A selection of photos from our visit to Stuttgart last week.
- Stuttgart seen from the viewpoint near the Rack Railway
Wordless Wednesday – Stuttgart
Birthday Books
These are the books I had for my birthday.
The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction is a reference book that I can just dip into. The rest are all books I’d love to read immediately. If you click on the photo you’ll see from the enlarged view showing the creasing on the spine that I’ve already started to read the Creative Writing book. I’m always fascinated by this type of how-to book and already have a few. I saw this at one of the airport bookshops on our recent trip to Stuttgart (see Flickr for some photos) and thought it looked interesting – I’m much better at reading books like this than actually writing anything.
I’ve also read the first few pages of Peter Ackroyd’s Dickens. I’ve read several of Dickens’s books and am currently reading The Mystery of Edwin Drood, so I want to know more about him. This biography begins with his death and the reactions to his death, not only in Britain but also in America.
I’ve read Martin Edwards earlier Lake District Mysteries – they’re excellent. I couldn’t resist reading the startling opening of this latest one, The Serpent Pool:
The books were burning.
Pages crackled and bindings split. The fire snarled and spat like a wild creature freed from captivity to feast on calfskin, linen and cloth. Paper blackened and curled, the words disappeared. Poetry and prose, devoured by flames. (page 7)
This grabs my attention and makes me want to read on immediately.
But there are also the other books I can’t wait to get to:
- Susan Hill’s latest Simon Serrailler novel The Shadows in the Street, because I’ve all the others and found them all compelling reading. This is the fifth one.
- The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith, the first Isabel Dalhousie book. I’ve read and loved some of the later ones.
- The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood. I’ve read good reports of this book. Margaret Atwood is one of my favourite authors and this book promises to be just as good as her others.
As usual I wish I could read all of them at once!
Sunday Scene
Yesterday it was my birthday and as well as books D gave me a new camera. I’ve been trying it out today: here are a few photos I took in our garden and
of the front garden
and the field across the road where the rapeseed was being cut this afternoon.
(Click on the photos to enlarge.)
Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett: Book Review
I didn’t write about Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett as soon as I’d finished reading it, which is a pity because I only made a few notes whilst reading and now my memory of it is fading fast. It took me some time to get really involved in the story, which is a mixture of fiction and history. I liked the historical elements very much. The fictional side mixed in quite well but I found some of it a bit too sentimental and somewhat contrived.
It’s the story of Sir Thomas More’s fall from Henry VIII’s favour and that of his adopted daughter Meg Giggs and her love for two men – John Clements, the family’s former tutor, and the painter, Hans Holbein. Bennett puts forward a theory about John Clements’ true identity drawn from an analysis and an interpretation of two paintings by Hans Holbein of the More family and also his painting, The Ambassadors. I was fascinated by this and the detail in the paintings, enhanced by the inclusion in the book of a reproduction of the plan for Holbein’s first portrait of the More Family painted in 1527 -28 and a colour reproduction of a second portrait of the family attributed to Holbein, even though it is signed ‘Rowlandas Lockey’.
I liked the way Bennett portrayed different aspects of Sir Thomas More’s character; in his early life he was a humanist and friend of Erasmus, later a courtier and Henry VIII’s Catholic chancellor, who persecuted Protestant heretics. This contrasts with his family life, where he is relaxed, generous and gentle and Meg cannot reconcile her knowledge of him as a father with his cruel and fanatical persecution of the heretics.
It combines a love story, art history and historical fiction providing an insight into the Tudor period at a time of great social and religious change.
Sunday Salon – What to Read on Holiday
I’ve not been doing much reading or blogging as we’ve been away for a few days in the southeast of England and today we’re off again, this time to Germany. I’ve been thinking what books to take, bearing in mind that they should not be big and heavy (in weight), so I’m not taking Fleshmarket Close even though I’m in the middle of reading it and will probably lose the thread and have to start again when I come back home.
The two I’ve settled on are The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens, (235 pages of quite small print) which should last me a while to read – I’ve never read any of Dickens’s books quickly. The other book I’ve chosen is Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden (221 pages), which looks very different from the Drood book. Both are paperbacks and are books I’ve been wanting to read for a while. It feels strange only taking two books but we’ll only be away for three days and staying with family, so there may not be much time for reading. The flight time isn’t long – the longest time is between flight connections at Heathrow, so I think they’ll last me. But I think I should also take Agatha Christie’s 4.50 from Paddington as a standby because that is a very slim book (190 pages). Deciding which books to take is a doddle compared to deciding what clothes to pack, as I find it really difficult to travel light!
The Gourmet by Muriel Barbery: Book Review
I found The Gourmet an interesting book, maybe an appetiser, or an amuse-bouche, for Muriel Barbery’s later book The Elegance of the Hedgehog (which I haven’t read). It offers tantalising glimpses of food that Pierre Arthens, France’s celebrated food critic recalls as he lies dying, trying to remember the most delicious food he ever tasted. He thinks the flavour of this elusive food is
the first and ultimate truth of my entire life, and that it holds the key to a heart that I have since silenced. I know that it is a flavour from childhood or adolescence, an orginal, marvellous dish that predates my vocation as a critic, before I had any pretension to expound on the pleasure of eating. A forgotten flavour, lodged in my deepest self, and which has surfaced in the twilight of my life as the only truth ever told – or realised. (pages 12-13)
As he remembers back to his childhood his life and character are also revealed through impressions and memories of him from his wife, son and other relations and acquaintances. These are in short chapters building up a picture of Pierre’s character and contrasting with his own thoughts and memories. They are interspersed with Pierre’s florid, over-blown, pretentious ruminations on food, including fish, meat, vegetables, bread, mayonnaise, ice cream and sorbet, none of which provides that elusive taste he is seeking.
I wished the short chapters from his family and friends had been longer and his own shorter – I wanted to know more about the other characters. I know from the extract from The Elegance of the Hedgehog that there is more about Renee, the concierge of the apartement building where Pierre lies dying in that book, so I will read that at some time. I liked the changes in writing style between the characters and Pierre.
All in all, it’s a delightful description of food, mouth-watering, rich and sumptuous, but somehow lacking in substance. By the end it was losing impetus as I began to wonder what it could possibly be that had been tantalising him so much and that was so important to him. The ending was really inevitable and rather sad.
My copy was kindly sent to me from the publishers, Gallic Books.
BooksPlease 