Bookwitch

I owe my friend CG this title. We had a Nordic ladies lunch about a week ago, and CG is good for stories anyway, but I felt right at home with her senior moments, because I appear to have a few of them myself. CG talks like Little My of the Moomins, which makes her literary, too. And I found a few years ago that we share Adele Geras, and I do like a shrinking world.

Anyway, it’s all about forgetting the simplest things. Not that the complicated things are easier, you understand, but there’s the professorial touch about it. I can remember (yes, really) that lesson at school when the teacher asked me what the day’s homework had been about. I couldn’t recall, which didn’t look very good. Had she only asked me a specific question regarding the homework, I’d have been fine. I knew it. Just couldn’t remember the bigger picture.

I was reminded last week of an anthology I own, because Michelle Magorian wrote one of the stories. It’s called War, Stories of Conflict, edited by Michael Morpurgo. And I’ve been ashamed for years that I’ve just not got round to reading it. So, out it came, and I started with Michelle’s story. I had read it before. Checked the other stories. I had read them, too. Somewhere, some time in the last few years I read the book, before putting it back on the shelves. I just wonder when?

Not to worry. It’s a wonderful collection, with stories written by some of our best authors. I bought it because George Layton, who’s in it, talked about it while we had lunch. It wasn’t just the two of us, unfortunately, but I did have lunch with him. George is someone I was dead keen on when I was a teenager. Weird, how things happen. He very kindly assumed I’d know all the Swedish entertainers that he knows. I do, but only from magazines and television. Nice to be treated like an equal.

Adele Geras alerted me to this, so I’ll pass it on. I’m far too old for MySpace, and this was one of my very few visits. It’s a song called Captain Tramplemousse, sung by The Wurpy Quade (yes, really).

The Captain is a character in a short story by Adele in her collection Apricots At Midnight. This is actually one of my Adele favourites, because it’s so nicely old-fashioned and comfortable, if you know what I mean. It could have been written a very long time ago, and it features patchwork and the memories that different pieces of fabric can have for you.

So, who believes in sheep, then? Very mystical, mythical creatures, if I’m to believe Sally Prue’s truth sayer.

This is a very funny book. I had no idea. It’s been sitting on my horizon for a year, at least. The Resident IT Consultant read it over half term. Fantasy, he muttered, as though it’s a bad thing. And it struck me as strange, because Adele Geras is always saying what a great book this is, and she doesn’t like fantasy. But it is, and she does make exceptions.

Though I have to say that the best is the outsider’s view of perfectly ordinary Essex life. Crisps and fish fingers are delicious, and grandmothers should be revered. Or not. The mental picture of tomato ketchup isn’t all that appetising. And are white lies (more grey, here) necessary?

Normblog has a profile of Vanessa from Fidra, who owns the new Children’s Bookshop in Edinburgh. It’s an interesting read, and the shop sounds lovely. Mrs Normblog (aka Adele Geras) has visited, and gives it the thumbs up. I have ascertained that the shop has an armchair ready and waiting for me, so I really must go North. Soon. The shop is just round the corner from Son’s student abode, so not much of an excuse at all. And any shop that gets criticised for its carpet (!) by the big chain, must have something going for it. Can’t wait.

I promised you the weird and wonderful world of the Swedish Book Sale. I’ve been in exile for so long that I forget, and then friends will mention it, and enthuse at great length. So, in this day and age of internet shopping at all times, the sale still holds people’s interest.

Swedish books are expensive. And by books we mean hardbacks. That seems to be all that counts. So after a year or two or three, a book will end up in the sale. And that’s it. The year before last when I suddenly needed several copies of Adele Geras’ Facing The Light in translation, I bought the one last remaining copy. It was after the sale, you see.

And when Philip Pullman won the Astrid Lindgren award, they had to reprint His Dark Materials, as it was no longer around. It’s mad.

This year the sale starts on 26th February, and whereas it used to be something like a 7 am start for the aficionados, they are now doing a Harry Potter and opening at midnight. People will have been poring over the catalogue for weeks, ticking and choosing. People “save” themselves for the sale; i.e. they don’t buy something, because they’ll wait for the sale.

As if it wasn’t mad enough, some books are reprinted in an especially cheap edition, purely for the book sale. It’s sometimes the only way to get hold of classics.

Among this year’s offerings are Artemis Fowl and Septimus Heap, Eldest and Wolf Brother, Coraline and Spot, Bob the Builder and The Gruffalo. Special offer on Stieg Larsson, of course, a collection of Dostoevsky and the latest Henning Mankell (that WAS fast). My favourite elk annuals, Tintin and the new unabridged Anne Frank. Already. Coffee table books like Cosmos and dictionaries and atlases, as well as THE basic cook book. Not even English language paperbacks are left in peace. They’re going too.

Good-bye to all that.

And my friends wonder why I buy British, when it comes to books.

I’d better get this covered while things are fresh, as it were. The witch met up with Adele Geras for lunch, and for an exchange of gossip. Luckily I can no longer remember what it was I wasn’t meant to tell you, so I can’t anyway.

We went French, which is unusual for the witch, but she felt safe in the company of a fluent French speaker. Adele got to say merci quite a few times, which probably means it was a very genuine restaurant. Exotic, anyway.

I can now understand how easily the tabloids can report all kinds of inaccuracies. Quoting Adele I could tell you about how she was tricked by Philip Pullman. Except she wasn’t, really. So, I will hasten to add that no trickery at all was involved, and Philip is totally without blame. Possibly. But it’s fun to see what you can do with the truth, let alone with lies.

Adele had been out hat hunting, but not done very well, so will have to resort to plan B for Saturday. And I’m somewhat concerned about the amount of hoovering going on in the Geras family. Though I should be talking. I don’t even use my broom.

A special hello to Sally P. I didn’t even know you were a reader..!

Steve Cole and his maniacal grin is giving way to a serene and beautiful Adele Geras. That’s for the narrow strip of kitchen wall, you understand. The calendar sits right next to the light switch, so it’s a month’s worth of several hellos a day. I feel quite intimate with my authors at the end of each month. But, please, no peeking at the mess while you’re in my kitchen.

Just as I expect Francesca Simon’s guests on Thursday evening could manage to be both happy for her success and envious that their own sales aren’t quite as good, it’s interesting to observe authors and see and hear what they say, or don’t say.

Some only talk about their own work, and don’t even seem to be too modest to say how good they believe they are. Thankfully not many are like this. And there’s Henning Mankell, who as I pointed out the other day, doesn’t even recognise his own work when he sees it.

Many authors go out of their way to suggest other writers and books that they think I’d like. Sometimes they are wrong, but often they are quite right and I’m grateful for ideas. Linda Newbery has been known to send emails with suggestions.

Tim Bowler spent ages during a school talk some years ago “selling” Melvin Burgess’ book Doing It. I think Tim almost forgot his own books while explaining quite how hilariously funny and worthwhile this controversial book of Melvin’s is.

Adele Geras is also very helpful and recommends books she likes in her website newsletter. Meg Rosoff is forever pointing me in the direction of her friends’ books. Do you people think I have unlimited time for reading?

Then we have Son’s “party trick” of asking every author he meets what they think of Philip Pullman. He even has me do it for him if he’s not there. Whether the authors he asks are always honest I don’t know, but they tend to have good manners, so will usually say something positive. And I’d say that most of the time it sounds as if they mean it.

When Lionel Shriver got the Pullman question, her answer was of the more unusual variety. She said “Who?”

While waiting for the witch to get her bearings after yesterday, why don’t you sink your teeth into this? Adele Geras sent it on behalf of Norm. Vote away.

Rather than comment on the comments about hardbacks, I’ll follow up on Adele’s and Peter’s thoughts.

Adele first - I suppose Alex Rider fans are so desperate that they will buy the hardback, and Anthony gets richer still. (Saw his house in a house magazine a while back, and very nice it is too.) From a green point of view I feel paperbacks are better, and they allow for more books on my shelves, because they are smaller.

However, when School Friend’s Daughter E came to live with us one autumn some years ago, she was shocked that so many of the new books here were paperback only. E thought it looked cheap and not very proper, and that was coming from a 19-year-old, whom I’d expect to want to live simply and cheaply.

The story of me and Artemis Fowl - No, Peter, Artemis came as hardback first. I’d kept seeing the ads for Artemis long before the book arrived and thought to myself I’d never buy anything that sounded that stupid. And certainly not in hardback, as I am (was) an economical sort of person. But Christmas came; the witch was standing in a bookshop, and before she knew what was happening, Artemis in hardback came home for Christmas.

And the next Christmas it was more a case of Artemis having turned into a Christmas tradition, and the hardback looked rather nice, after all. After the first Artemis I wasn’t even sure I liked him (which apparently is exactly the reaction Eoin had hoped for) so I can’t account for my reasoning here. And here we are with a very nicely matching shelf, full of hardback Eoin Colfer books. I’ve probably paid for his house conversion, or whatever he’s been up to, too.

I think Picador’s idea of paperbacks is excellent. The only books that need to be hardback are those were the book would collapse if not firm. Cleopatra’s jewels, for instance.