tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26881409687978352212024-03-05T03:58:39.583-08:00R O S I E C A N N I N G Rosiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13092513312910537938noreply@blogger.comBlogger122125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-58320460963605760512020-11-02T01:08:00.006-08:002021-09-06T03:49:32.642-07:00Rosie Canning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjDgsSvYunITy0Mxt2Tp8Iv6wrtjvAoueCe_JJVqX6kBL_sPk7umG4CKO3HvC6dgfoHqQN4g4q0yYfkz4pvWdykt_b0XKs5CmKUxwK12YtofJIC7ACriZclXRv7p_ouip5sToto4UsuGc/s1080/I+love+this+one+in+C.S.+Lewis+old+rooms.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjDgsSvYunITy0Mxt2Tp8Iv6wrtjvAoueCe_JJVqX6kBL_sPk7umG4CKO3HvC6dgfoHqQN4g4q0yYfkz4pvWdykt_b0XKs5CmKUxwK12YtofJIC7ACriZclXRv7p_ouip5sToto4UsuGc/s320/I+love+this+one+in+C.S.+Lewis+old+rooms.jpg" /></a></div><p>I am a Doctoral Researcher at University of Southampton under the supervision of Ms Rebecca Smith. The focus of my research is the representations of orphans and care leavers in fiction. I am examining the research through the lens of both creative and critical practice. The creative piece will explore my experiences of leaving care as well as considering the positive aspect that reading fiction has had on my life. I hope to complete the PhD by 2021.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /><span>I recently worked as a </span><a aria-label=" (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/team/rosie-canning" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Research Assistant</a> <span>in the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. </span><a href="https://conversationsforcare.org/">Conversations for care</a><span color="var(--color-text)"> is a knowledge exchange project co-created with <a href="https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/team/aoife-ohiggins">Aoife O'Higgins</a></span><span color="var(--color-text)">. Our aim was to engage people in the care community including care experienced people, foster and kinship carers, social workers, virtual schools, residential care workers, researchers and others, and stimulate discussions about care and how young people’s experiences of care can be improved. </span><span color="var(--color-text)">We did this through monthly Twitter chats and outreach activities at the University of Oxford. To find out more please visit our <a href="https://conversationsforcare.org/">website</a> </span><span color="var(--color-text)">or find us on Twitter at #CareConvos. <a href="https://careinthetimeofcovid.org/">Care in the time of Covid</a> is a </span><span>project that explores the day to day lives of care experienced adults in the UK during COVID-19. We wanted to know how the care community is coping and what helps them. We also wanted to record their experiences in history. Findings from the project will be published in October.</span></div><p>I am a campaigner for care leavers, and in 2013, helped set up the <a href="https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/equality-of-leaving-age-for-all-children-in-care">Every Child Leaving Care Matters campaign</a>.</p><div class="page" title="Page 2"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p>From 2014-2017 I was Volunteer Coordinator for Hackney Christmas Dinner (founded by <a href="http://blog.lemnsissay.com/2019/04/09/a-list-of-incredible-uk-people-who-were-fostered-adopted-or-in-childrens-homes/#sthash.jaVcrE5Q.dpbs">Lemn Sissay</a>).</p></div></div></div><p>2009-2020 Organiser of <a href="http://greenacrewriters.blogspot.co.uk/">Greenacre Writers</a> where we ran writing groups, workshops and festivals. #diverseauthorday in September 2015, was trending all over the world. We had some amazing contributions, read about the authors that were involved <a href="http://greenacrewriters.blogspot.com/2015/10/diverseauthorday.html">here</a>.</p><p>Among other activities, I co-organised <a href="https://careleaversinfiction.wordpress.com/2018/11/23/your-life-your-story-2018/">Your Life Your Story</a> and curated the art exhibition for the <a href="https://www.careexperiencedconference.com/">Care Experienced Conference</a> in April, 2019. Here is a write up about the conference from a talk: <a href="https://careleaversinfiction.wordpress.com/2019/11/20/oxford-childrens-rights-network/">Oxford Children’s Rights Network</a> at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights.</p><p>See more of <a href="https://careleaversinfiction.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/why-care-leavers-in-fiction/">Orphans and Care Experience in Literature</a>.</p><p>Contact: rc11g14@soton.ac.uk</p><p> </p><p>Recommendations:</p><p><em>I have known Rosie for a number of years and what strikes me is her level of commitment and dedication to a cause she believes in. Her drive to document the fictional lives of people in care is remarkable and unique. Only the most compassionate of all of us could undertake her task. The stories she has researched are harrowing and heartbreaking but she is determined that these tales should be read by all to increase empathy for all people who have been through the care system. I cannot reccomend her highly enough. </em><em>- </em>Alex Wheatle, Author, Guardian Children's Fiction Prize (2016)</p><p><em>I first met Rosie when she invited me to speak at The Finchley Literature Festival in 2014, an incredibly well organised event with a really diverse group of authors. It was then that I realised how much of a powerhouse Rosie is, encouraging new writers, creating platforms for established authors, and providing audiences with inspiring talks - and all at the same time as furthering her own academic and creative writing career. Rosie is an excellent networker, with a clear passion for bringing readers and writers together. </em> - Caitlin Davies, Author</p><p> </p>Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-27316813005817201972018-01-12T17:38:00.000-08:002018-01-15T03:04:15.695-08:00David Bowie's Top 100 books<div style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 2.5rem; margin-bottom: 16px; padding: 0px;">
<div class="mod" data-hveid="260" data-md="1001" data-ved="0ahUKEwii0J2V3NPYAhVoLsAKHS2aDtQQkCkIhAIoBDAf" style="clear: none; line-height: 1.24; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">
<div class="_eFb">
<div class="_mr kno-fb-ctx" data-attrid="kc:/people/person:born" data-ved="0ahUKEwii0J2V3NPYAhVoLsAKHS2aDtQQyxMIhQIoADAf" style="margin-top: 7px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">David Bowie: </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">January 8th 1947 - </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;">January 10th 2016</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #222222; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp-TBjmBBcavvlIJwFugE8D5XjhaNq3DV0EdiuufsTdZi4vyU2kYoqWVvKMTUyKbxV5QPEnld9y3vzHSgqBR4W6lLqist9yAwlNOJtFfRWmQgJ86lDaMSWQf_Xaeya3lmJPYcDxaL7Q2U/s1600/13071902_10153457675238414_8267896716432601064_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="927" data-original-width="1600" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp-TBjmBBcavvlIJwFugE8D5XjhaNq3DV0EdiuufsTdZi4vyU2kYoqWVvKMTUyKbxV5QPEnld9y3vzHSgqBR4W6lLqist9yAwlNOJtFfRWmQgJ86lDaMSWQf_Xaeya3lmJPYcDxaL7Q2U/s400/13071902_10153457675238414_8267896716432601064_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="views-field-body" style="border: 0px; clear: both; color: #231f20; float: none; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 15px 0px 0px; max-width: 800px; outline: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px 0px 11px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Still missing Bowie? Why not read the books he read, hear the words he heard. Think of what his thoughts might have had about the writing. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Duncan Jones, Bowie's son, has started a book club:</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: doctrine_0104_ltregular; font-size: 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: doctrine_0104_ltregular; font-size: 17px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQoEbyDgzrBaxMAZpiKerrB5ucY_Low_s7TqDPcEvnk7vQQyIyberHZX4DF6IXYkPRJynPvmlIJhcWFeZo_fPgkuEy1LgZSNwShHr7w5DWS9RQl21fa_xKmN_Q-7UPe9_6tPbCj9IRz8g/s1600/Screen+Shot+2018-01-13+at+00.57.25.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="387" data-original-width="628" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQoEbyDgzrBaxMAZpiKerrB5ucY_Low_s7TqDPcEvnk7vQQyIyberHZX4DF6IXYkPRJynPvmlIJhcWFeZo_fPgkuEy1LgZSNwShHr7w5DWS9RQl21fa_xKmN_Q-7UPe9_6tPbCj9IRz8g/s400/Screen+Shot+2018-01-13+at+00.57.25.png" width="400" /></a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="mod" data-hveid="264" data-md="1001" data-ved="0ahUKEwii0J2V3NPYAhVoLsAKHS2aDtQQkCkIiAIoBTAg" style="clear: none; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.24; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">
<div class="_eFb">
<div class="_mr kno-fb-ctx" data-attrid="kc:/people/deceased_person:died" data-ved="0ahUKEwii0J2V3NPYAhVoLsAKHS2aDtQQyxMIiQIoADAg" style="margin-top: 7px;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="color: #333333;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">David Bowie's Top 100 books:</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSb3xWlLNE2NdqzSMlSilQnkgMyw9Gj9qAUoJqj5VP27SNIwg42nVMucQtzKEwya2Omb_2heoZMBSL_OB_vGAPEADb7SikpBCbbRWxnrtO_Ivthq6Rr9KMmnNf8jcIZTMqxu_Vt9Vc8kM/s1600/8910336bf6ff2a383a34797bc8b7fbc6--david-bowie-happy-tuesday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSb3xWlLNE2NdqzSMlSilQnkgMyw9Gj9qAUoJqj5VP27SNIwg42nVMucQtzKEwya2Omb_2heoZMBSL_OB_vGAPEADb7SikpBCbbRWxnrtO_Ivthq6Rr9KMmnNf8jcIZTMqxu_Vt9Vc8kM/s320/8910336bf6ff2a383a34797bc8b7fbc6--david-bowie-happy-tuesday.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The man who ate books.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</div>
<ul style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 12px; margin: 0px 0px 32px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 32px;">
<li style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 2.5rem; list-style: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><blockquote style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 28px !important; margin-left: 28px !important; margin-right: 28px !important; margin-top: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Interviews With Francis Bacon by David Sylvester</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Billy Liar by Keith Waterhouse</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Room At The Top by John Braine</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On Having No Head by Douglass Harding</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Kafka Was The Rage by Anatole Broyard</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">City Of Night by John Rechy</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Iliad by Homer</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Tadanori Yokoo by Tadanori Yokoo</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Inside The Whale And Other Essays by George Orwell</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Mr. Norris Changes Trains by Christopher Isherwood</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Halls Dictionary Of Subjects And Symbols In Art by James A. Hall</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">David Bomberg by Richard Cork</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Blast by Wyndham Lewis</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Passing by Nella Larson</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Beyond The Brillo Box by Arthur C. Danto</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Origin Of Consciousness In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In Bluebeard’s Castle by George Steiner</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="background-color: magenta; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Divided Self by R. D. Laing</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Stranger by Albert Camus</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Infants Of The Spring by Wallace Thurman</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Quest For Christa T by Christa Wolf</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Master And Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodieby Muriel Spark</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Herzog by Saul Bellow</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Puckoon by Spike Milligan</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Black Boy by Richard Wright</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishima</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Darkness At Noon by Arthur Koestler</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Waste Land by T.S. Elliot</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">McTeague by Frank Norris</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Money by Martin Amis</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Outsider by Colin Wilson</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Strange People by Frank Edwards</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">English Journey by J.B. Priestley</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A Confederacy Of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Day Of The Locust by Nathanael West</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">1984 by George Orwell</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Life And Times Of Little Richard by Charles White</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock by Nik Cohn</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Mystery Train by Greil Marcus</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Beano (comic, ’50s)</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Raw (comic, ’80s)</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">White Noise by Don DeLillo</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm And Blues And The Southern Dream Of Freedom by Peter Guralnick</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Silence: Lectures And Writing by John Cage</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Writers At Work: The Paris Review Interviews edited by Malcolm Cowley</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Sound Of The City: The Rise Of Rock And Roll by Charlie Gillete</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Octobriana And The Russian Underground by Peter Sadecky</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Street by Ann Petry</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Last Exit To Brooklyn By Hubert Selby, Jr.</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A People’s History Of The United States by Howard Zinn</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Age Of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Metropolitan Life by Fran Lebowitz</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Coast Of Utopia by Tom Stoppard</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Bridge by Hart Crane</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">All The Emperor’s Horses by David Kidd</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Fingersmith by Sarah Waters</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The 42nd Parallel by John Dos Passos</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Tales Of Beatnik Glory by Ed Saunders</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Bird Artist by Howard Norman</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Nowhere To Run The Story Of Soul Music by Gerri Hirshey</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Before The Deluge by Otto Friedrich</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Sexual Personae: Art And Decadence From Nefertiti To Emily Dickinson by Camille Paglia</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The American Way Of Death by Jessica Mitford</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In Cold Blood by Truman Capote</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Lady Chatterly’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Teenage by Jon Savage</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Hidden Persuaders by Vance Packard</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Viz (comic, early ’80s)</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Private Eye (satirical magazine, ’60s – ’80s)</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Selected Poems by Frank O’Hara</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Trial Of Henry Kissinger by Christopher Hitchens</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Flaubert’s Parrot by Julian Barnes</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Maldodor by Comte de Lautréamont</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">On The Road by Jack Kerouac</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonders by Lawrence Weschler</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Zanoni by Edward Bulwer-Lytton</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Transcendental Magic, Its Doctine and Ritual by Eliphas Lévi</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Leopard by Giusseppe Di Lampedusa</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Inferno by Dante Alighieri</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A Grave For A Dolphin by Alberto Denti di Pirajno</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">The Insult by Rupert Thomson</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">In Between The Sheets by Ian McEwan</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">A People’s Tragedy by Orlando Figes</span></div>
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Journey Into The Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg</span> </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote style="border: 0px; margin-bottom: 28px !important; margin-left: 28px !important; margin-right: 28px !important; margin-top: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<div style="border: 0px; color: #231f20; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Happy Reading!</span></div>
</blockquote>
<br />
</li>
</ul>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-22400044682971920342017-06-08T15:25:00.003-07:002017-06-10T04:02:19.543-07:00Beyond Agatha Christie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlzdL2MpPlVKfN_NvBq9XY69z2k6nW3YVaOZbGx3BUIQ8pBibe-FGs2tgKL5p1sJqTSKzWcpO_tCm6EwW7N_rHKFAGI6MI6n_O5SABBYgPaegQvBUARw_FcqWZj5O3r_girg_4ipyMgeM/s1600/BEYOND-AGATHA-CHRISTIE-EVENT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1320" data-original-width="1600" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlzdL2MpPlVKfN_NvBq9XY69z2k6nW3YVaOZbGx3BUIQ8pBibe-FGs2tgKL5p1sJqTSKzWcpO_tCm6EwW7N_rHKFAGI6MI6n_O5SABBYgPaegQvBUARw_FcqWZj5O3r_girg_4ipyMgeM/s400/BEYOND-AGATHA-CHRISTIE-EVENT.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I attended this event on Wednesday, 7th June, organised by Goldsboro Books, and held at Browns Judges Court, where a panel of Agatha Christie experts discussed the Queen of Crime, her far-reaching influence over crime fiction and golden age crime itself. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
The panel, sponsored by GAMMA, was made up of <a href="https://sophiehannah.com/">Sophie Hannah</a>, internationally bestselling author, and author of the first new Hercule Poirot mysteries since Agatha Christie’s death, <a href="http://ragnar-jonasson.squarespace.com/">Ragnar Jónasson</a>, bestselling author of the Snowblind crime series and lifelong Agatha Christie fan. Ragnar has translated 14 of Agatha Christie’s titles into Icelandic. Also <a href="https://www.harpercollins.co.uk/9780008129620/agatha-christies-complete-secret-notebooks">John Curran</a>, Edgar-nominated author of Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks (2009) which won the 2011 Agatha, Anthony and Macavity Awards and his Agatha Christie’s Murder in the Making (2011) was also nominated for all four awards, and then finally, there was Agatha Christie’s own great-grandson, <a href="http://www.agathachristielimited.com/about/meet-the-team">James Prichard</a>, executive chairman of Agatha Christe Ltd, the company that manages the literary and media rights to Agatha Christie’s works around the world.<br />
<br />
Introduced by David Headley, he quickly handed over to John Carran who was chairing.<br />
<br />
John asked the panel: <b>What was the first Agatha Christie (AC) book you read?</b><br />
<div>
<br />
Ragnar Jónasson said <b>Evil Under The Sun</b> (1940) when he was eleven.<br />
<br />
Sophie Hannah read <b>The Body in the Library</b> (1942) when she was twelve. And by the time she was fourteen had read all of Christie's novels twice!<br />
<br />
James Pritchard, great grandson, had recollections of an old woman coming to stay. He was told he had to behave and not to knock her over. He discovered she was so much more on the day she died when he came home from school and his father had shut himself in a room and was unresponsive. And there was his great grandmother, Agatha Christie on the news. He said, "That was the day I realised there was this dual thing going on, on the one hand a warm woman and on the other, a legend. Two people in this one person." The first book he read was <b>Death on the Nile</b> (1937). He stole it off the shelves and read it really quickly so it wouldn't be discovered missing and he'd be able to put the novel back on the shelf without being caught.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCXbHiX0BfNXnigToMHbEQnfriva6rF6N-4GND9oI8DSFseZ5XOoMXXwtPIFxpo6Uf9qYZ1yZHhGBsbB2Ks9aezKDPm1w_za-juvJfUEmhxMRoUlfY7rqJjmCC6MAh9PbfzTXHhradgJ8/s1600/ac.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCXbHiX0BfNXnigToMHbEQnfriva6rF6N-4GND9oI8DSFseZ5XOoMXXwtPIFxpo6Uf9qYZ1yZHhGBsbB2Ks9aezKDPm1w_za-juvJfUEmhxMRoUlfY7rqJjmCC6MAh9PbfzTXHhradgJ8/s320/ac.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
John also asked: <b>What was it that you enjoyed about Agatha Christie's novels?</b><br />
<br />
Sophie spoke about the pleasure of the story, how it was foregrounded and of the elegance and flawlessness of the structure. She added that Christie's top priority was for the reader to have a brilliant time.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
John asked Ragnar <b>what made him start translating Christie's novels into Icelandic especially as the stories were so English, so old fashioned. And in particular he wondered how the clues translated</b>?<br />
<br />
Ragnar said he began translating out of necessity. He had read everything in Iceland, and he ran out of books. So he started reading in English. At 15, he wrote for magazines but didn't tell them his age. At 17, he went to the publishers and told them he was a big fan of Agatha Christie and wanted to translate her works. They let him choose which one. He chose <b>Endless Night</b> (1967), because it was the shortest one.<br />
<br />
He said it was very difficult to translate some of the clues and so he sometimes used English words which meant the clue stayed in the book. He added Christie was a brilliant plotter and that the stories worked by crossing all boundaries. She keeps you wanting more. Very readable. A lot of people in Iceland read Agatha Christie first, it was their introduction to a foreign language.<br />
<br />
Sophie felt the murder mystery books have a magic quality. You start reading for example <b>Murder in the Mews </b>(1937). It's just Poirot and Japp commenting how strange it is that people don't commit more murders on Bonfire night as the bang could disguise a gun going off, and what happens? There is a murder. The stories are archetypal. Can't get anymore storyish than Agatha Christie. Blends opposites. Good with evil. Not a light read and yet she is read all over the world. She is still the best writer. And we learn so much, for example in <b>The Murder at the Vicarage</b> (1930), there is the desire for survival and we learn about the human condition.<br />
<br />
Ragnar added that being very English, is part of the charm. He didn't understand walking out of windows, until he realised this was the English French windows and that the characters seem to eat a lot of kidneys. Possibly, he said, that while translating, something of Christie slipped into his own storytelling either consciously or unconsciously. He learnt from her plotting. "She's done all the good plots." The other thing she did well was the setting. Her world is known as Miss Marple villages.<br />
<br />
John asked Sophie <b>whether when writing her Poirot continuations, had she told herself not to do this or that?</b><br />
<br />
Sophie replied that she knew there were things it would be hard for it to be. It had to be Christie-ish. Unguessable. What Christie did was fool you until the end. And yet she waves all the clues around. Even tells you to think about the footprint in the snow. She's so confident you won't get it. None of this was conscious thinking. "Both my crime novels have openings where something very weird happens." For example in <b>Closed Casket</b> (2016), an elderly woman leaves everything to a terminally ill woman. In Christie's <b>A Murder is Announced </b>(1950), everyone goes to a house where the murder is supposed to take place and they turn it into a jolly event, well we'd better get some sandwiches in!!! It's deeply surreal writing.<br />
<br />
John wondered <b>if Christie is darker and more edgy than we're led to believe?</b><br />
<br />
James replied that when he read <b>And Then There Were None</b> (1939) - he was blown away by how dark it was. Raw terror. Though, she believed murder was a terrible thing. There was only one case where she thought the murder was justified...<br />
<br />
Ragnar added that in fact in Iceland, people didn't believe it was a real adaptation as it was so dark.<br />
<br />
Sophie said, Christie had a literary agenda. She was exploring how people balanced their dark sides. And yet, Sophie added, the thought of reading an Agatha Christie is comforting, like chicken noodle soup even though the novels deal with heavy topics.<br />
<br />
Ragnar said, Sophie is right. They are cosy to read, it is comforting to grab something you've read before.<br />
<br />
Tony added that the novels are set in Agatha Christie time.<br />
<br />
Sophie went on to explain Christie was dealing with warped, evil minds and yet the 'I' of the book has an awareness of the danger. In <b>Death on the Nile </b>(1937), the characters are warned they are heading for proper bad evil if they don't watch out. And yet it is comforting that Poirot know this, he is in control of the situation.<br />
<br />
In those days, said Tony, murderers went to the gallows and then everything returned to normal. He then asked, <b>Is Poirot a character or a caricature?</b><br />
<br />
Sophie replied, he's a character, amplified, an exaggerated persona like a super hero. We never learn anything about the detective character's background, either Poirot or Miss Marple. They are there when needed like mary Poppins. In this way, it sets them apart from other characters, backed up by many years of accumulated wisdom.<br />
<br />
Tony's final question was: <b>Tell us what book you would recommend for someone who has never read Agatha Christie before and which one would you take to a desert island?</b><br />
<br />
Ragnar chose <b>The Mysterious Affair at Styles</b> (1920), as the recommendation and for the desert island, <b>The Murder of Roger Ackroyd</b> (1926) which he read when he was a child. They couldn't buy it from anywhere and so he went to the library every week with his father and read it in there.<br />
<br />
Sophie's recommendation for the desert would be <b>The Hollow</b> (1946) it has an emotional depth.<br />
Her recommendation for someone who has never read an Agatha Christie is <b>Body in the Library </b>(1942), it was the first one she read herself. <br />
<br />
James' desert recommendation was <b>A Murder Is Announced </b>(1950), and for a first read recommendation <b>And Then There Were None</b> (1939), he says it is her best novel. James finished the talk by explaining there were lots of exciting things happening in the future. He explained they would be republishing Agatha Christie's plays, some of which haven't been available before. And that one of the plays would be put on 'near here' it will be site specific, but he added mysteriously, 'I can't talk about it'.<br />
<br />
<br />
I'll just add that it was a fascinating and interesting evening for an Agatha Christie fan like myself. I bought some books and got the authors to sign them. I told Tony Curran that when I was younger I always knew who the murderer was. He seemed astounded by this revelation and asked how. I told him I was very clever, and he said - good answer. But the truth is, I believe I had close on to a photographic memory which unfortunately doesn't work as well as it once did. I could never re-read a book or re-watch a film because I remembered everything from the first time round and it would drive me bonkers as I hated knowing what would happen. I wanted the mystery and challenge of solving the crime. As Sophie Hannah said, there is something very comforting about reading Agatha Christie. I'm not sure that she got to the heart of what that was. But for me, it is about the structure. I suspect I found safety in the reading that I didn't have in real life. And with Agatha Christie I had tradition, afternoon tea, Earl Grey (of course), an old England, front gardens, hedges and lawns. I knew I would be safe in the narrative of Christie's books even though the plots were often very different. But, they always ended up in the same place. Normality. Life would go back to how it once was though there was always change. Often love too. Even if in Poirot's case it was always unrequited.<br />
<br />
<br />
Follow Sophie on Twitter: @sophiehannahCB1<br />
<br />
Follow Ragnar on Twitter: @ragnarjo<br />
<br />
Follow Agatha Christie on Twitter: @agathachristie<br />
<br />
Follow GoldsboroBooks on Twitter: @GoldsboroBooks<br />
<br />
Follow David Headley on Twitter: @DavidHHeadley<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-89659173593529290812017-06-02T16:53:00.000-07:002017-06-03T00:45:43.262-07:00The Wild Air by Rebecca Mascull<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In Edwardian England, aeroplanes are a new, magical invention, while female pilots are rare indeed. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">At the launch of <i><b>The Wild Air</b></i> in May, Rebecca Mascull spoke about the early female pioneers who risked their lives and how much we owe them. She told of how she sat in one of the Edwardian planes that looked so fragile she worried that her shaking with cold and fear would damaged it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimFc3NRIcFeJS6O957t5R2FxXL4lKhYHIqdemjSi354qbUU3L4Ck2Mli5URY1PWA1FmI5f6x9T5OIQ_HwZdI1VcvBnBnESv-AEemWWgasHpQL1waR8MLKrVs2vTsGb2C7Y0X5o5auYCic/s1600/Wild+Air+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="423" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimFc3NRIcFeJS6O957t5R2FxXL4lKhYHIqdemjSi354qbUU3L4Ck2Mli5URY1PWA1FmI5f6x9T5OIQ_HwZdI1VcvBnBnESv-AEemWWgasHpQL1waR8MLKrVs2vTsGb2C7Y0X5o5auYCic/s400/Wild+Air+1.jpg" width="260" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />When shy Della Dobbs meets her mother's aunt, her life changes forever. Great Auntie Betty, ‘the Broughton disgrace’ who married a ‘common fisherman’, has come home from Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, across whose windswept dunes the Wright Brothers tested their historic flying machines. On the first night home, Betty discovers Della has inherited the family talent for fixing things.<br /><br /><i>A window opened in Della's mind, a dozen windows flung open. All this time, she'd crept through her life shamed by her uselessness. And now, to discover she had had a talent, born in her, handed down like a precious heirloom. She could be special. She could shine</i>.<br /><br />Puck, Della’s brother, gets pneumonia and Della is packed off to stay with Aunt Betty. Almost immediately they start to make kites and take them to Cleethorpes beach where they learn about the mechanics of flying. Della develops a burning ambition to fly and Betty is determined to help her.<br /><br />But when Aunt Betty wants to take Della to see a ‘lady flyer’, Della’s father absolutely forbids it and she finds herself having to lie for the first, but not last, time to her family.<br /><br />Once at Burton-upon-Trent, Della not only meets Hélène Dutrieu, a ‘lady flyer’ nicknamed Girl Hawk, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">but also gets to fly with her. It's reported that Dutrieu </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">caused a minor scandal when it was revealed she did not wear a ‘corset’ while flying, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /><i>Get me back down on the ground and I’ll never do anything so bloody foolish again…Closing her eyes, she couldn’t escape the wind and feel of speed all around her when her mind suddenly spoke to her…Open your eyes. Look around… Fear had dissolved, replace by wonder. There were so many things she could see from the air that she couldn’t have imagined on the ground. The serpentine pattern of tractor tracks in fields. Sheep like polka dots. Lakes as small as silver puddles that glittered like brooches…</i>’</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_g4iSFxfqwuh6wjlj2EQMcuazMNNnQFLITXTebAWdiPiGYSTuOBt9Fs5Kb0j0e0U_YB3TRHzo5Tmeh1h-0T12INylLwCKgQ8P9B_NkeVaoKsUORcnvj1CQamoZ5XnmOUG3q9rbYHCXOM/s1600/Helene_Dutrieu_in_biplane_c1912.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="562" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_g4iSFxfqwuh6wjlj2EQMcuazMNNnQFLITXTebAWdiPiGYSTuOBt9Fs5Kb0j0e0U_YB3TRHzo5Tmeh1h-0T12INylLwCKgQ8P9B_NkeVaoKsUORcnvj1CQamoZ5XnmOUG3q9rbYHCXOM/s320/Helene_Dutrieu_in_biplane_c1912.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: small;">Hélène Dutrieu - Girl Hawk</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">This was a time where women did not wear trousers, though Girl Hawk did and had made a specially designed flying suit.<br /><br />Della soars, and so too does the reader’s heart. But when the car breaks down on the way home from Burton on Trent, she and her aunt are stranded and they have to find a hotel to spend the night in. The following day, Della will have to tell her formidable father the truth of why she did not come home when she was meant to. Della of course deals with her father in her quiet, competent and determined way, the same way she will go on to disregard the taunts of men in the schools of flying.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">With World War One looming, the reader will visit the airfields of Britain and Europe, the horrors of the First World War, and experience the bureaucracy and stupidity of rules and regulations.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The fictional quiet Della has a strength and determination that matches the real-life amazing exploits and braveness of the first female aviatrixes. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mascull’s research is meticulous, some of which she explains at the end of the novel. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />History, historical fiction and romance, the novel encompasses all three. Mascull travels back in time and writes her version of clever women’s lives by paying great attention to detail. We see the prejudice and misogyny that they had to deal with on a daily basis if they dared to leave the home, be different and insist on experiencing and claiming what was then a man’s world.<br /><br />“<i>If you were poor and a woman, you were seen as a different species. I questioned, suppose you had a good idea, how would people hear that? Statues throughout history are rarely to women. My books are like a statue to those people</i>.” Rebecca Mascull, Launch of The Wild Air, Saturday May 6th, Waterstones – Piccadilly.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Thanks to </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://www.hodder.co.uk/books/detail.page?isbn=9781473604438">Hodder & Stoughton</a> for the review copy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 22.08px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can follow Rebecca on Twitter: @rebeccamascall</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 22.08px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"> <br /><br /> Note: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;">At the launch, Rebecca mentioned Rob Millinship who helped with the research and apparently took one and half years to get her to go up in a light aircraft Cessna plane. Read about that <a href="https://www.welcometobookends.co.uk/blog/2017/05/taking-flight-with-rebecca-mascull/">here</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;">And for those of you interested in visiting Shuttleworth where Rebecca spent some of her research time, see <a href="http://www.shuttleworth.org/">here</a>.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> </span></div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-90056347443086435542017-04-29T04:29:00.000-07:002017-04-29T07:19:47.074-07:00My Life in Books<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: 'Noto Serif', Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></strong>
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 26px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">I saw this via </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 26px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"><span style="color: #c27ba0;">@PoppyPeacock</span><span style="color: #444444;"> some time ago and thought it looked like good fun. The </span></span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: "noto" serif , "georgia" , "times" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 26px;">idea</span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 26px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"> is to answer the questions using book titles you read in 2016. Here's my attempt at describing my life in books. I've also </span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-size: 26px;">included one non-fiction book as it is a book I often refer too and fits in with my PhD studies.</span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 26px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"> Let me know if you have a go yourself.</span></span></strong><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-size: 26px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"> </strong></span></strong><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<article class="post-11232 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-memes category-memes-challenges-readalongs tag-book-titles tag-memes" id="post-11232" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom-color: rgb(241, 242, 243); border-bottom-style: solid; border-image: initial; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "Libre Baskerville", serif; font-size: 26px; margin: 0px 0px 2rem; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; word-wrap: break-word;"><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="font-weight: inherit;">
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">* Describe Yourself:</strong><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjalMFTW0IKv9090N3E0CBEtteH8rwTQ3a5FyMQsS5q2jgpmgreoz5y95tTUCPdBTPWVg6K8cuAshTn_Q-tjTE0uf1FANh1qKxjlJ_6iKMpFxTatT18DUBE5xvTvZTEynnLQD9QY3ks1r4/s1600/The+Mother.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjalMFTW0IKv9090N3E0CBEtteH8rwTQ3a5FyMQsS5q2jgpmgreoz5y95tTUCPdBTPWVg6K8cuAshTn_Q-tjTE0uf1FANh1qKxjlJ_6iKMpFxTatT18DUBE5xvTvZTEynnLQD9QY3ks1r4/s320/The+Mother.jpg" width="199" /></a></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">* How do you feel:</strong><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7wyMemJDgv243KZnfiCILeMNwR_kHEXtcJXmGYGlvqAxbbedBpeffsO-Lf5-SziqkOu_tIduq4F8XQHT0yDBg9lrXyxDVnhO3_kdRg1U3ei9XtuJTr8fV53hYkbsrGM02l4izXxM1Lxs/s1600/51ZIMMUWQ5L._AC_US218_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7wyMemJDgv243KZnfiCILeMNwR_kHEXtcJXmGYGlvqAxbbedBpeffsO-Lf5-SziqkOu_tIduq4F8XQHT0yDBg9lrXyxDVnhO3_kdRg1U3ei9XtuJTr8fV53hYkbsrGM02l4izXxM1Lxs/s320/51ZIMMUWQ5L._AC_US218_.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">* Describe where you currently live:</strong><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7ehtfjNZ25k3AQDII5eK56HiWma_F8gu2xMufgvoTu7ry9OBX6Fl-KeEpfrq-pFJ4Dln-lxuGTLsvmUtYMDCJtG6uWcjfuAe3vDLFWYNVj19iqnFzqM2NyyTGlKYYaB7n4tQKAjEkiOI/s1600/51ykwzW8sGL._AC_US218_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7ehtfjNZ25k3AQDII5eK56HiWma_F8gu2xMufgvoTu7ry9OBX6Fl-KeEpfrq-pFJ4Dln-lxuGTLsvmUtYMDCJtG6uWcjfuAe3vDLFWYNVj19iqnFzqM2NyyTGlKYYaB7n4tQKAjEkiOI/s320/51ykwzW8sGL._AC_US218_.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">* If you could go anywhere, where would you go:</strong><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOBlD-9hNj9kMSJrHsKvar7j7lcUq8bML6ROzlchqGmxKW7A_aNz7_q97wligsqVNrr0hoteeFNHsdUCps8_PeiCYbmDjHC_963hEzS9cKdUeeoGJmKD3QM4hfeMMglWAw3oimaaV_2EY/s1600/41KCSN6QBYL._AC_US218_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOBlD-9hNj9kMSJrHsKvar7j7lcUq8bML6ROzlchqGmxKW7A_aNz7_q97wligsqVNrr0hoteeFNHsdUCps8_PeiCYbmDjHC_963hEzS9cKdUeeoGJmKD3QM4hfeMMglWAw3oimaaV_2EY/s320/41KCSN6QBYL._AC_US218_.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">* Your favourite form of transportation:</strong></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB13snZ77syzJ7f_Qq0MVpNtep6HgsLebgqQdOqN5XHBbjppdZSZaBetAiGV5ZPUYp9STLBWxBvydt3IPv8K3N5TKFsrfpQMoepBDGOR_uKUkoyB6fFGNQKghCQe2VHFNULLlTgyXuywg/s1600/41xOgGYwLbL._AC_US218_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB13snZ77syzJ7f_Qq0MVpNtep6HgsLebgqQdOqN5XHBbjppdZSZaBetAiGV5ZPUYp9STLBWxBvydt3IPv8K3N5TKFsrfpQMoepBDGOR_uKUkoyB6fFGNQKghCQe2VHFNULLlTgyXuywg/s320/41xOgGYwLbL._AC_US218_.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">* Your best friend is: </strong></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XJ-NbiAg80EopY-jPGY4R3t2V8wDTmBSCrMj1kVuDIio_SPzo8NjZpTyolOAFYlK9TtEiG1Hlxvbnz4PH9zs9vDQmLHES9HPytCNixEmHA8QDcpzZvNquK_h_dH5xD0QY2dbiFuWT7I/s1600/The+Good+Guy+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XJ-NbiAg80EopY-jPGY4R3t2V8wDTmBSCrMj1kVuDIio_SPzo8NjZpTyolOAFYlK9TtEiG1Hlxvbnz4PH9zs9vDQmLHES9HPytCNixEmHA8QDcpzZvNquK_h_dH5xD0QY2dbiFuWT7I/s1600/The+Good+Guy+cover.jpg" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">* You and your friends are like:</strong><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzXkvFC9UMWv7CJCnolLZZikKfC2MGjbpBX46G-mLN2dmhnBX5oPDoC3dpm6_2VND31VI5qOYWNZMDcybEKSAdJGfH4KvAF52DZrVIL8kdKhGhyphenhyphenN4Z1B-EUxF5s5Cwpv_NwEmPpF8FBfg/s1600/51IPFVKF7zL._AC_US218_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzXkvFC9UMWv7CJCnolLZZikKfC2MGjbpBX46G-mLN2dmhnBX5oPDoC3dpm6_2VND31VI5qOYWNZMDcybEKSAdJGfH4KvAF52DZrVIL8kdKhGhyphenhyphenN4Z1B-EUxF5s5Cwpv_NwEmPpF8FBfg/s320/51IPFVKF7zL._AC_US218_.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">* What’s the weather like:</strong></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbumg9_XG31Y4ug5f5zYh7wJpvSs8vTSW7hT9W4sGtZ5u0rCnHx2PA0SGlIlaOi6-p96sh3qK2xiJjluoj2ZMJk_9D4UNtijyuGsPbNyqLGHQPddwyDtKDzWVfNk_YE8LIm14fNQPuhco/s1600/51hk%252BjXClqL._AC_US218_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbumg9_XG31Y4ug5f5zYh7wJpvSs8vTSW7hT9W4sGtZ5u0rCnHx2PA0SGlIlaOi6-p96sh3qK2xiJjluoj2ZMJk_9D4UNtijyuGsPbNyqLGHQPddwyDtKDzWVfNk_YE8LIm14fNQPuhco/s320/51hk%252BjXClqL._AC_US218_.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">* Favourite time of day: </strong><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJuH8q9dv6WKPqfZhDOAFFv0QuHvibtpSv6FKfPEiU_n2I_2w5DE44xbm1fenWK_eziFvCskAsO1Fu8dFCbHzi9wNw9ALm4PVlr3Rnfpshr1tKXxfoAluuzljXzSxEqMY0adBv56jiL1M/s1600/51-1Jg2Mv-L._AC_US218_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJuH8q9dv6WKPqfZhDOAFFv0QuHvibtpSv6FKfPEiU_n2I_2w5DE44xbm1fenWK_eziFvCskAsO1Fu8dFCbHzi9wNw9ALm4PVlr3Rnfpshr1tKXxfoAluuzljXzSxEqMY0adBv56jiL1M/s320/51-1Jg2Mv-L._AC_US218_.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">* If your life was a book: </strong><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGcn-_SrNvyWylbqCc_mQ0zMuAINnR66ciXNYn4aucrEvoKrlSMXdDHP3NTMiMID15epi2cHDFtxD_EyLJ-60sFcUmnRqczp96QQatcDUdA9e7DP69Ui1hmNM7_QAPYECe1MGZecwW1sk/s1600/mothering.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGcn-_SrNvyWylbqCc_mQ0zMuAINnR66ciXNYn4aucrEvoKrlSMXdDHP3NTMiMID15epi2cHDFtxD_EyLJ-60sFcUmnRqczp96QQatcDUdA9e7DP69Ui1hmNM7_QAPYECe1MGZecwW1sk/s320/mothering.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">* What is life to you: </strong></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGUvUtP5714-M6bhbxK08UBb1sbdPLWhGLV3OU1XbyUKY4RVCraN2ohBhM7nSYwnOJfFVlKdiyIgV1bm69ZXLw78a9wwnyr3kdfHEyuDukWy9geICwipjApp8Md0z1AEpgqXBroGdPHRo/s1600/novel+cure.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGUvUtP5714-M6bhbxK08UBb1sbdPLWhGLV3OU1XbyUKY4RVCraN2ohBhM7nSYwnOJfFVlKdiyIgV1bm69ZXLw78a9wwnyr3kdfHEyuDukWy9geICwipjApp8Md0z1AEpgqXBroGdPHRo/s320/novel+cure.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">* Your fear:</strong><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRMQqULQJVI590xNo4VnZik-jMcM9lrRQfUWzh4kLpaufCoDlXzMcFTyedEtMrk5e5jBVExcjci7WyyaAbQluHBzcHScYreD8SwsrAYFDovTw1zWKC0snzcsnR_oUqCSBfEqfL5YS7Z-4/s1600/9781781255445-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRMQqULQJVI590xNo4VnZik-jMcM9lrRQfUWzh4kLpaufCoDlXzMcFTyedEtMrk5e5jBVExcjci7WyyaAbQluHBzcHScYreD8SwsrAYFDovTw1zWKC0snzcsnR_oUqCSBfEqfL5YS7Z-4/s320/9781781255445-2.jpg" width="197" /></a></div>
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">* What is the best advice you have to give: </strong></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4gqkHUf01wYMtrI7hN3z2zVRg10VsIH2OOC2V0x9AMLP6Ei2rc7PeAYs-e0yNw5DPMNIpoWn1VdoHZ0E1824VVYph5HOy7bbEEbyJ10tLXI42rNxAPouklWOcwJgL5qzICKvmrD0fufE/s1600/instructions-for-a-heatwave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4gqkHUf01wYMtrI7hN3z2zVRg10VsIH2OOC2V0x9AMLP6Ei2rc7PeAYs-e0yNw5DPMNIpoWn1VdoHZ0E1824VVYph5HOy7bbEEbyJ10tLXI42rNxAPouklWOcwJgL5qzICKvmrD0fufE/s320/instructions-for-a-heatwave.jpg" width="196" /></a></div>
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">* Thought for the Day: </strong></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBDnBKaQbCCCnhIF5G_zGfkMhyphenhyphenwrIBtqeccgiMDQW2xRGsKnL-zj7a30bXzfPr20350Nt-JyWsIOtIF_aDTRIfY8RKaVmDilA4fu3QLYrMSUfO8lb4JNcRL0URhHf2R_-LlENHe4rvg9g/s1600/9573354720.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBDnBKaQbCCCnhIF5G_zGfkMhyphenhyphenwrIBtqeccgiMDQW2xRGsKnL-zj7a30bXzfPr20350Nt-JyWsIOtIF_aDTRIfY8RKaVmDilA4fu3QLYrMSUfO8lb4JNcRL0URhHf2R_-LlENHe4rvg9g/s320/9573354720.jpg" width="217" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">* How you would like to die:</strong><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfBfoMS3mkM68Z_yZCzWS5DcKNRk12OtZ5ErGWy1P9tRWQpOxR8TGv9t7FoSqMTEVd4nE4tLpIvmvOuj_alGIjJEiM6ZK1xzHpLAwqpWcnuXoiz-NqSbc10SXTgfucno4cG4UasqUpVo/s1600/51GPdtSW7vL._SX325_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfBfoMS3mkM68Z_yZCzWS5DcKNRk12OtZ5ErGWy1P9tRWQpOxR8TGv9t7FoSqMTEVd4nE4tLpIvmvOuj_alGIjJEiM6ZK1xzHpLAwqpWcnuXoiz-NqSbc10SXTgfucno4cG4UasqUpVo/s320/51GPdtSW7vL._SX325_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">*Your souls present condition:</strong></div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div>
<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 1.71429rem; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbnYqW97y1Ykk_cqQPKRpPTR1_L-XUBjsLCVrgqWWW-MqM78eulNaSE1uHeTJYb16CbhqXUn1q_cEww7U1siorwYL5j3ycidgJfnzGNEH2ukqGi6jiIAjdL5Xu1PEZ2n8sanj7peD0wpk/s1600/Atonement.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbnYqW97y1Ykk_cqQPKRpPTR1_L-XUBjsLCVrgqWWW-MqM78eulNaSE1uHeTJYb16CbhqXUn1q_cEww7U1siorwYL5j3ycidgJfnzGNEH2ukqGi6jiIAjdL5Xu1PEZ2n8sanj7peD0wpk/s320/Atonement.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></strong>
<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The End</strong></div>
</article>Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-44748255670076240152017-02-10T13:40:00.002-08:002017-02-12T10:57:01.722-08:00Quick Reads Does Crime<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiVnGWxcWbXCxdhNmYm8TdnAPM3WGA8pqYdux2m-nM-rEqxc4oeTS8JMaiR4GP-nSUkLE9IIC-gOTxVzxEF4PlneE25_NOp0icceNU2PeNB5h3C-mI-peZ8P1ESCKlnNUHqQBkojOk0qI/s1600/qr3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiVnGWxcWbXCxdhNmYm8TdnAPM3WGA8pqYdux2m-nM-rEqxc4oeTS8JMaiR4GP-nSUkLE9IIC-gOTxVzxEF4PlneE25_NOp0icceNU2PeNB5h3C-mI-peZ8P1ESCKlnNUHqQBkojOk0qI/s200/qr3.png" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Quick Reads event at Foyles on Wed 8th Feb at 107 Charing Cross Road, London marked the launch of <a href="https://readingagency.org.uk/adults/quick-guides/quick-reads/">six new Quick Reads books</a>, published on 2 February. The line-up featured some of crime's most wanted authors - Mark Billingham, Dreda Say Mitchell, Clare Mackintosh, and Harry Bingham - chaired by novelist and Quick Reads commissioning editor, Fanny Blake.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I attended both as a huge supporter of Quick Reads and in my capacity as Senior Library Assistant at the medical library in the North Middlesex University Hospital to pick up the latest six titles.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">'<i>Quick Reads are the bridge between literacy and literature. They’re the next step after learning the basics, they’re a crucial tool in the journey from being a non-reader to being someone who has the world of books and words at their disposal.</i>' Cathy Rentzenbrink</span><div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mark Billingham, Clare Mackintosh and Harry Bingham have all written a short story in the brand new collection, <b>Dead Simple</b> while Dreda Say Mitchell has written the new Quick Reads title, <b>One False Move</b>.</span><br />
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<a href="https://readingagency.org.uk/adults/Quick%20Reads%20square%20image.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></a><a href="https://readingagency.org.uk/adults/Quick%20Reads%20square%20image.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><img height="320" src="https://readingagency.org.uk/adults/assets_c/2016/11/Quick%20Reads%20square%20image-thumb-200x210-15178.jpg" width="303" /></span></a></div>
<div>
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The evening began with Fanny Blake, Chair of the panel, introducing the authors:</span></b></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.hodder.co.uk/authors/detail.page?id=8/KePAXeAYUWt1VaP6PqWwBEsFl88Dngk76DVr0srvuWDFtqC/Zld7oLBMx8Bn8aOw__">Dreda Say Mitchell</a>'s books are inspired by the gritty, tough and criminal world she grew up in. She still lives in London's East End. In 2016, she became a Reading Ambassador for the Reading Agency to promote literacy and libraries.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/Authors/MarkBillingham.page">Mark Billingham</a> Mark Billingham was born and brought up in Birmingham. He is the author of 16 novels. <b>Time of Death</b> is the 13th Tom Thorne novel and is currently being adapted for television by the BBC.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.orionbooks.co.uk/authors/detail.page?id=zsutO9Rf8L2BeFnFyCmBC9SKarda2pJ2NqJ90uY-jIZEXGZzmilh0Gw1NJc_">Harry Bingham</a> is a successful crime thriller author and the creator of one of the most critically-acclaimed and engaging female protagonists in crime fiction in DC Fiona Griffiths. He also runs The Writer's' Workshop, an editorial consultancy for first-time writers, and organises the York Festival of Writing. He lives near Oxford.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/books/detail.page?isbn=9780751554151">Clare Mackintosh</a> spent twelve years in the police force, including time on CID, and as a public order commander. She left the police in 2011 to work as a freelance journalist and social media consultant and is the founder of the Chipping Norton Literary Festival. She has written two novels. She now writes full time and lives in the Cotswolds with her husband and their three children.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Fanny Blake asked Dreda Say Mitchell: Why did you want to be involved with Quick Reads?</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mitchell said she had been working with the Reading Agency for some time including the six book challenge. The first place she came across QR was during her work in prisons. She felt they worked well for prisoners, many of whom have reading difficulties, as QR are mature adult stories and work cognitively at adult level.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mitchell grew up in the East End where she noticed girls progressed more than boys...some of the girls may have had babies young but would then later in life go into education.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">She explained how her work in prisons evolved. "Somebody close to me ended up in a Detention Centre while I went to university and it affected me deeply.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One False Move</span></b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> by Dreda Say Mitchell (Hodder) - is a gritty novel set on the Devil's Estate in London, the same setting as her recent Flesh and Blood trilogy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">A young mum just out of prison, wants to go straight. Something happens and she only has twenty-four hours to get out of the dilemma and create a better life for her young daughter.</span><br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Fanny Blake asked Mark Billingham if he had encountered any problems while writing his QR short story:</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Gillingham replied it had been great. And that when writing a short story there were certain things you didn't do, like going off on tangents. Making every word count. The short story is not in a good place publishing-wise. Plus it's harder to write. In the crime short story there's only room for only one twist. And how the prose ends up being muscular - hard boiled. His QR short story in the anthology is about a game of scrabble in prison.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Harry Bingham on the other hand, found it hard to go from his natural crime novel writing to something like the QR short story. He overcame this by thinking of a reader who may be encountering a crime story for the first time. As it's only a few pages, there should be little twisting and more emphasis on solving the conundrum.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Bingham edited the <b>Dead Simple</b> crime anthology (Orion) - the crime collection brings together eight writers including himself, Mark Billingham, Clare Mackintosh, James Oswald, CL Taylor, Angela Marsons, Jane Casey and Antonia Hodgson.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">He also spoke about putting the crime anthology together and how he thought about an emerging reader - "you wouldn't want Noddy stories", he wanted a gender balance and feels the collection is like a chocolate box with a diverse list of author stories to choose from.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Fanny Blake asked Clare Mackintosh about literacy in the prison service:</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Clare Mackintosh replied there was an absence of it. She grew up with books in every single room </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">unlike the vast majority of people coming in to custody who couldn't read or write. Mackintosh felt literacy was creating an unfair divide. She came across QR when organising a literacy festival and thinking about literacy and accessibility. She read some QR because of event. Mackintosh added she had been terrified of writing the short story and found it really hard.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Dreda Say Mitchell grew up without books in the house with only her dad's tabloid newspaper and mum's bible. But her mother made sure they went to their local library once a month so they had access to books. There was always more of an oral tradition in their house.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Fanny Blake asked the panel how important was setting?</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mitchell replied that she is a lover of London and loves writing about the East London, it's a rich and diverse character.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Billingham said London had become a character in his books. But that he had a love hate relationship with it, i.e. writing about the city that has so much happening underneath and then standing on a bridge by the Thames and thinking wow! Crime writers can give a good introduction to a city, for example, if you want to know about Edinburgh just read Ian Rankin. He said, there was no point setting place somewhere dramatic if you can't write about it</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">All the authors agreed that a good sense of place sells a book.</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Clare Mackintosh spoke about how the open landscape can be quite threatening, that she sometimes finds London threatening and will walk around like a person about to be mugged! She tends to research feelings rather than places and used to spend a lot of time sitting on the circle line to see how this felt for one of her characters.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mark Billingham wanted to set the record straight, he did not wear a false baby bump when writing about a pregnant women! He tends to do less research these days, felt he had wasted time in the past researching, trying to get it right and yet still getting spoiler letters. He once placed a Starbucks in Brixton, when it didn't have one and immediately received letters: "I think you'll find there is no Starbucks in Brixton!" He said that some writers have a fetish-like approach to research, though things like DNA and getting that right is paramount.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Fanny Blake thanked the authors and handed over to the audience.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">A question from the audience:</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Do you have to have a devious mind to be a crime writer?</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Harry Bingham:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">No. You have to be in tune with your character. Bingham thinks about the crime, what it is, what it looks like. Is that devious? No, that's professional.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mark Billingham:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">No, you have to be a reader. He always has one looking over his shoulder when he's putting together a plot, and often thinks, that would fool them! "I create the best performance that I can". The key to creating suspense is the cliffhanger and characters that readers care about that makes them utterly gripped.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Another question: </b><b>How are you matching up the young men with the books (Earlier in the evening the writers discussed how men tend not to read fiction as much as women)</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Sue Wilkinson, CEO of The Reading Agency answered:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It's challenging and I can't ever say you do one thing. There are books available in public libraries and getting a book into young peoples hands is one of our aims. We go into public libraries, adult learning organisations, colleges, workplaces and prisons with the Reading Ahead scheme (formerly called the Six Book Challenge) it's a gateway. We support young people and adults by changing their perception of reading, opening up opportunities and building their confidence. The programme isn't just about books - it's about newspapers, magazines and websites too. The new name reflects this to help those for whom books might be a barrier to joining in. When they've read six things, they get a certificate. It might be the first time they've ever got one. "It's my job to get you reading and then you get your friend reading and he gets his friend reading and so on plus it's also important to see family members reading so we work with parents too."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Fanny Blake closed the panel discussion by asking the crime writers for their crime novel recommendations:</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Dreda Say Mitchell - Sharp Objects (2007) by Gillian Flynn</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mark Billingham - Slow Horses (2010) by Mick Herron</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Harry Bingham - Sharp Objects (2007) by Gillian Flynn</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Clare Mackintosh - The Night Visitor (2017) by Lucy Atkins</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUbfkV6YqCzatCj3WLqpqohLbOGQKAk3y8X41pgPzpUC7gIm2U0mvOo681XoUq11tosJwLMJMaj3Z4q2fQLEvxZGpAqgclsH9Nzj0l9RTRS3Y4ktIH7BfSRjZcn1_fdEuzdCW5DJYs3nc/s320/authors+signing.jpg" width="320" /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Follow the authors on Twitter:</span></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">@MarkBillingham</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">@DredaMitchell</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">@harryonthebrink</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">@claremackint0sh</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">@Quick_Reads</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">@readingagency</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-41029194440678931662017-01-01T06:50:00.001-08:002017-01-01T16:45:18.586-08:00Top Twelve Reads of 2016<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large;">My plan at the beginning of 2016 was to read Orphan Lit and review it. Here are some of my favourite reads, in no particular order, some reviewed and some not, from last year and nearly all of them feature orphans! </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: "arial";"><br /></span>
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9YC4x5clJQ_TE4Hlm2R2S9NBO4uBSZbtj66c2TbiDYtFRbNAwKcT3RVFxktv9gdmGgJSQFYVY4dZAk-hh_7ZComRrYHaA3udxRtjE-IFDRTtn2WxVyShms2DGWznMx2_YxEC3Xr3PCzE/s1600/CD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9YC4x5clJQ_TE4Hlm2R2S9NBO4uBSZbtj66c2TbiDYtFRbNAwKcT3RVFxktv9gdmGgJSQFYVY4dZAk-hh_7ZComRrYHaA3udxRtjE-IFDRTtn2WxVyShms2DGWznMx2_YxEC3Xr3PCzE/s320/CD.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #0e0e0e; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> – Jeanette Winterson</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: xx-small; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I recently won a ticket to the Guardian </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Christmas event with Jeanette Winterson and Nigella Lawson where they
spoke about traditions, recipes and memories and Jeanette red from her
Christmas book. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #251718; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">For the twelve days of Christmas,
a time of celebration, sharing, and giving, she offers these twelve plus one—a
personal story of her own Christmas memories. These tales give the reader
a portal into the spirit of the season, where time slows down and magic starts
to happen. From jovial spirits to a donkey with a golden nose, a haunted house
to a SnowMama, Winterson’s innovative stories encompass the childlike and
spooky wonder of Christmas. Perfect for reading by the fire with loved ones, or
while traveling home for the holidays. The orphan </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">narrative resurfaces in these Christmas tales featuring abandoned young
children locked in or out of doors, trapped inside chests or treated
cruelly as in Mrs Reckitt’s Academy for Orphans, Foundlings and Minors in Need
of Temporary Office. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Jeanette Winterson is a
heroine of mine and this Christmas collection will become one of my treasured
books. The perfect Christmas gift that I gave myself.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf5JuN77VNLbX6nyj6qLCH8JYosq0nufPHGc_TqG0sCj7p3Tp9H0VcuXURAh1SkJTzLXGiK0eOOteX08eEFcjDowCZvtx8Gxpr_gl9WNEh-vz7w3dAs8BYpDhGLOGT9emmha_0wUAY_xs/s1600/MissPeregrineCover-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf5JuN77VNLbX6nyj6qLCH8JYosq0nufPHGc_TqG0sCj7p3Tp9H0VcuXURAh1SkJTzLXGiK0eOOteX08eEFcjDowCZvtx8Gxpr_gl9WNEh-vz7w3dAs8BYpDhGLOGT9emmha_0wUAY_xs/s1600/MissPeregrineCover-2.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://careleaversinfiction.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/miss-peregrines-home-for-peculiar-children/">Miss
Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> –
Ransom Riggs<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This is a strange book filled with old black and
white photographs of peculiar children, a</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">n
abandoned orphanage and a mysterious island. As the story opens, a horrific
family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off
the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s
Home for Peculiar Children. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I felt the second half
of this book works more for a YA audience. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The
film of the book was released in September 2016, and I look forward to watching
that soon.<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSc4-OD5cAsW9tVP6TRvTDistANHgjX3irUFBbE6Ab5lXyTBqwDVH8yosj2d_ZJu5DzVFLxGAGbhBgDfp6DsoDbYB2k1naoIcNY7PhdA_GdPrOS3J5xwnjaE1uPHjW_FgsJQ2-JktW_p4/s1600/My+Name+is+Leon+-+Kit+De+Waal-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSc4-OD5cAsW9tVP6TRvTDistANHgjX3irUFBbE6Ab5lXyTBqwDVH8yosj2d_ZJu5DzVFLxGAGbhBgDfp6DsoDbYB2k1naoIcNY7PhdA_GdPrOS3J5xwnjaE1uPHjW_FgsJQ2-JktW_p4/s320/My+Name+is+Leon+-+Kit+De+Waal-2.jpg" width="203" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://careleaversinfiction.wordpress.com/2016/04/04/my-name-is-leon-by-kit-de-waal/">My
Name is Leon</a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> - Kit De Waal <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This book made me cry and I don’t think I’ll ever quite
forget it. It is very well written and truly captures the voice of a traumatised
child in care. Leon experiences what it is like to be nine years old and taken
away from a mother and brother whom you love and adore. To be left alone in a
strange world where all your belongings have disappeared and living with a
stranger whose house rules you have to get used to.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR44LBaSusd7MMjZa26pHROf938rWEffsM6hqStlCokuCjDsR4Iv8Ocrh5BInEJWqS2RM4fXqF0bi5RCAl-6CkYwufzXaoxu5AeqNenASJqkuZbUk2fejVflTuqBba3UCqobcRyb-5048/s1600/28634981._UY200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR44LBaSusd7MMjZa26pHROf938rWEffsM6hqStlCokuCjDsR4Iv8Ocrh5BInEJWqS2RM4fXqF0bi5RCAl-6CkYwufzXaoxu5AeqNenASJqkuZbUk2fejVflTuqBba3UCqobcRyb-5048/s320/28634981._UY200_.jpg" width="208" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://careleaversinfiction.wordpress.com/2016/05/11/song-of-the-sea-maid-by-rebecca-mascull/">Song
of the Sea Maid</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> - Rebecca Mascull</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves/>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-GB</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>JA</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="true"
DefSemiHidden="true" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="276">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="59" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" SemiHidden="false"
UnhideWhenUsed="false" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0cm;
mso-para-margin-right:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0cm;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial";">Written from protagonist, Dawnay’s viewpoint, the book opens onto
eighteenth century life in London. We witness the terrible poverty and the way
orphans, and women were treated. Ultimately though, this is a feel-good novel
that re-writes the often terrible history of the neglected, nameless, and homeless orphan. This is
‘the age of sail, orphanages, the flora and fauna of islands, and even the
origins of all humankind’. Impeccably researched, at times I had to wear a peg
on my nose as the scenes of filthy London were so rancidly lifelike.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial";"> </span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial";">In many ways this novel is the true definition of the
‘What if’ scenario. What if a poor female orphan was given an opportunity to
become educated. What would she become? If you like stories about independent
women, think </span><i style="color: #262626; font-family: arial;">Forever Amber</i><span style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial";">, historical novels with a touch of romance,
then this is the book for you.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvdi3Xk-dOgesabD9SU06O9FkLcrVp7lpsGX9BCNzqzd-nBqEm_q1DgWdU97cOwAJdQf4nfzdYAYYKHG0hKWirE2iRNdvH-s84hrzR7iGdjzhog933q7Yv8kLA_vfQPSAGYPCQ6VN5enw/s1600/9781408859261.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvdi3Xk-dOgesabD9SU06O9FkLcrVp7lpsGX9BCNzqzd-nBqEm_q1DgWdU97cOwAJdQf4nfzdYAYYKHG0hKWirE2iRNdvH-s84hrzR7iGdjzhog933q7Yv8kLA_vfQPSAGYPCQ6VN5enw/s320/9781408859261.jpg" width="208" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://careleaversinfiction.wordpress.com/2016/06/14/the-fish-ladder-by-katharine-norbury/">The
Fish Ladder</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">- Katharine Norbury<i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Katharine joined us at last year’s Finchley Literary
Festival where she spoke about <i>The Fish Ladder, </i>a beautifully written
travelogue, memoir, with exquisite nature writing, fragments of poetry and
tales from Celtic mythology. It explores the void, the hole, the
‘missingness’ that can quite suddenly engulf a person who has experienced
trauma as a baby or a young child. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ79q_ude5uVNFmkQvbS235gQhMwgbuO1VdhG1Sax7vFA7Nta7nNfzXqQnBIfknzWiTMwUhMrYC8PdryfpIdCNAigtzNlMTdUttRYbDlZJ-yUivyW10d8XOYesqtvZP6z2ao6frMx1A-E/s1600/513jtLBl2GL._SX311_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ79q_ude5uVNFmkQvbS235gQhMwgbuO1VdhG1Sax7vFA7Nta7nNfzXqQnBIfknzWiTMwUhMrYC8PdryfpIdCNAigtzNlMTdUttRYbDlZJ-yUivyW10d8XOYesqtvZP6z2ao6frMx1A-E/s320/513jtLBl2GL._SX311_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mothering Sunday – Graham Swift<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I’m currently re-reading this book and enjoying
it even more. The writing is exquisite. The emotions of Jane Fairfax, the
orphan, captured perfectly. Abandoned outside an orphanage at birth in 1901, this
is a fairy tale about the transformation of Jane from servant to world-renowned
writer. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">At times the lyrical waves of prose </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">remind me of a stanza in the way certain refrains are repeated
throughout the book – it’s very cleverly done. Mothers Day 30<sup>th</sup>
March 1924, Jane looks back at this one perfect day that will haunt her for the
rest of her life. <span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik1gTHJx1k4_rqJ51PdAlNd1nJPGuf1T1955mzpCnP2k6E3gUIomSKU8hm_RkcAFbueH-x0Lm1JGcYz8jxJ2WK9a7nvyVK_sb7cslR4WT5tveXoHHNZs9QJ0Y3SLf65DxbzvVMrXQb6CQ/s1600/The+Good+Guy+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik1gTHJx1k4_rqJ51PdAlNd1nJPGuf1T1955mzpCnP2k6E3gUIomSKU8hm_RkcAFbueH-x0Lm1JGcYz8jxJ2WK9a7nvyVK_sb7cslR4WT5tveXoHHNZs9QJ0Y3SLf65DxbzvVMrXQb6CQ/s320/The+Good+Guy+cover.jpg" width="216" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://greenacrewriters.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/a-conversation-with-susan-beale.html">The
Good Guy</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> - Susan Beale</span><u><span style="color: blue; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #343434; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The inspiration for this novel came from Susan Beale’s
adoption files. The papers included interviews with her mother, grandmother and
one with her birth father. This is an extremely evocate, powerful and
well-written novel that has truly captured the essence of 1960s suburban, New
England and the plight and stigma of the unmarried mother.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #343434; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwEirk-2DAaj498AeBdjGxgqshSmoyKHRPfIPzZjjb4PnYb82aCfe371G2AT2o310RR7TLiQAvPcHEasi2iL_gtg_wsvTVRN4gFeJ6XNkWHRHoR-1EttLxhnOAR3CJywsgSpNF1Oh_dxo/s1600/mountain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwEirk-2DAaj498AeBdjGxgqshSmoyKHRPfIPzZjjb4PnYb82aCfe371G2AT2o310RR7TLiQAvPcHEasi2iL_gtg_wsvTVRN4gFeJ6XNkWHRHoR-1EttLxhnOAR3CJywsgSpNF1Oh_dxo/s320/mountain.jpg" width="209" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="https://careleaversinfiction.wordpress.com/2016/10/27/the-mountain-in-my-shoe/">The
Mountain in my Shoe</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> – Louise Beech<span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">This novel is about a missing boy. A missing book. A missing husband. A
woman who must find them all to find herself. But more than that it is about a
young boy who has been fostered. Louise uses a Lifebook throughout the
narrative – this is a book put together throughout a child’s time in care – to
fill in the gaps – in this instance Conor’s past. It is a clever device and not
one I had seen before. Exquisitely written and deeply touching, <b><i>The
Mountain in My Shoe</i></b><i> </i>is both a gripping psychological
thriller and a powerful and emotive examination of the meaning of family … and
just how far we are willing to go for the people we love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8y_TpFbgt5kQW3XE049bEWB7vem50wUEadhTlkwoug7zYUbzqhvHaXTONwXMBe0KfjsNZOgh40Jm9mkpz1tkjksWVQb0HrxN_1peXmNDx-jYv4l1Ea4PW5RrsmicrsY96Tyz4V0lFxZw/s1600/serpent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8y_TpFbgt5kQW3XE049bEWB7vem50wUEadhTlkwoug7zYUbzqhvHaXTONwXMBe0KfjsNZOgh40Jm9mkpz1tkjksWVQb0HrxN_1peXmNDx-jYv4l1Ea4PW5RrsmicrsY96Tyz4V0lFxZw/s320/serpent.jpg" width="199" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Essex Serpent – Sarah Perry<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">This Gothic novel was birthed to amazing reviews
and it was one that had been on my TBR for some time. Along with many other
people I also coveted the cover. From the first to the last page, I could not
get enough of this book. Set in the early 1890s, and </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">told with exquisite grace and intelligence, this
novel is most of all a celebration of love and friendship, and the many
different guises it can take.</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9DAY684U5m7eQ7RG7l45-PepsAtfwOX0MubuafRQo9KqM-fzOtqnkXc7IpRc9sQ4CNJt_klg1TJpdnJWjXbdZDWIssd41PVR3t9FH7MqsbSF2RIKBROkNxj6ea4wiQeTY5b8Cdi5TA-U/s1600/The+Mother.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9DAY684U5m7eQ7RG7l45-PepsAtfwOX0MubuafRQo9KqM-fzOtqnkXc7IpRc9sQ4CNJt_klg1TJpdnJWjXbdZDWIssd41PVR3t9FH7MqsbSF2RIKBROkNxj6ea4wiQeTY5b8Cdi5TA-U/s320/The+Mother.jpg" width="199" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://rosemarycanning.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/words-of-colour-present-yvette-edwards.html">The
Mother</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> – Yvvette Edwards<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #343434; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Another FLF guest, this novel is about a 16 year old
boy who is stabbed and killed by another 16 year old boy. The book follows the
trial of the boy accused of his murder and the narrator is the victim’s mum. A
truly harrowing and emotional journey as the protagonist goes through a tidal
wave of emotions dealing with that worst of all parent nightmares, losing a
child. Extremely well-written, the narrative explores the harsh realities
facing families who have lost children to knife crime.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #343434; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #343434; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikxnRExLUccEzTvpR3_R8CfkC0v1_dt_B4SYulSYvN1tha1fQ5dLRquCIJjxzigY8QK-o383kJFarmlEp_ZB0ENx3JEJR7n9QUkrvxTgCkO1L8S0NTp6via-A3yyfg7xxmvBN485vLj-Q/s1600/butterfly.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikxnRExLUccEzTvpR3_R8CfkC0v1_dt_B4SYulSYvN1tha1fQ5dLRquCIJjxzigY8QK-o383kJFarmlEp_ZB0ENx3JEJR7n9QUkrvxTgCkO1L8S0NTp6via-A3yyfg7xxmvBN485vLj-Q/s320/butterfly.jpg" width="212" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://rosemarycanning.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/butterfly-fish-by-irenosen-okojie.html">Butterfly
Fish</a></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> - Irenosen Okoji<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #343434; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Irenosen also joined as at the Finchley Lit Fest where
she spoke about Butterfly Fish, a powerfully told story of love and hope, of
family secrets, power, political upheaval, loss and coming undone. Let go and
fly with the flow of the narrative of this haunting and compelling magical
realism novel. The Benin scenes are particularly breathtaking. It is a story of
epic proportions, skillfully held together by Irenosen Okojie, an author to
watch out for in the future. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #343434; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ08PniiF8k0wLl74m6298YW1tp2Rhl-vUS4G2qZjGrBz-mY0NgL_27aPWpzw533IM17RF1HF0OdkbkEuByInxSCpmyl5b7SscfESLBJUpVXAQDzm4Ag2Bh-LCaat7kucZxJxKgpWotXo/s1600/516HHZhs9JL._SX299_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ08PniiF8k0wLl74m6298YW1tp2Rhl-vUS4G2qZjGrBz-mY0NgL_27aPWpzw533IM17RF1HF0OdkbkEuByInxSCpmyl5b7SscfESLBJUpVXAQDzm4Ag2Bh-LCaat7kucZxJxKgpWotXo/s320/516HHZhs9JL._SX299_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="193" /></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra –
Vaseem Khan<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #343434; font-family: "arial"; font-size: large; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Another Finchley Literary Festival guest, Vaseem kept us all entertained
with his experiences in Mumbai that were the inspiration for the series. On
arriving in Mumbai he was greeted with the unusual sight of seeing an elephant
wandering down the centre of the road. This vision stayed with him and a
passion for elephants developed – after cricket and literature of course! A
well written book, easy to read and very entertaining with wonderful
descriptions of the vibrant city of Mumbai. It is the first in the Baby Ganesh
detective agency series, I have the second in the series on my TBR list.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">All that is left for me to do now, is wish you a very healthy, creative, and booky New Year.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-27334373029660938962016-11-17T07:04:00.002-08:002016-11-17T07:04:23.206-08:00Writing FriendshipsWriting Friendships took place at City University, last night and was introduced by <a href="http://www.city.ac.uk/courses/short-courses/the-novel-studio">Novel Studio</a> tutors Emily Midorikawa and Emma Sweeney. As long-time friends who have supported each other's careers from the beginning, authors Emily and Emma know just how important building strong links with other writers can be.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
They were joined by novelist Susan Barker, novelist and non-fiction writer Ann Morgan, and poet Denise Saul.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKFxZmbJTR0Dl4SkhJMxPZW3lt_kAp_QMPH2l7es07-S3J229YT8pTcBoV4lZhqSLFZV-PT5pB2-cKE5dLgrljYwfy08RQVCCgUNu0zle7bVHKuCd3oKXgBZBsGgNi5QfujAr98M_1klM/s1600/IMG_20161117_145511.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKFxZmbJTR0Dl4SkhJMxPZW3lt_kAp_QMPH2l7es07-S3J229YT8pTcBoV4lZhqSLFZV-PT5pB2-cKE5dLgrljYwfy08RQVCCgUNu0zle7bVHKuCd3oKXgBZBsGgNi5QfujAr98M_1klM/s320/IMG_20161117_145511.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From LtoR: Emily Midorikawa, Emma Sweeney, Susan Baker, Denise Saul and <br />Ann Morgan </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div>
The evening started with <a href="http://www.annmorgan.me/">Ann Morgan</a> who spoke about the ideas behind writing <a href="https://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/">A Year of Reading the World</a>. This started when Ann decided to read a book from every country in the world within a year and recorded this journey on the blog. The problems were many and and when she got to Burundi, the chances of finding a book that had been translated into to English were looking remotely slim. She turned to the refugee community and sent out some emails. She had an email from Edouard. He told of his old classmate from Burundi who had published two novels in English. Her name was Marie-Thérèse Toyi. She had lived through the Burundi genocide and relayed this through her fictional characters in <a href="https://ayearofreadingtheworld.com/2012/04/03/burundi-diaspora-power/">Weep Not, Refugee</a>. Ann also told us about the novelist Hamid Ismailov, Uzbek journalist, who was put on a watch hit list and whose books were burnt in the street. He and his family fled Uzbekistan to Switzerland. He explained after he fled he was removed from his audience. He had no one to write for and had to deal with the pain of being exiled from his language. Marie-Thérèse and Hamid were two of the big writing relationships from the book and Ann is still in touch with them today. She also said that whatever challenges we have, we all have barriers - confronting those barriers is very important and at the moment we still have freedom of speech and that we must fight to preserve that.<br />
<br />
Next up was <a href="http://susanbarker.co.uk/">Susan Barker</a> who told us about her non-writer writing friendship with Liang Junhong, in Shanghai. Susan had gone there to do research for a novel. She met Arts Officer, Liang at the British Council in 2007. She helped Susan find somewhere to live and also with the everyday things like joining a library, or speaking to electricians - though she couldn't help with the smog, Susan had gone to Shanghai to immerse herself in the culture and history but more often than not found herself locked in her room searching Shanghai on the Internet. Liang dragged her out and she learnt a lot through her. Susan found the transition from the UK to China difficult, the language in particular and without Liang's support she wondered if she would have coped. The research eventually became her third novel <i><b><a href="http://susanbarker.co.uk/work/the-incarnations/">The Incarnations</a></b></i> (Doubleday, July 2014) about a taxi driver in contemporary Beijing and interwoven with tales from the Tang Dynasty, the invasion of Genghis Khan, the Ming Dynasty, the Opium War, and the Cultural Revolution.<br />
<br />
Poet <a href="http://denisesaul.co.uk/">Denise Saul</a> spoke about her writing relationship with the charity Connect and how through her personal experience of aphasia, her late mother had a stroke, she created the videopoem: The Aphasic Mind. She went on to found the project Silent Room: A Journey of Language. This was a collaboration between Denise and film-maker, Helmie Stil. Aphasia is a communication disability which occurs when the language centres of the brain are damaged. The video poem focuses on language from the perspective of ‘the outsider’ or those who engage with an aphasic individual. Denise wanted to break down barriers in her writing and enter into new spaces, the carer's narrative and the disabled black body to bridge the gap and settle in those spaces. Denise said that everyone should be able to communicate and that it is important to explore other spaces as well as other disciplines. She added that she didn't really know what friendship was, it was slippery to her. She spoke more about the friendship of pleasure, of utility and virtue and that for her it was often about utility. Her top five tips for friendship included: creating and occupying new spaces; networking; accountability - she liked it when friends asked if she had finished a poem or collection, it kept her on her toes; collaboration - don't be afraid to cross boundaries; and sharing space.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Finally Emily Midorikawa spoke about how she and Emily Sweeney had met in 2001 in a remote part of Japan. It was quite sometime after they met that they finally admitted they were both writing. They then began to post each other letters of writing and anxiously wait for feedback. Emily spoke of how literary friendships are important for writers. They began to discuss other writing relationships and realised the well-known writers were often about men Shelley and Byron, Wordsworth and Coleridge for example. They wondered if Charlotte Bronte had a writer friend apart from family members or Virginia Woolf in the male dominated Bloomsbury Set. They discovered there were female friendships but they hadn't been mythologised in the same way as the men. Emma and Emily went from friends who had something in common to actively working together both as tutors, and collaborators on a project. They created the blog <a href="https://somethingrhymed.com/">Something Rhymed</a>. This celebration of female literary friendship includes past authors as well as contemporary writers. From the blog came their forthcoming book: <b><i>A Secret Sisterhood</i>,</b> which will look at the literary bonds between Jane Austen and amateur playwright, Anne Sharp; Charlotte Brontë and feminist author, Mary Taylor; George Eliot and Harriet Beecher Stowe; and Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield.<br />
<br />
<b><i>A Secret Sisterhood</i></b> will be published, by Aurum Press in the UK and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the USA, in late 2017. The year coincides with the bicentenary of Jane Austen’s death.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The panel shared their own experiences of literary friendship and offering practical advice for new and experienced writers on ways in which they can forge and develop meaningful writing relationships of their own.</div>
<div>
<br />
As the event came to a close and myself and <a href="http://lindsaybamfield.blogspot.co.uk/">Lindsay</a>, my writing friend made our way home, I reflected on our literary friendship...<br />
<br /></div>
</div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-72444385332180705942016-09-12T04:19:00.002-07:002016-09-12T04:30:08.280-07:00Butterfly fish by Irenosen Okojie<div>
<i>It's funny how the very things that once irritated you about a person were the things you missed most when they were gone. Like phone calls held together by an invisible current, or rummaging through markets because we were two creased people who needed steam ironing. Lately I tried to fill the silences with... anything.</i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
When <i style="font-weight: bold;">Butterfly Fish </i>begins, London photographer, Joy struggles to pull the threads of her life back together after the sudden death of Queenie, her mother. She has never known her father.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0EUsQ8NpejKcPucAD5J2_RWLQ49TAvPDvinpfe5_JPRiIwI7P3B7wYHfBRmX14QzVWhaUhQOvwDnDvs_1-5C1sZX05bmtWWfICA-8k_3H0EpUaHVuZiFHj1uzdxO6UcMPvP2Q-5Uwcn8/s1600/Irenosen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0EUsQ8NpejKcPucAD5J2_RWLQ49TAvPDvinpfe5_JPRiIwI7P3B7wYHfBRmX14QzVWhaUhQOvwDnDvs_1-5C1sZX05bmtWWfICA-8k_3H0EpUaHVuZiFHj1uzdxO6UcMPvP2Q-5Uwcn8/s400/Irenosen.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div>
<br />
She receives some support from her kind but mysterious neighbor, Mrs Harris who is more than a little odd.<br />
<br />
<i>The first time I met Mrs Harris, she’d told me she was certain that Buddy, her garden statue Buddha, had been eating her roses. </i><br />
<br />
But it is Mrs Harris, who saves Joy’s life when she tries to commit suicide and ends up in hospital. Soon after, Joy receives an unexpected inheritance from her mother: a huge sum of money she knew nothing about, her grandfather’s diary and a unique brass warrior’s head from the nineteenth century kingdom of Benin. Joy doesn’t take much interest in the artefacts, she's grieving.<br />
<br />
<i>The bus finally arrived in Whitechapel. I pressed the stop button and hopped off, relieved at making it through a plethora of sweaty bodies. The streets were bursting, people swarming this way and that. I wondered who of them had lost their mothers, whose chests were now holes filled with the fragments of memories. There are certain lies you tell yourself to stumble blindly through the bereavement. After the reality cracks you in two, you tell yourself that things will be okay. That time will erode the numbness away...</i><br />
<br />
Joy will eventually search for the origins of the head which moves the narrative backwards and forwards in time; from contemporary London to 19th century Benin and the story of Adeusa, who is forced into becoming a wife of the king. Back again to 1970s London, for Queenie’s story and further back to 1950s Lagos, through the diary of Peter Lowon, Queenie’s father, who is in the Nigerian army.<br />
<br />
In 19th century Benin, a special event is being held at the palace, where all the young women have to bring a dish they have prepared, and the king will make his choice of a new bride from the maker of the best dish. Adesua, still young, persuades Emeka, the local tailor, to give her some special material so she has something to wear to the palace. Suddenly, she sees a monkey that jumps on her back, grabbing her hair, scratching her face and neck and drawing blood.<br />
<br />
<i>She raised her palm in defence but it shot its head forward and bit her finger. By the time Emeka and a few others reached her, she lay in a heap; there was no hair on the ground, no marks on her body, and no blood…It was a sign of things to come.</i><br />
<br />
Back in modern-day London, Joy is haunted by a woman, who at first appears in the street or in photographs and signally the slow deterioration of Joy's mental health and descent into madness. When she goes swimming, a silver and purple fish appears in the water.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>The fish stared at me; inside its filmy eye shuttered a mini camera lens. A crowd gathered around us. The fish's mouth opened repeatedly. it trembled, then heaved and a worn, brass key slick with gut slime fell out of its mouth into my hand.</i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Although dead, Queenie’s life is skillfully interwoven into the narrative. How she moved to London in the 1960s is pivotal to the story: the life she left in Nigeria and eventually the story of Joy’s conception.<br />
<br />
Dark family secrets come to light as Joy unearths the ties between her mother, grandfather, the wife of the king, and the brass head’s pivotal connection to them all.<br />
<br />
A spiritual successor to the tales of Marquez, <b><i>Butterfly Fish</i></b> masterfully combines elements of traditional Nigerian storytelling and magical realism with the London immigrant and black British multigenerational take of the legacy of inheritance.<br />
<br />
At times I found it difficult to know what was real and what was not. This was because of the magical realism and stream of consciousness descent into madness, but that is not to say it isn’t enjoyable. It is. It's extremely well done and more a case of the reader letting go and going with the flow of the narrative. Haunting and compelling, Butterfly Fish is a powerfully told story of love and hope, of family secrets, power, political upheaval, loss and coming undone. The Benin scenes are particularly breathtaking. It is a story of epic proportions, skillfully held together by Irenosen Okojie, an author to watch out for in the future.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.jacarandabooksartmusic.co.uk/writer/irenosen-okojie-2/">Irenosen Okojie</a> is a Nigerian-British writer and Arts Project Manager. Her debut novel <b><i>Butterfly Fish</i></b> won a Betty Trask Award in 2016 and she was selected by Ben Okri as an emerging writer to watch during the London Short Story Festival 2015. Her writing has been featured in the Guardian and the Observer and her short stories have been published internationally, including Kwani 07 and Phatitude. <i><b><a href="http://www.jacarandabooksartmusic.co.uk/book/speak-gigantular/">Speak Gigantular</a></b></i> is her new collection of short stories due for publication 15th September.<br />
<br />
<i><b>Butterfly Fish</b></i> (2015) is published by <a href="http://www.jacarandabooksartmusic.co.uk/book/butterfly-fish/">Jacaranda Books</a><br />
<div>
<br />
You can follow Irenosen on Twitter: @IrenosenOkojie</div>
</div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-32379219672264509612016-07-11T04:54:00.000-07:002016-07-11T04:59:01.522-07:00Truly Scrumptious Joanna Campbell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">In </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">2015, Joanna's story,
Upshots, was announced the winner of the London Short Story Prize. It
was after we saw this announcement that myself, Lindsay and Carol, all thought
Joanna would be perfect as the judge for the Greenacre Writers/FLF short story competition.
There followed a hilarious searching of google maps to find out where she
lived, and if it was near, enough, to Finchley. Google maps told me Joanna’s
home town was near Woking, so not too far then. The reality was somewhat
further, much further away! Anyway lucky for us, Joanna agreed to travel to Finchley,
with a little bit of help from her husband.</span><br />
<br />
The delightful and friendly <a href="http://joanna-campbell.com/">Joanna Campbell,</a> was our judge for the <a href="http://greenacrewriters.blogspot.co.uk/p/short-story-competition-2016.html">FLF & Greenacre Writers short story competition</a>.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ojMpnsXL_6ZQgudmll5pdnclaMu3x7pWNahRLHFJZDNiLfmxlcieChZSzvGud1kNDRnCEVJc683gHmiZNEzNAMoceZPdImeU6qyZlhRZGxHjIzRvC64ODG_k2FSQWN9qhtHVuby4_00/s1600/IMG_0773.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ojMpnsXL_6ZQgudmll5pdnclaMu3x7pWNahRLHFJZDNiLfmxlcieChZSzvGud1kNDRnCEVJc683gHmiZNEzNAMoceZPdImeU6qyZlhRZGxHjIzRvC64ODG_k2FSQWN9qhtHVuby4_00/s320/IMG_0773.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">James Woolf, 2nd Prize, reading his short story</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
You can read the winning stories <a href="http://greenacrewriters.blogspot.co.uk/p/short-story-competition-2016.html">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Joanna started off by announcing the first, second and third prizes for the competition. James Woolf who won second prize attended the festival and read his short story, The Wondwossi Hotel.<br />
<br />
She also gave a presentation about her writing career, her experiences of living in Germany, which sowed the seeds for her novel and her thoughts about the power of the short story.<br />
<br />
'Nothing can be empty of meaning or irrelevant in a short story. It may not always need a plot, but it must have a point.'<br />
<br />
Joanna discussed a variety of research methods, which included purchasing communist chocolate bars (all in the interests of thorough research of course), and the stretching of the imagination beyond the usual limits of knowledge and experience. When talking about character she said:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
'Often the characters have little to gain, but everything to lose. Any topic, any revelation, any shock or shedding of skin, is fair game for a short story. It’s a raw, intense moment, so make the reader gasp, panic, laugh, weep.'<br />
<br />
She cleverly likened the short story to fish:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha01Nh3BsBAmITMRJuxSGeMOGoRd397NZ-PoxgMuu_5e0bb7Zq004X21nyKk4fYl10q2gMJLOY92s7pGBAtSMOK4Xu2XR5_J_yPs-iC6yBCa9IjJ8UO7gu7RlF9d37EvB-X_2Iu5-2X4I/s1600/ClzB2IUWQAAcZSw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha01Nh3BsBAmITMRJuxSGeMOGoRd397NZ-PoxgMuu_5e0bb7Zq004X21nyKk4fYl10q2gMJLOY92s7pGBAtSMOK4Xu2XR5_J_yPs-iC6yBCa9IjJ8UO7gu7RlF9d37EvB-X_2Iu5-2X4I/s320/ClzB2IUWQAAcZSw.jpg" width="240" /></a>'Where a novel is a shoal on a mission, the short story is a single fish, close to the surface of the sea. Its appearance is fleeting, a bright flash before it vanishes into deep water. But for that moment, its delicate scales, its streamlined shape, are clearly defined. It doesn’t make waves and it passes in silence, but we have no doubt we have seen it.'<br />
<br />
There were some wonderful references to famous writers including:<br />
<br />
'According to Frank O'Connor, in a novel the crisis is the destination, the plausible outcome of all the foregoing action. In short fiction, the crisis is the story.'<br />
<br />
She spoke about editing:<br />
<br />
By the time you have written a story—honed it, then added a word, deleted it, then put it back in (twenty times over), polished the thing, put it away, taken it out, printed it, read it aloud, paced the room declaring it the worst bilge ever to grace a perfectly good piece of paper—you have strayed a long, long way from your own self. And you have done this not to escape from life, but to make it more fathomable, more bearable. You have created other, imperfect people who struggle from minute to minute.<br />
<br />
And the whole thing:<br />
<br />
'You have made a world detached from you, a world which stands alone, able to exist in isolation. And therefore, although you have made fiction, you have also made truth.'<br />
<br />
Joanna spoke about how shyness meant she would lock herself away, perfect for writers to get on with the important stuff of writing but not always so good for the writer. It was good to be reminded that characters must be allowed to take the lead:<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV3C_emtBfcLo8sjP-bz0GNVJNOVN-BBbw0wCc3d-urWuDb_xqbFysMGJwQx-lfjuZ_K8B2FjSehdIVelbTA2Mfmfc6cMRZH3L58m1AG_opKnogL7i9fD6ceFIzCiNqtwjO3Rh2_4x94U/s1600/Cl01yusXEAEwRJZ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV3C_emtBfcLo8sjP-bz0GNVJNOVN-BBbw0wCc3d-urWuDb_xqbFysMGJwQx-lfjuZ_K8B2FjSehdIVelbTA2Mfmfc6cMRZH3L58m1AG_opKnogL7i9fD6ceFIzCiNqtwjO3Rh2_4x94U/s320/Cl01yusXEAEwRJZ.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joanna was pleased to meet up with Antonia Honeywell</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
'Too much confidence can be risky for writers. You must allow yourself to get things wrong. You make progress by recognising mistakes. Your characters should be allowed to take you by surprise and yell, ‘you’re barking up the wrong tree here’.'<br />
<br />
And continuing to talk about writing confidence said:<br />
<br />
'Perhaps writers possess a different kind of confidence. Not the outward kind, but something entrenched inside, borne perhaps from experience, from childhood, from suffering. The East German novelist, Christa Wolf, talked of how “a deep pain or a deep concentration lights up the landscape within.”'<br />
<br />
Joanna read from her collection of short stories, <b>When Planets Slip Their Tracks</b> and an extract from her novel, <b>Tying Down the Lion. </b>We were delighted a few days later to discover that <b>When Planets Slip Their Tracks</b> had been shortlisted for <a href="http://www.ruberybookaward.com/2016-winners.html">The Rubery Book Award</a>.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihqSp9L8oJp-5U6cNhPRKYktKsFrch3mfRy_ATFuveqNb2fkUs8SSIs2a9hvHT0qolrz_-Too6vdRwJwPW25WnO3LxBGlxKdItKBz9gj1xNcZfqml_aOuT3qM_lybheIZCwZN-qeha6sQ/s1600/joanna+book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihqSp9L8oJp-5U6cNhPRKYktKsFrch3mfRy_ATFuveqNb2fkUs8SSIs2a9hvHT0qolrz_-Too6vdRwJwPW25WnO3LxBGlxKdItKBz9gj1xNcZfqml_aOuT3qM_lybheIZCwZN-qeha6sQ/s320/joanna+book.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tying-Down-Lion-Joanna-Campbell/dp/0992886333/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1454076614&sr=8-1&keywords=tying+down+the+lion">Tying Down the Lion,</a> Joanna's debut novel, is published by Brick Lane and was long-listed for The Guardian's Not the Booker prize 2015. <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/When-Planets-Slip-Their-Tracks/dp/1910207063/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=">When Planets Slip Their Tracks</a>, published by Ink Tears, is Joanna's collection of prize-winning stories.<span style="font-family: "basic" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span>
Her prizewinning stories have been published in many magazines, <i>Mslexia</i>, <i>The Lampeter Review</i> and <i>The New Writer.</i> She has been shortlisted many times for the Bridport Prize, the Fish Prize and the Flannery O'Connor Award. In 2013 she came second in the William Trevor/Elizabeth Bowen International Short Story Competition and won the local prize in the Bath Short Story Award. She has been published in many anthologies, has a novel published and a short story collection which we will hear more about later. It was our great honour to welcome Joanna Campbell and give her our thanks for being our judge and such an excellent speaker. We shan't forget this lovely day.<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">Follow Joanna on Twitter: @PygmyProse</span></div>
<div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-65514685952070737312016-07-02T08:28:00.001-07:002016-07-05T05:52:38.451-07:00A Memorable event - Harry Parker talks about Anatomy of a Soldier<div dir="ltr" style="color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Last Friday, the day of the Finchley Literary Festival, I awoke to a text from my daughter to tell me that the UK had voted to leave the EU. I thought she was joking. I couldn't really take it in as I'd overslept and had to rush up to Finchley High Road, to collect cheques for the short story competition winners. I'm only now beginning to understand the awful consequences of that vote. But on the day, I had no time to think as we had a festival to run.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Having collected the cheques, I ran home, grabbed cat food on the way, and suddenly heard somebody call my name. It was <a href="http://carolsampson.co.uk/category/book-reviews/">Carol Sampson</a>, on her way to mine. I jumped in the car and was home in two minutes. No sooner had we arrived, than there was a knock on the door, and it was Lindsay Bamfield. We set off and picked up Mr Greenacres, on our way to the library for the FLF second event. We had to get out of the car, empty it of its contents so Mr Greenacres, could re-pack his equipment. Many moons ago, he used to play in a band so is very good at packing and stacking stuff in other people's cars or vans.</span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWz0o4o3u1DnM-kpOUbj2sHyvdQ4LrlSylMRAkn-PDwx3uFsuRC2VUHaL-mSpRVgkLwxB_9Nh-ZH41MiCbJOp1lUCCRScjnOhYfl6YL0xDF7vUjuvDCiDfaeGUQ16SKjxLhwBjwWTw5u4/s1600/20160624_134037.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWz0o4o3u1DnM-kpOUbj2sHyvdQ4LrlSylMRAkn-PDwx3uFsuRC2VUHaL-mSpRVgkLwxB_9Nh-ZH41MiCbJOp1lUCCRScjnOhYfl6YL0xDF7vUjuvDCiDfaeGUQ16SKjxLhwBjwWTw5u4/s320/20160624_134037.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Harry Parker with his book </span><br />
<i><b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Anatomy of a Soldier</span></b></i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At Church End Library, we were greeted by the new library manager, Richard. And soon our first author for the second event arrived, Harry Parker, to talk to Carol about his novel <i><b><a href="http://www.faber.co.uk/9780571325818-anatomy-of-a-soldier.html">Anatomy of a Soldier</a></b></i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To find out more about the first event and the lit fest from Lindsay's perspective, see <a href="http://lindsaybamfield.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/finchley-literary-festival-2016-my.html">here</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Harry spoke about the inspiration for the novel, his own experiences in the army in Afghanistan and Iraq. 'Nothing good comes out of war. I came back to a country that looked after me and that gave me hope.' [Our wonderful NHS always deserve a plug]</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="color: #222222;">
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><i>Anatomy of a Soldier</i></b> tells the story of Capt Tom Barnes and his near death encounter with a landmine. The story is told from the viewpoints of 45 objects – helmet, bicycle, dog tags, rifle round, rug, medical instruments, handbag, medal, snowflake, drone – before, during and after the explosion.</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">While writing the book, he was thinking about chapters being blown up in the air and falling in any order, mimicking the disorientation that a soldier goes through. Part of the disorientation for Harry meant working out what each object was. Soldiers can often feel a bit like an object so he tried to make the objects solve problems - joining the army is all about solving problems. Harry loved the way the objects could move in a different way to humans. Move through a country and could even rot and die. His first reading was from the perspective of an infection: </span><br /><br /><i style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"> </i></span><i> I was inside your leg, deep among flesh that was torn and churned. I lived there for a week and wanted to take root, but it wasn't easy. Some of my spores were washed away with the dirt from your wounds, others were cut out with necrotic tissue, and some were destroyed by a barrage of your white blood cells.<br /> I struggled to survive.</i></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">After recovering, learning how to walk again, and returning to work, he had a desk job filling in spreadsheets, but all the while he was thinking about the book that was a'growing in his imagination. Eventually, he quit his job and the army. When soldiers leave, they are offered some sort of course to help them on their way. Harry asked if he could do a writing course. He was told they had never been asked for that before but they agreed. Harry went to Arvon. When he came back he wrote the Anatomy of a Soldier in twelve weeks, though it was a few years before it was published.</span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiypgHhZ0nc6eYP6E64s8btuZAhC4SU_NXIABKlNXo5g-IkCHzC1LhuoSYkiCmEFeXd-w_K9Bs3bZVMPwwI7H1bu7dWcAafh9lyPZRKsiM2Dh_MdgSbPU7TCXCRo6wZHNCinPmLmP2DE9U/s1600/20160624_141405.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiypgHhZ0nc6eYP6E64s8btuZAhC4SU_NXIABKlNXo5g-IkCHzC1LhuoSYkiCmEFeXd-w_K9Bs3bZVMPwwI7H1bu7dWcAafh9lyPZRKsiM2Dh_MdgSbPU7TCXCRo6wZHNCinPmLmP2DE9U/s320/20160624_141405.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Carol Sampson interviewing <br />
Harry Parker</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">In writing <i><b>Anatomy of a Soldier</b></i>, Harry says, ‘I set myself rules. The objects don’t have emotion, they can’t speak. There were rules along the lines of, they can only know what someone is thinking if they are touching them. The rules don’t really matter for the reader but they mattered for me as a writer to keep a structure.’</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Before the book was published, he shared the script with his father, who is a General, he gave his approval and told Harry to go ahead and put it out into the world.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Harry was asked by a member of the audience whether the accident had made him a writer.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Harry said: 'I would have still been in the army and feel lucky to be here,' and he supposed, yes it had contributed to him becoming a writer. However, his background is as a creative, he was an artist, and recently completed a postgraduate course in fine art. So one must presume his army experience would have found its way onto the page in some form or other.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">When he was in hospital recovering from the explosion, he was told, when you're better you'll treasure every day. Harry didn't believe the person who told him that at the time. And at that very moment, Harry's baby daughter, Sophie, who was in the audience, started gurgling. It was very apt, because of course his beautiful daughter is all about hope and the future.</span><br /><br /><i style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Harry Parker grew up in Wiltshire. He was educated at Falmouth College of Art and University College London. He joined the British Army when he was 23 and served in Iraq in 2007 and Afghanistan in 2009 as a Captain. He is now a writer and artist and lives in London with his wife and daughter.</span></i></span><br />
<div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><br /></i></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="color: #222222;">
<div dir="ltr" style="color: #222222;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 17.1200008392334px;"><b><i>Anatomy of a Soldier</i></b> is published by: Faber and Faber</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="color: black;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You can follow Harry on Twitter: </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; line-height: 17.1200008392334px;"><a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=harry%20parker&src=typd" style="color: black; line-height: 17.1200008392334px;">@harrybparker</a></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-70580433606073093482016-06-14T02:53:00.000-07:002016-06-14T02:57:10.009-07:00Book Spine Poetry<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">My first attempt at </span><b style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: 'Libre Baskerville', serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">Book Spine Poetry</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1InpdwjwGpFZ6sZQc8MoA5Rxu6iaZmF_U2CnYD1_NPLMwMEupugWU9o2dvCooZCVFfWXqYY6NslKoOPmyhx7KZ33wJWgcIpIaRZn3knFoU-v4RK2VhM7KU7yx2kd-JouBpr_UQJ_m92A/s1600/book+poetry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1InpdwjwGpFZ6sZQc8MoA5Rxu6iaZmF_U2CnYD1_NPLMwMEupugWU9o2dvCooZCVFfWXqYY6NslKoOPmyhx7KZ33wJWgcIpIaRZn3knFoU-v4RK2VhM7KU7yx2kd-JouBpr_UQJ_m92A/s320/book+poetry.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: 'Libre Baskerville', serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">An Unquiet Mind</b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">Once in a house on fire,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">when we were orphans,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">the girl with all the gifts,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">haunted;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">the sea house.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">And my second attempt, you can see the book pile has grown as has my obsession...</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoiDZJh2ZO4f9q2OhmmQt2eY_Knfn-5FlsZFi1bQPn6HRIOZQ9p1QhCFn7flH71Ep4CqywRzpRh-pciIlC6OedhyphenhyphenlMx0jfDYL3m1s7EtMsWhiGlarUtI2NO605nqq8fwOTTJ4_8EjdwVs/s1600/book+poetry3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoiDZJh2ZO4f9q2OhmmQt2eY_Knfn-5FlsZFi1bQPn6HRIOZQ9p1QhCFn7flH71Ep4CqywRzpRh-pciIlC6OedhyphenhyphenlMx0jfDYL3m1s7EtMsWhiGlarUtI2NO605nqq8fwOTTJ4_8EjdwVs/s400/book+poetry3.jpg" width="236" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;"><b>The Gap of Time</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">The hundred year old man</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">borrowed body.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">A second life;</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">shadow baby.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">Hidden lives,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">hideous kinky,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">hidden.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">The girl with the dragon tattoo,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">the child that books built.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">Emotionally weird,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">troubling love,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">nobody's child.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">Marianne dreams -</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">I know why the caged bird sings:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">Why be happy when you could be normal.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">Dancing on the outskirts,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">not the end of the world.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">If nobody speaks of remarkable things...</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">But we all shine on:</span><br />
<span style="color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">the brightness of stars.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">Inspired by <a href="https://poppypeacockpens.com/2016/06/05/book-spine-poetry-dear-silvia/">Poppy Peacock Pens</a> #BookBlogger </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">I have messed up my book shelves and have a huge pile of books on the floor having a go at this meme </span><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #5f6d80; font-family: 'Libre Baskerville', serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Book Spine Poetry</span><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">.</em></strong><span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">I think mine could be linked to the PhD novel, <i><b>Hiraeth</b></i> about a sixteen year old care leaver weaving her way through the hurricane of life. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;">Do let me know if you have a go either in the comments below or via Twitter: @rosie_canning</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #5f6d80; font-family: "libre baskerville" , serif; font-size: 26px; line-height: 39px;"><br /></span>Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-59294255173066285582016-06-10T07:12:00.000-07:002016-06-10T07:19:21.070-07:00Finchley in Fiction Part Four<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When we started the festival five years ago, we thought there was hardly any literature in Finchley. It was a dry barren place and if you wanted a bit of culture, you had to travel. Now it seems everyone wants to put on literary events in and around Finchley. As </span><a href="http://lindsaybamfield.blogspot.co.uk/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Lindsay Bamfield</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">, points out: "Barnet libraries have two weeks of special literary events in February and the Middlesex University lit fest is now held in nearby Hendon during March. But we were the first lit fest in the borough!" And now St Jude's, Hampstead Garden Suburb, also has literary events alongside their Proms.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />It's not just literature in Finchley, writers too are including Finchley in their novels. I first wrote about this phenomenon just before last year's festival. Starting with some of our 18th and 19th Century writers such as: Charles Dickens, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">and</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">H.G. Wells, in </span><a href="http://rosemarycanning.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/finchley-in-fiction-part-one.html" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Part I</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /><a href="http://rosemarycanning.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/finchley-in-fiction-part-two.html">Part II</a> saw the 20th Century as well as some of our more contemporary writers: Peter Sellers, John Betjeman, Spike Milligan, Ben Elton, Caitlin Davies, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Will Self,</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Mark Billingham, and Kate Atkinson.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />By that time, people were starting to contact me about other Finchley mentions and so this saw us going backwards and forwards in time for <a href="http://rosemarycanning.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/finchley-in-fiction-part-iii.html">Part III</a> with Doctor Who, Howard Jacobson, Don Tracy, H.B. Fyfe, Pam Coiley as well as mentions in film and song.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And now a few more:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>John Steinbeck</b></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">'s, </span><b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_There_Was_A_War" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Once There Was A War</a> </b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">(1958),</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> a wee old English woman, discovered on the Isle of Capri is described, “She was dressed in decent and aging black. She never had made the slightest concession to Italy. Her costume would have done her honor and protected her from scandal in Finchley.”</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In <a href="http://sarah-crawl-space.blogspot.co.uk/"><b>Sarah Hilary</b>'s</a>, <b><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Someone-Elses-Skin-D-I-Marnie/dp/1472207696?ie=UTF8&qid=1409219234&ref_=la_B00KRNIVN8_1_1_bnp_1_pap&s=books&sr=1-1">Someone Else's Skin</a> </b>(2014), there are 28 mentions of Finchley!</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5X3Cla0BGkpqDY6j_IZZiDHaWZmoE-F9eGM8NONxpj47Sg_AsX17MU6ZtQwb63CUoTqsfdsi0Mfaekh-FU_K0Yn4F4BUgsf7kp68dGSw_n5973Sp0jYSMhkjGY5GSn4gQwl41JfVIXTQ/s1600/21350894.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5X3Cla0BGkpqDY6j_IZZiDHaWZmoE-F9eGM8NONxpj47Sg_AsX17MU6ZtQwb63CUoTqsfdsi0Mfaekh-FU_K0Yn4F4BUgsf7kp68dGSw_n5973Sp0jYSMhkjGY5GSn4gQwl41JfVIXTQ/s200/21350894.jpg" width="130" /></a></div>
<b style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Someone Else's Skin</b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">, is winner of the Theakston's 2015 Crime Novel of the Year, and a 2014 Richard and Judy Book Club pick.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />It seems that Finchley is becoming something of a celebrity. West and North Finchley get a mention in <b><a href="http://www.thecrimevault.com/ebooks/career-of-evil/">Career of Evil</a> </b>(2015), the third novel in the Cormoran Strike series by <a href="http://robert-galbraith.com/"><b>Robert Galbraith</b></a> aka J.K. Rowling.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ4YFmdyT5CxSe1ldoC39lf9dMC__lzTEWOqVuRzuSCJqrltI-5lSsV6slz9XQh1bC9B65_ZNEUQrkHkZx4v1_duTaUR7brlE_7WMkoWoiqmdDD-SXnTRJjhVaW2rb5kYXcp9bLmTu1H8/s1600/Career_of_Evil_Oct_2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ4YFmdyT5CxSe1ldoC39lf9dMC__lzTEWOqVuRzuSCJqrltI-5lSsV6slz9XQh1bC9B65_ZNEUQrkHkZx4v1_duTaUR7brlE_7WMkoWoiqmdDD-SXnTRJjhVaW2rb5kYXcp9bLmTu1H8/s200/Career_of_Evil_Oct_2015.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We'll be choosing excerpts from some of these books for the forthcoming Finchley Literary Festival, Finchley in Fiction Walk, Sunday 26th June. After all who can pass the site of Spike Milligan's former home without a recitation?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br />Led by Mike Gee and Rosie Canning with a lunch stop at Redwood Cafe (one of our sponsors,) in Swan Lane Open Space, and a tea stop at Finchley Golf Club. </span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Meet outside Waterstones, Finchley 12.15-4.30pm<br />782 High Street, North Finchley, London, N12 9QR, London<br />There is a small charge for this event of £3.00 but please <a href="http://www.meetup.com/Finchley-Literary-Festival-Meetup/events/230741933/">RSVP</a>.</span></div>
</div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-53197476401479556962016-06-07T16:35:00.000-07:002016-06-07T16:42:56.934-07:00New Writers Evening at Foyles<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9lVpfHhizqd-Uvz-iY0wDm_cHzLSHy9E2k9uQjwTOfsbJsco3jRIisUEJiIV-iYI-du268GkGGV3Eq7kdlV4ASA3ZGMr-JtbyMp7K5bNClOcT25Zv8yHteoWHb5gozjvNOFzGQTD6-Qs/s1600/CkWqsbSWUAAFg_t.jpg-large.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9lVpfHhizqd-Uvz-iY0wDm_cHzLSHy9E2k9uQjwTOfsbJsco3jRIisUEJiIV-iYI-du268GkGGV3Eq7kdlV4ASA3ZGMr-JtbyMp7K5bNClOcT25Zv8yHteoWHb5gozjvNOFzGQTD6-Qs/s400/CkWqsbSWUAAFg_t.jpg-large.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ever on the hunt for new literary voices, Foyles bring together a panel of authors and an audience of readers to explore the road to publication and what lies beyond. I went along for an evening of readings and conversation from three new writers: Jem Lester, Barney Norris, and Kit de Waal.</span><br />
<div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBxsYYbQatihr1D2pbSpXpnHa1H-o3JwaeOe-O-eZvM01SVGDcb4FaBuJS6lc1TjeDUNAvVT0e7Qz6Hvkeo0NeVQi_k4Y8_Lm_B9asTThXCmrH_BlFvUsKzx2C-vtUhFN-3qHyMO7FVz8/s1600/isbn9781409163008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBxsYYbQatihr1D2pbSpXpnHa1H-o3JwaeOe-O-eZvM01SVGDcb4FaBuJS6lc1TjeDUNAvVT0e7Qz6Hvkeo0NeVQi_k4Y8_Lm_B9asTThXCmrH_BlFvUsKzx2C-vtUhFN-3qHyMO7FVz8/s200/isbn9781409163008.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Former journalist Jem Lester's debut novel <b><i><a href="https://www.orionbooks.co.uk/books/detail.page?isbn=9781409166511">Shtum</a></i></b>, about three generations of men reluctantly living together under one roof in North London– one of whom can't talk, and two who won't. Inspired by his own experiences raising his profoundly austistic, non-verbal son, Jem is keen to dispel the myth of the gifted autistic child, and does so with warmth and humour in this funny and profound novel about personal identity and family history.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPA1qm654JffeY81AtdE5-1wtONY5kQR3xkJUb4xboWrc32cXPNzpuA7s9mT1UHv54re8QCXUqKMSqwnSLNCB9mY_m-GcKDL9gFpVTQ2L12PEMW1-3L0T6fMRRR0pD-UrIhAqWSf5EIlE/s1600/cover.jpg.rendition.460.707.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPA1qm654JffeY81AtdE5-1wtONY5kQR3xkJUb4xboWrc32cXPNzpuA7s9mT1UHv54re8QCXUqKMSqwnSLNCB9mY_m-GcKDL9gFpVTQ2L12PEMW1-3L0T6fMRRR0pD-UrIhAqWSf5EIlE/s200/cover.jpg.rendition.460.707.png" width="124" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Award-winning playwright Barney Norris's much-anticipated debut novel <b><i><a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1110518/five-rivers-met-on-a-wooded-plain/">Five Rivers Met on a Wooden Plain</a></i></b> hinges upon one serious car crash that transforms five people's lives in a moment, drawn together by connection and coincidence into a web of love, grief, disenchantment and hope. It's an involving, heartstopping novel that perfectly represents the joys and tragedies of small town life.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3osZ44XqIQpSCo8qI43FHDQSbj20nHbnCguyKeNJju2kgm8h_1Ieg9g6yNYp17bZTqQHDJR88S_p5Vxlw_Lz9NcXEhr_fYBE6yPlK3fs4P_ENIoos2V6BrsF56mLFtUdFn34faoxH7x4/s1600/cover.jpg.rendition.460.707-2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3osZ44XqIQpSCo8qI43FHDQSbj20nHbnCguyKeNJju2kgm8h_1Ieg9g6yNYp17bZTqQHDJR88S_p5Vxlw_Lz9NcXEhr_fYBE6yPlK3fs4P_ENIoos2V6BrsF56mLFtUdFn34faoxH7x4/s200/cover.jpg.rendition.460.707-2.png" width="129" /></a></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Birmingham-based Kit de Waal's <i><b><a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/285161/my-name-is-leon/">My Name is Leon</a></b></i> tells the story of Leon, a nine-year-old boy who is threatened with being separated from his family. With a strong narrative voice and a powerful depiction of early-eighties racial tensions in Britain, it announces Kit as a major new voice in fiction.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The evening started with the three authors, Kit de Waal, Jem Lester and Barney Norris, introducing their books and doing readings. Then the fun started with questions from the audience.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Why did you write the novel?</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Kit de Waal: It was a compulsion. I had to write it, the story had been with me for some years. i was compelled by Leon. People say the characters are diverse. I don't recognise that word. They are real, real to me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Jem Lester: I didn't want to writ this book. Came from suggestion from someone. I had personal struggles with my own 16 year old son. I'd just won the tribunal, it had been a year-long struggle. Son started residential school on the Monday and on the Tuesday, I started the Masters degree at City University. I didn't want to deal with the story. Said no at first. Couldn't write it as a memoir and needed characters that would enlighten. I asked myself, how I would feel if someone else writes this. Autistic child at the centre of the novel was something I knew very well. It's realistic but also how hilarious life can be. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Barney Norris: It started out of a love of books. Huge part of the impulse - loving having grown up reading, wanting to join in and play along. However, that was not quite enough and had to wait a few years. I'm trying to articulate experience of life, be a mouthpiece for the people you are part of. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Did you have any doubts submitting your first books to publishers?</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Barney Norris: Surrender. It's all about surrender.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Kit de Waal: When you think you've got a work of staggering genius, you then give it to someone else. I thought if they said this, I'd say that. But if the agent likes it, it then has to go out again. It's written about people you care about. If someone likes it you'll marry them. People say I cried at P.63 and that's what we want. [It was p.43, Kit! And I howled and howled.]</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Jem Lester: If everybody says it's shite I can write something else. It's been a 30 year job. Very lucky that my agent heard it being read, 1500 words in a pub somewhere. She's followed it all the way through. Her hard work. Still can't believe that people like it more than me. Apart from the woman that said it gave her the shits. When it happens it is the most magical thing - [liking the book obviously not the shits].</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">You can follow the three authors on Twitter: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Kit de Waal <a href="https://twitter.com/KitdeWaal">@KitdeWaal</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Jem Lester <a href="https://twitter.com/jemlester">@jemlester</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Barney Norris <a href="https://twitter.com/barnontherun">@barnontherun</a></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Thank you to Foyles Bookshop for the free wine and pizza - yum!</span></div>
</div>
</div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-10376651784457984342016-04-22T05:02:00.002-07:002016-04-23T04:35:33.476-07:00World Book Night 2016<div style="margin-bottom: 12px;">
<div style="font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20.299999237060547px;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMe1kZuBiU0-hfGzSErz7GBzVxucXuGaW1bfa6I9Fi16etUC2_lLBKFwRZjZnFGeAet6L2OJkhmTdlt-qcOEMx9xbn4lhcx56CgQo6gnn6YZBXlkf20gzp151FVXwHC-iPVfA0KwkWSW4/s1600/wbn_banner-as-v-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="90" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMe1kZuBiU0-hfGzSErz7GBzVxucXuGaW1bfa6I9Fi16etUC2_lLBKFwRZjZnFGeAet6L2OJkhmTdlt-qcOEMx9xbn4lhcx56CgQo6gnn6YZBXlkf20gzp151FVXwHC-iPVfA0KwkWSW4/s400/wbn_banner-as-v-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: Times; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12px;">
<div style="font-family: times;">
<div style="margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 20.299999237060547px;">World Book Night is celebrated on 23 April and run by The Reading Agency.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12px; margin-top: 12px;">
<em>Because everything changes when we read.</em></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 20.299999237060547px;">Today!!! Saturday 23 April, </span><span class="caps" style="font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 20.299999237060547px;">UNESCO </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 20.299999237060547px;">International Day of the Book, Shakespeare’s birthday and also the 400th anniversary of his death, 187,500 copies of 15 specially printed World Book Night titles will be given by a network of volunteer reading enthusiasts and institutions around the UK focussing on reaching the 36% of the UK population who don’t read for pleasure. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: normal;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: normal;">This is the sixth <a href="http://worldbooknight.org/"><b>World Book Night</b></a> and my fifth year of volunteering. I work at the North Middlesex University Hospital in the medical library and </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: normal;">decided to get them involved last year as an 'institution giver' as well as my usual homeless organisation in Finchley.</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: normal;"> Plus I'm an advocate of fiction in amongst all those very helpful but occasionally gruesome medical books. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20.299999237060547px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">2016’s <a href="http://worldbooknight.org/books">list of titles</a> sees a sensational line up designed to bring reading and books into people’s lives. It covers a range of genres including crime, poetry, non-fiction, <b>Quick Reads</b>, historical and contemporary fiction, fantasy and memoir. Appearing on the list are bestselling favourites from the leading lights of the literary scene, designed to reach a wide audience including adults and young people dealing with mental health issues. Books this year include <b>Holly Bourne</b>’s <i>Am I Normal Yet?</i>, <i>Love Poems</i> by <b>Carol Ann Duffy</b>, <b>Matt Haig</b>’s <i>Reasons To Stay Alive</i>, <i>The Rotters’ Club</i> by <b>Jonathan Coe</b>, <i>Treachery</i> by <b>SJ Parris </b>and <b>Ann Cleeves</b>’ <i>Too Good To Be True</i>. </span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12px;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF3yQWgwc4Wv3tTtFIN_HpNxA_CplECtQmlgRJfP-Be3Dq0S64RnNyjbQoui3v_cvC94rNUiZjD3pLAwOsvgHgG11WvzSj_Gp0nf7UMFaAU-a5ZszyEX4Q1-fliF9BkVS-Uu7-gZxOW2k/s1600/9780241967768.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF3yQWgwc4Wv3tTtFIN_HpNxA_CplECtQmlgRJfP-Be3Dq0S64RnNyjbQoui3v_cvC94rNUiZjD3pLAwOsvgHgG11WvzSj_Gp0nf7UMFaAU-a5ZszyEX4Q1-fliF9BkVS-Uu7-gZxOW2k/s320/9780241967768.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When you become a volunteer you are asked to choose three books with the proviso you may not get any of them. I got my first choice<i> The Rotters Club, </i>by <b>Jonathan Coe</b>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i>The Rotter's Club </i>is set in the 1970s against a distant backdrop of strikes, terrorist attacks and growing racial tension. A group of young friends inherit the editorship of their school magazine and begin to put their own distinctive spin onto events in the wider world. A zestful comedy of personal and social upheaval, <i>The Rotters’ Club</i> captures a fateful moment in British politics – the collapse of ‘Old Labour’ – and imagines its impact on the topsy-turvy world of the bemused teenager: a world in which a lost pair of swimming trunks can be just as devastating as an IRA bomb.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 20.299999237060547px;"><b>Jonathan Coe</b>, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 20.299999237060547px;">says:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; line-height: 20.299999237060547px;">I’m delighted to be part of World Book Night 2016. Reading is the best possible way to foster imagination, empathy and mutual understanding, and never have those qualities been more needed than at the present time.</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I personally like to choose </span><a href="http://www.quickreads.org.uk/" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Quick Reads</b></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> because if you're homeless, in all likelihood you won't have access to many books and quite likely will find it difficult to read because concentration levels, due to the </span><a href="http://www.psychguides.com/guides/trauma-symptoms-causes-and-effects/" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">trauma</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> of not having a home, are quite simply all over the place. I feel that a </span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Quick Reads</b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> book is a perfect way to reintroduce anyone to the wonderful art of reading.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12px;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b></b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Quick Reads</b> sets out to show that books and reading can be for everyone. Each year they commission big name authors to write short books that are specifically designed to be easy to read. They are the same as mainstream books in every respect but are simply shorter and easier to tackle. The books are then sold through major retailers, online booksellers and are loaned from libraries. They celebrated their 10th anniversary this year, read more about that <a href="http://rosemarycanning.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/quick-reads-10th-anniversary.html">here</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 20.299999237060547px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 20.299999237060547px;">Since the inaugural </span><b style="font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20.299999237060547px;">World Book Night</b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 20.299999237060547px;"> in 2011, an extraordinary group of 56,000 volunteers has been created, giving books away to over 2.25 million people.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20.299999237060547px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-top: 12px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 12px;">
<div style="font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 20.299999237060547px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This year’s <b>World Book Night</b> impact report is the first to measure the impact on end-users, the recipients of the books. It reveals that the event prompts recipients to do more than simply read the book they receive: in many cases they go on to re-evaluate their relationship with books. Delight at receiving a book translates into action, especially for those who were previously not frequent readers:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">80% of recipients who said they previously never read or read less than once a month said that they have read more since World Book Night</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">85% of infrequent readers have talked to others about books more since taking part</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">47% of this group report that they have already bought more books since World Book Night, and 32% have borrowed more from the library</span></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12px; margin-top: 12px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: normal;">Many recipients said that <b>World Book Night</b> prompted them to re-engage with books and helped them discover new, relevant texts; this in turn gave them increased self-confidence as a reader and increased their awareness of the reading material available to them.</span></div>
2000 institutions nationwide will be taking part in this year’s <b>World Book Night</b> mass giveaway, including libraries, hospitals, prisons, colleges, schools and homeless shelters.<br />
<br />
In a new initiative for 2016 publishers will also giving out copies of their own stock on Friday 22 April within their neighbourhoods. This will increase the number of books being given away as part of the celebrations and highlights the unique opportunity <b>World Book Night</b> presents for givers to become better connected with their local communities.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12px; margin-top: 12px;">
<div style="line-height: 20.299999237060547px;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 12px; margin-top: 12px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><b>Penguin Random House UK</b> is donating a copy of <b>Ali Smith</b>’s <em>Public Library and Other Stories </em>to every library in the UK to tie in with <b>World Book Night</b>. In a letter to librarians Ali Smith says:</span></div>
<blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 12px; margin-top: 12px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“This year on 23 April we celebrate World Book Night, an occasion that marks the transformative power of books: to inspire, transport and comfort, to unlock the mind, to nourish the soul. In honour of this moment, please find enclosed a copy of my short story collection Public library and other stories, which I am sending as a gift to every library in the UK.”</span></div>
</blockquote>
<div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-top: 12px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As well as the <b>World Book Night</b> volunteers, people are encouraged to give their favourite book to someone in their community and special events are taking place at libraries, community centres, prisons, hospitals and schools around the UK on 23rd April, in this mass celebration of books and reading. So, why not choose a book from your bookshelves and give it away. Read more <a href="http://worldbooknight.org/events">here </a>about events taking place all over the UK. And i</span><span style="line-height: 20.299999237060547px;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;">t's not too late t</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">o b</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">uy tickets to the flagship <a href="http://www.bl.uk/events/world-book-night-2016">World Book Night event</a> at the British Library.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-22891737539142358322016-04-03T05:38:00.000-07:002016-04-04T16:49:33.156-07:00Words of Colour present Yvvette Edwards<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://wordsofcolour.co.uk/">Words of Colour Productions</a>, in association with Waterstones Piccadilly, hosted an evening of conversation with award-winning author Yvvette Edwards at the pre-launch of her second book <b><i><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062440778/the-mother">The Mother</a></i></b>, a whole week before it’s official release date. </span><span style="font-size: large;">Joy Francis, </span><span style="font-size: large;">journalist and executive director of Words of Colour,</span><span style="font-size: large;"> introduced Yvvette, to a packed audience.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj__L7AyLNW_stcAxxbIDMR05ndz0XX-ijZvYDGK48sLO7B1BlY3uhtmCVJE_ys0581k4wOjGd92SrtpdRsjNAiNQuVZuG30Fet3ObDR7hRE4ZNyBOH2cwBDR2apwW6N9kTnuZebQ68QOU/s1600/IMG-20160331-WA0000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj__L7AyLNW_stcAxxbIDMR05ndz0XX-ijZvYDGK48sLO7B1BlY3uhtmCVJE_ys0581k4wOjGd92SrtpdRsjNAiNQuVZuG30Fet3ObDR7hRE4ZNyBOH2cwBDR2apwW6N9kTnuZebQ68QOU/s1600/IMG-20160331-WA0000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj__L7AyLNW_stcAxxbIDMR05ndz0XX-ijZvYDGK48sLO7B1BlY3uhtmCVJE_ys0581k4wOjGd92SrtpdRsjNAiNQuVZuG30Fet3ObDR7hRE4ZNyBOH2cwBDR2apwW6N9kTnuZebQ68QOU/s320/IMG-20160331-WA0000.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
<br />
Joy asked Yvvette about her reading influences when she was growing up.<br />
<br />
Yvvette spoke of how she first started writing as a child after the death of Elvis. "I did my first big piece of work in 1976 when I was ten years old. It was an autobiography of the life of Elvis Presley after he had died. My mother and relatives wailed as if a family member had died so it was a way of working through my grief and trauma."<br />
<br />
She then went on to talk about Rosa Guy's <i style="font-weight: bold;">The Friends </i>(1995), and how she was so excited that the text had a black protagonist and that Guy was a black author. She devoured the book and looked for more but couldn't find anything.<br />
<br />
She also read Stephen King, though the stress of horror means she doesn't read him nowadays. If she comes across a writer she enjoys, she tends to read everything by that author. Toni Morrison is her star writer and she is always thrilled by the beautiful, lyrical and groundbreaking writing.<br />
<br />
In her 40s, Yvvette began thinking about her own mortality and began writing about things that aren't written about. Stories from voices you don't hear very often. Women of colour are often presented as caricatures and stereotypes. Yvvette wants to create 3-D characters.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfx4HCuMUZSlW2ZTep8ZuqyPj6RqD62_AbWYiOiETCueDNhtN8P075ghqgFIYd9V7WAi9S9YcAV3R0gRlFuvYEPsDzqixAzkWCwdLNSVFpybSrPyPgWQWF_4z4gXTWaeNSEqO7Pp78LmM/s1600/IMG-20160331-WA0003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfx4HCuMUZSlW2ZTep8ZuqyPj6RqD62_AbWYiOiETCueDNhtN8P075ghqgFIYd9V7WAi9S9YcAV3R0gRlFuvYEPsDzqixAzkWCwdLNSVFpybSrPyPgWQWF_4z4gXTWaeNSEqO7Pp78LmM/s320/IMG-20160331-WA0003.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The inspiration for <i><b><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062183736/a-cupboard-full-of-coats">A Cupboard Full of Coats </a>(2011), </b></i>was a real life scenario. A friend who had got rid of a violent partner. Some years later, she showed Yvvette a newspaper report. The ex partner had been convicted for murder of his then girlfriend.<br />
<br />
Yvvette kept thinking about the what ifs, what if the friend had stayed with him. She found herself troubled by the report and wanted to explore different types of love, possessive love that can result in death. Though she was quick to point out, "It is funny in places too!"<br />
<br />
It was her agent that pointed out there were no white characters in the novel. And while the agent was speaking about this, Yvvette was doing a silent inventory in her head, thinking "there must be one somewhere".<br />
<br />
Joy asked Yvvette how it wasn't until she was 40 that she decided she was a writer even though she had been writing most of her life.<br />
<br />
Yvvette spoke about how for her writing is cathartic, a kind of therapy writing, she was always writing, writing. And then one day, thought, I'll send it to the BBC (un-edited).<br />
<br />
They sent it back with suggestions. "I thought that's it, I won't be sending them anything more". She did lots of jobs with "no real ambition". Then when she got to 40, she dragged herself up by the lapels and "gave myself a talking to". She reduced her hours at work and began editing.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbdCFi7b9Td9OKIb7ovyCGTYdfKrPeKMaXiSA8FnM6ygQbU-tn5IQAXI5fhBQ5HBf0Pw7Qf89lMDH0zP1lCYUbpX-T4OyosD02S-VSe0AyvS3NPYLKnjczbNpP-h6bxPmswhE6OAOY2tM/s1600/IMG-20160331-WA0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbdCFi7b9Td9OKIb7ovyCGTYdfKrPeKMaXiSA8FnM6ygQbU-tn5IQAXI5fhBQ5HBf0Pw7Qf89lMDH0zP1lCYUbpX-T4OyosD02S-VSe0AyvS3NPYLKnjczbNpP-h6bxPmswhE6OAOY2tM/s320/IMG-20160331-WA0001.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
Yvvette then read an excerpt from <b><i>A Cupboard Full of Coats</i></b>.<br />
<br />
How would you describe your writing? Asked Joy.<br />
<br />
"That's not really my job," laughed Yvvette. And went on to say "...a strong dose of realism, uncompromising, not especially graphic". She enjoyed <i><b>Silence of the Lambs</b></i> - found it terrifying even you don't see anything graphic happen. "I try to make that happen with my writing". She went on to say, she had difficulty defining herself and had a resistance to being pigeonholed.<br />
<br />
Joy discussed Yvvette's latest novel, <i><b>The Mother</b></i> due to be published 7th April, and how it came to be written, whilst observing that she seems to be obsessed with violence and death. But, in a way to convey the humanity of it, and writing about violence in particular.<br />
<br />
Yvvette replied she was interested in the "ripple-effect of trauma". A number of things happened that led to the writing of the novel. She saw another stabbing on the news and a friend said, you've got to write about this. And then Yvette's stepson was stabbed. He went out with his friends to Nandos and was stabbed by a random person. He survived but because of his injuries there was the possibility he would have a colostomy bag for the rest of his life.<br />
<br />
Yvvette was in shock and couldn't understand how a young boy could go for something to eat with his friends and come back with a colostomy bag. His life changed forever. This traumatic psychological event left her dwelling on stabbings in the UK and led her to question, like many others, "What's going on with young people in this country? Why are they turning to crime?"<br />
<br />
Through a series of events, Yvvette found herself interested and listening to experts. And the seeds of <i><b>The Mother</b></i> were sewn.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwJ-_s8StYd5ONUN0bEFei9GejMeMrearUjgOZpJ2jR2hMQKbqV6H-_EwSSYjbgTgtWzxKHZaxPI39TxGYsrNojghvVJI6Fp9atTEqSlcfbAmV8uZrdQ_EBg1L7yVOlAmjm_R18aAvNnY/s1600/THe+Mother+Hi+res.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwJ-_s8StYd5ONUN0bEFei9GejMeMrearUjgOZpJ2jR2hMQKbqV6H-_EwSSYjbgTgtWzxKHZaxPI39TxGYsrNojghvVJI6Fp9atTEqSlcfbAmV8uZrdQ_EBg1L7yVOlAmjm_R18aAvNnY/s320/THe+Mother+Hi+res.jpg" width="199" /></a></div>
<br />
However, there was a novel before <i><b>The Mother.</b></i> A second novel that suffered with Second Book Syndrome. When a writing friend had mentioned this, Yvvette dismissed it. But went on to discover the protagonist was too much like Jinx in <b><i>A Cupboard Full of Coats</i></b>, and the writing just wasn't happening. She eventually had to admit her writing friend was absolutely right.<br />
<br />
But she felt she had worked through some angst in that discarded second novel, so that when she came to write <i><b>The Mother,</b></i> it simply flowed.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF1i0lU0M_Yv63jjxAb7f38ij9n06eJ18bOISAcCOF3Fp24qfFFn3XSOEz7h4b79sUTtF9RhMumCBHDRfr5kaptT9zWM63-cZWz-d-AppqAKDwVZqivLEzJqUwDVd3JMoed1r26lcMMGw/s1600/Ce5vkx4XIAAOskP.jpg-large.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF1i0lU0M_Yv63jjxAb7f38ij9n06eJ18bOISAcCOF3Fp24qfFFn3XSOEz7h4b79sUTtF9RhMumCBHDRfr5kaptT9zWM63-cZWz-d-AppqAKDwVZqivLEzJqUwDVd3JMoed1r26lcMMGw/s200/Ce5vkx4XIAAOskP.jpg-large.jpeg" width="112" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">© Joy Francis</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Yvvette then read an excerpt from <i><b>The Mother</b></i>, which had the whole audience enthralled. I had been umming and ahhing about reading the book because, I find young boys being stabbed so heartbreaking and thought I wouldn't be able to read it. At the end of the evening there were questions from the audience and I found myself thinking about how writers sometimes write from a place of trauma, when somebody asked:<br />
<br />
Had Yvvette experienced a change within herself by the end of each piece of writing?<br />
<br />
She had changed since writing <i><b>The Mother</b></i>, that even though she was empathic, she had become more so and she understood so much more about the youth of today. As well as the reading that was so engaging, so well-written, this answer intrigued me. Would I be changed after reading it? I found myself buying a copy. In fact I was first in line. I began reading it on the way home and was so engrossed, I didn't realise I had got on the wrong branch of the Northern Line until I found myself in Hampstead. I live in Finchley.<br />
<br />
It was an interesting and inspiring evening and I'm pleased to add that Yvvette will be joining us for this year's <a href="http://www.finchleyliteraryfestival.blogspot.co.uk/">Finchley Literary Festival</a> 24th-26th June. Readers and writers are in for an absolute treat.<br />
<br />Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-31703829181550248742016-03-01T01:00:00.001-08:002016-03-01T09:47:35.820-08:00Bone by Bone by Sanjida Kay<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>It wasn't until the train went past that she saw the small body lying in the long grass by the side of the wood.</i><br /><br />The opening sentence of the prologue of Bone by Bone by Sanjida Kay prepares the reader for a gruesome read and from the text a suspiscion that a child has been murdered.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><i>When Autumn had first started at Ashley Grove in September, Laura had been as nervous as her daughter. She’d been worried about Autumn – if she’d make new friends, if she’d fit in – as well as for herself – would the other mothers like her? </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />Laura is making a fresh start. Newly divorced and relocated to Bristol, she is carving a new life for her and her nine-year-old daughter, Autumn. But things aren't going as well as she hoped. Autumn is being bullied.<br /><br /><i> ‘Autumn. What kind of dumb name is that? Who’d call their kid that? It’s like say, “Hey, November, come in for your tea.”’ …As he continued, calling her more random and ridiculous names, the boys in her own class started to laugh too, and some of the girls put their hands over their mouths and smirked.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR3owjnrS71hQUugWGPnYyQjvzrIyAycKQ5lmTF5lZXOZrUKKULoLhXm2CWHs99uGEdz-rf37cbRuooUOtuI2PVb2UMZpr7JOk6XFnVq8e1ldHKUzJmC3yIdA69J01p7ku4oK20OL8m28/s1600/6166Qs4ri6L._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR3owjnrS71hQUugWGPnYyQjvzrIyAycKQ5lmTF5lZXOZrUKKULoLhXm2CWHs99uGEdz-rf37cbRuooUOtuI2PVb2UMZpr7JOk6XFnVq8e1ldHKUzJmC3yIdA69J01p7ku4oK20OL8m28/s320/6166Qs4ri6L._SX331_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />The action takes place over seven months from October to May. The perspective alternates between Laura and Autumn. Not only does this give the reader an insight into how a mother might deal with a bullying situation or not as in this instance, but also the child perspective.<br /><br />This is a clever device for a book about bullying as it not only illustrates the mother’s worry and powerlessness, but also the vulnerability of being a child who is bullied. A vulnerability created by not wanting to make a fuss, by hoping that the bullying will stop, by believing in the good of people in general.<br /><br />When the bullying doesn't stop, Laura makes a mistake with dreadful consequences. Autumn fails to return home from school one day and Laura goes looking for her and happens upon a crowd of bullies taunting her little girl. Rage overcomes Laura and spills into violence. <br /><br /><i>Something inside her snapped. She wanted to kill him. He was so close to her that it only took a shift in her weight,a slight movement forwards and she was right there, her hands on his chest, and then she pushed, as hard as she could.</i><br /><br />In the heat of the moment, Laura makes a terrible mistake. A mistake that will have devastating consequences for her and her daughter. But Laura can not anticipate just what those consequences will be, and just how much worse things can become. Friendships begin to unravel, leaving Laura and Autumn even more isolated and lonely. </span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />In an age where many people have a lot of personal information online, Sanjida gives an insight into the power of the Internet when used for benign purposes and just how easy it is to sabotage a victim's life. The cyber bullying tactics that spill over into real life, are very topical and will resonate with a lot of parents today.<br /><br /><i>Autumn was acutely aware of the space that had opened up around her. She was alone. no one spoke to her. it was difficult to breathe. She stared down at her shoes on the cracked Tarmac of the playground, a tree root visible beneath the asphalt.</i><br /><br />There is an underlying sense of unease throughout the novel as the reader waits for the anticipated murder. As Laura and Autumn struggle with incident after incident, the inaction of the school, of the bully, of his father and of the other parents, the narrative builds and builds to an unexpected climax.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bullying is horribly common: the NSPCC says that almost half of all children are bullied. Three-quarters of those bullied were physically attacked and 62 per cent were cyber-bullied in 2015 according to a report carried out forDitch the Label. Nearly half of those children who were bullied, didn’t tell anyone about it, but suffered in silence. Sanjida</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> is </span>donating a percentage of the profits from <b>Bone by Bone</b> to <a href="https://www.kidscape.org.uk/">Kidscape</a>, the anti-bullying charity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A disturbing psychological thriller, here is a writer who knows how to upset a reader's equilibrium. A confident insight into the on and offline consequences of bullying, and the nature of the victim. Sanjida's training as a zoologist (she studied chimpanzees for her PhD) is evident as the narrative evolves into a study of bully and victim. If you enjoy reading on the edge of your seat, you'll enjoy this novel with its twists and turns and things that are never quite as they appear to be. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><br />Sanjida Kay is a writer and broadcaster. Bone by Bone is her first thriller. She lives in Bristol with her daughter and husband.<br /><br />You can follow Sanjida on Twitter: @SanjidaOConnell<br /><br />Psychological thriller, Bone by Bone, by Sanjida Kay, published by Corvus Books. Out 3.3.2016</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />Thank you to Sanjida and Corvus for the review copy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-24385645235330199792016-02-09T06:13:00.000-08:002016-02-10T02:57:08.423-08:00Finchley in Fiction Part III<div dir="ltr">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Last May, around about the time of the Finchley Literary Festival, I gathered some literary mentions of Finchley. <a href="http://rosemarycanning.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/finchley-in-fiction-part-one.html">Finchley in Fiction Part I</a> and <a href="http://rosemarycanning.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/finchley-in-fiction-part-two.html">Finchley in Fiction Part II</a>. These posts received a lot of interest including some new references. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div style="color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">David Goldstein who has lived in Finchley all his life sent in the following anecdotes.</span></div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"<i>Having just read your blog posts about Finchley in Fiction, I would like to contribute a few more:</i></span></div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A Doctor Who episode from 2009, <b>The Waters of Mars</b>, reveals via a screen readout that one of the characters was born in Finchley. This can be seen <a href="http://33.media.tumblr.com/0d44de0010f8809ac6a755e5e29968aa/tumblr_inline_mx5w7tLWmt1rztsko.png">here</a></span></i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6D9jTrwV2Y5EmCotJBGUn6N010-9e_j5VBvyPRJ3cJIF5mD0_tvpHeerDzh1tYJItJEO45gS9UjXaLeBiH_d3NAy9sSTMm2nYXSLosDNZBTNrplHWNHK6Px765aeI0Wp79EP8kIsfF6o/s1600/n5y0tgusa84r48u.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6D9jTrwV2Y5EmCotJBGUn6N010-9e_j5VBvyPRJ3cJIF5mD0_tvpHeerDzh1tYJItJEO45gS9UjXaLeBiH_d3NAy9sSTMm2nYXSLosDNZBTNrplHWNHK6Px765aeI0Wp79EP8kIsfF6o/s1600/n5y0tgusa84r48u.jpg" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the 1990s there was a short-lived BBC TV series called <b>The Ghostbusters of East Finchley</b>. Though not that many of the Finchley scenes were actually filmed here. There are some clips online and synopses of the episodes <a href="http://search.bfi.org.uk/search-bfi/%22ghostbusters%20of%20east%20finchley%22">here</a></span></i></div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I went to see the 2005 Narnia film at the cinema and heard Susan's line "We're not heroes. We're from Finchley", I was delighted. I would have cheered but I was in Basingstoke at the time.</span></i></div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSVllFiLJ-UpXLJALLS525CSUsJ1UtO2I1njVkZKX5UOjTvsXf7ES99iHXcsV_Mab8tCko73h774hr5eRd6vNw1HoRcYQgR1s2fT_ioiWt6zti8tO7cm1KWq7yYk3GIAWneTLDCHm2NZE/s1600/narniaposter.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSVllFiLJ-UpXLJALLS525CSUsJ1UtO2I1njVkZKX5UOjTvsXf7ES99iHXcsV_Mab8tCko73h774hr5eRd6vNw1HoRcYQgR1s2fT_ioiWt6zti8tO7cm1KWq7yYk3GIAWneTLDCHm2NZE/s320/narniaposter.jpeg" width="227" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Having checked the text of <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/36/pg36.txt"><b>The War of the Worlds</b></a>, I found references to Hampstead and Highgate but sadly none to Finchley.</span></i></div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of my favourite references to Finchley in fiction is a musical one. In 1967, The New Vaudeville Band got to Number 11 with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvMYHbN5baw"><b>Finchley Central</b>,</a> a song about the Tube station. </span></i></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Having used East Finchley station throughout my life, I have more than a passing acquaintance with Archie. I was once told that the arrow he is firing into the tunnel was at one point represented by an arrow sculpture at the other end i.e. Morden, until thieves took the arrow. I don't know if this is true.</span></i></div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<i><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></i>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-EM_C-UQwEUxuSnRTca2tFeymkjHszk-9gBNrWlp4k74WcS8uJd6vbOUJNaxtFzsausXdsMRsB9BLY7cTJ2TzhyphenhyphenNw9kOfVd4YRVblPbfUO7svztC23RoOfkm2B69YuAhVYMTFP2C0fxM/s1600/Archie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-EM_C-UQwEUxuSnRTca2tFeymkjHszk-9gBNrWlp4k74WcS8uJd6vbOUJNaxtFzsausXdsMRsB9BLY7cTJ2TzhyphenhyphenNw9kOfVd4YRVblPbfUO7svztC23RoOfkm2B69YuAhVYMTFP2C0fxM/s320/Archie.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.tubewalker.com/about_site/site_credits.html">© Mark Moxon 1995-2016
All Rights Reserved</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>I've also found a book about Archie: </i><b><i>Ned's Big Day</i></b><i>, written and illustrated by Pam Coiley, published by the Northern Line in 1990. Ned is a Northern Line train who thinks everyone has forgotten his birthday - including his friend Archie - while all along they have been planning a surprise party for him at Morden Depot (which Archie somehow manages to attend!). Ned visits East Finchley station twice during the story</i>."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What a lovely story, thank you to David, for sending these very interesting references.</span><br />
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Peeping Tom</b> by Man Booker prize winner, <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com.au/authors/howard-jacobson.aspx">Howard Jacobson</a> sees Barney Fugleman's two major preoccupations in life: sex and literature. He is obsessed by the life and work of a man hailed by many as a genius of the nineteenth century - and by Barney as a 'prurient little Victorian ratbag'. This curious propulsion drives him out of Finchley, and out of the life he shares with Sharon and her 'rampant marvellings', to Cornwall. There he offends serious ramblers with his slip-on snakeskin shoes, fur coat and antagonism to all things green and growing as he stomps the wild Atlantic cliffs on long, morbid walks, tampering with the truth, tangling with the imperious Camilla - and telling a riotous tale.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim9kzRj45ngPGZrpABNY0-klWUxgB4i0QotrPtxlL20wTOrNzE4bfDyAeYEsJ-Cdd7StqzHjGvtEbJ2HBqMUmCe9F9cs7IznTuTvtzedN0T3RpJE520Y5BDuY58yDUJZW3RIcNBN9tSEo/s1600/peeping+tom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim9kzRj45ngPGZrpABNY0-klWUxgB4i0QotrPtxlL20wTOrNzE4bfDyAeYEsJ-Cdd7StqzHjGvtEbJ2HBqMUmCe9F9cs7IznTuTvtzedN0T3RpJE520Y5BDuY58yDUJZW3RIcNBN9tSEo/s320/peeping+tom.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Finchley is not just a place that is mentioned in literature, it is also sometimes a character. I</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">n </span><b style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Criss Cross</b><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, by Don Tracy, written in 1948. "Johnny Thompson" has a job as guard on an armoured truck. His broken nose, scar on left jaw, and a broken knuckle do not enhance his charms for the fair sex, but this does not keep him from courting Anna, a blonde with lascivious eyes and seductive curves. However, Johnny is not "in the dough" and Anna passes him up for Slim. It is the character, Finchley who has to work out how to pull off a seemingly impossible crime, the successful robbery of an armoured truck. His reward will be a week of credit at the liquor store. There will be fake hold ups, double crosses, murders but in the end it is fate that sorts things out.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyN78FSF0W9VNJi43ZZqMvF9q2pOGNTqhwAI8btWvNAQyaUi4VBWkhnksxpt8O_xs1tBJ89Kma0PKXCrDvSZAOMN9NKYKhK8Qgh3CiNEzGzIc6o9iDwGgJNTl2ebuCyDALkAcN5ND_eC8/s1600/tracy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyN78FSF0W9VNJi43ZZqMvF9q2pOGNTqhwAI8btWvNAQyaUi4VBWkhnksxpt8O_xs1tBJ89Kma0PKXCrDvSZAOMN9NKYKhK8Qgh3CiNEzGzIc6o9iDwGgJNTl2ebuCyDALkAcN5ND_eC8/s320/tracy.png" width="232" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Finchley is also a character in 'Protected Species', by H.B. Fyfe. A Science Fiction short story that was first published in <b>Astounding Fiction</b>, March 1951. Since then it has also been published in <b>A Science Fiction Omnibus</b> (2007) by Brian Wilson Aldiss. Humans have arrived on a new world to colonize. A world with ancient ruins of some intelligent species no longer around. A world humans are in a hurry to civilize. Finchley is the coordinator of the colonisers. He and comes up against </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Jeff Otis, the main character who has come to the planet to check the progress of its colonization. Everything is on schedule but he is perturbed by the worker’s attempts to hunt and kill a primitive ape-like species. He encounters one for himself. There is a startling revelation. This short story is very relevant today re affluent man's greed for money over protection of the planet. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh00-1egqzbLNtRyMD2vL_trMNbl-_RIA8ERpAU2JJnGeOsjs4i37SLzohPaWc8mZlswsDQtAxLHh2y8uvnC0CqabvHN1tnm6V25ia04FNACCzKbshpuu1UF-1r5cjSYhbVHEQTZ_uWDVE/s1600/51RP7rrbarL._SY344_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh00-1egqzbLNtRyMD2vL_trMNbl-_RIA8ERpAU2JJnGeOsjs4i37SLzohPaWc8mZlswsDQtAxLHh2y8uvnC0CqabvHN1tnm6V25ia04FNACCzKbshpuu1UF-1r5cjSYhbVHEQTZ_uWDVE/s320/51RP7rrbarL._SY344_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mark Billingham mentions Finchley in </span><b style="font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Bloodline</b><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> (2010).</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22.4px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The past is coming back to haunt the people of London: a murderer is targeting the children of victims of Raymond </span></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22.4px;">Garvey, an infamous serial killer from London's past.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 22.4px;"> </span>Emily Walker is </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">found beaten and suffocated with a plastic bag in her Finchley home, she appears to be the victim of a domestic dispute.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLWS_SejTuyMe_nPgotPGAQNziXrRtMihjwjTSD5KaDW9h4Qepm7vHT3U8G4cWrglQppxnUxD7PsWxXH1ZY93jhtmL0Ntv10BBirsfOyxIYixc-iLBBEMuW21UF2eeZAL_uwaLQ-TadZw/s1600/Bloodline-cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLWS_SejTuyMe_nPgotPGAQNziXrRtMihjwjTSD5KaDW9h4Qepm7vHT3U8G4cWrglQppxnUxD7PsWxXH1ZY93jhtmL0Ntv10BBirsfOyxIYixc-iLBBEMuW21UF2eeZAL_uwaLQ-TadZw/s320/Bloodline-cover.jpg" width="204" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> And on that cheery note, I'll say adieu. Do contact me if you know of any other mentions of Finchley in Fiction. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Email me: rosiecanning1@gmail.com</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Follow me on Twitter: @rosie_canning</span></span>Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-70895450970483781782016-02-04T04:50:00.005-08:002017-02-07T02:39:20.062-08:00Celebrating the Quick Reads 10th Anniversary<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgRixUkRhfb1Bjqn-Uug1MVZMZEUgQoB9XcdpVl6KFcrwZ8tgqkodMW2gEawGTwNB-Qm4IYINb-nOELn1HS8JPo67Mvmpqtt3kIEl4gPnRDjnAjVliAj8OUei8u7cSCEtt15G_TdOoVos/s1600/Quick_Reads_Logo_Black.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgRixUkRhfb1Bjqn-Uug1MVZMZEUgQoB9XcdpVl6KFcrwZ8tgqkodMW2gEawGTwNB-Qm4IYINb-nOELn1HS8JPo67Mvmpqtt3kIEl4gPnRDjnAjVliAj8OUei8u7cSCEtt15G_TdOoVos/s200/Quick_Reads_Logo_Black.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last night I attended the inspiring Quick Reads 10th Anniversary
celebration at Foyles in Charing Cross. I had two reasons for doing this; one, I am a huge fan of the Quick Reads initiative and always choose them as my World Book Night choice. And two, I attended in my role as Senior Library Assistant because I wanted to boost our Quick Reads collection in the medical library where I work.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was only one problem. At a recent library meeting when I mentioned this was what I intended to do, I was asked why we should have fiction in a medical library. I'll come back to this later.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The evening was chaired by Cathy Rentzenbrink. When<span style="color: rgb(65 , 65 , 65);"> </span><a href="http://readingagency.org.uk/adults/quick-guides/quick-reads/"><span lang="EN-US">Quick
Reads</span></a><span lang="EN-US" style="color: rgb(65 , 65 , 65);"> </span>was founded in 2006 Cathy
Rentzebrink was an assistant manager at Hatchards. “I can remember thinking
that short books for less confident readers were a good idea. I can also
remember wondering pessimistically how many people in that bracket would manage
to get themselves into the corner of the basement of Hatchards and stumble upon
the books made and meant for them.”<span style="color: rgb(65 , 65 , 65);"> </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.thebookseller.com/blogs/quick-read">Read more
here.</a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
The evening's writers—Fanny Blake, Rowan Coleman, Matt Haig, Elizabeth Buchan and Veronica Henry—took to the stage to read from their short stories collected in <b>The Anniversary</b>, edited by Veronica Henry, to celebrate this landmark year.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWJX2CkAfOfnb-HYGfOku2FzyElCOmq5VlQ-x-n3DkpgXEwmZRBc5UuWgn6ZtQ3Vas7bd6AGkJDL6wfhyphenhyphen_bJf4AzQNbEuDosN-XHsITyetEmOktBBUZF9UIzuwTmbmhPzg_GDp2L9w9GE/s1600/COYGNqoWEAABT4z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWJX2CkAfOfnb-HYGfOku2FzyElCOmq5VlQ-x-n3DkpgXEwmZRBc5UuWgn6ZtQ3Vas7bd6AGkJDL6wfhyphenhyphen_bJf4AzQNbEuDosN-XHsITyetEmOktBBUZF9UIzuwTmbmhPzg_GDp2L9w9GE/s400/COYGNqoWEAABT4z.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Veronica Henry spoke about not being able to read was for her like not being able to eat. She went on to say that we don’t always want a full
meal, just as we don’t always want to read a novel. That the short story is
like a starter. And there was something for everyone in <b>The Anniversary</b>, the book commissioned as a celebration of the tenth Quick Reads anniversay. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Cathy Rentzenbrink will usually commission a book from a well known author but sometimes if something happens, like illness, the line-up has to be rethought.
When this happened last year, Fanny Blake, agreed to step in at the last moment. Blake has written for Quick Reads before: <b>Red for Revenge</b>. Blake said she was shocked
after asking for a deadline, and was told two months! She had no time to think about it and in some ways this suited her as she just likes to get on with
the writing of it. Though, Blake was given some advice and told, don’t think about the
rules, just write it. Go back and change it if you need to. Which is good advice for anyone who has a habit of procrastinating.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM0-KxOSD-8oXCfaUYMh_w10d-rxQAHpSzCGVYDO5O_VkhX3n78uEfktCWwsCQlIrOyY4IqvJf4atb6XN9fkKAj8gA9sfkVeG1llFW8QdFNoOXAeoMdbMFkwGUyWMefb5MPZiMER-4yr8/s1600/anni.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM0-KxOSD-8oXCfaUYMh_w10d-rxQAHpSzCGVYDO5O_VkhX3n78uEfktCWwsCQlIrOyY4IqvJf4atb6XN9fkKAj8gA9sfkVeG1llFW8QdFNoOXAeoMdbMFkwGUyWMefb5MPZiMER-4yr8/s1600/anni.jpg" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Elizabeth Buchan had an operation last year and was feeling a bit fragile,
a bit sad. She found reading QR’s the right level for her mind at that
particular time. This was echoed by many people in the audience. Her short story, 'Moment of Glory', included in T<b>he Anniversary</b> anthology, left the audience on a cliffhanger.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rowan Coleman has dyslexia and felt marginalized as a child when she was put
into remedial groups or in corners with pens and told to colour-in. A teacher
who saw 'that' something in her, encouraged her.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Rowan learnt to become friends with her dyslexia. She used to
have a great fear of the density of the text and would miss out massive chunks when reading. She would even mime hymns<o:p></o:p> at school which showed great ingenuity. She finished by saying: 'I began my journey of friendship with dyslexia, and the wardrobe opened to Narnia'</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Matt Haig spoke about how before he became depressed, he’d been
doing a Masters and reading a huge amount. When he got ill he couldn’t read anything because he couldn’t
concentrate. He was living back home with his parents in a small town that
didn’t have any bookshops. As a way to escape his own mind and do something
that wasn’t bad for his liver, he began reading children’s books, his old
favourites. He had little moments of losing himself: 'Books are very therapeutic
for you'. In the past Haig had a tendency to think that a good book had
to be difficult to understand, all tied up with academia. 'There is a lot of
snobbery around books,' he said, 'and we have to watch that. Books are for everyone.'</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After the last reading, Cathy Rentzenbrink passed the microphone to the audience. Sitting patiently, I asked the final question of the evening. I explained the fiction in medical libraries conundrum, and asked the panel to give me some ideas to take back to the next library meeting.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Some of the suggestions I had already investigated, such as Books on Prescription, Mind Boosting Books, but I hadn't heard of the <a href="http://wellcomebookprize.org/what-is-new/wellcome-book-prize-2016-now-open-submissions">Wellcome Book Prize</a>. An annual award, it is open to new works of fiction or nonfiction. To be eligible for entry, a book should have a central theme that engages with some aspect of medicine, health or illness. 'The Wellcome Trust is an independent global charitable foundation dedicated to improving health, because good health makes life better.' And that should be the basis of everything we do in the NHS.<br />
<br />
A medical library enables NHS staff to boost the health of its patients and heal them. If we inform staff of the therapeutic and mind boosting qualities of fiction, then they in turn can inform patients. However, just as important in my opinion, is the health of the staff. Without them, patients will not get better. And, as most people are aware, the austerity that is being forced on the NHS is having an effect on the health of staff who are being overworked by the shear number of patients they have to look after. I feel it is my job to support the staff in my hospital, and that is what I intend to do.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Matt Haig said that the line between non fiction and fiction was grey, blurred. 'Non fiction is fiction in waiting.' He also said that when he was ill fiction helped him more than non fiction. Stories are all about change and this helped Haig believe change was possible.<br />
<br />
The Reading Agency has just published a <a href="http://readingagency.org.uk/news/media/new-study-reveals-that-reading-for-pleasure-empowers-us.html">report</a> with such gems such as:<br />
- A fifth of the nation has been motivated to take better care of their health by reading a book</div>
- 27% of the population have been inspired to make a positive change in their life from reading such as look for a new job or end a bad relationship)<br />
<div>
- 41% of adults even find reading to be a better cure for their everyday worries than a night out with friends<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'll be using the report in a new exhibition about health and wellbeing, which will be my response as to why we need fiction in a medical library. If all else fails, I'll have to try some bribery with Galaxy® chocolate that I collected at last nights celebration. GALAXY® Chocolate and Charity Quick Reads revealed research showing 30 minutes reading and [eating chocolate] a week can improve lives. <a href="http://www.mars.com/uk/en/press-center/press-list/news-releases.aspx?SiteId=94&Id=6384">Read more here</a>.</div>
<div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here are the 2016 Galaxy Quick Reads:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The Anniversary: Ten Tempting Stories From Ten Bestselling
Authors</b> (edited by Veronica Henry)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>The Double Clue: Poirot Short Stories by Agatha Christie</b>
(edited by Sophie Hannah and John Curran)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Too Good to be True</b> by Ann Cleeves<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>A Baby at the Beach Café</b> by Lucy Diamond<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>On the Rock</b> by Andy McNab<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was
Shot by the Taliban</b> (An Abridged Edition) by Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb<br />
<br />
QR titles have now been loaned by libraries nearly 4.3 million times, according to new data from Public Lending Right (PLR). The latest figures for public library loans of all Quick Reads titles up to June 2015 show that total loans since the scheme began are now nearly 4.3 million (4,280,157) - an increase from 3.9 million in 2014.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
'<b>Quick Reads are the bridge between literacy and literature. They’re the next step after learning the basics, they’re a crucial tool in the journey from being a non-reader to being someone who has the world of books and words at their disposal</b>.' Cathy Rentzenbrink</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To find out more about Quick Reads, <a href="http://www.quickreads.org.uk/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;"><b>visit their website</b></span></a>.<br />
<br /></div>
Follow Quick Reads on Twitter: @Quick_Reads<br />
Follow the Reading Agency here: @readingagency<br />
Follow Cathy Rentzenbrink here: @CathyReadsBooks<br />
Follow Matt Haig here: @matthaig1<br />
Follow Rowan Coleman here: @rowancoleman<br />
Follow Elizabeth Buchan here: @elizabethbuchan<br />
Follow Fanny Blake here: @FannyBlake1<br />
Follow Veronica Henry here: @veronica_henry</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-40717180106913732132016-01-26T15:12:00.000-08:002016-02-04T02:25:15.617-08:00Reading for HappinessJanuary is a dismal month. With the recent storms, it’s becoming almost impossible to step outside the door without either being drenched, swept away or frozen to death. It’s a much more sensible idea to batten down the hatches, stay home, stay well, and read a book. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTCnXuGSiuK6K9PHxgVEut8uh5XPWtKe-qQwsu5IEka3RdEjAWGsGQ0cxZYzZJGxQ_IObP3P16QJmQavV_ASIKG8hyBMHX5-2dUTiPNv8CTUH2Fv25wKxxnwzg0MwenbWknYVyofz31KQ/s1600/Reading+under+the+Redwood+Tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTCnXuGSiuK6K9PHxgVEut8uh5XPWtKe-qQwsu5IEka3RdEjAWGsGQ0cxZYzZJGxQ_IObP3P16QJmQavV_ASIKG8hyBMHX5-2dUTiPNv8CTUH2Fv25wKxxnwzg0MwenbWknYVyofz31KQ/s320/Reading+under+the+Redwood+Tree.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><a href="http://mariefoxpaintingaday.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/reclining-woman-reading-figurative.html">Painting by Marie Fox</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
As far back as Plato, storytelling has been a powerful way in which to mould the human mind. Think moral tales - told for the purpose of conditioning little brains, to warn us of the perils in life, the piggy house made from straw or the wolf hiding in grandma's bed. <br />
<br />
If a story can influence a mind, create a set of moral rules for life, a list of rights and wrong, do's and don'ts. Can a story also take a mind that is broken or damaged and re-wire the brain, rewrite life and fix or heal something that was broken or at least provide understanding and relief?<br />
<div>
<br />
This then is the one of the premises behind bibliotherapy, the therapeutic use of literature to help an individual understand and cope with an illness, or another problem.</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJot401HiSDgGIQG5yM4qz_aQHsFL6OCkE9J4gQ_oFG6JvlF_eRIWNmO9plobUeWsa7JhYDKWFrhKphnQt3nV9FN5Gid98YAErp8Pm9tU47d1v3DYMG0LaFe_BVpEZj8AFf_mYEVRUh0I/s1600/woman+reading.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJot401HiSDgGIQG5yM4qz_aQHsFL6OCkE9J4gQ_oFG6JvlF_eRIWNmO9plobUeWsa7JhYDKWFrhKphnQt3nV9FN5Gid98YAErp8Pm9tU47d1v3DYMG0LaFe_BVpEZj8AFf_mYEVRUh0I/s320/woman+reading.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
This is not a new idea, bibliotherapy was first used in 1916 by Rev. Samuel McChord Crothers in Atlantic Monthly where he talked about a bibliotherapeutic process, literature, both fiction and non-fiction was prescribed as medicine for a variety of ailments.<br />
<br />
During World War One, Sadie Peterson-Delaney, a librarian, established one of the earliest recorded formal programmes of bibliotherapy when she prescribed literature to WW1 veterans to boost their self-esteem and "relieve the mind from malady and worry" <span style="font-size: x-small;">[1] </span><br />
<br />
In 1946 it was applied for the first time with children. Sister Mary Agnes, published a study on bibliotherapy for 'socially maladjusted children', stressing its use to help children overcome their problems. <span style="font-size: x-small;">[2]</span><br />
<br />
There are also Creative bibliotherapy schemes, the library based model, whereby readers self-refer or are referred by health workers to library based bibliotherapists, usually on a 1:1 basis. And the Reading Group model usually linked to the library though not exclusively, like <a href="http://www.thereader.org.uk/">The Reader Organisation</a> who use novels, short stories as well as poetry as their tools for expression.<br />
<br />
And there is Poetry Therapy. The focus being on poetry for healing as self-expression and growth of the individual rather than on poetry as art.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Read at the right moment in your life and a novel can—quite literally—change it, save it, and most definitely improve it. Recent neurological studies show that readers of fiction quite literally become the characters they are reading about. (I have always known this.) And this enables a more empathic connection with others.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxUclSleNy2wbmVebGppqC5omf6FzkA6d87KbvI9B3DPC8KMYDdbTDWRrYNNIfOxNuQySUNtYeJ364UX2Oq3SFLGpMaqtYuTaCEXW2br1Th2k7JErlDhm5gjar5fcv824ifCGGPLIvMxY/s1600/novel+cure1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxUclSleNy2wbmVebGppqC5omf6FzkA6d87KbvI9B3DPC8KMYDdbTDWRrYNNIfOxNuQySUNtYeJ364UX2Oq3SFLGpMaqtYuTaCEXW2br1Th2k7JErlDhm5gjar5fcv824ifCGGPLIvMxY/s320/novel+cure1.jpg" width="208" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin use books to heal. In 2008 they set up the bibliotherapy service at <a href="http://www.theschooloflife.com/london/shop/individual-bibliotherapy/">The School of Life in London</a>, and since then have been prescribing books either virtually or in person to patients all over the world. Their prescribing resulted in <b>The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You</b>. It is a reminder of the power books can have on the human mind. ‘Whether you have a stubbed toe or a stubborn case of the blues, within these pages you’ll find a cure in the form of a novel or a combination of novels to help ease your pain.’ </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiugLXSkcepTkEYHEkJRV86IK67eSnGUOGy_-SdmFXUcqbHBRjmEmPqKNrd4GkLOL3PHO_Sh07IxX_ZYse8IKfVt48s9MrlanA8rNY1Oma1hXdhAOcpaSmJNSLMdna2jqhFfgPVfCGVGSw/s1600/0paper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="156" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiugLXSkcepTkEYHEkJRV86IK67eSnGUOGy_-SdmFXUcqbHBRjmEmPqKNrd4GkLOL3PHO_Sh07IxX_ZYse8IKfVt48s9MrlanA8rNY1Oma1hXdhAOcpaSmJNSLMdna2jqhFfgPVfCGVGSw/s320/0paper.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<b>The Yellow Wallpaper,</b> first published in 1892 in the New England Magazine, explores what happens when a young woman is not allowed to read or write. The story is a first-person account of a young mother’s mental deterioration and is based on Gilman’s own experiences of postnatal depression. The unnamed protagonist of the story is advised to abstain from any and all physical activity and not to use her imagination. The woman’s husband takes her to a country house where she is kept in a former nursery decorated with yellow wallpaper.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRNC-sH1m-CsmEXraWmIWaXNabGfQ50I8mVh2Xe78z6jXitvLOpXRw6TeDGYgKFORe5wntLqlV7C1S2I_Zrr70Tp3m-9mY_BK8D_sjzQ7HdoYYgoQ6Eap9BwRxBbi9zWt8sk9AI0UnoFE/s1600/MBB+landscape+cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRNC-sH1m-CsmEXraWmIWaXNabGfQ50I8mVh2Xe78z6jXitvLOpXRw6TeDGYgKFORe5wntLqlV7C1S2I_Zrr70Tp3m-9mY_BK8D_sjzQ7HdoYYgoQ6Eap9BwRxBbi9zWt8sk9AI0UnoFE/s320/MBB+landscape+cropped.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
After reading <b>The Yellow Wallpaper</b>, you might just need a lift. The Reading Agency’s <a href="http://readingagency.org.uk/adults/tips/reading-well-mood-boosting-books-list.html">Mind Boosting Books</a> scheme is a national promotion of uplifting titles, including novels, poetry and non-fiction. The books are recommended by readers and reading groups around the country. Classics such as <b>The Enchanted April</b> by Elizabeth von Arnim; <b>A Month in the Country</b> by J.L. Carr; <b>Too Much Happiness </b>by Alice Munro; and <b>The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry</b> by Rachel Joyce are just four of twenty titles listed.<br />
<br />
'There they hang in the wardrobe of our minds, the shapes of books we have read like clothes we have taken off and hung up to wait their season.' [Virginia Woolf]<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgph39ljNJ_c7OSXzQ9fIHSl3Adanol5idHN2K_POIwafk9Rs2qvWinQNfBaquWQkDV0i4w2_KIYPG6s2XPA720Fis3z2R4I7O-9cE9Y8eGAUK3FR0_fMeHIYbtpSU406du4PMTXu8xox8/s1600/Roger_Fry_-_Virginia_Woolf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgph39ljNJ_c7OSXzQ9fIHSl3Adanol5idHN2K_POIwafk9Rs2qvWinQNfBaquWQkDV0i4w2_KIYPG6s2XPA720Fis3z2R4I7O-9cE9Y8eGAUK3FR0_fMeHIYbtpSU406du4PMTXu8xox8/s320/Roger_Fry_-_Virginia_Woolf.jpg" width="248" /></a></div>
<br />
We wore that jacket, that book cover for a while, it went everywhere with us, on bus and train journeys, to the doctor's surgery, and back home. One day we came to the last page and in many instances there was joy, sometimes sadness and yearning for more. The story had reached its final destination, it was time to say farewell, to close the chapter and with a deep sigh, caress the book and place it back on its shelf or return to the library or friend.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">[1] Jack and Ronan, 2008<br />[2] Agnes, 1946</span></div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-40199035237059017062016-01-16T09:44:00.000-08:002016-02-08T07:27:07.327-08:00Reads for 2016This year I'm keeping it very simple. Over on my PhD blog, <a href="https://careleaversinfiction.wordpress.com/">Care Leavers in Fiction</a>, I have a tab 'Orphan Lit' where I have begun to review just that. I will begin 2016, by reading books about orphans, foundlings and abandoned children. Starting with:<br />
<br />
My January read for #ReadDiverse2016<br />
<br />
<b>Butterfly Fish</b> by Irenosen Okojie<br />
<br />
<div>
I first heard an extract from <b>Butterfly Fish</b> at last year's Finchley Literary Festival. I knew immediately that Irenosen had the gift for storytelling. It's been on my #TBR list since then. The narrative travels back and forth from 21st century London to the 19th century kingdom of Benin with a splash of magical realism. As photographer Joy, now an orphan, tries to make sense of her dead mother's past.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxJfOU2unx6RsT7idA0vtxY_ye4zg8pAd6vPmpTMVEAmO2YuXZMrZhgVETzQvEuzRTl3UXIiP2UD_2swQr62skpIpIm2SDwDfZiFE6fykgwlfImoA5Z5_PCBEBXKpDkjbPmG5dpapP8_4/s1600/butterfly-fish-front-cover-e1441460677426.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxJfOU2unx6RsT7idA0vtxY_ye4zg8pAd6vPmpTMVEAmO2YuXZMrZhgVETzQvEuzRTl3UXIiP2UD_2swQr62skpIpIm2SDwDfZiFE6fykgwlfImoA5Z5_PCBEBXKpDkjbPmG5dpapP8_4/s320/butterfly-fish-front-cover-e1441460677426.jpg" width="203" /></a></div>
<br />
<b><a href="https://careleaversinfiction.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/miss-peregrines-home-for-peculiar-children/">Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children</a> </b>by Ransom Riggs<br />
<br />
A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. And a strange collection of very curious photographs. The title grabbed my attention some time ago, Christmas book tokens meant it crossed off my #TBB list.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgma-NPaoHJJtxuaepuFblBVVi19ggOxr6_RVGRaXSj4AchIAzsqpgjr7pmLKeehJO-5m4u-p2Nd5DRPy3XCZRuvV-bAxv8KpB8i85aosRzYrggGGaDbqWa7H7LH3TdDZShCLuLazUgf8I/s1600/MissPeregrineCover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgma-NPaoHJJtxuaepuFblBVVi19ggOxr6_RVGRaXSj4AchIAzsqpgjr7pmLKeehJO-5m4u-p2Nd5DRPy3XCZRuvV-bAxv8KpB8i85aosRzYrggGGaDbqWa7H7LH3TdDZShCLuLazUgf8I/s1600/MissPeregrineCover.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>My Name is Leon</b> by Kit de Waal<br />
<br />
<b>My Name is Leon</b>, features a child in foster care. Leon is nine, and has a perfect baby brother called Jake. They have gone to live with Maureen, who has fuzzy red hair like a halo, and a belly like Father Christmas. But the adults are speaking in low voices, and wearing Pretend faces. They are threatening to give Jake to strangers. Since Jake is white and Leon is not. This book has had a huge amount of interest and it isn't even due to be published until June! I'm very lucky to have received a copy from <a href="http://www.penguin.co.uk/books/my-name-is-leon/9780241207086/">Penguin</a> so will get to reading that immediately. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYDsbEhJKxY_bYgGEtqqjiH3CG2IAu5Lf07qILslL8DEmhvFrKjnj8B3ow-X3Rlm_EcBox_wtTY5v63KtePcm3zJn8KlMELaXqqcwpOhOfPpIezYpzO_CDkaV69v1n9b2ktzY1FUaUo8s/s1600/My_Name_is_Leon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYDsbEhJKxY_bYgGEtqqjiH3CG2IAu5Lf07qILslL8DEmhvFrKjnj8B3ow-X3Rlm_EcBox_wtTY5v63KtePcm3zJn8KlMELaXqqcwpOhOfPpIezYpzO_CDkaV69v1n9b2ktzY1FUaUo8s/s320/My_Name_is_Leon.jpg" width="202" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>Under the Visible Life </b>by Kim Echlin<br />
<br />
Fatherless Katherine carries the stigma of her mixed-race background through an era that is hostile to her and all she represents. It is only through music that she finds the freedom to temporarily escape and dream of a better life for herself. Orphaned Mahsa also grows up in the shadow of loss, sent to relatives in Pakistan after the death of her parents. She finds herself forced into an arranged marriage. For Mahsa, too, music becomes her solace and allows her to escape from her oppressive circumstances.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwxKTQrDmrSgROq1JrMGyCAcLycmWKl352ZcWKjzBSI-GxImbfwMGzrl-aLF9Cg_ICIWVxyzD_pqM-owpNcAQbjnPfqTCtY_CJhYIg1dGfqrCgdRsMKg8SlgJ1mPbwTLgq1KGPWse6Tho/s1600/9781781256381.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwxKTQrDmrSgROq1JrMGyCAcLycmWKl352ZcWKjzBSI-GxImbfwMGzrl-aLF9Cg_ICIWVxyzD_pqM-owpNcAQbjnPfqTCtY_CJhYIg1dGfqrCgdRsMKg8SlgJ1mPbwTLgq1KGPWse6Tho/s320/9781781256381.jpg" width="199" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>The Goldfinch</b> by Donna Tartt<br />
<br />
Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Orphaned and alone in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6jjpuHB5J0f7otVHzc5-X7yVZz9UTK4GRsLoUdFfzW6T0qLlGclwEYosE-m4Ea5jEQ3e7jVyaX9NIsURXDdxmbF4hDmHNmCvV3ueGa8laOpnSv3s7gVgtMMck3znikZciEnxGXTadqfY/s1600/41daf5o2wYL._SY344_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6jjpuHB5J0f7otVHzc5-X7yVZz9UTK4GRsLoUdFfzW6T0qLlGclwEYosE-m4Ea5jEQ3e7jVyaX9NIsURXDdxmbF4hDmHNmCvV3ueGa8laOpnSv3s7gVgtMMck3znikZciEnxGXTadqfY/s320/41daf5o2wYL._SY344_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>A Little Life</b> by Hanya Yanagihara<br />
<br />
The story of a boy who is chronically, outrageously abused by a series of adults tasked with his care, and his struggles to forget the nightmare of his childhood. I usually steer clear of books about abuse, but as this was shortlisted for the Man Booker, and there has been a lot of discussion about it, I feel I will learn a lot from the writing.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwZ1nHusqRN90f-VnEY13Oz3G1tkjNwtqR1CRP2tfTFjtxLla5r3JXaU2n4rHKl2m6qftMbCQUGUvpOvG1Uvr7npEYjvb0zbmpxR8d2fyqp5ch969wsnvqplrFIHGhkJr9s46mV-yV8wg/s1600/A-Little-Life-Picador1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwZ1nHusqRN90f-VnEY13Oz3G1tkjNwtqR1CRP2tfTFjtxLla5r3JXaU2n4rHKl2m6qftMbCQUGUvpOvG1Uvr7npEYjvb0zbmpxR8d2fyqp5ch969wsnvqplrFIHGhkJr9s46mV-yV8wg/s320/A-Little-Life-Picador1.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo</b> by Stieg Larsson<br />
<br />
The original title in Swedish is <b>Men who hate Women</b>. is a crime novel by the Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson (1954-2004) which, when published posthumously in 2005, became a best-seller. As a child, Salander was declared a danger to herself and others by the court at age thirteen, and sent for treatment at the St. Stefan's Psychiatric Clinic for Children. She was eventually allowed out she was sent to various foster homes. Larsson stated that he based the character of Lisbeth Salander on what he imagined Pippi Longstocking might have been like as an adult. I've seen the film and have been wanting to read this for some time.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq0cGB2u6KD7iRFq7j2fznWMrnodvcMWGmXF6saHfiAjPcwRxhqkW8ozRV71lFy4pRyBoUQIAfuBmrbWLSo3CpDKGzHVfpunjTRSsFKw8YWC9wIyQB3x2ux1Z4LI4dF-G84wqaVnzratc/s1600/the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq0cGB2u6KD7iRFq7j2fznWMrnodvcMWGmXF6saHfiAjPcwRxhqkW8ozRV71lFy4pRyBoUQIAfuBmrbWLSo3CpDKGzHVfpunjTRSsFKw8YWC9wIyQB3x2ux1Z4LI4dF-G84wqaVnzratc/s320/the-girl-with-the-dragon-tattoo.jpg" width="209" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>Borderline's</b> by Peter Hoeg<br />
<br />
When I asked Twitter if anyone knew of any fiction with care leavers. Dr Yvon Guest, recommended <b>Borderline's</b> by Peter Hoeg. Yvon said: It was mind blowing. And that it changes one's perception of time.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlquaWI5gwslwBB1luQbqnmHojAV4M49_WufKWoOEur7NYQqxs0_bjy2bUMBsyrufCT4Es92Xj9rNULUshZvcsmnPwhJeFePmFFsMBDnmDq1735fNreuKEW0EPL2X8vRh84LeQht7rV4k/s1600/51MoY%252B0GlvL._AC_UL320_SR210%252C320_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlquaWI5gwslwBB1luQbqnmHojAV4M49_WufKWoOEur7NYQqxs0_bjy2bUMBsyrufCT4Es92Xj9rNULUshZvcsmnPwhJeFePmFFsMBDnmDq1735fNreuKEW0EPL2X8vRh84LeQht7rV4k/s1600/51MoY%252B0GlvL._AC_UL320_SR210%252C320_.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<b>The Rainbow Troops</b> by Andrea Hirata<br />
<br />
Recommended by Murni, one of the Greenacre Writers, when we were discussing orphans in literature. This book is partly autobiographical, and tells the story of a group of ten children, all from impoverished backgrounds who attend a small local school. Corrupt officials want to close the school down, but the children and their dedicated teacher Bu Mas who is just fifteen years old when the novel opens, triumph on. I'm looking forward to reading about Lintang, orphan and maths genius.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqu_uUP4-gAHdI0YxXp-yCAc9xGz8IwCTec6cqTR4bQq1pAbAZPokQbwgPFED2ivAFTeiO416l_pYbea1O4LeyZVpRpqBLxEHJG7cXovu-9OBUN0epPmJ0xev_5rUCNoQEQNqU6nGrji8/s1600/81Io58-gBYL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqu_uUP4-gAHdI0YxXp-yCAc9xGz8IwCTec6cqTR4bQq1pAbAZPokQbwgPFED2ivAFTeiO416l_pYbea1O4LeyZVpRpqBLxEHJG7cXovu-9OBUN0epPmJ0xev_5rUCNoQEQNqU6nGrji8/s320/81Io58-gBYL.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>
<br />
<b>The Fish Ladder</b> by Katharine Norbury<br />
<br />
Katharine Norbury was abandoned as a baby in a Liverpool convent. Raised by loving adoptive parents, she grew into a wanderer, drawn by the beauty of the British countryside. Combining travelogue, memoir, nature writing, fragments of poetry and tales from Celtic mythology, The Fish Ladder has a rare emotional resonance. A portrait of motherhood, of a literary marriage and a hymn to the adoptive family.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQV_iFIAAYbZdTll97dakS5eS0OzrWL3EArXAVrhJGSVhrYJNxJ4RWjSQ11N-V4vZv7YCBv8glLIqvsquMAkS8qziEop8BTT9yjJ87hVTnBaQC0ZYae6CpJi9eGhHeRE81AaPkuzKPY_I/s1600/9781408859230.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQV_iFIAAYbZdTll97dakS5eS0OzrWL3EArXAVrhJGSVhrYJNxJ4RWjSQ11N-V4vZv7YCBv8glLIqvsquMAkS8qziEop8BTT9yjJ87hVTnBaQC0ZYae6CpJi9eGhHeRE81AaPkuzKPY_I/s320/9781408859230.jpg" width="199" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Happy Reading everyone!!!</div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-20168337406393637512016-01-12T12:08:00.000-08:002017-01-08T05:02:37.957-08:00David Bowie, My Hero.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEoSmljQbCs12a15C-sE4Q_tJ2oPWI-oNBE0O_o-9o3su6CxlDSG2kXb7fWcuvPFI_GtdiASpYo8blwfa89CGZsyx_UC5RN3LMOMEO1IEtTAJv2succbgG8MaIJ0iYkfl2NjppoY1Xmg/s1600/2016-01-12+12.01.08.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEoSmljQbCs12a15C-sE4Q_tJ2oPWI-oNBE0O_o-9o3su6CxlDSG2kXb7fWcuvPFI_GtdiASpYo8blwfa89CGZsyx_UC5RN3LMOMEO1IEtTAJv2succbgG8MaIJ0iYkfl2NjppoY1Xmg/s1600/2016-01-12+12.01.08.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEoSmljQbCs12a15C-sE4Q_tJ2oPWI-oNBE0O_o-9o3su6CxlDSG2kXb7fWcuvPFI_GtdiASpYo8blwfa89CGZsyx_UC5RN3LMOMEO1IEtTAJv2succbgG8MaIJ0iYkfl2NjppoY1Xmg/s1600/2016-01-12+12.01.08.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEoSmljQbCs12a15C-sE4Q_tJ2oPWI-oNBE0O_o-9o3su6CxlDSG2kXb7fWcuvPFI_GtdiASpYo8blwfa89CGZsyx_UC5RN3LMOMEO1IEtTAJv2succbgG8MaIJ0iYkfl2NjppoY1Xmg/s1600/2016-01-12+12.01.08.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEoSmljQbCs12a15C-sE4Q_tJ2oPWI-oNBE0O_o-9o3su6CxlDSG2kXb7fWcuvPFI_GtdiASpYo8blwfa89CGZsyx_UC5RN3LMOMEO1IEtTAJv2succbgG8MaIJ0iYkfl2NjppoY1Xmg/s1600/2016-01-12+12.01.08.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEoSmljQbCs12a15C-sE4Q_tJ2oPWI-oNBE0O_o-9o3su6CxlDSG2kXb7fWcuvPFI_GtdiASpYo8blwfa89CGZsyx_UC5RN3LMOMEO1IEtTAJv2succbgG8MaIJ0iYkfl2NjppoY1Xmg/s1600/2016-01-12+12.01.08.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEoSmljQbCs12a15C-sE4Q_tJ2oPWI-oNBE0O_o-9o3su6CxlDSG2kXb7fWcuvPFI_GtdiASpYo8blwfa89CGZsyx_UC5RN3LMOMEO1IEtTAJv2succbgG8MaIJ0iYkfl2NjppoY1Xmg/s1600/2016-01-12+12.01.08.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEoSmljQbCs12a15C-sE4Q_tJ2oPWI-oNBE0O_o-9o3su6CxlDSG2kXb7fWcuvPFI_GtdiASpYo8blwfa89CGZsyx_UC5RN3LMOMEO1IEtTAJv2succbgG8MaIJ0iYkfl2NjppoY1Xmg/s1600/2016-01-12+12.01.08.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEoSmljQbCs12a15C-sE4Q_tJ2oPWI-oNBE0O_o-9o3su6CxlDSG2kXb7fWcuvPFI_GtdiASpYo8blwfa89CGZsyx_UC5RN3LMOMEO1IEtTAJv2succbgG8MaIJ0iYkfl2NjppoY1Xmg/s1600/2016-01-12+12.01.08.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEoSmljQbCs12a15C-sE4Q_tJ2oPWI-oNBE0O_o-9o3su6CxlDSG2kXb7fWcuvPFI_GtdiASpYo8blwfa89CGZsyx_UC5RN3LMOMEO1IEtTAJv2succbgG8MaIJ0iYkfl2NjppoY1Xmg/s1600/2016-01-12+12.01.08.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfEoSmljQbCs12a15C-sE4Q_tJ2oPWI-oNBE0O_o-9o3su6CxlDSG2kXb7fWcuvPFI_GtdiASpYo8blwfa89CGZsyx_UC5RN3LMOMEO1IEtTAJv2succbgG8MaIJ0iYkfl2NjppoY1Xmg/s320/2016-01-12+12.01.08.png" width="192" /></a></div>
There will be thousands of tributes to Mr Bowie. I want to add my voice because he was such a source of inspiration and support when I was growing up.<br />
<br />
Growing up in care in the 1970s, was no mean feat. As well as what goes on in a children's home, the weird relationships with staff and social workers, and the other children - all vying for the 'favourite' spot, there was also the outside world.<br />
<br />
In 1934, when Friern Barnet Urban District Council, wanted to turn a corner house in Sutton Road, Muswell Hill, into a children's home, there was a major outcry. Residents of the neighbourhood, petitioned the council urging them to 'take immediate steps to oppose the acquisition of these premises for such a purpose'. Even the local council estate residents got involved, pleased that they could join the affluents for a change, instead of fingers being pointed at them. The Minister of Health inspected the house and approved its use as a children's home and that was the end of the protestations.<br />
<br />
So you can probably understand that I most definitely felt like a freak, when I was younger. Not only felt it all around me, but I had mad bushy hair and definitely stood out in a crowd. Kids at school called me 'birds nest'.<br />
<br />
When I glimpsed a tweet yesterday, from Paris Lees*, which read: '<i>I don't usually cry when someone famous dies but misfits everywhere should weep out on the streets today. RIP Bowie</i>.' I did indeed empathise with those words, having been crying most of the day myself. The only difference being that now my misfittingness is a blessing. Normality, and all that goes with it, is an anathema to me.<br />
<br />
Growing up in 1970s Muswell Hill with its own peculiar brand of North Londonish, was an amazing experience, though I didn't know it at the time. Hearing <b>Space Oddity,</b> when I was eleven, was like nothing I'd heard before. My musical knowledge at the time consisted of hits on the radio or musicals. We'd go to the local cinema or West End theatre and see the latest film or play being shown, like <b>Oliver,</b> or the <b>Sound of Music.</b> Somebody would buy the LP, and that would be that. I'd play the songs over and over until I knew all the words. People talk about the first record that they ever bought, but I really can't remember, because music was very much a part of being in the children's home. Trips out for the day or holidays, always involved singing songs, <b>Oh, you'll never to get heaven</b> or <b>Michael rowed his boat ashore</b>. I even pestered my local priest for hymns at the morning service like they had at the nearby Methodist church. We had a music room with a piano, a record player, and any other instrument that staff happened to play. Plus, I had piano and ballet lessons as well as being in the operatic society at school.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Mlzl6SebKAsjoYOqDzd4qBX9nJ0ni9-5KP5FU5QF7u52VQ2joirsHosE76Yfm_W185v0yg_BGiRQz5Rs_0H_ze4u_uaQliUxfQSFbi7PRRzK5i3hpMV10wJ3A50kmiGVNp0IooQB71s/s1600/2016-01-12+13.38.36.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-Mlzl6SebKAsjoYOqDzd4qBX9nJ0ni9-5KP5FU5QF7u52VQ2joirsHosE76Yfm_W185v0yg_BGiRQz5Rs_0H_ze4u_uaQliUxfQSFbi7PRRzK5i3hpMV10wJ3A50kmiGVNp0IooQB71s/s320/2016-01-12+13.38.36.png" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A poster from the 70s, still on my wall.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Soon after <b>Hang on to Yourself, </b>hit the charts, I became friends with a couple of boys in East Finchley, one of whom would go on to become writer. J.J. Donnelly, of <b>Layer Cake, </b>fame, and my first claim to fame. Though I just knew him as John, and that we were both crazy about Bowie.<br />
<br />
My second claim to fame, would come fifteen years later when I was pregnant with my third child. The brother, of one of the staff in the children's home, who I was still in touch with, was involved with the video, <b>Absolute Beginners</b>, and they wanted a pregnant woman as an extra. I was so excited, I nearly gave birth on the spot. In the end I wasn't needed as they used a model. But hey, that was another nearly moment...<br />
<br />
While Ray Davies was releasing <b>Muswell Hillbillies</b> in 1971, I was thirteen, and buying the <b>Hunky Dory </b>LP at Les Aldrich's record shop in Fortis Green Road. In 72, <b>Changes, </b>was released. The lyrics were perfect for young people who were going through turmoil and the <i>changes </i>in society. There was a huge shift from uniformity to an explosion of colour, music, clothes, and art.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
And these children that you spit on</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
As they try to change their worlds</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Are immune to your consultations</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
They're quite aware of what they're going through</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
[Changes, 1972]</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
As well as the music which had a deep rhythmic resonance for me, it was also the lyrics that made sense in a sort of nonsensical way. A kind of poetry in song:</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
He's so simple minded </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
he can't drive his module</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
He bites on the neon and sleeps in the capsule</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Loves to be loved, loves to be loved </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
[The Jean Genie, 1972]</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Meanwhile in real life, my mother had killed herself and I officially became an orphan. I was going to youth clubs, discos and learning to dance. In the rest of the UK, there were strikes and protests. Everyone was frightened to travel on public transport because the IRA were bombing us. The government raised the school leaving age to 16 which upset many of us. We even bunked off school and went into central London to protest.<br />
<br />
In 1973, <b>Life on Mars?</b> was released as a single and like Bowie, I was experimenting with drugs and drink. A year to the day my mother died, I ended up in hospital with alcohol poisoning. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div>
At 15, the same age as Bowie's daughter, Alexandria Zahra Jones, is now, came <b>Sorrow. </b>I've thought a lot about David's family in the last 24 hours and their request for privacy at this very sad time. I hope they get their privacy. I also hope that eventually, they will at least get some relief, knowing over the last fifty years, he was such an amazing influence on millions of people all over the world. Not just that he was an influence, but that he helped weirdos, freaks and outsiders everywhere cope with their trauma, sadness and misfittingness.<br />
<br />
I don't usually get upset when somebody famous dies so I was quite shocked at my reaction to the news of David Bowie's death. I quite literally sobbed. I can only guess that his voice; his words; his artistry; and his music became part of me, part of my growing up and when I heard the news, it was as if I had lost a part of myself.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
In 1974, Rebel Rebel, was released. In effect it was Bowie's farewell to the glam rock movement that he had helped pioneer. Age sixteen, holding hands with my first boyfriend, I said my farewells to the children's home. I knew that even though I would never go back there, my relationship with David Bowie, would last a lifetime.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9QiEna_1L1E/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9QiEna_1L1E?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
When I Live My Dream, 1966</div>
<br />
<br />
<i>*Paris Lees is a British journalist, presenter and transgender rights activist. </i></div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-84457525977663010882016-01-10T18:28:00.000-08:002016-01-10T18:55:02.478-08:00My favourite reads from 2015<span style="font-size: large;">Everybody seems to be putting up lists of books they enjoyed reading in 2015. It's what a lot of readers and writers like to do. Here are ten of mine, in no particular order:</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://careleaversinfiction.wordpress.com/2016/01/03/the-gap-in-time/">The Gap of Time</a> (2015) by Jeanette Winterson<br />
<br />
Winterson’s cover version of <b>The Winter’s Tale</b> is one of the <a href="http://www.vintage-books.co.uk/about-us/Hogarth/The-Hogarth-Shakespeare/">Hogarth Shakespeare series</a>, celebrating 400 years since the Baird was born. This fast-paced story is about a foundling, a stolen child, an abandoned child, and fits in perfectly with my obsession and <a href="https://careleaversinfiction.wordpress.com/">PhD research</a> about orphans and care leavers in fiction.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://rosemarycanning.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/half-of-yellow-sun-by-chimamanda-ngozi.html">Half a Yellow Sun</a> (2006) by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie<br />
<br />
I'd put off reading this text as I remembered the starving children from my childhood and was too frightened to read about the horrors of the Nigeria-Biafra war. Yet, once I'd started, and from the first page, I found myself transported and immersed in Adichie's vivid landscape and characters.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwkc6opVsF6HMP2BMx7hIr4fHHlUyKHGXHeuSyj41nJngCZVy60y_jzObQ18p48DMpfhFNQz8mkHJ2UOyR9y99KynnL_VvnK5IMlz5w5XbmQKpNfZyXUZzcPWYhFxuyoSEzxe32NBKwgQ/s1600/2016-01-11+02.45.17.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwkc6opVsF6HMP2BMx7hIr4fHHlUyKHGXHeuSyj41nJngCZVy60y_jzObQ18p48DMpfhFNQz8mkHJ2UOyR9y99KynnL_VvnK5IMlz5w5XbmQKpNfZyXUZzcPWYhFxuyoSEzxe32NBKwgQ/s320/2016-01-11+02.45.17.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<a href="http://rosemarycanning.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/the-readers-of-broken-wheel-recommend.html">The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend</a> (2015) by Katarina Bivald<br />
<br />
This is a book that I shall read again in a few years. It is a clever book and still has some way to go in being recognised as the future classic it will become.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://careleaversinfiction.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/crazy-diamonds-2/">But We All Shine On - The Remarkable Orphans of Burbank Children's Home</a> (2014) by Paolo Hewitt<br />
<br />
This was one of the first books I read last year, and that I had been anticipating for some time. It was worth the wait. After a childhood spent in care at Burbank Children’s Home, Paolo Hewitt embarks upon a personal journey as an adult to discover whatever happened to his close childhood friends.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://rosemarycanning.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/by-people-for-people.html">Things we have in Common</a> (2015) by Tasha Kavanagh<br />
<br />
The novel describes a creepy tale of loneliness and teenage obsession. Poignant and darkly humourous, it was at times overwhelming - in a good way. Tasha was a guest at last year's Finchley Literary Festival*, little did we know at the time that not only would the book be shortlisted for the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/oct/05/not-the-booker-prize-your-final-judgment-please">Not the Booker Prize</a>, but also the <a href="http://www.costa.co.uk/media/364247/combined-pdfs-v2.pdf">Costa Book Award</a>.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://rosemarycanning.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/the-paying-guests-by-sarah-waters.html">The Paying Guests</a> (2014) by Sarah Waters<br />
<br />
Greenacre Writers was selected as one of 12 book clubs who were shadowing the <a href="http://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/">Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2015</a>. We were given <b>The Paying Guests</b> by Sarah Waters and some very nice Baileys!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://rosemarycanning.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/something-strange-is-happening-in.html">The Girl with all the Gifts</a> (2014) by Mike Carey<br />
<br />
For the first half of this book I couldn't read past 6.00pm because I was absolutely petrified. The story seemed so real and I don't usually read books about zombies. When Mike appeared at the festival, some of us dressed up as zombies. He got us reading parts for the soon to be released film. I was Melanie, a young 'hungry' zombie, though in reality I was probably fifty years too old! Still, it was such fun and I can't wait to see the film.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/a-month-in-the-country/j-l-carr/penelope-fitzgerald/9780141182308">A Month in the Country</a> (1980) by J. L. Carr<br />
<br />
On one of my recent trips to Waterstones, in North Finchley, my local bookstore, I got chatting with one of the lovely bookish assistants. We were discussing favourite books and he told me one of his was <b>A Month in the Country</b>. I decided to nominate it as the Greenacre Writers September <a href="http://greenacrewriters.blogspot.co.uk/p/this-months-book-choice-is-we-are-all.html">Bookclub</a>. It is the fifth novel by J. L. Carr, first published in 1980 and nominated for the Booker Prize. The book won the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1980.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://rosemarycanning.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/diary-of-festival-organiser-day-2.html">The Ship</a> (2015) by Antonia Honeywell<br />
<div>
<br />
Antonia is one of those writers who light up a room. She attended the Finchley Lit Fest and I found myself truly inspired and moved by some of her writerly observations. <b>The Ship</b> is her debut novel but not her first. She has been on her writing journey for some years. In some ways, The Ship is scarier than zombies because the financial apocalypse could happen at any moment.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://rosemarycanning.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/liccle-bit-by-alex-wheatle.html">Liccle Bit</a> (2015) by Alex Wheatle<br />
<br />
Another FLF favourite guest. When I read this YA book, I was so impressed by the use of language I began raving about it immediately. It's both funny and heartbreakingly moving. It takes as its subject, the dangerous ease with which young boys can get involved with gangs. At its heart is family, or the lack of it and the dangers this can bring. Liccle Bit has recently been nominated for the <a href="http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/pressdesk/press.php?release=pres_2016_nom_ann_carn.html">2016 CILIP Carnegie Medal</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">All that is left for me to do now, is wish you a very healthy, creative, and booky New Year.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
*<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We were thrilled that <a href="http://finchleyliteraryfestival.blogspot.co.uk/">Finchley Literary Festival</a> was awarded 'Best event of the in Barnet' by the Barnet Eye Community awards. For all the other categories and winners see <a href="http://barneteye.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/the-barnet-eye-community-awards-2015.html">The Barnet Eye Community Awards</a><a href="http://barneteye.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/the-barnet-eye-community-awards-2015.html">.</a></span></i><br />
<br /></div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-19804827946468480912015-12-29T12:50:00.001-08:002015-12-29T16:56:02.887-08:00Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I remember seeing
starving Biafran children and babies with protruding stomachs on the television
in the early 70s. I was living in a children’s home in Muswell Hill and two
friends had come round for tea. We were chatting about the disco the coming Friday and
practising the shuffle to Sex Machine by James Brown. Life was fun and we spent
most of our time together bent over double, laughing hysterically. But
when the horrific aftermath of war suddenly came into the living room I was
shocked, first into silence, and then into floods of tears.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recently, that memory came back when I began reading <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://chimamanda.com/books/half-of-a-yellow-sun/">Half a Yellow Sun</a></i>
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I now have a context to that memory, the history
of the Biafran war. Through the medium of television, I saw children much worse off than myself. Possibly for the first time, and I never forgot those children, or
the ravages of war and what guns do to innocent victims. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjToa45PbX7Ep7MzjrqnWT0qatZtTFy8jjGITUtYzVBaxGdXNdX95wIhdztpeqbODqN0Ieair9q-AQDAHsSrN0h3hnwGeq2pbO-e_ziOtd6Azep4-PGnSp3ShmkCJu0vU8XnE9hc09tIUA/s1600/yellow-sun.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjToa45PbX7Ep7MzjrqnWT0qatZtTFy8jjGITUtYzVBaxGdXNdX95wIhdztpeqbODqN0Ieair9q-AQDAHsSrN0h3hnwGeq2pbO-e_ziOtd6Azep4-PGnSp3ShmkCJu0vU8XnE9hc09tIUA/s320/yellow-sun.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The novel recreates a
seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to
establish an independent republic in Nigeria, and the chilling violence that
followed. Everything that happens within <i>Half of a Yellow Sun</i> has a cause, and
often someone to blame along with it, with the British and the Hausa earning
their fair shares. The reader is reminded that Britain and Russia supplied arms to the Nigerians. Adichie goes back in time through the remembered experience of her parents and family
and those that didn’t survive. Beginning with the dedication:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My grandfathers, whom I never knew, Nwoye David Adichie and
AroNweke Felix Odigwe, did not survive the war. My grandmothers, Nwabuodu
Regina Odigwe and Nwamgbafor Agnes Adichie, remarkable women both, did. This
book is dedicated to their memories: ka fa nodu na ndokwa. And to Mellitus,
wherever he may be.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mellitus, was Adichi’s
parents’ houseboy during the war. She brings Mellitus back to life and tells
his story, giving his memory a voice. <i>Half of a Yellow Sun,</i> is Adichie’s second
novel and received the 2007 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Prize_for_Fiction"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Orange Prize
for Fiction</span></a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes
its title from the flag for Biafra.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Red was the blood of the sibling massacred in the North,
back was for mourning them, green was for the prosperity Biafra would have,
and, finally, the half of a yellow sun stood for the glorious future.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The novel opens before
the war, shortly after Nigeria wins independence from the UK, when middle-class
life at Nsukka University is rich in food, booze, revolutionary rhetoric and
hope. Ugwu, an Igbo boy from a bush village, goes to Nsukka to work as a
houseboy for Odenigbo, a professor and radical.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Master was a little crazy; he had spent too many years
reading books overseas, talked to himself in his office, did not always return
greets, and had too much hair. Ugwu’s aunty said this in low voice as they
walked on the path. ‘But he is a good man,’ she added. ‘And as long as you work
well, you will eat well. You will even eat meat every day.’ She stopped to spit;
the saliva left her mouth with a sucking sound and landed on the grass.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The book is written in
four parts. Part One: The Early Sixties; Part Two: The Late Sixties; Part
Three: The Early Sixties; and Part Four: The Late Sixties.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The narrative focus
shifts between various characters attached to the university: Ugwu, Odenigbo,
his beautiful girlfriend Olanna, and Richard, an English ex-pat who falls in
love with Nigerian art and then Olanna's twin sister.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">‘Nigerian food is quite all right, Harrison,’ Richard said.
If only Harrison knew how much he had disliked the food of his childhood, the
sharp-tasting kippers full of bones, the porridge with the appalling thick skin
on top like a waterproof lining, the overcooked roast beef with fat around the
edges drenched in gravy.<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Food at the beginning
of the book represents the affluence of their lifestyles, there is plenty
of it, an abundance. As the circumstances change, so too does the food.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nsukka University is
evacuated, and Olanna, Odenigbo, Ugwu, and Baby move to the cities of Abba and
then Umuahia. Their living situations get progressively worse as the war
continues and Biafra’s food and money runs out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Olanna glanced at the clutter that was their room and home –
the bed, two yam tubers, and the mattress that leanded against the dirt-smeared
wall, the cartons and bags piled in a corner, the kerosene stove that she took
to the kitchen only when it was needed – and felt a surge of revulsion, the
urge to run and run and run until she was far away from it all.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Food is symbolic of
the progress of the war and the situation of the country. As distribution of food ceases and people start to starve, disease follows. Olanna meticulously searches Babie’s head for red
hair and compares other children’s bellies to her daughter’s in search for
signs of Kwashiorkor, malnutrition caused by lack of protein.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Were you silent when we died?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Did you see photos in sixty-eight <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of children with their hair becoming rust:<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sickly patches nestled on those small heads,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then falling off, like rotten leaves on dust?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The reader witnesses the role the media played in distributing images of starving children. </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The world was silent when we died”, is a book that sometimes interrupts the narrative. It is being written by an
unknown author who describes the larger political forces at work in the war. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We are led to believe
it is Richard writing the book, mainly because he is trying to write one throughout the novel. Adichie is playing with some reader's assumption that it
is the white, western male that writes about Africa, rather than say a young, black village boy. She says: “I wanted to make a strongly-felt political
point about who should be writing the stories of Africa.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Half of a Yellow Sun has recently been named the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ60FcGeom4">best of the best</a> winner from the last decade of the women’s prize for fiction both by the public and a 10-strong judging panel. Read more <a href="http://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/2015/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-wins-the-best-of-the-best">here</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_agR2vM4hbALmeKlIdkyCfalZAC9GjOJbgKb5YnuXzqldYF-iQQ2hhoIo-inyViXghXEJMi1jn8RQLfNgzwkgNfjgCak4nNcXHsj4RAo8cmskFOAT-KSDP6apBnn6XZcH9OFeI6Mjiw0/s1600/adichie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_agR2vM4hbALmeKlIdkyCfalZAC9GjOJbgKb5YnuXzqldYF-iQQ2hhoIo-inyViXghXEJMi1jn8RQLfNgzwkgNfjgCak4nNcXHsj4RAo8cmskFOAT-KSDP6apBnn6XZcH9OFeI6Mjiw0/s400/adichie.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />I had put off reading Half a Yellow Sun, for quite some time. There were a number of reasons for this. The main one being the memory of the horror in the living room when I was thirteen. However, I was intrigued by Adichie and her stories and I wanted to read and learn more. The final push came a few weeks ago when a few bloggers and writers started tweeting about #DiverseDecember. You can read more about that <a href="https://thewritesofwoman.wordpress.com/2015/12/01/diverse-december-why-do-it/">here</a>.<br /><br />I found myself totally immersed in the lives of the characters who immediately came to life in my imagination. I understand how the war started, how those babies on the screen back in 1971 came to be there - even though the war had ended in 1970, their starvation continued for some years.<br /><br /> I'm looking forward to joining other writers and readers for #ReadDiverse2016 where I'll not only be reading BAME books, but also other diverse books and in particular books about care leavers who are totally under-represented in UK literature. The literature of the world should (by now) reflect the people of the world.</span>Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2688140968797835221.post-37311610023699053552015-10-29T15:54:00.003-07:002015-11-13T02:27:24.121-08:00The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend - Katarina BivaldA strange woman is standing on Hope’s main street. ‘Hope’ presumably an optimistic place, but Sara isn’t staying there, only passing through to the aptly named Broken Wheel. <br />
<br />
<i>Her hair was a nondescript shade of brown, held back with a carelessly placed hair clip which didn’t stop it flowing down over her shoulders in a tangle of curls. Where her face should have been, there was a copy of Louisa May Alcott’s </i>An Old Fashioned Girl<i>.</i><br />
<br />
The literary allusion to Alcott’s <i>Girl</i>, sees the protagonist, Polly, leave the country to visit her wealthy city friend, Fanny. Sara has left Sweden to visit the USA. There are parallels between the two - though <i>Broken Wheel</i>, is not much more than ‘one big street’ rather than a city. And although initially Polly is rejected by the Fanny’s friends, Sara, is pretty much accepted straightaway.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgogFBFRg5pO5FGMQJeQ_sPREuYBlJv7UnXps1RA3feYokdArlUYBEj9J3w6SLggY62xXaPKPdQIAdkGZloccZWIZMFlTCBXJ9rGRb09JT9K9omaiZP0Hp7jYqzQEjPu7HQfQ2_l6-wPsI/s1600/broken+wheel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgogFBFRg5pO5FGMQJeQ_sPREuYBlJv7UnXps1RA3feYokdArlUYBEj9J3w6SLggY62xXaPKPdQIAdkGZloccZWIZMFlTCBXJ9rGRb09JT9K9omaiZP0Hp7jYqzQEjPu7HQfQ2_l6-wPsI/s400/broken+wheel.jpg" width="245" /></a></div>
<br />
This is a book about books and clues, clues that are littered throughout the text as the narrator and the town decide how Sara’s literary life will pan out.<br />
<br />
Sara is 28, and has never been outside Sweden – except in the (many) books she reads. When her elderly penfriend Amy invites her to come and visit her in Broken Wheel, Iowa, Sara decides it’s time. But when she arrives, there’s a twist waiting for her – Amy has died. Finding herself utterly alone in a dead woman’s house in the middle of nowhere was not the holiday Sara had in mind. <br />
<br />
As Sara reflects on how she has used books to hide away from life, she remembers how classmates carved meaningless symbols into desks or on lockers, while:<br />
<br />
<i>...she had been a geisha in Japan, walked alongside China’s last empress through the claustrophobic, closed-off rooms of the Forbidden City, grown up with Anne and the others in Green Gables, gone through her fair share of murder, and loved and lost over and over again.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
[A few pages later]<br />
<br />
<i>Reading books isn't a bad way to live your life, but lately Sara had begun to wonder what kind of life it was, exactly. She had first been struck by this thought when she found out that Josephssons would be closing. It was as though ten years of her life had disappeared along with the bookshop; as though everything she had ever been had only existed on the greyish-white bookshelves of that dusty shop, among the people who bought four-for-three paperbacks in the summer, and anything-at-all-that-was-shiny-and-wrapped-up at Christmas.</i><br />
<br />
Amy accompanies Sara’s narrative journey so the reader gets to see how their relationship evolved. Here in this town so broken it’s almost beyond repair are all the people she’s come to know through Amy’s letters: poor George, fierce Grace, buttoned-up Caroline and Amy’s guarded nephew Tom.<br />
<br />
Sara finds herself staying in Amy’s house rent free, a situation she finds intolerable. She tries to find somebody to pay, but nobody wants her money. Money is symbolic, because more than anything, this is a story about community, about being needed and about belonging and that can't be bought.<br />
<br />
Sara quickly realises that Broken Wheel is in desperate need of some adventure, a dose of self-help and perhaps a little romance, too.<br />
<br />
<i>There was something sad about the town, as though generations of problems and disappointments had rubbed off onto its bricks and its roads…On the other side of the road there was an advert for a pesticide: Control corn root worm! it shouted to the world, two by three metres in size and at least twenty years old.</i><br />
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
In short, this was a town in need of a bookshop. And just as there is a romantic interest in Alcott’s <i>Girl</i>, namely Tom, so there is a Tom in <i>Broken Wheel</i>. ’It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Swedish tourist in Iowa must be in want of a man.’ No prizes for guessing the influence of that sentence.<br />
<br />
Sara remembers a colleague from the bookshop where she worked in Sweden saying that every story begins with someone arriving somewhere – and this too refers to what this story is, and what it will become. And so as the story weaves its spell, twists, plots and allusions to literary twists, spells and plots, the narrative sometimes acts like a play, complete with stage directions. The townfolk plot and whisper prompts from the sidewings, directing and deciding which shape the story will take. <br />
<br />
<i>Caroline closed her eyes. The innocent tone wasn’t fooling her. My goodness, she thought. The woman had barely been in town two days and Jen had already started offering up its young men to her altar. Though, to be fair, it might just as well have been the woman being sacrificed. Like the oaks, the town’s bachelors weren’t exactly a tourist attraction…[Jen’s] gaze was fixed somewhere above Caroline’s head. ‘Don’t you think a holiday romance would be just the thing to get her to enjoy her time here?’ </i><br />
<br />
The text is littered with foreshadowing and allusions as to how stories work, particularly romance. <i>The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend </i>is a book about books. All sorts of books, from Little Women and Harry Potter to Jodi Picoult and Jane Austen, from Stieg Larsson to Joyce Carol Oates to Proust. It’s about the joy and pleasure of books, about learning from and escaping into them, and possibly even hiding behind them. It’s about whether or not books are better than real life. For book lovers, this metanarrative is a joy. One that has been expertly handled, for here is a narrator, who like Sara, has spent a huge amount of time with books.<br />
<br />
Sara feels she never belonged anywhere – save between the pages of a book – but as she becomes more involved in the town and is embraced by the residents of this far-from-perfect small town, she discovers they need her as much as she needs them.<br />
<br />
<i>The Readers of Broken Wheel </i>is a lovely book, and like<i> The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society</i>, a joy to read. It is a book that would benefit from more than one reading in order appreciate the complex narrative and literary intertwining. After such an interesting debut book, I wonder if Katarine Bivald's second book will live up to expectations. I hope so, and look forward to her new novel some time in the future.</div>
Rosie Longstockinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09011903699718242657noreply@blogger.com2