Current reading matter

[J.R.]

Unless there's a new "Harry Potter and the Right To Bear Arms" in the pipeline?

I noticed whilst walking past the Dorking Waterstones that J.K. Rowling is issuing another book in December.

Harry Potter for kids ? I thoroughly enjoyed all of them, though the last one was a bit weak in my view.

Oh Well - I am a great big kid at heart, according to my Grand-Children !

[englishangel]

I love HP, we had to buy two copies of book five so my daughter and I wouldn't come to blows

[kerrensimmonds]

Do you like Philip Pullman, too, Mary?
That's another set of books for children which I could not put down! I was persuaded to lend mine to my nephews but when I asked for them back I was told, somewhat dismissively, that they had all been damaged by the dog so had been thrown away. I was really upset! So next birthday, a friend kindly gave me a boxed set of them!
Don't know if anyone has come across the 'Stravaganza' series by Mary Hoffman - a celebrated writer of children's fiction, including 'Amazing Grace'. She's the sister of Hertford Old Blue Phyllis Hoffman (who happens to have my cats' sister, but that's another story). The 'Stravaganza' series is set in an alternative world based on a mediaeval form of Italy, written for teenagers, and always involving a time traveller from this world to that (they 'stravagate'). Meticulously researched, both bloodthirsty and romantic and the tale spins out 'unputdownably'. Bloomsbury (also JKR's publisher) used one of the 'Stravaganza' books to plug the gap when JKR and HP went 'silent' for a while. To be recommended for teenagers and also for adults who like a 'good read'!

[englishangel]

I have tried with Philip Pullman, read the first one which my Mum had given my son,but didn't get anywhere with it.

I bought the first of the Stormbreaker books, a sort of junior James Bond, for my younger son, and I loved it, but he didn't so I haven't read any more as I have no excuse to buy them (thinks: I suppose I could get them from the library.)

[Vièr Bliu]

Now onto Škvorecký's annoying diacritic-less Dvorak in Love, but have been diverted by some new arrivals. When I arrived home yesterday evening I found a sack, yes, an actual sack, sitting on the doorstep: the latest arrivals from US second-hand book dealers (the wonders of online book search).

So I spent some of the evening leafing through the latest cheapo purchases: "A History of Slovakia", "Beautiful Loot - The Soviet Plunder of Europe's Art Treasures", "The Other Russia", "When Russia Learned to Read - Literacy and Popular Literature 1861-1917", "Soviet Art in Exile", "The Rise and Fall of the Cult of World War II in Russia", "The Avant-Garde in Russia 1910-1930", and "A History of Slovak Literature".

Next job - rearranging my Russia and Central Europe bookshelves to accommodate the newbies.

But this morning I will be sitting with Škvorecký in the doctor's waiting room.

[CHAZ]

But this morning I will be sitting with Škvorecký in the doctor's waiting room. [/quote]


Hope you are not poorly, Geraint.

[Katharine]

When I arrived home yesterday evening I found a sack, yes, an actual sack, sitting on the doorstep: the latest arrivals from US second-hand book dealers (the wonders of online book search).

We've had several of those sacks arrive here usually full of arcane railwayana. (Not for me!) What do you do with the sacks afterwards?

[Vièr Bliu]

Hope you are not poorly, Geraint.

I broke my wrist at the end of April (fell off my bike); the pills I was prescribed for blood pressure have been making me unacceptably giddy (and therefore more likely to fall off my bike now I'm back cycling); but mostly I've got an ear problem and have finally got myself referred to ENT.

At least the wrist is better and I can hold a book and turn the pages

[Vièr Bliu]

What do you do with the sacks afterwards?

There's always a need for sacks in education...

[Ajarn Philip]

What do you do with the sacks afterwards?

There's always a need for sacks in education...

[englishangel]

Hope you are not poorly, Geraint.

I broke my wrist at the end of April (fell off my bike); the pills I was prescribed for blood pressure have been making me unacceptably giddy (and therefore more likely to fall off my bike now I'm back cycling); but mostly I've got an ear problem and have finally got myself referred to ENT.

At least the wrist is better and I can hold a book and turn the pages

My husband and Bro-in-law (twins) both have some inherited condtion which does something to the ears. Bro-in-law is much more affected and has been wearing hearing aids for about 5 years, but he has also suffered from vertigo for a long time. He has recently had an operation for this and didn't realise how bad it was until it was better, he reckons he feels as good as he did 15 years ago.

Regarding the BP there are so many treatments that you should try a different one and see if that helps.

[J.R.]

I'm on a cocktail of Perindoprol, Bisoprolol and Moxonodine for high BP. The only time I get balance problems is when I have a cold, (or too much Stella !! )

[blondie95]

an operation for vertigo? i suffer from this one of three slightly odd condtions i have inheited down my mother's side! it has been known for me and my mum to ring each other and discover we have both been hit with vertigo at the same time!

[Vièr Bliu]

Regarding the BP there are so many treatments that you should try a different one and see if that helps.

I've changed doctor, and am now getting more sense out of this one than the last one.

But back to the reading matter... Am enjoying the Škvorecký. It's a polyphonic meander through Dvořák's life and loves by means of flashback, anecdote and perception - not as gripping as The Bride of Texas but there's a limit to how much incident even Škvorecký can pack into a fictionalised biog.

Back to The Death of the King's Canary: I've realised that my knowledge of C20th English poetry is rather more superficial that it probably should be as I couldn't tell a parody of Spender from a parody of Auden. However, I'm pretty certain I spotted the Blunden parody straight off - so here's The Wayfaring Tree by "Edmund Bell" (sent up by Dylan Thomas)

Lithewort, some call thee, or Old Cottoner;
Coventree, some, or Twistwood; Mealytree;
Whitewood, or Lithy-one, or Wayfarer;
Whipcrop, to me.

Good Gerarde first, and, later, Parkinson
Noted thy fondness for the roadside hedge
Or thicket; and we find, wherever Chalk,
Thee, for a pledge.

In Winter shewing thy large naked buds,
All rough with starry hairs (which keep off Frost,
As do the Chestnut’s varnish and rough scales)
Bravely up-tossed.

And in the Summer thy broad hirsute leaves
Looking as dusty as a miller’s coat
- Above them spreading round white heads of flowers —
Airily float.

Thy downy stems are never very stout;
But branchy, and with wrinkled heart-shaped leaves,
Blunt-ended, white beneath; edges sharp-toothed
As ancient reeves.

First red, then black, thou flower’st in May and June
Five-lobed your clusters, and thy stamens five
Extrude from mouth - corollas funnel-shaped,
Sweetly alive.

Here, sitting beside the seasonable fire
I watch the smoke curl blue from my last pipe,
Whose stem is fashioned from thy year-old shoot,
Severed ere ripe.

Blunden's always in the list of great literary OBs - does anyone actually ever read him these days?

[Vièr Bliu]

Well, Blunden fans have not come swarming out of the woodwork, so it's probably safe to post another parody. This one's by Evoe (E.V. Knox) published in "These Liberties" in 1923 (probably reprinted from "Punch").


The Cigarette Gatherer

Now all the lispering runnels are dried up
That swilled the orts and refuse in time of rain;
Down the hutched gateway hollowed like a cup,
Match-sticks strew gutters and chaff cheats the drain.

The dog-day sun now pitilessly glares,
Street-lightning flickers from crossed rails of trams.
Puffs powder noses. Newsboys bleat their wares.
Shrill as to browsing yoes baa food-foiled lambs.

Stewed asphalt softens. Barrow-trundlers ply
Good trade for scoop of tongues from horn twist roll;
Butchers beat off the blackening thunder-fly
From meat; in houses gas replaces coal.

But out in that dry gutter sloven and bent
The old fag-gleaner still goes channering on
With pale blotched face and in his hat a dent
And coat green-slimed as sluice when mill-flood’s gone.

Holding an elmen stick in knarréd hands
He mucks and mouches, prodding here and there
‘Mongst pips and paper, heedless of what brands
The found stumps be; to him they all are fair.