe I'll even finish Vanity Fair.

In the meantime, though, I was recently reminded of the children's books I loved when I was a little 'un, and it prompted my to clamber into the loft and find the plastic bag that holds a handful of my very favourite literary relics of childhood. As you can see from the picture on the left, I only have a few of my childhood books left, but these really were my true favourites. Starting from the top, John Wyndham's Chocky was something I read possibly too early in life, in fact I think my dad read it to me because I couldn't read all the words yet. There was a big blue cloud called Chocky, and for ages afterwards I was convinced it was following me around. I used to talk to Chocky a lot, but in my defence, I was the only child living at home, I needed someone to talk to. Then we have two books from the Teddy Robinson series: Dear Teddy Robinson and Keeping Up With Teddy Robinson, and below that the wonderful, brilliant, splendid Matilda by Roald Dahl. I have read this book too many times to count, and in fact intend to read it again shortly. Forget your Harry Potters, Roald Dahl is what it's all about for kids. They are timeless books. Then we have a battered and bruised Christopher Robin Story Book, which is actually older than me. This edition is from 1975, but it was passed down to me from older half brothers and sisters. I can still recite the whole of "James James Morrison's Mother", and one of my earliest memories is of my mother in one of her well times, sitting me on her lap, and reading all the poems to me over and over again because I loved them so much.

Next down is a book that I got when I was about 10, of scary stories. I remember one in particular about a group of teenage boys watching a snuff movie that freaked the hell out of me at the time. Looking back at it this weekend, I see that the story was written by none other than Mr Philip Pullman. I had no idea! From these humble beginnings, etc. Then we have a hardback edition of another Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. Now, this may be controversial, but I always much prefered this sequel to the original story. I am perfectly aware that not everyone will feel the same as me, but I'm afraid that that's just the way it is. Lastly, Don't Forget Tom. It was a twee, clumsy attempt to teach children about disabled people, that ended up being horribly patronising to all concerned, but as a child it had me in floods of tears every single time I read it. For that reason, I couldn't possibly part with it. It's too much a part of my childhood.

When I was a teenager, I moved away from children's books, mostly after the life-changing experience that was reading Jane Eyre. And also a teenage obsession with all things Terry Pratchett. But these books I could never part with. And it looks like I knew even then that I wouldn't want to part with them:

Other Oxford Lit Fest Events

I also managed to make it to a couple events as a regular punter this year.

Last night a friend and I went to see Sally Brampton and Lisa Appignanesi give a talk on depression chaired by Majorie Wallace, founder of SANE. Now, coming from a family where the female line has been ravaged by depression over several generations, this is a subject very close to my heart. There was not a chance in the world that I was going to miss it, not for anything.

Sally Brampton is a journalist who started on Vogue, went on to work for The Observer, and then was one of the founding editors of Elle in the UK. She has also suffered from depression to the extent that she attempted suicide. She recently published a book called Shoot the Damn Dog, which is a memoir of her illness, and the ways in which she tried to overcome it. Don't panic, this isn't your misery memoir! This is a thoughtful, intelligent book that states right at the beginning: "My depression is not better or worse than anyone else's." As soon as I read that line (which I may have misquoted slightly because I don't have the book in front of me as I type) I knew I would love this book. So often people act the martyr to depression, and make a show of it, which is something I've never understood. Depression isn't glamorous, having it does not make you more interesting, or "deep", or creative, or mysterious, contrary to what some would have you believe. It is a horrible, sneaking illness that can quite literally destroy people.

Lisa Appignanesi's book is a more historical offering. Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind-Doctors is exactly what it sounds like. She was quite fascinating to listen to, as she spoke about the "fashions" that have permeated depression and its treatments over centuries. The talking cure, the rest cure, the surgical cure, and so on, right up to the fact that the government are currently investing a great deal of money into Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and trying to train up 4,000 new counsellors. Which is great and everything, don't get me wrong, but CBT doesn't actually work for everyone. So where does that leave the rest of us, especially those of us that can't afford private therapists at £50 an hour. Women, too, have largely been the guinea pigs for these treatments, as women have historically had a higher rate of diagnosis of mental illness than men, which leads into all sorts of feminist questions, but I shant bore you here. Above all it sounds like the ideal follow-on read from Elaine Showalter's seminal book The Female Malady, which is up there in my Top 10 Favourite Books Ever Ever Ever. I don't think Lisa Appignanesi takes a specifically feminist approach, but it is no bad thing to read from different perspectives. I'm looking forward to it. Marjorie Wallace was also a wonderful speaker in her own right, and I'm determined to find out more about her - most of the mental health charity things I have looked into have been organised by MIND, so SANE isn't something I know a lot about... yet.

The talk itself was incredibly interesting, interspersed with touches of wry, dark humour, not leat as Sally recounted some of the most exotic therapies she had attempted in desperation after she found that she is one of the 30% of people for whom medication does not work. Amongst other things she tried various talking therapies, mystic healing, and art therapy ("but I just felt like a nit"). Eventually, though, she found the right type of therapy for her, and also recommended taking half hour walks every day. After the talk I had my copies of both books signed by the authors.

In a different sort of event entirely, this lunchtime Boyfriend, Academic Friend and I went to see Richard Dawkins talk about the books that have most inspired him. It was a varied selection which covered Carl Sagan, Elspeth Huxley, Michael Frayn, and Douglas Adams. It was hugely entertaining, not least because former-Dr Who girl and wife of Dawkins Lalla Ward was reading out excerpts from each text. The marquee was packed out, and as we got there a minute or two late, we were sitting right up at the back of the room.

Now, some people take dodgy photos of rock stars at gigs. I take dodgy photos of evolutionary biologists at literary festivals:

See? I promise you, that is him sitting in the middle, with Lalla on the right, and chairman David Freedman of Meet the Author on the left.  (An aside: it was after David Freedman showed me his iPhone that I got obsessed with them and ultimately went out and bought one).

I've been very good this festival, and only bought one book: the Lisa Appignanesi one. I've been sorely tempted by about a million others. I did, though, buy a bag which is just so me that I couldn't resist it:

If you can't read it because of the light bouncing off the shininess, it says:

"When I get a little money, I buy books. And if there is any left over, I buy food." - Desiderius Erasmus.

Me too, Erasmus my man, me too.

A bit of a muddle

I have got myself into a bit of a reading muddle, in that I suddenly seem to have four books partially read, none really near finishing, plus a pile of uni reading to get through.

Vanity Fair is still very much floating my boat, but I'm only 200-odd pages into this nearly 900-page feast, so while progress continues, the end is not nearly in sight.

I am but a handful of pages into The Island of Doctor Moreau because I'm having my usual problem with Wellsy: I don't really like him very much. However, the essay calls for it, so I must persevere. Thank god he wrote short books, that's all I can say. I'm not sure why I struggle so much with him. This is my third foray into the World of Wells, and I was hoping for third time lucky. Not so. Long time readers will remember that I was cursing every page of The Time Machine when I read it last year, and back in the halcyon days of 2005 I attempted to break my HG duck with The Sleeper Awakes, but never finished it. Still, I'm going up to Glasgow this weekend, and hope to use the journey (either there or back) to sit down and power through to the end.

My next selection from the Penguin Great Loves series, Chekhov's A Russian Affair is sitting tantalisingly on my bedside table next to Vanity Fair, but at the moment, given the choice, I seem to be gravitating towards VF. Chekhov is only a shorty - perhaps another one for the road this weekend.

Then, last night, I brazenly and wantonly starting cheating on them all with Nicola Barker's 2004 novel Clear. Prompted by the Palimpsest book group, I got an uber quick, uber cheap copy online, and it arrived looking sparkly yesterday while I was at work. Feeling a bit run down, as I was, I treated myself to a long and luxurious bath with lots of lovely Lush goodies, and took Clear  in with me for company. Suddenly I hear the doorbell ring downstairs, which means that Boyfriend's 7pm guitar student has arrived and I've been stewing in the water for over an hour and a half. Still, I'm a good chunk into Clear, enjoying it immensely, and immediately back into the rhythm of Barker's unique style, which I enjoyed in Darkmans so much. That, at least, should be a nice quick read.

Other than that, it's all Victorian MA reading list at Kirsty Towers. This week: excerpts from the autobiography of Annie Besant, and a chunk of material from Isis Unveiled by HP Blavatsky. Oh, and the new issue of The Reader landed the other day too. So far I haven't had time to sit down and read it properly, but I did very much enjoy the article by Ms Dovegrey Reader (who incidentally celebrated her second birthday yesterday, and I won a partybag! Hooray! Happy Birthday DGR!).

Places to go, people to see...

Today, I am a little behind. Being stuck in bed for a week meant that I whizzed through a few books because frankly I was incapable of doing anything other than reading, sleeping, coughing, and drinking litres of orange squash. In the space of a week, I (finally) finished Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, which I'm not planning to review here largely because I can't think of anything intelligent to say about it other than it took me a few chapters to get into it, it's a gory, rollicking, good fun book, the story is really nothing like the film, and if you're into a bit of Victorian weirdness then you could do far worse than to pick this one up. I'm not just saying that because I work for the publisher. Y'all know that I keep my work life and Other Stories life separate unless they genuinely overlap.

I also read the third Inspector Morse novel, The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn. Decent whodunnit. Buckets of sexism, which annoyed me. The other two books read were The Ice Palace by Terjei Varsaas, and Watch Me Disappear by Jill Dawson. Enjoyed both, and proper reviews are forthcoming, once I have time to down and formulate my thoughts and pencilled notes into something approximating a book review.

Meanwhile, I am in full-tilt MA mode, and have also been completely sucked into Vanity Fair when it comes to recreational reading. It's a big ole book is Vanity Fair, and given that I'm only getting time to get through 50 pages a day at the moment with everything else going on, then progress is not particularly speedy. However, Thursday is uni day, so at least I have an hour each way on the train to London to have a bit of read.

Talking of having a bit of a read, off you lot pop and take a gander and what's been floating my cyber-boat this week:

• I'm doing more posts on the good old OUPblog at the moment. Two this week - one on Captain Scott, the other on Prozac - with another one to come tomorrow.
• 1-15 March is the Oxford International Women's Festival. Hooray!
• 2007's Oddest Book Titles are...
• Scottish Friend and I went to see Juno last night - and it was fantastic. Knitter Friend reviewed it over on her blog too.
• The curious case of the forged biography.
• Following on from the stories I linked to yesterday, there's another good piece in The Independent today about violence against women.

A couple of these links will pop up on tomorrow's OUPblog link love post from me, so these will give you a head start. But do stop by tomorrow OUPblog post for bunnies and staircases and other stuff too.

Guest blog: Eric Claption - My Autobiography

So, there we were. We'd had a lovely, home-cooked dinner, had polished off a bottle (or so...) of wine, and were idly sitting on the sofa talking about everything and nothing. Talk turned to books, and Boyfriend gave me the lowdown on the Eric Clapton autobiography, which he had got for Christmas. I, a glass or two of vino to the good, suggested he write me a blog post about it, and hurrah, he has. And here it is. Over to John...

I’ve been a fan of Eric Clapton for many years and it was with great excitement that I went to see him in concert for the first time at the Edinburgh Playhouse on the 9th of April 1983. I was 16 at the time and that was the gig that made me want to play electric guitar and blues in particular. I’ve seen him three times since, the last time being in Glasgow in 1992, and every show was a transcendent experience for me.

There have been several biographies of Clapton written over the years, authorised and unauthorised, a few of which I’ve read. So when I heard there was to be an autobiography, I was naturally interested to read what the man had to say about his own life. No one could deny that he has led an interesting life, or that as a guitarist he has been enormously influential, and the biographies covered these aspects satisfactorily enough, even going into some detail about the making of albums or what guitars and amplifiers Clapton used at various points in his career. They also presented a fairly sympathetic view of him as a thoughtful, modest person without glossing over his fairly well publicised problems with drugs and alcohol, not to mention his pursuit and eventual marriage to Patti Boyd, George Harrison’s then wife.

I have to say I found the autobiography a sketchy, unsatisfactory and rather shallow read. The greatest detail is reserved for the casual willingness with which he threw himself into the drug scene and how he bedded virtually every woman that seemed to enter his field of vision even after he had won over Patti Boyd after several years of trying. The recording of his greatest albums and songs are dealt with all too briefly and there’s nothing like enough information for the guitar geeks amongst us, but then he did spend most of the ‘70s and half the ‘80s in an alcoholic haze, so perhaps the lack of detail is understandable.

I think what disappoints me most though, is that the man himself comes across as a rather shallow, cold individual who seems now to have become part of the landed gentry. I have to confess a certain distaste for rock musicians who, when they become wealthy, buy huge country piles and seem unable to come across any kind of fauna without shooting it, but maybe that’s just me. Still, I remain a fan of Clapton’s best work and as a live blues guitarist he still has the ability to be breathtaking. I guess the old saying about idols and feet of clay is often true and, difficult though it may be, it’s best to let these people’s work speak for them and pay less mind to their personalities.

Connections

It strikes me sometimes that I read books that sort of link between each other, without even meaning to.

Take, for example, Asylum by Patrick McGrath, which I started on Saturday (and am now half way through). It's the story of Stella Raphael, the wife of the Deputy Superintendent of a mental hospital, and the obsessive, dangerous, passionate love affair she embarks on with Edgar Stark, a patient who is in the asylum because he murdered his wife. They meet because Edgar, who had been a sculptor on the outside, has been trusted with repairing an old Victorian glass conservatory in the asylum's grounds.

I picked up this book because another of Patrick McGrath's books, Dr Haggard's Disease, was one of the best books I read last year. It was the first novel of his that I had read, and Asylum had been recommended as another great McGrath novel. So, it was somewhat of a coincidence that the novel was set in a building described thus:

"It is built on the standard Victorian linear model with wings radiating of the main blocks so all the wards have an unobstructed view across the terraces to the open country beyond the Wall. This is a moral architecture, it embodies regularity, discipline, and organization."

The idea of moral architcture in vast Victorian asylums is a massive chunk of what I wrote my recent essay on for university. To see the words "moral architecture" popping up again so soon, and in a novel, made me jump a little. Not just that, but the fact that Edgar is working on a Victorian glasshouse correlates exactly to another major part of my essay: the Crystal Palace. I was comparing the Crystal Palace, built in 1851 to house The Great Exhibition, to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, also built in 1851, and how to both come to embody far more than they were originally meant to . I'm rambling, but you get the general idea. It was to do with progress and anxiety.

Anyhoo, this weird link between recent reading materials is not a new thing. I also read Dracula recently, as regular readers will know, and that has a character locked in an asylum who occasionally breaks out and flees to a bit old Victorian house to wait for his Master. Victorian asylums again. And, a large part of Dracula is set in Whitby. The book I read before Dracula was Attention All Shipping, which talks about the same headland in Whitby as that which appears in Dracula.

This is weird.

Bestselling Books of 2007

Right, this week I am really, honestly getting back into blogging proper. After two weeks of being all over the place, this week is finally settling into some kind of normality. For one thing, I'm back at work. And, oh, it's like I've never been away.

So, let's kick things off with some Bestsellers, shall we? Here are the overall Top 20 Bestselling Books of 2007:

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- JK Rowling (Of course)
2. The Interpretation of Murder -- Jed Rubenfeld (Literary crime thriller type, comforting to see so far up the chart, most likely thanks to Mr Madeley and Ms Finnegan)
3. The Memory Keeper's Daughter -- Kim Edwards (More R&J fare)
4. Nigella Express -- Nigella Lawson (Unsurprising.)
5. Anybody Out There -- Marian Keyes (I can't stand her books. But my mum loves them.)
6. Guinness World Records 2008 (Does anyone know if stock did run out in the end?)
7. The House at Riverton -- Kate Morton (More R&J)
8. On the Edge -- Richard Hammond (Car crash. People really just want to know about the car crash. Hello. I am Ms Cynical.)
9. A Spot of Bother -- Mark Haddon (I bought this in hardback at the end of 2006, but still haven't got around to reading it.)
10. Jamie at Home - Jamie Oliver (I haven't the energy to think of anything witty about him now.)
11. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid -- Bill Bryson (Being generally A Bryson Fan, I'd like to read this.)
12. My Booky Wook -- Russell Brand (Sex and drugs and irritating turns of phrase.)
13. Atonement -- Ian McEwan
14. Half of a Yellow Sun -- Chimamanda Adichie (Orange Prize winner for 2007)
15. Don't Stop Me Now -- Jeremy Clarkson (I wouldn't dare.)
16. The God Delusion -- Richard Dawkins (Hurrah!!)
17. The Sound of Laughter -- Peter Kay (*sob*)
18. The Innocent Man -- John Grisham (Despite the book only being released a couple of weeks before Christmas)
19. Suite Francaise -- Irene Nemirovsky (Can't decide whether I want to read this or not)
20. Relentless -- Simon Kernick (I know absolutely nothing about this book.)

So there you have it. I'm pleasantly surprised by quite a bit of it actually. There is no Jordan, or Katona, or Beckham, or Coleen. Only a few TV/film tie ins. Though R&J have a lot to answer for.

Here's to 2008! Hurrah!

I return from the wilderness!

Happy New Year my blogular friends. I return from a few weeks in the wilderness, where I have been zooming up and down the length of Britain, drinking too much, eating far too much, and generally carousing in a Chrimbo/New Year stylee.

Santa was exceptionally nice to me, and booky acquisitions were the following: Light Years by James Salter, 800 Years of Women's Letters edited by Olga Kenyon, Victorian London Street Life in Historic Photographs by John Thomson, and London in the Nineteenth Century by Jerry White. I am massively looking forward to all of these, and I heartily (and publicly) thank all those kind souls who gave them to me.

I have finished two books over the Christmas period. It would have been more but I was waylayed by alcohol and finishing my uni essay (which is now handed in, praise god). Those books were The Dreamers by Gilbert Adair and Attention All Shipping by Charlie Connelly. My reading is nothing if not varied, anyway. Full reports on those to follow.

I have also now offically decided on my Top 10 books of 2007. In no particular order:

• Old Men in Love -- Alasdair Gray
• Dr Haggard's Disease -- Patrick McGrath
• The Female Malady -- Elaine Showalter
• The Easter Parade -- Richard Yates
• Trumpet -- Jackie Kay
• The Corrections -- Jonathan Franzen
• Darkmans -- Nicola Barker
• Gents -- Warwick Collins
• The Penelopiad -- Margaret Atwood
• Daughters of Decadence -- ed. Elaine Showalter

It really has been a very good year, book-wise.

I have also decided on a bookular New Year's Resolution, which I half-attempted last year before giving up spectacularly: try not to buy as many books, and get through some of Mount To Be Read. I'm really going for it this time, promise.

Actually, I have just managed the impossible. I have pared down my book collection somewhat. *gasp*! Yes indeed, I have packed two large boxes of books off to Oxfam on St Giles, and sold another 50 or so on Amazon. I had to. It was getting ridiculous. Not to mention that with Boyfriend (finally) moving in with me there suddenly has to be room found for his books. Now, he doesn't have anything like the number of books I have as he is far too busy being a music geek to be a book geek, but he does have an astonishing number of books on The Beatles, a fulsome range of other music geekery books, a growing library of "God is Bollocks" books (Dawkins, Hitchins, et al), and more Peanuts books than I've ever seen collected in one place. They all have to go somewhere. As does the piano, but that's another story.

Right then. So, I am back and blogging with a vengeance. Hurrah!

I am back! Hello!

Well, apologies for the radio silence. It has all been very hectic at Kirsty Towers. Boyfriend has been sick (though the jury is out on whether it was a nasty stomach bug or the re-heated chilli he ate the evening before he fell ill), I am behind on all matters domestic, and I'm working on a rather important essay for university. All that and the small matter of a full time job.  So, sorry about that.

But I'm back, bright eyed (nearly) and bushy tailed (sort of). I haven't managed to finish What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn yet, as I am momentarily paused just over half way through to allow for university reading.  However, I am enjoying it. Reminds me of the ambition I had for approximately 10 minutes when I was a child to be a private detective (quickly superceeded by the ambition to be a writer, which I still have, and which I am still no closer to realising). I imagine that my Mickey would have been Snuffie the Hedgehog. Never got as far as staking out the St Enoch Centre though. Let's face it, I was never going to hack it as a private detective.

I am, though, reading a fascinating book for my essay: The World for a Shilling: How the Great Exhibition of 1851 Shaped a Nation by Michael Leapman. It's incredibly readable, and just really, really interesting. My copy is from the university library so I looked into buying my own copy as I imagine that it might be a book I go back to time and time again. From my preliminary (non-private) investigations it would seem that it out of print, or at least currently unavailable. Amazon marketplace, here I come. I guess it can't have sold that well if it's out of print already (the paperback came out in 2002). Shame - the reviews on the back cover are excellent, and the book itself is really well written and a fantastically enjoyable read. Sad.

And so Christmas approaches. It has crept up on me this year. Last night I finally got around to buying the last of my Christmas cards and wrapping paper. I have some presents but nowhere near all. I can't be bothered putting a tree up because I'm going up to Glasgow for Christmas itself, and the mogs will only climb it every five minutes. Bah humbug, etc. Plus, I'm working right up to the 21st, so I'm hardly going to be at home anyway. Instead, once I get them tested by the facilities people, I'm putting fairy lights up round my desk. At least that way I'll get the benefit. Hmph.

Next week is the Week of Christmas Parties. Oh, my poor liver. But, I have bought A Dress (gads!) that I shall wear with Heels (bejeesus!) and I will Do My Hair and Make-Up (who are you, and what have you done with Kirsty?). I will probably feel like a transvestite the whole time, but one has to make an effort, doesn't one?

The Man with the Flaming Trousers, and Other Stories

It says here on the back of Annus Horribilis by Sam Jordison "Think you've had a bad day?". Quite often, I complain about having had a hard day/being tired/things not going right. After reading this book, however, I see that I really am rather fortunate.

This is a collection of stories - at least one for each day of the year - about awful but funny things that have happened to people. Sort of the like the Darwin Awards without anyone necessarily dying. (Although a few Darwin winners do make it into Jordison's book.) As I mentioned a while ago, on my birthday in 2002 a man accidentally set fire to his own trousers while simultaneously smoking, trying to pull up his trousers and running away from the police. I can't tell you how many times I've told this story to people now.

"Hello, I'm Kirsty. Did you know that there was once a man who...?"

Cue slightly glazed  looks and vague smiles. I remain unabashed, however, and have been accosting people (mainly Boyfriend to be fair) with other tales of woe. My other favourites include:

• Arnold Schoenberg's fear of the number 13 being alarmingly prescient when he died on Friday 13th, at 13 minutes to midnight, aged 76 (7+6=13).
• The Australian woman who sat at a red traffic light for 2 days because she hadn't realised it was broken.
• The man from Paisley (the next town over from where I grew up in Scotland) who worked in a pet shop and was sacked for juggling guinea pigs.
• The man whose pals broke him out of jail by way of a ploy too cunning even for 'Prison Break': they faxed the jail pretending to be from the local court, demanding the jailbird's release. And it worked. (Sadly, the hapless felon was rearrested soon afterwards while watching telly at his mum's house).

I promise not to complain about my day every again, unless I set my jeans on fire, etc. Good fun all round, this book.

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UK Bestselling Books - Week Ending 17 November 2007

It's that time again...

1. Guinness World Records 2008 (Rumours are that stock is fast running out of this one.)
2. The Innocent Man -- John Grisham (High new entry. The usual Grisham fare, I assume.)
3. On the Edge -- Richard Hammond (Looking like the celeb book of Christmas 2007 at this rate.)
4. Long Way Down -- Ewan McGregor/Charley Boorman
5. Nigella Express -- Nigella Lawson
6. My Story -- Lewis Hamilton
7. Don't Stop Me Now -- Jeremy Clarkson
8. Doctor Who: The Annual
9. My Booky Wook -- Russell Brand (Who came up with this title? Urgh. Sex, drugs, and MTV.)
10. H.R.H. -- Danielle Steel
11. Jamie at Home - Jamie Oliver
12. Snakehead -- Anthony Horowitz
13. The Beano Annual 2008
14. Book of the Dead -- Patricia Cornwell
15. And Another Thing -- Jeremy Clarkson
16. Abandoned -- Anya Peters
17. My Manchester United Years -- Bobby Charlton
18. Atonement -- Ian McEwan
19. Little Library: In the Night Garden (Aaaaahhhh....)
20. New Europe -- Michael Palin (a friend of mine recently met him at a book signing, and confirm that he is Officially A Very Nice Man.)

So, there you go. No huge surprises, and I must admit, nothing I'm very excited about.  Ho hum.

UK Bestselling Books - Week Ending Nov 10

It's that time again. Let's see what the nation has been shelling out on book-wise...

1. Guinness World Records (I swear, it's not worth it, it's RUBBISH now.)
2. H.R.H -- Danielle Steel
3. On the Edge -- Richard Hammond (I had no idea car crashes were that interesting.)
4. Snakehead -- Anthony Horowitz
5. Nigella Express -- Nigella Lawson
6. Don't Stop Me Now -- Jeremy Clarkson (Really? Can I please stop you? Please?)
7. Book of the Dead -- Patricia Cornwell (Festive cheer once again)
8. And Another Thing -- Jeremy Clarkson (Oh do shut up)
9. Long Way Down -- Ewan McGregor/Charley Boorman
10. Abandoned -- Anya Peters (Ooh, a new entry! How *exciting*!)
11. Atonement -- Ian McEwan
12. Crystal -- Katie Price (I really think I might cry.)
13. Doctor Who: The Official Annual 2008
14. Treasure of Khan -- Clive Cussler
15. Simple Genius -- David Baldacci (Never read any of his thrillers... but DGR has.)
16. Making Money -- Terry Pratchett (Yes, yes he is.)
17. High School Musical 2: The Book
18. My Story -- Lewis Hamilton (Unimaginative title? Check. Young sportstar that no one had heard of this time last year? Check. More pictures than words? Check. Kid, you're gonna be a star!)
19. Jamie at Home -- Jamie Oliver
20. Crossfire -- Andy McNab (Nothing says Happy Christmas like an SAS story.)

Death, ming, and TV tie-ins. And Jordan. Excellent.

The Whit...COSTA Shortlists are out!

It's arguably the next biggest book prize after the Booker, so I was waiting with reasonably baited breath to hear who made it onto the Costa shortlists last night. (By the way, am I the only one who still have to remind themselves it's the Costa Prize and not the Whitbread Prize?)

So, without further ado...

Novel

• Skin Lane by Neil Bartlett
• Day by AL Kennedy
• Death of a Murderer by Rupert Thomson
• The Road Home by Rose Tremain

First Novel

• A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
• What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn
• Gifted by Nikita Lalwani
• Mosquito by Roma Tearne

Biography

• Rudolf Nureyev by Julie Kavanagh
• Agent ZigZag by Ben McIntyre
• Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore
• Fatty Batter by Michael Simkins

Poetry

• The Speed of Dark by Ian Duhig
• The Space of Joy by John Fuller
• Look We Have Coming to Dover! by Daljit Nagra
• Tilt by Jean Sprackland

Children's

• The Bower Bird by Ann Kelley
• Blood Red Snow White by Marcus Sedgwick
• Crusade by Elizabeth Laird
• What I Was by Meg Rosoff

What do we think? Well, my little feminist heart is leaping with joy to see the First Novel category entirely populated by women. 'Mon the girls! And it's also nice to see so many independent publishers represented. And isn't Catherine O'Flynn doing well? Booker Longlist, Guardian First Book Award list, and now the Whit...Costas. Now for me to actually read the flippin' thing.

Embarrassingly, it was my choice this month for my book group. I chose it because it conformed to our book group rules: paperbacks only, nothing over 400 pages. I also chose it because I bought it when it was on the Booker longlist, then promptly never got around to it. And I still haven't. My fellow book groupers have been discussing it merrily, and I have been keeping up (our group is conducted via Facebook, because we're all terribly trendy young things, and, like facebook is, like, where it's at, innit, like? *twiddles hairs, pops gum* Oh, and because it's also very convenient when one of your number is living in Alloa). I feel terribly guilty. I know it's awfully bad form to choose a book then forget to read it. However, all reports have been glowing, so at least I haven't inflicted a terrible choice upon everyone else then run off to hide behind the sofa.

Nikita Lalwani's book, Gifted, is the only one from the lists that I have read. My review is to be found here. I liked it, but is it winning material? Hmm, can't say I'm terribly sure. And how wonderful to see AL Kennedy on the Novel list. While I haven't read this one, I have enjoyed the two or three books of hers that I have read, so I'll be watching closely to see how she gets on.

The winner of each category will be announced on January 3, with the overall winner will be announced on January 22. Last year it was Stef Penney's The Tenderness of Wolves (which I was planning to read at some point till I caught the last episode of the dramatisation on Radio 4 by accident, and now I feel like I've already read the last page).

UK Bestselling Books - Week Ending November 3

I know you can barely stand the tension, but here's the Top 20 from the week ending November 3 2007.

1. Guinness World Records 2008 (I have a feeling this will be about for a while)
2. Nigella Express -- Nigella Lawson
3. Book of the Dead -- Patricia Cornwell
4. Snakehead -- Anthony Horowitz (American writer, his books are aimed at 12-16 year old boys)
5. On the Edge -- Richard Hammond
6. Don't Stop Me Now -- Jeremy Clarkson
7. Doctor Who: Official Annual 2008
8. Long Way Down -- Ewan McGregor/Charley Boorman
9. My Manchester United Years -- Bobby Charlton (I imagine a lot of dads and uncles will be getting this for Christmas this year)
10. Atonement -- Ian McEwan
11. And Another Thing -- Jeremy Clarkson (Not Ian McEwan. Damn my typos)
12. H.R.H. -- Danielle Steel (How many novels has she written now? Bloody hell)
13. Treasure of Khan -- Clive Cussler
14. Jamie at Home -- Jamie Oliver
15. More Twisted -- Jeffrey Deaver
16. High School Musical 2: The Book
17. Survivor -- Sharon Osbourne
18. The Beano Annual 2008 (HURRAH!! The highlight of Christmas Day as a small child. And also not so small child.)
19. New Europe -- Michael Palin
20. Cross -- James Patterson

God, we're a depressing bunch aren't we? We do like our gory crime and our car crash celebrities (literally, in Hammond's case).

Still, there's always Danielle Steel and The Beano. Not together, obviously. Though what would that be like?

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UK Bestselling Books, week ending 27 Oct 07

That post I wrote last week about the current bestselling books in the UK has got me a little bit obsessed with checking the Top 20s. So, I decided I am going to inflict the weekly charts on you lot too.

Here's the Top 20 for the week ending 27 October 2007:

1. Guinness World Records 2008 (I think I've made my thoughts on this quite clear elsewhere)
2. Nigella Express -- Nigella Lawson (Yet more speedy gastro-porn)
3. Book of the Dead -- Patricia Cornwell (She really is awful, but I just can't stop myself reading her anyway)
4. Atonement -- Ian McEwan (Still the film tie-in rides the charts)
5. Jamie at Home -- Jamie Oliver
6. On the Edge -- Richard Hammond (This is all looking strangely familiar)
7. More Twisted -- Jeffrey Deaver (More Gory Crime)
8. Treasure of Khan -- Clive Cussler (Adventure-y stuff. The author photo of him on his books is usually him with his wide collection of cars. This irritates me greatly.)
9. And Another Thing... -- Jeremy Clarkson (Another collection of his, ahem, *opinionated* newspaper columns. Seems to be an annual thing now.)
10. Long Way Down -- Ewan McGregor/Charley Boorman (Men on motorbikes. I confess to loving the TV series.)
11. Doctor Who Annual (Well, it is sort of almost Christmas, I suppose.)
12. The Official Highway Code
13. Kiss -- Jacqueline Wilson (Uber-Children's Author, I think she's a bit fab.)
14. High School Musical 2: The Book (Subtitled just in case you weren't altogether sure what this rectangular, flat thing you're holding is.)
15. Eric Clapton: The Autobiography -- Eric Clapton (One of the more worthwhile autobiog releases, I think. In that he has actually had a career and is over 25.)
16. Survivor -- Sharon Osbourne (Her second autobiography. How much can have happened since the last one, exactly?)
17. New Europe -- Michael Palin
18. Don't Stop Me Now -- Jeremy Clarkson (Yep, again.)
19. Cross -- James Patterson (American crime, outlandish storylines, questionable writing. I love it.)
20. Faces -- Martina Cole (East End Matriarch of UK crime lit)

So, children, what have we learned today? Crime fiction and celebrities sell a lot of books.

Inventing the Victorians

I finished Inventing the Victorians by Matthew Sweet last night. I've read it before, in about 2003, but I was returning to it on the instruction of the fabled MA reading list.

This is no dry academic text though. Written by a journalist (and you can tell) it is a break neck tour through everything we think we know about the Victorians but have basically got completely and utterly wrong.

Aside from the previously mentioned lion in a wheelbarrow on a tight-rope (they weren't so hot on animal welfare), they were also responsible for the tabloid newspaper, sex contact ads, junk "email" (by way of the unsolicited telegraph), and were completely obsessed with violent murders and freak shows. Gay and bisexual pornography abounded, and this was the period that coined the phrase "top shelf".

It also explained the derivation of the phrase "Sweet FA". Fanny Adams was an 8 year old girl who was brutally murdered and dismembered near her home. The case was all over the newspapers, and photographs of her grave were sold for people to have framed in their homes as a reminder of good behaviour. Around the same time, the navy was getting a new type of ration: diced mutton in a can. So, in the grand tradition of distasteful armed forces humour, they started calling it "sweet FA" colloquially. Nice.

The book also talks about much pleasanter things: home decoration; the Victorian attitudes to women and children; the development of the cinema. Really very interesting and well written.

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