The photo above shows my three favourite books of last year: one I  had on my wishlist  for years and received for Christmas 2010, another published last year that appealed, and one by the author of one of my all-time favourite novels, of whom I had been too afraid to read anything else.  I think these books reflect a more balanced approach to reading that I had been missing.

However, I have also missed aspects of blogging and resolved to dip my toe gently back into it.  Today has been the first day of 2012 that I have actually read anything and that was inspired by the Australian Literature Month being hosted by Kim(bofo) of Reading Matters; in the maddening throes of a reading slump where nothing would stick in the last week of 2011 and nothing was picked up in the first few days of 2012, I decided to throw caution to the wind and read something Australian.  Hopefully Cloudstreet by Tim Winton grips me and doesn’t let me go until the last page.

First of all, apologies for the delayed Persephone Secret Santa reveal and thank you to my co-host Verity for holding down the fort and providing a full list of this year’s recipients.  I have had a crazy week month year and have been feeling a little under-the-weather.  However, it is often in times of manic working when the perfect reminder comes along of how special Christmas is to me and injects me with some long-overdue festiveness.

Two Sundays ago (yes, Royal Mail actually deliver parcels on a Sunday in the lead-up to Christmas) I received the above parcel from my lovely Persephone Secret Santa and the abundance of beautifully-presented gifts had me squealing like a small child on Christmas morning; they were almost too lovely to open and it was all I could do to put off off that pleasure to take photographs.  Helen, whom I know from the Virago Modern Classics group on LibraryThing and her participation in Persephone blogging events, thoroughly spoiled me.  In my packages were Persephone book #14, Farewell Leicester Square by Betty Miller; a green Virago Modern Classic also by Betty Miller, On the Side of Angels; a Gisela Graham Christmas tree decoration; a tin of Amattler amattlons; a notebook and a bar of Jasmine-scented soap plus the wooden gift-tag above that is also hanging on my tree.  A huge thank you to Helen for being so very generous and for introducing me to the wonder of amattlons (cocoa-dusted almonds from Catalonia), of which I now want to own a vat.  Helen was incredibly thoughtful and chose a Persephone book for me that I have desperate to read and including a Virago by the same writer was a wonderful surprise.  Moreover, Helen managed to happen across a Gisela Graham glass tree decoration that I have been coveting; I had bought one of the three Victorian-inspired ornaments in Liberty on my first visit to the Christmas shop this winter and had intended to buy the other two.  Regrettably I can’t find them online to show you (and can only post one photograph in my posts) but trust me when I tell you that they are divine and are hanging in pride of place on my Christmas tree.

Rather dull in comparison is my own Persephone gift received by my Santa this year, Emily of Seriously Reading, who serendipitously played Santa to my co-host Verity.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this year’s Persephone Secret Santa, who exhibited such generosity and creativity of spirit and here is to curling up with a Persephone book these holidays.

For the first post in, again, quite some time, I have entered into dialogue my fellow blogger and friend, Simon of Stuck in a Book.  Please enjoy our ramblings about One Day by David Nicholls (the obligatory orange jacket for the book accompany this post – it appears everywhere else so why not here?!)

SIMON: So, Claire and I had both read One Day by David Nicholls, along with seemingly everyone else in the world, and we both wanted to put up posts on it.  But we thought it might be fun to do something a bit different.  We’re having a real-time conversation via email, and will post the results on both our blogs… hopefully it’ll have the feel of a book group, but with the bonus that we can edit ourselves to sound better!  Hi Claire!  Hope you’re well?

CLAIRE: Hi Simon, I am well, thank you.  Funnily enough, I was watching something that provoked me into thinking about missed connections/potential but interrupted moments, which was the essence of One Day, in my opinion.  I found those “what if?” and *nearly* sections of the novel both frustrating and emotive; I think we can all identify with them on some level.  What do you think?

SIMON: Good point.  I suppose, in outline, One Day is fairly inevitable – we know the lives of Dexter and Emma are going to overlap after their day/night together at the end of university – otherwise there wouldn’t really be any point to the novel.  So Nicholls had to lace it all with will-they-won’t-they moments, near-misses and misunderstandings etc.  I suppose One Day could borrow that ‘only connect’ mantra from Howards End – it’s about two people trying, and repeatedly failing, to connect with each other.  I was worried it would feel too gimmicky, the concept of coming back to each of them on the same day every year – or too full of coincidences – do you think it was?

CLAIRE: I felt it was very contrived.  The anniversary of when they met happened to be the same date as all of those key moments in their relationship and [the big spoiler at the end!]? Really?  Life is full of coincidences but I think that Nicholls took the gimmick too far.  I agree though that it is about two people trying -and failing- to connect with each other.  I think that the reason I found it so frustrating is that those near-misses and misunderstandings are such an integral part of life and something we have all fell victim to at some point … I felt that Emma and Dex’s relationship was hopeless/futile and that these connections are so often outwith our control/at the whim of fickle fate and a bitchy traveller who steals other people’s books!

Your allusion to Howards End reminds me of the tribute the book made to Tess of the D’Ubervilles and Hardy; it’s been so long since I read Tess (and I have a hopeless retention for key plot details) but what was the relevance between it and One Day?

SIMON: Oh gosh, now you’re testing me… The letter goes missing under the carpet in Tess, maybe that?  Can’t see much of a link between the two, myself.  Nor did I find One Day as contrived as I’d thought it might be – because big events were recalled, rather than all happening on July 15^th.  But I agree that The Big Spoiler Moment happening on the same date as their meeting was a coincidence too far…

Whilst we’re on intertextual references – I was chuffed to see what Emma had on her bedside table at the beginning of the novel.  Now I can’t remember what they all were (argh!) but I do know that I’d read them all – there was Milan Kundera, maybe a Muriel Spark?  It certainly made me like Emma, at the start at least.  I’m easily won over like that.  How sympathetic did you find Emma and Dexter, and did it change as the novel progressed?

CLAIRE: That sounds about right; I knew it was something about miscommunication/confessions going astray!  I did think it was clever that we were told rather than saw some of the key moments in their relationship as everything occurring on July 15th would have been ridiculous,

I was delighted by the intertextual references – we do love our books about books!  I took note of this wonderful quote about Muriel Spark.

But at the best of times she feels like a character in a Muriel Spark – independent, bookish, sharp-minded, secretly romantic.

I certainly warmed to Emma, at the start, due to her love of books; however, both she and Dexter grated on my nerves throughout and not just because of their ineptitude in getting together.  My sympathies towards Dexter changed as the novel progressed, as I found Dexter became more sympathetic, but, conversely, Emma became an unsympathetic character. Regrettably, Emma was far from the Muriel Spark character that she professed to be. Ultimately, I didn’t like either of them very much- did you?

SIMON: There were definitely moments when I couldn’t imagine Dexter being any more loathsome.  The period where he was constantly on drugs, doing appalling television, feeling self-important and neglecting Emma – I just wanted her to high-tail it outta there.  I found this quotation, from that year, one of the most moving in the book:

Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and I probably always will.’ Her lips touched his cheek. ‘I just don’t like you anymore. I’m sorry.

I think the conflict between loving and liking someone (romantically or otherwise) is something with which we can all identify.  Nicholls phrases it so simply there – and since it comes at the end of a long scene where Dexter has proved unbearably awful, and Emma has tried so hard, I found it really powerful.

But I came out the opposite of you – by the end, I liked them both.  Eventually I even warmed to Dexter!  How important do you think sympathising with characters is in One Day?

CLAIRE: Oh, that’s interesting.  He was loathsome but I think as the novel -and the years- progressed I understood Dexter more; I think he was an addict, which, as I said above, made him more sympathetic to me.  Emma, I thought, was dissatisfied/unfulfilled and although that made me sad it also made me find her a little… fickle; once she had Dex she still wasn’t happy and it was inevitable that their story had a tragic ending (spoilers galore! I think that there is a statute of limitations, especially on a book that is everywhere. Mwah ha ha).  I found it sad that as a thirty-eight year old Emma was so disillusioned by love and far removed from her twenty-two year old self.
Normally I do not have to sympathise, or even like, characters in order to enjoy a book but with One Day I think it hampered my enjoyment.  Although I liked it well enough I did not love it.  I needed to be more invested in their story, to will them together, but I didn’t care enough about them; Em/Dex are not the star-crossed lovers of our generation.  Do you agree?

SIMON: I had a fairly odd relationship with the novel – in that, whilst I was reading it, I loved it.  I raced through it on holiday – and you know me and long books; it doesn’t often work.  But almost as soon as I finished it, I started doubting myself.  Had I really liked it as much as I thought?  Was it actually a very good novel?  I did care about the characters – I must have done, to make me find it so compelling.  But afterwards I started to think – is Nicholls a good stylist, for example, or simply good at making a novel pacy?  (Is there a difference?!)

CLAIRE: I think there is a difference.  I similarly found it compelling-and we have established it wasn’t due to my love for the characters- but I think it suffered from undue hype.  Surely to be classed as an epic love story of our times, we have to be more engaged and invested?  Mr Darcy doesn’t start out as likable but, oh my, is his and Lizzie’s story compelling.  One Day was absorbing and it absorbed me for more than one day but I don’t understand why so many people love it/cry over it.  I saw the tragic moment coming, although it did make me gasp a little.  However, I don’t think that really answers your question.  It was a good read but not a good book, if you see the same difference as I do?

SIMON: That’s exactly it!  Except I might be a trifle more generous and say it was a great read but not a great book – it might just sneak into ‘good book’ territory for me.  I have a feeling that those who wept/cheered over One Day either have had close experiences, or have yet to read P&P etc. (or my favourite romantic couple, Jane/Toby in The L-Shaped Room.

CLAIRE: I will temper my comment by saying it was a good read but not a great book (that seems fairer and more truthful to my own feelings).  I hate to say it (well, not really) but I think that as far as mainstream love stories go, Emma and Dexter, are fitting but they were too close to … human for me; I prefer my love stories either more romantic/idyllic or far grittier (of which polar opposites both of your examples fit).  Emma and Dexter’s story was distinctly average

SIMON: Like you, I more or less saw the tragic end coming.  That’s one moment which I thought the film did extraordinarily well – and I wished I hadn’t known it would happen, because it was quite a shocking moment of film.

Ah, the film.  Let’s swap our reading glasses for our cinema specs for a mo – first off, who would you like to have played Emma and Dexter?  I would have loved Emma to be Romola Garai, which was only enforced by seeing her in a smaller role in the film.

CLAIRE: I haven’t seen the film (I know!)  I meant to… then all the criticism of Anne Hathaway’s shifting accents deterred me.  Did you find though while reading it that you had the cast in your mind’s eye?  I always find it hard to re-imagine a character once they have been imagined for me onscreen.  I love Romola Garai, however, and think she would have made a lovely -and altogether more sympathetic- Emma; as for Dex, I’m not sure… somebody that does cad and endearing/vulnerable/messed up male well.

SIMON: I never visualise characters when reading, so I was pretty open to any actors, visually at least.  Gotta say, I’d never heard of Jim Strugess before One Day, but he was a brilliant Dexter.  Dexter’s more annoying phases were played with an undercurrent of embarrassment, so that he never felt quite as loathsome as he did in the novel.  Anne Hathaway… oh, Anne, I love you normally, but that accent was beyond dreadful.  Most of the time she was vaguely British, and then she would lapse into ee-by-gum Yorkshire.  No, Annie, no.

CLAIRE: I’ve seen Jim Sturgess in a film before and thought he was well cast (not seeing how he actually comes across onscreen though, I can’t judge if I was correct.)

SIMON: We’ve not really covered all the other characters… have to admit, Emma’s boyfriend Ian made me feel very uncomfortable – mostly because I kept wondering how similar he was to me!  I’m totally the guy who makes jokes all the time, whatever the tone of the situation…  What did you think of Ian and Sylvie, as the substitute partners for Emma and Dexter?

CLAIRE: Ian made me very uncomfortable too; he started off sweet and self-deprecating and then became quite scary.  I don’t think you should be at all concerned of being the same as him, Simon!  He had his insecurities and was obviously very much in love with Emma; I did think it was good of Nicholls to bring him back for Dexter in end, which redeemed his character.  Sylvie never really rang true for me; she was quite one-dimensional and what was with her family?!  The Sylvie of early Dexter/Sylvia and the Sylvia at the end of their marriage were disparate but, then, people and relationships evolve/devolve.  Neither character was a fitting substitute character, I thought, but acted as a foil to the “meant to be” partner.

SIMON: Sylvie’s family were ghastly, weren’t they?  ‘Are you there, Moriarty?’ sounds like the worst game ever, and I usually adore silly family games.  I wish Nicholls had made her a little more believable, as a person Dexter would have picked.  Ditto swarthy French bloke, for Emma.

I suppose we should be drawing this discussion to an end, since it should take up less than one day(!) – can I just say, though, what fun it’s been, Claire!  I hope the readers enjoy the format (shameless plug for ‘we love you guys’ comments!)  Perhaps we can just sum up our thoughts in one or two sentences?

CLAIRE: It’s been a pleasure, as always!

Hm, one or two sentences?  One Day was a book about missed opportunities and failed connections and, regrettably, it failed to connect with me.

SIMON: Nice!  Ok, my turn.  One Day felt like a great read one day, a good read the next day, a mediocre film a later day, and a great conversation today!

]]> http://www.paperback-reader.co.uk/2011/11/21/one-day-by-david-nicholls/feed/ 9 http://www.paperback-reader.co.uk/2011/10/23/persephone-secret-santa-is-coming-to-town/ http://www.paperback-reader.co.uk/2011/10/23/persephone-secret-santa-is-coming-to-town/#comments Sun, 23 Oct 2011 18:00:53 +0000 Paperback Reader http://www.paperback-reader.co.uk/?p=3207

It has been said often but bears repeating: one of the most surprising but wonderful by-products of blogging are the friendships that have been forged through a shared passion for books.  I consider myself blessed to have met (in real life and virtually) so many people who I have an affinity with, “kindred spirits” as one literary heroine would refer to them.  One such person is Cardigan Girl Verity who I have grown considerably close to over the last two plus years, conversing -through various technological means- daily.  Through a love of Persephone Books and our mutual collections of Virago Modern Classics, Verity and I have come to know each other in a way that extends beyond our mutual love of reading and hosting our Persephone Reading events.

Those of you who follow her blog will know that Verity is off to get married and that happy event takes place today in Austria.  The wedding lunch in Oxford takes place on the 13th and I am lucky enough to be attending and celebrating with Verity and Ken.  In the meantime, please join me in wishing Verity and Ken good luck for the day(s) and a lifetime of happiness together.  *Throws confetti*

*The inspired idea for this blogging reception of well-wishers was all down to the lovely Rachel/Joan Hunter Dunn of Flowers and Stripes.  Verity has text to say that she is incredibly touched and is reading even though she shouldn’t be as internet use on her mobile is so expensive in Austria! She couldn’t sleep before her big day and went online to be greeted by such a warm outpouring of congratulations.  She cannot comment from her phone but sends many thanks to all who have participated.

**The photograph above was my virtual participation in Verity’s Hen Party.  I was unable to be there in person as that was the day I flew out on holiday but Verity sent me a Hen’s kit (minus the Philip Treacy fascinator-design challenge, sniff) and I partied in advance.

Hello.

This is becoming a habit…

In July I was in Florida, on the Gulf Coast reading and rejuvenating; in Orlando wrapped in the magic of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and Disney.  I now aspire to having my own lazy river that I can float around on a inflatable ring all day every day, with a book in hand, of course.

Or, would that be a Kindle?  One of the life-changing moments of turning thirty was becoming the proud and delighted owner of a Kindle.  I shall never give up on print books; I work in the publishing industry, for a start, and I’m also a collector of books, but the Kindle has revolutionised my approach to reading.  Not least was the novelty of traveling with one and loading all of my summer reading onto one light device.  It was so liberating to not have to worry about the weight of books in my luggage and be restricted in my choices due to space.

In June I was still coming to grips with my new job and schedule.  The job became permanent as of last week so now it’s a matter of finding and maintaining the balance between work, play and blogging.  Something had to give over the last few months and regrettably it was Paperback Reader.  I’m not sure what the future holds for the site but I do miss it and you.

Even though I am now two months into my thirties, I thought I would continue with my Thirty for Thirty series as you were so receptive to it.  Thank you to those who reassured me how liberating I would find turning thirty as I can now say that -so far- my thirties rock!  I really don’t know why I was so worried. So, more books that have made an impact on my first thirty years…

Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis: to all those Amis haters out there, you must read this; it probably won’t change your opinion of the man but it will his writing.  I studied this novel and was blown away by how powerful and clever it was and been haunted by it since.  It tells, in reverse chronological order, the story of a Nazi doctor so is obviously far less funny than some of Amis’ other novels.  The reverse chronology can be disorientating but it is very effective; the reader is not passive but instead complicit in the acts as they have to be reversed to see the narrator’s culpability/untangle his false memories.  For example, one of the stand-out images that I have retained is of the narrator helping a Jew out of a pit.  What you probably don’t know about me is that I have a morbid fascination with the Holocaust and with devastating reads in general; sometimes, in a perverted way, I crave an emotionally-draining read to remember what’s important and what should never, ever happen again.

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. Hm, what was I just saying about my interest in Holocaust literature? Read this; it is an astonishing debut novel. Safran Foer’s prose is sublime and he has an intelligent yet quirky humour that is a joy to read. I’m amused all over again when I think of Alex’s thesaurus-learned English and how that is so often lost in translation.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham is another example of my love for depressing subject matter.  This is such a fantastic novel but I am especially fond of it because of the love it gave me for Virginia Woolf.  I studied Mrs Dalloway, my first Virginia Woolf novel, in my first year at uni and didn’t enjoy or appreciate it until I then followed it up by reading The Hours, which won the Pulitzer Prize the previous year; Cunningham’s take on Mrs Dalloway and how it affected three generations of women had a considerable effect on me and my understanding and liking of Woolf.

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn best exhibits my love for the bizarre in literature and life.  This is a real cult novel and deserving of being sought out if you too love the wacky.  The novel is the story of a travelling carnival and family of “freaks”; the children are all genetically modified in utero by their parents through extensive drug use and exposure to radioactive materials and is narrated by one of the children, Olympia, a hunch-backed albino dwarf.

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides yet again shows my love for dark subject matter (although often told in blackly comic ways).  Personally I was underwhelmed by Eugenides’ Middlesex but I know I am in the minority; I read it many years after first reading The Virgin Suicides and it failed to meet my high expectations.  The Virgin Suicides is a book I have picked up to reread on a rainy afternoon as it so readable and atmospheric, offering something new each time.  My first reading of it was as an angsty eighteen year old just as the Sofia Coppola adaptation was released; I have a fabulously retro-like edition with floral cover and a dust-jacket with a rosy still from the film.  The Virgin Suicides was, for me, my generation’s equivalent to The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

Wise Children by Angela Carter. I could not have a thirty year retrospective of formative books without including one by Angela Carter; Wise Children is a less obvious choice than some of her other work but I adore this book for its playfulness, raucous humour and because it was her last novel.  Wise Children is a bawdy romp about several sets of twins, Shakespeare and of authorship and legitimacy. Such a fun, fun book that has a lightness (in tone) to it that is particularly poignant knowing that Carter wrote it after she had been diagnosed with cancer.  It embodies so much that I love about literature: magical realism, literary allusion, the carnivalesque, Shakespeare and also has a London setting so what is not to love?

]]> http://www.paperback-reader.co.uk/2011/06/04/thirty-for-thirty-pt-2/feed/ 18 http://www.paperback-reader.co.uk/2011/05/12/one-book-two-book-three-book-four-and-five/ http://www.paperback-reader.co.uk/2011/05/12/one-book-two-book-three-book-four-and-five/#comments Thu, 12 May 2011 21:15:41 +0000 Paperback Reader http://www.paperback-reader.co.uk/?p=3167 *Blows away the cobwebs*

Hello.  Apologies for the unscheduled -and lengthy- blogging break and thank you for all of the concerned and thoughtful messages I have received. I have missed you but have been missing-in-action because I started a new, long-term job at DK, which has been both exhilarating and exhausting.  However, I am striving to find a balance between my new working life and my blogging one and normal regular service will now resume.

What better way to dip my toes back into post-writing by participating in the meme that Simon of Stuck in A Book created.  Regrettably my offer will not be as visually stunning as 1) my blog theme -which I love in every other way- only allows one photograph per post 2) I cannot take a drool-worthy photograph of the entire stack because two of the books are, shock horror, digital editions (more about that -and a continuation of my Thirty for Thirty series- in upcoming posts).,

1.) The book I’m currently reading:

The Pumpkin Eater by Penelope Mortimer, recently reissued by NYRB Classics.  I excitedly waited for its publication as I was itching to read this “surreal black comedy about the wages of adulthood and the pitfalls of parenthood”; so far it is living up to my expectations. I am tempted to follow it up by Mortimer’s Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting, published by Persephone Books.

2.) The last book I finished:

I finally read The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King, the first in the highly popular Mary Russell (featuring Sherlock Holmes).  To those of you who brought this series to my attention: thank you.  It did not disappoint.  I knew it was a wise decision to buy the books for my boyfriend (he has similarly loved the first four books he has read in the series).

3.) The next book I want to read:

There are several books vying for my attention at present but I am enjoying choosing my next book, and the one after that, on a whim. Saying that, I have to read my book group choice for the beginning of next month, one I have been desperately wanting to read for while (hence choosing it, to give me a persistent nudge to read it).  Hayley recommended Butterfield 8 by John O’Hara to me when I was going through a Jazz-Age literature phase earlier this year and suggested it provoked discussion, making it ideal for a book group setting.

4.) The last book I bought:

Embassytown by China Miéville. After discovering -thanks to a Christmas gift from Sakura- The City and the City and being blown away by it, I then read the absorbing, Kraken, last month; I now want to read Miéville’s backlist and his latest, Embassytown.  Last week Sakura and I attended a China Miéville reading and signing at Foyles and it was incredibly entertaining and enlightening.  I was impressed by how articulate and engaging Miéville is;  rarely have I come across a writer as intelligent and interesting in person as they are in prose.

5.) The last book I was given:

The Sack of Bath by Adam Ferguson is one of this Spring/Summer’s offerings from Persephone Books.  I have to say that this polemic did not strike me as a Persephone that I particularly wanted to read but when Verity very kindly gave me a spare copy she managed to acquire, I was not one to look a gift-friend in the mouth.  The book is incredibly short -a mere 80 pages- so I may pick this long pamphlet up earlier than expected.

It seems apt that many of these answers featured recommendations or gifts from bloggers! Thank you to Simon for the final push to resume blogging.

I turn thirty years old this month and there are a myriad of reasons why I am not okay with that but, making lemonade from lemons, it inspired a new feature for my blog.  In my twenty-nine years so far I have read a lot of books and obviously only books from two of those years have been shared with you in Paperback Reader posts.  In Thirty for Thirty I am going to take thirty books read during my almost-thirty years that have made an impression and highlight them.  This is the first of five installments.

I consider the top four books in the pile to be among the very best novellas I have read and have probably recommended them as such whenever some of you have been seeking out novellas to read, whether that be for general reading or for challenge or novella weekend reading.  I have a deep love for Irish literature and both Maeve Brennan and Keith Ridgway are Irish; the former I came across reference to when I was researching Angela Carter for my thesis and Horses was a set text for an Irish literature (since the 1950s) course. Both are original and difficult to define but have been written about by Simon and Kim, who has written about both, and who have fresher, more recent insights.  The same Irish professor who taught that course recommended TC Boyle and Drop City to me and gave a lecture on The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark earlier in my university career. As you may know, I am a huge fan of Muriel Spark and The Driver’s Seat is her darkest subject matter and most thought-provoking of novellas; it was also adapted into a film with Elizabeth Taylor. The Loved One is also a blackly humorous novella set in Los Angelean funeral home, Whispering Glades (I think I first came across mention of the novella looking at DVD boxsets of Six Feet Under years ago).  A satire on the (then) Anglo-American cultural divide and on glamorous Hollywood, The Loved One is refreshing and quintessentially Waugh with its dry wit.

I was reminded recently of Drop City by T. C. Boyle when I read Caribou Island by David Vann (review forthcoming), not only because of their mutual Alaskan setting or because of the direct reference to Boyle early on -uncanny when I was at that stage thinking the novel was reminiscent of him – but an overall similarity in tone and a deft balancing of light and dark themes. Both Boyle and Vann are thoroughly absorbing and compel you to read on.  Drop City is about a commune of artists in the 1970s who relocate from California to remote Alaska but there is only so much free love and tree-hugging one can indulge in with bears in the vicinity and subzero conditions.  If you have not read any T.C. Boyle then I cannot recommend Drop City highly enough but the same applies to all of my thirty for thirty selections.

Trumpet by Jackie Kay is a novel that you may not have heard about (for the most part I have tried to focus upon the lesser-reviewed works that have impacted me rather than add my voice to the large chorus of fans of Pride and Prejudice, Rebecca and Midnight’s Children, for example) although it won the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1998 and was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2000.  Jackie Kay is a Scottish writer (half-Nigerian), brought up in Glasgow, and I enjoy her poetry because of the shared cultural identity and its focus on race.  Trumpet was her debut novel and is jointly set in London and -through memory flashbacks- in 1960s Glasgow and tells the story of acclaimed trumpeter, Joss Moody, who is revealed upon his death to have been a woman living as a man.  Exceptionally poignant, Trumpet explores the aftermath of the revelation of Joss Moody’s true sex and the impact that has on his adopted son, Colman, who is both grieving and struggling to accept his father’s huge secret.  It features on LGBT literature lists often and was recommended to me by a friend who grew up in the same suburb of North Glasgow as Jackie Kay.  Trumpet is an emotive exploration of transgenderism, race and loss/grief and is a beautiful, gentle alternative (or additional read, of course)  to Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.

There you have it: the first six of thirty books that make up (almost) thirty years of impressionable reading -including being read to, if you want to be technical about it (seeing as I didn’t read alone for the first few years).

Early last month I was invited (thanks to Simon, who likes to have company to these types of things) to attend the recording session of The TV Book Club, which took place on February 22nd.  This was the first time that the filming had been open to a private audience and I was thrilled to be one of a small group of five bloggers to attend the first open session.  More photos can be seen on the Specsavers (the sponsors of The TV Book Club) Facebook fan page including one of the exciting goodie bag we were given; there were also further books from previous shows that were given by the studio (I now have my own copy of The Help by Kathryn Stockett and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, both fantastic books and both I had borrowed from the library).

Following a meet and greet in the Green Room we watched a recording of The TV Book Group with the presenters and guest book club panelist, actor Nigel Havers.  The book being discussed was Bleed for Me byMichael Robotham, a thriller that initially did not appeal to me but that the panel persuaded me may make a riveting beach read (in fact, Meera Syal had read it on a beach in Egypt and Nigel Havers in one sitting on holiday).  I have attended a filming session before but that was a different experience; I was fascinated by the behind-the-scenes look at how things come together and the TV show is actually made.  The set itself is quite small and shares a studio with the set for The Saturday Kitchen, which was illuminating in itself.  Following being spectators for the discussion we were also given a tour of the production room where the programme is actually produced by the director, producers, editing and sound technicians, whilst the cast/panelists re-shot some takes.

I am not a regular watcher of The TV Book Club (rarely a regular watcher of anything on terrestrial TV, preferring to watch DVDs to my own timetable) so cannot say how the recording session fully compares to watching it at home but, from what I have watched, it was fascinating to see how the different segments of the show slot into place to become a cohesive half hour of material.  The discussion at the episode’s heart occurs as it does onscreen -even taking the break time- so there is still a sensation of a “live” book group meet and all of the thoughts expressed are the presenters’ and guests’ own.  I was struck too by how enthusiastic they all were, engaging with the book, and how similar their impressions were to that of the real-life book group whose video interview ran at one stage in between takes.

We also learned from Charlotte from Cactus Studios that there are a staggering amount of books submitted by publishers to feature on the show but that they can also “call in” titles, much like the Booker prize -as well as other literary prizes- do when deciding on a shortlist.  Charlotte and the rest of the team then read all of the submissions before deciding what will go forward in that season to be discussed by the presenters; guests are often chosen for each show depending on their preferences for the books (in the case of the recording session I witnessed, Nigel Havers is a fan of author Michael Robotham).  All in all, an interesting process.

Before we wrapped for the day we returned to the Green Room where we had after-show drinks with the presenters and the team at Cactus Studios. Sadly I did not have the opportunity to gush like the fan-girl I am meet Nigel Havers (I have enjoyed his acting for years, especially his performance of Max de Winter in a theatrical production of Rebecca several years ago) but I did thoroughly enjoy meeting three of the presenters: Jo Brand, Meera Syal and Dave Spikey, who were all gracious and entertaining.  Candice and Richard of MEC, the social media managers for MEC Media advertising who arranged the event with their client Specsavers, were enthusiastic and excited about the possibility of working with book bloggers in the future and the potential that may hold.  I hope that there are further events like this in my book blogging career as I found it a lot of fun and very interesting so thank you to Richard for extending the invite.  The canapés and chocolate birthday cake (for the lovely Charlotte of Cactus Studios) were also very much enjoyed (if there is something I enjoy more than books, it is good food and wine but so often I enjoy them together).