Juxtabook

New Stock in: Decadence, T S Eliot and modernism, the thirties and forties

I've uploaded a lot of new stock over the last few weeks. Amongst the literary criticism there's quite a few items on the 1890s and decadence:

We've also quite a few things by and about Arthur Symons in stock.

Also newly in are some more items on T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound:

 

I've sold a lot from this Pound / Eliot shelf of late and am always interested in buying more books on these writers should any of you be having a clear out.

We've a also quite a few books in that focus on the literature of the thirties or the forties, as well as a range of books on key writers of those deacdes such as W. H. Auden:

 

Crewe Train by Rose Macaulay #fridayreads

Denham, lounging along Charing Cross Road, jingled the coins in her pocket and decided to go again to the Zoo. She was luckier, she felt, than Audrey, wasting a fine afternoon among those awful books. What a trade it was, increasing the number of books in a world already overstocked with them! As bad as parents, who increased the number of people. There must be millions of books already that people hadn't read. If they must read, let them read those.

From Crewe Train by Rose Macaulay, which is a cracking read.

The Youngest Miss Ward: A Jane Austen Entertainment by Joan Aiken

The Youngest Miss Ward (A Jane Austen entertainment) by Joan Aiken is a spikey offshoot of Mansfield Park. The plot envisages a younger sister to the three Miss Wards (Lady Bertram, Mrs Norris and Mrs Price), Harriet. Harriet is quirky combination of sensitive and practical, alternately ignored or actively disliked by her sisters and father. She is shipped off to relatives in Portsmouth as a young teen and experiences a Fanny Price like existence in the house of her uncle and becomes very close to one of her cousins (like Fanny) whilst in tandem becoming close to the charismatic utopian Lord Camber (oddly more like Jane Eyre). The denouement, when it comes, is unexpected in both its contrast with previous emotional sway of the book and one's prejudices of how a plot should run; it is no less satisfying for that however.

Hatty's trials are as many and varied as the literary references as at times we seem to be channelling Wild Sargasso Sea, or Jane Eyre with a misty, twisty quality of fairy tale. Like Fanny (and Jane) unfairness and indignity awaits Hatty in bucket loads, but also like Jane Eyre it is the fate of other female characters that is truly shocking. The locking-up of mad women, emotional and practical abandonment of children, the embittered spinsters and fallen wives who are cast off in disgrace are many and varied.

The emotional landscape of The Youngest Miss Ward (A Jane Austen entertainment) is wild and untamed and in that it is far more the gothic offshoot of a Bronte novel than an Austen one, until the end when things right themselves with an engaging neo-classical neatness, leaving one feeling that perhaps one had been reading a mock-gothic novel more akin to Northanger Abbey or Nightmare Abbey after all. Utterly bizarre but well worth your time, and far and away the best Austen sequel I have come across.

Mary on the Houses of Parliament - a guest post by Roberta Wedge

Roberta Wedge has been campaigning for sometime to get the first memorial to Mary Wollstonecraft erected. As a teenage fan of Mary I think this is a wonderful idea. MW's views on women and on education formed the basis for some of my earliest grown-up thinking.

Roberta explains how the campaign is currently going:

There is so much going on that I hardly know where to start. Mary Wollstonecraft will be beamed across the Thames onto the Houses of Parliament in the early dusk of November 16. The rumour that I quashed about the abseiling lesbians and the whisky chocolate cake is as nothing to the glorious truth: a gigantic projection will wow the crowds from 4-6pm on Wednesday, and will pop up all over the media in the days to come. This is the kick-off to serious fundraising for the Mary on the Green campaign I wrote of last month.

Another piece of good news is that the NatWest CommunityForce scheme has, as a result of your support, awarded £6275 to the campaign to raise a memorial to Our Lady. That is a serious kick-start.

My address to the Fawcett Society last week went well, and next week will be adapted for the Newington Green Action Group's annual Friends Evening. All welcome! As indeed all are welcome to the Girlie Show, a Mary on the Green fundraiser to be held at Snooty Fox, a pub in Newington Green. Somehow I think the overlap between the two events will be ... choice. Possibly only me. That's OK.

If you recognise Mary Wollstonecraft's contribution to the life you lead now, I invite you to consider whether and how you might wish to get involved in the campaign to create a sculpture in her honour.  Remember, there is no substantial memorial to her, anywhere in the world.  (There is a lecture, a lecture hall, a hidden house, and several plaques, but nothing really big and tangible.) Your contributions would be valuable. If you can, please donate. Aside from money, there is much else to do: we need lots of people to spread the word, for example. (On Twitter, look out for and use the hashtag #marybigben.)  If you have other ideas of how you might help, please let me know, in the comments or by email.

You can read Roberta's blog here and follow her on twitter here.

Libraries Will Survive

Despite their inability to dance in time, I'm sure they're darn good librarians and we'd all endorse the sentiments...

Via @Lutonbookworm on twiter.