Sunday Summary (second time lucky?)

Gotta love technology. I spent a good hour drafting this Summary, only to discover on clicking Publish that it hadn't been saving for, well, let's say 45 mins of that time.

Here's hoping you might get yourselves some full Summary action this time. (Wait, is that an oxymoron?)

So! This week, I have mostly been...

Reading | two books! Yes! Two at a time! I'm turning into my father.

This is what I'm reading during the day:

and during the evening (i.e. in the bath):

The only similarities between the two are the presence of a female, and a grey wash, on the covers.

I did have to smile at the opening paragraph of chapter 5 of How to Be a Woman, which echoed my sentiments precisely on clothes shopping as explored at length in my Contemplation.

...Personally, I find the idea that women are supposed to 'love' shopping bizarre -- nearly every woman I know wants to cry after 45* minutes of trawling the high street looking for a shirt, and hits the gin with alacrity upon the sad occasions where jeans have to be found. 

-- How to Be a Woman | Caitlin Moran

* they lasted that long? Really?

Also, who knew there were so many abundant terms for one's lady-bits? I do, now. And some descriptions still make me snort with laughter. Best I keep reading this at home, then. Follow Caitlin Moran on Twitter here.

Discovering | What Makes a Children's Classic?

On Thursday, workfriends Clare, Evie and I rocked up to this discussion organised by the Children's Book Circle. The panellists were author Kate Saunders, Waterstone's head book-buyer Melissa Cox and (my greatest reason for attending) journalist and author Lucy Mangan.

OK, the promise of marmalade sandwiches and ginger beer were also a pull.

The discussion opened with the three panellists nominating their favourite children's classics: Kate Saunders ventured Five Children and It (E Nesbit), the sequel of which she is currently working on; Lucy Mangan nominated The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) and the more contemporary Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness. Melissa Cox cited Little Women (Louisa May Alcott -- the edition not including Good Wives!) as her favourite and thus endeared me to her for the rest of the evening. She also cited as her contemporary classic Dead Man's Cove (Lauren St. John) which has hints of Enid Blyton**.

  

 

I took notes. Because I'm a geek. And while I won't bore you with a full transcription I will surmise the salient points of what makes a children's classic:

-- Innovation plays a key part in making a classic

-- Classics provide a circle of safety, a point of entry into a protected, magical world

-- In a saturated market, nostalgia endears an adult to a classic and inspires them to pass the book down to their own children

-- Many of what we term 'classics' hail from the Victorian/Edwardian era (although the three panellists also agreed that The Worst Witch, now 40 years old, is also a classic -- this agreement made me want to marry all three of them.)

-- There is a finite pool of children's books we can genuinely call 'classics'

-- Overall a classic is an exciting story and provides pure escapism. And it has to be well written. "Quality will win out," Kate Saunders rightly said.

You can also get a gist of how the discussion went down from the CBC's Twitter feed from the night, here.

** The only point I disagreed with was that Enid Blyton wasn't considered good enough to be a classic author -- yet her works still sell and are in demand by today's children.

Watching | The In-Betweeners

I identify all too closely with Will. 'Nuff said.

Reminiscing and Pinning

I've spent a lot of time on Pinterest this week, and I've set up a small cluster of boards that I keep going back to ogle, namely this one:

Acceptable in the 80s

It's a veritable feast for the nostalgic eyes of little tidbits from my childhood that other people of my generation have pinned. And it's brought back so many tiny little memories!

For instance:

That blood pressure monitor could really cut off your circulation.
But I remember that the stethoscope actually worked pretty well for a toy!

Look at the detail in that artwork!

And because I am a huge book geek I'm also pinning to a Vintage Ladybird Book pinboard via my work Pinterest account:

 

a vintage children's book pinboard:

and a vintage Enid Blyton book pinboard:

Who were the Saucy Jane family? The mind boggles.

And in the spirit of reminiscence, I also caught up with some ol' workmates earlier this week. The memories -- and vino -- did flow. Top night. Not even blighted by me leaving my purse in the restaurant. Like a drunken eejit twit.

And finally...

Baking

Yep. Made lemon drizzle cakes from a recipe in issue 21 of The Simple Things.

Actually, factually, nailed it.

Right, well, if Blogger allows me to, this time, I shall share with you this week's Interweb Links:

# Arnau Oriol's Commuter photo series

© Arnau Oriol

# Vivienne Rickman-Poole's #30daysofswimming photo series

© Vivienne Rickman-Poole

# Richard Herring tackles swimming etiquette again (and I love him for it)

# How many classic books have you read? Take the challenge!

# A recent Booktrust study reveals a reading divide

# Publishers respond to gender debate on children's books

# The Great British Bookshop opens online -- also read here

# One-Letter-Different Book Covers [Warning: Involves some naughtiness!]

(You got the message about me being a big book geek, right?)

# Couply adverts make singletons bitter

# Rent this mad, mad converted coastguard lookout house in Dungeness

[found via http://yourhomeislovely.blogspot.co.uk]

 

[All photos of coastguard lookout by Peter Marlow | Magnum]

And finally...

# (With thanks to Evie) Replace the jaded ol' Hollywood sign with your own name. Vast improvement. Trust me.

TTFN!

Sunday Summary

This week, I have mostly been …

Continuing the party season in style | at the work shindig which, by the way, did not go down like this one:

{Screenshot from Love Actually}

It was held at Carom @ Meza in central London – the cuisine (!) was largely Indian with a rather splendid lamb shank for the main (the starters and puddings were rather insubstantial to be shared between six people on a table delicious as they were). It was a lovely opportunity to catch up with the colleagues out of the office, though the dance floor was slightly lame – a lot of us ended up at the club downstairs where people were actually dancing!

Then on Friday night I was at the church ladies’ Christmas meal – delicious chicken wrapped in ham, with salad and potatoes, and tarts and meringues for pudding (and sweets), followed by mince pies. And then a little segue up the road to our local hostelry where I happened to clock that a band I know were playing in a different guise as Ruby and the Rhythms! I took to the dance floor… and didn’t leave it until last orders. Where I got the energy from after the night before is anyone’s guess, though this helped:

{cwaaawffee!}

And finally for the weekend, after singing with my rock choir at the Reigate Christmas fair, I went along to my friends’ annual Gingerbread Galore party – the premise is brilliant: the ladies buy in these genius flat-pack gingerbread houses from IKEA (sorry – pepparkakshus!) plus an awful lot of sweets, and friends come along, drink mulled wine and decorate the houses. It all gets slightly competitive!

Of course, despite the very able help of my friend’s young son who was far more pragmatic about the whole construction of the house than I was, my little cottage fell apart rather dramatically!

These memes sprang to mind:

Ah well. Can’t be good at everything!

Getting incensed | over this article:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/04/children-fiction-not-great-literature-kent-university

I agree more often than not with Guardian journalists’ stance on literature (well, OK, mostly Lucy Mangan’s stance) but Jonathan Myerson has got this wrong.

This article has been written in response to the University of Kent having been corralled into apologising for its apparent statement that its creative writing programme would not teach the writing of ‘mass-marketfiction or children’s fiction’ – as if the latter is a lower form of literature.

Er, je pense que non!

To add insult to insult to injury, Myerson questions why the University felt fit to issue the apology and goes on to claim that no, children’s fiction is not on a par with adults’ literary fiction. 

You wot?

Myerson's argument is confusing -- for a start he looks no further than the works of Stephenie (not Stephanie, Mr Myerson -- at least spell the author's name correctly if you're going to dismiss her!) Meyer as an example of children's literature not to be held up as great. 

Somehow he dismisses Roald Dahl, Malorie Blackman, Michael Morpurgo and all number of authors both contemporary and classic and categorises a YA author as a children's author to make his point. Fail.

  

I am of course a coward so I didn't add my thoughts to the 770+ comments on the Guardian page itself, rather vented my full spleen on my friend's link to the article!: 

Perhaps Kent or City aren't up to the challenge of writing children's fiction, because it involves far more subtlety and awareness of its demographic than writing what they term 'literary fiction' which, while I appreciate that is the category that primarily wins the prizes, is a fairly nebulous 'genre'!

It's an insult to lump mass-market fiction -- 50 Shades, anyone?! -- and children's fiction (The Little Prince, anyone??!?) in the same "ooh, we won't touch *those* with a barge-pole, we write *proper*, obscure lit fiction" category -- there is some supremely excellent children's and YA literature out there that forms the stepping stone to understanding adult literature, and should not be discounted!

IMHO (which is based, I should mention, on 13 years operating in the children's book industry so I may be *slightly* biased!)

And breathe!

Rewatching | Elf

Another (less controversial...) Guardian journo, Stuart Heritage, launched the first annual Elf-along on Twitter in reaction to Elf no longer being broadcast on terrestrial -- we, Mr Heritage's Twitter followers, watched our DVDs in synchronisation. It is nearly Christmas after all!

Found on the interweb this week:

The photography of Stan Raucher

How to make tiramisu (because I think I need to know!) via A CUP OF JO

Dad colours in his children's drawings (slightly sinister but a fun idea)

A shop I need to visit

A couple of books I'd quite like to read.

          

And finally...

Two handfuls of owlets.

Sunday Summary

So... this is something new I'm going to try to maintain. Previous form decrees that any attempt at a regular post falls by the wayside within about four tries due to time pressures or just a lack of inspiration but -- I'll give it a go, eh?

This week, I have mostly been...

Absorbing Jane Eyre | A friend of mine is in a musical adaptation at the end of this month so I thought I should gen up on the story, having never read it previously. Let's just say, I'm now hooked.

* I read the novel first (it took a little getting into as I’m not used to the language any more). Subsequently loved the novel and the palpable chemistry and passion between Jane and Mr Rochester.

* Then watched the 2006 miniseries on DVD. Subsequently loving the palpable chemistry between Ruth Wilson’s Jane and Toby Stephens’ Rochester.

* Then ogled and coveted this Penguin Drop Caps edition of Jane Eyre: gaudy, but fabulous.

Discovering David Levithan | On Wednesday I managed to score myself entry to an interview event with David Levithan, author of Every Day, Boy Meets Boy, The Lovers’ Dictionary and collaborative author of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and Invisibility… whoa, he really is prolific! And a great, great advocate for LGBT YA fiction. The event took place at Waterstone’s Piccadilly – I’ve previously seen Michael Grant interviewed by journalist Lucy Mangan there, plus Laura Jarratt on a panel with RJ Palacio and Sally Gardner. #meganamedrop

{Photo via @EgmontUK on Twitter}

David Levithan was speaking primarily on Every Day (published by Egmont) and his life as a writer and collaborator. It was one of those events in which the author was so dynamic, positive and enthusiastic that I genuinely felt compelled to read more of his material. Every Day is an amazing book that raises questions on the importance of gender and identity, and messed with my head a little bit – read my review over on Goodreads!

Rediscovering Grug | 

This is Grug. "Grug began his life as the top of a Burrawong tree. Resembling a small, striped haystack with feet and a nose, he is fascinated by the world around him and solves everyday problems creatively and without fuss." via here

I lived under the myth for many years that I was able to read this book [by Ted Prior] by myself when I was two, on a plane to Norway. The truth is I probably just recited it but – semantics. I accidentally discovered this Grug toy while Googling book and plush box sets for work purposes. Screamed a little bit. How cool is he?! Answer: VERY.

Singing The Air That I Breathe // The Hollies

With rock choir. Struggling with limited lung capacity. Need to work on that.

And finally, clipping these links and articles to my Evernote. Do you use Evernote? I was a cynic to begin with but now everything I need to remember and recall goes on there. I have it on my PC here at home, and synced to my work Mac and my phone. Brilliant.

Why is a children's book about rabbits being read at weddings?

Caitlin Moran's posthumous advice to her daughter (she's still alive, folks, don't worry)

Haiku to celebrate last Thursday being National Poetry Day, and haiku being the only poetry I can master...