Erica James - Italian sunshine

February might be the shortest month, but it's been pretty wet and miserable so far. Much like December and January. For many of us it's been wet since before Christmas and wellies are essential. Even the daffodils aren't growing very fast at the moment and like Mary Lennox I've been clearing the leaves around them hopefully. Perhaps it's too wet for them or there hasn't been quite enough sunshine yet. I'm lucky not to be affected by flooding, though the ground is absolutely sodden. Two days of light drizzle mean that the garden has a chance to dry out and I can dry laundry.

With all the damp, darkness and rain, it's a time for for novels of wisteria and sunshine. Everything from The Enchanted April to A French Affair. A novel where trying something new is a Good Thing and you find yourself happier than you thought possible. I'm thrilled to have a proof of Erica James's Summer by the Lake and recommend it highly for (preferably) an uninterrupted afternoon with a self-refilling mug of caffeine and some smart chocolates. Given the Italian theme, I suppose it's luck that I found I had some leftover baci from Christmas and those went very nicely with my tea.

I've read most of Erica James's novels in no particular order and think this is the best yet as it combines Oxford with Lake Como. She's done some interesting modern novels mostly set around Cheshire and I liked the two strands of the story of Floriana's contemporary dilemma set against her elderly neighbour's love in Italy in the 1950s. Revealing the two stories and drawing them together was deftly done. Floriana is one of life's gentle drifters. A good friend. A considerate person and one who is easily hurt. Finding new friends in elderly Esme and Adam (Floriana's own age) reshapes her life for the better as does life under the Italian sun. Read and enjoy this - I almost didn't want it to end.

Sugar Girls and G.I. Brides

Last year in an attempt to read more non fiction while at the same time not reading fewer novels I read a social history of the sugar girls in London as the authors interviewed a number of workers and made a narrative from their memories. The book rode the trends of London history, passion for the East End (Call the Midwife) and now-vanished industry. Only natural that the covers should be white with a selection of black and white photos with foil lettering.

The authors have followed up their success by turning to the G.I. brides from an English courtship to American marriage. It's one of those books that, while fascinating, makes you grateful to live in an era when a woman holds her own passport almost as a matter of course and has her own bank account. I was also wondering if we'd see anything close to a happy ending as some of the men lost all glamour when they returned to civilian life and proved to be alcoholics, poor workers, gamblers and routinely unfaithful. I almost gave up on a happy ending, but read on. Early years of a marriage aren't always the pattern of the later relationship and for that, at least, I'm grateful.

I've been fascinated by the Mass Observation publications and the personal stories that have followed on from this trend. Nella Last, of course, is one of the best, but the four G.I. brides featured here are strong women whose hard work and unwillingness to abandon a difficult marriage is inspiring. Modern attitudes would encourage a woman to leave a drunken or womanising husband, but the 1940s/1950s attitude of 'you've made your bed, you lie in it' left these women with few choices. The expense of an Atlantic crossing made it very difficult to return to family even if their family would accept them back.

The Rosie Project

I brought The Rosie Project back from BEA in June last year as a very nice man at the Penguin stand said it was one of their funniest offerings he could remember. He was quite right as it kept me occupied on the flight back from New York. I was engrossed and trying not to disturb anyone sitting near me by giggling at the hapless hero's attempts to make sense of the world. Don is a professor of genetics and also a routine-driven social misfit who plans his efficient life to the minute. Mainly by avoiding the majority of social interactions with other human beings. Meal planning is applied for the maximum nutritional benefit and the speed of preparation to the extent that he has has the same meal at the same time each week. On realising that something is missing from his life he takes a scientific approach complete with questionnaire to find a wife. You'll root for Don and Rosie (the barmaid and graduate student who dismantles his routine) and the cocktail-making sequence is especially funny when Rosie and Don staff a bar and an experienced barmaid and Don's encyclopedic knowledge of drinks combinations mean that the bar makes a huge profit.

My proof copy has yet to find its way home to me as it's circulating among friends and family finding a new fan in each household and a few dents and scuffs as it travels. I hope it does return eventually as I'd like to read it again.

31 December 2013

It's the last day of 2013 and everyone's either getting ready to go out or rounding up their year in terms of hobbies, resolutions (made or broken) and blogging a fair few personal development plans of sorts for the old and new years. As far as books go, I'm still working my way through the Indy's recommendations for children's books that ran for the whole of advent. You'll always miss at least one book that ends up one someone's recommended list and I appreciate word-of-mouth recommendations from bloggers and friends. Lots of icy journeys, enjoyable scares and modern classics in Rebecca Davies' extensive and balanced list. She's convinced me to try Leigh Bardugo, so that's my first new author for 2014.

I'm still working on my 'I have never read' list and am trying Arthur C. Clarke for the first time. I last read some (very pulp and odd) sci-fi fiction in my teens and wasn't exactly inspired to continue. Before you judge, they were in a rented house while on holiday and I'd run out of books. Dolphin Island is about dolphins, underwater exploration and the aftermath of a hovership crash. I'll let you know if I finish it.

I'm also about to start a Russia and winter sport re-read in preparation for the Winter Olympics in February. Politics aside, I'm really looking forward to it and revisiting old fictional friends. There's plenty of skating, skiing and tobogganing in the Chalet School series and I seem to remember a passage about the right name for a toboggan in the Katy Books. Was it sky scraper or skimmer? Something of that kind. Laura Ingalls Wilder is perfect if you prefer domesticity and raw weather and the Christmases at Green Gables are always enviable. Noel Streatfeild's White Boots is the obvious choice and I'm gazing at my shelves trying to find another novel with some winter sports. Mabel Esther Allen, I think, does some Swiss-set books, although I've only read ones set in summer. Perhaps she might do skating at the Rockerfeller Center in New York? I'm not a Narnia fan, so won't be making my way through the wardrobe. What else? There must be other 1930s to 1960s books of girl skaters or mountain adventure stories.

P.S. If anyone is kind enough to comment with a suggestion, I've left out The Silver Skates as that was my childhood unreadable book.

Cazalets and Doctor Blake

I've had an overdose of 1940s and 1950s life this weekend catching up with The Doctor Blake Mysteries (BBC please repeat those on a weekend afternoon) and the Cazalet Quartet and I'm still only on Volume One. I can't quite think of it as the Cazalet Quintet yet as the final volume seems so separate.

While I absolutely loved the first four novels and even wore out a couple of paperbacks, I hadn't read the Cazalet Quartet for quite some time and I did leave it a few weeks after reading All Change, the fifth and much later volume, so that I could compare with a clear mind. I still feel rather let down and I'm not sure if that's the way I'm meant to feel. I'm pleased to say that the voices are as strong as they ever were and the children are seen grappling with the same difficulties facing their parents in the original four novels even though the pre-war certainties have faded away. Without giving spoilers, it's almost justice that the selfish Zoe has such an angst-ridden and self-absorbed teenage daughter to care for. I had hoped to see a little more of Jessica and Raymond, but I've caught up with old friends (Jemima, Polly, Hugh and Simon) and had another welcome glimpse into their lives. It's easy to write tidy endings; much braver, as Elizabeth Jane Howard has done, to leave matters unresolved. 400 pages and Home Place isn't the refuge from life that it once was and post-war life wasn't as easy or comfortable as the Cazalets had hoped. Money is worth less and business cultures are changing to their disadvantage. It's the era when the enterprising can be successful quickly, but most Cazalets lack the business flair and brain to capitalise.

Next up on the re-reading list is the underrated Quantocks Quartet by Ruth Elwin Harris. A series to be read when you have time to finish all four books in order.

Proofing and the Dr Blake Mysteries

I am editing and at the stage where the words are almost dancing on the page. The 'book' is still very much at 'draft' stage to plan length, font size and layout. Progress, however, is steady, though I was in desperate need of a break and wanted moving pictures to give me something else to look at.

I took a television break at lunchtime on Friday and found something that wasn't a cookery programme, property redevelopment or a soap. Or even ancient repeats billed as 'vintage'; I'm not sure I agree that Are you being served? and Allo Allo can be described as vintage. I'd use another word entirely, but someone else might be enjoying them.

However, there is a rather good 1950s-set import from ABC with Australian actors I don't recognise. Dr Blake Mysteries may borrow some locations from the Miss Fisher Mysteries and it's one to watch if you're a fan of costume drama and dresses with stiff petticoats and a nice bit of cynicism in the afternoon. Let me introduce you and give a bit of background....

Dr Blake's returned to Ballarat to take over his father's medical practice and position as police surgeon. Grieving for the recent loss of his father and haunted by his war service in the Far East he's a liberal rather out of step with the conservative town taking a perverse delight in challenging everyone. The house is a sprawling bungalow that's chaotically ugly and comfortable with 'bits' added by generations and absolutely no thought of design. I like rooms like that - well-loved and everything taking on a well-worn look. I'm most keen on the kitchen so far - a bit like I imagine Candy Nevill's to have been - all cheerful blue and yellow with scratches and scuffs to the surfaces and smarter tins above the fireplace for tea, coffee, flour, sugar and salt. Well, keen on the sunny kitchen and Dr Blake's Chinese silk dressing gown with gold dragons and quilted decoration to the collar and cuffs. If I can't catch up on iPlayer next week, I'll add the DVD to my wishlist and hope for Christmas. It has a helpful release of 9 December and everything's looking promising for the second series next year.

From the pages of old children's books - stuffed dates

Well, I've never seen those used as a bookmark. Thank goodness, as they'd be damagingly sticky. I suppose that my bookmark finds have been the postcard and used book token variety. Stuffed dates seem to be something of a feature of twentieth century children's books - they're included with the pink-iced cakes and chocolate eclairs at parties along with stiff-petticoated skirts and suitable presents. While pink-iced cakes have been replaced by fantastical cakes, chocolate eclairs are still on offer and syrupy boxes of dates were something that my grandparents always had at Christmas. As to the stuffed dates, they just weren't something that I was familiar with tasting and most recipes seem to suggest removing the date stone and replacing it with stone-shaped marzipan to make an 'attractive' sweet. They weren't a feature of any parties I went to as a child, though those included iced ring biscuits, crisps and assorted chopped fruit in the vague hope that we might counteract the dreaded 'E' numbers with something healthy. 

Why on earth am I muttering about dates? And stuffed dates at that? Well, mostly because they're a food that went rather out of fashion and now coming back courtesy of the fabulous (and expensive) medjool dates that turn up for Christmas and Eid. I'm looking forward to those - especially after a fabulous business present of fresh dates on a date palm one year. The Telegraph has an interesting article on how dates are cultivated and picked, so I'll be nibbling my medjool dates with this in mind realising the care involved in this fragile crop . While I do like marzipan, I don't think they need this addition.

One day I'll organise a Candy Nevill-inspired sweet-making party, but my sweets are likely to be chocolate-coated marshmallows and chocolate peanut butter cups. A recent present was The Sweet Book of Candy Making and I just need to add a sugar thermometer to my Christmas list.