Category: Books

The Sleep Over

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

At the weekend we went to stay with our son (P) and family and were greeted excitedly by our grandchildren and G (grandson), exclaimed “You’re having a sleepover and, Grandad – you’re sleeping with me!” Normally we don’t stay over night as we only live an hour’s drive away. The reason we were staying over was that P and G were getting up at the crack of dawn to go to a carboot sale and we didn’t fancy getting up before 5am to get there in time. As it was, we were awake when they went out, as was G, who promptly got into bed with us. Not long after granddaughter no. 2 (M) woke up, so in she came as well, closely followed by E (granddaughter no. 1). After lots of wriggling about, giggling and “I want to watch TV” (not allowed until after breakfast and washed and dressed) we all got up and had breakfast.

The rain had threatened on Saturday, but had kept away. It had been pouring down all week though and the carboot was cancelled and P & G had to bring all the stuff back. We looked through the carboot book boxes and came home with a pile of books (I can never resist books). Later in the morning we took E and G to Sunday School, sorry Junior Church, where appropriately the story was about the foolish man who built his house on the sand and the wise man who built his house on the sand – and the rains came down etc!!

After that we went to McDonald’s where the main attraction was the free Shrek that came with the children’s meal. McDonald’s is really quick and the children seem to like eating out of cardboard boxes and paper bags, sitting on small chairs specially designed for them. G said he wanted a burger, but big sister E said he didn’t like it when he had one before. G replied that it was only the middle he didn’t like and E replied in a teacher voice “You can’t eat just the bread, G”. So they both had fish fingers. We all had fun with the Shreks, although E would really have preferred the Gingerbread Man. When you press a button he says, “I’m an Ogre”, another press and he burbs magnificently – G loved that! So all the way home we had both Shreks repeating “I’m an Ogre”, burping and saying “Oh My” (at least that’s what I think it sounded like), with both children copying it with the sound effects and us grandparents in fits laughing. Here’s Shrek on the pile of books that came home with us.

The books behind Shrek are (from the bottom up)

  • Into the Box of Delights: a history of Children’s Television by Anna Home – lots of nostalgia here
  • Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide – to help me decide what to read next
  • Big Chief Elizabeth: how England’s Adventures gambled and won the New World by Giles Milton – I hope it’s as good as his Nathaniel’s Nutmeg
  • Faithful Unto Death by Caroline Graham – a Midsomer Murders book, because I’ve never read any and I like the TV series.
  • Four Ian Rankin books – The Hanging Garden, Resurrection Men, the Black Book, and Set in Darkness – I hope they’re not as gory as Rebus, the TV series!

Digging to America – Anne Tyler

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I’m so glad I’ve read Digging to America. I’d been resisting reading it because when I first heard about I just didn’t like the sound of it; I think what put me off were the names of some of the characters, particularly Bitsy who came over to me as a know-it-all bossy woman. It just shows you shouldn’t make snap judgements like that.

This book had me captivated right from the start, with the description of two contrasting families waiting at Baltimore Airport for the arrival of two Korean babies they have adopted. The story develops as the two girls, Jo-Hin and Susan (originally Sooki) are integrated into their families – one American, the Donaldsons, outgoing and confident and the other the Yazdans, American/Iranian, reserved and restrained. Each year they have a party on ‘Arrival Day’- and it is through these parties as well as in their everyday lives that the contrast between the two families is revealed and how they are gradually brought to a greater understanding and appreciation.

There are a number of themes running through the book as well as the cultural differences between the families – what it means to be American, being one. But it’s not just specific to America. There are universal issues such as not being able to have a child; being an outsider or a foreigner, or being different; illness and death; growing old; family relationships between the generations, in-laws and the extended family; traditions, pride and independence; and in particular friendship. Even though it was a quick read, there is so much in this brilliant book, giving insight into human nature that I think it will stay with me for a long time. I shall certainly be looking for more books by Anne Tyler.

By the way, Baltimore is also, coincidentally, the setting for The Poe Shadow, which I had to stop reading once I started to read Digging to America.

Wilberforce update

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I’m now about half way through Wilberforce and it is growing on me. It’s quite difficult to read because there is a lot of detail about politics in the late 18th century, at the time of William Pitt the younger. It’s a long time since I did this period of British history at school and then I’m sure it wasn’t in so much detail. There are also big chunks quoting from original sources, which is fine for authenticity, but the 18th century style and terminology differs from the 21st century’s. So, concentration is needed for this and also dealing with the number of people connected with Wilberforce. He was most certainly an active person, involved in many areas both in the political and social scene.

I hadn’t realised until reading his book that Wilberforce and Pitt were such friends, nor that Wilberforce was elected to Parliament for Hull in 1780 at the age of 21. Much of the first part of the book is about his campaign against the slave trade and its long and drawn out progress through Parliament and the struggle against the traders, merchants, planters and landed aristocracy whose fortunes derived from sugar and slaves.

To help with my reading I’ve also dipped into a couple of books on my bookshelves – Modern England: from the 18th century to the present by R K Webb and Who’s Who in British History for background information. The book becomes more readable when giving information of the social scene and personal details about Wilberforce himself. More about that when I’ve finished the book and have an overall view of his life.

What I like to get from a biography is a vivid impression of what the person was like, what made him or her tick and after a slow start I’m being to feel as though I’m getting to know Wilberforce as an individual.

Wilberforce and yet more library books

Published on by Margaret

This is my copy of Wilberforce by John Pollack, which I’ve just started to read for the book group meeting next Thursday. It has a most annoying front cover because it curls upwards, as you can see. D and I are both reading this and not finding it too enthralling! I don’t think we’ll finish it before the meeting, but that will be OK and we will still be able to give our views. When we’ve finished it (if we finish it) I’ll jot down some thoughts here.

These books are beckoning me.
They’re all library books I picked up on Friday. As someone else had reserved it I had to return a book to our local branch library. I didn’t intend borrowing anymore books- I’ve plenty to read. BUT, Arlington Park and Digging to America were on display on the returns counter, along with other books on the Orange Prize Shortlist and so I thought, why not borrow them. The winner, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie had already gone out, or I’d have borrowed that too.

A quick tour round the library shelves and I also found books by Anita Brookner, Joyce Carol Oates, Reginald Hill and Melvyn Bragg that I hadn’t read. So they all came home with me to add to the To Be Read piles. I really like this little branch library as it always seems to have interesting books, good displays and friendly staff.

On Trying To Keep Still by Jenny Diski

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

This book captivated me. I have read some good books this year, but this one outshines the rest. When I wasn’t reading it I was thinking and talking about it. It’s about experiencing an experience, becoming aware of experiencing the experience and so losing the experience.

I have had the experience of experiencing Jenny Diski’s travels during a year when she visited New Zealand, spent three months in a cottage in Somerset and went to sample the life of the Sami people of Swedish Lapland. No need to go those places myself now. Really, I could be tempted by a trip to New Zealand, but that is only a pipe dream. Now, a cottage in Somerset – that is a real possibility.

I can see myself living in that cottage, but I would not want to be there alone. Her description of her drive to Lilstock, in Somerset identifies the pleasure and gratitude of the present-moment experience of being in a beautiful place, even though this then conjures up the consciousness of

that terribly difficult business of experiencing experience. I am so conscious of me being here, of being me here, not somewhere else, having this experience, that I lose my awareness of what is pleasing me in order to think about the pleasure.

To me being in the right company as well as in the right place enhances rather than diminishes my pleasure.

I don’t need to visit the glow-worm caves or Doubtful Sound in New Zealand, now that Diski has described them to me; indeed she had to miss out on an actual visit to the caves but enjoyed a virtual trip courtesy of an imaginative reading of the brochure ‘what more could we want, particularly as the actual visit to Doubtful Sound was disappointing?‘ And I certainly don’t want to go to cold, dark Lapland even though the enchanting, mythical, magical forest ‘glittering fairyland labyrinth‘ lit up with frost ‘making an intricate latticework which sparkled, twinkled, actually dazzled the eyes, as if the forest had been sprinkled with a layer of diamond dust‘ is beguiling. This is counterbalanced by the difficulty in living in such a hostile environment. Intriguingly this visit was aimed at advertising tourism.

Of course this book is not only about travelling. It is also a personal memoir, and is about being still, being alone, wanting to be alone, phobias and the problems of coping with life and especially with ageing. There is so much in this book that I can empathise with that it is almost alarming. Jenny Diski wants to be alone to a greater extent than I do, but I still identify with feelings such as not wanting to make a noise in case people notice that I’m there, not wanting others to worry about me, and worrying that others are worrying about me; feeling the need to do something such as going out for a walk – not the desire to do it for itself but the feeling that I should want to. On a practical level I also have difficulty with ‘left’ and ‘right’. In my mind I see left and say right etc and like Diski I can only visualise a route for a short distance before it disappears in a grey fuzz in my mind.

There is so much more in this book; it describes adventures in places at the opposite ends of the earth intermingled with personal insights and meditations on solitude and stillness, consciousness and belief systems. I found it a moving, amusing, thought-provoking and original book.

Borrowed Books

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These are some books that I have recently borrowed from the library, including Relics, which is Book Crossing book. I finished reading Death’s Jest-Book a few days ago and have today finished Jenny Diski’s On Trying to Keep Still, which I could hardly put down – I found it a compulsive read.

More in my next post on these two books.

I have yet to start the other books. I find it impossible not to borrow books even though I have plenty of my own that are unread.

I may read John Brewer’s Sentimental Murder next. I fancied reading something different and thought this sounded interesting when I read about on Of Books and Bicycles’ blog. The preface states that it is the investigation of an 18th century killing and attempted suicide. It explores “the relations between history and fiction, storytelling and fact, past and present.” So, Brewer examines the facts relating to the murder of Martha Ray, the mistress of the Earl of Sandwich, by James Hackman, a young clergyman. He also looks at how this killing has been retold by journalists, novelists, poets, doctors, biographers and historians over the last two centuries.

I’ve not got on too well with some of Anne Tyler’s books in the past,but maybe I’ll like The Amateur Marriage. The blurb says that it is an “achingly poignant and unforgettable novel”. I hope so.

The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West looks like a complete contrast to the Tyler book, being set in fashionable Edwardian England.

Jane Austen’s Persuasion is a re-read, always satisfying. However, Joseph Roth is an unknown author to me. I think Susan Hill was recommending his books a while ago so I hope this one The Emperor’s Tomb about the last days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire will live up to its promise.