What I've been reading: Summer edition

Summer, for me, is not ideal reading time. No preschool, no nursery... you get the picture. Some books still got read, though...

1. Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron. 

Once a medievalist, always a medievalist...
Actually quite surprising, in many ways. Think people in the middle ages were prim and proper and well-behaved (ok, apart from all the wars...)? Think again.

2. Sheila Kaye Smith, The End of the House of Alard.
No pretty pictures for this one, it's out of print (sniff).

This book. THIS BOOK. In many ways, it reminded me of Mazo de la Roche's Jalna series, and I was plodding along, quite enjoying it, and then this happened:


"Catholic Christianity stands fast because it belongs to an order of things which doesn't change. It's made up of the same stuff of our hearts. It's the supernatural satisfaction of all our natural instincts. I doesn't deal with abstractions, but with everyday life. Its sacraments are all common things- food, drink, marriage, birth and death. Its highest act of worship is a meal; its most sacred figures are a dying man and a mother nursing her child. It's traditional in the sense that nature and life are traditional".

There was another passage that exactly pinned down something I'd never been able to put into words about the Anglican church, too, but I can't find the scrap of paper I copied it onto... I'll attempt to post it when I find it.

Also, it smelt AMAZING. Not just standard old-book-smell, but the very best sort of old-book-smell.

3. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.

I felt I should read this. Now I've read it. The end.
(I genuinely have no strong feelings about this book. Then again, I've never got the appeal of Gatsby either. Am I a philistine, or am I just too... not-American?)

4. Liz Moore, Heft.

This one was July's book of the month at our local library, described as "the most unsentimental sentimental journey this year", or words to that effect. Also, as it turns out, rather forgettable - I couldn't remember what the book was actually about when I saw the title in my Goodreads list.

5. Elizabeth Jane Howard, Mr. Wrong.

Elizabeth Jane Howard is one of the (many) authors I added to my list whilst reading Howards End is on the Landing. This is a collection of short stories with a fairly wide range of subject matter. I didn't enjoy the first one (REALLY not my style), but the others were more to my taste. Summer Picnic merits an individual mention, if only for the following quotation:

"One of the babies began to cry. He had lunched lightly off dandelion heads, some milk chocolate, and a Monopoly card, and was now quite properly resisting any further nourishment". 

It's like she's been watching my children or something.

That brings us to mid-August, so I suspect another book post may be coming before too long. Also, Ze Husband has been reading Brideshead Revisited, and I suspect his reactions could be interesting...

What I've been reading: April-May

This time around, I'm trying not to let being back at work stop me from reading for fun. Because I work with words, it can be hard to switch out of professional mode and back into normal reader mode. If I've been translating, I try to avoid reading anything that has been translated (from French to English or English to French). If I've been editing, then there's no hope and I go and do something else...

Books from the past couple of months have included:

1. Helen Macdonald,  H is for Hawk. 

This made quite a lot of noise when it first came out, so when I spotted it in the local library, I thought I'd see what the fuss was about. The verdict? Definitely worth a read. The only issue for me was that I read most of it whilst feeding Es, and I ended up projecting Mabel the baby goshawk onto Es the baby human, to the point where I felt like I was breastfeeding a bird of prey. That bit was...bizarre.

2. Ben Aaronovitch, Moon over Soho.

My parents introduced me to the Rivers of London series a while back, but I've been reading them all in the wrong order (not particularly advisable, it gets confusing in places). This is the second in the series, and I'm starting to understand some of what happened in the fourth and fifth volumes a bit better now! I finally managed to get volume 1 from the library just this week, so hopefully I'll be able to fill in the gaps.

3. Kate Grenville, The Lieutenant.

Relaxing, but not mindless, reading. I'd actually be more interested in using the source documents Kate Grenville used for her research, but that's probably just me.

4. Charlotte Mendelson, Almost English.

 
I am struggling to find words to express how much I disliked this book, and I have no idea how it ended up shortlisted for the Orange Prize. I was expecting something along the lines of Marina Lewycka (quirky, fun, pure escapism), but...no.The only reason I actually carried on reading to the end is that I started it when I was ill, so I thought my appreciation of the book might have been skewed by fever-dreams. It wasn't.

5. Chautona Havig, Aggie's Inheritance (series).

Hear me out on this one.

As far as I can tell, Chautona Havig is a fairly prolific writer of self-published e-books, all of which are free to read with Kindle Unlimited (I had a one-month free trial). She writes evangelical Christian romance, which would usually make me run a mile. However, based on a positive review online and the fact the books were free, I decided to give this series a shot.

Unreliable proofreading aside, I actually really enjoyed it. All the escapism of classic chicklit (I hate the term, but it serves a purpose) without the gratuitous, and usually badly-written, sex. It is, esentially, good, clean fun. Yes, even for Catholics.

More (hopefully) next month!

Seven Quick Takes, Episode 14: in which I am forced to type standing up

Hello Hello! It's SQTday, so... off we go!

1. I'm typing this standing up. This is not due to some new health-thing. It's because I piled all of the junk on my desk onto the chair in a vain attempt to locate my library card, and now I'll have to tidy up before I can sit down again. Given my desk is where all of the odd homeless objects in the whole house go to lurk, the process may take hours, and then it wouldn't be Friday any more, would it?

2.You know how parents hide snacks out of reach so their kids can't get them? (Yes. Yes, you do). We're applying the same approach to our strawberries this year.

 Haha, slugs. I'd like to see you try.

3. This book re-emerged from wherever it's been hiding for the last few years and it made me laugh A LOT.

Dad bought it for Mam in the latter stages of her first pregnancy. Looking at some parts of the story, it's hard to believe Mr Greedy isn't just a pregnant woman.

"I woke up at six o'clock. It was my tummy who woke up first. The rest of me was fast asleep"...

Anyone who's had a case of the third-trimester early morning munchies should be able to identify.

4. Since last Friday, we've all been in various stages of being ill and/or recovering. There appears to be light at the end of the tunnel, but... bleeeerrrrggg.

5. Library fines are embrassing, right? (Yes, I forgot to renew my books on time. AGAIN.)
Unless... what if those (collective) fines make the difference between a library staying open and being shut for budget reduction purposes? People of the UK, unite! Renew your books late! SAVE THE LIBRARIES! ;-)

(On a serious note, our county council is having to shut 35 libraries to meet budget targets. THIRTY-FIVE. So there'll be more unemployed librarians, and more unemployed books. This makes me Very Sad. Even my late return fees - 75p so far this year - can't do much to help that).

6. Three day weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ah, the possibilities... we probably won't do anything exciting, but the fact that we could makes all the difference.

7. Ze husband has just informed me that we won't be going clubbing tonight. Shame, I was looking forward to wearing my four-year-old's maxi skirt as a dress. With pink eyeshadow. And glittery lipstick. Or whatever you're supposed to do these days. Ah well, maybe next week.

Linking up with Kelly for 7QT. Go! Read! Be happy!




 

What I've been reading: March-April

Just a few things I've been reading recently - partly to keep track of my attempts to conquer the book heap, and partly to help me remember what I've read. 

1. Sigrid Undset, Kristin Lavransdatter.

I finished this early last week, and I'm still processing it. I read the first two parts last Summer/Autumn, then had a break before going into Part 3 (The Cross) because it deserved more attention than my heavily-pregnant brain could give it.
Basically, if you haven't read it, do so. If you have read it, read it again. Just... wow.

2. Susan Hill, Howards End is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home.

We were staying with my parents earlier this week, which meant easy access to their local library (far better than the one we usually use). When I saw this, I just had to borrow it - the title sounded so much like something that would happen in our house. It's not a life-changer, but it does make pleasant reading, and resulted in the addition of at least ten more entries to my things-to-read list.

3.  Josephine Ross, Jane Austen's Guide to Good Manners.

Another library book. I was expecting this to be, well, fluff, in the style of most "Jane Austen's Guide to..." books. It's actually a fairly serious guide to Regency manners, and very useful for understanding some of the finer nuances of behaviour in Austen's novels. I now want to go back and read them all again...

More to come soon (hopefully).

 

Five Favourites: Books for Girls

I wrote a "Five Favourites" book post for boys a while back, so it only seemed fair I should do a list for girls, too. Age-wise, I'm thinking 7+, and I've tried to come up with a few lesser-known books.  Obviously, there's nothing to stop boys from reading them, but most of these have been written with a female audience in mind.

So, without further ado...

1. Louisa May Alcott, An Old-Fashioned Girl.

Much less well-known than Little Women, but I remember really liking it. It's in the public domain, too.

2. Susan Coolidge, Clover.

One of the later books in the What Katy Did series (all public domain). It just about works as a stand-alone book without having read the others.

3. Alison Uttley, A Traveller in Time.

  
One of my absolute favourites - and not as well-known as it deserves to be, in my opinion. My daughter will be getting a copy of this as soon as she's old enough to read it.

4. E. Nesbit, Five Children and It.

  
Not the best-known of Nesbit's books, but well worth reading. Also out of copyright.
This is the first volume in a series, and I suspect it will appeal to boys as much as girls.
There's at least one BBC TV adaptation.

5. Dodie Smith, 101 Dalmatians.

Most people have seen the film; few have read the book, which, in my opinion, is every bit as good. There's also at least one sequel (The Twilight Barking).

I could go on, but then there'd be more than five... maybe I should do a "part 2" sometime!

Linking up with Ashley for Five Favourites.

 

Five Favourites: To-Read

Earlier on this year, I owned up to having a Quite Ridiculous stack of books by my bed.
It hasn't got much better:

 

Just to make me feel marginally better about all this, here's a photo of Ze Husband's equivalent heap:

Counting up, I appear to have 18 books, compared to his 23... except... see that dark blue thing with the yellow rabbit-print edges in my heap? Yeah. That's my Kindle. With another... oh, quite a lot of books on it. Also, my copy of Kristin Lavransdatter is currently downstairs, which makes my heap look a lot smaller all of a suddden.

I've started making a list of things to read AFTER I finish the stack, which, quite conveniently, currently includes 5 titles.

1. Susannah Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. 
You may have noticed that this one is already in the heap. I cheated a bit and bought it early.

2. Rumer Godden, In This House of Brede. 
I've wanted to read this one since I heard about it on the Fountains of Carrots podcast. I think my brain must be wired in a similar way to theirs because you can almost guarantee I will love every. single. book they talk about.

3. Marilynne Robinson, Gilead.
Ditto.

4. Donna Tartt, The Secret History. 
I hadn't read any Donna Tartt books before The Goldfinch. It was long, it was bizarre, but I got into it in a way which has rarely happened since having children (attention span? What attention sp...?)

5. Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose.
I'm kind of embarassed to admit I haven't read this yet. Foucault's Pendulum has to be among the best books I've ever read. I also like Eco because of the way he works with his translators (professional bias? Well, yes). The Prague Cemetery was a bit disappointing, but I'm willing to give him another chance (possibly many other chances - see above).

I'm not going to include product links, because I think secondhand is generally the best way to go. If you're in the UK and buying through Amazon, look out for BetterWorld Books - they sell on ex-library stock and pass on the profits to literacy charities.

Linking up with Ashley for Five Favourites :-)

Seven Quick Takes, episode 7: In which my children willingly eat kale

Hello t'interwebs! It's Friday again, which means it's time for 7QT...

1. I've just finished reading Sophie's Choice and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Knowing what the "choice" was before I read the book obviously changed the experience a bit, and Styron's approach to the Holocaust is nowhere near as shocking now as it was in 1979 (add to that the fact that I studied the historiography of the Holocaust as a specialist subject in my last year at high school, and it loses its originality). What I really didn't like was all the (really) nasty language, which almost made me stop reading before the end of chapter 2. You have been warned...

2. (Hides face in shame) So I may have made my children matching outfits for Easter... This is possibly the last year where they'll all be happy to be matching, so it was now or never. Also, I found a really easy dress pattern on the internet. More to come on that one once I've sewn all the buttons on and taken some pictures! (Mothers of the internet: please don't shoot me. I'm still on maternity leave at the moment and I only have ONE CHILD for six whole hours on a Thursday, which is when these sorts of things happen).

3. I had two heads of cavolo nero (black kale) lurking in the back of the fridge that I wasn't sure what to do with. In the end, I made kale pesto:

• Strip leaves from kale stalks. Discard stalks.
• Plunge leaves into boiling water for 1 minute, then drain, rinse in cold water and squeeze out most of the moisture
• Place kale in blender with a couple of cloves of garlic, a glug (yes, that is a culinary term) of olive oil, salt, pepper, and a handful of blanched almonds 
•  Find toddler willing to press blender button several times over the course of a few minutes. 

We had ours with roasted root vegetables (it being Friday in Lent and all), but it would work pretty well with pasta, gnocchi, etc. I have a jar of preserved garlic cloves in the back of the cupboard at the moment, so I used those: they have a fairly mild flavour and don't need cooking. If you're using normal, raw garlic, though, I'd suggest blanching it with the kale.
I suspect walnuts would be a pretty good substitution for the almonds, and it goes without saying that parmesan cheese would definitely add something... in any case, my kids ate it without complaining, so it's a winner in my books.

4. Also on a culinary note, I have oompa-loompa orange hands at the moment from chopping up butternut squash this morning. I just felt the need to share that. Sorry.

5. Last weekend, Mx asked me if her godmother had fixed Jesus. It took me a while to work out where the idea had come from... turns out she was getting "Jo" (her godmother - who also happens to be a doctor, so you can see where the fixing-people thing comes in) mixed up with "Dieu" (i.e. God). Nice idea, but... no.

6. Pointless philosophical reflection of the day: why is it so hard to find purple shoe polish? Hmmmm. Mx's boots are definitely looking a bit the worse for wear, and I'd like it if they could last until after Easter...

7. I had to change the names of two of my posts when I found out that "BabyLit" is actually a thing. They're now called Baby Edits. Vol. 1 is here and vol. 2 is here.

On that note, have a very happy weekend!

Linking up with Kelly for 7QT.

The Baby Edit vol. 2: Opening Lines

The premise behind Baby Edits is simple: let babies edit classic literature, and see what happens!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a toddler, being in possession of a toy, must be in want of whatever-that-is-his-sister-has.
 - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice


It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of breastmilk, it was the age of weanong, it was the epoch of cuddles in bed, it was the epoch of having to go to bed early, it was the season of nappies, it was the season of The Potty, it was the jumping-up-and-down-in-muddy-puddles of hope, it was the tantrum of despair. 
- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Under-Threes 


Last night I dreamt I went to soft play again.
- Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca


This is my favourite book in the whole world, though I have never read it, exclusively because another child is attempting to take it from me.
- William Goldman, The Princess Bride 
 

Reader, I chewed it.
- Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

For more Baby Edits, see Vol. 1, in which the babies edit Kipling...

...and seeing as there are five opening lines here, I'm linking up with Ashley for Five Favourites. Wooo!






 

The Baby Edit, volume 1: If

Jenny at Unremarkable Files has published a couple of (very funny) posts about babies writing poetry, which got me thinking... what if babies were allowed to edit classic literature?
Here, with apologies to Rudyard Kipling, is what they managed to come up with this week.

If you can keep your toy when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can hurt yourself when all protect you,

And blame them for not saving blanky too;

If you can wail and not be tired by wailing,

Or being rocked to sleep, don't bat an eye,

Or being cradled, don't give in to cradling,

And make your mother weep and father sigh;

If you can sleep - but drive your parents dotty;

If you can pee - whilst perfecting your aim;

If you can meet with Weaning and The Potty

And treat these two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the words you've mangled

Repeated, on some future wedding day;

Refuse the car seat, until you are wrangled

Protesting, writhing, howling all the way;

If you can make one heap of all your pasta

And throw it in one game of dinner-toss,

And lose it, and then beg for a replacement

And never let them think that they're the boss;

If you can force your unsuspecting siblings

To let you have their food when they have none,

And be the top of your domestic food chain

And scream as soon as Mama says "All gone!";

If you can feed non-stop from dusk to sunrise

And only doze off after the alarm,

If you can be in charge, although you're pint-size

And make sure that things never get too calm;

If you can fill the unforgiving minutes

With sixty seconds' worth of screaming done,

Yours is the room and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a BABY, my son!