Six in April

I read six books in April – an eclectic mix this month I think you’ll agree.

Shopaholic to the Stars by Sophie Kinsella

I’ve read all the Shopaholic books of which this is the latest and I am in admiration every time as to how Sophie Kinsella does it – to have Becky Brandon, a character who is, yes, a shopaholic, something I’ve no patience with in real life, and manages to make her sympathetic and lovable. Here she is in her element in L.A. where she and her husband and small daughter are temporarily based. But it’s not all froth and maxing out the credit card, there are darker issues in Tinsel Town plus an intriguing mystery around Becky’s father’s past which will be investigated in the next book during an American road-trip.

What Matters in Jane Austen? Twenty Crucial Puzzles Solved by John Mullan

A year or so ago I joined the Jane Austen Society (Scottish Branch). At this year’s AGM in March John Mullan was the guest speaker – I’d heard him talk at the Edinburgh Book Festival and on television so knew we were in for a treat. He lectures in English at University College London – lucky students, for he is a most enthusiastic and engaging speaker.

He explores in a very readable way why we still read J.A.’s books two hundred years after they were written, and explains innovations in her writing technique (including introducing free indirect speech to English fiction); her brilliance of dialogue (rendering even minor characters memorable); and games she played with her readers – such as having characters who are important to the novel never speaking directly (for example Mr Perry in Emma); plus he answers the questions you were afraid to ask – Is there any sex in Jane Austen?  How much money is enough? 

When Marnie Was There by Joan G. Robinson

I’ve no idea why this book was not on my radar before. It’s been compared to Tom’s Midnight Garden, one of my favourite ever books, plus the author wrote the Teddy Robinson titles, much loved by my offspring (and me) when they were little. So when I was in Waterstone’s looking for a present and saw it (a new edition) on the classics table in the children’s department I had to have it.

‘Sent away from her foster home one long, hot summer to a sleepy Norfolk village by the sea Anna dreams her days away among the sandhills and marshes. She never expected to meet a friend like Marnie … but no sooner has Anna learned the loveliness of friendship than Marnie vanishes.’

And it did not disappoint, a lovely read – and, from a postscript by the author’s daughter, I read that it has been turned into an animated film by a Japanese film director, the story moved from the Norfolk marshes to the coast of Japan …

Not Just Dancing by Helen Flint

Having finished When Marnie Was There I remembered another book for teenagers I’d acquired from somewhere and hadn’t read (the term YA would not have been used when Marnie was first published nor for Not Just Dancing which came out in 1988). Sadly, when I looked Helen Flint up to see what else she’d written I saw that she died in 2000 at the age of 47. She wrote several books for teenagers, including a couple of others with titles beginning Not Just … 

In this one, Geraldine, champion dancer and on the look out for true love, is appalled to find that she’s been allotted to her mother and her Home Help clients as part of the school’s Work Experience week. A great cast of characters of all ages; I loved it.

 Over the Garden Fence by Patsy Collins

A collection of short stories, all inspired by gardens or flowers; some first published in magazines and some written specially. I interviewed Patsy Collins in my last blog post here.

The Year of Reading Dangerously by Andy Miller

A few weeks ago we were in St Andrews and went to the recently opened Topping & Company Booksellers. And I can report it was, absolutely topping. I took some very bad photographs of it which I will not share – but there are good ones on someone else’s nice blog here.

They don’t have the ubiquitous café but the owner/manager asked us if we would like tea or coffee and he brought it to us, in china cups and saucers, on a tray, with biscuits. Could life have any more to offer, we asked ourselves, as we sat at a little table surrounded by walls of books. No, we replied, it couldn’t.

Although actually it could – I’ve always wanted to go up one of those ladders that you can whiz across high bookshelves (not while you’re on it … ) so when I spied a copy of Carol Shield’s biography of Jane Austen I climbed up to claim it.

We would have made purchases anyway – the sheer volume of stock and the way it is laid out meant that we found books we’d never heard of before – but after being treated with such hospitality we spent even more.

They have a programme of events (sadly, we live too far away to take advantage of that). One of their recent speakers apparently was Andy Miller about whom the assistant waxed lyrical when I took my books to the till.

Andy Miller had been a very bookish child but realised he’d got out of the habit of reading. He set out to read ‘Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones)’ and he charts the experience in this book described by the Daily Telegraph as ‘High Fidelity for bookworms’.

Interview with Patsy Collins

Today I’m pleased to welcome Patsy Collins onto my blog. Patsy Collins is a novelist and short story writer. More than 300 of her short stories have been published in magazines in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden, Australia and South Africa. She's also written three novels, Escape To The Country, Paint Me A Picture and A Year And A Day.

I asked Patsy some questions about her new collection of 24 short stories, Over the Garden Fence.

Patsy – were these stories all previously published in magazines or written specially?

Both. As I intend to produce a whole series of these books I deliberately write quite a lot of stories set in gardens or otherwise involving plants. Most have been published in magazines or placed in competitions, though a few are shiny and new.

You’ve cited gardens and gardeners as one source of inspiration – where else do you get ideas? (What a pity ideas can’t be grown from seed like flowers and veg!)

Pretty much anywhere I don't have the means to make a note. Sitting in front of the computer doesn't seem to do it. I need to be digging, or cycling, or baking a cake. One minute I'm wondering if I should sow more lettuce, the next I'm wondering how an imaginary person is going to get out of the mess I've managed to think them in to.

Actually, I think ideas do grow like seeds. We start with a character, or a situation or a setting we'd like to use. That's the seed. If we just leave it there nothing happens, but if we write it down it has the chance to grow. We feed and water it with other story elements until it's flourishing. Then sometimes we have to prune them back!

Gardens/flowers are the backdrop to this collection – but definitely not in a sentimental, roses-round-the-door way. How do you decide that you want, for example, to write a story set in the future, or one that involves magic/black magic?

I don't know. Usually I write about characters who're fairly normal people in contemporary, realistic settings. They might have problems but by the end of the story they've resolved them, or found a way round them and everything ends happily. Sometimes they just won't go like that.

Do you prefer writing short stories or novels?

When a novel is going well I prefer that. When I have an idea I love for a short story then that's what I most want to write.

Which part of the process do you like best – the writing or the editing?

Second draft. At that stage there's plenty to work with, I know where I'm going and I can't help but make it better.

Do you have a writing routine?

Nope! I do write (or edit or some other writerly task) most days and tend to do most of the creative stuff in the morning, but I'm easily distracted. We travel a lot and I sometimes work with my husband, so a fixed routine wouldn't really work even if I was capable of sticking to it.

Thank you for answering my questions, Patsy.

Thanks for inviting me over, Kate. Pleasure to chat to you.

As Patsy says, gardens, plants and people all have their stories. Lean over her garden fence and she'll tell you a few …

Patsy blogs at http://patsy-collins.blogspot.co.uk/ (a mix of interesting words and free-to-enter writing competitions). She has also recently (2015) taken over the popular blog http://womagwriter.blogspot.co.uk/

Buy Over the Garden Fence here.

Five in February

I read five books in February (must do better). Four of them are reviewed here; the fifth will be in a separate post.

The Emerald Comb by Kathleen McGurl

I knew of Kath McGurl through her magazine stories and her very useful blog:

http://womagwriter.blogspot.co.uk/

(which she has now handed over to another womag writer Patsy Collins)

Read on Kindle (gorgeous 'cover' – it would seem covers are just as important for e-books as they are for print).

The Emerald Comb is Kathleen’s first full-length novel and an excellent one it is. 

Katie’s tracing her family tree has been just a hobby – but then she and her husband are able to buy a house that belonged to her family two hundred years ago, and she becomes almost obsessed with her researches further into the past. As the story moves between the 21st and 19th centuries the reader can piece together the family’s dark secrets. 

Quite often in a novel with a dual narrative one strand is more interesting than the other – not so here; each was equally compelling. I look forward to reading Kathleen’s The Pearl Locket.

The Alphabet Sisters by Monica McInerney

Three sisters, Anna, Bett and Carrie were childhood singing stars in their local area in rural Australia, managed by their Irish-born grandmother, Lola. But the grown-up sisters haven’t spoken since Carrie married Bett’s boyfriend. In an attempt to get the sisters to be friends again Lola arranges an extravagant party for her 80th birthday and demands that all the girls return home.

I liked the Australian background as it’s relatively unusual to read books set there, and I like reading books about sisters, but as the story turned darker towards the end it felt like too many ishoos were being addressed. Plus I couldn’t help wishing that Maeve Binchy had written it – it strived for her warmth but for me it didn’t get there.

At A Time Like This by Catherine Dunne

Four women, Claire, Maggie, Nora and Georgie, have known each other since university – or think they know each other. Narrated by spoilt Georgie who is about to not turn up for their twenty-five years celebratory get-together; we don’t find out the reason for her absence until very near the end. Well written although in rather a detached way. I didn’t know if we were supposed to cheer for Georgie or not. She was the unworthy sun around whom the others revolved and I’ve never liked the thought of that kind of relationship in real life.

She was unbelievably self-centred all her life culminating – *spoiler alert* – in abandoning (in a note-on-the-kitchen-table-kind of way) her own, albeit grown-up, daughters, as well as her nice husband, to live in Italy with Nora’s twenty-something son. You can see how that would sour the friendship … 

Entry Island by Peter May

This is the first Peter May I’ve read, and having done so I intend to read his earlier books set on the Isle of Lewis.

Entry Island is a real and remote island in the Gulf of St Laurence, 850 miles off Quebec on Canada’s east coast. When a detective is sent from Montreal to investigate a murder he is convinced he knows the victim’s wife – and prime suspect – although they have never met before.

In a dual narrative (my second one this month) we find out about another murder, in another country, in another century, and the twists and turns that have brought these two troubled people together. Loved it – great story and fabulously evoked setting.