Clara’s Daughter by Meike Ziervogel The relationships between mothers and daughters, or daughters and their mothers – whichever way around you want to put it, is obviously something that fascinates Meike Ziervogel. Her first novella, published away from her own Peirene publishing house was also about a mother and daughter, and the daughter’s own daughter. Read More
Category: Publishers & Journals
Getting all bound up…
Crowd-funding is beginning to really take off in the world of publishing… The wonderful indie publisher And Other Stories have sort of been doing it for ages based upon a subscription model. You subscribe and get your name printed in the back of the books produced over your subscription period, plus a copy of the Read More
Top Ten Authors Whose Books I Own…
I don’t usually take part in the Top Ten weekly meme, but occasionally they and/or other regular memes will pick a topic that piques my interest. A couple of weeks ago the Top Ten topic was ‘The Top Ten Authors Whose Books I Own’. I’m glad they made the distinction between own and read! Thanks to Read More
Not reading about The Beautiful Game!
Brazil 2014 – The World Cup starts today! Oh woe, woe and thrice woe on the telly front for the next month! I come from a family of fanatic Crystal Palace FC supporters who will all be glued to their TVs watching the World Cup. Admittedly, if England were to get into the knock-out stages, even Read More
Destined to be recycled, but …
Unless there is someone out there that collects 1960s single volume encyclopedias, this book is destined to go to the book recycling bank at the supermarket. I love the cover though, so I thought I’d give it a brief moment of glory before it goes … This volume was published in 1965 by Penguin, no Read More
A Childhood Rediscovery …
The Martin Pippin books by Eleanor Farjeon Coincidence is a funny thing. I moved a pile of my old children’s paperbacks, and at the top of the stack I left was this book. Martin Pippin in the Daisy-Field by Eleanor Farjeon. It sort of looked familiar, and when I opened it up and saw the Read More
“It’s the end of the world as we know it” …
Ragnarok by A.S.Byatt The Myths series of books by Canongate, is a set I’ve been collecting since their inception in 1995 – I’ve read maybe half of them so far though – something I must address! Every year or two, Canongate are adding titles in the series – short novels by esteemed writers. The latest Read More
Brian Aldiss, still going strong at 88
On Thursday evening, I was privileged to attend the book launch of veteran author Brian Aldiss’ latest novel Comfort Zone at Blackwells in Oxford. Given that it, and his entire backlist is being published by imprint The Friday Project, I also got to meet TFP’s head honcho Scott Pack for the first time too. Scott’s blog Me Read More
The joy of Ladybirds…
Playing with my books this morning, I spotted my pile of Ladybird books from my childhood. I had stacks of them, all the nature and music titles, most of the historical ones, and an assortment of others. The format never changed – a page of text on the left, and illustrations on the right, mostly Read More
When mothers fail their daughters …
Magda by Meike Ziervogel The past couple of weeks have seen the publication of not one, but two novels featuring the ‘First Woman of the Third Reich’ Magda Goebbels. The first was Black Roses by Jane Thynne – A spy story set in 1933 Berlin. I loved it and you can read my review here. Read More
Penguin Bloggers Night
It was pleasure and privilege to be invited once again to Penguin’s Bloggers Night held in the third floor gallery at Foyles. Thank you to Penguin, and especially Lija there who arranged the evening. It is always especially pleasurable to meet up with blogging friends old and new. It always amazes me that we all Read More
Look at what I won!
I have had my moments as a ‘comper’ in the past – entering loads of competitions, and winning a few too. I haven’t done that for years though, and have reverted to not winning things in general – but this week I’ve won twice! Not only did I win a prize (a nice multi-wicked candle) Read More
“Fashion! Turn to the left. Fashion! Turn to the right…”
Fashionby DK When I was a young girl, my mother bought me a series of historical colouring books of fashion through the ages. I adored these books, and armed with my Caran d’Ache Swiss watercolour pencils, I spent hours devising colour schemes for the costumes. I then designed my own versions of the outfits for Read More
Revisiting a children’s classic from 1958
Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr In the Puffin edition (above), this book was my favourite contemporary children’s novel as I was growing up. I read it in the late 1960s, not once, not twice, but countless times. The story of a bed-bound girl whose drawings came to life in her dreams both entranced and scared Read More
Penguin Blogger’s Night
I had the privilege to be invited to the second annual Penguin Blogger’s Night which happened yesterday. Having been last year, I knew it would be a great evening, and I made all the arrangements so that I could go. It was held in the fifth floor bar at Waterstones Piccadilly – amazingly I’d never been in Read More
Gaskella Archive – 2011 in Miscellany posts
As I did for 2010 (see here), I’ve put together many of the snippets I posted on my old blog, but were lost in the transfer here, into one collection for 2011. Enjoy… May-2011 – An appropriate address … I’m still sifting through the home library and TBR searching for books I can bear to part Read More
Portrait of a middle-class family before & after WWI
This post was republished into its original place in my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive. Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple. Not considering myself a typical Persephone Books reader – Tsk! I hear you say, there is no such thing, I have loved the handful of the beautiful dove grey covered books that I’ve read Read More
Press rewind and edit … Two novellas by Robert Coover
Briar Rose & Spanking the Maid by Robert Coover Earlier this year, I discovered American author Robert Coover when I was sent his volume in the Pengiun Mini Modern Classics series to read and review (click here). One of the three stories in that collection, a novella called The Babysitter, was a mini masterpiece; the other two Read More
The spirit of Hemingway lives on…
Tomorrow Pamplona by Jan van Mersbergen translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson There’s no mistaking it – Tomorrow Pamplona is a very masculine novel. It combines boxing and bull-running with two men on a road-trip; but thankfully, there is much more to it than just those testosterone-fuelled scenarios. With these subjects, you can’t not compare it to Read More
An evening with Penguin
Republished into my blog’s original timeline from my lost post archive. Living in a town near Oxford, it takes a lot to tempt me into London midweek during term-time – but when an invitation came to attend Penguin’s General Bloggers Evening in the swanky surroundings of a private room in a dining club in Soho, Read More
The Hopkins Manuscript by R C Sheriff
Chicken Licken was right in this dystopia! Last weekend was Persephone Reading Weekend hosted by Claire and Verity. I did start my Persephone reading at the weekend, but didn’t finish until yesterday. But what a book I chose – one of the few by male authors, and a dystopian bit of science fiction to boot – yet it fits Read More
Celebrating 50 years of Penguin Modern Classics
This post was republished into my blog’s timeline from my lost posts archive. Penguin are very good at celebrating their anniversaries. Previously we’ve had the Penguin Sixties and then the Penguin Classics 60s back in the mid 1990s for the company’s sixtieth birthday – each series featuring sixty little pocket-sized books which were 60p each, Read More
An evening with Toby Mundy
My local indie bookshop Mostly Books had an extra member of staff yesterday. Courtesy of an initiative by the Independent Alliance – a (now defunct) collective of ten independent UK publishers founded by Faber, Toby Mundy the CEO of Atlantic Books worked in the shop during the afternoon, and stayed on to give a talk about independent publishing in the evening. Read More
A Promising Pair
Introducing Peirene Press Peirene Press, named after a Greek nymph who turned into a water spring which was drunk by poets for inspiration, is a new publishing house specialising in contemporary European literature of novella length in translation. I was lucky enough to win a copy of their first novel from Librarything, and was offered Read More
Catching up with Persephone Reading Week.
Last week was Persephone Reading Week which has been hosted by Claire and Verity. As well as visiting the Persephone bookshop, I did manage to read one of their titles, but didn’t manage to blog about it last week. So here I am a week late – my choice was one of the Persephone top-selling titles: Little Boy Read More
Starting the Canongate Myths series …
A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong One of my reading resolutions for 2010 is to read the entire Canongate Myths series – re-tellings of age old stories by great authors. While I’m not intending to read them in strict publication order necessarily, (I managed to snaffle a copy of the latest addition Orphans Read More
My Reading Resolutions for 2009 – How did I do #2
On Sunday I told you about the results of my first Reading Resolution that I made for 2009 – here’s the second. I said ‘I will read the Canongate Myths series of books’. Here they are sitting together on the shelf; at the start of the year I already owned the first eight, since added Read More
Playing with my Penguins (books) …
Whilst I was ‘playing’ with my books today (i.e. moving them around in their piles or on their shelves, looking at covers, blurbs etc), I found a pair of old Penguin books catalogues from 1955 and 1958. I think I got them via a book swap some time ago, put them aside and forgot all Read More
It’s a mug’s game!
Most of us probably have a shelf full of unmatched mugs. I’m no different, but I am gradually managing to replace all the odd ones with these lovely Penguin ones which do look lovely together. They make quite a large range of titles and styles now … which to go for next? If I only Read More
Underneath its prickles is a charming story …
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery Translated from the French by Alison Anderson. Get past the prickles in this novel by Muriel Barbery, and there is a charming story underneath. It’s told from the alternating viewpoints of Renée, a widowed concierge who has a love of philosophy, cinema and Tolstoy, and Paloma, an incredibly Read More
