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.

Virago - Emily trilogy - Lucy Maud Montgomery

One of the nicest things about reading is someone recommending you a title that becomes a firm favourite and that's how I discovered Anne of Green Gables and Lucy Maud Montgomery. Thanks to my childhood librarians who understood that I liked browsing and was happy to hear suggestions. I read my paperback copies of Anne of Green Gables almost to bits - the glue and spines certainly failed - and never quite managed to find a friend in Emily. I preferred Anne and Jane of Lantern Hill. I suppose I found Emily a bit too dreamy. I've since replaced my Anne and Jane paperbacks with some hardback, but vintage, reprints with dustwrappers. Harrap did a bright set in green boards with orange wrappers for years and there are plenty about.

However, the wonderful Virago have added to their children's list and are tempting me to reconsider owning Emily as she is conspicuously absent from my shelves. They started with Rumer Godden - always a writer I'd recommend - and brought in the Emily trilogy. Three beautiful paperbacks with covers by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini. The covers alone have inspired me to try again as I need a break from editing my 2014 titles.

Home Economics

I hadn't realised that there are Universities still offering 'Home Economics' as a degree subject: you can take it at undergraduate and postgraduate level in Ireland. Of course I found this ages after publishing Candy Nevill, when it might have been very useful as a research tool, while searching for something else entirely. Ireland would be an awfully long way for someone like Candy Nevill to travel. Though I think she'd probably find a good course in America and emigrate. Those last sentences probably suggest I'm too close to my characters, but my books can take 18 months to 2 years to put together and they do feel like close friends at the end of that time. I've just spent a happy half hour on their website looking over the curriculum. I'd rather assumed that you had to choose a practical catering course like Cordon Bleu or similar if you wanted some sort of post-school qualification in food. That said, there doesn't seem to be as much practical cookery and I'd certainly appreciate that. I don't think I need another degree though, much as I like the look of it. I'd also need to relocate to Ireland and I'm happy where I am. This blog post skidded in so that I have time to tidy up before watching the Great British Bake Off that I missed earlier in the week. Twitter gave me the result and now I want to see the full episode. Roll on 7pm on BBC2.

The Lotus Cup - Jane Louise Curry

I enjoy a good page-turner, particularly if it involves crafting and The Lotus Cup was one of those random 'finds' in a secondhand bookshop that I've been waiting for enough time away from rights puzzles and emails to read - I ended up not wanting to put it down and read it late into the evening. That's always a good sign of an interesting book, but not good when you have an early start the following morning. It's a teenage novel from the 1980s which seems oddly more dated than some of the more vintage (c. 1950s) fiction I've been reading. Especially when a teacher taking students on a trip out uses two student cars plus her own car to transport the class and advises two students to share a seat-belt as they're slim.

Yes, there are lots of Hawaiian shirts, clashing colours and jangly plastic earrings, but this is a charming book about a very shy girl finding her talent for ceramics in a declining pottery town and negotiating the teenage difficulties of boyfriends and parental expectations. East Liverpool (Ohio) was once a thriving centre for pottery. Now, it's in decline and only a small local pottery museum and the odd supplier remain. The larger potteries have closed leaving unemployment and scars on the cityscape.

Corry is shy and skittish, struggling with maths and desperate to achieve the college entry requirements. The visit to the pottery museum inspires her to work with clay and overcome at least some of her shyness to try (and succeed) in creating and firing a delicate ceramic cup.

As much as I liked the story, I also liked the technical information on kilns, glazes and firing that are woven in. Lovely book that I'll be keeping on my shelves for a reread. The author does have a website and I'll be trying more of her books in the future.