Judith Johnson
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My Fantastic Five - Books I Love #8 - Gail Sequeira

14/6/2020

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When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines. Thanks to Gail Sequeira for No 8 in the series. She writes:

I was born in Bombay and grew up primarily in Bombay and Delhi. Both cities have had a profound impact on my life, my reading and my cooking. My first menu for the Comfort Kitchen, the small scale cantina which I opened recently with my husband Kevin in Brecon, Wales,  was inspired by both cities: kababs and rajma from Delhi, and to finish off,  a delicate sweet coconut dessert inspired by tender coconut ice cream made famous by Natural's of Bombay.


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​The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

This book is no easy read in a sense, even though it flows like water running downhill. The subject matter is very personal for me, being an Indian woman, and it ripped my carefully sheltered life apart at the seams. This is the moment in my own history I began to question the status quo.


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​The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
 
This one is a beautiful tapestry of intertwining lives. It’s hard to describe, the main characters are so very diverse! There’s an illegal immigrant in America, the remainder of old colonials in the Himalayas. A fascinating and heart wrenching read.

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Five Point Someone by Chetan Bharat
 
This is a coming of age story set in one of the most prestigious campuses in India. It’s nostalgic and sweet and it captures Indian childhood and young adulthood in a way that hasn’t been done before.

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Bombay Rains Bombay Girls by Anirban Bose
 
There is no city in the world like Bombay! This one tells the story of a small town boy who moved to Bombay for medical school. It’s like opening a window into an aspect of Bombay life the rest of the world doesn’t get to experience and a very nostalgic read for someone who grew up there.

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Those Pricey Thakur Girls by Anuja Chauhan
 
This is the first of three books about the five Thakur sisters, growing up in a lovely old neighbourhood in Delhi. The word ’pricey’ is slang for high maintenance. And besides a strong storyline, this book speaks in the language of the people and of the times. It captures the change in Indian society as the economy opened up. It’s just a beautiful read.

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My Fantastic Five - Books I Love #7 - Owen Williams

8/6/2020

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PicturePhoto by Hilary Williams
When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines. Thanks to Owen Williams for No 7 in the series:  

Owen grew up as an only child in Talbot Green (Llantrisant ) where his father worked as an  electrician. The family background was in farming in the Vale of Glamorgan. He studied Creative Design at Loughborough University, specialising in Furniture Design, and after a  post graduate diploma in Technology (now an MA/MSc) at Swansea Met, he taught Design and Technology. He also worked professionally in theatre lighting, and for many years has also provided both lighting, and a huge variety of props, to local amateur theatre and dance companies in and around Brecon.

Owen's interests also include motorcycling, amateur radio (he holds an advanced licence) and poetry, and he has recently been included in Onward/Ymlaen, an anthology of radical poetry from contemporary Wales. 


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​The Boy Electrician by Armac


This is the first book I ever bought and about the only book I read for pleasure when at secondary school (having dyslexia didn't help).

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Dylan Thomas: ​The Poems

This is the first book I bought when I arrived in Brecon. I fell in love with Thomas's writing after helping my dad stage-light a production of Under Milk Wood for a community project in the village of Gilfach Goch.

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​Reminiscences of Motorcycling
by 'Ixion'


I bought my first motorcycle at the age of sixteen and have loved them ever since. I studied engineering history for A level so was naturally interested in the history of motorcycle development. This book is about riding very early machines around the turn of the last century. Ixion (Canon Basil H Davies) was a motorcycling vicar and author. He started riding motorcycles in 1898 and wrote for The Motor Cycle magazine from 1903 to his death in 1961. This book was originally published in 1920. Interesting stuff for a geek!

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T S Eliot's Four Quartets


I'm not sure how I discovered Eliot but I do love the Quartets. I do have them published all together in a book however they were published first in pamphlet form in the early 1940s. My copies are early, though not first editions. Love the deckled edge paper.

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Kilvert’s Diary
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A glimpse into a forgotten Victorian world around Hay-on-Wye.

​Great fun to visit the locations of his entries. A world without cars, so lots of walking.


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My Fantastic Five - Books I Love #6 - J E L Lehnsherr

3/6/2020

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When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I just love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines. Here is No 6, with thanks to Jack Endeavour Leto Lehnsherr, who writes:
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​​I'm a 22 year old aspiring author, published poet, bokar and future mad scientist, on the spectrum of neurodiversity. As the child of a Scot and a Hungarian immigrant in Germany, I spent most of my life moving around .Just like my ancestors, a restless traveller with an endless hunger for knowledge and stories. Libraries, especially the one in Brecon, have ever since I was a child been the only place to rest and to call home. Just another kid in love with Keats, Housman and Morse.

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The Road to Grantchester by James Runcie 

If it weren't for a story on AO3 called Heart's at Peace (Grantchester TV), I would never have known of this book, let aside have contributed four more stories on said page.

Robert Kendall, no offence to Morse, had captured my heart with his wit within a tick.

The book isn't about him though.

​It's about young Sidney Chambers'  journey to become the brilliant, cheeky vicar and part time detective he's known and loved for in the Grantchester mysteries. They are alright too, just not as marvellous as Road to Grantchester.


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The Remorseful Day by Colin Dexter
(The Inspector Morse mysteries #13)

It's one of those slow Thursday afternoons in 2019; it's raining cats and dogs as I wait for my friend Alex in the shadow of the library. She has just returned from London with this treasure in her bag. Judging from the preserves poppy and bus ticket it must have been May.

It is the last case for my beloved Inspector Morse, the last hurrah in a long life as a terrific detective. Why choose this book knowing the ending from afar? Cause it's so light... Like Lewis' kiss in Chapter 77. It is not one of your average quick solved murder cases, in fact a rather haunting tale, filled with lots of obstacles, that lingers on.

My favourite chapter (73) begins with a quote from Keats. The last time we get to experience everything we love about Morse before his light fades.Morse resonates to me on a deeper level. Two souls alike divided by ink and paper. In the aftermath of finishing this book I wrote a requiem poem on the steps of the Bodleian library. "A remorseful day" appeared  about two months after that rainy Thursday afternoon in the Brecon Beacons.


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Post Captain by Patrick O'Brian
(The Aubrey-Maturin saga #2) 

Nothing beats a good cup of tea and an Age of Sail story on a rainy afternoon. The Aubrey Maturin books have just the right amount of wit, action, in combination of history. 

Lucky Jack Aubrey , my name patron, isn't yet the Captain of his beloved HMS Surprise but just a mere Commander. Alongside his companion, the faithful Irish-Catalan Doctor Stephen Maturin, Jack spends the brief period of the Peace of Amiens (1802-1803) in the countryside, hunting and courting. My favourite quote: "Anyone would think you were married to that man", captures their unique bond perfectly. Hornblower's Indefatigable makes a cameo appearance too.

Unlike the rest of the series, they spend a lot of their time on shore. Here we get to see a different Jack Aubrey. Courageous in battle, embracing every storm like it's a soft breeze, but here he is oh so awkward on shore. The follow up book HMS Surprise has its prime moments too, with a drunk sloth, so I highly recommend reading this one after.


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Good Omens
by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett 

An angel and a demon, knowing each other for the better half of some centuries, have to save the world only to realise they are each other's world. Armageddon was trying to happen (or well, trying to be prevented) at the wrong place with the wrong anti-Christ as the result of a lot of funny misunderstandings.

When Tilly, one of those magic ethereal beings called librarians, introduced me to the wonderfulness that is Good Omens and handed me their copy, I would never have guessed that I would end up travelling one day as Aziraphale across countries to conventions.


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Interview with the Vampire
by Anne Rice 

"I'm going to give you a chance I never had..."

When Lestat spoke those words for the first time, I was 10 and had sneaked into the living room past my bed time where my siblings were watching the movie. Several days later I held the copy of the book in my hands and was dragged into the world of the glorious Lestat de Lioncourt and his melancholy companion Louis.

Claudia was my favourite character back then. She had lost her mother to the plague, which was wiping out whole families in New Orleans at that time, and got turned into a vampire by Lestat as a gift for Louis.
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The New Orleans chapter with Lestat and Louis being fathers to their own love child is still my favourite part of the novel, although Claudia isn't my favourite character anymore. Loss and years of experience changes people and I guess that's why nowadays I prefer Louis. The book isn't everyone's cup of tea. Yet whoever is into real, not sparkling, vampires might actually enjoy this piece of Eden.


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My Fantastic Five - Books I Love #5 - Helen Smith

21/5/2020

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When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I just love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines. Here is the fifth, with thanks to Helen Smith, who writes:
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​I grew up on the border between England and Wales, then went to study Zoology at Cambridge University, followed by Psychology at St Andrews. I am now a hypnotherapist and mindful movement/dance teacher, and part-time poet and crafter. I love and am greatly influenced by the natural world, myths and legends, and the complex connection between people, our bodies, and nature. Having recently started attempting to write my own novel, I have a renewed respect for those authors whose books I have read and enjoyed! I have so many favourite books it was a real challenge to get it down to just five, but here they are…

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​Wolf Brother by Michelle Paver

This is one of those books that is equally enchanting for adults as it is for children. I love how Michelle Paver has captured the essence of what it might be like to live in the forests of our hunter-gatherer past, where humans lived in more spiritual connection with the natural world. She has employed extensive and thorough research, making Torak and Wolf’s world come alive as they search for the Mountain of the World Spirit on a quest to slay the demon bear. The first in a book series I come back to time and time again.


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​If Women Rose Rooted
by Sharon Blackie

​I remember when I first read this thinking that a copy should be given to every girl at school (then revising this to include boys too). It explores the connection between women and the land, and the journey to finding a sense of belonging in the modern corporate ‘wasteland’, gaining inspiration from Celtic myths as well as contemporary women who have found ways of living more rooted lives. It has been described as a Celtic ‘Women who Run with the Wolves’, though in my opinion it is much better, easier to read, and more relevant to life in the UK.

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The Mabinogion translation by Sioned Davies

This book is a collection of truly wonderful and magical stories from ancient Wales, which take place both in this world and the Celtic Otherworld. I have a particular love of the 4th branch, the story of Lleu and Blodeuwedd: I have studied it thoroughly, through multiple layers of meaning, and it has made a huge impression on my life. I also highly recommend Damh the Bard’s musical interpretations (find them here: www.paganmusic.co.uk).


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A Brief History of Nakedness
by Philip Carr-Gomm

​This book takes the reader on a journey that spans from ancient religious sadhus all the way to contemporary pagans, advertisers and protesters, exploring and tracing humans’ sometimes bizarre, sometimes touching, and often complex, relationships with our naked bodies. I found it both entertaining and enlightening - not only informative and thought-provoking, but also a thoroughly enjoyable read.


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Instrumental by James Rhodes

This is not an easy book to read, but one I bought a second copy of - to lend out to others so they could read it too. Both an autobiography and a love letter to music, the book tells of how music was a lifeline to Rhodes as he faced a childhood full of unspeakable trauma, and how, against all the odds, he pursued his passion to become a renowned concert pianist. A remarkable man. Hear him play here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ82pECqiUg.


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Who Owns Britain?

11/5/2020

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I first came across mention of Kevin Cahill's book Who Owns Britain when I was reading George Monbiot's Feral, and I made a mental note then to read it sometime. It was published by Canongate in 2001 and is now out of print. I didn't have the funds to shell out for the cheapest second-hand copy advertised on Amazon, but fortunately Kent Libraries had a copy. It duly arrived, obviously much-handled, and much annotated in the margins. When, after three weeks, I went online to extend my borrowing period, I was informed I couldn't do so as another reader was waiting for it. Luckily I'm a fast reader, so I mashed my way through the last third of the book in a few fevered reading sessions!

Fascinating that Kevin Cahill’s review of our country’s land ownership is so hard to track down; much of its subject matter was dealt with previously by The Return of Owners of Land, published in 1872, and which has been pretty comprehensively erased from public knowledge for the last century or so. In 1876 every citizen of Great Britain could go to his or her local county hall, parish office or library and find the names and addresses of the owners of 95% of the land area of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales - but in the last 125 years access to information about the ownership of land has receded rather than advanced.The land-owning records, once available in every parish, were abolished.

I'm known at Johnson Towers for ploughing my way through weighty tomes (the school librarian in one of my former workplaces once remarked that I was the only person who had checked out Iona & Peter Opie's The Language and Lore of Schoolchildren in all her years there!), and this one was very densely textual, but serious readers will, I hope, be grateful for the facts which Kevin Cahill has assembled in order to reveal some home truths about our 'sceptred isle'.

I own I have not fully digested every fact this book presents, but I was deeply impressed by its main message, which is that large amounts of the land in Britain are not properly registered. At the time of publication, more than 30% and maybe as much as half of the actual acreage of England and Wales was not recorded in the Land Registry for those two countries. This impacts on the availability and, crucially, the cost of, land for development.

This review would become an enormous essay if I were to lay out all of the book’s salient points, so here are a few nuggets to whet your appetite:

1. When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, he freed up around 10 million acres of England alone to distribute to his followers - a group of about 1500 families. The incomes from the old church lands put huge wealth at the barons' disposal.

2. The industrial revolution was paralleled by the enclosures, the legal device used to include common land into landed estates, thus excluding the peasantry who had lived off the common land, and increasing the labour supply to the factories. It is a truism of conventional British history that the landowners were the dominant force in British politics right up to World War Two... what the history of landownership in Britain proves, and modern political economics demonstrates, is the inseparable bond between land and power.

3. Since the late 19th century, all formal tax on land has been abolished, and the specific taxes which have been substituted have placed the larger burden of taxes on the smallest landowners, domestic homeowners, while removing it altogether on the largest landowners. In addition, the larger landowners, (189,000 people own 88% of the land) are in receipt of subsidy to the tune of £4 billion annually. They pay no tax on that asset.

4. Those closest to and most likely to have real influence with the Queen are almost all hereditary aristocrats (the book gives details of the lands owned by these and the Royal Family) and landowners ... overwhelmingly connected to a very small group of banks ... the particular coalition which crowds the Palace, the Crown Estate and the two duchies (Lancaster and Cornwall), with its secret lobbyists and advocates, is the same group that stands to benefit the most from perpetuating the black hole at the heart of the land registry. These are people distinguished from the rest of the population by owning the vast bulk of the land on which the population at large depends for homes, and, to a lesser extent, food.

5. Since 1993, as part of the general and undisclosed settlement made between the Queen and the government in relation to tax, Prince Charles has paid normal tax rates, but his private company, The Duchy of Cornwall, pays no capital gains and no corporation tax.

6. The Duchy of Lancaster (created in 1351) is a very large landed estate, mostly based in the north of England with some land in London. The Queen, who is also Duke of Lancaster, receives the revenues from this estate tax free. It now runs to almost 47,220 land-based acres, but taken with its estuarial waters and riverbeds of 125,000 acres, it actually comprises close on 172,000 acres. To these can be added £66 million in Stock Exchange investments and £5 million in cash. The Duchy pays no tax on anything. The money it pays to the Queen, £5.7 million in the most recent account, is tax-free. If the Duchy had paid corporation tax and capital gains tax at the standard rate of 40% in 1997 that would have been at least £3 million to the Exchequer.

7. Professor Cannadine, in The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy, wrote of the late 19th century: 'the contemporary cult of the country house depicts the old land-owning classes as elegant, exquisite patrons of the arts, living lives of tasteful ease in beautiful surroundings. Of course, there is some truth in this. But as a representation of the totality of patrician existence, it misleads and distorts, by failing to recognise them for what they really were: a tough, tenacious and resourceful elite, who loved money, loved power and loved the good life'.
(And the British public love Downton Abbey..... talk about the opiate of the masses! Ed.)

8. Cahill goes into much detail of one of the Plantagenet families still very much in evidence : the Howards, and comments 'It is quite an achievement to have kept £2 billion in the family for almost 400 years'. In all, 20 Plantagenet descendants appear in the Sunday Times Rich List.

Incidentally, Kevin Cahill has now written Who Owns the World: The Hidden Facts Behind Landownership. I look forward to reading it.
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Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther

29/11/2019

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 I have resolved, since moving house with dozens of boxes of books, including an entire bookshelf’s worth to be read, not to buy any more second-hand books if I can help it, but to use public libraries, except for books for birthday and Christmas presents, which I’ll  purchase from independent bookshops. Libraries, in Austerity Britain, are under constant threat of closure . They are being forced to justify their existence, which includes tallying books taken out by library users. Since 2010, more than 478 libraries have closed in England, Wales and Scotland.*

There is a wonderful library in Brecon, staffed by exceptionally friendly, helpful librarians. It is currently in transit, having closed in November in order to make the move to a new site adjacent to the Brecon Museum.  Before they closed, they allowed users to take out a nice big pile of books to keep them going over the break, and one of my serendipitous finds was Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther by Elizabeth von Arnim.

I had never read this author, and assumed she was German, but actually she was a New Zealander, cousin to Katherine Mansfield, and her first marriage was to a Prussian aristocrat, Count Henning August von Arnim-Schlagenthin.  This interested me, as my great-great aunt Lucy (pictured below with her two children), who was born in Kashmir, also married a Prussian - Count Radolin Radolinski, Chamberlain to the royal Prussian court; privy councillor; supreme steward to Kaiser Friedrich III and  imperial German ambassador. 



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In this really excellent epistolatory novel, von Arnim lays out Fraulein Schmidt’s thoughts and  a whole cast of beautifully-drawn characters so skilfully, using the device of a one-sided correspondence  ie Fraulein Schmidt’s letters to Mr Anstruther. It was published in 1907, seven years before the First World War must have put a temporary stop to young English gentlemen travelling to Germany to learn the language and culture.

I loved reading this, and  will definitely be recommending it not only to friends but also possibly laying in a copy for my baby granddaughters for some future reading. Yes, it’s that good!


*https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/15/tories-libraries-social-mobility-conservative
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My Fantastic Five - Books I Love #4: Paul Davies

26/3/2019

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​When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I just love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines. 

​Here is the fourth, with thanks to Paul Davies, who studied English at University College, London, before pursuing a career in music administration. He 
writes:

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​Tales of the  City
by Armistead Maupin

A feast of 70's San Francisco served up through the adventures of a diverse group of characters centred around the enigmatic Mrs Madrigal.
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Quirky, amusing and touching - I loved the book and its sequels well before I finally got to San Francisco and explored the locations so vividly depicted.

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​The Accidental Tourist
by Anne Tyler

The film of this book introduced me to the works of Anne Tyler. Her sensitive observations of everyday minutiae build into portraits of characters for whom you really care as they navigate the emotional pitfalls of relationships and everyday life. 

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​Music and Silence
by Rose Tremain

No two books by Rose Tremain are ever remotely the same. This captivating novel is set in 1629 when a young English lutenist joins the Royal Orchestra of the melancholic and idealistic Charles IV of Denmark and falls in love with a lady-in-waiting. The intricacies, intrigues and passions of the protagonists and court life are brilliantly painted - with Kirsten, the King's adulterous Consort, a particularly charismatic and memorable character.

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Italian Shoes
by Henning Mankell

Quite different from the "Wallander" books for which he is probably best known, this novel begins on the frozen wastes of a Swedish island where a recluse is forced to undertake a physical and spiritual journey to confront his past and its consequences. Both interior and exterior landscapes are hauntingly realised.

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​To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf

Being one of the "Godless students of Gower Street", I have always been fascinated by the Bloomsbury Group. Set during two visits to Skye, ten years apart, relationships and experiences are perceived through the mind's eyes of the Ramsay family and their guests. Emotions and thoughts constantly shift as each moment passes. It is lyrically written and the interlude "Time Passes" is as near to poetry as prose can get.

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My Fantastic Five - Books I Love #3: Sharon Mast

18/1/2019

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When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I just love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines. Here is the third, with thanks to Sharon Mast, who writes:
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​I was born and raised in New York City and graduated from City College of NY with a degree in sociology.  I spent my study-abroad year in Cardiff and did graduate work in sociology at the LSE.  After a decade of teaching sociology in New Zealand, I returned to New York to teach kids with open court cases in the South Bronx and, later, students with learning disabilities.  I’m now working privately with kids who need learning support and writing poetry in my spare time.  The collection of books on my shelves never shrinks because I keep buying new ones and borrowing others from the library. I have a wonderful, creative daughter and a very young and delightful grandson.
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Strength in Stillness
by Bob Roth

When my New York Public Library reserve for this book came through, I had no recollection of how I’d come upon the title.  But I took it home and read this little book in a day.  Bob Roth took up Transcendental Meditation in the 1970’s and has been a practicing teacher of and writer about TM since then. I was so impressed by the clear and convincing account of TM’s benefits and by the scientific research that supports such claims that I did the 4-day TM training last summer and have been meditating since then. If you have even the slightest interest in taking up some form of meditation, I recommend that you read this first.


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​Deep Work
by Cal Newport

​While most of us simply wonder where all our time goes and why we are not as productive as we’d like to be, Cal Newport has developed a way to maximize his productivity every moment of the day with the end result of greater satisfaction and more time to play with his young children. An assistant professor of computer science at Georgetown University, Newport has devised a method for getting the noise, distractions, and irrelevant efforts out of our lives. The techniques he developed for himself are widely applicable to us all.  Reading the book transforms your view of what really matters in life and how to align your goals with your actions.  I loved it so much that I typed pages of notes from the book before returning it to the library.


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​The Child in Time
by Ian McEwan

​I remember exactly where I was some 40+ years ago (my boyfriend’s flat, Stamford Hill) when I read Ian McEwan’s first collection of short stories. Since then, he has continued to be one of the few fiction writers whose work I read. I have recommended The Child in Time to countless friends. The opening chapter will send you into a paroxysm of anxiety, but your suffering will pay off. I can’t say much about the plot without spoiling it (unless you have seen the 2018 movie of the book with Benedict Cumberbatch), but it is about time, love, and grief.  And, of course, as it is by Ian McEwan, it is beautifully written.


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​Stag’s Leap
by Sharon Olds

​I share with my good friend Judith Johnson a love of Sharon Olds’s poetry.  This Pulitzer Prize-winning collection was occasioned by the author’s divorce, and it is in turn raw and elegant. The poems are arranged in a narrative sequence that takes the reader through Olds’s journey from disbelief to anger to grief and, finally, to acceptance and healing. 


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​The Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord

If you feel that your spirits need lifting after reading my last two recommendations, The Giant Jam Sandwich is the book for you. This is a children’s book that delighted my daughter when she was young, and which I often send to parents-to-be. Even very young children will be intrigued by the complex plot, for it is conveyed with such energy, action, and rhythm (along with delicate illustrations) that it will hold their attention and leave them wide-eyed as you turn from page to page.  If you want to find out how the town of Itching Down deals with an invasion of four million wasps, you’ll just have to read the book yourself.


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My Fantastic Five - Books I Love #2: Paul Cornish

7/12/2018

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When my favourite item in the Waitrose Weekend paper (My Best Books) was chopped to just one book a week from five, I really missed it - I just love to hear what other people rate their cherished reads, so I decided to start my own guest-blog along the same lines. Here is the second, with thanks to Paul Cornish, who writes:

I graduated with an illustration degree and went on to work in a variety of  historical sites, art galleries, museums, art/print companies,  always keeping the love of art and books at my core. I've now been working as a Library Customer Service Officer and Registrar of Births and Deaths for a few years. I love being able to talk ‘books’ with people and encourage others of all ages to read (including my three year old son). Being an avid reader, I'm now surrounded by books of all kinds on a daily basis. Was this career move just so I could get my fix without any effort?! It’s a possibility.
 
My fantastic five are: 


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The Beach
by Alex Garland
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Growing up I used to love being read books, especially at bed time, by my mother but never really enjoyed the idea of reading them myself. It seemed like too much to take on. I didn’t discover how a person could enjoy being completely immersed in a fictional world until I was about 18 years old when I was given Alex Garland's ‘The Beach’. This beautiful yet brutal story seemed to grab my attention and appeal to my young self as I was transitioning into manhood, on the cusp of discovering a solitary freedom and independence in a world that can hold so much possibility yet so many hidden dangers.

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Ishmael
by Daniel Quinn
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After a year living abroad and while returning to England I began to read this on the plane. I continued to read it hungrily once back home. I can honestly say that this book permanently changed my view of the world and culture we live in. After finishing it I remember feeling almost desperate to do something about the selfish and devastating way we're blindly stripping this planet in order to feed our rapidly growing population. Quinn’s powerful message is carried across perfectly on the fictional story of a character who becomes the pupil of... a gorilla. 

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A Wizard of Earthsea
by Ursula Le Guin
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Quite a few books have been recommended or given to me by my oldest friend Tom, but this one ended up being by far my favourite. It’s the first story of the Earthsea Quartet and it follows the first part of Ged's life. A boy with a considerable gift in magic who struggles with himself to become the man he wants to be (or is destined to be). Beautifully composed, I believe Le Guin's writing is inspired by various anthropological and theological studies which allowed me to connect to Ged's character and the world he lives in on a more personal and spiritual level. 

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The Ocean at the End of the Lane
by Neil Gaiman

This book was a birthday gift from my wife, and since reading it I have become a huge fan of Gaiman's writing. The main character of this book is a child living in a country village whose family is infiltrated by a character of increasing menace. He also befriends a very unusual little girl. It reminded me of my days walking in country lanes and fields and visiting friends in country cottages. Gaiman's ability to blur and skew the lines of reality in such simple ways had me very quickly falling in love with this story.

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War of the Worlds
by H G Wells

In my early 20’s, and never having read any of Wells's work before, I began to read this at a friend’s house and I later bought my own copy. At first I felt unused to the old fashioned language, but after the unearthly events started to unfold I was unable to stop reading. I was stunned at how a man writing this in the 1890’s could even imagine such terrifying and effective alien technologies. He seemed to show how fragile the human race was at a time when the British Empire was seemingly at its proudest. I was and still am truly awed.

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Food in England by Dorothy Hartley

5/12/2018

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It’s no secret I love books. When I worked at a girls’ boarding-school, the librarian would from time to time alert staff that old stock was being deleted, at which point I would beetle down The Long Corridor to the library, heart beating fast with pleasurable anticipation, and stagger back with armfuls of weighty tomes. Food in England, published in 1954, was one such - 662 jam-packed pages of fascinating historical details collected by an eccentric Englishwoman, Dorothy Hartley, who died  aged 92 at the house in Froncysylltau she inherited from her Welsh mother, after a lifetime collecting and recording old customs. She trained as an artist, taught art, worked as a journalist and wrote on social history among other things. In 2012, Lucy Worsley made a film exploring her life-story (see link below).  

Food in England is a treasure-chest of marvellous, personally-researched and idiosyncratically-ordered recipes, old customs, ways of growing food, etc, and I consumed it at the rate of a page or two a night - slow reading, if you like. I’ve usually got a selection of books going at any time - a novel, a non-fiction, a spiritual readings book, and, the last year or so, a vintage Ladybird book - a four-course meal for bookworms! 

​Here’s  a baker's dozen of fascinating tasters from the book which might tempt you to acquire a copy. The beautiful illustrations are by Miss Hartley herself (a fact I was unaware of until I finished the book and researched the author - among my jotted reading notes I find the indignant remark - ‘artist not credited!’).

  • The history of white bread, and the pre-Reformation belief in the power of consecrated bread.
  • Thumb bread ... the American word "piecing" for a snack taken in the hand, has been preserved since it left England with the Pilgrim Fathers. In Yorkshire they still speak of a "piece poke" for a dinner bag.
  • Recipe for 18th century Coconut Bread and for Famine Bread (from Markham, ingredients including Sarrasins corne , or Saracen's Corn).
  • Description, from sixteenth century journal, of a sea-voyage when the sailors came upon a fifty year old gibbet, used to hang mutineers, from which their cooper made drinking tankards for those "as would drink in them".
  • Description of the Welsh pig: “... this old-fashioned, peaceable, capable, thrifty, neat little porker ... has been kept by every Welsh miner, quarryman, and farmer, for centuries.”
  • Ox-rein for Clockmakers - the long testicle cord of the bull ... was hung from a hook with a heay weight to stretch it out. Its strong gut texture was used as pulleys in some sorts of grandfather clocks.
  • The famine years of the Middle Ages - ‘To realise how desperate was the famine you must know the seasons as the starving peasants knew them - close and vital knowledge.’
  • A recipe for Mediaeval Chewing-Gum (or chewing wax) using beeswax, honey, ginger and cinnamon
  • The middle-class Victorian household 1800-1900 section includes mention of brisk exercise before breakfast, which brought to mind the old ladies I met when I was alumni officer at the boarding-school where Enid Blyton's daughters were educated. Girls in the 1920s and 1930s were required to run to the village and back (3 miles!) before breakfast every day.
  • The Hafod, or summer farm in early times, common to all mountain countries (now no longer practised in Wales, sadly)
  • The old Welsh dog power churn wheel ("It is no hardship, the dogs turn up their job as gladly as their fellows turn up for their job with the sheep").
  • The Queen's Cheese recipe (1600), to be made between Michaelmas and Allhallowtide, and a huge cheese, nine feet in circumference, made in 1841 for Queen Victoria from one milking of 737 cows.
  • Last but not least, for fellow diehard fans of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin novels - the recipe for soup squares, surely Dr Maturin's portable soup!

​I look forward to foraging in second-hand bookshops for her other works - Life & Work of the People of England (6 volumes) sounds right up my street.
 
Link to clips from a BBC film made by Lucy Worsley:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p010fsbq

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    Lifelong bookworm, love writing too. Have been a theatrical agent and reflexologist among other things, attitude to life summed up by Walt Whitman's MIRACLES.

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