July has been... about reading books

 

Part of the Watts Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice at Postman's Park, London (click image to enlarge)

I entered the month reading Matthew Harffy’s Wolf of Wessex. Set in 838AD, it tells of widower Dunstan, an ageing ex hearth companion of note, living a lone existence in a forest while attempting to put the deeds and misdeeds of his youth in order before he is reunited with his wife. 

Coming across a mutilated body starts him on a trail well-worn by Westerns, Mysteries, and a whole host of adventure fiction, in print and on screen, but this did not detract at all. The joy in reading Harffy’s tales is learning aspects of the Anglo-Saxon way of life, the beliefs and superstitions rising from it, how and what to forage in the forest for food, down to the system of enforcing law codes when most of the population was illiterate. 

It was a joy to read, and I shall doubtless return to it.

 

 

A news article prompted me to check out Laura Dodsworth’s A State Of Fear – How The Government Weaponised Fear During The Covid-19 Pandemic. Unfortunately, its title says it all. Despite it ticking a lot of lurking suspicions, reading it was an eye-opener, as was the history of such “persuasions” all the way back to Freud. 

Remember the early video of China’s people keeling over in the street and medics in hazmat suits running into shot to help? Yeah, right. Information “leaked” to the press, such then being dismissed by Government, only for the “leaked” info to be implemented weeks later? It’s called seeding – well, of course it is, every novelist uses the technique in writing fiction; so how naive was I for not recognising it being practised under my nose? Even the orchestration of the “clap for the NHS”, which I always thought emotionally manipulative, er… was. And Mainstream Media? It just moved from Project Fear Brexit to Project Fear Covid, and remains fixed there. 

The book is, of course, being condemned as conspiracy theory. I’d suggest detractors explain the content of 25 pages of referenced footnotes.  

And so to the image at the top of this post. 

We’ve been in London, for the first time staying within the precincts of ‘The City’, which more or less encompasses the area of Roman Londinium and much of what became the medieval capital. Unexpectedly still under lockdown, most of London was either shut or entry by timed-ticket only. Plan B meant we did a lot of exploratory walking, often taking in the smaller, hidden, gardens which are London’s best-kept secret.

Postman’s Park is one of these, and within its oasis of greenery and flowerbeds we came upon the Watts Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, opened in 1900. George F Watts, a renowned artist of the period, had proposed a memorial to ordinary men, women and children who had given their lives endeavouring to save the life of another. Only 54 of the originally envisaged 120 ceramic plaques were raised. They make stark, yet valiant, reading.

John Price, some hundred years after the official opening, merely sought a quiet spot for his lunch, but was so awed by these snapshots of history that it caused an abrupt change in career. He moved into academia and ended up as a professor of Modern History, specifically, it seems, to enable him to research and write Heroes of Postman’s Park – Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Victorian London which details the lives and times of those whose scant information adorns the memorial. I’ve only dipped in to the book so far, but can tell it is going to make riveting reading.

Enjoy your August.

Beware Must-Read Lists

There’s one in today’s paper. Ten Books Every Child Should Own. It caught my eye immediately, as it was supposed to. But did it catch my eye for the intended reason?

I’m wary, if not downright cynical, about any such list, further fuelled by the fact that the headline had transformed by the inside page into Ten Books Every Child Should Read, which doesn’t mean the same at all.

My schooldays were scarred by the annual reading list, a wall of A1 sheets blocked in a neat hand to give each book’s title diagonally along the top and each child’s name horizontally along the left-hand side. A line of empty squares stood ready to receive a coloured star. Horrors such as Tom Brown’s School Days still haunt me.

In my teens The Little Red Book by Mao Tse-Tung (as he was known at the time) was the rage among my contemporaries. No one mentioned the word famine, never mind the deaths, upward of 30 million people. If you hadn’t read the book you were an unenlightened no one. Thankfully, the only books I could afford were to aid my employment prospects; everything else was borrowed from the library, and mine didn’t stock that title. I still feel a twinge of guilt for those 30+ million when I recall the preening, long-nosed glances my lack of reading the book attracted.

Likewise, I’m sure Mein Kampf was on someone’s must-read list, as were (are) the writings of Stalin, Marx, and the host of other the-end-justifies-the-means exponents. And this is my point: anyone – anyone – who waves a must-read list under another’s nose is waving it for a reason. Better to identify the reason before contemplating the titles, or attempting to imply the non-reader socially inadequate.

Today’s vaunted list, Ten Books Every Child Should Own [Read], is being used to publicise a writer’s recently published novel. There y’go… cynic that I am. I only hope that the majority of readers of the column hold a similarly cautious view and don’t rush to force the list down the throats of their unsuspecting offspring. There’s no faster way to put a child off reading. 

Sailing into a Good Read

A link from the Washington Post caught my eye, its article lamenting the demise of libraries on cruise ships. It paraphrased Linda Garrison, travel writer for About.com: “Oftentimes, the bigger the ship, the smaller the library.”. 

'Marco Polo' and 'Regal Princess' berthed at Tallinn, Estonia

Maybe so. Having not sailed on a big cruise ship, there being no desire to be penned into a balcony cabin – sorry stateroom – or share a confined space with over 3,000 other people, I can’t comment. However, of the two ‘comfortable’ size ships I have holidayed on from the UK’s Cruise & Maritime line – Marco Polo 850 passengers; Azores (now Astoria) 550 passengers – I can recommend both for their libraries, though a passenger needs to be in there fast to grab the guidebooks to the next port of call.

I found Marco Polo, especially, was well appointed for its clientele with thick carpeting and comfortable wrap-around chairs and, more importantly, one wall of floor-to-ceiling fiction and another of non-fiction, including some beautifully illustrated coffee table tomes that started a covetous itch in this reader. The ambiance was missing only an open fire, but of course there was a wall of windows with an ocean view so no one was complaining.

By mutual understanding it also ran a Silence regime which I – who should have known better – fell foul of in my exuberance. There may have been no actual tutting, but it was inherent in the sudden turn of heads, wonderfully refreshing when compared to modern dry-side public libraries where it can sometimes be difficult to hear myself think.

Kindle and tablet readers held their own alongside paper readers, seen on deck and in the lounges no matter the time of day, inspiring to a writer considering what else was on offer: lectures, craft workshops, bridge and Scrabble groups, deck and lounge games, show, cabaret and nightclub, quizzes and demonstrations, to say nothing of the port excursions. Despite there being hardly time to sleep there was always time to read, and to discuss a title with a fellow passenger over coffee or lunch.

C&M’s cruises are child-free, their ships small enough to sail from regional UK ports. Perhaps that’s why the experience is so relaxing, a lounger and a good book preferred to a climbing wall or a multi-level shopping experience. And to find your fellow passengers such interesting people.

On my recent twelve day cruise of the Baltic I read two novellas and a novel, and there’s my cue to upload the reviews. And yes, I did donate one of my own titles to the ship’s library. It’s called soft marketing.

Writing, Reading and Research Updates

When I updated the site I intended on updating my actual writing on a somewhat regular basis. But the best laid plans of authors... Better late than never.

Pilgrims of the Pool, the final novel in the Torc of Moonlight trilogy (see 'Chillers'), continues to have pages added - not as fast as I'd like, but a decent enough amount to prove that I am now well out of the mire in which I'd written myself, or at least written the luckless Nick and Alice.

On the reading front I've finished The Shield-Maiden: A Foreworld SideQuest by husband and wife team Michael Tinker, and Linda, Pearce. And I can heartily recommend it. I know nothing about the Foreworld series, but was drawn to this novella by (a) the cover, and (b) the fact that Michael is a sword-maker and fight choreographer and the author of The Medieval Sword in the Modern World, which I intend to look up. Would his background show in the fiction? It certainly did. The battle sequence and aftermath were superb.

Over the past few weeks I've also been beta-reading works by several members of support group, Hornsea Writers, to which I belong. It's always good to scrutinize works-near-final-polish as it makes me look at my own with a keener eye. We can always be blind to our own imperfections while immediately seeing similar problems in work by others. It's a way of restabilizing self-critical faculties.

Despite being way behind schedule with my own novel, I've played hookey twice over the past month, to Horncastle and Spilsby, and to Gainsborough, both in Lincolnshire. Days out are never simply 'days out' in our house; I always have half an eye on what might pass for research for possible future projects. 

In Spilsby the local theatre is housed in a building sporting a magnificent portico and columned frontage set back from the road. It turned out to be the region's Quarter Sessions and prison complex dating from 1827. I managed to wangle my way in and an eye-opener it turned out to be. Gainsborough was a dedicated trip to see the Old Hall dating from c1460s. There the medieval kitchen complex was a revelation. 

Over the next few weeks I intend to do posts on both, with pictures. 'Follow by Email' - see bottom of the page - if you would like these to be delivered to your Inbox when they become available.

A Fillip While You're Ill

image by David Castillo Dominici

There's nothing like being laid up with a head full of throbbing coals and watching your writing schedule seep away between the cracks taking your deadline with it. 

I don't do "ill", so it's probably PayBack this virus hitting so hard. Desperate for silver linings, even at the worst I was laid up on the sofa with my trusty Kindle determined to make an in-road into my monstrous To Be Read pile, despite reading the same page over and over as my body decided it would rather catch up on the previous night's coughed-through sleep.

It has, however, been joyously calming. Most of my normal reading is research-reading, so this interlude of back-to-back fiction - mostly easy to digest novellas - has been a real fillip. Medieval Romance, Humour, Post-Apocalypse, Paranormal... none of my usual fare.

When I did venture onto the Net to check emails I found a Tweet: Can I quote you in my book? How's that for a fillip? Someone thinks my words decent enough to set, if not in stone, in a how-to ebook. And with the dextrous swirl of a conjurer's hand, it has now been launched.

 

21 Ways to Write a Commercial Novel by Jane Holland & Victoria Lamb.

Catch it at www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00TRPN8I0

and doubtless other outlets.

That's my next reading sorted then. It'll be interesting to see in what context I've been quoted.

Take my advice, even if you're not ill, schedule in some downtime and slot in a good book. It's a great fillip. Honest.

A Need to Read for Pleasure

"Reading for pleasure at the age of fifteen is a strong factor in determining future social mobility..." - so starts an article by Jonathan Douglas, Director of the Nationl Literary Trust in a recent edition of the Telegraph Weekend.

The bottom line is that those who read for pleasure, rather than due to the goad of education, are nurturing an inherent human inquisitiveness, a willingness to learn, that will be carried throughout their lives and spill over into aspects of their work environment - hence the social mobility angle.

I agree with this. Feeding an engagement with an abstract world pushes back barriers, opens up horizons.

I meet such readers in bookshops each time I support a signing. Usually they are wide-eyed and dumb-struck by being faced with a writer of novels who actually speaks to them. Despite my not writing for their age group, I ask their opinions on story ideas; ask if they, themselves, write stories. Usually it is the parents who answer, because the children are ten or eleven or twelve. And I talk to them now because I can almost guarantee that by the age of fifteen they won't be reading for pleasure at all, especially the boys.

Point to hormones if you like, point to computer games and peer pressure, but I point to school, the academic need not only to tick boxes but tick boxes dictated by academia for the good of the child.

In the UK we move our children from primary to secondary education at eleven years old, where tales of adventure and enthusiasm are suffocated beneath worthier texts which must be read. In my day that meant Dickens, Austen and Hughes - at eleven, twelve and thirteen - 19th century novelists writing for a contemporary adult audience, not even children of their day.

Did my son fare better? Not much. What could I say to books thrown across the room accompanied by '...explain how a rocket can land next to a house and an old grandad can climb aboard and travel to the moon...' when he had never known a time without manned space flight. 

My family has no third generation going through today's schooling, but from reading Jonathan Douglas' article there seems to be the same sort of hand-wringing over literacy there was in my day. Perhaps my four minute conversation with a young voracious reader in a bookshop is a mere drop in the ocean, but oceans fill due to individual drops of rain. Sprinkle a raindrop today. In fact, sprinkle several. They're needed, if the comments beneath the article are anything to go by.