Random Jottings

Recently received at Random Towers

At the moment there is a hashtag on Twitter #beathebacklog as a whole slew of book lovers are trying to get their To be Read backlog reduced. Nobody thinks for one moment that it is ever going to happen but we thought we would see if we could get it down a bit.  I have managed to get rid of about five or six that I have had since the autumn but I know I am doomed to failure as another heap arrived this week, either from purchases or from lovely authors and publishers.

You can see that this pile adds ten back onto the TBR backlog so it is clear that I am going nowhere. I admit that at the moment I am finding it hard to settle to any reading at all. I loathe January and I loathe the cold and the drear and am spending most of my time either watching the tennis or having a binge on box sets on the tv. My brain feels as if it has gone to mush so I am patiently waiting for the weather to get a bit better and hope that I can get on with things.

You will see from the top of the recently received, four D E Stevensons and one Molly Clavering. They were friends and neighbours up in Scotland I gather and I am looking forward to writing about D E Stevenson in particular at a later date.  Dean Street Press are republishing a shedload of her titles and, as they have only been available in second hand copies up to now, this is a blessing and I am so grateful to them for sending me copies. I have just started the Fair Miss Fortune and am enjoying it very much.

Then the British Library Classic Crime series have sent two, one by Anthony Berkeley and one by E C Lorac who is one of those unknown (well to me anyway) writers of the Golden Age and who I now love. This is going to be moved to the top of the heap.

Back to the Shops by Rachel Bowlby looks really interesting. Here is what the blurb has to say:

"Back to the Shops offers a set of short and surprising chapters, each one a window into a different shop type or mode of selling. Old shopping streets are seen from new angles; fast fashion shows up in eighteenth-century edits. Here are pedlars and pop-ups, mail order catalogues and mobile greengrocers' shops. Here too are food markets open till late on a Saturday night, and tiny subscription libraries tucked away at the back of the sweet shop". 

I have already dipped into this  - just the kind of social history I like.

Walking Invisible by Michael Stewart is a literary guide through the walks and nature of the Bronte sisters.  The author walked in the steps of the sisters and, while it is unlikely I will ever be able to copy his feat, I can come with him in spirit as I read. It looks a lovely book and I love all things Bronte.

Queen Alexandra by Frances Dimond.   It has been years since a biography was written on this rather forgotten Queen of England. We know all about her husband, there has recently been a wonderful biography of George V but Alexandra seems to lurk in the shadows. Time to open this up and have a delve.

Mary Seacole by Helen Rappaport.  I love this author's books. She has written on a variety of historical subjects with a slant to all things Russian, but writing the biography of Mary Seacole has been a dream of hers for many years and here, finally, the result of all her hard work and research is in print.  Everyone knows who Florence Nightingale is and her exploits in the Crimean War but it is only fairly recently that the name of Mary Seacole has become better known. 

So there you have it. These are the hard copies of books that have recently arrived but I have also downloaded quite a lot on my Kindle so I have a long hard slog in front of me...

Random at the Opera

Well I have had a rant this week and a book review so now I am going to have a ramble.

Last weekend I took my eldest granddaughter, Florence, to the opera. She loves classical music and plays the violin and we were discussing opera one night and she said "Grandma will you take me to the opera for my birthday?" I was simply bowled over and said I would love to.

So last Saturday we went to the Royal Opera House to see the Marriage of Figaro.  I had splashed out on good and expensive seats, mainly for my comfort I freely admit. The days of the Gods and the Amphitheatre are long gone mainly because of my arthritis.  Beforehand I had booked us in to the Crush Room for supper. 

It was all wonderful and the staff there courteous, friendly and efficient. I had told them it was Florence's birthday celebration so she got a free drink to go with her meal and when her dessert arrived, the chef had piped Happy Birthday on her plate.  She loved it so much she wanted to take the plate home with the writing on...

And the good thing was that our table was there for the evening so we could leave coats, scarves etc there in safety so no stuffing under the chair or queuing to collect garments at the end.

Well, the opera itself. What can I say? I had forgotten just how funny Figaro can be and the audience were in fits at times. I knew none of the cast as I have not been to the opera for years but it did not matter. They were all brilliant and what is so wonderful about Figaro is that it is like listening to Mozart's Greatest Hits one after the other.  There was one moment at the start of the third act when Susannah and the Countess were singing what is called the Letter Duet, when the beauty of it made me catch my throat and I just welled up. Sublime.

I was so proud of Florence. She was so grown up and self assured and polite and a joy to be with. It is a long opera and I think we were both flagging a bit by the end to be honest and the icing on the cake was that as we left the opera house there were her parents who had also been in London at the theatre, and we went home by taxi. Such a luxury!

A simply wonderful evening and the opera was just, well, glorious.

The Invisible Host - Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning

This latest title by the wonderful Dean Street Press is really intriguing.  And what is intriguing  about The Invisible Host was the introduction in which we read that five years after a film was made of this title  “there appeared a novel by a popular English mystery writer that bore and uncanny resemblance both to the film and the play and the book which inspired it.

The author of this novel is of course Agatha Christie”

And the Christie title which is mentioned is And then there were None, surely one of Dame Agatha’s most well known books.   The question of plagiarism reared its ugly head but a crime writer of the time stoutly defended her saying that Agatha Christie was unaware of the existence of, much less, had read the Invisible Host.  Can we be sure?  She may have unconsciously drawn on it as it is possible that Dame Agatha saw the film which was released in England in 1934.

Of course we will never know but it does put this mystery in a fascinating context.   And if you have read the Christie title, then the setting of the Invisible Host will need little explanation.

Set in New Orleans, eight guests are invited to a party at a luxurious penthouse apartment and when they arrive it turns out that nobody knows who the Host is.   We never see him but only hear him as he communicates with the guests through a radio. I freely admit that I found this device rather clumsy and is a clear indication that one of the guests must be the Host as its questions and replies and interaction between the two parties could not be scripted and depended on events and reactions.  No matter but it is a pointer.

All of the guests are linked, albeit in a tenuous way, and all of them have done something that could reflect badly on them. The Host knows all about these peccadilloes and weaknesses and has decided that they must pay for their actions.

As with the Christie one by one the guests meet their demise in more and more bizarre ways and it is here that I feel The Invisible Host parts company with And then there were None.  In the Christie there is more plausibility and logic. In the Bristow title we have electric doors to prevent escape, poisons a plenty and servants in the kitchen drugged so they cannot help or know what is going on. It is all slightly over the top and overly dramatic and I must say I simply adored it. I read it through in one sitting and then immediately checked and found that Bristow and Manning have more titles available. I can feel my fingers twitching already…..

I don’t think I am giving much away if I say the ending, which I did see coming (but then I have read too many crime stories) is different from the Christie but if you want mysterious deaths and pile up of bodies – there is even a stack of coffins on the balcony for the other guests to drop them in – this is the book for you.

When this book arrived and I saw the names of the two authors, Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning, my first thought was “that’s a familiar name” and my mind went back to when I worked in a library in London years ago in my youth, and a novel Calico Palace by one Gwen Bristow was on the shelves and I read it and loved it.   And yes it is the same writer but this is one in a series of Classic 30’s mysteries and light years away from her Out West titles with which I was familiar.  These are now available so I feel my finger twitching...

I simply loved it and Dean Street Press have another winner on their hands.

Random Rant - How to keep warm and save on heating bills...

Time for a Random Rant. First of the year though I daresay more will come.

This morning Ovo Energy published advice on how to keep warm this winter and save on heating bills.

Among their suggestions were the following:

Cuddle your pet - ok perhaps if you have a dog or a cat that will deign to let you cuddle them, but as somebody pointed out on Twitter what if your pet is a hamster, or a gerbil or a goldfish?

Cuddle your children - yeh right. Grab your teenager son/daughter, if you have them and hug them and then wait for Oh Mum gerroff

Leave your oven door open after you have finished cooking and switched it off. They do say that if you have children you must be careful. Yes, all you need is the baby to crawl in...

Wear an extra jumper - now I agree that this is sensible advice. At the moment I am sitting with a pair of thick joggers on, thermal socks, thermal vest, a jumper and a scarf.  I do not need telling.

Do star jumps to warm yourself up - FFS. words fail. I, along with millions of other customers who have received this "advice" have arthritis in one of my knees, my hip and my spine. Star jumps? I wish

Hula Hoop -yes use a hula hoop. See star jumps response above for my answer to that.

Go to the gym.   Again, see my response re star jumps and hula hoop. Oh and by the way Ovo Energy gyms are expensive, yes expensive, and some of us cannot afford it because we have to pay our HEATING BILLS.

When I read things like this I despair. Last year Matt Hancock (remember him?) told us at Christmas we had to keep apart, sit at separate tables and sit Granny by an open window so she would not be infected with Covid from the no doubt rabid family sitting two feet away.  Ok that is fine, just let her die of cold or double pneumonia instead.

What these directives have in common is the bone headed utter stupidity of it all.  Was there not one person in the company, in the marketing department, in the PR department, all sitting no doubt in their beautifully heated offices, who thought "You know what I am not sure this is a good idea?"

There are people who are disabled, lonely, living on their own and worried sick about their heating bills and they are told to do fucking STAR JUMPS?

I apologise for my language.

Actually no I don't.

OK rant over. Ovo Energy have now deleted this from their website and apologised.  Words fail.

PS - I was with Ovo for a few years. They spent most of their time sending me emails telling me they were upping my direct debit as I was using too much electricity.   At the same time I logged onto their app and it told me I was well in credit and all was well.

When I complained, as you know I would, they said "oh it is the computer" so in the end I told them to stuff their computer and moved elsewhere.

The Armourer's House - Rosemary Sutcliff

I cannot think of a lovelier book to start off my 2022 reviews than the Armourer’s House by Rosemary Sutcliff.  I first read it in my teens, adored it, and have re-read it many times right through to adulthood.   It is a joyous glorious book.

In the last couple of years I have discovered the Roman Age books of this author which I never read in my youth as they just did not appeal to me. I preferred the Tudor stories – The Elizabethan Story, Brother Dusty Feet and Simon (not a Tudor but set during the Civil War). I really was not interested in what I deemed the Dark Ages. More fool me but it has meant a late treat when I fell for the gorgeous editions published by Slightly Foxed. Check them out here.

But back to the Armourer’s House.  It tells the story of Tamsyn “she was like any other little girl except that she had one unusual passion: she loved ships”.  She has to leave her family home in Devon and go to London to live with her aunt, uncle and lively cousins and at first she finds it strange and her homesickness makes her unhappy.   But she gradually settles down and discovers a kindred spirit in Piers, who too loves ships but following the disappearance at sea of the eldest son, is now taking his place in his father’s armoury.  Piers is regarded by his brothers and sisters and slightly odd and a bit dull, but he and Tamsyn soon discover their mutual interest in the sea.

During a shopping expedition Tamsyn slips away to watch the ships on the Thames:

“Soon the sails would fill and she would drop down river with the tide. Tamsyn wondered where she was going; to white ports along the coast of the Mediterranean for ginger and sandalwood, or just across the narrow seas to bring back the red wine of Gascony…….

And then suddenly she saw Piers. He seemed to have forgotten the crowds coming and going all around him….he was watching the ship as though the only thing he wanted in the whole wide world was to be sailing with her”

Rosemary Sutcliff is such a wonderful writer. I could quote the entire book for you to illustrate how she conjures up a picture of a place which is so vivid and beautiful that it is in your mind’s eye as you read.  Such a rich texture of language, such beautiful use of words, each one placed so perfectly you cannot imagine it written in any other way.

I have a very old edition of The Armourer’s House published by Oxford University Press. It is battered and the pages are a bit stained but it has a dust jacket and illustrations by C Walter Hodges who is one of my favourite illustrators.   This new edition does not have these illustrations but it has a feel about it.   I know that sounds a bit silly but you know what it is like to handle a book and take enormous pleasure in the binding, the print and the feel of it? Well, this is such a one.

It is published by Manderley Press and I can honestly say I did not know of them but as they are very new I forgive myself. Well I know now. I ordered this as a Christmas present to myself (I am very fond of doing that…) and it arrived in time beautifully wrapped in orange tissue paper to match the cover.  Please check them out here and I have signed up to receive news of any new books in the future.

I love small publishing houses as I find as I get older that my interest in modern fiction, which was always rather luke-warm (I am a Victorian reader at heart) is less and less and I prefer to read books of my youth. But ignoring the fact of my preferences, if you have not read The Armourer’s House, please do snaffle a copy of this and give yourself a treat.

A lovely way to start of 2022.

Happy New Year everybody.