Tag Archives: Harry Potter

Other People’s Bookshelves #53 – Geoff Whaley

Hello and welcome to the latest Other People’s Bookshelves post. If you haven’t seen it before this is a series of posts set to feed into the filthy book lust/porn and either give you a fix of other people’s books and shelves. This week we are off to Boston, yes the place I have always wanted to stay longer than the 24 hours I once did and home of my favourite series Rizzoli and Isles – though hopefully there won’t be any murder today, to join Geoff who blogs at The Oddness of Things Moving and has a podcast (which I am secretly hoping he will one day invite me on to discuss Rebecca) Come Read With Me. You can follow him on Twitter here. Before we have a nosey through his shelves, let’s find out more about him…

I currently live in Boston, Massachusetts and took a very roundabout way to get here. North Carolina born and bred, I moved to Boston after post-graduate studies in the UK and I haven’t looked back. I picked Boston for a few reasons, it’s just as confusing as any English towns (would street signs really kill anyone?) and it has so many things to do from the numerous cultural institutions to the Boston Book Festival! And that doesn’t even get me started on the wonderful independent bookstores throughout Greater Boston! As much as I wish reading were my whole life, apart from blogging it’s not. I get a lot of my reading time while commuting to and from my day-job where I raise money for a small private college. I love what I do because I hear people’s stories of why they support the causes they do and I get to connect those people (and their gifts of course) to something meaningful.

OPB - Big Bookshelf

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

For the longest time I kept every book I owned, including 100+ Star Wars novels, but when I went to college I seriously pared down. My general rule is I have to have space on my bookshelf, but I do cheat with multiple layers on some of the shelves. Most books come in until I read them and when I’m done they either stay on my shelf (hardly ever) or they go in the bag to the left of my shelf to be sent to a used bookstore or donated to the local library.

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

I don’t worry too much about organization in the alphabetical sense, but I do group an authors work together. Aside from generally putting them in size order (big to small), they’re broken down by shelves:

  1. On top of my big bookshelf are my TBR quick reads, the piles to the right are those that I could read in one-to-two sittings, and the larger hardback TBR books that won’t fit elsewhere.
  2. The shelf immediately below that, a little bit of the middle shelf and all of the shelves by my bed are my “forever” books. They’re the ones that friends and family have given me, those signed by authors or those that had a profound impact on me at the time.
  3. The middle and bottom shelf are all the other books I’ve picked up over the five years I’ve been in Boston that I will read and probably pass on. They’re the books that sound fascinating at the time but I just haven’t gotten around to reading yet.

I haven’t had to do a cull yet, but like I said above I have been cheating a little bit and my quick read piles are growing really fast, so I might need to in the near future.

OPB - Harry Potter 2

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

Honestly, it was probably a Star Wars novel, and if it wasn’t Star Wars it was an Irene Radford Dragon Nimbus book. I kept two trilogies when I cleared out my Star Wars novels and I have a few books floating around from high school so there’s a good chance it’s still on my shelf.

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

Thankfully Kindles were invented so I can hide my smuttier books on there, but in seriousness it’s hard to say. I’m not embarrassed by books or my guilty pleasures from Star Wars to Jane Austen fan-fiction I display them proudly and am always looking for converts! The only book I would be embarrassed about people seeing, because I’d be afraid they’d assume things about me I bought out of morbid curiosity: Going Rogue by Sarah Palin. I guess it’s tempered a little bit by Frank Bailey’s Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin, but I still wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea.

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

Isn’t this like asking which child you’d save? It’s a tough choice for me There are two collections I prize more than I probably should. The first is my slowly growing Wuthering Heights collection. I’ve stumbled across a few beautiful paperback editions, two from the 1950s, two from the 1960s and one from the 1980s, and I couldn’t help myself so I bought them. They’re all from before I was born and that’s my unofficial cut-of date when I look at copies in stores.

The second is my Harry Potter collection: complete and well loved American hardback and paperback series, complete British hardback, all the extras books, plus the first two in French and the first in Spanish! It’s only a matter of time before I get the new American edition and complete the Spanish edition.

OPB - Wuthering Square

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

Any of the classics. No, seriously, any of them. I grew up with big bookshelves in my house and my dad’s parents house was wall-to-wall bookshelves. At our house I really wanted to read the big leather bound tomes because they just looked so magical and at my grandparents house the classics just looked so worn from being read and loved so often, that I wanted to be a part of that. I’ve read a lot of Classics since then, especially those I was forced to read in school, and have fallen in love with many of them and have select copies on my shelf.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

I’m a strong supporter of local libraries, so I try to get as many books from the libraries as possible. I do spend more money than I should at used bookstores (Hello trade-in credit!). I do have a running list of books that I want to read and if I keep thinking about a book I will purchase it in hopes that I’ll read it faster, but that’s not serving me too well with almost three shelves of to-be-read books.

OPB - Harry Potter 1

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

I just purchased a copy of The Private Lives of the Impressionists by Sue Roe. This is surprising as I don’t have a lot of non-fiction, but I’ve wanted to read about Mary Cassatt and this seemed like a good introduction. I also pre-ordered paperback copies of Haruki Murakami’s Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage and Laline Paull’s The Bees after listening to the last episode of The Readers, but those won’t arrive until May!

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

I wish I had the first copy of Wuthering Heights that I read back in high school on my shelf. I didn’t appreciate it enough when I read it then and even though it wasn’t a beautiful copy it was still the first one I read. I also wouldn’t say no to an original copy either, I did get to hold a First American Edition last December.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

I’m not sure what they’d think because most of the time I’m not sure what to think! I have Star Wars novels next to Jane Austen novels, I have five copies of Wuthering Heights beside Gender and Queer Theory text books. I’d like to think people would see it as charmingly eccentric, but I’m not sure if I need to be an 80-year-old-professor or not for that one!

OPB - Bedside Books

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A huge thanks to Geoff for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves! If you would like to catch up with the other posts in the series of Other People’s Bookshelves have a gander here. Don’t forget if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint as without you volunteering it doesn’t happen) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance. In the meantime… what do you think of Geoff’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that he mentions?

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Rounding Up The Reviews #2; Drivers Seats, Seas of Stories, Days of Deer and Wavewalkers

Both in preparation and as a teaser for the change in Savidge Reads next week, I thought I would round up some of books I have failed to review so far this year and start a new occasional series of posts where I give you a more succinct selection of books you might want to need. The good, the bad and the ugly! Before you think that they are all just going to be books I didn’t really like I can say that two of these books I really liked a lot. Such a tease, anyway, I am in danger of falling into my usual waffle territory so let’s get on with it…

The Driver’s Seat – Muriel Spark

Penguin Modern Classics, paperback, 1970 (2006 edition), fiction, 128 pages, bought by my good self

You know I love Muriel Spark, I know I love Muriel Spark so why would I put her in a round up post? Well my lovelies it is because I have read this book before and told you all about it then. But should you not be in the mood to pop and check that link, which would be frightfully mean of you, I will give you a little summary. I loved it as much as I did the first time.

Oh ok, that isn’t quite enough. Lise has pretty much lived the same day of her life every day for the last sixteen years. Yet she has decided to change all that by going away on holiday and leaving everything behind, in short she is going to transform herself and yet the transformation might not be the sort of thing we would go in for. As we follow her story though we soon learn that the adventure and journey Lise has in mind might not be the sort of thing we would go for either! It has been called a dark nasty little book; I think it is a dark little work of genius. Read it, then read it again. You can hear it discussed further here but beware of spoilers!

Haroun and the Sea of Stories – Salman Rushdie

Penguin Books, paperback, 1991, fiction, 224 pages, borrowed from the library

When Haroun’s mother leaves him and his father for her lover, who happens to be their neighbour (which I found all a bit grown up for a kids book but clearly I am a prude) everything changes. Not only for the family and the loss of a mother and wife but also as Haroun’s father changes almost overnight. Before his wife left he was one of the most witty and charming people around who made his living as a story teller, the Shah of Blah. Now the stories are gone and when he opens his mouth all that comes out of it is ‘Ark, ark, ark…’ Haroun must find the sea of stories and save them all. Which sounds very grand but is the purpose of the adventure that follows.

I think if I had read this when I was about 10 or 11 I would have looooooved it. As it was I kind of liked it. I think the problem really is me. I I like magical realism in general but for some reason in a kids book magic just tends to get a bit silly for me (with the exception of Mildred Hubble and Harry Potter) and it breaks the spell, pun intended. I had tried Rushdie’s other young adult/childrens book Luka and the Fire of Life and had the same issues there but Rob chose it for for Hear… Read This, so I blame him as I wouldn’t have read it otherwise, ha! It has made me want to read Rushdie’s adult works again though, not a complete loss for me, and many of you will love it – in fact on Hear… Read This most of them did.

The Days of The Deer – Liliana Bodoc

Corvus Books, paperback, 2014, fiction, 320 pages, kindly sent by the publisher

It is known that the strangers will sail from some part of the Ancient Lands and will cross the Yentru Sea. All our predictions and sacred books clearly say the same thing. The rest is all shadows. Shadows that prevent us from seeing the faces of those who are coming. In the House of Stars, the Astronomers of the Open Air read contradictory omens. A fleet is coming to the shores of the Remote Realm. But are these the long-awaited Northmen, returned triumphant from the war in the Ancient Lands? Or the emissaries of the Son of Death come to wage a last battle against life itself? From every village of the seven tribes, a representative is called to a Great Council. One representative will not survive the journey. Some will be willing to sacrifice their lives, others their people, but one thing is certain: the era of light is at an end.

No I didn’t write that, Waterstones did. I had the most weird reading experience with this book. Firstly the writing style is at once completely wooden and clunky, though this may be the translation. Secondly, the author doesn’t feel like she is in control and as she goes will invent some magical/fantastical happenstance or monster or something to keep it all going. Thirdly, I don’t think she knows where its going. Fourthly, it is fantasy and I am not renowned for liking that genre. Well I read it. I just got on with it, I didn’t understand much of it, I didn’t really like it but oddly I was completely unoffended by it. I just read it, without rhyme, reason or any real reaction. It was a really odd experience, pure inoffensive nonchalance. Have any of you had that? Oh and if you can’t take my word for it even Gav, of Gav Reads, who chose it for Hear… Read This wasn’t a fan.

Wavewalker – Stella Duffy

Serpents Tail, paperback, 1996, fiction, 261 pages, bought by my good self

As with Muriel; you know I love Stella’s writing, I know I love Stella’s writing, so why pop it in a round up post. Well the honest answer is I just guzzled this down, like a chocolate bar you devour and enjoy but should have maybe let the flavour of linger longer. (This is by the way highly flattering; I never joke about great chocolate or great books or waste them.) To carry that analogy further and possibly to its limit, it is like when you finish inhaling a Crunchie (or Violet Crumble if you will) and you just loved it so much you just want another one. Well I have held off reading the bext Saz Martin because I should have dwelt on this one longer. I am pacing myself with her recently published short story collection at the moment.

To give you a brief synopsis, the second in the Saz Martin series (the first Calendar Girl, which I shockingly read six years ago, I also really recommend) sees Saz investigating a new craze therapy that has come over from America, San Francisco to be precise, employed by the mysterious Wavewalker who thinks Dr North’s practice may link with a cult group and an unusual spate of suicides in the seventies. As I mentioned I just ate this book up. It has great plotting, Saz Martin is a brilliant quirky lead character and there is quite a lot of lesbian sex to titillate you, pun not intended, as you read on. I am seeing Stella tonight and she may kill me for that, ha! All in all it is a great thriller and I would love Stella to bring Saz back!

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So that is your lot for now, one more round up on Saturday when we have a right old mix from Fairytales to Sex Criminals. If that doesn’t tempt you back nothing will. In the interim do let me know if you have read any of these and what you made of them! Also let me know if you have ever had the same instance as I did with The Days of the Deer where a book just leaves you utterly nonchalant, not good, not bad, just nonchalant.

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Other People’s Bookshelves #33; Jeremy Largen

Hello and welcome to the latest in Other People’s Bookshelves, a regular series of posts where you get to have a nosey at other book lovers bookshelves. This week we are off across the ocean to Chicago (though I may be delayed in quarantine) to join the lovely Jeremy, one of the many, many booklovers who I have come to know through social media and now wish I could teleport to visit for a nice cup of tea and bookish natter every week or so (and to join his book group too). Sighs. Anyway, less about me and my science fiction whims, I will hand over to Jeremy and let him introduce himself while I get my visa checked and medical assessment and join you later on…

I’ve always been a reader for as long as I can remember.  I grew up in the country and there wasn’t a lot to do.  My brothers enjoyed fishing, hunting, being outside, but I preferred to stay in and escape in a book, or if my parents forced me to go outside and “play,” I would take my book with me. I read pretty much anything, except I don’t like biographies/autobiographies, especially about famous people, but memoirs are okay.  Nor do I like Westerns.  I’m not a shoot ‘em up, cowboys and Indians kind of guy.  My favourite, and my go-to genre, when I just want to escape is fantasy.  I love the worlds.  I love the magic systems.  Fantasy, for me, is imagination at its best. I moved to Chicago about 9 years ago, for the job opportunity.  I had a hard time making friends, not being one to really go to the bars all that much, nor was I all that extroverted, so I decided to start the Chicago Gay Men’s Book Club in 2008, to make friends.  I never imagined that it would be so successful.  I’ve met some really great guys since, and have made some lasting friendships that I cherish.

I also recently started a book blog, www.bookjerm.com, which I’m kind of learning as I go.  I’ve never blogged before.  I’ve been rating and writing blurbs for books I’ve read on goodreads.com for several years, but writing full book reviews is new to me, and challenging, though finding time to actually write, I think, is probably the most challenging.  But I’m super excited about it and looking forward to developing my site as a place to house all my bookish thoughts, etc.  I’m also on Twitter, @BookAddict34, where I “tweet” about books, movies, and life in general.

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Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

All the books I keep are on my shelves.  I usually only keep the books that I really love, for one reason or another, and donate the rest.  I think, at least at the moment, I have more books I haven’t yet read then books I’ve actually read.  I’ve got a bit of an addiction when it comes to buying books.  I was out this afternoon, in fact, buying more books to add to the already overflowing shelves. 

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

I used to alphabetize all my books, but decided it wasn’t fun anymore.  The constant shifting of books became too tedious to keep up with.  I usually group authors together where I have several of their works, e.g., Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Carroll, but the rest I just make sure they go on their designated shelf; Shelf 1, which goes straight across both bookcases 1 & 2 in my living room is for Fiction (larger trade size paperback).  I have several books by Margaret Atwood and Jonathan Carroll, two very different writers, but both phenomenal writers. Shelf 2 is for non-fiction, which I don’t have a lot of.  These books only take up one bookcase.  On shelf two of the other bookcase starts my Fiction (smaller mass market paperback size), which runs on to shelf 3 of bookcase 1 as well.  Shelf 3 of the second bookcase is dedicated to The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, a favourite fantasy series of mine. Shelf 4 is where I keep my GLQBT books.  I don’t read a lot of this genre.  David Levithan was an amazing discovery of mine last year.  I absolutely loved Two Boys Kissing and Will Grayson, Will Grayson, which he co-wrote with John Green.  Shelf 4 of bookcase 2 is where I house my Harry Potter books and books in French.  Dangerous Liaisons is probably one of my favourite books of all-time, which is on this shelf.

Finally, the bottom two shelves of each bookcase is dedicated to my TBR.  They are the most jam-packed, overflowing shelves in the entire bookcase.  Sometimes I wonder if I don’t enjoy buying books more than reading them.  At this point, if I stop buying books today, it would take me more than a decade to catch up. I also have two, smaller, bookshelves in another room, which houses my books on writing, which I have a slight obsession with reading, and other reference books, such as grammar and French. I try to cull books once or twice a year, but am hugely unsuccessful.  I will begin by saying, “I am going to get rid of 20 books today, to make room for some new ones,” but at the end of the day, I will be lucky to decide on five.

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

I don’t think I can actually remember this, but I do remember walking into a bookstore when I was young and buying Needful Things by Stephen King.  I remember feeling very adult.  It was a heavy hardcover, too, which made the experience that much more adult-like.  I was going through a phase at the time where I was devouring books, especially horror novels. 

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

This would probably be my Anne Rice books.  I have all the Vampire Chronicles, and these are the ones that people make the most comments about. These books take up half a shelf on one of my bookcases.  I used to hide them behind other books, but decided what’s the sense of having books if I’m just going to hide them.  These books were part of my horror phase when I was growing up, and I display them proudly, since then, however, I have a hard time reading vampire stories.  It would have to be a pretty fantastic vampire story to appeal to me today. 

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

I would try to save as many of the books as I could.  I have nightmares about losing my books in a fire.  I live on the first floor of my apartment building, I think I would just start chucking them out into the street before jumping out the window after them at the last minute.  My most prized books would probably have to be The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.  I really love this fantasy series.  There are 14 books so far and it’s still going—I hope it never ends.  I’m not one to collect antiquated books, or go to a ton of book signings, though meeting Jim Butcher is on my list of things to do before I die.

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I have a funny story about book signings, actually. I recently went to my first this past year.  It was Dave Eggers, who was signing for his new book at Unabridged Books here in Chicago.  I read A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius a couple years prior and absolutely loved it.  After waiting in line for just over an hour, I stepped up to get my book signed.  I was expecting him to just write: “To Jeremy” and then sign his name, but he scribbled over the entire page, covering it in black marker, which leaked through to the next page.  I cringed at this defacement.  I take great care of my books, maintaining their pristine condition, even after reading them, so for me to even relent and allow a book to be signed is something special.  Dave Eggers basically ruined that book for me.  So, bad first experience.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

I remember reading V. C. Andrews at a very young age and thinking, “I probably shouldn’t be reading this.”  I then, of course, told my brother about these scandalous books and he was even younger than I was.  We both read these books back-to-back.  It’s probably the fastest I’ve ever read a book, ever.

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

Absolutely, but only if I loved it.  I’ve borrowed books before where I had to have my own copy; I needed to “own” it.  Recently, for example, The Golem and the Jinni by Helen Wecker.  I borrowed a copy from a friend and absolutely adored the story.  I had to have my own copy for my shelf, which the hardcover with the black edged pages is gorgeous by the way.  I’m the same way with ebooks.  I’m one of those rare individual that reads ebooks and physical books equally.  If I read an ebook that is amazing, I will go out and buy a physical copy for my shelf.  I don’t know why I do this.  It’s a compulsion, I guess.

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What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

I’m constantly adding new books to the TBR shelves, but the one I’m most recently excited about is Harriet the Spy, which was a childhood favourite of mine.  The 50th anniversary special edition just came out last week, and I can’t wait to find time to sit down and read this again.  I only hope I like it as much as an adult as I did as a child.  Ready Player One is another that I recently purchased.  I’ve heard so many good things about it, and I’m always drawn to the cover art when I’m in the bookstore, so I decided to buy it.  I’ll get to it, eventually.

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

I’ve been a bit nostalgic lately for my childhood favorites.  I wish I would have saved all these books that I read in my childhood!  I’d really like to get my hands on the Ramona Quimby series by Beverly Cleary or the Anne of Green Gables series, both of which I absolutely loved.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

I would like them to look at my books and think, “Wow, what an intelligent, well-rounded reader.”  However, what I usually get is “Anne Rice?  Really?”  I read everything, but the books that I’m most judged for are my fantasy and horror novels.

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A huge thanks to Jeremy for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves, who else feels like they don’t want to go home and would rather stay and have a chinwag for much longer?  Don’t forgot if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint) in the series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance. In the meantime… what do you think of Jeremy’s responses and/or any of the books and authors that he mentions?

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Other People’s Bookshelves #18 – Victoria James

It is time to spend a little while leisurely nosing around someone elses collection of books with the latest installment of Other People’s Bookshelves. This time around we are having a nebby through one of my most recent delightful bookish acquaintances, Dr Victoria James, one of the most well travelled and well read people I have met in some time. Victoria and I bonded earlier in the year as we judged the Not The Booker Prize for the Guardian and have been messaging and emailing about the books we have been reading ever since. I am currently buttering her up to work on a bookish TV project together. I’m delighted, between flying here there and everywhere she has taken the time to share her shelves with us and so will stop waffling on and hand over to the lovely lady herself.

Firstly can you tell us a bit about yourself and where your love of books came from…

I’ve always wondered if the thing I’m very best at isn’t TV (I’m a television producer) or journalism (I was Tokyo Correspondent of New Statesman, and have written for many papers and magazines), or travelling (which I do often and well) – but reading. During my childhood, each night after bedtime my parents would check on me and pluck off my face the book I had fallen asleep reading. I’ve got four degrees in English, yet to this day feel as desolate on closing the last page of a wonderful book as I did when I first reached the end of the Narnia sequence, or ‘2001 A Space Odyssey’. I love my life, and I really love the way reading has given me thousands of lives in the pages of beloved books.

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Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

For years, I kept all my books, but because I live in a tiny place in London most of them were stored at my mum’s house. When she wanted to move, I did a comprehensive sort-through and took about half down to the local Oxfam shop. Every now and then my mum rings me up to tell me with great annoyance that Oxfam has sent her a running total of the cash raised from my books – it’s in the hundreds of pounds, now. My criteria for retaining/discarding books were simple: was a book (i) ever going to be read again, (ii) of emotional value, or (iii) a beautiful or rare volume? If not, down to Oxfam it went. I try to stick to the same policy now for acquisitions – books that don’t meet any of those criteria but which I want to read anyway I buy for my e-reader.

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

I tend to group my books by ‘collections’. I studied English at uni and have loads of ‘classics’ – they are all on one bookcase, and modern fiction on another, both ordered alphabetically by author. I lived in Japan for years and have a great number of Japanese books: these are grouped together, then subdivided by fiction and nonfiction (and alphabetically within those). I’ve a smaller collection of books on nature, wildlife and ecology, which go together (alphabetically), and travel (alphabetical by destination, not author). My most recent small collection is of books about Vikings, as for the past 18 months I’ve been writing both a Viking-themed novel and a travel book. These shelves are a glorious mashup of fiction, poetry, sagas, histories, nonfiction, catalogues and picture books (and are not remotely alphabetical).

With the exception of the last, this probably makes me sound borderline-obsessive about my books. Perhaps I am – but the rest of my life is a joyous, freeform improvisation. When a sixth-former I volunteered at my local library, and as a graduate student I earned cash manning my college library desk, so my neat books could be simply the product of a scant few good habits, learned early!

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

As a child I never had pocket money, but my mother joined no fewer than four local libraries to keep me plentifully supplied with borrowed books. The first time I got to ‘buy’ a book myself was when I won the class prize at my new school (I’d got a scholarship to a private school, where they did posh stuff like prizegivings). I chose a beautiful hardback of ‘The Hobbit’. It was part of a series of six hardbacks, along with the three ‘Lord of the Rings’ books, ‘The Silmarillion’ and ‘Unfinished Tales’ and I asked my mother to buy the whole lot, as I was worried that particular edition would go out of print and I wouldn’t have a matching set. ‘But you’d have to win the form prize every year,’ my mother said. ‘Don’t worry,’ I replied, ‘I will’. And I did. And I still have those six lovely volumes today.

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Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

I adore gloriously lowbrow sensation fiction, and I have more books by Wilkie Collins than any other author apart from Yukio Mishima. I also love children’s fantasy fiction (such as Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and the Wolf Brother books), and am an unrepentant, lifelong sci-fi fan. But I’m not embarrassed by a single book I own. What a terrible notion – that’s like asking if people hide their naughty children when visitors come round!

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

This probably sounds heretical, but one part of me would be quite delighted if everything I owned went up in flames. I’ve always been bit of a believer in the principle of nonattachment to material things – books are the glaring exception to my attempt to lead a nonaccumulative life. I do have a few books that were given to me and inscribed by good friends, or bought at meaningful moment of my life, but the important things are the friends and the memories; I can always buy the books again.

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What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

My father seemed to spend years of my childhood reading James Clavell’s ‘Shogun’, while my mother bought Oswald Wynd’s ‘The Ginger Tree’ (about a Scottish woman in early 20th-century Japan) after it was adapted by the BBC in the 80s. I don’t have either on my shelves today, but I spent most of my 20s living in Tokyo, so I guess both books made their mark!

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

I buy every book I want. It’s like a sickness, Simon. I’m sure you understand…

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

The latest added to my shelf is ‘The Gentle Author’s London Album’, a largely pictorial book about London life and recent history. It’s exquisitely produced, with golden endpapers – to handle it is to covet it. The latest added to my e-reader is Eleanor Catton’s ‘The Luminaries’. I know some people don’t much like e-readers, but they make me a better buyer of newly-released fiction when the alternative is a hefty hardback for which I have neither shelf-space or bag-space.

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

My Big Wish for my bookshelf in the future is (cough!) a copy of my own first novel: a stirring (cough!) tale of Greenland’s last Vikings, who are suddenly confronted with proof that their world – and their dreams – are much larger than they ever imagined. There’s just that small matter of finishing it (10,000 words to go) then securing an agent and publisher.

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

They can think what they like! But you wouldn’t need to be too perceptive to deduce the following: My reading tastes – omnivorous and insatiable. Me – an outdoorsy, well-travelled bookaholic with a thing for Japan, Vikings and spaceships.

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A huge thanks to Victoria for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves. Don’t forgot if you would like to participate (and I would love you to – hint, hint, hint) in the Other People’s Book Shelves series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance. In the meantime… what do you think of Victoria’s responses and/or any of the books that she mentioned?

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Other People’s Bookshelves #14 – Roz Campion

After a small hiatus Other People’s Bookshelves is back, back, backity, back… Hoorah! Thank you to everyone who has responded to my plea for more of you to share your book porn with us, keep them coming as I would love this series to run and run. Anyway, for the fourteenth in the series we get to have a lovely nosey through Roz Campion’s shelves, first though (I know you are desperate to see the books, the books, the books) let us find out a little bit more about Roz…

Roz works for the Foreign Office and currently lives in Washington DC. She has been obsessed by books and reading since she was little and never really understood why anyone would give a gift that isn’t a book. She says she is the kind of person who would read the instructions on a bottle of shampoo if there was nothing else to read – though fortunately she ensures that there always is… Her tastes are a combination of modern fiction, 19th century novels and Persephone-type books. Having a reasonably busy job plus more interests and friends than she did when she was a kid, means that she reads less than she might like. Or at least she did until this year, when the lovely Thomas of My Porch blog made a bet with her about who could read more during the course of the year. Being a determined girl this means she’s already had a fabulous year of reading and is now on book number 53. She listens to books as she walks to work and also listens to novels when she runs, which she admits most people think is weird (she ran her first half marathon whilst listening to an Anthony Trollope novel). She has been with her civil partner, Layla, for almost 6 years, and one of the most difficult things when they first moved in together was merging book collections…not least because Roz kept on trying to take Layla’s books to the local charity shop (to ensure there was enough room for hers). She occasionally blogs for the Foreign Office, though sadly not about books: http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/rosalindcampion/ Right, lets take a look at her books and reading habits…

Roz Shelves 5

Do you keep all the books you read on your shelves or only your favourites, does a book have to be REALLY good to end up on your shelves or is there a system like one in one out, etc?

When I lived in London, I’d assess a book before putting it up on a shelf. That’s not to say that most of them didn’t end up on my shelves anyway – a book has to be really quite bad for me to be certain that I won’t want to read it again and therefore can “risk” giving it away. But now we live in the US I’m not really sure how to get rid of books – they don’t have charity shops in the same way we do in the UK (or not that I’ve been able to find) – which means I keep pretty much everything. After all, it feels just wrong to put a book in the recycling – no book deserves that fate.

Do you organise your shelves in a certain way? For example do you have them in alphabetical order of author, or colour coded? Do you have different bookshelves for different books (for example, I have all my read books on one shelf, crime on another and my TBR on even more shelves) or systems of separating them/spreading them out? Do you cull your bookshelves ever?

I was a nerdy child, and worked in the school library for 6 years (finally becoming Head of Library, which unsurprisingly didn’t bring with it the kudos or glamour that I’d hoped). This means that I like order in my books. Fiction is ordered alphabetically by author (though I’m ashamed to say that the last two times we’ve moved I’ve managed to get someone else to do the alphabetising!). Things have started to go awry a little since we are running out of room a bit. Non-fiction is downstairs and there’s a bit of me that would like to recreate the Dewey decimal system. Fortunately we don’t have enough non-fiction for that to be possible, so there’s a biography section, and then “other” which also has a few TBR books (which I’ve put there when doing a mad dash to tidy up before someone arrives and then forgotten about). My other TBR pile is my bedside table, which is impractical and messy but there you are. I used to cull books reasonably regularly when we lived in London (to Layla’s sorrow as I kept deciding we didn’t need her books!) but without somewhere to take unwanted books that’s not a feature of our lives anymore. And I’m still struggling with trying to work out how to organise my Kindle – I have created numerous different categories, but problem with organising books on a Kindle is that it is very much out of sight out of mind with me.

What was the first book you ever bought with your own money and does it reside on your shelves now?

When I was about 6 or 7 I won a £5 book token in a drawing competition. In retrospect, this seems most bizarre since I am completely talentless when it comes to anything artistic and so I suspect it must have been some kind of pity prize. Anyway, I agonised for a while about what to buy and then was told I had to make a decision “now”. This meant I was rushed into buying a paperback of Rosemary Sutcliffe’s The Silver Branch. It’s a wonderful book (and I do still have my very dog-earred copy of it) but unfortunately it is the second in a trilogy. So it wasn’t a very successful first purchase… Fortunately (or unfortunately) my book-buying talent has improved a lot since then.

Roz Shelves 1

Are there any guilty pleasures on your bookshelves you would be embarrassed people might see, or like me do you have a hidden shelf for those somewhere else in the house?

I gave away most of my guilty-pleasures before we moved here. I’m ashamed to say that I thought that the packers would judge me for my low taste (in fact, I think they mainly hated me for the quantity of books they had to pack). I think, though, I did keep a few Sophie Kinsella books but these are now languishing unpacked at the back of a closet. Other than that, most of my guilty pleasures are on display. In some ways I quite like seeing the Harry Potter series nestled against Philip Roth…

Which book on the shelves is your most prized, mine would be a collection of Conan Doyle stories my Great Uncle Derrick memorised and retold me on long walks and then gave me when I was older? Which books would you try and save if (heaven forbid) there was a fire?

Most of the books which I have a sentimental attachment to are still at my mother’s home in England. I’d definitely save her copy of Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes which she got as a school prize in the 1940s, if there was a fire, for example. The only thing I might grab in case of fire that I have with me here is the set of Jane Austen books which my godmother gave me when I was a child. She taught my mother English literature and always sent my books as gifts – they were always a bit too hard for my age, but is one reason why I read so much great British literature when I was in my teens.

What is the first ‘grown up’, and I don’t mean in a ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ way, that you remember on your parent’s shelves or at the library, you really wanted to read? Did you ever get around to it and are they on your shelves now?

The first “grown-up” author I wanted to read, and wasn’t allowed to, was PG Wodehouse. I think my mother thought that I wouldn’t appreciate him if I read him too young and didn’t want me to spoil his books for myself. I managed to persuade the local library to let me get one out of the adult library when I was around 10 and I completely adored it, and read pretty much all of the others I could get my hands on. The one that sticks out most for me (and which I have re-read most often) was Psmith, Journalist. It gave me an all-consuming desire to go to New York, and is a brilliant combination of a humour and social conscience.

Roz shelves 2

If you love a book but have borrowed the copy do you find you have to then buy the book and have it on your bookshelves or do you just buy every book you want to read?

I don’t borrow many books these days since to my sorrow I’ve not managed to find that many friends here who have my all-consuming enthusiasm to read (other than Thomas). But looking at my bookshelves now, I can see some books that I “borrowed” from my best friend in London (sorry, Hugo!) so perhaps that’s just as well…

What was the last book that you added to your bookshelves?

The last book I bought was Appointment in Samara, by John O’Hara. I bought it in a lovely bookshop in Greenwich Village in New York, mainly because it had a beautiful cover and I saw it described as one of the great American novels – I’m very keen to read more American literature whilst I’m living here. I really enjoyed it, though no-one could say it’s a cheerful book.

Are there any books that you wish you had on your bookshelves that you don’t currently?

Always. The recent Barbara Pym reading week made me want to buy some of Barbara Pym’s works (but I promised myself I wouldn’t till I got through more of my TBR pile).

Roz TBR

What do you think someone perusing your shelves would think of your reading taste, or what would you like them to think?

I think that most people’s first thought would be bemusement that I shipped quite so many books across the Atlantic. I suspect that there would be some surprise that I don’t have more non-fiction – most houses that I’ve visited in DC seem stuffed with books on politics and biography (which make my three small shelves look paltry). And people often wonder why we keep the travel guides to the places we’ve been – to which there’s no clear answer except that it’s quite jolly to remember where we’ve been, they can lead to some good conversations (“you’ve been to Eritrea? why?”) and, of course, I don’t know how to get rid of books here…

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A huge thanks to Roz for taking part in Other People’s Bookshelves. Don’t forgot if you would like to participate (and I would love you to) in the Other People’s Book Shelves series then drop me an email to savidgereads@gmail.com with the subject Other People’s Bookshelves, thanks in advance. In the meantime… what do you think of Roz’s responses and/or any of the books that she mentioned?

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Mothers in Literature

So today should have been my latest Persephone Project post, however alas I haven’t quite finished it yet, sorry for those of you reading along with ‘Fidelity’ – I don’t want to natter about it when I haven’t finished it, I should have the post up tomorrow afternoon. Today is, well in the UK at least, Mother’s Day and this has lead me thinking about mothers in literature because actually, having given it a lot of thought on a never ending tour of the supermarket this morning, I think they tend to get a bit of a hard time.

As soon as I started thinking about mothers in literature the first thing that I thought of was wicked step-mothers, I wonder how many of you thought the same thing. This is no reflection on my own lovely mother, who bless her was in a car crash this week (she is fine, very lucky but fine) of course, nor my stepmother, who I have yet to meet and so is a mysterious character to me in many ways, ha. I do wonder if this leap to wicked stepmothers has anything to do with having seen Oz the Great and Powerful and the Wicked Witch of the West obsession of mine being back in full force.

Wicked stepmothers were my first thought though which makes sense, after all in most fairy tales aren’t the heroes and heroines generally orphans? If they aren’t then either their mother is a queen, a penniless widow who sends them off to sell a cow or can’t be bothered to take a picnic through the woods herself and so sends the kids, what sort of message is that sending us from an early age? Of course I am being a little tongue in cheek there, yet even in a lot of modern children’s fiction and YA fiction the protagonists are orphans, take Harry Potter for instance.

I had a think through the classics and her I found myself in the realm of more orphans (‘Great Expectations’, ‘The House of Mirth’ etc) in the main, or the mothers tend to fall into two other camps, they are either manipulative women who just want to get their daughters wed, become the butt of all the jokes, or both – yes Mrs Bennett I am thinking of you indeed.

So where, or who, are all the great mothers in literature? Are they all written as these odd stereotypes so we appreciate our own all the more? Who is your favourite mother figure in literature? I think mine links back to Harry Potter as I rather love Mrs Weasley, you?

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‘New Adult’ Fiction; What is the Point?

One of the many things that I love about recording The Readers every week, with Gavin of Gav Reads, is that it makes me think about (and in this case have a rant about) things that I wouldn’t expect it to. This week Gavin wanted to talk about the genre of ‘New Adult’ fiction, I have to admit I knew very little about it to be honest and so I went off and did some research. Having done so I have to admit that my main thought with it is… What is the point of ‘New Adult’ as a genre?

If we use the trusted source (my tongue is slightly tickling my cheek here) Wikipedia for a definition then it is “New-adult Fiction or post-adolescent literature is a recent category of fiction for young adults first proposed by St. Martin’s Press in 2009.St. Martin’s Press editors wanted to address the coming-of-age that also happens in a young person’s twenties. They wanted to consider stories about young adults who were legally adults, but who were still finding their way in building a life and figuring out what it means to be an adult.” What is all the more interesting/odd is that the age range for this new type of genre is according to several sources the age range of 14 – 35.

Now we will slightly gloss over my main issue that this is a genre simply created by some marketing people in a publishing house to sell more books which is no bad thing, until you see some of the quality of some of the books and the sort of stories they are. Snobbish? Maybe! It seems like a cash cow and one which I find a mixture of patronizing and perturbing.

My first concern is that the first book which has been published as a ‘new adult’ novel is Tammara Webber’s ‘Easy’, which starts with the protagonist of the book getting raped. I am aware this happens in the world and that younger people need to be taught the hardships of life (though in my day it was being taught about death by being bought a hamster or goldfish that would invariably pop it’s clogs in a month or two) but at the age of fourteen, really? This for me becomes all the more disconcerting as apparently the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ trilogy has now, along with ‘Twilight’ but not Harry Potter, been put into this category. Do we really want anyone, not just girls, under the age of 18 reading books with graphic sex in them, regardless of the tin of S&M worms that come opened with it? Weren’t we all calling these books ‘Mummy Porn’ just months ago, now because we are so stupid forward thinking and ‘out there’ let’s pass it on to some youths. I am inwardly groaning as I type. I am not a prude but this does all just seem wrong.

The question is what next? Will the ‘Mummy Porn’ become a genre alongside ‘Tragic Life Stories’ (groan) and ‘New Adult’ (I have just seen how appropriate that title is for books that seem to technically be Baby Black Lace/Black Lace for Beginners), will there be a ‘Ready Meal for One/Spinster/Lonely Man in a Cardigan/Eternal Bachelor Fic’ to run alongside ‘Romance’? Will I be dashing to buy from the ‘True Tales of Animals Daring Do’s’ shelves? Will ‘Grey Fiction’ suddenly take off? The mind boggles, though if any of those do become ‘the latest thing’ I want royalties.

Also what annoys me about it is that those publishers pushing this genre are actually closing off a world of books to people rather than opening the eyes of many to more wonderful books. Are we all going to have to follow the same reading trajectory? You start with picture books, then children’s books, then YA, then NA, then ‘fiction’ and that is the only option? What happened to just getting to an age where you read what you want? For me, who is from a generation prior even to YA (yes I am that old), it was a case of reading from Robin Jarvis to Patrick Suskind, possibly via some Point Horror, because I just naturally progressed at my own pace in my teens. Are the ‘New Adult’ book police going to stop my 14 year old sister from her current read of ‘An Evil Cradling’ by Brian Keenan (no she really is) or make my 13 year old cousin stop reading Charles Dickens and C.J Sansom because apparently he isn’t ready for them yet, instead handing them ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ to have a think about as that is what they should be reading at their age? Erm, no thank you! It all seems preposterous to me. And what about YA is this defunct, down graded or what?

Is this 'NA' or is it 'YA' or simply just fiction?

Is this ‘NA’ or is it ‘YA’ or simply just fiction?

That said, as this is a rather one way set of thoughts on the genre I have recently got a ‘New Adult’ book, though it was just in ‘Fiction’, from the library in the form of ‘Dare Me’ by Megan Abbott. I thought I really should try one of the books from the genre I am writing off a) to see what I make of it b) see if really it is just fiction or YA under an addition unnecessary pigeon hole c) because Jessica of Prose and Cons Book Club (who I love and wish blogged every day, no pressure) loved this tale of crazy evil cheerleaders and it might be a laugh. I will report back, I might end up eating my hat, or I might find out this ‘New Adult’ tag is just a bonkers new genre that need not be, we will see.

As you might have noticed this subject has brought out the rant filled part of me, which you can actually here in the last section of The Readers this week, and I could go on all day. I would love to hear other people’s thoughts on it. Regular readers of this blog of course, but also some of the NA lovers out there and maybe even some of their authors. So what do you think about NA, am I just being a grumpy old git or what?

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Hollow Pike – James Dawson

I have always been a little wary of young adult fiction, well since I was a young adult, and reading it as a grown up. I admit I loved Harry Potter but I did start that series when it came out in my late teens and so of course I carried on with the series, how could I not. I have dabbled in ‘Twilight’ to mixed results (I like the films more) and just didn’t get ‘The Hunger Games’. Odd then that I thought James Dawson’s debut novel ‘Hollow Pike’ was a bit of a corker, yet I think it’s because it is everything I would have liked in a young adult novel when I was one (and my sister, who is fourteen, love it – more on that later) and never got. I will explain…

Indigo Books, paperback, 2012, young adult fiction, 320 pages, kindly sent by the publishers

Lis London (brilliant lead name for a YA character) leaves her home in Wales for the small Yorkshire town of Hollow Pike after the bullying that she has endured at school simply becomes too much and hopes for a new start. However new starts are always tricky, will you make any new friends, will you end up in the right crowd, could history repeat itself? Prior to moving Lis has been having nightmares of someone trying to kill her each night, before she arrives at Hollow Pike she believes that this could be due to stress yet why is it when she goes through the local woods (which have a history of witchcraft) everything looks so familiar? Throw in the murder of one of her fellow school mates and soon it looks like Lis is set to be the killer’s next target.

I will admit that on paper the idea of ‘Hollow Pike’ as a story does look slightly like your average supernatural teen thriller fare, yet there is so much more to it when you read it. First of all there is Lis, she literally (cliché alert) walks off the page. The story of how she was bullied at school and then tries so hard to fit in with the right, and then the delightfully wrong, crowd will without a doubt have you looking back at your own school days. I remember having a Laura Rigg (popular, beautiful but ultimately a complete bullying power controlling bitch) or three in my school, I also remember the slightly kooky, or some people might say odd, group which you kind of wanted to be a part of and where also rather scared by and so all these characters came vividly to life. I thought that fact that he made three of the lead characters gay and lesbian was also a very brave thing to do and something I don’t think is really written about for that age group, brilliantly its very much part of who the characters are yet it isn’t the only thing that defines them – like life.

Secondly there is the style and nature of the book. From the outside (cover and blurb) this book looks set to be a witch-fest, it is far more clever than that. I actually think at its heart ‘Hollow Pike’ is a crime novel, with hints of witchcraft thrown in for good measure, where the moral of the story is friendship. The book has the fast paced thrilling nature of a good crime though never at the expense of the writing or the atmosphere, which I really liked. Oh and I couldn’t guess who the killer or killers were and was second guessing all the way to the denouement.

Thirdly, as an adult reading this, I loved the sense of nostalgia it had. I am of the generation (as is James Dawson it would seem) that had the Spice Girls blasting on the radio, watched ‘The Craft’, ‘Mean Girls’ and ‘Scream’ at the cinema and devoured Point Horror novels all weekend (I didn’t even care that they regurgitated the same plot over and over). This combines all those things, except switches regurgitated ideas for originality, and creates a book and a world in young adult fiction that is familiar yet new. I was charmed by it.

I did have the odd wobble or two with ‘Hollow Pike’ I will admit. Occasionally bits of it felt overly familiar and I think I was expecting something with more witchcraft. But I am a thirty year old critiquing a book that isn’t for me, and I really enjoyed it overall, so I will leave you with the thoughts of my little sister Miriam (who joined me and Gavin on The Readers Book Club to discuss it – and do listen as she is brilliant on it) who said, to paraphrase, that…

‘Hollow Pike’ was actually all the more clever for what James Dawson does with the witchcraft elements and  that I shouldn’t expect the obvious – which told me frankly. She found it scary (I did a few times but didn’t want to admit it – oops), thrilling, realistic, original and different from other books in its field.. At fourteen she is the idea reader for this book and she LOVED it. I am not its target market and I thoroughly enjoyed it, so rave reviews from both of us really.

Who else had read ‘Hollow Pike’ and what did you think of it? What are your thoughts on adults reading young adult fiction? If you like them yourself then which would you recommend, apart from ‘Twilight’ and ‘The Hunger Games’?

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Thanks Mum, For Making Me Read

If I am honest I do think that Mothering Sunday, which is upon us here in the UK, is actually a big mass of cash spinning marketing. If you like your Mum, tell her when you see her or speak to her, if you don’t like her then don’t tell her, or see her. Ha! Anyway, that aside I thought it might actually be a nice idea to do a post about my mother considering without her influence I wouldn’t be the reader I am today and I am not sure I have ever thanked her for that in person, so I thought I would do it publically. She’ll be embarrassed but that is what sons are for or is that what parents are for? Either way…

My mother (that’s her there —>) had me at the age of 16 years old back in 1982, in fact almost 30 years ago to the week how apt (apparently she is ‘fine, yes fine, why do you ask’ about being 46 and having a soon to be 30 year old son). Not that it was the dark ages, but at that time not only was it a rather shocking occurrence it was also one that could curtail your studies and career, especially if you were going to be a single mum, as my Mum was even though she had the support of my grandparents. This wasn’t to be the case with my mum, she carried on her studies and took me with her to Newcastle where she gained a degree in Classics. I always say that having been to university from the ages of three to six is why I didn’t feel the need to go myself, excuses, excuses.

It is at university that my first memories of Mum reading to me are the strongest. I can vividly remember, after me throwing matchbox toy cars at her head to wake her up at 6am, the joy of getting into bed with her in the morning and being read children’s classics like the Ladybird Fairytales, Roald Dahl, Jill Murphy and the seminal works of ‘The Adventures of He-Man’ or ‘The Adventures of She-Ra’. It was also at this point books really took on a life of their own when she would read me the stories my granddad wrote and illustrated for me, which even featured me in them (and a certain Novel Insights who I had befriended aged 4), about the tales of a witch called Esmeralda and all her friends. You can see them below and read about them further here.

Studying Classics meant I also got the entire myths and legends from the Greeks and indeed the Romans regularly, I don’t know if it was because of her enthusiasm for the subject or if it helped her revise, in fact most nights. I seem to remember this is when ‘The Saga of Erik the Viking’ by Terry Jones appeared on the scene and was read often along with the nonetheless epic ‘Flat Stanley’. However it was an illustrated edition of the story of Persephone which I vividly remember from the time and would read over and over. I lost the love for Classics when I became a teenager and my Mum was teaching it at my school, odd that, but it’s nice to see it has recently been awakened by Madeline Miller’s ‘The Song of Achilles’ where the joy of reading about the gods, goddesses and monsters (I had a moment of utter joy when a centaur first graced the pages of this book) has been reignited. More on that tomorrow…

The library was a  place we always went regularly, as were charity shops. I remember once buying a new version of the story of Perseus from Oxfam for 50p, Mum opening it impressed and then seeing the joy drain from her face as she swiftly returned it, it seemed it was a rather over racy (Perseus does porn kind of thing) version of the story and not really appropriate for a young boy of eleven. Sherlock Holmes was though, and as my great uncle memorised them on walking holidays to stop me being bored, we would pop to Waterstones (a real treat) on the way home after she had picked me up to get a new collection, this was also when we fell upon Robin Jarvis and ‘The Whitby Witches’.

A year or so later Mum gave me my first proper grown up book in the form of ‘Perfume’ by Patrick Suskind, I wonder if my Nancy Drew obsession that summer when we went to Africa had made her worried I would end up with no taste – I still like a crime. Her attitude was if I was going to start reading grown up literature it had to be the good stuff. This was followed by attempts to lead me to Margaret Atwood but I wasn’t biting. I was studying books, and whilst my Mum might have become a good English teacher, my English teacher (one of her colleagues, oops) was slowly taking all the joy out of reading and after I left school early I avoided books like the plague. Mum had laid the foundations though.

In fact looking back whenever I ended up living back at home, which happened a few times after some particularly bad relationship decisions I made and their tumultuous endings, Mum would let me have a good cry and suggest ‘maybe pick up a book’. This could have been to show me books are always there for you, or it could have been to provide some escape, or she maybe just wanted me to stop crying and leave her alone, ha. Whatever the reason though at times of turmoil bookshelves and books would be in my head, even if I wasn’t rushing out to buy them, and they still are. When things have turned to the proverbial, pick up a good book, or a bad one.

Nowadays of course when we see each other books are one of the main things we talk about – who cares how the other one of us is, what we have been reading is far more important. Our tastes can be bang on (Anne Tyler, Margaret Atwood, Samantha Harvey) or completely polar (Susan Hill, owning a Kindle) but we both love books and really that’s down to her, with some help from Gran too of course. It’s nice seeing she has done the same with my thirteen year old sister (though Twilight, really?) and eleven year old brother (Harry Potter ‘which he is reading quicker than me and won’t wait’) and she continues to do so as an English teacher, in a school where kids aren’t generally fans of books but they will be, or else.

So thank you Mum for giving me the gift of books, the encouragement to read and forcing me into the library when sometimes I didn’t want to go. Look what it lead to. Happy Mothers Day.

You can read my Mums favourite books here and see her get a readers grilling here.

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