Juxtabook

Literary Societies and my Evolving Blog

Sometimes things just come together. Wending my way through the blogosphere I came across Justine Picardie's Blog and on several sites but especially Dovegreyreader her new novel Daphne (on Daphne Du Maurier and the Brontës) has been mentioned. Fanning the flames of synchronicity theorists I had just days earlier paid one of my periodic visits to the Brontë Parsonage website and their What's On pages and noticed that Justine Picardie would be make a visit, "Novelist Justine Picardie will be reading from her new novel Daphne and discussing the Brontës and Daphne Du Maurier with Du Maurier's eldest daughter Lady Tessa Montgomery." How delightful is that!

It is lovely having a local literary society, especially when it is this one. The Bronte Parsonage and Bronte Society Museum is one of the oldest literary societies in the world. It began in 1893 and now is a thriving part of the tourist industry in this part of the West Riding. The Parsonage is beautiful. The principle rooms are furnished as they would have been at the time of the family's residence and contain many original items. In the building behind is a warren of display space telling the story of the sisters and their tragic brother, and there is also a treasure trove of a shop. The society is large by literary society standards (2,000 members) has a respected academic council and its equally resepcted publication Transactions, plus a range of staff officers including an Arts officer (who arranges lovely things like the Justine Picardie evening), and an education officer who works with schools.

The evolution of this magnificent facility is quite interesting. The rising interest in Brontëana in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century meant that many of their personal possessions appearing at auction were still identifiable and by judicious purchasing and kind donations the embryonic Brontë Society began to collect together furniture, manuscripts and other items. Initially housed elsewhere in Haworth the patronage of two wealthy members of the society sealed its early success in the 1920s. When the parsonage came up for sale in 1928 Sir James Roberts bought the house, paid for extensive repairs, and gave the deeds to the Society. About the same time American collector Mr Henry Bonnell left his extensive collection of first editions, letters and manuscripts to the Brontë Society.

The visitor numbers are enormous and enliven what would otherwise be quite a deprived part of the country. Though close to the Yorkshire Dales Haworth moors are the darker millstone grit not the pale luminosity of Dales limestone. It is beautiful but, like Mr Rochester and Heathcliffe, its attractions are not as obvious, certainly not as obvious as the more honey-pot parts of Yorkshire, and might be an acquired taste. Landscape alone would not have created the economically needed tourism here. In a rural area some miles from seats of higher education, or from the art societies of the Dales, the Bronte Society arts programme fills a potential intellectual void and we are lucky to have them here.

It is interesting to view other local literary geographies. The Gaskell Society are doing a fine job in Manchester. Much younger than its society cousin over the Pennines (interest in which ironically Mrs Gaskell with her Life of C. helped to fuel) it is battling with much smaller support and and considerably smaller levels of funding to save Mrs Gaskell's Manchester house 84 Plymouth Grove. I hope recent interest in Gaskell's work fuelled by the televisation of North & South a few years ago, and Cranford more recently, will help swell the support. Even younger and tiny is the small group of people, I am not sure they are even a society who have purchased the house in Mytholmroyd (how Yorkshire is that for a name!) back on this side of the Pennines where poet Ted Hughes was born and are trying to develop it.

I think literary societies are important. Clearly with or without a society the Brontës will remain popular but for lesser known writers a society is an important part of preserving their work, often their possessions, and also the wider interest in that work, until of course academia or the BBC costume drama department have time to give them fuller attention. As part of the evolution of this blog in the last fortnight I have added on the side bar to the left a longish list of literary societies, large and small, in the hope that people will continue to think about the cultural, educational and economic importance of writers within their geographical locale.

Time Saved Typing

Although I am popping this little software review in the book selling category it would probably of interest to anyone who does a lot of typing. I suffer from Repetitive Strain Injury, in both arms, and so for me, working all day on a keyword, this little gizmo is vital.

It is actually two gizmos: type-it-in and paste-it-in both by Wavget and were recommended to me by Philip Lund of Lund Theological Books. Available on a 30 day trial I defy anyone not to give in and purchase for the grand sum of about £10 for each program.

Type-it-in is a little box of buttons that floats on your desktop. you can move it about or it goes transparent when not in use, or you can just close it temporarily so it is never annoying. You categories the buttons into groups. So I have orders, addresses, cataloguing etc. In orders I have created little buttons for each standard paragraph I might need: how to pay for the UK, how to pay from abroad, you book has been dispatched, etc. Emails to customers can be written in just a couple of clicks, customised where necessary. Similarly my addresses group has buttons for the individual lines of my address so I can quickly fill online forms in properly and without typing errors that might be fatal in an address if you want your parcel of books to arrive.

With type-it-in you can also create a keyboard short cut so you hit three pre-selected keys and type-it-in types your paragraph out for you even if it is not visible on the screen. My mother who transcribes a lot of documents finds it useful for storing repetitive phrases, place names, legal phrases and such like so that they can quickly entered without typing the full word. You could do the same for author or critics or other key names for essays (the times I typed 'reader-response theory' during my MA doesn't bear thinking about), or indeed for blog posts! 

You can even store passwords on type-it-in and then protect the lot with one password. But be warned if you lose your type-it-in password you'd lose the lot.

Paste-it-in is a clipboard but unlike some of the clipboards that come with programs you might already have it works with all other software you are likely to come across, not just its stable mates. You set the number of buttons you want and you can copy data in order. So line by line of a customer's address ready to click it into to your invoicing program, or your address label printouts. It also makes for fast listing on ebay as you copy field by field the data you need from your book-cataloguing program and then just pop it onto the ebay listing form. Text saved on paste-it-in remains there even after you turn the computer off which is useful, and it also looses the formatting so that it automatically pastes to match the document into which you paste.

I first acquired them when running Windows XP but my pc died last summer and I switched to Vista. Type-it-in was backed up and I just uploaded it to my vista pc, dropped an email to Paul at Wavget, and got a new key to unlock it, no problem. It works beautifully on XP and fine on Vista though it sometimes forgets to 'float'  but it is easily found again.

As well as saving my painful arms the combined time saving of these two little programs has massively increased my productivity from cataloguing to fulfilling orders and I wouldn't be without either of them. I have discovered quite a few work-arounds for RSI and will share more in future posts.

BAFAB Week Competition

In honour of Buy a Friend a Book week which is coming in the first week of April (see clicking timer to the right) I am holding a free draw for a book. I have one of two books in mind: one is fiction and one is literary auto-biography/memoir so the lucky winner will have a blind choice. "Blind" because as it is a gift I think it should be a surprise when you open it, so you can choose between the genres but you won't know the titles. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment in the section below this post. The draw is open until Saturday 5th April and the winner will be announced on the Sunday. Good Luck!

A Very Great Profession by Nicola Beauman

As mentioned a few days ago Persephone Books are reissuing their founder's critical work A Very Great Profession: The Women's Novel 1914-1939. It begins with the image that stays with you throughout the book and is typical of the fiction Nicola Beauman later goes on to publish. The image is quiet, everyday and detailed: Laura Jesson the (ultimately) faithful wife from the 1945 film Brief Encounter going up to Milford Junction once a week to change her library books.

The basket of books is like Laura's life: routine and mundane.  We know her books will be the predictable choices of her age, class and education. It is Beauman's serious but delicate handling of the study of the possible contents of this basket that makes A Very Great Profession both unusual and delightful. It is light-fiction handled lightly but not foolishly. Beauman notes her working title for the progenitor to A Very Great Profession was "Silly Lady Novelists" but far from treating them as silly, her tender touch sees what is good in these works both as literature and as entertainment. She can see both where popular novelists fail to become great and where great novelists fail to be entertaining: "Virginia Woolf sacrificed a great deal to technique".

Throughout the book the traditional dichotomy of literary or popular fiction is handled sensitively. There are no impossible claims made for minor authors but instead a more graduated approach shows the shades of quality within the fiction of the period. Yet sadly inescapable is the slightly resigned note, "Some academics chose to ignore A Very Great Profession's ' incorrect' accessibility, others what they saw as its class bias", when, as Beauman realistically points out, "to attack them for this is to eliminate much of women's literature" and argues for the "fluidity of modern cultural values" where a genuine cultural democracy would not ignore swathes of literary output simply because it does not fit.

Beauman's egalitarian approach to literature is none more evident in the chapter on romance fiction. The most popular writers in this genre, such as Ethel M. Dell, have come in over the years for especial critical derision, the 'true Tosh-horse'. In fact my own first encounter with Dell is from reading Orwell (when Gordon Comstock in Keep the Aspidistras Flying is damning of the ladies who borrow Dell's books from the shop in which he works). Whilst recognising that Dell was merely an entertainer Beauman can generously recognise, "there is also something undeniably cheering in reading and enjoying a novel that has given pleasure to so many for so long". And of her fellow critics Beauman notes, "It has mystified me that someone can have political, often socialist feelings, without wanting to share the herd experience". In essence she pins down the academies' reactions as bizarrely and contradictorily both anti-elitist in principle and anti-democratic in application. The traditional literary critic wants to recognise the common man (or woman) but has no time for what was read in quantity.

Of course the main argument for a continuing interest in popular fiction of this period, after uncomplicated enjoyment, is sociological. Beauman quotes historian Theodore Zeldin's belief that 'if you want too know what people are like you read novels, not history' and this is amply illustrated throughout the book. How popular and literary novelists handled, sex, censorship, the rising popularity of psychoanalysis, the problem of surplus women, or the vagaries of servants, all give windows onto not just the social mores of our grandmothers' time but how our grandmothers felt about the social mores of their time, the possible pace of change, the class and generational difficulties and differences, and more.

There are two great joys in this work for a reader. Firstly the opening up of vistas; it is like a travel book for a mind, if as Hartley says, 'the past is another country'. I may actually try Ethel M. Dell for example, just to see what I can see. If people can climb mountains because they are 'there', then perhaps now and again we should do the same with books. Just because. And lastly because it is a Persephone Book beautifully put together with the grey dust wrapper, it also comes with a bookmark. It is easy to be sniffy about Brief Encounter but the image of a woman here, a first I think for a Persephone Bookmark which usually show the endpaper fabric, is Celia Johnson in a still from the film. It is part of the image used on the 1995 Virago (the earlier edition used a drawing room scene from the film) where Laura stands caught in the half light from the street lamp. She wears her slim suit, her pearls, her hat, all the trappings of her class but she looks bewildered and really rather fragile. Her face is fully lit as she feels the full glow of society's expectations on her, but also catching the light are the contents of her basket. The basket with her library books. I wonder what she thought of them.

Match it for Pratchett

More on the subject of Terry Pratchett and Alzheimer's. Booking Through Thursday have a post about a campaign by fans to raise money to match the amount donated to Alzheimer's Research by Terry last week. They sensibly suggest blogs should highlight the campaign and link to the site so here it is Match it for Pratchett .

Josephine Tey's Biggest Crime

Both Cornflower and Becca and Bella have mentioned Josephine Tey in recent days; a good thing too as she is a wonderful, much under-read author. However this made me think back to my first Josephine Tey: The Daughter of Time. It is a remarkable version of a crime novel. The crime is the murder of the princes in the tower always reputed to have been perpetrated by Richard III. In her novel Tey has her detective laid up with a broken back solve the riddle from his hospital bed (a plot mechanism also used by Colin Dexter in The Wench is Dead ). Historians were not amused. This reminds me very much of 'proper' literary critics not being amused by the presence of blog reviewers.

Now, I am a sceptical kind of girl and take nothing as fact just on the reading of one book, but Tey does make a convincing case from the facts as she presents them. When I started to read the book I thought some of her points so pertinent I read them out loud. My husband teaches the War of the Roses at A level. All I got initially were grunts of derision, followed by single word expressions of dis-satisfaction, but as the book went on and I read more and more out, the noises changed. I was now getting, "Just read that bit out again", and "Can I read that bit again to myself", and eventually, "What's happening now?" Which was the point when I knew he was hooked.

We then spent an afternoon with proper history books from his proper history teaching shelf in the study, checking and rechecking the facts on which Tey hangs her premisses. On an afternoon's work with purely secondary sources my husband conceded Tey has some good points. Ha! I thought. Hurrah. I am not on a crusade to prove Tey is right I just want acknowledgement that, amateur though she is, she might be right and sensible points warrant sensible answers.

What is telling however is a remark in the standard A level text book Lancastrians to Tudors: England , 1450-1509 by Andrew Pickering: "It has been suggested, most colourfully perhaps in Josephine Tey's detective 'docu-novel', The Daughter of Time, that the princes survived Richard's reign but were dispatched at the start of Henry's. The evidence is flimsy to say the least." But Pickering does not go on to address any of Tey's points.

It is obviously likely that Tey has not used original sources, and very possible that she has been overly selective with the secondary ones that she has used. But why the derision? Why the sniffing? Why has no -one thought it worth while to give a sensible rebuttal of points instead of saying in effect, "Novelist? Amateur? Beneath us!" Clearly the one thing that any seasoned novelist has is good understanding of human motivations: they would be a bad writer without, and Tey is not a bad novelist. Perhaps, even accidentally, Tey has hit upon some feature of the case, maybe more psychological than factual but that nonetheless merit further thought. Just because the Richard III Society think Tey is nearly worth a sainthood doesn't mean she is automatically wrong in every respect.

It would seem that 'proper' historians aren't willing to do the kind of thinking necessary to be in an historians' universe that includes Tey, and others, as well as themselves. Just like some 'proper reviewers' aren't willing to consider what it is about modern reviews in the traditional media that is failing so much that readers, if not other critics, are now more reliant on blog reviews for their purchasing tips. Twenty years ago D. J. Taylor in his A Vain Conceit: British Fiction in the 1980s warned that book reviewing was not doing its job properly and that the reading pubic, and authors themselves were ill-served by what was going. In 1989 he could not have foreseen blogging but blogging reviewers are the natural consequence of the problems he identifies. As are the gentile fisticuffs due at the Oxford literary Festival when Dovegreyreader meets professional critics John Carey and John Mullan on 31st March. Historians be warned: the democracy of the internet could do the same for your quiet coterie. It'll be worse than Time Team!

Hold the TBR Pile!

A Very Great Profession by Nicola Beauman has just arrived. I am so glad Persephone Books have decided to republish this. It was first published in 1983 and focuses on the writers and novels that Beauman so famously went on to publish with Persephone. I have had it in stock a few times and have dipped in and out and always thought, 'I will read that' and then whoosh, sold again. (It is painful being a bookseller sometimes). Despite a few reissues by Virago it has been out of print now for about 10 years and demand is such for secondhand copies that, when I get a copy in stock, I barely have time to look at the cover before it is sold. In fact secondhand copies have been changing hands for up to £30; I know because I have sold three since Christmas. I have had to resort to buying copies in from the States and Canada. And I still don't get to read it! But now I have my very own copy and a review will appear here shortly - when I finally read it this weekend.

A Very Great Profession with a new afterword by Nicola Beauman will be published by Persephone Books next month. While you're waiting there is a good article at The Guardian about Nicola and Persephone.

Waiting to be Read

Actually my waiting to be read selection is more of a room than a pile but anyway, here are the next titles on the 'to do' list. Firstly, and actually I have read the first 5 pages, is A Lover of Unreason by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev which is a biography of Assia Wevill, Ted Hughes' mistress who, like Sylvia Plath also committed suicide, but tragically took her daughter too. Also on the heap are the last of my unread Christmas presents On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, The Dig by John Preston and by The New House by Lettice Cooper from the beautiful Persphone publishers. And last is Light on the Book Trade which is a bit of a busman's holiday but I do find the subject interesting especially as in this case it is in bite sized chunks in the form of essays.

Holiday Reading: Italy

For the first time in a quarter of a century (ie all my adult life) I am venturing abroad this summer. So after a lifetime of Northumbrian shores and Welsh castles what prompted the change? A book (or two) of course! Last year I read my first Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms. A book set during the first world war is perhaps not the obvious starting point for holiday inspiration, nonetheless it set the seeds of thought. Not wishing to add spoilers for those who have not read the book lets just say briefly that the final section is set in the Italian and Swiss lakes, specifically Lake Maggiore, and I was inspired.

What put me off going however was the flying. I hated airports in the early 80s and I don't suppose they have improved much. The second part of the thought process was the travel inspiration by Graham Greene's Stamboul Train. This action packed 'entertainment' as Greene calls it, is not exactly how I plan to travel but the idea of European sleepers seemed a good way round the airport problem. The night train in question (Paris to Venice) is suitably literary: 'the Stendhal'. So hopefully we will be alighting in Verona in the near future and driving to the Italian Lakes and I can't wait!.

The next question and a joyful problem it is, is what to take as holiday reading. Do I re-read The Name of the Rose? Or John Grisham's The Broker? Or get my paws on a Penguin Dante? What else is out there waiting for me? A gentle surf discovered the most wonderful website especially if you like crime fiction Italian Mysteries. It does what it says on the tin: This site will provide information on over 750 English-language books set in Italy, most of which are mystery or suspense novels. The browse facilities include looking at historical mysteries by era, suspense mysteries, action mysteries, literary fiction, non-fiction, films of books set in Italy, and Italian authors with non-Italian settings. You can also browse by theme or location. The books are neatly dealt with in a five flag review system, which is clearly explained, and as well as assessing a book's general quality also assesses its Italianess, which is great if you want a real flavour of the place. There are author interviews and news snippets too.

So what to pick? Well my short list, inspired by the above site, includes Ellis Peters' Holiday with Violence. Crime fiction on holiday is a good thing but perhaps the title of this one is step too far? Anyway it is set in Venice which we hope to visit. Wilkie Collins' The Haunted Hotel is another possible - and as we won't be staying a hotel has less of a literal application than the Peters' title. I also quite fancy Timothy Williams' The Puppeteer ('What Van der Valk has been to Holland. and Maigret to France. Commissario Trotti could well become for northern Italy') which is actually set in the lakes, specifically Lake Garda, and gets five flags from the webmaster. Finally wanting something written by an Italian I am tempted by Duca and the Milan Murders by Giorgio Scerbanenco which is available in an English translation.

Do most people allow their destination to affect their holiday reading? Or their reading to affect their holiday destination for that matter?

The Penelopiad

Canongate have the most wonderful idea of a series in their reworking of the classical myths. A variety of authors from a number of cultures have been commissioned to re-present a myth of their choice. The authors include Jeanette Winterson and Alexander McCall Smith. Accompanying the series is A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong.

The Penelopiad is a witty page turner of a re-working. Taking Penelope's view point Atwood gives us a version of her life waiting for Odysseus. Atwood explains in her introduction that she has been haunted by the 12 hanged maids. The narrative alternates largely between Penelope in the first person, and verses and songs, often with performance directions, for the 12 maids. Penelope has far the larger share of the narrative, as befitting her royal status, and the maids songs neatly echo the idea of a Greek chorus as well as ensuring that we see the servant class as a homogeneous lump not 12 individual voices.

We begin with Penelope telling the tale of her marriage and early married life, her feelings for her parents (very mixed), for Odysseus (increasingly tender) and for her cousin Helen (plain green-eyed envy). The plot unfolds then as we largely expect from the Odyssey. It is narration not the plot that keeps the attention and engages our emotions.

Penelope is both a princess and a victim, a narrator in control of what we readers get from the tale and a bit part player in her own life blown by the whims and characteristics of others. Atwood handing her the narrative gives her at last a voice. And what a voice, witty, self-depreciating and acidic; yes she is jealous of Helen but she is not afraid to admit it, and she is a victim of Odysseus's charm, but she knows it and is not afraid to say so.

As with any historical work there is always a problem with voice and idiom: fake it or make the voice modern. Clearly helped by her intended audience's lack of classic Greek Atwood picks an entirely modern mode. She further gets round the problem with the view-point and setting. Penelope is dead. She tells her tale from the underworld or fields of asphodel where, being out of time gives her the widest perspective as here when she explains how her uncle helped Odysseus cheat and win her hand:

He mixed the wine of the other contestants with a drug that slowed them down, though not so much as they would notice; to Odysseus he gave a potion that had the opposite effect. I understand that this sort of thing has become a tradition, and is still practised in the world of the living when it comes to athletic contests.

By playing with time, or taking the narrator Penelope out of time, Atwood also engineers Penelope meeting with participants in the story such as Antinous after both their deaths. Penelope's recounting of Antinous' real views on being a suitor:

We wanted the treasure trove naturally,

and,

You weren't exactly a Helen , but we could have dealt with that. The darkness conceals much,

show us much about Penelope. She is clever, we know that because she told us, so why does she constantly show us her physical failings compared with Helen? Self-depreciation is part of the answer but it is part of the clever Penelope's web making, her myth weaving. As the teller of their tale she is now controlling all their destinies, as Helen and her beauty once controlled the hearts and minds of men. By telling us of her rival's beauty she is in her own way belittling Helen and Helen's comparative weakness alongside the power of myth making; we cannot see Helen but we do hear Penelope. Helen is weaker in this version than even the maids who at least get their shared persona heard:

we took the blame

it was not fair

but now we're here

we're all here too

the same as you

It is all round, a leveller.

One last point of interest is that Atwood has drawn on more sources that just Homer's Odyssey for her work. She notes after the main text her debt to Robert Graves' The Greek Myths with its differing versions of Penelope's story. After moving the power of narration around so much in the actual text it is fitting that her witty final subversion is that of Homer himself.

An Antidote to the Material Girl's World

Over at Books, Mud and Compost there has been much bemoaning of the life presented to the modern female child with girl's materialism being increasingly sexualized. A similar theme at the Fidra Blog notes the presence of pedicures, of all things, in girl's 'pink covers' fiction. With a week to go to Good Friday it seems a good time to reflect upon the increasingly material way we treat our traditional festivals and to heartily recommend Daring to be Different: Being a Faith Family in Secular World by Sarah Johnson. If you are not of a religious disposition please don't be put off by the title as though a Christian outlook is presumed, there is much food for thought her for those of other faiths, those of a spiritual tendency but no overt faith, and those who would just like to restrain the current rampant consumerism of Easter and Christmas.

Of interest to many will be the chapters on Advent and Lent. Earlier in the book the author notes that we should, "question our traditions, scrutinise our values and morally re-invent ourselves, everyday if necessary", and this she does expertly for these two focal points of the Christian year. With Advent Johnson dates the slide away from vigil to shopping as beginning in 1867 when a New York department store stayed open on Christmas Eve until midnight for the first time. So, her antidotes? Well sticking with the Easter theme, I love her "Busy Family's Forty-day Lent Plan". Her ideas on things to do as a family are both worshipful and practical and will surely give rise to many more ideas of your own. Ideas include thinking about Lenten abstinence in the widest sense of the world's resources, perhaps give up the car one for a day, or if that is really impossible then ban the in-car entertainment and talk to each in stead. Spend time with your child looking at a globe: where do you live? where do friends and relatives live? how much is sea or land? how much is hot or cold? How do our actions impact upon this planet?. Think about Jesus' time in the wilderness and how he was tempted to use his special powers for his own pleasure. What are special gift each member of your family has and how can they be helpful or give pleasure to others? unlike like the material world of chocolate eggs this is an Easter that teaches value, of ourselves, our families, and our world.

Also of interest is her Alien Game chapter where as well as dealing with the difficulties of feeling different in a secular world she suggest a regime of self-analysis that would benefit most families. Stand outside your house, at least metaphorically, as though you are an alien. How would you view the people in there, their lives, their work, their play, their happiness, their interactions? By giving yourself a bit of distance you can see things more clearly. This technique could clearly be applied to a small business, or a classroom too. Once you've looked at the people you live and work with, then think about your roles, if it is as a parent then clearly the onus for improvement of what you saw is on you. Johnson then breaks down problems of interaction into self help steps which are particularly effective for  learning to listen (both for adult's and children) and for rules and boundaries.

And boundaries brings us back neatly to the start of this post: children. They obviously need boundaries but boundaries have been given such a bad name. Hidebound. All sounds very negative and enclosed. But as Johnson points out boundaries make us feel safe, and paradoxically it is only when we feel safe we can get the most out of what we explore.

Terry Pratchett and the Alzheimer’s Research Trust

Many people will have heard today that Terry Pratchett has announced that he is giving one million dollars to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust. Terry has early onset Alzheimer's, so early that he has to pay for the drugs he needs himself as the NHS says he is too young to qualify for them. His generous donation will bring much needed attention to the subject which affects the lives of many families but receives just a fraction of the funding of cancer research. You can read about his donation on the Alzheimer’s Research Trust website and there is a link for you to make your own donation.

I am not a great fan of fantasy as a genre but I have read half a dozen discworld novels. The first was one I bought nearly 20 years ago whilst at Swansea station late at night returning home to Reading after a university interview. As a self-conscious 19 year old it was a bad choice for me as I found it so uproariously funny my suppressed sniggers were drawing attention in the carriage. The book in question was Wyrd Sisters and if you want to try just one Pratchett I would recommend this: you'll never think about Macbeth in the same light again. The few Pratchett novels I possess always survive the rigorous clear-outs I have once a year, and I still have my copy of Wyrd Sisters which I occasionally re-read and it never pals. Good luck Terry.

Book Start Books

There is a wonderful organisation called Book Start. If is funded by Booktrust which is in turn funded by the Arts Council, and has the laudable aim of introducing babies and preschool children to books and more importantly the enjoyment of books. Book Start does this, with help of publisher sponsorship, by providing every pre-school child with 3 book packs at 8 months, 2 years and 3 years. The pack is re-usable bag or box and 2 free books plus other goodies like a nursery rhyme placemat, a box of crayons or a colouring book and also help for parents starting to read to their children with ideas of how to use the books well. Lovely idea in many ways.

However, I do wonder about the resources being put into this and the effectiveness. If you are a parent of a young child I would be interested in hearing about your Book Start experiences. For us we were given the first pack at the 6 month hearing text. We got the second accidentally because I happened to ring the health visitor up and she offered to drop the bag off. At 2 most parents are not in regular contact with the health visitor and they no longer do an automatic check-up for 2 year olds. If I had not happened to ring the health visitor I suspect we would not have got it. At 3 I saw a poster at a church playgroup about the treasure chest box which I thought my 3 year old would love, and then the palaver started. I asked at the library, the library weren't sure about it at all. After a week I got a call asking why I had not got it through nursery. I said we didn't go to nursery just play group because they don't start nursery till the September after they are 3 by which time my child would be nearly 4. And so it went on. After a month the library managed to get the box for us. I was clearly the first person to ask and had I not had a bit of middle class know-how and persistence we would never have got the books.

Now I am bookseller and we're not short of books here. And, lets face it Book Start is not really aimed at literate families and I am just grateful for getting it in the end and the pleasure my little tot gets hiding things in the treasure box and applying the bookplates they sent to her favourite tomes. But what of the families for whom books are are rarity, or a bit scary? For whom starting books with children is hard work and the don't know how to start? Would they have pestered their local library till they got the box?   If they are not working and using childcare would they even have seen the poster? Based on a sample of one town, I suspect that many of those families in most in need of the support of Book Start access probably only one of the 3 packs. Which considering how good the packs, what it most cost to put them together, and the general good idea of it all, is a real shame.

New Look for Biblio

The American based used book selling site Biblio is poised to relaunch with a new look and better searching. Biblio is a site I like very much as a bookseller not least because the fees are reasonable! Their customer service is very good too. However, as a book buyer I have found the search facility is a pain. As well as an improved, cleaner look for the site the search facility has been over-hauled and filtering is much easier. The first filter I want if there are lots of copies of a title is UK sellers only and this is now much more accessible. I always try Antiqbook or Biblio first if I can't find a book on ibooknet or Ukbookworld, and with the launch of the new Biblio on March 12th a book-searcher's life will be easier. www.biblio.com

Welcome to Juxtabook

Welcome to my new blog. Why, when the web is littered with book blogs did I think it needed another one? Well, much as I love the reading, cooking, woolcraft type blogs, I felt there was room for a bookier kind of book blog. As well as being a reader I am also a bookseller and have been an English teacher and literacy co-ordinator, and I am still an assistant examiner for GCSE, so I come at the subject from all angles. If you're a reader, parent, teacher or part of the book trade then I hope you'll find something to interest you here and more importantly something to comment on. As the weeks go by my posts will cover book reviews and book trade news and comment. In addition buyers, sellers and readers will hopefully find this a useful portal for book links which I hope to build up in the side bars. And in my first appeal for comments if you have book links which you think should be here then please add a comment with the link, and tell me why. The link can be book sales, fairs, libraries, preservation, publication, education, author pages, literary societies, book blogs, book reviews - anything book related at all.