The Other Miss Perkin - Lorna Hill

Rights negotiations take months and I am trying for three titles. The silence worries me a bit, but people do need time to consider offers and former publishers also need time to find rights and answer emails. It's also the run-up to the Book Fair Season (London and New York), so that'll be a priority for them. It's for a pony book and I've never had so much difficulty chasing down permission for anything. It could just be that animal stories aren't for my list, though I hope not. The historical novel is proving far less problematic. 

So, I can't do anything more about rights this afternoon, but I can tell you about a charming novel for adults by Lorna Hill. I knew her as the writer of the Wells series and have a few of her ballet books somewhere, though they may end up for sale at some point as I didn't like them as much on rereading. I'm keeping my copy of The Other Miss Perkin as it's one to read with tea and biscuits in one go over an afternoon.

This is a fantastic escapist read in the vein of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. It has the same quiet charm and takes genuine pleasure in small things. Miss Perkin, a middle-aged Englishwoman who doesn't even own a passport, wins a trip to America. This book is set some time in the 1905s when flying was for the rich and every passenger was offered a champagne cocktail with refills. Miss Perkin can be summed up as one of life's copers. She's the housekeeper you'd love to have and a good vicar's daughter. She's dependable and predicable with a marvellous fantasy dream-life that she indulges with the help of magazines - probably gleaned secondhand from her employer. Her trip to America is fascinating as she explores New York on foot and stretches every cent to manage a trip to the Grand Canyon. It's a gentle Cinderella story as a millionaire sees past her dowdy image, faded clothes and careworn appearance to find her a very caring companion. 

Once you've read this and enjoyed all the rail travel across the United States (from New York to the Grand Canyon) can I recommend Susan Coolidge's Clover and In the High Valley for Colorado scenes. Thanks to Project Gutenberg both are free. Then for New York and California travel, try Noel Streatfeild's The Painted Garden. You do need to find a hardback reprint for that as they cut all of that (over a chapter) from the Puffin paperback and I still think that's a shame.

New month - what to read

Friends who blog usually note 'what they've been reading' this month at month end. Which is a nicer idea than the chaos of a financial month end in retail or accounts. I was always put off by reading diaries, ever since the school insisted that I couldn't possibly have read that much in a week. (I could and did). Now, though, I'm buying and borrowing as many books as ever, not that I mention what I couldn't finish, hated or just 'passed the time'.

I love reading through what other readers are reading. I find it harder to trust mainstream print reviews as there are too many friends reviewing friends or academics looking for goodwill, but bloggers are happier to critique a free book. Some bloggers do wonderful reviews and I'm pleased to see them and consider. I also find the mixture of vintage and modern offerings that bloggers tend to offer to be far more interesting. I mentioned Waitrose's newsletter a while ago - it's good to see vintage and modern represented in their book reviews area. Books need time and often word-of-mouth to gain a readership and that's what so many books don't receive. Your average high-street bookshop has very limited shelf space and is under tremendous pressure to move stock, so you have to remember to buy what looked interesting now and hope you can balance your finances until payday.

So, rather than use a Goodreads or a LibraryThing model, perhaps publishers could modify their websites and print on demand offerings to balance backlist titles and the newest of the new. Yes, I realise publishers are now huge corporations, but they could show readers their imprints and suggest future novels to read within that imprint in a slightly different way to promote brand identity. Are people loyal to publishers or is it really to one author? I'd be very interested to know. I blog, admittedly quietly, to maintain interest in my books and remind people that I'm still here. I can only publish so many each year, so Twitter and the blog have to work to gain attention.

Rumer Godden

The Telegraph's Book section can yield some gems on occasion. Rumer Godden is one of those wonderful crossover authors who can take you from the children's library to the larger adult section of the library. Before mine was refurbished and tall shelves of books were replaced by turning freestanding shelves stuffed with DVDs, there were bookshelves that reached from floor to ceiling. I wasn't, at first, sure where to start in the adults library. Library staff were discreet and busy with the queues at the desk, so I had time and freedom to roam. Rumer Godden was an author I already knew well. My favourite among her doll stories was Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, so finding her again in the adults section introduced me to Pippa (Pippa Passes) and kind nuns in In this House of Brede to say nothing of The Peacock Spring.

I'm pleased that so many authors of my childhood are being introduced to new readers with the new reprints. While it's lovely for books to be passed down the generations, the reality is that few books last being read to bits by enthusiastic child readers. Older Puffins, in particular, are rather vulnerable once the glue dries and the pages become brittle. The Rumer Godden Literary Trust was set up after Rumer's death and has given us beautiful new editions of her doll stories. Now that Virago is reprinting Kingfishers Catch Fire you'll see a different side to her storytelling and a more reflective author trying so hard to understand Indian culture. Mutual misunderstandings throughout and wonderfully told.

Career books and updates

Hello all. With apologies for not replying to posts on the blog as Firefox is determined to prevent me from achieving basic courtesies with all sorts of 'protections'. I'll try and get round it again in a little while. It seems that you'd like me to add a vintage career book to my list. Well, I haven't read many and I'll try this new tangent for research. I did enjoy Jane: Young Author and a couple of naval stories featuring capable girls whose names I can't remember.

What sort of career novel would I like? I'll avoid ballet and theatre books as those are very well represented by reprint publishers already. So, something 'different', 'entertaining' and 'rare'. If it's not asking too much, I also need charm and a good story. As for careers, floristry seems popular - I was thinking that or dressmaking. I think anything with cooking is likely to be too similar to Candy Nevill and anything with publishing might be too close to Five Farthings, so I'll concentrate on floristry and gardening in the first round of reading. That may leave me with Land Girls and allow me to keep history in mind. The other area that I might need to consider is travel. There was a Chalet School girl who wanted to be a lady courier, so I expect I can find a good tale of a tour guide or travel agent posted abroad.

A quick Mothering Sunday post

I think I must be one of the last remaining daughters to give the semi-traditional and simple daffodils to my mother today. Local supermarkets and florists have some simple daffodils hidden away behind glitter-dipped chrysanthemums and parrot tulips with eucalyptus and the like. I searched for and found a dwarf variety potted up at the florist and they promise double flowers, though tightly-closed buds are all that can be seen now without even a hint of yellow. I expect they'll be planted out in her garden at some stage too. I don't recall much in the way of Mothering Sunday in Girl's Own (vintage) fiction, though Noel Streatfeild does cover the giving of daffodils and extended family visit in Mothering Sunday when all the mother really wants is a day of peace and quiet. Judging by some of the press attention, it seems that many mothers don't want a fuss made for them, but would like a day for themselves.

Flowers, though, well they are covered in vintage fiction. Lucy Maud Montgomery's heroines gather bouquets of lilies, Elsie Jeanette Oxenham's heroines bestow bunches of flowers on their new friends with varying degrees of patronage and some heroines even grow flowers in their own small gardens. I was always disappointed that P.M. Warner in A Friend for Frances never actually showed us the long-promised bulb fields in Holland as I wanted to see how she'd show the excess of colour and texture. In a more moral vein, the good Chalet girls were actively discouraged from picking wild flowers. I suppose they would have wilted on the return ramble, but it would have been interesting if they'd had a jam jar full of flowers in their flower-curtained cubicles. Elinor M. Brent-Dyer must have preferred floral fabric to the real thing. 

I don't recall a career book for girls that dealt with floristry - is there one? Google isn't being of much help this afternoon.

Sally and Her Kitchens - May Worthington

Today's post is a short follow-up from Candy Nevill where the book Sally and Her Kitchens is mentioned in passing. Candy and Bets give this book to another girl a birthday present which Bets immediately plots to borrow back from her friend. I sympathised with her plotting as I could never find enough books as a child. The mother produces it from a magical cupboard containing spare presents and the like. I always wish I had one of those when I realise that I may not have been quite a good enough friend to post a birthday card in time. Now, to Sally. This wasn't an easy book to track down. Yes, it might be in a few research libraries, but finding a copy of your own seems rather too much to hope for. I don't think there's a copy for sale at the moment so anyone wanting to sell may do very well. This scarcity surprised me as it went through several printings between 1939 and (at least) 1941 and seems to be well-known by American readers. It's a Dodd Mead Career Book for girls and written in a similar way to the careers books from the 1950s that Bodley Head printed. Sally and Her Kitchens was written by May Worthington and illustrated in very effective line drawings by Marguerite Bryan. Even finding the odd image hasn't been easy and, since I read it in a research library, I can't provide any. Well, not and keep the library card.

So, this is a 256 page novel about home economics set in Hawaii and California and the pace is brisk. Sally Lewis, a girl for whom the term 'pep' applies, takes a job as cook to a boarding school in 1939 Hawaii before moving on to run a tea room in California. She's lucky enough to supervise a team of Chinese cooks and have plenty of time off to find nice young men, tour the pineapple fields and do a fair bit of shopping and recipe gathering. I enjoyed this novel for the vintage recipes and mentions of 'new' foods. We're all so used to year-round tropical fruits, that it's a shock to read about how to prepare alligator pears (avocados) or papaya. It's also nice to read about the menu planning for large parties and teaching pupils how to welcome and serve guests with macarons, lemon bars and date bars. All classics of American entertaining and Martha Stewart's website can provide recipes and pictures.

Corinna Chapman mysteries

I've been delving into my 'I'll read it one day, I promise' list that's either shelved or scattered about the house looking reproachfully new with uncreased spines and a '3 for 2' sticker. Well, some are even older than that long-running and now defunct promotion. However, I've since been speed-reading as I've found an author I really enjoy. Kerry Greenwood, an Australian author, writes mysteries with an emphasis on the muddles of human behavior without the blood lust found in far too much contemporary crime. I also like the geekery with nods to Buffy, Babylon 5 and every sci-fi show in between. I think only Firefly is missing, though someone's bound to comment that 'shiny' has most certainly been used  now.

Heavenly Pleasures was a welcome birthday present last year and I've spent the last fortnight reading every Corinna Chapman mystery that the wonderful Kerry Greenwood has published. Friends from Australia and New Zealand had said all kinds of positive things about her novels and I can only say that I wish I'd discovered them sooner. For those who haven't had the treat of a Corinna novel, these are set in present-day Melbourne. Corinna's a baker and lives in a 1920s block of astonishing elegance and comfort with three cats and a live-out private detective lover. I may well have read them all, gorged on them all, even. However, she covers human and feline behaviour with perfect understanding. I've also been influenced by Corinna to read them while sipping a gin and tonic. This does, of course, mean that I'll read them again in a little while for detail. That's the kind of re-reading I really enjoy.

Kerry Greenwood is published by Allen and Unwin and Poisoned Pen Press, so her books are widely available online and not in many English bookshops. US Kindle owners were given a treat when Earthly Delights was the free dowload on 14 February.