Harriet Devine's Blog

And the winners are...

Here are the winners of the Austen giveaway draw. Congratulations! I've emailed everyone as well -- just need mailing addresses.

Letters from Pemberley -- Karen
The Watsons and Emma Watson -- Ilissa
Emma and Knightley -- Sarah
Mrs Darcy's Dilemma -- Sherry
Pemberley Chronicles -- Callmeabookworm

Money from Holme

I am a great admirer of the detective fiction of Michael Innes and have written about it on here before. So when I was staying in the Sanctuary Bookshop B&B in Lyme Regis last week, I snapped this one up for £1 -- I'd never even heard of it before. It turns out to be slightly unusual in that it does not feature Appleby, Innes's clever, suave detective. The plot revolves around a rather unpleasant character, Mervyn Cheel. He is a small-time art critic, and a very small-time painter of 'pointilliste abstracts'. He is also  a small-time con man, though he would be appalled to think of himself in that way, and he has rather nasty sexual habits which lead him to pinch women in crowds. Cheel has fallen on rather hard times after being found out for lying about the provenance of various paintings. The novel starts at a private view of the work of a young, and recently dead, artist, Sebastian Holme. To his amazement, however, Cheel recognises a heavily disguised Holme  at the gallery, gazing at one of his own paintings. This leads him to make a cunning plan -- he manages to get Holme to repaint works that supposedly perished with him at the  time of his own supposed death. For a while this plan is very successful and Cheel is happily driving a Rolls around London -- but events turn and things get very tricky. Like all Innes's writing this is clever, intelligent and sophisticated, and I was quite entertained by it. Cheel is a well-drawn character --since it is his point of view that is the focus of the novel, Innes does well in revealing his unpleasantness and self-deception to the reader while showing how he himself constantly believes he is in the right. Not among Innes's best work, perhaps, but definitely worth £1.

Sunday Salon: Reading

I had a slightly odd experience this week. I started reading Kate Grenville's The Secret River, and I was really loving it. But when I got about halfway through, I put it aside so I could finish a book I had idly picked up over breakfast, Hilary Mantel's Giving up the Ghost, which completely bowled me over -- I blogged about it a couple of days ago. Then I picked up Kate Grenville again but found I just could not bring myself to start reading it again. Why was this? I have no idea, but it may have had something to do with the fact that, on the cover, it is described as a very sad book. As far as I had read, it was not sad, just fascinating and enthralling -- set in the late 18th century, it is the story of a Will Thornhill, a man from the poorest streets of London who is deported to Australia with his much loved wife and their little children. After making the best of life in the embryonic town which would become Sydney, they set off to claim a piece of land and become landowners -- but are faced almost at once with the fact that the native peoples are antagonistic and threatening. This raises fascinating and important issues, and as I write this I realise I will have to get back to it soon, especially as I have a great liking for books about the early days in Australia (Oscar and Lucinda, Voss). Maybe the problem was just that I was not in the mood for a tragedy, which I suspect this will become. So what did I start instead? Georgette Heyer's Friday's Child. Oddly enough set about the same period, but as different a book as you could hope to find. I read Heyer as a child but this is the first time I've come back to her  in a very nice edition newly published by Sourcebooks. Enormous fun. I haven't got very far but am having a lovely if rather silly time with it all.

Sunday Salon: Austen Sequel Giveaway

Regular readers of this blog will have seen this before, but I thought I'd throw it open to the Sunday Salon. Names and choices in the comments, please -- draw will be mid-week.

This exciting offer, from the publisher Sourcebooks  Inc.. arrived in my inbox a couple of days ago. It's open to anyone who would like a copy of one of the books listed below:

From the publisher that brought you the critically acclaimed Mr. Darcy's
Diary by Amanda Grange and Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll, a
new crop of Austen sequels are available now for giveaway on your site!
Set up a contest, or select a few winners at random-to get the word out
about our amazing continuations in the legacy that is Jane Austen, I'm
willing to send 5 copies of our books to your readers!

This will be a draw, so just put your name in the comments section, and say which book you'd like to receive, and the publisher will do the rest. Brilliant, I think.
Here are the books:


Old Friends and New Fancies
<http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=1219>  by Sybil Brinton

Letters from Pemberley
<http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=1265>  and More Letters
from Pemberley <http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=1356>  by
Jane Dawkins

The Darcys Give a Ball
<http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=1609>  by Elizabeth
Newark

The Pemberley Chronicles
<http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=1632>  and Women of
Pemberley <http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=1633>
(limited quantities!) by Rebecca Ann Collins

The Watsons and Emma Watson
<http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=2053>  by Jane Austen
and finished by Joan Aiken

Emma and Knightley <http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=1703>
by Rachel Billington

Mrs. Darcy's Dilemma
<http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=2213>  by Diana Birchall

This one is definitely reading, Lindsay

J.J. Shannon, Jungle Tales 1895.
Yes, I guess Lindsay's comment on the previous one is probably right. I did have my doubts. Nice picture, though.

Two Women Reading

At least I think that's what they are doing! William McGregor Paxton, The Sisters, 1904.

New Meme

Just saw this on Cornflower and could not resist. Here goes:

1. Pick up the nearest book.

2. Open it to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the next three sentences.

5. Tag five people and acknowledge who tagged you.

The nearest book is Jonathan Kellerman, The Murder Book.
Fifth sentence on p. 123 is: He smiled.
Next three sentences: 'Today I woke up as a cockroach? Yeah, good old John G. had a knack for that kind of thing from way back. Served the lad well, hasn't it?'

Consider yourself tagged if you haven't been already!

Giving up the Ghost

                                                           I have to admit that I have not read any of Hilary Mantel's novels. I did try one once, can't remember which, and did not get very far with it for whatever reason. But at the beginning of this week I was staying in a Bed and Breakfast in Lyme Regis (Dorset, south coast, for those of you not familiar with the UK) and found this on a shelf. Finding a book in this B&B was not very difficult as it is actually on the top floor of a bookshop! Named The Sanctuary, it is a veritable feast of second hand books, which have overflowed onto the stairs, into the bedrooms and the dining room. I need hardly say what a great joy that was. So it was rather amazing that I came away with only three books -- two battered green Penguin detective novels, of which more later, and this one which came into view as I was having breakfast on the last day. I'm very fond of childhood memoirs (though not those of the misery and abuse persuasion) and loved the cover, but it was when I started reading that I became completely hooked. This is a truly remarkable book. The first part is Mantel's memories of her childhood, not, on the surface, a particularly remarkable one -- but the way she tells it is extraordinary and moving and breathtakingly original. She has that really rare ability of entering completely into her own tiny self, and the way that tiny person perceives the world is absolutely fascinating. The later section of the book moves on to her adult life, her endless health problems, and her feelings about how these have affected her ability to have children. Sounds depressing? Not so. Touching and sad but also very uplifting. A must must must read if you have not already.
And below, here is my bedroom at The Sanctuary.

Austen Sequel Giveaway!!! Get a Free Book!

This exciting offer, from the publisher Sourcebooks  Inc.. arrived in my inbox a couple of days ago. It's open to anyone who would like a copy of one of the books listed below:

From the publisher that brought you the critically acclaimed Mr. Darcy's
Diary by Amanda Grange and Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll, a
new crop of Austen sequels are available now for giveaway on your site!
Set up a contest, or select a few winners at random-to get the word out
about our amazing continuations in the legacy that is Jane Austen, I'm
willing to send 5 copies of our books to your readers!

This will be a draw, so just put your name in the comments section, and say which book you'd like to receive, and the publisher will do the rest. Brilliant, I think.
Here are the books:


Old Friends and New Fancies
<http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=1219>  by Sybil Brinton

Letters from Pemberley
<http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=1265>  and More Letters
from Pemberley <http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=1356>  by
Jane Dawkins

The Darcys Give a Ball
<http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=1609>  by Elizabeth
Newark

The Pemberley Chronicles
<http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=1632>  and Women of
Pemberley <http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=1633>
(limited quantities!) by Rebecca Ann Collins

The Watsons and Emma Watson
<http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=2053>  by Jane Austen
and finished by Joan Aiken

Emma and Knightley <http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=1703>
by Rachel Billington

Mrs. Darcy's Dilemma
<http://www.sourcebooks.com/cart/shopexd.asp?id=2213>  by Diana Birchall

Sunday Salon

It's Sunday and I've managed to read another couple of books. One of them was kindly sent to me by Legend Press -- a  collection of short stories called Eight hours. It's an ingenious idea -- each story, by a different author, takes place in real time (an hour, obviously).  I suppose the best way to describe them is to say they are very contemporary, issue-based stories -- abuse, incest, problems with sexuality and so on.  Clever idea -- they have published several of these collections. So if this appeals to you, do support Legend Press by buying a copy! They are a newish independent publisher -- here is what it says about them on their website:

Legend Press is the UK's youngest-run mainstream fiction publisher, specialising in cutting-edge contemporary work, including both literary and commercial ranges. Set up in 2005 by Tom Chalmers, our company's profile is rapidly growing and we have set out our intentions to double our list year-on-year until 2009.                                          

The other book I have read was an amazingly lucky find. I spotted it in a charity shop for a pound and snapped it up on the strength of its green cover. It has not been reprinted, seemingly, and does not appear on the Virago website. I had never heard of E Arnot Robinson, who was apparently a prolific novelist and very popular in the 1930s. This was a most fascinating and enjoyable book. 'Ordinary families' is clearly an ironic title, as the families here are really far from ordinary, though perhaps the point is that all families are in some way extraordinary and indeed what we would now call dysfunctional. The novel is narrated by Lallie, who is eleven at the start and in her 20s by the end, so it is, of course, what we in the trade call a bildungsroman -- a book about growing up, in other words. Lallie is a member of the impoverished middle class Rush family, who live in Sussex and whose lives revolve around boating. The middle daughter, she is intelligent, perceptive, thoughtful, and feels like a misfit. Her real love is bird-watching, which causes great mirth and leads to comments about her brains, which are not valued at all -- when, as a young adult, she expresses the wish to go to college and study something like zoology, the idea is roundly squashed as not at all the sort of thing Rush girls should be doing. Really, though, what the book is about is Lallie's growing awareness of her own sexual feelings,  and her subsequent love for an older man, the archeologist Gordon Summers, who has been for many years unhappily involved with a married woman. The progress of their relationship is beautifully done, and I found myself relating painfully to the agonies she suffers when he tells her that he really likes her but does not feel it would be right to start a relationship with her, and again when she sees his intensely sexual response to her beautiful, amoral younger sister Margaret. The ending is extraordinary -- I don't want to spoil it in case anyone manages to get this and read it, but events seem to be going in a very satisfactory direction until almost the last paragraph in which there is a real sting in the tail. The writing is intelligent and witty, and all in all this was a great discovery, so if you ever spot it, go for it!