The Time and Place Book Tag

I absolutely do not want to be at work today. I want to be home, watching Wimbledon. Today is a good day on Centre Court: Venus and Serena, Andy Murray, Roger Federer. Oh but how I wish I was not at work. Le sigh. I am at work though, and as such I shall try to cheer myself up by talking about books.

So. Last week Jen created The Time and Place Book Tag over on her YouTube channel.

You can watch her video and find out what it’s all about here and you should because Jen is awesome. 

 

If you can’t do that til later, then that’s cool: in a nutshell, the tag is basically what it says – an excuse to talk about ten books that remind you of a time and/or a place. Because that’s totally a thing, right? We all have those books that remind us of this holiday or that break-up, being that age or friends with that person. Books that you only have to hear the title of to be transported back to a whole other time or place, even if that’s not necessarily a good thing. & because Jen tagged me, these are mine. 

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was the last present my boyfriend bought for me before he passed away in 2005. He pre-ordered it from Amazon and I had no idea, it just turned up on release day, by which point he was really super sick and I remember opening it and him smiling at me and my heart feeling like it had been ripped right out of my chest. The book was released on July 16^th and he died on the 30^th so it was all pretty grim. I remember him sleeping on the sofa because we didn’t have a tv in our bedroom and he was too sick to move far, and me making a bed out of cushions and lying on the lounge floor. I read this book and watched him sleep and I swear to God, I’m not even being a dramatic fangirl when I say that Harry Potter saved my life. I would not have got through that summer if it weren’t for this book. I wouldn’t. I read it over and over, it was the only book I could face looking at for weeks and Helen and I spent so many hours trying to come up with Dumbledore’s not dead theories. I feel weird about it now, when I’m doing a re-read and get to HBP, I get a knot in my tummy. It’s a weird mixture of comfort and pain that I never quite know how to deal with. OH GOD I AM SO DISMAL I APOLOGISE.

I woke up one morning to a barrage – I’m not even exaggerating here, an actual barrage - of texts off Jen about Rosamund Lupton’s Sister. She was all I KNOW IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT JO BUT THIS BOOK. So I read it, because that’s what I do when Jen recs a book, I find it and I read it. I couldn’t put it down. I read it in one sitting. It’s always a book that makes me think of that – of waking up that morning and wondering what the hell had happened, I swear, I thought something had happened that was bad times because so many of the text messages. Ha.

You know when sometimes you discover a book that makes you forget how to breathe? That sucks the air from your lungs and leaves you gasping, hands curled into fists, wondering how life will ever be the same again? I read If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things when my boyfriend was drag racing one weekend in Stratford. 2012 I think. We had an old VW Camper back then, and I unfolded the bed and read this and ate skittles and was totally and completely blown away. It changed how I felt about pretty much everything and I didn't know what to do with myself because how could it be so good? I’ve been reading books like they were going out of fashion my whole life and I had no idea that it was possible to do something like this with just words. Every time I went back to the racetrack after that I’d think about this book. 

if nobody speaks of remarkable things, how can they be called remarkable?

To Kill A Mockingbord. God, I love it. Is there anyone that didn’t study it in school? It feels like one of those books that’s going to be on the curriculum for all of time. Rightly so as well. I loved English at school, it was my subject, the one where I felt like I could really be myself, where it all made sense. Let's not talk about maths and science and all the nonsense. It was all about English, all of the time. We studied TKAM for GSCE, obvs, and that time spent reading it, discussing it, writing about it, was probably the highlight of my education. My English teacher was amazing. I loved her. I still have the copy I bought for school, with all my notes in the margins, all the key paragraphs underlined in HB pencil. I’ve read it so many many times since then, so very many you don't even know and every time there’s still a part of me that feels like that fifteen year old kid in an English Lit lesson; no other two words can make my chest tighten like hey Boo. 

The Blind Assassin reminds me of the first time I lived alone, in 2001 I think, in this scummy bedsit over the top of a corner shop. God but it was awful. I only lived there a couple of months but it was long enough *shudder* I hated it, hated it. It was so horrible. It’s part of the reason I am so hung up on moviong somewhere amazing now I think: I swore I’d never live like that again. AWFUL. I read The Blind Assassin when I lived there, it was the first time probably that I read Margaret Atwood and thought but how do you even words. This book was a freaking revelation I swear to God. It’s so good. It’s my favourite of hers, still. Will always be I imagine because I can’t imagine anything else ever coming close.

I read Breakfast at Tiffany’s when I was in high school. It’s the book that instantly came to mind actually, when Jen tagged me in this, because it’s a book that instantly makes me think about my fourteen year old self, how I saw myself and how this book made me feel. I was a bit lost and a bit afraid of pretty much everything and a bit desperate to find my place when I was a teenager (I am totally not Team Teenage Years, at all. Being a teenager was a great big pile of elasticated granny pants) and I totally fell for Holly Golightly and her devil may care attitude. She was fashionable and confident and ultra cool: she would never be caged by convention in the way that I totally felt like I was, she’d never be judged for not being pretty or trendy or popular enough. Holly Golightly had zero fucks to give. She’d never waste time and tears on what other people thought of her and when everything felt like it was going to shit, I pretended I was just like Holly Golightly, Travelling. I was a little bit like ‘when I grow up I want to be…’ which, well it’s a bit crackers isn’t it, given that she had no job and was actually pretty damn lonely and probably as lost as I was – it’s interesting actually, how differently I perceive the whole book when I read it now.  Never love a wild thing. I still love that quote.

I found Richard Siken by way of the internet back in 2012, like you do, (HOW DID WE EVER BEFORE THE INTERNETS THOUGH) and got my hands on a copy of his poetry collection Crush as soon as I possibly could. I read it in bed, I think Ian must’ve been away because I was very definitely on my own. I had a cup of hot milk that went cold, forgotten about on the beside table because this book engulfed me entirely. (It went so cold it had that gross out milk skin and I was very nearly sick in my mouth.) It’s the kind of book that crawls under your skin, makes it’s self comfortable and stays there, the kind of book that hit me like a suckerpunch, right in the chest. It gave me goosebumps and it broke my heart and it moved me in a way that even now I can’t quite put into words. I kept a copy of it by my bed for a year, for a while I even carried it around in my bag because weirdly I couldn’t stand to be parted from it. It ruined me, this book, and it ruined my hot milk too.

Little Women means Christmas in a way that nothing else does. It’s more Christmas to me than my Christmas tree even. I’ve read it every Christmas since I was 8. That’s 24 years good gracious I am old. I read it for the first time on Christmas Eve, curled up on our settee. The house was all trimmed up and my Mum was playing her new Cliff Richard Christmas album – and how mental that I remember that still – and there was this amazing new book, blue and hard-backed and lovely with this character called Josephine who loved to read and write and that was it. I was sold. I’ve read it every Christmas since. Not always on Christmas Eve, as I’ve gotten older it usually coincides with trimming up, but still every damn year. I’ll still be reading it when I’m 80. Just watch me.

Between Shades of Gray was a book I read in Cornwall in the summer of 2011. The Ex-Boyfriend and I  had rented out this little beach hut-esque holiday cottage for a fortnight and it was a glorious time of sunshine and cider and coastal paths and lots of cheese. I always eat so much cheese on holiday. So much cheese and so much cider. I started read this book on the beach at St Ives and felt my heart splinter. I was in bed when I finished it, I remember turning to him and saying ‘oh, I think I’m sad’ and then just sobbing. He wondered what the hell was even happening. We could have had a caucus race I cried that much.  A SEA OF TEARS.

Have you read Jonathan Livingstone Seagull? If the answer is no, then you should. You totally should. I first read it in 2002. I say I read it; it was actually read to me. It was one of my boyfriend’s favourite books; he was a bit of a Richard Bach fanboy truth be told and when he found out I’d never even heard of the guy he looked at me in horror, dug his copy of this book out of his bedside drawer and threw it at me. Then, ‘actually’ he said, ‘this is the kind of book that needs to be read aloud’ and he did. It was winter and we lived in this tiny old cottage and the cold seemed to seep through the gaps in the brick; it never felt warm even with the heating on full. I was still so young and I thought that those days would stretch on into forever. We curled up in bed, I wore his t-shirt and his socks and I rested my head on his chest so I could feel the rumble of his voice as he spoke and he played with my hair.  We read two chapters a night and it was one of my most favourite things. That was a side of him that not many people got to see, this soft and affectionate guy that would play with my hair and read to me in bed, that would kiss me hello every time he walked in the house and sing George Benson songs to me in the car. It’s one of those memories that I treasure now he’s not here any more and this book always reminds me that he was so much more than the ‘don’t give a damn’ façade that he presented to the world, that I was one of the few that he let see him with his guard down. It’s a book that sums up for me all that he was, and all that he wanted to be, and it’s a book that will always be cold-nosed whiskey kisses and the rolling timbre of his voice and the feeling of belonging. 

So tell me: what are the books that always take you to that particular time and place?

June Book Haul

Oh, but I do so love doing my book haul posts, books make me so happy all of the time, even though the sheer number of them I actually own terrifies me slightly. Ha. I’ve spent a fair amount of time researching bookshelves this past few weeks lemme tell you!

So, June.

Alice in Zombieland just showed up at work one day at the start of June. I know, right? Random. I have no idea who sent it – usually random bookish parcels arriving at work are from Jen, but not this one. I wondered if it might be a review copy from a publisher, but those usually go to my home address and IT IS A MYSTERY. I was intrigued and a little scared and you know I’m not going to lie – what I have read of this book since has only made me more afraid. Still, the cover’s cute and I’m never one to say no to free books….

The Sin Eater’s Daughter was my treat to myself because…..actually there was no reason. This book keeps popping up on blogs I follow and you know how I always need to know what all the fuss is about and that really was that. S’about this girl, engaged to a prince, who kills everyone she touches which you know, makes her life pretty shitty, but then, there’s A Boy…. I picked it up at the same time as Aristotleand Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe which is also EVERYWHERE. The cover to this one is lush. L U S H. & the story is pretty darn cute too although not as good as all the hype had led me to believe it might be.

Reasons to Stay Alive. I love Matt Haig a little bit, mostly because his tweets make me want to drive to his house and high five him. This book has been so highly praised by everyone in the world ever, and you know, it sounds like the kind of book that all the people every where should read. I’ll let you know if I actually think that’s true once I have indeed read it!!

I bought Uprooted because I read an ARC and LOVED IT and I have this thing about wanting to own actual physical copies of the books I love. I also bought the Penguin Special Editions copy of The Bloody Chamber (I talk about that a bit here) because LOOK AT IT.

I’ve also got review copies of the following:

The Church of Marvels I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW. SO EXCITED. Or rather, you probably do because I’ve talked about it before but still. Excited.

Timebomb was released on June 18^th. It’s the first in a new YA time travel trilogy, it moves between 2141,  the present day and 1640 and it sounds like it might be right up my street. It’s my next read actually, so watch this space!

Alan Stoob Nazi Hunter. Huh. I don’t know what to expect of this one, or even much about it other than Joanne Harris of Choclat fame reportedly says Alan Stoob is to Nazis what Inspector Clouseau is to jewel thieves. He's a marvellous comic creation, and deserves his own series of movies. I guess we shall just have to wait and see.

A Year of Marvellous Ways is the new Sarah Winman, also released on June 18^th. The success of When God Was A Rabbit (which I liked a whole lot) means this is uber highly anticipated and it actually sounds like it’s going to be really lovely. It’s all about this old lady called Marvellous who sits by the sea and looks for something through her telescope. She doesn’t know what she’s looking for, just that it’s out there. She ends up saving this soldier who washes up in the creek by her house, reeling from world war 2, in a bad way and trying to fulfil another soldier’s dying wish. I think it will make me feel all the things.

Ebook wise I was fairly reserved. Yep, I know. Just four:

What Milo Saw which I’ve heard all the good things about: a BIG story about a little boy who sees things differently. I’m really looking forward to it. It's released in paperback in August. 

One, which if you believe all you hear is going to be THE BOOK OF THE SUMMER. It has a publication date of August 27^th I think and it’s about conjoined twins who can’t afford to carry on being homeschooled and have to venture into the bog bad world. I have all the Wonder type feels here and I am so desperately hoping it lives up to all the hype – seriously, so many people are saying so many things about this book. Do the pre-ordering thing, do it do it.

Precocious which I talked about here.

&, Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls which I need to review so I’m not going to talk about too much now.

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT. June. Next Monday I’m going to (belatedly) talk about the books I’m pleased are being released in July, and there’s quite a handful so you know, BE HERE. Also, I need to review The Quality of Silence and also Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls so next week should be a bloggy week.

HAVE A SUPER WEEKEND.

Review: Precocious

Oh but I’m late reviewing this book, mostly because it’s taken a lot of thinking about, a lot, because I really wasn’t sure what I wanted to say about it, or how to get across my complicated feelings about the subject matter without feeling like I saying bad things about the book, which I’m not, really. – it’s a funny feeling, enjoying a book but having negative feelings about the story and the characters and I swear I’ve gone forwards and backwards with myself about this one so many times that I feel a little seasick. I’m still not entirely sure I’m going to get this even remotely right, but, time and book reviews wait for no girl….

So, like I talked about earlier this month, I always feel weirdly guilty when I only give a book 3 stars; that totally feels relevant now because this is a three star review and here I am feeling like I need to whisper ‘but that’s a good thing’ because you know, it is.

Joanna Barnard’s Precocious – let’s talk about it.

What is it about the teacher/student relationship thing that people find themselves somehow drawn to? It holds this weird kind of morbid curiosity and why exactly is that? I mean, really, if we’re going to be perfectly honest the whole thing is spectacularly fucked up, and yet. And yet. Perhaps that’s what it is: the fact that it’s so taboo (and I don’t mean that weird fruity drink that you mix with lemonade and that I always kind of like whenever I have a curry)  It’s the kind of thing that you can’t help but have an opinion of, that as a teenager you might see the romance of even though as an adult you’re (hopefully) more like ‘holy abuse of power, batman’ and probably it’s that that makes Joanna Barnard’s novel Precocious such an interesting concept.

Fiona is thirty years old and married when she bumps into her former teacher Henry Morgan again, for the first time since school. Turns out Fiona and Henry had an affair when she was fourteen, and after that chance encounter in the supermarket 15 years later, it’s not long before they’re at it again and what follows is an interesting look at desire and morality and control. The book is told from Fiona’s point of view, both in the present day, and through diary entries when she was at school, which again is super interesting: the juxtaposition of 14 year old Fiona from then alongside 30 year old Fiona from now is a really clever way of telling the story.

As a whole though, I’m kind of on the fence about it, I think.

I mean it was an interesting take on the student/teacher thing and it wasn’t badly written at all – the opposite in fact: Barnard is A Good Writer. The whole first person narrative as Fee tells her story, not to the reader but to Morgan, is really rather excellent and very very effective. Oh you know what, have a quote, lemme share some pretty words.

You are everywhere.

Your initials. I see them in car registrations and my heart skips a beat. I seek out the letters H and M in newspapers and draw them together with my eyes.

HM

Him.

So, there were parts of it that were really good, that had me smiling a little in recognition; some of Barnard’s insights into love and relationships and humanity were spot on and I do rather like the way she writes but, I don’t know…it made me kind of uneasy. Perhaps it was supposed to. I really hope that it was supposed to.

Uneasiness aside – I’ll come back to that later - I struggled with Fiona, which was a problem because a protagonist you can’t quite get along with always makes a book harder to read. She just felt like a really young thirty. She’s only two years younger than I am now, and I am damn sure that my head was a hell of a lot more screwed on two years ago than Fiona’s is. She made so many questionable choices and was so naïve and so very willing to bury her head in the sand and I just, I really wanted to shake her.

Open your eyes woman, because this guy was shagging you when you were fourteen and he was responsible for your wellbeing and even if you couldn’t see how fucked up that was then because you were a child, surely you can see it now??

I was so frustrated. I know a lot of 30 year olds, obviously, because that’s my peer group, and I can’t think of a single one that is as naïve or as emotionally immature as Fiona. The whole way through, I wasn’t thinking ‘oh Morgan’s such a clever bastard’ I was thinking ‘fucksake Fiona open your stupid eyes.’ The way she regressed when she met Morgan again and some of the consequences of that made me want to punch myself in the face (even though they were very well portrayed.)

As for Morgan, well, he just creeped me out.

I’m talking close to Humbert Humbert levels of creeped out here (and do not tell me Lolita is a love story. Do not. I WILL BE SICK IN MY MOUTH. I’m not saying anything about Nabakov’s ability as a writer, at all, because you know he uses his words very well, it’s just that, oh you know what I’m not even getting on that soapbox right now; another story for another day.) 

The point, right now, is that Henry Morgan gave me the creeps. I guess that was kind of the point though, I mean, I doubt I was supposed to come away from this thinking ‘now where can I get me a Henry Morgan.’

As creepy villains go, he was pretty top notch without even trying and without even being particularly villainous (apart from you know, the relationship with his 14 year old student thing. Shudder.) That’s pretty impressive on Barnard’s part if you ask me, because really, sleeping with schoolgirls aside, Morgan’s pretty ordinary. & I hated him. I just, there is nothing about a guy that knowingly has that kind of relationship with a child that is fine, at all, and Morgan’s relationship with Fiona both then and now was just so problematic.

She was a child. He was her teacher. She was a child.

The thing is, the thing that I liked is that Morgan is nothing special; the whole story seemed to me to be about this kid (and later, this woman) head over crazy high heels in love with this guy that’s just a guy. To a degree that worked for me, narratively speaking I mean – it made the whole thing more real somehow, the idea of this schoolgirl falling for an older guy who made her feel special rather than for the hot teacher her friends drooled over; that he’s just a guy like any other and not some kind of superhero, it kind of made sense. I’m floundering a bit here, I know. I think, that’s the thing about that kind of crush isn’t it, that’s what a crush is, idolising somebody who really is just another person. Mr Morgan was just another person, just an average guy, Fee put him on a pedestal and he totally took advantage of that. And it made so much sense for it to be that way than for Mr Morgan to have actually been, I dunno, a Colin Firth lookalike.  Do you hear me?

Precocious made me feel things, and maybe those things weren’t the best things, but I’m totally calling this a job well done regardless: the point of a book is to provoke an emotional response, is it not? And it did. This is a book with a message, and it delivers it, even though both the main characters are pretty unlikeable, Morgan because he’s supposed to be and Fiona because I just couldn’t relate to her. I read it in three hours on a train because that’s the way I roll. It was an easy read and even though it was a frustrating read, it wasn’t a bad one. It’s compelling and it’s disturbing and I feel like I got out of it exactly what I was supposed to somehow, like the point was that your formative years are called that for a reason and when somebody has that level of control over you then, it’s going to have a lasting impact on who you are now and that really, any person who wishes to engage in a sexual relationship with a child (a fourteen year old is a child and you won’t ever convince me otherwise) – particularly one in their care - needs to be out of a job and probably in a prison cell.

Precocious is published on Thursday by Ebury Press. You can get hold of a copy here. 

This Is A Post About Me

This week has been a week, not a terrible week but not a great week either. Seems like sometimes That Break Up feels so much more raw than it has any right to be really, this far down the line, and it’s hard to get past the fact that my heart just hurts. I’ve totally self medicated though, with OItNB and new bedding and San Pellegrino. It’s been a week of being in bed by 8 pretty much every day, but whatever.

Soooooo, the week might have been pretty miserable but I will not be defeated because now? Well, first of all there’s THAT HARRY POTTER NEWS. You’ve all heard that by now right? That JK Rowling has confirmed that a new Harry Potter play will be coming to the London stage next year? It’s called Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and whilst she’s keeping all her cards v close to her chest like she does, she has said it’s not a prequel. I have all the feelings. I am simultaneously excited and nervy (I am not so good with the unknown. The unknown makes me very anxious) and you just know that I (along with oh, the rest of the world) will spend some time in London Town next year. Ha. 

So, there’s that. There’s also the weekend. Hurrah. It’s going to be a good one. LEMME TELL YOU AAAAAALLL ABOUT IT.

I’m meeting Helen for lunch any minute. Helen’s baby is due in August (I AM VERY EXCITED ABOUT THIS FACT YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW) and she’s easing herself into her mat leave; last Friday marked her last Friday at work and we’re celebrating that fact today with lunch just because we can. Hurrah. Sometimes all you need is a bit of QT with your BFF you know?

Time with Helen is different to time with anyone else and it’s my best. Last week we met up and visited her nephew before we went to Maccies and then just huddled under blankets on her sofa to watch Before I Go To Sleep which mostly meant we talked shit to each other the whole way through, renamed the characters, got very angry at Mr Darcy being a badass, criticised Kidman’s hair, and generally took the film nowhere near as seriously as we should have done thus missing a few important plot points. I can’t do that stuff with anyone but her.

This evening my pal Jane and I are headed to Hoyster’s for dinner. 

Look how lush it is. You wanna come, right?

Prosecco on tap, this is not a drill.

Prosecco. On. Tap.

For some reason I see lots of prosecco in my future. Also tapas. Oh, all the tapas.  Jane and I often have these grand plans of big nights out and cocktails and living the high life. The truth though? We’re eating at 6.30 so do not be surprised if we’re tucked up in bed for 11. Ha. We’re the most rock and roll. I’m excited because I haven’t been out since Before the Break-Up so you know, it’ll be fun to dress up and drink bubbles and let my hair down a while.

Tomorrow I’m getting my culture on with a matinee performance of Dreamers at Oldham Coliseum. It's a new comedy musical about a group of girls in 90's Manchester: small town nights out, friendship and 90's Indie classics. I am all over that. I’m going with my friend Natalie – the show was co-written by her sister in law, which is super cool. Then, we’re heading back to Natalie’s for takeaway food (I hope Chinese. Nat, if you’re reading this, shall we have Chinese?) and a film – we’ve mentioned Selma as we missed it at the cinema. It will be a delightful day of delightfulness and will probably involve us making plans for when we go to London in October to see Cumberbatch as Hamlet. Nat was all Cumberbatch crazy until I gently pointed her in the direction of Elementary. She’s seen the (Jonny Lee Miller shaped) light, naturally because how could you not when he’s that sexy, but she still has a soft spot for old BC and me? Well I just like London and the theatre and cocktails so you know, fun times. We’re going to do Hamlet and hit up some of the galleries and find some awesome cocktail bars and generally just spend a weekend being super sophisticated. I’ll follow Natalie’s lead on that then, I know: I am the least sophisticated of them all...

On Sunday I have a blissful ZERO PLANS, but whatever I end up doing it will not involve food. [& next week will involve a lot of gym time. That cross trainer and I will become very well acquainted] I might just drive home, and watch the rest of the first season of Grimm in bed. Yep. That sounds like it could be a plan. I’m still on the fence about Grimm. Ems and I watched six episodes the other Sunday which means I have to finish it, because I’m too far into it not to, but I’m not sure that I love it, yet. I might also finish my book.  I’m reading The Beach Hut at the moment, which is brill and marv. I love the way Cassandra Parkin writes. I also love that the beach in the book is based around Perranporth. I love Perranporth. Anyway, I’ll talk about it properly when I’m done but in the meantime, you can (and should) get a copy here. Next on the list is the new Rosamund Lupton The Quality of Silence which is out next week and which as a lover of Sister I am super excited about.

I’ve also been house-hunting which is both exciting and terrible. I have a lot of emotions about it, and if I let me think about it properly then I get rather weepy but, well, the actual ‘let’s find a cool place to live,’ that’s sort of fun. I feel like I’ve found the perfect place, actually. . It’s at the upper end of my budget, as in the very most I would be prepared to pay right now, which is obviously not ideal: the higher my living costs the lower my savings/book money, but it’s beautiful, so beautiful. I’ve even been furnishing it in my head this week which is perhaps not sensible. So, I made a deal with myself: it’s not even available til August, so, if it’s still on the market this time next month I’m going to go and view it. If it’s not, well, then it was never meant to be and I shall find somewhere less beautiful and less expensive. This is my plan.

Throwback Thursday: Josephine's Book Edition

Angela Carter’s books have been around forever, but I hadn’t heard of her at all until a few years ago, when my Mum bought me her Book of Fairytales for Christmas. 

I’m still not sure what prompted that book choice, whether it’s the fact that it’s stunningly pretty, or whether she liked it herself or whether she just saw it and thought of me. Probably a combination of the three. I have always loved a pretty book and a fairytale. Anyway, I got it that Christmas and I loved it (if you’re not familiar with that book then you should fix that problem) and I went out and bought myself some more of Carter’s work, specifically The Bloody Chamber, Wise Children and Nights at the Circus. They’re all the Vintage copies, so it must’ve been at that Red Spine loving time. I have about ten of those I think, Grimms' Fairy Tales being one of them.

I hadn’t thought much about her for a while but I was down visiting pals last weekend and my friend Mark had left the Penguin Deluxe edition of The Bloody Chamber in his kitchen. I was drawn in by the pretty and thought ‘oh, I know this book,’ found myself flicking straight to The Courtship of Mr Lyon and thought, ‘yep, actually, I do, I love this book.’

& I know I have a copy already, but these Penguin Deluxe copies, they’re like witchcraft, you touch them and you have to have them and I got straight on the internets and ordered me a copy. Honestly, there’s really not much you can say to me about how unnecessary it is because look at me, I have the Harry Potter series twice and the number of copies of Alice I have goes into double figures. & this book is pretty, the cover is lush and the pages are all uneven and wonderful and it’s just beautiful.

Then Jen made this video and did some Twitter asking about favourite fairytales and thus, this particular Throwback Thursday had its theme.

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories.

It’s an awesome book and with the current trend for twisted fairy stories, I can't help wonder if Angela Carter – who would have been 75 this year - was one of the first to re-imagine fairytales like this? Jen will tell me, Jen knows – right Jen?

Most of the stories in this collection are familiar, some only if you squint, but all of them are dark and edgy like a good fairytale should be.

We’ve got stories based on Beauty and the Beast and Puss in Boots and Little Red Riding Hood, and the terrifically gruesome The Snow Child which I guess you can maybe say was inspired by Snow White although, it is in no way the same story: I told you, sometimes you have to squint, and Jesus God you’ll never see this story Disney-fied. Skin as white as snow is pretty much where the similarities end I think.

Carter takes what you thought you knew about stories you grew up with and turns them on their head. Here be no damsels in distress, no princesses needing saving because Carter is Queen of the kickass female protagonist. Is this ‘feminist literature’ then? You know what, yeah, it probably is. All of Carter’s women are strong and liberated and somehow the dark and gothic settings make that all the more apparent – she tackles sexuality and sex, stereotypes, coming of age, identity and balance of power and she does it so freaking well. Probably they’ll blow your mind a little bit.

My personal faves? The Courtship of Mr. Lyon because I always love me a good Beauty and the Beast story (I think maybe the other version in the book The Tiger’s Bride got more acclaim though, certainly it’s darker and the ending has a definite twist), The Company of Wolves where Red Riding Hood is totally in control of how her story goes (she knew she was nobody’s meat) and Wolf-Alice - a girl raised by wolves, rescued by nuns and eventually sent to live with a werewolf, and a story that’s all about independence and self-discovery I think, perhaps more than any of the others. The whole collection is worth a read though and with fairytale re-tellings being A Thing right now, you could do a lot worse than The Bloody Chamber.

Author Visit: Fredrik Backman

Guess what people. Today is an exciting day because I’ve got the marvellous Fredrik Backman – author of the wonderful A Man Called Ove and the shiny brand new My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises - here to chat about all things bookish. Hurrah!

I know, right, how very exciting.

 

 

Fredrik! Hello!  Thank-you so much for stopping by my little corner of the blogosphere; grab a coffee and a piece of cake and make yourself at home – in fact it’s imaginary cake, take two pieces. TAKE THE WHOLE CAKE.

                  

Before we get started, let’s warm up with a quick fire round.

Ready, steady, GO:

1. Coffee, tea or…?

I'll have some "or". Sounds delicious. 

2. Favourite film?

My wife says that I can't answer any film questions from anyone anymore because "the only films Fredrik likes are films where Kevin Costner plays baseball!". 

3. Favourite book?

Brother Lionheart, by Astrid Lindgren.

4. Summer or winter?

Which one is it that keeps coming in Game of Thrones? I'll have the other one.

5. Favourite Colour?

Cheese.

6. Last thing you ate?

Cheese.

7. Dream holiday destination?

Cheese. Or I mean...well...a baseball stadium where Kevin Costner is would be splendid.

8. If you could jump to any point in history, who would you have dinner with?

My kids. At a point in history where they don't throw food at me. Any point will do fine.

9. How do you like your steak?

In my mouth.

10. What are your pet peeves?

My what? 

I do love that bit! Anyway, on to the proper bookish fun stuff! 

Let’s get started. 

Firstly, I’ve read A Man Called Ove (and I loved it) but for anyone who’s yet to get acquainted with the book, can you tell us a little bit about it and about Ove?

He's a 59 years old man who drives a Saab and who is a bit a annoyed with the fact that people can't read signs anymore.

And how about My Grandmother Sends Her Regards… which is on my To Read pile (near the top, don’t worry!) The blurb for that made me do a happy dance because a storytelling Granny sounds remarkably like my own childhood! Tell us a little bit about it. 

It's about a grandmother and her granddaughter and a secret land they have built together called The Land of almost awake, that you can only travel to by almost falling asleep. It has a few made up animals in it and swords and stuff. My wife read it and told my publisher that "this is what happens when you let Fredrik sit in his office for 6 months without going there and ask him what he's doing. I warned you!".

Where did the idea for Granny’s story come from?

I didn't have a lot of friends growing up. I don't have a lot of friends now. It gives me a lot of free time. Plus, there's always alcohol.

Which of the books did you find easiest to write, and why?

I've never considered writing "easy" or "hard". I consider it "fun". 

And is the answer to that question the same as the answer to ‘which is your favourite’ and if not, which is your favourite? & I hope that doesn’t make you feel like I’m asking you to choose a favourite child! 

I would have no problems choosing my favorite child. I like the little one who still thinks I'm cool.

If either of the books was a DVD what would the special features be - are there any scenes that ended up ‘on the cutting room floor’ that you can share? 

In A man called Ove, in my first draft, the cat didn't appear until chapter 14. It was my cat loving editor, god bless him, who felt so strongly about the cat and worried that the other cat of the book (Ernest, who belongs to Oves father in law) stole the thunder of the REAL catstar of the story. So my editor and me ended up having a huge fight and he almost threw flowers at me and in the end I wrote an alternate version where the cat enters in chapter 2. And it was of course a lot better. Just don't tell my editor. He still thinks he owes me one.

My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises is such an excellent title. Did the title come first, or last, or at some point in the middle?

It came pretty early on. My publisher hated it. We spent six months of emailing about different versions they wanted to cut it down. It started with "can we call it 'Grandma' or "Grandma's sorry' or something like that?' and ended up six months later with "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CAN WE AT LEAST GET RID OF THE WORD 'MY' SO THERE*S ROOM FOR A BLOODY ILLUSTRATION ON THE COVER!!!???". I said no. I don't have a publisher at the moment. Apparently I'm "hard to work with". 

Tell us about how you write: do you prefer a loud room or a quiet room; is your manuscript typed or handwritten, do you write during set hours or as the word comes, and at home or some place else? What works best?

Well, I have children. So...no. I don't really have any of those preferences. I write when I'm allowed. Sometimes I write on a computer in my office but more often I write on the backside of restaurant menus when we're on family holidays or in texts to myself on my phone while sitting on the bathroom floor waiting for someone to finish their epic Spiderman vs Rainbow Dash death battle in the bathtub so that we can all go to bed. Sometimes I write by hand, which is wonderful, but that's a pleasure I treat myself like I would whisky or ice cream: When the rest of the family is asleep.  

What’s next for you? What are you working on now?

My third novel, "Britt-Marie was here", is out in Sweden, Denmark and Norway and set for release in Britain next summer. And I'm writing a couple of things that I don't really know that they are yet, but I think one might be a play and one might be a pretty strange series of short stories and one might just be a fairly good joke and might actually be a novel. We'll see.

What’s the oddest thing on your desk? (I have a Clanger on mine that makes a noise when you press its middle. I liberated it from the desk of my boss….)

I have an american football, and very often the fists of my terribly orderly friend Niklas that I share my office with who is trying to take the ball from me and throw it out the window because apparently I'm "fucking annoying!" when I throw it around the office sometimes hitting his computer screen and sometimes hitting him. He's not really a sports fan.

What’s the best writing tip you’ve been given?

"The best type of comedy is stupid but smart." Which, put in a simpler way, would mean that some things has to look really easy although they might be very hard to achieve. A laughter is a very spontaneous thing, so even if the joke took you weeks to construct a sentence around it always has to sound as if you thought of it just now and just wrote it down. That's comedy to me. I view storytelling much the same way. First you figure out all the really difficult stuff with characters and scenery and epic feelings and vital plot points, and then you have to find the easiest possible way to tell it all to a stranger. Because that's the only way it will sound believable. It's like when police investigators always say that you can spot a lie from a suspect because it's too well constructed, the details are too perfect and thought out. Truth doesn't really sound like that. Well...now that I think of it that really wasn't a simpler way to put this at all. 

What do you wish you got asked in these interviews but never do? 

What's your favorite kind of Ben & Jerry's? Well THANK YOU for asking. It's New York Super Fudge Chunk, thank you very much.

& because I’m always on the look out for new book recommendations, what are you reading right now?

"A band of misfits", by Andrew Baggarly. It's a book about the San Francisco Giants baseball team and their way to winning the world series.I'm also reading the instruction manual for our car because there's a light that keeps blinking and my wife refuses to tell me what it means because she claims I "need to learn to read a MANUAL!". As it happens she also refuses to drive the car or let me drive the kids in it while the light is blinking, so I'm guessing whatever she knows is not very good.

[If you haven’t read either of Fredrik’s novels then, well, you totally should. You can get hold of copies here. I’m tempted to provide my Dad with a copy of A Man Called Ove. I think he might like it]

 

Fredrik Backman is a Swedish blogger, columnist and author. His debut novel A MAN CALLED OVE has been a number 1 bestseller across Scandinavia.  It has now sold over 1 million copies. Fredrik's second novel, MY GRANDMOTHER SENDS HER REGARDS AND APOLOGISES, also went straight to number 1 in Sweden on publication in 2014.