War Among Ladies - Eleanor Scott (1928). Not much changes

I came across an odd and very purple book recently about staff-room quarrels and a complete unravelling of a workplace. I can't remember another staff-room in Girl's Own fiction apart from New Mistress at the Chalet School where there is a place for everything and everything is in its place whether that's your bedroom where the bed can be turned into a sofa during the day or in the staff room where you have your own desk and bookshelf. I do remember wondering why it was so important to turn your bed into a sofa during the day on first reading as a child. Perhaps I was always laid-back and felt that was necessary effort - wouldn't you just make the bed and leave until the working day was over? It seemed rather pointless for a single woman as she couldn't really invite guests in. I expect I'm muddling up the inevitably floral bedroom and the study, but I keep imagining a floral desk set and no clutter allowed. In my more evil moments I wonder if Matron even inspected the drawers of the academic staff and think she probably did. Just to keep an eye on things.

It was, though, a friendly staff-room as a rule. Lots of coffee-drinking, biscuit-eating and enjoyment with jigsaws, card games and pleasant conversation. War Among Ladies (1928) by Eleanor Scott is probably more realistic in its portrayal of inter-staff rivalries where the staff-room is the centre of conflict rather than a comfortable place to have a break. These staff are drudges, desperate to escape teaching and fearing a poverty-stricken retirement. I'm rather glad that banks now give mortgages to single women when the alternative is living in rented rooms, mainly of the miserable variety at the mercy of petty landladies. It's almost impossible for them to have an outside social life as they're judged by the clubs they belong to and the clubs they don't join. They are concerned with exam results, the Education Department, local council, parents and standing. Most especially about appearances and standing. It's petty morality at its most entertaining. It's also a pretty good reflection of most workplaces: not everyone likes all their colleagues and there's usually someone weak who isn't doing anything about improving their skills, but they are self-pityingly wafting about doing very little. Then, the School Inspector called. Sadly, there's no consideration of career development and learning new skills, but everyone's scrambling to survive. It's professional death by politeness and a fantastic example of verbal communication and the power of suggestion.

Fleming

Well, the Winter Olympics went by in a haze of unfamiliar sports, overexcited commentary and, somehow, my paperwork is up-to-date. I'm delighted about that as it does make things easier.

Now that I've strayed into the world of television, I'll stay there a little longer and muse about the new Ian Fleming production on Sky. I'd been looking forward to this as Ian Fleming (scandal, fame, hard living) is the perfect subject for a biographer even if he hadn't written James Bond. It's an enjoyably glossy production and the costumes are the best thing about it. I am, though, rather underwhelmed by the script, though the amazing cast are doing their best. It feels as though it was rushed. As though someone read the paragraph of biography that's in the Pan Bond paperbacks and thought 'Let's make a James Bond spoof'. Not that I mind the bits that are done well. The motif of the Monty Norman "Dum di-di dum dum" is welcome as are the cast. You can sit back and enjoy Dominic Cooper, Sam West, Anna Chancellor and Lara Pulver. It's rather a pity they didn't have a better script to go with the marvellous tailoring. I'm pleased to see Ian Fleming re-imagined as 'book Bond' with the sinister undercurrents and gambling and not 'film Bond' which tends towards self-parody. I would go back to my own Bond books and I find that I cleared out the 1960s Pan paperbacks and one very nasty yellow cloth reprint of Dr No some time ago. Probably when I packed up and went to university. Pity. That's the thing about books, though. You can always buy a replacement.

February and catching up

February's always a quiet month for sales, so I set aside some time to make inroads on paperwork, proof-reading and new-title hunting. (Guess which one I prefer?) People have had the shock of December and January's credit card bills and it's a long way to Easter when sales will perk up again. Lots of people seem to buy my books for Christmas and Easter presents and that always keeps me happy. It means I can develop new titles.

Peace, quiet and an awful lot of proof-reading made up the majority of the day. That said, it's also a great time to enjoy the Winter Olympics and I frittered the late afternoon away watching a mixture of speed and figure skating. I was enough of a Harriet fan to appreciate the importance of 'figures', 'lines' and 'edges', but the lifts left me puzzled and admiring. As an aside, Sue Barker really should stop talking and let the dances start without a rushed repeat of the competitors names.

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.