Life changing books

I just came across a short piece in the Sydney Morning Herald about chef, writer and general food guru, Stephanie Alexander, listing the books she says changed her life - which you can read here. We have a couple of books in comon - Ethel Turner's Seven Little Australians, and you can read my post about that book here - and Alexander's own book, The Cook's Companion, which is one of the most marvelous food encyclopedias to hit the bookshelves in modern times.

It got me thinking about books that have changed my life. It's not so easy, actually, to narrow it down to a manageable list. However, I'd have to start with Anne Frank's Diary of  Young Girl. I was eight when I read that for the first time - a bit young, really, but I was always a precocious reader.

Another is Rumer Godden's In This House of Brede. It is about a woman who, at 42, enters a Benedictine convent to become a nun. It's set in the 50s, and she is - unusually for the time - in a high up position in the British Government and due for promotion, so her decision is seen by many to be a shocking waste of talent and opportunity. Her struggles to adapt and live in a community of women, particularly the young girls who are her fellow postulants and novices, are narrated with particular sensitivity - this being one of Godden's great gifts as a writer. Godden spent many months as the guest of a Benedictine Abbey in the UK, absorbing what she could of the atmosphere and there is a wonderful authenticity about her descriptions of daily life for an enclosed order of comtemplative nuns. I think that the portrayals of human frailties in this book is what strikes me anew every time I re-read it - on average, at least once a year.

The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portait. When I knew that Kahlo's diary was to be published - in facsimile form - I had the most awful internal struggle. I wanted it - I so wanted it. But I hesitated because part of me felt that to own someone's diary - particularly this one - would be a fearful intrusion on them. I had discovered her paintings not long before I went to art school, read a borrowed biography of her by Haydn Herrera (I now have a copy of my own), and I knew she'd kept a diary. At the same time, I was aware that it was, even more than her paintings, mostly drawings, of an intensely personal nature. In the end, I put an order in for it at a bookshop that had advertised it would be carrying it when it was realised in Australia. When the phone call came, I abandoned whatever it was I was doing that day, headed for the city, paid what felt like an enormous sum of money, and it was mine... 'Intimate' is a gross understatement. Kahlo's very soul is on show in this beautifully crafted facsimile edition. I love that inks and paints and holes from one side of the pages can be seen on the reverse side - as they are in the actual book. It gave me permission, in a way, to really embrace my own journal more fully, and there is a marked change in that from the time I acquired Kahlo's.



Poppy by Drusilla Modjeska. My mother gave me this book, and in my journal there are pages and pages of writing that I did while I read it, wrestling with issues it raised for me. It is Modjeska's fictionalised biography of her mother. Modjeska seamlessly blends fact and fiction to create a story that is simultaneously her mother's story and not her mother's story. She writes of her decision to work this way as a means of protecting her family, to soften the effect. However, she also writes that many members of her family were very angry with her when the bok came out and they read it. I found myself, as I read it, constantly questioning my mother's motives for giving me this particular book as much of the underpinning of the narrative is the mother-daughter relationship... Again, this one I re-read at least once a year.

Chaim Potok's My Name is Asher Lev, and its sequel, The Gift of Asher Lev. I love all of Chaim Potok's books, but these two are the ones I'd take to a desert island. They tell the story of a boy who grows to manhood within a strictly observant Chassidic sect in Brooklyn. He is an only child - unusual in that world - whose father is the Rebbe's right-hand man, and whose mother is a fragile creature, haunted by her family's losses during the Holocaust. And this boy has a gift, a gift that is both misunderstood and vilified by a people for whom the making of 'graven images' is a violation of the commandments. Asher can draw, and not just childish scribbles either. Eventually, when it is evident that it can't be stifled without damaging the boy, the Rebbe intervenes and send him to be taught by a great master - a now very secular Jewish painter and sculptor. This exposes him for the first time to the Western art canon. When he paints his parents crucified, he is sent from the community... It's my personal belief that Chagall was Potok's model for Asher, although there is no docummentation I've ever found to substantiate that. Asher's many struggles to understand the world around him, the complexities of people's emotions, and the many losses he also experience find a voice in his work. It is a wonderful portrait of a painter.

And, since Stephanie Alexander named her own book, I'm going to do something similar. It's not a book - yet. My thesis, Schulim Krimper: Master and Enigma. (the formatting is a bit of a mess - there were all sorts of tech issues that were not addressed before the link went live...)  I think, with the way I write, the most likely book to come out of this will be something along the lines of Poppy - a blending of fact and fiction. It's on the list of things to do - which is WAY bigger than the TBR pile!! I did my MA in art history at the urging of a good friend. In the end, one of the things that motivated me - beyond being hassled by her - was to see what would happen if I had to research and write something really big. I'd done very well at art school with history, with a distinction average for my papers. I'd broken all sorts of rules as I struggled to keep my own voice within the constraints of academic writing. That was an even bigger issue when I got to post-graduate level. In the end, I lived with Krimper - a refugee cabinet maker who escaped Hitler's Germany just in time, and ended up in Melbourne where he had a bespoke furniture making business from 1942 until his death in 1971 - haunting me, urging me on. I kept a printed copy of the photograph below pinned to the wall above my computer monitor. Krimper always wanted a book written about him. There are odd chapters about him in other books, and numerous magazine and newspaper articles from his lifetime, but the only book is a photographic monograph, with photographs by Melbourne photographer Mark Strizic, of which this portrait shot is one:

There are other books, of course, others that I could probably give equal weight as 'life-changing', but this morning, after reading the Herald article, these were the first to come to mind. Do you have a list of books that have changed your life?

...with apologies to The Bard...

It seems, whether I'm writing about Shakespeare's actual work or not - and so far I haven't - I'm channeling something... I think he might have liked this:



The 'stuff' of book addiction

Another totally priceless image from my librarian friend - whoever dreamed this one up has got it SO right! Years ago I played in a community concert band, and there was an informal social group who called themselves the 'Beer and Chip Group' - for the most common beverages and nibbles to be consumed post rehearsals. I also live with someone who, because he's pretty good about not having junk food in the house, doesn't often have to battle with rationing chips - but...the whole concept of stopping before you get to the end of the packet is pretty foreign anyway.

It's a bit like starting a series of books. Or going on a reading jag of a single author. I remember when I first discovered Jodi Picoult. Our local bookshop had nearly all of her books in stock and I kept finishing one, then trundling around the corner and buying another one. Just as well they weren't expensive... A good writer can be addictive. If you think back to my posts on Chocolate and its two sequels, you may remember me mentioning my friend who has most of Joanne Harris' books - on the basis of having read Chocolat and finding it such a wonderful piece of work, she's gone out and bought as many Harrises as she can find, without checking the blurbs. Consequently, we had a hilarious conversation about Lollipop Shoes being part of the Chocolat series, which she wasn't aware of, although she had it already - while I was going spare trying to locate the second book, which I thought was called something different - see here. I wasn't actually wrong, it turned out, but read the following post as well for the rest of the story.  I've done similar things with other authors myself, and at this point, I keep finding myself eyeing the H's in my bookshelves, and thinking that I only have four of Harris' books, so I must go get the rest. This friend also has a thing for Emily Bronte and has the largest collection of different editions of Wuthering Heights than anyone I know!

It was the same with Antonia Forest's Marlow series - see my previous post for a review of one of those... My first encounter with them was courtesy of a friend's bookcase years ago when Twenty Seven was a toddler. We were living in Canberra, had very little money so I wasn't buying books, and this friend had a great library of all sorts of things, including this series. I read them all and loved them. Imagine my joy when, at a library sale, I found four of them for 50c each - hardcovers with dust jackets. The friend was flabbergasted - she had the entire series in reissued paperbacks, bar the last of them which she'd bought new in hardcover, and neither of us had picked up on the two historical books at that stage. It was at that point, also, that I discovered what treasures I'd picked up. While the modern series covers just two an a half years in real time in the lives of the characters, they were written and published between 1948 and 1982. By the time I stumbled across these ex-library first editions (!) they were mostly out of print. They were originally published by Faber. Some of them were subsequently re-issued by Faber's paperback arm, Faber Fanfares, during the 1970s. These are lovely editions, actually - very solidly made with great cover designs. In the 1980s, Puffin bought the rights from Faber to re-issue just the books set in the school. Not being a Chalet School fan, I may be wrong on this one - but wasn't that the peak of those? And didn't Puffin publish those? If so, Forest's very modern-toned school stories were judged by Penguin - the parent publishing house - to be potentially very profitable. Perhaps on the back of that Forest re-emerged, and wrote Run Away Home, the last of the moderns, which was, again, published by Faber. Somewhere late 90s, Faber up and published a new edition of the first book, Autumn Term, but never went on with the rest of the series. More recently, as I mentioned in my previous post, Girls Gone By Publishers have issued reprints of a number of the titles, focusing on those more difficult to come by, but even those are now mostly out of print as well.

My collection - which you can see in full in the photograph in the post on The Player's Boy - is a mix of editions. Over the years, I've managed to acquire hard covers of most of the books. I have one Fanfare paperback, two of the Puffins and the new Faber paperback. It's taken a long time to accumulate the whole series, and much more than a few piggybanks in dollar terms. I'd still like to get my hands on Autumn Term, Peter's Room and Cricket Term in hardcover, and at some point, I'll hunt them down. I have two copies of Autumn Term - the new Faber and a Puffin. My copy of Peter's Room is the Fanfare paperback. The latter two, in good condition - which they are - still command quite high prices, so they can contribute to the costs of the hardcovers. For that purpose, I'll sell them - but for no other! I had a brief period in the early 2000s of finding Fanfare editions in junk shops for $1 or less and through a friend, selling them for massive profits. I note that on Amazon that they still command high prices.

Herein lies the stuff of addiction.

Who cares to share their stories of their particular book addictions? We're all friends...I won't tell too many people...!

The Player's Boy - Antonia Forest

Having introduced Antonia Forest's The Player's Boy and its sequel, The Players and the Rebels, a few posts ago, I found myself at a bit of a loss as to where to start when writing about them. As my regular readers know, I'm not a disciplined reviewer - I don't tend to do a straightforward synopsis, followed by my thoughts. My writing about books is rather more tangled than that!

I did a bit of trawling online to check out the availability of these books currently, as, at the time I acquired them, they were few and far between, and very pricey when they did appear. Both of mine are the original hard copy editions, with dust jackets, ex-library, and in excellent condition. One I managed to source from a seller here in Australia, the other was bought via an international auction from a UK seller. I am not going to disclose what I paid for them because I've never told anyone. Suffice to say, they never leave my home. I'm more than happy for people to read them, but they'll have to either take up residence for the duration or read them in installments during visits!

The Player's Boy begins at the end of May, 1593, when Nicholas Marlow, aged eleven, sees London Bridge for the first time, from the back of a horse in the company of a man he neither knows or trusts,

...still shocked by the terrors of the past night, rightly fearful of the man mounted behind him - even so he was enchanted to see it was true that in London, unlike his own distant Westbridge, houses spanned the river: and his much-tried courage rallied: even if, as might well be, this day should prove his last, he'd at least set eyes on one of the wonders of the world.

The narrative then moves back three weeks to a Friday afternoon as Nicholas and his good friend, Sam, barrel out of the confines of the Grammar, running for the market place and the local carrier with whom they will get a ride home for the weekend. Nicholas lives with his brother Geoffrey, a yeoman farmer and his wife Kate at the family farmhouse, Trennels. Their father, a recusant Catholic in Protestant England, is dead, as is their older brother, Lawrence. Their mother died at Nicholas' birth. Initially, their weekend begins as usual until, on Sunday afternoon, chasing Sam's hawk into the gardens of the neighbouring Merrick grounds, they overhear Anthony Merrick (of an openly practicing Catholic family) discussing what could be seen as possible treachery. Shaken, they emerge when it safe to do so and make their way to their respective homes.

Nicholas discovers they have an unexpected guest, one Christopher Marlowe, poet and self-confessed government spy. He is stranded at Trennels when his horse casts a shoe, and despite Kate's lack of enthusiasm to entertain a guest when she is very pregnant and not wishing to be seen, Geoffrey offers hospitality. In the course of the evening, the discussion becomes contentious, tempers are lost and following brief fisticuffs between Geoffrey and Marlowe, Geoffrey bets Trennels against Nicholas' ability to recite a whole page of text after a single sighting. Possessing a photographic memory, Nicholas succeeds and humour is restored. However, it sets the tone for the events to come.

Nicholas oversleeps the next morning, missing the carrier's cart back to the Grammar, but Marlowe offers to take him. Apprehensive about the consequences he will face arriving back so late for classes. Marlowe offers him, almost as a dare, an out, suggesting they meet at midnight and he, Marlowe, will take Nicholas with him so he can, effectively, take some time out... Nicholas thinks little of it at the time, horrified at the thought of doing a runner. However, things go from bad to worse at the Grammar. First, he's in trouble for being late. Then, because he's not thinking, he exposes what's been going on for years; that he's been doing Sam's work for him - Sam being no scholar. Sam is expelled, and Nicholas is soundly whipped. But it gets worse - in the yard during lunch, he is caught by the head master asking a question of a junior master that is judged to be heretical. The junior master is sacked, Nicholas is sent home - to the head master's home where he boards, where he later hears of the potential consequences that now await him. Mulling things over, he decides to take up Marlowe's offer.

Marlowe, it turns out, is to appear before the Privy Council, on charges of heresy - which are dismissed, but during the celebrations afterwards with his associates, he is killed in a brawl. Nicholas, who has been introduced as his cousin, is left to the mercies of Robin Poley, government spy, who agrees to take him to London to Marlowe's patron, Harry, the Earl of Southampton - an associate of the Earl of Essex. He charges Nicholas, on pain of death and sworn on a crucifix, to spy on the Earl and bring any information he can to him. When, later, the Southampton is looking for a way to employ Nicholas in his household, Nick's singing voice becomes known and he's offered the post of singing boy - at which point, he tells of Poley's charge, and begs not to be part of the household. He's handed over to the Earl's hawk keeper for the time being, and then eventually, Harry Southampton hands him over to his other poet, William Shakespeare, to become his 'lad' - an apprentice player. Thus begins Nick's new life as a player.

In order not to arouse unnecessary suspicion, Shakespeare decides - still believing Nick to be Kit Marlowe's cousin - that he should be introduced to the company as Nicholas Arden, his own cousin. This is also in order not to violate the apprentice laws of the time which required apprentices to be related to their masters. Nick learns on the job while the company are touring the countryside - the theatres in London being closed due to plague - starting with non-speaking roles.

Returning to London when plague is declared gone, Shakespeare is accosted by Richard Burbadge of The Chamberlain's Men, a company formed by his father. Burbadge invites them both to join the company - Will, primarily as a playwright, although he will, as all the company members do, take roles as needs must. Nick finds he has much to learn - the standards of the company being much higher than that required on the road. He is given the most basic roles - bringing props on and off the stage while in costume, but learning to efface himself while doing so; non-speaking roles when he has to appear to be 'listening intelligently'; then to his first speaking role as Clarence's son in Richard the Third. Then one day, when one boy comes in rather the worst for wear after a big night, and clearly can't go on, in the sequence of roles being passed down through the understudies, it comes to Nick to play Edward, Prince of Wales. It turns out that he does well enough for better parts sooner than expected when the same boy who messed up is dropped from bigger parts altogether.

Meanwhile, Nick's friendship with Humphrey Danvers, Harry Southampton's page, continues and the boys, without telling either of their masters, meet on Sunday mornings when they can. Humphrey is a bumbling, untidy boy, a gifted musician, but not at all suited to being a page. As Will is now part of the Chamberlain's men, he has no need of a patron, and is well suited to not being caught up in a faction that includes the Earl of Essex, whose designs on the throne are well known.

Nick's big break comes with a court performance of Romeo and Juliet. Robin, the company's star boy, who was cast as Juliet, comes to a performance sporting a glorious black eye after a brawl. Nick is his understudy, and to his petrified horror, finds that he will be going on - at court, for the Queen. For the first time, he truly understands stage fright and can't eat his dinner,

Usually he enjoyed dining at the Burbadges, partly because Mistress Burbadge was a good cook, partly because he like the cheerful tumult and babble of little Burbadges on either side of the table. But today when his plate was handed to him, he sat and looked at it, not even pretending to eat; and Burbadge said, "Hanging's worse."

"I'd liefer hang."

"Then you'd better find another craft," said Will.

"I probably shall."

At the court, struggling to finish getting his costume done and himself ready, he's left by the others, adjuring him to make haste and not arrive upstairs after the Queen...

... He knotted the lace and stood up. Most of the candles had been blown out, but there were enough to see by as he hurried down the room; and then, as he neared the door, a girl came towards him from a room beyond - a slight, graceful creature in a silvery gown, fair hair under a jewelled caul, grave steady eyes, an air both proud and shy - a haunting face; O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright.  He stood aside to let her pass, as she did the same for him: forgetting his dress, he bowed politely, and gestured her to come on; as did she. It took him an instant longer to realize he was looking into the Venetian looking-glass at the end of the room.

So that was how they'd see him.

A phoenix-fire sprang in his heart, making a bonfire of his fears. He gave himself a last admiring look, swept himself his best curtsey, and went up the stairs to discover the Great Chamber ... and the rest of the company just where he'd been told he would.

This last quote is one of my very favourites from the book. Nick goes on to give an entirely creditable performance and life goes on. Eventually, there comes a time when, due to a sequence of events, it becomes clear that he must tell Will the whole story of who he is. Will is, understandably horrified, saying that he'd never have taken him had he known - he'd have delivered him back to Trennels, as would have Harry Southampton, had he been told the full story. In the first indication Nick gets of how things must play out for him as a player's boy, Will makes him promise to go home when his voice breaks - as he will not be able to continue as a player until his voice 'mends.' Unwillingly, he makes the promise, being entirely unwilling to contemplate either the reception he might get or the idea that he will have to leave the company, even if it is only for a while.

Nicholas is, of course, an entirely fictional character while many of the others are not. Forest is able to give full license to the development of his character, where with the historical figures, she must have had to exercise some degree of caution. However, the book itself doesn't read as if she struggled with this aspect of bringing actual people back to life many centuries later. All the characters, whether real or invented, interact with each other seamlessly, and the ins and outs of the daily lives of a theatre company during this tumultuous period of history are beautifully realised.

I strongly recommend that, if you have a love of good historical fiction - and I wouldn't hesitate on the basis of this particular book having been written for children - try and lay your hands of a copy of this novel. At the time of writing, there are some copies available on Amazon. As the originals were only published once, any hardcover you can buy will be a first edition. The paperback versions are reprints by specialist publishing company Girls Gone By, who, with permission from author's estates and original publishers, are putting out new paperback editions of a whole range of out of print children's books. Don't be fooled by the cover illustrations - they have sought and been given permission to use the originals in their editions. They are good quality books - I have some from another series. It's really more about what you like to have in your bookcases. Your biggest problem, if you can get a copy, will be that by the time you read it, you will want the second one - but that will be for another post!

A modern fairytale about books...

A friend of mine is writing the most exquisitely funny contemporary fairy tales which are, due to the pressure of her friends, now available for your enjoyment on her blog, Introvert Fairy Tales. I bring it to your attention at this point, because she has now written the ultimate book junkie fairy tale... Go look!!

Finding time to read...

This is my current TBR pile:

It's growing rather faster than I can keep up with, and consequently, I'm not really keeping up with writing about the books either! However, bear with me - I just finished the two historical novels from the Marlow series that I mentioned in my Shakespeare post a little while back and I'm working on writing about them.

I thought the pile was worthy of a pic though, because, as will be very obvious from the titles, it is an excellent indication of my very eclectic reading style. The only thing that's missing to round it out is some children's literature - but that's because I just finished those two books!!

I have to make a start on the big book at the bottom - the plastic sleeves on top of it contain photocopies and print outs of articles about Chagall and his crucifixion paintings. This is research for a paper I'm delivering at the end of this month. I put the Dickens on the pile this morning because they glare at me from the bookcase. I promised myself that this year I would read them. They may be on the pile a while...! Anna Karenina is there because a British girl who writes the most wonderful blog, Book Snob, is reading it for the summer and invited me, along with anyone else who cared to, to join in and read it together. Since I haven't read it since I was about 16, I thought..why not? And then had to (had to...) go buy me a copy, because I haven't the faintest idea where mine has gone. In a different conversation with her, I complimented her on her reviews of Jane Austen's books - go have a look at her site, where you'll find her reviews listed in alphabetical order by author - and mentioned I'd not read mine for a while. Went to the bookcase to pick up Pride and Prejudice and, again, missing book... Too many house moves, I say. So, I had to get me a new copy of that as well. Sundry other titles in the pile kind of fell off the shelves and I had to catch them, rather than see them crash to the floor...and so the pile grew!

Trouble is, time being what it is, dealing with the TBR pile competes with the need to deal with the UFOs - those of you have other addictions than books may recognise this abbreviation, and no, it's not the expected one... It refers to 'unfinished objects' and the close relative of the TBR pile - 'the stash.' I have two large plastic crates that have been retrieved from storage, where they should never have been and they're actually two stashes. One of wool and the other of fabric. So, now there is knitting and sewing to fit in and around the reading - oh, and the little matter of working!

You all feel my pain, yes?!

Bookkeeper...AKA book junkie!

It's been hectic - I have two books read awaiting some writing, but so far haven't had a chance to manage a long enough non-work computer session. However, in the meantime, for your amusement, this lovely little cartoon from a friend's Facebook page - where would we be without Facebook...scary thought...!

Is this you?