Random Jottings

Bang goes February

Went into Waterstone's today as my book tokens were burning a hole in my pocket.  I have held onto them since 25 December 2006 which must be an all time record for me and the book I was saving them for, and which I bought today, is the new biography of Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee.

The book is wonderfully produced, lovely smooth to the touch paper and lots of fascinating photographs, many of which I have not seen before.  So, bang goes February, bang goes Elaine's Personal Challenge and the Winter Classics Challenge (thought I may slip a George Eliot into my handbag) as this book is of door step size and weight and at 700+ pages cannot be taken on the daily commute.  I, therefore, see every moment I have in the evenings and weekends taken up until it is read.

I was surprised to see it on sale as I thought it was not due until February, but I am not complaining.  This was the last copy of what had obviously been a very large pile and as I picked it up (well, I didn't pick it up more like swooped on it whooping with delight) another woman's hand was an inch away. My dears, if looks could have killed I would not be here now, but all is fair in love, war and books.

I am sure you will all agree with me.

January summing up

In order to keep myself on track regarding my Personal Challenge and reading in general, I am going to do a summing up at the end of each month just to see how I am doing.  I feel I have started the year off well.  I have read 12 books in January (I know it's not quite finished yet, but I am halfway through a book which I will finish before Wednesday so have counted that in) and have now drawn a neat line under my book list for the month..

So, how have I got on?  My penchant for detective stories is still flourishing and this month they have been of the 1930's variety, two by Dorothy L Sayers and one Ngaio Marsh.  Then, as part of the Winter Classics Challenge, I have read Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott and my umpteenth read of Jane Austen's Persuasion.  My warm and fuzzy read was Maeve Binchy and I have also read quite a lot of the Transita output in the last few weeks:  The Jigsaw Maker by Adrienne Dines; The Crowded Bed by Mary Cavanagh and Stage by Stage by Jan Jones (thank you to all these kind and generous authors who have sent me their books to review).  The Ladies of Gracie Adieu is next up by Susanna (Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell) Clarke which I loved and gorgeous book to have on the shelves too, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Today which I also loved but know others didn't.  Apparently, it was discussed on Newsnight the other night and I am most irritated to have missed it, but am going to see if I can track it down on the BBC website and have a look.  Very funny and witty with a satirical political slant to it.

And then I come to the two killer books I have read in the last ten days.  Two books that totally pole axed me emotionally for differing reasons.  My first Ian McEwan, Enduring Love - I shall read more of him (after I have had a period of recovery) and then the final one which I have just posted about over the weekend, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.  I will say no more about this as I have already made my feelings about this wonderful book very clear, but will just urge everyone who can to get hold of it and read it.  Please, do have the tissues handy.

I am simply staggered and stunned to announce that out of these twelve books, 8 were written in the 21st century and, what is more, all the authors are ALIVE!!!

Yes, yes I know....don't clap me I know I am good...

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

What was I doing at 8.30 am this morning?  Sitting in my bed, propped up by pillows with tears dripping off my chin.  I had just finished reading The Book Thief.

Before I write any further about this book, a bit of background to explain why I was reluctant to read it.

Back in 1970-71 there was a mini-series called The Holocaust (yes, I know the words mini-series and Holocaust should not appear in the same sentence, but this was in the days before political correctness)which was aired on US and UK television.  This was the first time this subject matter had been dramatised in an 'accessible' format.  It was, of course, somewhat sanitised compared with how it would be done today, and I can remember none of the actors save for a young Meryl Streep.  It had 5 episodes spread over one week and I watched them all.  By the end of it, I was totally traumatised and for months afterward could not get it out of my mind.  I was appalled by man's inhumanity to man and it affected me deeply.

In the early 1980's I went to the cinema to see Sophie's Choice, a film set in World War II and, oddly enough, starring Meryl Streep later on in her career.  For those of you who have read this book or seen this film, you will know what Sophie's choice turned out to be.  By then, I was a mother and was so upset by the time her 'choice' had to be made, that I left the cinema.

We are now in the 1990's and try as I might, and I have tried, I cannot, but cannot watch Schindler's List.  I decided to watch it in the quiet of my home, not at the cinema, and each time it is on, I have found excuses to leave the room, make a cup of tea, anything just to get away from what was unfolding on the screen. To this day, I have not seen it.

Then three years ago I was attending a conference in Amsterdam and visited Anne Frank's house.  I am sure no further comment is needed from me.  While I was there a large party of giggling, misbehaving teenagers arrived and the adults, including me, winced at their noise and disrespect.  No need, within 30 seconds this gaggle was silenced and they went round the house in disbelief and close to tears.

This preamble, long and tedious though it is, will explain why I came to this book with such reluctance.  I have read conflicting reviews, as is always the case with a book that has been on the receiving end of hype and publicity.  One reviewer says 'Marcus Zusan has not written Harry Potter and the Holocaust, it just feels like it'.  Another says it is fanciful.  Another self congratulatory and some take issue with the whimsicality of having Death as the narrator.

Liesel Meminger is a young girl who loses her brother at the very start of the story, her mother disappears and she is put into foster care with Rosa and Hans Huber .  Liesel steals books.  She steals because she has lost everything, it is her way of getting back, of retaining a hold on sanity.  The first book she steals is a Guide to Grave Digging which she finds at the graveyard where her brother is buried. Later she saves a book from a bonfire lit to celebrate the Fuhrer's birthday, she also steals books from the Mayor's wife, a sad, forlorn woman mourning the death of her son and who later becomes complicit in her thefts.

The Hubermans hide a Jewish refugee in their basement, Max Vandenburg.  He has a copy of Mein Kampf which he turns into a blank book by painting the pages with white paint and writes a story of his own for Liesel.  He is hidden by them for two years but when it gets too dangerous he leaves to an uncertain fate in order to save them by which time he and Liesel have forged an everlasting bond through their love of words.

All this is narrated by Death and yes, sometimes it is whimsical, sometimes it is almost a bit too precious to be good writing, but this is balanced out by Death's mordant wit 'By the way, I like this human idea of the grim reaper.  I like the scythe.  It amuses me'.  So, while I can understand some of the critical comments in the reviews, I don't care.  This is a case of the total being more than the sum of its parts.  The ending is heart wrenching and even Death feels sorrow 'I am haunted by humans' .  Then, there is joy, a happiness of sorts in the final few pages.  I cannot remember last reading a book that moved me so much and it will stay with me for a long time.

And this is why I was propped up in my bed this morning with tears dripping off my chin....

Light Relief

Having been emotionally pole axed by Enduring Love I then found that the next book from Elaine's Personal Challenge pile was The Book Thief.  Twenty pages in and, though I could see it was going to be compulsive reading, I suddenly felt totally overwhelmed by more despair and doom than I could cope with, having just spent a stressful weekend with my mother being rushed to hospital (she is now fine and home again).  It was, therefore, with a feeling of relief and pleasure that I turned to Stage by Stage by Jan Jones, another of those lovely Transita authors who have been sending me books to read  (thank you all who have sent me books so far and please, don't stop...).

Beth's husband Alan walks out on her after 25 years of marriage and leaves her high and dry and in need of a cash injection into the household exchequer, so she becomes a landlady and starts doing Bed & Breakfast.  With two stage mad children, it is not long before she takes in lodgers from a touring acting group, one of whom is Owen Pendragon, who is dangerously attractive and emerges one morning from the bathroom with 'his dark hair curled damply......in his midnight blue towelling bathrobe' and wafting Aztec for Men all over the landing.    Beth has always found clean, wet men pretty arousing and there are copious mentions of Colin Firth/Darcy/Pride and Prejudice/manservant pouring can of water over Darcy/diving in the lake at Pemberley and walking across the grass in THAT t-shirt, all of which kept this reader very happy.  Owen has avoided commitment all his life, but that of course was before he met Beth and there are no prizes for guessing what happens next and how the story ends which is all very satisfying and fun.

This is a sparkling, witty book and very amusing.  I read it through in one sitting and found it the perfect antidote to the Ian McEwan and any imminent psychosis that had been lurking was chased away.  I gather that Jan has nearly finished writing her next book and I look forward to reading it with great pleasure.

I am now cheered up and feeling strong and back to The Book Thief which I am finding totally engrossing.  I was very surprised to find myself so caught up in it.  Perhaps this Contemporary Reading lark is not so bad after all....

Desperate Housewives - Part Deux

I have posted about The Homemaker and how the burden of being the perfect housewife brought Eva to the edge of a nervous breakdown.  One hopes that she did not get hold of a book republished by Persephone about 18 months ago called How to Run your Home without Help by Kay Smallshaw or it would probably have finished her off.    I have to admit that my first reaction when trawling through the pages of this book and seeing the lists of just what was expected of a housewife, was to hoot with disbelieving derision, particularly when coming across passages such as the following:

On mending:  “That mending!  When you are longing to relax with a book it seems like the last straw, but what man doesn’t expect his wife to take it in her stride?  Buttons on shirts, darns to socks, patches to curtains, bed-linen, table-linen, kitchen cloths.  They all take their share of time.  And of course, there’s always the personal sewing, making over and freshening up”

On polishing tiles “ .. for glazed ones, colourless wax polish is excellent.  For red, unglazed ones, a special tile polish is sold”.  We must not forget to “Rub up the floor surround last of all”.

And “as you give a final proud glance you can feel that the room shouldn’t need more than the daily flick for the next week’

Now I don’t want anyone getting the idea that I am a slattern, but this kind of housework is totally beyond my ken.  A monthly, or even bi-monthly clean, suffices as far as I am concerned.  If the feeling comes upon me that my kitchen floor really should be washed and that the ironing, which is assuming the aspect of the leaning tower of Pisa really needs be dealt with, then I tend to lie down and wait for this feeling to pass

Kay Smallshaw’s How to Run the Home without Help was published because, firstly, the pre-war days of maids, servants and housekeepers had vanished never to return, and middle class housewives found they had had no idea of how to cope.  A perfect illustration of one such bewildered housewife is Laura in One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes, surely one of the most elegiac descriptions of post-war country life ever written.

   

Secondly, it was written for those women who were now consigned back to the joys of the kitchen sink and the ironing board because the jobs they had held during the war were now needed for the men who were coming home.  Kay Smallshaw’s book would have been an invaluable help for these wives who were just as helpless as Laura when it came to running a house. 

The modern day woman might automatically assume that this return to domesticity was resented by all women. Not so. Though we might find it difficult to believe, there were ‘some young wives who had spent their girlhood as a conscript or a directed worker and asked nothing better than the kind of routine which her mother had found so frustrating and imprisoning’. The housewife was ‘quite willing to stay at home…. It was one of the things she had dreamed of when she had rushed to clock in or clip tickets on the first bus’.   (A Woman’s Place - Ruth Adams- Persephone).

It is to be hoped that this enthusiasm was maintained after polishing unglazed tiles with special tile polish and rubbing up the floor surround….

Enduring Love

I have called my 2006 attempt to read more contemporary fiction, Elaine's Personal Challenge, and I have to say that the word challenging certainly describes Enduring Love by Ian McEwan which I finished at the weekend.  I had had a difficult Saturday due to a family illness and was wide awake in the middle of the night at the time when your mind goes round and round and you cannot get to sleep.  I had started this book earlier in the week and so, knowing that attempting to sleep was useless, made myself a cup of tea, propped myself up in bed and spent the next two hours in a state of total emotional disarray until I had finished it.

The story begins on a lovely summer day in the English countryside. Joe Rose and Clarissa are having a picnic which is dramatically interrupted by a bizarre ballooning accident in which a man is killed.  During this incident Joe meets Jed Parry who immediately develops an obsessive love for Joe so powerful that it threatens his work, his marriage and, ultimately, his life.

Joe is an academic turned scientific journalist who, though having a successful career, is dissatisfied with the way his professional life has turned out. After Jed has read his published articles he sends him a letter in which he seems to have gone straight to the heart of Joe's dissatisfaction 'I mean, I knew you wrote about science and I was prepared to be baffled or bored, but I didn't know you wrote out of contempt'.  His obsession leads Jed to stand for hours outside Joe and Clarissa's home, to read hidden messages in Joe's simplest actions, to bombard Joe with letters which gradually become more threatening 'I'll never desert you but never never try to pretend to yourself that I do not exist'

As Joe becomes more and more unnerved by the situation he is bewildered and angry by the realisation that Clarissa does not totally believe him and their relationship comes under increasing strain.  He becomes more and more frustrated at his inability to make anybody take him seriously and believe that Jed is dangerous.

The tension gradually builds and finally culminates in a scene set in a restaurant where Joe and Clarissa are having lunch with her godfather, Professor Kale. There they sit, swapping ideas and thoughts in their own little cocoon oblivious of what is going on around them.  At a table close by sits another trio, an older man, a younger man and a young girl.  We do not know them, we do not know who they are and yet we begin to realise that they are there for a reason, they are going to be part of the story. I can't go into further detail without revealing what happens next, but I will say that it is mightily difficult to read this chapter without the reader's nerves twanging.   Mine certainly were.

I read this book with a horrified fascination. It affected me very strongly and left me feeling quite shaken and when I finally finished reading the notes and the Appendices at the end I closed it up, leaned back on my pillow and just went Phew O My God.  Not a very analytical or reasoned response, I know, but a real one.  I cannot say I loved this book or even liked it, neither of those anodyne phrases come anywhere near to describing my feelings, but I can say that I was bowled over by it and by the density and sheer mastery of the language which kept me totally gripped.

While I was recovery the next morning, I was surfing other blogs and came across a post, Hair Shirt Books, on Susan Hills' blog which sums up quite perfectly how I feel about Enduring Love:

"A Hair Shirt Book is not a book one dislikes. It is a book one admires and re-reads and gains from each time - but it is always a difficult read, always challenging and often upsetting and never comforting".

I couldn't think of a more apt description. This was my first Ian McEwan, but will not be my last.

Desperate Housewives

Persephone Books was founded for the purpose of ‘republishing new and rediscovered 20^th century fiction and non-fiction by women, for women and about women’.   These elegant books with their grey covers and beautiful end papers chronicle the lives of women between and during the World Wars and as (with a few exceptions) the books are written by women and, because of their time frame, it is inevitable that they will have a strong domestic background.

Books such as Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge and Princes in the Land by Joanna Cannan, have the same theme – family and home. The never ending drudgery involved in the day to day living portrayed in these stories seems to a modern female reader to be almost unbelievable

The Homemaker is a perfect illustration of a woman trapped in this daily grind.  Its author, Dorothy Canfield Fisher was an educational reformer and was responsible for introducing the Montessori Method of child rearing to the United States. As well as adult books she also wrote for children, one of the most well know being Understood Betsy portraying a school run on Montessori lines.  This method is based on the observing of young children, learning about their characteristics and needs, and emphasising the uniqueness of each child while recognising that children are different from adults in the way they develop and feel. 

At the beginning of the story we meet Eva, the Homemaker, caught in a never ending cycle of housework, cooking and cleaning.  She is quick witted, fiercely intelligent and creative and totally unable to bring about any change in her circumstances.  Her husband, Lester, also suffers, being deeply unhappy in his work, hating the world of commerce in which he is involved, and dreaming of writing poetry.  Quiet and gentle he is the antithesis of the fiery Eva. On first reading one wonders just how two such disparate personalities ever married. They have three children who suffer in their own way from the tensions in the marriage: Stephen, the youngest, throwing tantrums and in a state of permanent warfare with his parents, Henry with a weak stomach and Helen, nervous and lacking in self confidence. Neither Lester nor Eva has any time to devote to their children and to view them as anything other than a worry and a burden.

Lester suffers a crippling accident making him unfit for work, and finds himself in the position of homemaker. After spending time with them he realises that ‘he had never watched his children grow before’. After he has been home for some weeks observing Stephen he realises that something is deeply troubling him.  When Stephen finally confides in his father, Lester discovers that Stephen is terrified Eva is going to take his beloved teddy away and wash it:

‘Don’t let him be washed father. Don’t let him! He raised his streaming eyes agonizingly towards his father, his whole face quivering’.

Lester is horrified to find himself in the position of total power over another human being, one who had no appeal against any decision he might make. I always find this scene incredibly moving especially when Lester realises ‘what a fathomless blackness of  uncertainty’  his son must have felt.  The worst thing is that neither he, nor Eva, had ever given a thought to Stephen’s feelings at all.

In another pivotal scene Dorothy Canfield Fisher gives the reader a perfect example of the Montessori Method of self-directed learning.  Lester sits and watches Stephen quietly and determinately teaching himself how to use an egg whisk and beat an egg

‘Stephen did not flinch. He felt he almost had it……his back and legs ached, but he did not stop’

Gradually with the encouraging presence of their father the children’s strained nerves slowly relax and their characters expand and blossom.And what of Eva?  At the start of the book we  found her almost at screaming pitch and on the verge of a breakdown.  While Lester is at home, all unknowingly becoming a Montessori father, she is out in the world making her own voyage of self discovery.  Busy and vital, ideas flowing and energies channeled, she is a woman transformed.  Once Eva has found the opportunity of fulfilling her potential her problems, both physical and mental disappear.  Like Lester, she has found her correct place in the scheme of things.

So we now come to the question - why do I love this book so much?   First of all, it is a damn good read about role reversal and an unhappy marriage.  Sit down with a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit and just enjoy every page.  That will satisfy you.  Then the second time around, you realise there is a lot more to it than you thought.  You don’t have to know that Dorothy Canfield Fisher believed in the Montessori Method to appreciate this book, you just have to know that she has an innate understanding of how a child’s mind works. So you read the book from the child’s point of view and learn a great deal more than the first time around.  Then you go back to it again, and this time realise that this is a feminist book with the author having the courage to demonstrate that it is not necessary for a woman to be a Homemaker, a man can do it just as well.  Pretty  radical thinking at the time.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher was regarded by no less a personage than Eleanor Roosevelt as one of the ten most important women in America and after reading this book, you are certainly not going to argue with her. 

The Homemaker is timeless  -  it may be set in small town America in the 1920s, but just take a  look at the title of one of most successful TV programmes in the USA in the year 2006 – ‘Desperate Housewives’.  Makes you think.

JANE EYRE

Jane Eyre alert for anyone on the other side of the Pond who is unaware that this is being shown in the States this weekend.

Wonderful wonderful production, superlative acting.  All possible criticism of modernising of some of the language is far outweighed by acting and production.

One of my favourite books of all time and when this DVD comes out here in the UK next week, it will be in my shopping bag.

Don't miss  ---- please

Historical/Present has asked if she could reprint my comments I made on a book group last year after watching each episode in the UK and I am delighted that she should want to do so.  Please do log on and see if you agree with me after you have watched Episode One.

The Name's Bond, James Bond

Was supposed to be up in London today to meet a friend and stay in town, but when I got to my railway station this morning, after battling to keep my baby Nissan on the road against the crosswinds, it was to find the station flooded, the track flooded and all trains sheltering in the sidings.  So, I turned round and came home and am very glad I did.  The trees are in a horizontal position outside my window and the rain coming down in stair rods, also horizontal, so I am quite glad to be here indoors nice and warm and cosy.  I comfort myself with the thought that I am saving money as my meetings with this particular friend normally end up in the Waterstones at Piccadilly, spending money I have not got on books I should not be buying.

Instead I am having a quiet day reading, writing and blog hopping as I have lots of unexpected time to do so.  Carl V had visited me and left a comment on The Ladies of Grace Adieu, and I paid a reciprocal visit and found that he has decided to re-read all the Ian Fleming James Bond novels, and this sparked off memories in my mind of the first one I ever read, Casino Royale.

You can see from this picture (and yes it was this edition I had) that it was a long time ago and definitely pre-decimal. I was 12 years old and found the whole book a bit shocking.  I was young, I was innocent and I was at Convent School.  Enough said I think.  I was totally gripped by the story, fell in love with James Bond immediately, and found the sex scenes (which are probably positively pure if I read them again now) quite something.  The scene where he was tortured was horrific and though I could not understand the card game at all (still can't) it reeked of nervous tension.

I was so gripped by this book that I smuggled it into school and sat and read it slap bang in front of our maths teacher, Mother Pauline, who would have exhibited a quite un-nun like response if she had noticed I had this paperback propped up behind a pile of text books.  I was amazed that she did not notice my abstraction, but looking back, I daresay this far away look was one she was used to seeing on my face during maths lessons.

I read all of the Ian Fleming books after that and loved them all.  I think I may have to join Carl and revisit them and see what I make of them now after some 45+ years.  As far as I can recall they were very very good, but the original writing and characterisation has got lost in the James Bond movie franchise and perhaps we need to go back to the original source.  This is certainly what has been done with the latest Bond film 'Casino Royale' and, though Daniel Craig does not fit Fleming's description of Bond, he brings real integrity to the part and makes it more hard hitting, and less comic book as it was with Roger Moore and, much though it pains me to say it as I love him, Pierce Brosnan.

In earlier Bond movies the action sequences were fun and you could laugh and cheer, in the latest they make you wince and duck and you genuinely do not know if Bond is going to survive.  Well, you do really but he has to go through a hell of a lot more than he normally does.   Genius ending.  The viewer has been waiting for THAT line and wondering when it is going to come and in the final scene, as Bond has shot the villain who was responsible for the death of the woman he loved, and the dying man gasps 'Who are you?'  there it is ' The name's Bond, James Bond' and we know that all he has suffered in this film has made him the 007 who will now carry on with his job.

I have seen this movie twice and I can assure you I went to see it the second time because I just thought it was so darned good.  The thought that I might have a second look at Daniel Craig emerging from the sea in THOSE swimming trunks never crossed my mind. 

Honest.

The Ladies of Grace Adieu

About eighteen months ago I fell victim to a dreadful illness which took me over for two weeks.  It was called Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell-itis and its outward manifestations were a far away look, a lack of attention to daily life and dark circles under the eyes.  The cause of this was, of course, the discovery of this wonderful book by Susannah Clarke, all about magic and faerie in England.  On the face of it this was not a book that appealed to me in the slightest and I ended up reading it, not for reasons of literary merit, but because Amazon was selling it half price (come on we have all done this, let's be honest...).  So it arrived, I struggled through the first 50 or so pages thinking this is not for me, and then I arrived in York Minster and Jonathan Strange brought the statues to life and that was it.  I was hooked.

This book is of doorstep size and cannot be carted onto the commute so it was evenings and weekends until I had finished it, hence the black circles concomitant with nightly reading in bed till 2 am in the morning despite the fact I had to get up in 4 hours to get on the train and go to work.I know this is one of those books that you either love or loathe and while loving it, I can understand why others could not get on with it, but I think they are missing a treat.  No matter.

Susannah Clarke apparently spent over ten years writing this book so Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, the Sequel, is not likely to hove over the horizon any day now.  So I was delighted to see The Ladies of Grace Adieu appear.  First thing to say about it, is that it is beautifully produced.  I have a pale pink and grey version in a wonderful slip cover gives the book a wonderfully magic, historical, old fashioned feel about it.   Beautifully illustrated by Charles Vess in black and white, almost Beardsley-ish in some cases, it is a joy to have.

Now we come to the content.  Well, of course Susannah Clarke has not produced a new work.  If the reader checks the inside ISBN page he or she will see that this is a collection of short stories previously published in a New York Magazine, Starlight or the New York Times.  The title story The Ladies of Grace Adieu rather cunningly features Jonathan Strange so that those of us who have read her earlier work are immediately hooked should we pick this up in a book shop and read the first story.  It would appear that this was published in 1996 when one assumes Susannah Clarke was writing her Magnus Opus, so did she do this as light relief and featured one of her main protagonists in her work in progress, or did she re-write it to fit into this collection and act as a selling point?  Just a thought.

No matter how long ago these were written, I am very happy they are all here in one volume as they are all delightful.  One of the stories 'Lickorish Hill' is a retelling of Tom-Tit-Tot or Rumpelstiltskin, but the others are original (I am assuming so) and all have that mysterious, fey quality to them that was so prevalent in  JS&MR, the quality that gives you a shiver down your spine and makes you avoid looking into dark corners in case you find something lurking there that you are not sure of.  They are also witty and funny, particularly Mr Simonelli or The Fairy Widower where a parish priest becomes engaged to all five sisters in one day to save them being whisked away by a Fairy on the look out for a new wife.  This humour was also present in JS&MR where Jonathan Strange went to help the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular Wars and moved roads and cities around so the French didn't know where they were going half the time.  He may even have had something to do with the victory at the Battle of Waterloo...

So, whether they are new or old doesn't really matter to me.  I love this collection and it will keep me going until Susannah Clarke gives us another tome to keep us up at nights.  You can't blame Bloomsbury for plugging into the JS&MN selling point.  Let's face it, with the last Harry Potter coming out this year and no more uber-profits coming in, they have to do something.