Juxtabook

The Composites

I've just come across this site The Composites via SimonNRicketts on twitter and I thought you might like it. It is images created using law enforcement composite sketch software and descriptions of literary characters. Which is to say the author's physical description of the character is fed into the software and the resulting image published. I rather liked Tess from Tess of the d'Urbervilles but Edward Rochester (scroll right to the bottom) looks like the missing link. Pinkie Brown and Keith Talent are good ones. You can suggest characters for inclusion too.

Newly in for the TBR pile

My biggest influx of books for my own use (as opposed to stock) is always in December and January. Despite living in a bookshop my favourite presents are still books and with a birthday and Christmas in those months the TBR pile is always teetering at this time of year. I thought I'd share a few of the titles with you.

Firstly, in honour perhaps of Euro 2012, Mr J had a football theme to his present. I do love football (this is not one of those examples of weird male present buying) and these come highly recommended:

J. L. Carr is a favourite with many bloggers I know and I've wanted a copy of How Steeple Sinderby Wanderers Won the F.A.Cup for ages. This is the lovely Quince Tree Press editon. Quince Tree was Carr's own publishing firm and is these days run by his son.

Dirty Leeds is Robert Endeacott's fictional account of the life of a long suffering Leeds United fan and the history of the club through the Don Revie era. This is the first of a trilogy and I am looking forward to it. I know Leeds, the city, well and very much enjoyed David Peace's The Damned Utd . I am NOT a Leeds United fan though and it will be interesting to see if this book can hold the attention of someone whose footballing heart lies at the far west of the M62.

Promised Land: A Northern Love Story by Anthony Clavane is also about Leeds United and strictly speaking it is no longer on the TBR pile, except that it was so good I want to read it again! Fascinating throughout you don't have to like football, and you certainly don't have to like LUFC, to think this is a cracking read. A review will follow soon.

Mr J received one football book of his own The Anatomy of England: A History in Ten Matches by Jonathan Wilson and I might be having a read of that once he's finished. There'll be plenty of reading time once England are knocked out of the Euros early... I have had a sneaky peak and I loved Wilson's description of trying to finish a finals paper on Old English at super speed so he could make it to watch a match. Rushing your Anglo-Saxon translations, now that's dedication!

Away from football much pleasure is anticpiated from these:

Spurious by Lars Iyer was a present from an old friend Anna from 6th form days. Lars Iyer is a philosopher and this is his first novel though he has another, Dogma out later this year too. Anna reminded me that I met the author over 20 years ago when she brought him to my parents' house for a meal. She and I cooked the meal, my first ever entertaining, and I still have a photograph somewhere of our 18 year olds selves and me with long black hair as opposed to the mid-length stripy badger coloured version I sport these days. A lovely present to get, though a bit nerve-racking in the 'I hope I like it' sense.

The next two I dropped hints for (Mr J is very good with book hints). Steampunk? Well why not? There's a time for everything and this year seemed as good as any for steampunk.This anthology inventively titled Steampunk is edited by Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer.

The Richard Russo, Straight Man, is one I read a glowing review of on someone's blog and now I can't remember where. The majority of my bookbuying is stimulated by Cornflower, Gaskella and ShelfLove but I can't find the Russo reviewed on those sites, so I am afraid I don't know who to credit for this. I remember leaving a comment on whichever blog it was so if you know it was your review please let me know so I can link to it.

Next up are a couple of review copies. I don't get many review copies: 90% of the books that I review I buy new, have in stock secondhand, or borrow from the library. These two I am pleased to get however.

Of the two I am most drawn to The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott. Described as "Little Women meets Water for Elephants" it is the story of three sisters making their way in the world of vaudeville before and during the First World War. It makes me think of the film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? though that's not very Little Women.

Another comparision strapline is being bandied about for Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway, in this case "Dickens meets Mervyn Peake", and again how appealing is that? A sneaky pre-read suggests it is going to be just as frenetic, exciting and inventive as other reviews suggest.

And lastly this is a book I bought myself as a birthday treat.

The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English Since 1950 compiled by Carmen Callil and Colm Toibin was reviewed by Dovegreyreader last week. She made it sound very tempting so I let myself be tempted. Despite two degrees and twenty years working with books and readers there are still many, many books in here that I've not read, or thought of reading, or read so long ago I've forgotten. The page per book format feels very luxurious and I enjoyed all the reference sections at the back - gosh it used to feel like this before blogs and wikipedia, browsing a reference book by the fire with a cuppa... I shall be returning to this frequently and it is NOT going to help my ever growing TBR pile one  bit. To be honest though, that's how I like it!

Juxtabook talking Charles Dickens and favourite books on Radio Leeds

I was taken aback by a phone call at 8.20 this morning asking me to go on Radio Leeds to talk about Dickens and my favourite books. With the school run to do before my allotted timeslot I didn't have time to worry about it too much. I had just scampered back through the door when the producer rang and we were off.

So here, in an internet first, the dulcet tones of Juxtabook are available to listen to for the next 7 days on the show dated 07/02/2012 here- I am on after about 24 minutes. I was more nervous listening to it afterwards than during the chat but apart from thinking that I say "lovely" too often it is not too bad for my first ever live interview. I fluffed my opportunity to publicise my website by stumbling over the words at that point so in case you missed it, my site is here!

Teeny tiny Red House giveaway

This post must be a contender for the tiniest ever giveaway. Going through my Mary Taylor things I discovered I have duplicates of a couple of postcards of The Red House and leaflets about Taylor and the Brontes. Bearing in mind the tiny number of visitors the house gets I am guessing most of you have never been and if The Red House does close then you'll never get the chance so it seemed right to offer these few things:

The stained glass postcard is the an image of the glass described in Shirley (the house features as 'Briarmains' in Shirley).

If you'd like them the just leave your name in the comments before the end of Wednesday. If there is more than one of you I'll draw names out of a hat.