Random Jottings

Dickens' Women - Miriam Margolyes

I am a member of the Amazon Vine Programme and each month receive a newsletter from which I can choose a book or two, or whatever they are offering. This is meant to be tailored to one's preferences as shown by my Amazon browsings, but I find the offerings sometimes are wildly out of my field of enjoyment.  I mean Vampire books?

I should not moan as I do end up with some fascinating and interesting stuff and this month hit pay dirt when I saw they were offering this Audio CD - Dickens' Women Miriam Margolyes one woman show. I pounced upon this with delight and finally had a quiet hour this morning to sit down and listen.  It seems that this was originally issued on cassette and was on Radio 4 back in 1993.  The BBC never miss a marketing trick and wheeled this out for the Dickens Celebrations.   I am not complaining. This was sheer delight from start to finish my only disappointment being that there was no Aunt Betsy Trotwood included in the gallery of characters. 

There was, however, a feast of readings - Sairey Gamp from Martin Chuzzlewit, one of those grotesques so loved by Dickens which sometimes grate on me, but read in such a wonderful way that I found myself laughing out loud.   An excerpt from the Commercial Traveller, so not just the well known stuff appears here, then Mrs Lirriper (I read and reviewed this a few years ago here), Little Dorrit, Rosa Dartle and the wonderful scene from Oliver Twist when Mr Bumble woos Mrs Corney.

I have always found Mr Micawber a total pain and do wonder why his wife puts up with him, but here Miriam reads Mrs Micawber's 'I will never desert mr Micawber' excerpt so beautifully and touchingly that I ended up with a lump in my throat.

I love all of Dickens that I have read, but will admit that sometimes they gain from being read aloud, as he proved himself on his wildly successful tours, and it is such a joy to listen to a marvellous actress as Miriam Margolyes bringing all the characters to life.   This was recorded 'live' so you can hear the audience reaction of laughter and applause and this creates a wonderful atmosphere. Miriam, herself, is just so witty and funny and reads excerpts from Dickens' letters and adds spot on acerbic comments which had the audience in the theatre, and me at home, in fits of laughter.

We all know how cruelly Dickens treated his wife. I have tried to find excuses for him when I have reviewed various biographies about him, but really I cannot any more.  His behaviour was appalling and his treatment of Catherine, unforgivable.   When he separated himself from her, he gave her a house, an allowance and sent her youngest child to live with her, the other children were kept away.  She lived in Gloucester Terrace for over twenty years and never saw Dickens again.   Only after his death was she reconciled with her daughters (and I don't think much of their behaviour I must say) and here is the saddest reading of all by Miriam.   As Catherine lay dying she gave a packet of letters to her daughter Kate, with the request that they be given to the British Museum 'so that the world may see he loved me once'.

I cried....

Beaton, Carluccios and Slightly Foxed

Up to London today to meet a friend and to attend the Cecil Beaton Portraits of the Queen exhibition at the V&A.  No matter how hard I tell myself that getting on the train is voluntary and that I am no longer commuting, I find it very hard to shake off the feeling of apprehension when I drive to the station and park my car, preparatory to boarding the train. Thirty years of commuting takes a lot of forgetting.

But this visit was for pleasure and my good friend Curzon and I duly met up and took ourselves off to the V&A, which is my most favourite museum in London.  I simply adore going there and could wander around for hours. This time we just focused on the Cecil Beaton and though we arrived before our allotted time we were allowed and as it got rather crowded towards the end, was rather pleased we have been a tad previous.

Most of the photos were familiar to me, having featured in many magazines and books over the years.   His pictures of Queen Elizabeth (before she became the Queen Mother) in the lovely white crinolines she wore when she visited Paris are really quite beautiful.  The Parisians had been rather sneery about the Queen's sense of dress and style and so these pictures quite took them by storm and the visit was hugely successful.

We had a series of photographs from the current Queen as a small child, through her teenage years, up to and beyond her Coronation and I know it is difficult for people nowadays to realise it, but the Queen was simply beautiful when she was younger.   Old black and white newsreels of the then Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip shortly after their marriage show a devastatingly starry couple - Liz and Phil knew all about glam long before Princess Di came along.   Quite a few portraits of Prince Philip I had not seen before when he was in full naval uniform and he was dashing and handsome and no wonder the Queen fell in love with him.   Some charming shots of Princess Anne as well, all golden curls and prettiness which showed how like her is her daughter Zara.  

I make no bones about the fact that I am a supporter of the Monarchy.  As history was my favourite subject at school and still is, the thought that there is a long line of rulers stretching back through the centuries is totally fascinating and when we stopped and looked at a film of the Coronation which is on a loop during the exhibition I still got goosebumps when I saw the pageantry and the beauty of it all.  Am very much looking forward to the Jubilee celebrations.

We nipped into the V&A shop which is one of the best Museum shops around and felt very virtuous that I did not buy a thing.  Quite easy actually as the only item I really wanted was a glorious silk scarf, light as a feather and floating like a cloud, which was a snip at £145............

Lunch at Carluccios - I know this is a chain/franchise whatever, but it doesn't feel like it and the food is always good and the staff very friendly and charming.  It has become a custom with us that we always to to Carluccios and was glad to find a branch just opposite South Kensington Tube station.

Then a walk down to Gloucester Road to visit the Slightly Foxed bookshop which I had forgotten was so near and which has been on my list of places to visit for some time.   Charming gentleman behind the bijou counterette who was ready to talk about books at the drop of a hat and was highly knowledgeable and friendly to boot.  These are not always the characteristics of most book shop assistants these days so should be appreciated when found. 

Could not leave without a purchase. Well, I had resisted the lure of the silk scarf so I bought two Slightly Foxed editions, with which I am rapidly falling in love, The Young Ardizzone a biographical fragment of Edward Ardizzone and simply crammed full of his gloriously wonderfully drawings. Looking forward to reading this.  The other purchase was A House in Flanders by Michael Jenkins. This was originally published by Souvenir Press and I had a copy of that edition and reviewed it here.  I really loved it but then passed my copy onto somebody and then immediately regretted it so was glad to have the chance to have this back on my shelves once more.  This edition has a postscript added to it by the author as well so it is well worth having.

And then home on the train, where I did my usual commuter thing, and fell asleep all the way home. No doubt I had my mouth open and was dribbling but I don't care and woke up when the train clicked across to come into Colchester station. That change in the sound of the track always woke me up and it worked again today.

Gorgeous day - a good friend, good books, good food - who could want more?   And I get to go to bed tonight with the serene thought that I don't have to get back on the train and commute in the morning.

Oh how I love being retired....

Recipe for Love - Katie Fforde

As mentioned in my earlier post, I have had a really busy week and was looking forward to a weekend of doing very little and, apart from some gardening today, that is what I have done.

Spent a nice lazy morning in bed reading Recipe for Love. Wide awake at 6 am so nipped into the kitchen, made cup of tea and plumped up the pillows, opened page one and that was it - two hours later I finished, got up and feeling in a very happy mood indeed, cooked breakfast.

Katie has tapped into the current fascination for baking and cupcakes (I have been making these for years but in my day they were called fairy cakes...) and our interest in cooking competitions.  The Great British Bake Off comes to mind immediately when we discover that our heroine Zoe Harper has won a coveted place in a televised cookery competition.   She hopes that this will set her on the road to owning her own little delicatessen that she has set her heart on.

The contestants are a mixed bunch but Zoe finds she has to share accommodation with Cher, a glam The Only Way is Essex girl who is only interested in fame and fortune: "I intend to win you know....I always achieve what I set out to do....this time I'm going to be famous which means I have to win this competition...I might not be the best cook there, but I will be the prettiest and the sexiest so I'll win"

And she sets out to sabotage Zoe's chances by locking her out of her accommodation one night and wiping all her recipes off her laptop and, on another occasion, leaving the window open so Zoe's bed is soaked and she has nowhere to sleep.   This means that Zoe has to go and find somewhere to bed down in the main house of Somerby.  And that is where one of the judges, Gideon, is staying.  And there are not too many spare bedrooms around, in fact there are none.

OK going to stop there as no prizes for guessing what happens next. I have already said that romances are, by their very nature, formulaic but that does not stop them being pleasurable and when they are as well written as Katie's, then they are sheer delight.   The author has written seventeen of these witty and warm romantic novels. I have every single one and I love every single one.  

Now Katie may describe Gideon as having "curly, slightly too long hair....actually a very dark red. He had green eyes and curving mouth and a large, slightly hooked nose.  She couldn't decide if he was very handsome or really quite ugly, but she did have to admit he was extremely sexy"  but as far as I was concerned he was Paul Hollywood. He shot into my inner vision from page one and no matter how hard I tried to kick him out there he stayed.  I was aching for Gideon to say 'good bake' and then my happiness would have been complete.

Who Paul Hollywood I hear you cry, those of you on the other side of the Pond. Well, here is a pic. He is one of the judges of the Great British Bake Off and he is a bit chunky and not a young Adonis, but when  I spotted him at the Bloomsbury Party last summer, surrounded by women I was riveted to the spot as he is, like Gideon, 'extremely sexy'.

Lovely book, great descriptions of food and cooking, country setting, all delivered in Katie's inimitable style. I simply loved it.

Random Saturday on a Spring Day

And that is what it feels like.  The sun is shining, the sky is blue and there is that something in the air which means Spring is on its way.  I love that feeling, it is a feeling I never get at New Year, but only in the Spring, the feeling that something joyous and lovely is on its way.  Last year we formed a Residents Association for our little block of flats and we all got to know each other so much better and became better neighbours.  Many happy hours have been spent in the communal gardens digging and weeding and planting and sweating and staggering indoors with back ache and now we are seeing the first results.  All the crocuses I put in last year are pushing their way through the soil, the daffs are nearly out and two large tubs of hyacinths are also nearly there and will be in flower in a few weeks.  It is simply wonderful and we all have such plans for this year too.   I think it will take about three years before we have the gardens just how we want them and am looking forward to seeing how my rose bed, which I also planted in 2011, turns out this summer.

Planning on a border of white alyssum, red flowers (not sure what yet) and blue lobelia so we can be all patriotic in the year of the Queen's Jubilee and the Olympics.   We are also planning on having a tea party at the Jubilee Weekend which will be tremendous fun so it is all go here in our Close.

I have just finished reading Recipe for Love by Katie Fforde and loved every single minute and every single word.  Her books always cheer me up and leave me in a happy mood and will be reviewing this in more detail later.  The post also brought me another three books for review and then the library wrote and told me that Dear Dodie by Valerie Grove had arrived for me so was pleased about that.  Of course, the postman delivered this after I had already left and gone to the library so on returning home had to go straight back and collect it.  No matter, I have already read the first chapter and know that I am going to thoroughly enjoy it.  I am having a Dodie month and, as already mentioned, some of her novels are being reprinted next month which is excellent news..

So a random rambling post today, do I give you any others? No need to answer that...

Now apropos of nothing at all, I have decided to try and eschew tea bags.  Have tried so many different kinds and cannot find one that is particularly satisfactory and then a few weeks ago I read an article about the Joys of Proper Tea by Alexander McCall Smith, he of the Precious Ramotswe and her Red Bush tea, and he was extolling the proper use of tea pots and totally dismissive of a tea bag in a mug.   I love AMS and his lovely gentle attitude to life and his writings so decided to take note and now hae a little tea pot with a built in tea leaf holder so that you don't suffer all those awful dregs at the bottom of the pot which used to plague my childhood. Nothing worse than soggy tea leaves and I used to dump them in the sink and, of course, the pipes eventually got blocked and my mum got cross.   So I have just bought my first little packet of leaf tea, nothing exciting, Twinings Breakfast Tea, and have just drank my first pot.  And how do I feel about it?    Well, I really enjoyed it, fuller flavour and I let it brew for a few minutes and squeezed a second cup out and, yes, will continue and will try other varieties of tea.   Only thing I must remember is that if you make it in the pot and then pour into the cup it gets cooler quicker than if the boiling water goes straight into a mug.  So don't hang about.  I shall let you know how I get on.  Has anybody out there drunk Redbush Tea and can you tell me what its flavour is like please?

Restful weekend as I have had a busy, but lovely week, and by Friday evening was totally exhausted.  Florence utterly enchanting, but she is two and full of energy, and grandma is neither so in bed by 10pm last night and slept for ten hours and now feel OK.   Hard to face up to the fact that I cannot do all I want to do as I did in the past, but must be sensible. Busy days followed by relaxing weekend and vice versa must be my motto for the future.

To that end I have some DVDs to watch tonight, feet up and same to morrow as I am off to London on Monday to meet a very good friend (she is a grandmother too so we sit and drool about our grandchildren) and we are going to the Cecil Beaton exhibition at the V&A and then will hie us off to Carluccios for lunch afterwards.   These lunches usually last at least two hours and sometimes morph into tea as well so am looking forward to that enormously.

I hope the the sky is blue where you are and that you all have a lovely weekend.

Au reservoir.

One of my very favourites - Katie Fforde

I have a list of about half a dozen authors whose books I always buy. I do not wait for the paperback and I do not pester publishers for review copies - I just buy them. Katie Fforde is one of these authors and I look forward each year to her next book.  

I have every single one of her titles, see picture below and if I am feeling fed up or miz, for whatever reason, I know if I sit down and read a Katie or two I will feel much better. It never fails. When I had the 'flu in January and was feeling a tad pissed off with everything, I retired to bed with a pile of them next to me and embarked on a re-read. OK I fell asleep after a while, but this was because I was relaxed, not because I was bored.

I came across Katie's book, The Rose Revived, by sheer chance in my local Waterstones. I liked the cover, picked it up, read a couple of pages and that was it. Bought it, loved it and have been a fan ever since.  The first four books had simply gorgeous covers, paintings which caught my eye and which I thought were quite lovely.  My favourite out of these early covers was Wild Designs - I would love to have a print of this picture as it is so sunny and vivid and would cheer anybody up, even on the darkest winter day.

But then the covers changed.  I remember reading that sales increased when this new style came in and though I was really disappointed to see the familiar chicklitty pastels arriving, authors don't just write for the love of it, they have to sell their books and if a new cover achieves this, well that's that. But I do miss them.

No matter, the content is still terrific fun. Love stories are by their very nature formulaic. Girl meets boy, they fall in love, then a misunderstanding or a quarrel separates them, but in the end all is sorted out and they are reunited.   Non-lovers of romantic fiction turn their noses up and sneer, but let them. There is nothing more comforting that a fail safe happy ending which happens in real life as well as in fiction.  Yes, it does. Has not happened to me personally but when I spend a day with my daughter and her husband and my darling Florence and see how happy they are together, then I know that this is true. So ye of little faith, hence away and wallow in your misery.

What I like about Katie's heroines are that quite a few of them are of a 'certain age'. They have been married and divorced, have grown up children, or are not in the first flush of youth.  Some of her later books have featured younger characters, but my favourites are those that feature older women. Well, they would be wouldn't they seeing as I have just celebrated a birthday which I gather is called a 'Medicare birthday' in the USA...........

I think my favourite out of all Katie's books is Stately Pursuits.  Hetty, our heroine, finds her lover in bed with somebody else rushes off home to her mother, who being a wise woman (as are all mothers) arranged for her to take care of a crumbling house owned by her Great Uncle Samuel who is in hospital. Her mother feels she will be too busy to pine and that this will help her recover from her broken heart.  The house is dilapidated and dirty and Hetty has to get it ready for the season when it is open to the public.   Of course she gradually falls in love with the house and then the future owner turns up who has every intention of selling off the house as soon as he is able.  Well, Hetty has other plans and there follows a love hate relationship with Connor:

"He was tall wide and crumpled. His rugged features were screwed into a combination of extreme fatigue, irascibility and irritation. He had the touch, roughened look of a man who could wear Shetland wool next to the skin and not itch"

Oooo-er.

And later:

"I promised Samuel not to seduce you"  Hetty swallowed. He was leaning so close to her she could see a tiny thread caught into a loop in his lapel. She could see the movement of his breathing as he leaned on the cupboard. It seemed fast for someone who was so fit..."

You want to find out what happens next? Well, get your own copy and stop looking at mine.

Witty, warm, amusing and delightful and a variety of settings from a stately home to a barge to the Scottish Highlands to an antique show room to a house boat to New York, I love every single one.

I said at the start of this post that I always buy Katie's books and never try to blag a free copy so I can only say a big thank you to the lovely kind person at Random House who sent me her latest title, Recipe for Love.  I arrived home today from my stay in London and there were a pile of parcels waiting for me and when I opened the first one, there it was.   I have had a simply lovely time this week celebrating my birthday and this was the icing on the cake.

So thank you thank you thank you.  I am saving this up for the weekend and am looking forward to reading every single word and I know I will love it.

Lucky Me

By the time this is up my 65th birthday will have passed and while part of me is totally horrified that I have reached this age, another part of me feels that I am blessed in many ways. Don't want to go all touch feely on you but really I do have to count my blessings.

I have been through the mill a bit, two marriages, two divorces which is not how I planned my life I can tell you now, but out of my second marriage came my two wonderful daughters, Kathryn and Helen. I had never wanted children, or so I told myself, but then with the old clock ticking I realised I did, and was lucky enough to have two straightforward pregnancies. I had spent so many years saying Oh No Yukky kids, yukky nappies I rather thought God might have put this down in his notebook and then when I changed my mind said Nothing Doing Elaine.  But he didn't and if I occasionally imagine what my life would have been without my darling girls, I come over all cold and goose bumpy.

Of course, I now also have Florence who is the light of my life and by the time you read this I will be in London for the day giving her a cuddle and looking after her. Her joyful shrieks when I arrive just lift my heart and then her yells when I disappear upstairs to the bathroom (which I always have to do after my drive...) because she thinks I am going home or vanishing, are pretty piercing and I have to hang over the bannister and assure her I will be back down in a minute.

I also have a long term friend in my life who has kept me going for years and if he reads this he will know who it is. Can't imagine my life without him either....

Nice birthday cards and good wishes flowing in and loads of messages via Facebook and the internet from all the friends I have made over the last ten years of internet usage, and then a knock on the door and there was a delivery man with a wonderful bouquet of flowers for me. They were from my sister and brother in law and quite beautiful.  An hour later he was back - 'Just got back to the shop and I was told to come out again!' and these were from Kathryn. Tears of course and her note said remember last year mum when we were at the opera house?  I do indeed and next year will be there again as my trip is already planned and the money box is having pennies dropped into it.   I fully intend to stay two months this time. Only downside of course is no Florence for two months but Skype will help.

So a lovely day and will be spending the evening watching DVD's and chilling.

Back on Thursday

Dodie Smith - not just 101 Dalmatians

Along with most of us I suspect, I only knew Dodie Smith as the author of 101 Dalmatians and it remained this way until in my mid-forties I came across a battered old green Virago edition of I captured the Castle and realised it was the same author. I read it and loved it and that was that. I knew no more of her or anything else she had written for years until I read Look back with Love, my current book of the month, re-issued in the lovely Slightly Foxed Editions.

Won't repeat myself, here is what I said then and this delightful tale set me in search of the other volumes of autobiography available.  It goes without saying that I am reading them in the wrong order, but this is because I reserved them at the library where they had to be dug up out of an archive somewhere in the bowels of Essex and I have to take 'em when I can get 'em.

So the fourth one first - Look Back with Gratitude and this covers her life in the US during the war. Her husband, Alec and their Dalmatian Pongo, set sail for New York to see America and to check on her play Dear Octopus which was running in the Big Apple.  Alec was a conscientious objector and part of their departure was to avoid him being conscripted into the war in any way and though this was not advertised as the main reason when they left, I doubt that many of their friends were unaware of this. They lived in California and were drawn reluctantly in the film world, mainly because they paid well and they needed the money but they made many lasting friendships there including Christopher Isherwood, whose story about Sally Bowles became a successful play, I am a Camera. It seems that Alec was the person who suggested this. Isherwood at first pooh poohed the idea but then took it on board and the results are well known.

Though I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir, I did have slight difficulty coming to terms with the fact that effectively, they fled the UK throughout the war and only returned when peace was declared.  I am well aware from my readings of Noel Coward's letters and diaries that he was excoriated for going abroad, though it turned out later he was engaged in intelligence work, so I wonder how the great British public reacted to the exit of the Beesleys?   Sorry, Beelsey is Alec's surname and I admit this sounds like a title from Harry Potter...

The third volume Look back with Astonishment, which I read after the fourth (as I said I never do things the correct way) covers the period in her life when she realised she could never make a career on the stage as she was just not good enough and she ended up working at Heals. Yes, good old Heals still in the Tottenham Court Road in the same building as photographed for this book.  My abiding impression when reading this is that she got away with murder; seemed to do more or less what she liked; was bossy and lost her temper at regular intervals; was given time off ad nauseam when she had her first play produced and yet managed to retain a part time job at Heals.  I did wonder what her fellow workers thought of all of this, surely they must have resented it?   Throughout this volume Dodie talks about a man with whom she is having an affair and who she called Oliver.   Since then I have discovered that 'Oliver' was in fact, Ambrose Heal himself, so no wonder she was more or less allowed the run of the place.   She also got her furniture at a discount............

Having read these volumes and found them interesting, witty and full of wonderful cameos of the actors, actor managers and film stars of that period, I then found myself in the position I sometimes find myself in after reading an autobiography, of not sure that I liked the writer very much.  The first volume Look back with Love was totally enchanting but Dodie was writing about her childhood and her family and was not quite so centred on herself. I think the problem, for me, is that the rest of these volumes is all about her, and naturally so.  Have said this on many occasions I know, but when you write an autobiography or diaries, it is difficult to hide one's real character, they are always a give away, and Dodie gives away quite a bit here.  She met her husband Alec when he worked at Heals, he was seven years younger than her and became totally devoted. She viewed him as a rather sweet young man but warned him off falling in love with her. Impossible for him not to know about the identity of 'Oliver'. He supported her, helped her, financed her when she was broke and eventually became her manager when she became a full time playwright.  But, if there is one thing that will make me change my mind about Dodie it is the fact that she gradually came to realise what she had got, she ended her affair with 'Oliver' and married Alec though this was not until she was in her forties and they had been together for years.   They then had the most wonderfully happy marriage and she shows herself at her best when she writes about him:

"Of course I had known I should miss Alec, but during our wild rush to get me off I hadn't had time to think just how much I should miss him......I felt ill with a sense of loss....during our thirteen years in Amercia we had been separate for less than half a dozen nights...now we shouldn't see each for months. Was he as distressed as I was?"

Well, yes he was and on checking her biography it seems that they both lived well into their nineties and their happiness was total and enduring.  I have now reserved Dear Dodie by Valerie Groves at my library as I feel I need another viewpoint other than that of Dodie herself.   Last year I read all of the Journals of LM Montgomery, heartbreaking in places, and then a biography and it was incredibly interesting to see the emotional outpourings of the journals were harnessed within the biography and a balance created.  So looking forward to the same when the library lets me know it has arrived.

All of these books are out of print but seem to be available on Abe Books, Amazon etc and if you are interested in this author, they really are worth a read.

It was only after starting this Dodie binge that I discovered, serendipity of the highest order, that several of her novels are being reprinted, The New Moon with the Old; The Town in Bloom and It ends in Revelations.  These are being published by Corsair in March 2012 and I will be trying to lay my hands on copies of same.

An intriguing lady....

All I want is a Room in Bloombury.....

".......just a dear little room for you and me"

Found myself humming this as I, along with Simon of Stuck in a Book and Karen of Cornflower, mounted the steps of 50 Bedford Square wherein dwelleth Bloombury Publishers.   They were hosting a Bloggers Tea Party and sod the Booker Prize and the Litterati, I tell you the Bloggerati were out in force.  As well as the aforementioned three we had the bloggers of Lizzy Siddall, Farmlane Books, Dovegreyreader, Litlove and sure there were a few more I missed.  Several of us knew each other and had met before but some we had not and there were all sorts of shrieks of OH How Super to meet you and O MY God which put me in mind of an early episode of Friends when Rachel greeted her old school mates with similar shrieks. Still, no matter it was fun.  

The publicity team was out en masse and could not have made us more welcome plying us with tea and scones and cream and carrot cake et al and I had a few rushing up to me and saying Oh YOU are Elaine from Random, I love your blog which is all excellent for the ego and made me feel as I would soon be gracing the pages of Hello...

We then had the pleasure of meeting Suzanne Joinson whose debut novel A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar is out in July this year. Set in 1923 tells the story of Evangeline English who joins her sister Lizzie at the ancient Silk Route city of Kashgar.  Eva's motives for leaving her bourgeois life back at home are not clear cut but we are soon going to find out. Sounds fascinating and am in an Indian mood at the moment as two books recently read by me are set in this area, so another goodie to look forward to.

Kate Summerscale, author of the number on bestseller The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, then arrived and talked to us about her upcoming book, Mrs Robinson's Disgrace; the private diary of a Victorian lady who was at the centre of a scandal when her husband found her diary and discovered she was having an affair.  Or was she?  Very interesting to hear Kate tell us the ins and outs of all of this and cannot wait to get my hands on a copy.

And then in walks William Boyd. I have written my review of Waiting for Sunrise which I think is a simply stunning book and had promised my daughter Kathryn that I would pass on her message to him that he was her 'favourite modern author'.  I grabbed my copy of his book, swep across the room and accosted him immediately and told him I was about to gush. He didn't seem to mind, dare say he is used to ladies of a certain age doing this, but he was charming and took it all very well and he then personally signed a copy for Kathryn which I am posting to her this week and know she will be thrilled. Would have quite happily pinned him to the wall for the rest of the afternoon but aware that a queue was forming behind me, took myself back to my cup of tea and half eaten scone and gloated.

Bloomsbury have a new imprint coming up soon, Circus, and Alexandra Pringle spoke to us about this and also about other titles and it was clear from her chat to us that she simply loves all the wonderful books that are going through her hands and the Autumn list is already sounding pretty sumptuous to me.  I do remember a very doom laden article in a paper a few years ago predicting the demise of Bloomsbury once J K Rowling had finished her Harry Potter books.   Nothing could be further from the truth and things are sounding exciting at this publishing House.

We were then told 'Oh do help yourselves to books, to whatever you like' from the piles of books and proofs all around the room.  Total carnage then ensued as we fell upon them like the wolves on the fold and were handed bags to carry our booty away with us.   Among the books I acquired was Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding.  Her novel The Spy Game which I reviewed a year or two back here is one I am very much looking forward to reading.

A simply splendid day and I staggered off Tubewards with book-bags slung over my shoulder and squashed on to the Central Line where I used these are battering rams to force my way into the heaving carriage as I made my way to Liverpool Street for the train home.  I had remembered to put my iPod in my bag so was able to sit back listen to Schubert and look at all the reading treasures awaiting me.

THANK YOU Bloomsbury for a lovely day.

Weekend Random

Such a busy week and glad I am to have a nice quiet day at home lolling around and draping myself over my sofa in Anglo-Saxon attitudes.   Tea at Bloomsbury report tomorrow complete with photo of Yours Truly grinning inanely alongside a more composed William Boyd will be up with my burblings on same. Bet you can't wait...

I am tidying up my blog this weekend, sorting out blog roll, checking out bits and pieces (blimey it has just started sheeeeting down and rain is hurling against my window) and, in order to keep an up to date list of books that have really stood out for me, I am instigating Book of the Month and this will be posted up at the top right hand column of Random at the end of each month.  In January I had Magnificent Obsession by Helen Rappaport up as I had chosen her book as my book of the year in December 2011, this month I have flagged up Look Back with Love by Dodie Smith which I simply adored and read in January and I already have my February choice up and ready to go, unless something else turns up in the next week.  Not exactly innovative or earth shattering addition but I just want to flag up slightly more prominently the books I have enjoyed throughout the year. 

I am currently reading more of Dodie Smith's autobiography which I requested from my library and they arrived last week, battered and well worn and am simply loving them.  Will write more on them later in a separate post.

Held a meeting last night of our Resident's Association and we are now finally in the throes of having Sky installed for the block.  This has taken some time, in fact years, to get organised but as Sky have realised that a communal dish for flats will lead to lots of people taking out subscriptions, they have made the whole process much easier and subsidise each installation so it is costing us next to nothing.  I mentioned earlier that I simply cannot afford to go to the opera any more, unless I win the lottery which is unlikely, and it may have to be a once a year treat, if that.  Have cancelled my membership of the Friends of Covent Garden and so Sky Arts which shows lots of operas and classical concerts will be good to have.  I am adding on Sky Sports as I simply must be able to watch the Test Matches which are no longer on terrestrial TV though I will admit that missing the last series against Pakistan was a blessing in disguise. It goes against the grain to put money in Mr Murdoch's pocket but it simply cannot be avoided. I do my best by avoiding The Sun (easy) and the Times (also easy as it is expensive and you cannot even look at it online without paying). I used to read the Times regularly until 1997 when the paper's integrity disappeared up Tony Blair's backside from where the sun shone brightly on Dear Rupert and I stopped reading instantamente.  But I have to come to terms with the fact if I want Cricket and Tennis I have to keep Mr Murdoch in the lap of luxury. It hurts believe me.

I am also tackling the budget for next year and one of the benefits of forming this Association is that the management company can no longer just foist stuff on us - we have to be consulted and I am a demon with budgets having had to deal with them at work on a regular basis.  So I am sharpening my quill as I write and will be presenting my budget for consideration to the company next week.  Determined to get the monthly charge down to a reasonable level and as the residents are doing a lot more work now, can see no reason why this cannot be achieved.

OK incredibly boring post but I do like to write on Random even if I have nothing to say so grin and bear it. It is a horrid day outside now so I hope all Random Readers are warm and comfortable inside like me.

Au reservoir.

Waiting for Sunrise - William Boyd

I will be perfectly honest here and say I have not read much William Boyd.  Restless a few years ago which I enjoyed, though preferred the war time story rather than the more contemporary one, and thought must keep an eye out for more by this author. Then last year when visiting my daughter in Australia I came across a copy in her book case of Any Human Heart. 'Mum you have to read this, it's wonderful'.

She was right. It was.

And so is this.

Waiting for Sunrise arrived on Tuesday morning and for the rest of the day all chores were abandoned as I sat on my lovely new sofa and read and read and read.  I then found I had to put the book down. I was enjoying it so much I did not want it to end so had to ration myself until yesterday when I thought sod this for a game of soldiers and took it up and read it through to its incredible conclusion.

Lysander Rief is an actor making a name for himself in the London theatre. He is engaged to an actress, Blanche, but has a problem which he needs to sort out before he can marry. It is a sexual problem and he is recommended to a psychiatrist in Vienna.  It is 1913, pre-war when Vienna is the city of Freud, music, artists and gaiety, and the last light of the Edwardian summer is soon to end in the mud of the trenches. 

While sitting in the waiting room of Dr Bensimmon a young woman bursts in, clearly in an agitated state

"He could sense this woman' unease, her tension coming off her in waves, as if some dynamo inside her were generating this febrility, this - the German word came to him pleasingly - this Angst........he turned and their eyes met..... large and wide  the white visibly surrounding the iris - as if she were staring with great intensity or had been shocked in some way"

Her name is Hettie Bull and they begin a passionate affair.   With her, it seems, miraculously, as if his problem has been cured.   And then he finds himself in deep trouble, arrested for rape and thrown into jail where he turns for help to a member of the British Embassy, Alwyn Munro, who he had met earlier, also at Dr Bensimon's practice.

Now it is difficult to continue writing about Waiting for Sunrise without giving away more details of the plot so I will now step carefully.  Lysander finds himself in monetary debt to the British government after their assistance in Vienna over the rape case, and once the Great War begins he is given the chance to clear this by undertaking an undercover mission using his skills as an actor.  It takes him to Switzerland to track down an informer which, in turn will lead to a traitor high up in the British War Office. He is successful in his mission but at a price and when he returns to London he meets Hettie Bull once more and is beguiled by her all over again. Coincidence or planned? Read on to find out....

This is a nail biting story.  Always lurking is the thought that when the reader turns over a page something dreadful is going to happen and we have no idea what.  The tension created by words on paper is quite breathtaking and this is another reason why I kept putting the book down - I needed a break.   Nobody, and I mean nobody, is what they seem and Lysander, and the reader, are on tenterhooks all the time wondering if any person he meets is to be trusted.  I had an awful feeling who was involved as the book progressed and then when I thought this was correct had this turned totally on its head by a double bluff and twist right at the very end which completely flummoxed me and left me gasping.

I was not sure at first that the main protagonist, Lysander Rief, was a particularly likeable person. He had a childhood secret which rather shook me when I discovered what it was, and he seemed to take to his spying activities rather well, probably because he has already practiced subterfuge in his life and is rather good at it (I was reminded several times during my perusal of The Perfect Spy by John le Carre, another tour de force of double bluff and deceit and a hero affected by his childhood).   There is a vulnerability about him however which rather endeared him to me. Sections of the book are in the first person so we are privy to his thoughts and fears, a wise move by the author as I feel otherwise we might lack sympathy for Lysander.

I have a sneaky feeling  while writing that I am making a pretty poor fist of this review. It is such a complex and intricately plotted book and I really am not quite sure which aspect to concentrate on so you will have to forgive me if my thoughts are rambling and somewhat incoherent.

As all readers of Random know, I don't read much modern 'literature', which is a poor admission from someone who is supposed to be a book blogger, but I do take heart that I am not totally lost to the fact that there are wonderful writers after Dickens and the Brontes and when a book like this comes along I just sit back lost in admiration at the reminder that this is indeed the case.   

By the end of Waiting for Sunrise, we see Lysander a changed man.  Young, rather naive and lacking in confidence, both sexual and moral, in the opening chapters, by the final page he has found himself:

""I feel after what I have gone through, that I understand a little of our modern world now, as it exists today. And perhaps I've even been offered a glimpse into its future.....and yet, for all the privileged insight and knowledge that I gleaned, I felt that the more I seemed to know, then the more clarity and certainty dimmed and faded away ..... the more we know, the less we know.  Funnily enough, I can live with that idea quite happily. If this is our modern world I feel a modern man"

So Lysander, a young man living in the Edwardian era in the opening pages, now finds himself at the end of the narrative, prepared for what the world can throw at him.

A quite stunning, brilliant book.