Category: Books

#1251 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books1 Comment
Not this one, 3 times is quite enough.

What book could you read over and over again?

I am not much of a repeat reader. If I reread a book it is often circumstantial rather than a choice. Book Club is a good source of a re-read but with the added benefits of being able to talk with a group of fascinating people about the book. This last month I read the book club book twice and I had also read it a few years ago. 3 times for a book I consider to be not worth reading. I probably didn’t finish it the first time. I didn’t plan to give it such diligence this month but after the first read I researched the reviews from when it was first published and gave it a skim-read second/third go.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/may/22/beryl-bainbridge-polka-dot-dress?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

I am an ardent reader for pleasure. The more I read this book the more I took from it, but pleasure was not something extracted on any one of my three adventures between its covers.

I feel I have failed by not thinking that this book is an insightful and fitting final novel by a great writer. But in truth this is not her final novel. She didn’t finish it and her hastily written manuscripts fueled by end-of-life medications were assembled by her much respected editor. Would she have sent it out in that form to her adoring public?

Could it ever be accurately judged as it was published after her death. Once one critic, from an unreliable cohort,  mostly white men, had said it was her masterpiece ( mistresspiece) could anyone have disagreed?

https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/jul/02/beryl-bainbridge-favourite-book?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Much better to read this article and the books mentioned. Written a day after her death the  article mentions my personal favourite The Birthday Boys about Scott , a local Plymouth hero. But read by me long before I lived here.

I am going to read it again now. I suppose despite what I said earlier I am a re-reader. Just not over and over again. Life is too short!

#1097 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, Serendipity2 Comments

I had read an enormous amount of the works of Arthur Conan Doyle before I was twenty.My book club has directed me, this month, to read the first novel to feature Sherlock Holmes. I am loving it, particularly because the life I have lived beyond twenty has exposed me to many of  Conan Doyles real life locations. Where his fictitious detective operated.  I used to regularly catch my bus home from work opposite 221B Baker Street and a different bus home took me on the Brixton Road. The first crime scene where Homes and Watson work together. When I was training at Barts Hospital I was familiar with the laboratories where Holmes and Watson first met in A Study in Scarlet. Wimpole and Harley Street were neighbouring streets to my workplace in Westmoreland Street. Holmes and Watson are frequently in these streets.

So I find myself in a strange place reading a book where, once upon a time, I was free to build my own imaginary locations as a twenty year old with little life experience. Re-reading it I have none of that freedom but with that understood I find the reading of the novel even richer in detail than I did before. Places I love are brought back to life, 150 years before I ever knew them.

In another curious coincidence I currently live very very close to the location of Arthur Conan Doyles G.P practice in Durnford Street in 1882. I know where the actual Baskervilles are buried. They were Conan Doyles patients, he used their name. Who knows if they even had a hound. My house was being built while he worked here. Funny to think that our quirky old lady was just a building site or ‘ New Build Home’ when Conan Doyle was wandering these streets.

Without a Book Club I doubt I would have re-entered the world of Sherlock Holmes, I am finding the experience rather interesting.

#955 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Books, GreeceLeave a comment

I have completely failed to mention my Kindle book reading. Which this year is my non-fiction holiday read. I am a good deal further into it than this picture suggests. I had excellent history teachers at my school and wish I could have studied it beyond O level but I wish that about lots of subjects. I have never wished for different History teachers until now. Shalina Patel serves up history  so intriguingly she would most certainly get an apple from me everyday.

The Hotel Shelf book has been chosen. It will almost certainly be the flight home book.

I picked up a fabulous life quote from my current read, soon to be set free to roam wherever with all the other Hotel shelf paperbacks the world over.

” We can’t all live in perfect harmony with our integrity “

I will be taking that sentence home with me.

Necessity is the mother or father of invention. Overnight I remembered my dad sharpening pencils with glass paper ( sandpaper) . An Emery board has done a very good job. No pencil crisis any more.

In hotel bookshelf faux science I would say that the majority of guests here are German and they read a better standard of books than the British guests. There are some shockingly bad cover art examples in either language.  Predominantly ‘Romance’ novels that my mother was very dismissive of when I was younger. She called them pulpy kidney books, as if describing some terrible medical malady that would befall anyone reading such stuff. Not for her and her second wave feminist friends, except…

When it was time to clear my parents home following their deaths I found a surprise stash of exactly that type of novel in the back of her wardrobe. She didn’t sink to Mills and Boon but the subject matter was predominantly historical  and medical romance.

At death her kidneys were in fine form so maybe she never crossed a line or maybe she imagined pulpy kidneys.

#954 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Books, Greece, Holidays1 Comment

Book 4 of the holiday reading pile includes a lot of rape. Hardly surprising as the core of the narrative is the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong during World War 2. In this book , so far , none of the main characters are involved. The brutality of the Japanese Occupation is the background to the narrative. I can revel in knowing the location well and slotting history into well-known locations is always fascinating.

In other news two new-to -me, Greek words have cropped up this week . Thanks to my fellow bookworms.

It was too tempting not to include a book and buttocks in a beach sketch . Surrounded, as I am, by buttocks both beautiful and not.

All that buttock sketching has revealed an error on my packing. No pencil sharpener!!

The second word is Ekphrasis.

Vivid description, oh how I wish I had the words. I may no longer have a useful pencil but I do still have my paints and a camera to enable a vivid end to the holiday.

The first book from the hotel shelf has been picked up, lets see how that goes.

#953 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, BooksLeave a comment

Dawn on the longest day of the year. Summer Solstice. The bobbers are doing their thing in Firestone Bay.

©Helen Bobber

For solidarity we did it in Greece.

Early morning dipping in Greece gave us the pleasure of walking through a herb garden full of Basil and Oregano and a cup of tea when the swim was done.

In other holiday news book three served up another rape.

Three in a row and I managed to give myself nightmares.

” You don’t want to read that kind of stuff , you will give yourself nightmares”  are words that more than one relative has said to me in my prolific reading life. It has never happened until now. 3 random books from the bookpiles or bookclub. So all bets are off for the last book. The Piano Teacher by Janice YK Lee. A story of post-war Hong Kong.

Where did the nightmares come from? I can only assume that women writers don’t dwell on the savagery of the event but write about the lifelong impact in a way that got under my skin.

What better way to banish a bad night’s sleep than by a cool dip at dawn.

#940 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, Serendipity1 Comment

List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?

I am a devourer of books, which is why I anonymised my book pile for this blog. My list of books that have had an impact would be bigger than 3. But in my reading life, 3 is the magic number. I tend to have 3 books on the go at any one time.Sometimes 4.

1. My current fiction book of choice.

2. A non-fiction book . History, Biography or some other subject.

3. A digital book or audio book stored on my smartphone.

(4) My Bookclub book if it doesn’t sit comfortably in 1,2 or 3.

Currently Book Club books are the books most likely to have an impact on me. 1,2 and 3 are self-selected and what I would choose to read, but a book club book often knocks me off my reading orbit. The most enriching thing about a book club book is my book club.  Once a month I get to talk in depth or in a flippant way about the book we have all read.

There is something rather marvellous about being able to talk about a book that has been read by a group of people at the same time and then being able to talk about the book, regardless of whether I enjoyed it, with other people.

This month we read ‘Scenes from a Village Life’

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/aug/05/amos-oz-scenes-village-life-review?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

The book was written in 2011 and nicely sums up my point about reading a book at the same time with a group of people.

If we had read this in 2011 the conversations that swirled around our different interpretations of this book would have been significantly different to the conversations that were had this week in June 2024.

The impact that any book has is dependent on when and where it has been read. That makes the word ‘impact’ a much more fluid concept.

Aren’t books wonderful?

An audiobook has had me crying into my white paint pot this week while I have been labouring on my white walls.

The idea of colour blocking outside came from an Interior Design Book.

How could anyone expect me to choose just 3 books?

Huge thanks to my fellow bookworms for opening the doors and windows of books, that I would never have crossed the threshold of without your company and some hand holding

#823 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, pondering, SerendipityLeave a comment

I’m not entirely sure where this blog is going today. After a morning of rather dull admin I gave myself a little break and did some test printing and gave some new watercolours a bit of a run out as a reward for tasks achieved.  A little digital tweaking and I created this header post. Big thanks to everyone who responded so positively to yesterday’s blog, I love feedback, you all make my pondering a positive experience.

#822 theoldmortuary ponders.

I suppose yesterday’s blog was loosely about books and today’s mild ponder is also about a book, one that I have not read.

A quote from this book was shared with my book group and I felt that I disagreed with the writer to some degree.

It didn’t exactly keep me up all night but now I am going to have to read the book and see why the author felt the need to take such a cavalier attitude to her past. It is my safe past experiences that give me the confidence to press on into the cloud, as she puts it, of the future. Like many people not everything in my past was fabulous, but all past experience is useful. I suppose what shocks me is that she considers past experience to be ‘ dead’. It is unalterable, but surely it is as alive and vivid as I allow it to be.

And this is exactly why I have a book pile problem. This quote will piss me off until I have read the whole book. Pondering. Is it ever possible to turn it off?

And this is why my book piles are out of control…

#798 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books1 Comment

What books do you want to read?

The book I want to read this weekend is a David Bowie biography by Dylan Jones. What will stop me? Possibly my location, a Georgian house in Penzance full of fabulous things, and the weather which is crisp and bright with sunshine that wouldn’t be out of place in May.

I even have the perfect snuggery for reading.

But with that snuggery comes the temptation of other books.In particular one about Interior Design by Barta Heuman. Oh my goodness a cornucopia of advice about living with things that make every room sing.

David Bowie is instantly on my back burner while I greedily tuck into her book. Imagine a Swedish Designer who encourages ‘stuff’. No sleek minimalism for my new favourite designer. Oh no, she encourages eclecticism and individuality.

©Instagram

Other peoples books… and mine.

#791 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, Serendipity2 Comments

What’s your dream job?

I can’t quite believe that I am writing this but right now my dream job would be to work in a bookshop.

I would only hang my working hat in a quirky bookshop that served excellent coffee.

©theoldmortuary

My life in bookshops started in the small market town where I grew up. Hannay in the High Street sold books and had a smell like no other. The smell of other worlds and experiences, the smell of adventure.

By the time I was 10 my bookshop tastes were expanded exponentially, my dad often worked in Cambridge and Dad Day Care involved him leaving me in a bookshop for hours. He knew I would never leave or get into trouble.

© theoccasionalinformationist ©dbawden

By 18 I was living in London and had discovered Foyles.

Remembering the real old Foyles

At the same age I discovered Hay-on-Wye and streets filled with second -hand book shops. In my fantasy book life I frequented Shakespeare and Co in Paris, more than a bookshop. I was taken there by Hemingway and F. Scott-Fitzgerald. In my dreams!

Daunts Books in Marylebone High Street is my favourite book shop building and probably the one I know best.

https://dauntbooks.co.uk/

So many hours spent in there whilst I was on-call at the Heart Hospital. My friends and family got really well researched book gifts while I worked near there.

But it was a bookshop in the middle of nowhere that ignited my love of bookshops with a side serving of coffee and quirk.

http://robbersroostbooks.com/

Robbers Roost in Torrey, Utah brought my fantasy book shop to life. A shop that was so much more. Named because the building stands close to a hiding place of Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. The bookshop was built as a home in 1976 and is also the home of the Entrada Institute.

https://www.entradainstitute.org

Unknown at the time we had chanced on this bookstore soon after it had opened. We were only in Torrey for three days but I visited the bookstore every day and it has forever fueled my imagination of the perfect place to sell books and build a community hub. I would love to work in such a place. The commute is the only thing that stops me.

P.s not all my bookshop hunts have been as life affirming as those mentioned.

We were visiting Athens in October 2016 and had popped into an independent book shop.We bought some gifts. Hours later the book shop was bombed. The one occasion when my dad was wrong. Bookshops are not always safe.

#774 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, Serendipity1 Comment

What is the greatest gift someone could give you?

Not a physical gift or an experience gift but a word that eloquently replaces ‘pile”.

Over Christmas my Tsundoko grew. This was not intentional. Not only was I gifted some books creating a pleasing Tsunduko of books chosen for me by others. I had a singular book club book that must be read by next week. Two library books borrowed but now extended. There was a third, unplanned Tsunami of books that arrived just before and just after Christmas. My local library has an App where I can order any book I like and join a waiting list. In total 6 books that I would love to read arrived over the festive season. Something had to be done. A prioritise Tsundunku was made and a returns Tsunduku. Some of the waiting list books have been returned and I will rejoin the waiting list for them. Some of them have been 6 months on a waiting list.😭

I piled my newly curated Tsunduku by the sofa. As luck would have it the pile is high enough to comfortably hold a cup of tea within easy reach of a busily reading woman.

Rather late in the day a friend arrived carrying a carrier bag of delayed birthday and Christmas gifts. She viewed my new pile and the cup of tea and said. “Isn’t there a Japanese word for a pile of books”

And just like that the gift of Tsunduko was given. Possibly the greatest and most useful gift of all time.

Festive Tsunduko