Netherwood (Jane Sanderson)

First things first, Five Farthings is coming on nicely and the text is complete and almost set in its final version. I'm giving myself a bit of time away from the text this weekend so that I can spot the errors on my return. I may yet change my mind (again?) and test the fonts when I do.

I found a proof copy of Jane Sanderson's Netherwood a few weeks ago and finally read it last weekend. If my opinions are worth anything, I suggest buying it when it is published on 29 September - I intend to hunt down and purchase a signed copy. I wish I hadn't waited so long to move it off my 'read it soon' shelf as it's one of those enjoyable historical novels that can simply be devoured with tea. The focus on good food and enjoying eating said home cooking also makes you wish that a batch of biscuits was baking in your oven rather than opting for the clean and practical simplicity of opening a packet. I don't cook while reading any more as I prefer my food cooked to carbonised. Nor did I want to put the book down while I baked biscuits to eat with it. When I find a really good page-turner I want to read it in one sitting. Netherwood has been published to catch the Downton Abbey wave, but that shouldn't put anyone off. It's a good page-turner of a country house and mining village novel and the story of two young female entrepreneurs is very deftly done. Set in the years before the First World War, it's a fascinating look between the life of the aristocracy shuttling between Town and Country houses on private train lines while the working poor on their sprawling estates live a hand-to-mouth existence. This isn't, quite, the country village, but industrial coal-mining town.

Monica Redlich - Five Farthings

Monica Redlich's Five Farthings is slowly coming into shape ready for the printer. Text complete and ready for the editing. As I'm doing my usual 'complete and unabridged' edition, this means checking that every full stop is where it should be or where it was in the first edition. I reread the novel constantly during this process and am (still) charmed by it. It's a wonderful story of 1930s London, pre-war and much of it I suspect obliterated in the Blitz. There don't seem to be so many London-set novels for children, even Ballet Shoes or Curtain Up only really mentioned the Underground. With any luck a sentence like that will ensure that lots of people comment to say how wrong I am and give examples. Five Farthings shows the grubbiness and charm of city life from theatres to architechture to the quiet corners only locals know.

I'll need to return to the question of 'queer' as the search for 'queer people' (unusual people) takes up much of Five Farthings. I intend to reprint an unabridged version, but need to formulate a note at the front along the lines of 'this is a complete and unabridged version of Redlich's novel. Words have not been updated or omitted'.

UPDATE: Thank you for the recommendation for Marcus Crouch. I'd forgotten about that review. I may be biased, but it strikes me as fair. All being well, the book will be ready well before Christmas. I would reply to your comment, but Blogger keeps logging me out.

Collecting Books and Magazines

More good news: the Australian site Collecting Books and Magazines mentions Margin Notes Books and The Whicharts. It's such a useful site to check cover art, authors and reprints of half-forgotten books and, much like LibraryThing, helps by encouraging half-forgotten memories of titles and authors of books to rise to the surface. I know I'm not the only reader who can remember plots of books read as a child, though not the more significant details of author or title so that I can track them down for a reread.

Heat and chills

In the first really unbearable heat of the summer in England without enough air-conditioning it's useful to have a set of chilling short stories near to hand as an antidote. A sudden rise in temperature to 32 in the last week or so all over southern England and you start to dream of chilled drinks, ice cubes and some way to get home that doesn't involve a train whose windows are sealed and no breeze. However, a really good collection of short stories, say Joanne Harris's Jigs and Reels or Roald Dahl's Someone Like You are most effective in cooling your mood and sending chills down your spine. I love a good page-turner and appreciate the pared-down craft of the short story at its best. Jigs and Reels provides entertainment to keep you agreeably chilled and amused from the feel-good 'Faith and Hope Go Shopping' to the sinister 'Waiting for Gandalf'.

Stacy Gregg's Pony Club Rivals

I had a wonderfully giggly and escapist weekend with friends and new books. I enjoy reading for plot just as much as reading for trends in the industry. Somehow, I was never really a pony book reader, I appear to have missed Stacy Gregg and her new series Pony Club Rivals and I'd recommend them for an engaging distraction from reality. The Auditions is the first in a series and it's a beautiful updating of the boarding school story set at an exclusive riding school for future champions of dressage and showjumping. Based in the US, it recruits via a series of complicated competitions and it seems that the heroine has more chances to compete for entry than anyone. A perfect beginning of misunderstandings, false accusations and no outright victory leads on to the rocky and uncertain road to the dream school complete with the emotional turmoil of teenage hormones and the knowledge that your mother, tragically killed in a riding accident naturally, was a better rider at your age. Plenty of horsey detail and enough terminology to muddle the non-rider, but there are good friendship subplots, silly tricks and scrapes to keep the story galloping (sorry) along. You even get a couple of polo matches.

Peaceful Saturday

A free afternoon browsing in London's secondhand bookshops is joyous. Quinto had just had a huge stock delivery that was worth braving their horrible staircase for. (If you haven't been in, just take each step very slowly as the height, width and depth of each tread and riser seem to be slightly different; it's an old building). A little further down and the second survivor - Any Amount of Books - had those welcome half-price in basement stars in the windows and on the shelves. Going down their staircase is easier: it's just a matter of waiting your turn. When you do manage to join the crowds in the basement, you're almost overwhelmed by the volumes of interesting and unusual that just draw you towards the shelves. A neat heap of boxes is almost ready for unpacking and display. In spite of masses of tape and polite signs saying 'Please leave' people still start to pull at them, perhaps they remember childhood Christmases, though Any Amount staff have come up with the solution: 'Please do not open these boxes - they contain cats' which raised smiles and ensured that people kept their fingers well away. There were plenty of gems on the shelves and the contents of the boxes will be available soon enough.

Sometimes, just sometimes, book recommendations are worth heeding. It's often the case that you need to match the right book to the author. I'll take one modern example first: Marcus Sedgwick's Blood Red Snow White - a fascinating take on Arthur Ransome's time in Russia. It also has the most beautiful endpapers of period maps. I tried The Foreshadowing after that, but couldn't quite finish it. Then again, I've never found fantasy to be a genre I could read.

The vintage example is Dorita Fairlie Bruce who has legions of fans. I wasn't one of them: her school stories left me bored and it was a real struggle to get past Chapter Three. Then, a friend lent me Triffeny and The Serendipity Shop. Just reprinted by Girls Gone By books, they are much more interesting stories of Scotland, mostly from the social history angle as they relate to established crafts (polishing stones for beads and pottery-making) finding new ways to be relevant to young craftswomen developing alternative markets just as mass tourism arrives.