Bookwitch

What an interesting name! And it makes for a good book title, too.

Linda Newbery emailed me months ago to say she had read this new book by Jan Page, and she thought I would like it. She pointed out it wasn’t so horribly mermaid-ish as the blurb might suggest, and Linda’s right. It’s about a young girl in Cornwall during the war, who thought she was a mermaid.

The story is told from several points of view, and in the present as well as in the past. Twins Jack and Ellen are evacuated from London to Cornwall, and their lives are changed forever.

It’s an interesting story, but I’m puzzled as to why anyone feels this is a children’s book. It’s not scary or complicated, but I would not expect most children or teenagers to have the patience required to read it. Personally I feel it’s an adult book, which just happens to deal with young people in the past. Think Rosamund Pilcher, or similar. Much of the tale is seen from the point of view of a woman of 77, looking back, and also about her problems with young people today. Adult, I think.

No, not the people who live in Finland. Those others, who keep popping up in fiction. What’s with the name Finn? It tends to be a certain type of fictional character who’s called Finn, or Finnigan. I wonder why?

My most recent example is Finnigan in Sonya Hartnett’s Surrender. He’s a real wild one.

Linda Newbery has a mysterious, if older, Finnigan in her new book Nevermore.

And the free boy in What I Was by Meg Rosoff is called Finn.

I’m fairly sure Celia Rees has a Finn in one of her horror books, set in South West Wales. Again, a sort of free spirit.

I love the name, but find it strange how it gets used. I wonder about the thought processes that determine what name an author gives their characters. Is it along the lines of “I’ve got this outsider type, romantic character, so let’s go in the Celtic/Irish direction and name him Finn”?

Even Kian in Cathy Cassidy’s Scarlett has the same ring to it. What other romantic names of this kind are there?

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?”

Or what Doris Lessing saw. There’s a link on Linda Newbery’s website to some youtube short films about last year’s Costa winners. Linda seems to feel it’s strange to have had Doris Lessing watch her in her kitchen, but I don’t see why. I rather imagined Linda would be caught doing the washing up, but she’s not. And maybe even Nobel prize winners wash up.

It’s good to see authors in their normal settings and not just at signings or glitzy award ceremonies.

As usual I find that people get the age wrong for books. Linda hopefully suggests that Set in Stone is for 14 and up. Apart from the fact that it was my then 13-year-old who couldn’t tear herself away from the book, it’s an easy read. It’s not simple or short, but it’s not complicated either.

As I have been going on about the recent return of good, old fashioned adventure stories, it should come as no surprise that I have persuaded the Guardian to let me go on about them on their blog, too.

This is from, very early, this morning. Do have a look, and leave a comment, if only to tell me I’m all wrong.

Didn’t read all the books I’d hoped for. For a pessimist I’m rather optimistic when it comes to planning reading. I’d hoped for some crime, but that’s sitting next in line.

Son gave the Resident IT Consultant a copy of The Hogfather and proceeded to read it himself, first. R IT C has only just laid hands on his own book to read. On the other hand, he in turn attempted to claim ownership of the old atlas he found lying around, which had been Son’s present.

I don’t know why we steal so much here.

The Visiting Grandmother was found dipping into Trigonometric Delights, and I don’t even want to think about that. She also read last year’s Costa winner, Linda Newbery’s Set in Stone.

Daughter has done what she does best; re-read old favourites.

It’s good to know that I can trust Linda Newbery to get it right, just about every time she writes a book. She has a new book out today, Nevermore, and it’s very good. It took me a while to work out where Nevermore was going, though. Some aspects of the mystery were obvious from the start, and others only towards the end.

Nevermore is a real fairy tale, while still being entirely anchored in life today. Tizzie and her mum move to the country to live in a big, old country house, where her mum is the new cook. Tizzie loves her new life, but discovers a number of puzzling facts about the house and its past.

It takes Tizzie, and the reader, a while to get everything worked out. The ending is all you’d want it to be.

I mistakenly thought that Julia Jarman only writes picture books, when I remembered that I have this anthology called Like Mother, Like Daughter where Julia has contributed with a story. I have set myself the slightly impossible task of getting a signature from all the writers who participated. Meeting Julia at least put me one step further. I can recommend the anthology, which as the title suggests is about mothers and daughters. The other authors include Linda Newbery and Adele Geras.

Julia has also written some YA books, which I will try and get hold of and get back to you about. They sound very interesting. One sounds like I might be scared even reading it, but I’ll try not to be a coward.

When we met, Julia was wearing an extremely nice knitted long coat and had this enormous golden bag with all sorts of things in it. She also carted a soft toy bath around with her, not to mention Thomas the Tank Engine (the ride-on variety). Very grateful the man-eating anaconda didn’t come along. You can tell Julia has grandchildren, because she certainly knows how to deal with a group of noisy toddlers. And she does voices. The train book almost came across as rap. It’s been a long time since I came into close contact with board books. I’m almost surprised the bath book doesn’t come as a, well, bath book. We used to like books in the bath. At least the kind that were meant to go in the water.

I generally subscribe to the belief that any old copy of a book will do fine. After all, the words tend to be the same, no matter how dog-eared or covered in coffee stains the book is. And I have lots of books like that (stains usually supplied by someone other than the witch). Some are ex-library editions, but that’s fine when they only cost 10p. (Though I think I once saw a Linda Newbery ex-library book on Amazon’s marketplace for £100.)

But sometimes even I get seduced by a goodlooking book. Classic Penguins, anyone? And the reverse happens, too. You just don’t want to buy the book when it’s got “that cover”. So, for example, some of the Pullman books for sale on Saturday were definite no-nos, because they had the new film style covers and Sally Lockhart had Billie Piper. Now, I quite like Billie as Sally, but the older Victorian covers are really good.

Today’s post has yielded some real gems. The collector’s edition of His Dark Materials. Thank you Scholastic! I think I could even just sit and stroke these books. They are so beautiful. Black and white engravings on the covers and Philip’s own illustrations inside, of course. I can visualise him in his shed with the music on high as he drew the pictures. For The Subtle Knife there are also the useful little pictures on each page helping the reader keep track of which world they’re currently in.

As the name suggests, the edition is limited, so hurry!

I’ll just stroke some more.

I felt compelled to go. So I went, and I’m glad I did. There was a memorial service for Siobhan Dowd in Oxford yesterday. The Holywell Music Room was a beautiful place to have it. The weather was beautiful. And the celebration of Siobhan’s life and work was beautifully put together.

Siobhan’s husband Geoff and friends started it off by singing Gypsy Rover. Then David Fickling (”the Lancashire Comedian”) and Fiona Dunbar did their Oscars style presentation. Siobhan’s sisters Denise and Oona talked about their childhood, and read from a favourite book.

Bella Pearson read from A Swift Pure Cry and Phil Earle from The London Eye Mystery, which just showed us again how good these books are. Geoff read a poem by Siobhan, and Meg Rosoff read an extract from Siobhan’s next book, Bog Child.

There was a lot of music and singing. Nick Gill played Scott Joplin. Daryl Wells sang Nina Simone. And we had real Bulgarian Gypsy music from Mike Limmer and Morski. There were readings from James Joyce, Irina Ratushinskaya, Henrietta Branford, Ezra Pound and Dylan Thomas.

There were family and friends, and many people from the book trade. Someone wanted me to put together an exciting report on who was there, but I have to admit to only recognising some of the many who attended. Linda Sargent and Linda Newbery. Lee Weatherley and Anthony McGowan. Rachel Billington. Julia Eccleshare.

Afterwards in the Turf Tavern I was introduced to people, and their names whirl round in my head. There was talk of crossdressing. I got some more background on Lauren Child and Pippi Longstocking. Had to admit to people I hadn’t actually read their books, despite Meg R going round saying I read everything. (But Lee, Anthony and Fiona - you are on my next list. Definitely.)

I found I’d already met Nina Douglas from David Fickling Books, without knowing it. And I learnt that David himself let out a secret to us, so we’ve been sworn to silence. Now that I’ve seen how very nice “the Lancashire Comedian” is, I’ll never be brave enough to take him up on his earlier offer of a coffee when I’m next in Oxford. Not that I drink coffee, anyway, but I’d thought I might. Almost.

Meg did that very nice thing, and introduced me to her agent, Catherine. Maybe she knew I don’t have a book to flog, and never will. She even gave me her copy of Bog Child, which I will tell you about later.

Have to mention here, that all my trains ran on time.

A big thank you to Geoff for a beautiful day.