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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Although this image uses a black and white filter the one below is untouched.
I thought my morning photos would be more pleasing. In addition to all the grey there were red buoys in the water and a red-hulled tanker. It took an awful lot of digital tweaking to reveal the red photographically.
Fortunately my day was not monchrome but the colour did come from an unexpected source.
This was the November book for the bookclub I belong to. It was not my cup of tea.
My bookclub meetings are a monthly highlight. The chance to talk about a particular book, as chosen, and all the other books the group have read is wonderful. November’s book was devisive. I think it would be fair to say no-one enjoyed it in a pleasure sense. But that sometimes reading a book that is a hard and at times uncomfortable read is an experience to be treasured for different reasons. I have included a review of the book if anyone is interested.
A book that the book club struggles with creates the most fascinating conversations. A roomful of women with vivid and different life experiences makes for the most wide ranging and thought provoking discussions. We trust one another and share intimate and personal reminiscences that inform and influence how we feel about the books we read. Despite the book being a bit of a hard graft and not particularly my thing the benefits of reading it with a group were huge and our two hour meeting bought colour and texture to my day that the weather was clearly not going to do. I was a little over-caffeinated but I think I kept a lid on my gabbling. Others may disagree.
The caffeine continued to rule my day, and half of the night. I arrived 24 hours and four minutes early for a performance with a choir I have joined. So in answer to todays prompt for bloggers…
Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?
Yes , of course, but not last night. In other news the target object of yesterdays blog is up in the bathroom.
Braintree Library was a short walk from my mothers workplace. From a very young age the building became my childcare facility. My mum’s best friend was a Librarian here so that sentence is not as neglectful as it may seem. How I wish I had followed her career path or something similar and had a working life amongst books and words.
Starfield Library, Gangnam, Seoul.
Somewhere there must be a couple of theses that I wrote. Gathering dust, written and bound, skulking in a university library. Created before the digital age, they contain my thoughts on medical imaging . There is also a more recent one called Finding the Erotic in Nature, but on the whole my words are unpublished. My anonymous boobs appeared in a medical textbook and a published Fine Art Photography book. Normal boobs, not the glamorous variety. The only book in a library that has me as a named contributor is this one.
And in a way it links back to my early days in Braintree Library. My mothers workplace, close to the library was, a radical at the time, sexual health clinic. When the call out for pillows to commemorate and celebrate women whose work made a difference to society I submitted a design that was accepted for a travelling exhibition and book.
The exhibition went to some fabulous places. Maybe 10 prestigious institutions.
So in one way or another, in a very minor way I will forever be in a library. But in the real world way, whenever my path takes me close to a library and time permits, I am likely to pop in.
A little extra ponder for the weekend. I am currently reading Mothers Boy by Patrick Gale.
Normally I might not answer this prompt but this particular book, author and subject are almost the foundation of my love of reading . The Mother’s Boy at the centre of this novel is the poet Charles Causley who wrote a poem called Timothy Winters.
At the heart of the poem is a disadvantaged boy living in post-war Britain. Someone whose opportunities the Welfare State was designed to improve. It was probably the first working class poem I had ever been exposed to.
I have stuck with Causley ever since. Then I moved near to Launceston where he lived and became familiar with the geography of his home town. This beautiful portrait of him was done by an artist I know.
I have read many factual books about Charles Causley but this fictional version, based on facts, of his life is so enjoyable. By an author who never puts a foot wrong, in my opinion. I am having a good weekend in my bookish moments
Book clubs are funny things. A well run one will push readers out of their comfort zones. I did not enjoy this book at all, but as so often happens it made me think, and because of that I may remember it more effectively than all the books that I have really enjoyed that have come my way via my bookclub.
Part of me is still a little angry that an accomplished female composer and singer would be depicted in such a way by a contemporaneous artist in the 17th Century. The link below is far more erudite than I could ever be about her and this painting.
But it is hard to look at this portrait and not think that this is a woman who has been around the block a few times and sometimes taken her pleasure in the alleyways between the blocks. Hard not to see the exposed breast or her grasp of the neck of her instrument.
Male composers of the time with equally vibrant private lives are all, without fail represented in a reverant and respectful style. Just google 17th century male composers. No wardrobe malfunctions for them.
The book further created this ranty blog because in the narrative the protagonist was in search of a woman who looked like this portrait. Not a clever, accomplished musician. He wanted a woman who could fuel his fantasy in a more fleshed out way.
This quote appears on the back of a book that I am about to read. Just reading it exercises me greatly. What would be the purpose of my three hearts if I were so lucky.
One would certainly be my actual anatomical heart, working hard keeping me alive.
The second I think would be a super resilient heart to house all heartbreak, sadness and grief that life serves up.
But number three, well that would be the heart of love, the one that makes every day special, the one that expands as required. The one that looks into a sunset and concludes that another day has been well-lived.
When this book was recommended to me a colleague warned me that I would need to take a break every now and then to calm down.
She was not wrong, I am only a quarter of the way through. Suddenly some things are blindingly obvious but not perhaps in the way I expected. From a historical perspective women often appear invisible because men took the credit for their work. I did not expect that simple fact to appear in my contemporary life this weekend. I was searching on line for a range of bone china that was designed a few years ago by a woman in collaboration with some art students. The design was easy enough to find using her name but when I thought about ordering some I noticed her name was nowhere to be seen. Instead the whole range was branded with her husband’s name. I am pretty certain I would have noticed this without being immersed in this wonderful book but now I am acutely aware and can’t quite bring myself to order the china.
Then today I was at a training afternoon and the course leader was trying to upscale a philosophy for children scheme * to engage with adults. I’m not entirely sure his plan was quite working as well as he had hoped, for anyone, when I also realised he had customised a visual aid by putting words in the shape of a male face with a moustache. The default male face as I now know these things are called.
So the warning on the book turned out to be a good one. Unfortunately real life is every bit as capable of winding me up now this book is my bed time reading. I also have the sequel. This could be a long week bookwise!
*P4C. Do not attempt to use on adults unless you are really sure of your material!
Wordle reminded me of the irony of my travel plans. Long haul travel is one of my great undisturbed reading moments. Prior to this North American adventure I had a physical book planned and three on Kindle . My physical book is of the heavy duty variety.
The Kindles are more recreational. Crossing the Atlantic I made a good enough start on it. Then I watched a film, Belfast by Kenneth Branagh, leaving me three hours or so to doze or crack on with history. My fingers however had different plans and took me to the TV section of the entertainment screen. Heading for Chicago my eyes were immediately drawn to a series based in Chicago. Hmmm well, Chicago Meds is about as medically accurate as a childs play set, the actors are super easy on the eye and the storylines delightfully improbable. Livers were transplanted with barely a wash down between donor and recipient. Doctors pondered over how they could possibly have missed Coronary Artery disease on a chest X-ray. Confidential data was shared and improbable blood tests were performed with instant results that cured patients of racism. Three hours was not enough, I was hooked.
What I had hoped for was some location filming of iconic Chicago architecture. Each episode featured the same 10 seconds of the Loop. The overhead railway. I know this because I watched all of the five episodes available, American History got the brush off. I was seduced by attractive actors and something intangible. I laughed, hugely inappropriately, in moments of high drama and was completely hooked half way though episode one. As I write this I am hopping across the border to Canada, there is no in flight entertainment. Belatedly I am returning to American history just as I leave the country. With some intellectual integrity left I have to admit that the first thing I do when I get home is check the TV listings for Chicago Meds, some comedies are less amusing.
