Newsflash. I have found a book that is worse than Twilight. No, really

I am commuting to London for a few weeks (hopefully back and blogging next week), and therefore now I am a sophisticated metropolitan. I stride on to the train in the mornings with my small cappuccino and croissant and I do the Guardian crossword (not the hard one), also I have worked out the best place to stand on the tube and I run up the escalator looking purposeful and tutting. However: I forsook the Guardian crossword on Monday and succumbed to something shameful.

People, don't do it, however bad things may seem and whatever your Inner Goddess says. She's written two more, you know. Someone stop her

Yes, I kind of hate myself. Does this mark a low point? Who wants to take advantage of my questionable emotional state to send me a first edition of Thomas Hardy and a contract wherein I may wish to specify in long boring legally unenforceable detail my feelings vis-à-vis caning? Only I have to warn you that I would put the Thomas Hardy straight up on ebay, and I am fairly sure I have not emitted an aura of innocent sensuality since about 1992, if then. Perhaps I'm confusing it with the CK1.

I have finished it, it was quick but unspeakable, I have given it away, we will never refer to it again, and I will just warn you that if you read it on the train people do look at you, especially if you actually cringe with your entire body and go 'uggghhh' every time she refers to her inner goddess. Sorry, man who sat next to me on the train from Kings Cross yesterday, I could tell you were nervous and I was not sure if it was the book or the glittery cupcake. It did kind of go everywhere, didn’t it? Glitter hangs around, as well, doesn’t it? Never mind. You be careful and sit next to someone reading the Telegraph next time.

Book Masochism Progress! (Of Sorts!)

I have nearly pieced together my 900 squares. I am on the last batch. I am taking a break from it before I go mad to update you all on the other undoable thing I am doing, i.e. the Book Masochist Challenge 2011.

Taken at a recent book fair in Cambridge. I was almost knocked over in the rush. I couldn't take it, I had to leave

So, if you remember, I am trying to read thirty of the books on this list of Top Books that I have not read already. Well, readers, I have stalled a little on Ulysses and I suspect the reason goes right to the heart of why I did not in fact manage to do a PhD in English, which would have enabled me to be sitting in a nice book-lined room at Newnham now, sounding off about something or other with doe-eyed undergraduates looking at me admiringly, rather than piecing together 900 patchwork squares in a desperate and cross-eyed fashion. (Because obviously the Newnham fellowship and undergraduate admiration would have been a given).

It is unquestionably a great book, I have skim-read it before, I love Dubliners and I love Portrait of the Artist. But, if you do not have exactly the same cultural references as JJ had when he was writing it, it is not an easy read. I hesitate to say, unreadable. But, bits of it are. Now, I do not expect everything I read to be easy (900 squares, people, doggedness), but (lecture begins. Feel free to skip): modernist literature’s use of intertextuality I think is sometimes specifically designed to alienate the reader. I think it is elitist. I think it is saying, if you do not have a working knowledge of Greek, Latin, contemporary Irish politics and many other things, then I do not care if you understand this book or not because you are not my sort of reader. To which, I say, OK. That is fine, I am not. So I have put down Ulysses until I feel less belligerent and I have moved on.

Books at the Book Fair. I took this photograph secretly like a Ninja in case I was apprehended by men in flat hats

This unhelpful kind of thinking is absolutely why I did not do a PhD, come to think of it, and it is either depressing or marvellously consistent that I appear to have made no progress in however many years it is since then. (Many). So you see what a wonderful thing this is to do, it is forcing me to Confront Issues and I may come out the other side a better person! (Perhaps not! ;-) ).

Anyway, after that I had a bit of a break from the list, and I read Steppenwolf (this is not on the list, it was cheap in Oxfam. I have excellent literary selection criteria, excellent). I don’t think anyone reads this any more but I think it was popular in the 60s. It is about a man who thinks (on a metaphorical level, natch) that he is half wolf. It is a comment on Society. It is interesting because there are lots of narratives within narratives and quite a fun theatre thing going on, but (I know I sound a misery, I am not!) I do feel the stance of just being too delicate for society is very much dependent on someone else doing the housework and looking after the children. Partner says he feels Herman Hesse might have felt particularly as if he was morphing into Steppenwolf right at the moment the dinner needed cooking. ‘Go away! Don’t bother me about peeling potatoes! I’m oppressed by a need for Primitivism!’. However, this was an interesting read and I shall lend my copy to my brother Dan when I see him next and see what he thinks.

And thus the sun set on Steppenwolf and rose on The Trial. Can you see my tree sanctuary? I know they need trimming

I am now reading Kafka’s The Trial. It is short and it is not bothering me with its intertextuality (although possibly I am just missing it), so we are going great so far, I am about half way through. I am enjoying it very much. I don’t know what I will move onto next, but Partner has a copy of Catch-22 hanging about so that may be the one.

What is everyone else reading? Any fellow book masochists out there? How are you getting on?

The Book Masochism Challenge 2011: Getting Started!

OK, so, I wanted to let you know how I was getting on with the Book Masochism Challenge 2011.

I put the list of books on my blog! Here it is. The books I’d already read are crossed out, and the books I’ve read since I started the challenge are crossed out and also have a pink background (because we need to be technical and accurate ;-) ). So far I’ve read The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford and Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.

Now, this is what you need to know about me. I do not say this to boast, because after all, it’s not much of a skill in the scheme of things, but, I read very, very quickly. I read like a robot processing information. I get through a shortish book normally in an evening and actually it irritates people. ‘Have you read that already?’ they say, looking at me suspiciously, as if I've cheated. Well, yes I have read it! And even given this not-quite-a-skill, it took me a good fortnight to get through Moby-Dick. A good fortnight! Empires rose and fell. People: this is not an easy read, it is really not. I had to concentrate. I had to shush Partner (he chatters away, artlessly). I had to turn the telly off. Things became serious. However: I was not tempted to give up because, honestly, this is a great book. I mean great in the sense of really impressive. It is fabulous, or, it walks a narrow line between, complete unreadability and complete fabulousness. Which side does it fall, well you must decide that for yourself, but I will tell you that it is only £1.99 on Amazon in case you feel like having a go and I think it is so cheap because no-one wants it. I bet they can’t shift them. I bet the CEO of Amazon is sitting with his head on the desk saying, no, don’t buy any more Moby-Dicks! We’ll never sell the dratted things! Send one out free every time someone orders Twilight, we’ll hope they don’t notice!

Quiz: what famous knitted wrap is Moby-Dick posed on?

This is the thing with Moby-Dick; although everybody knows the basic narrative, man chases whale, situation ends badly, actually I’ve never read a book where the narrative is less the point. It’s not about the story. It actually seemed to me to be about the nature of scholarly authority (who has the right to talk about whales?) and the interplay between life, life as story, how one becomes the other, whether the other can go back to being the one (no). Anyway before I go off and write you a long boring essay we will move on,

Because, I also want to tell you about The Good Soldier. Now this was also an excellent book. It is safe to say I would never in my life have read this by choice as I thought the title and indeed the cover (a woman in a big hat – sorry I can’t show you, I have lent it to my mother) were most unprepossessing, but, when I started it I couldn’t put it down. I won’t tell you what happens because who knows, you might read it too, but, it is all about the nature of narrative (but not in a boring unreadable way!), how you can never really know people, and social convention. It is lots of fun (well, kind of fun), and I thought the ending was very effective.

Next, I am reading Ulysses by James Joyce. I have actually skim-read this years ago, and I am a fan of JJ (start with Dubliners if you haven’t read any), but now I am doing it properly, and I am reading the Odyssey first (Ulysses is based on the Odyssey). I can say with some confidence that, after Moby-Dick, reading the Odyssey is like reading Heat magazine, so it is a nice rest before I gird my loins again for deconstructed narratives and internal monologues, oh no.

Partner said, 'The Penguin is just about readable if you have to read it in translation', rather sniffily I thought. Look, classical academic, I can knit socks

I’m pleased with how this is going so far – I’ve certainly read books I would never have chosen, and it’s been an interesting experience up to now. I’m wondering if 30 books as a target might have been a bit ambitious, though, especially if they’re all going to be great big dense doorstop-type things like a certain book concerning whales.

Other Book Masochists: how are you getting on?

Trying to keep warm

It’s cold here. Is it cold where you are? It feels like winter now, but it’s the nice part of winter where the air is cold and fresh and feels a bit sparkly and expectant, and if you walk along briskly enough you can warm up. It’s not yet that terrible January-type-winter where you can’t get warm whatever you do, and everywhere looks damp and faded. Even so, though, I have to say that active life is mainly being sustained at the moment by endless cups of tea (or, shall we say, endless great big mugs of tea. Do you recognise the Herdy mug? It’s the one I got in the blog hub swap earlier this year, and it’s been in constant use ever since!).

On the Road, when I've never got further on a road trip than Cromer. And why is my tea spotty? It wasn't spotty

As the sun goes down – like, in the middle of the afternoon – it gets colder still. Every evening I can be found positioning myself in front of the new fire, the better to soak up any residual heat.

Fire, der der der, I'll teach you to burn, der der der derrrrrrr

When I first moved to Cambridge, we lived in a flat with electric storage heaters. I’ll just pause here for those of you who have lived with electric storage heaters to wince with me. Electric storage heaters! What do they store? Nothing but the resentment of people who have to live with them, that’s all. You’d get warmer if you invited a small asthmatic poodle to come in and breathe on you. That was a winter spent in various pubs round Cambridge and walking endlessly round shops to keep warm. I actually think the cold got into my bones that winter and I’ve never properly got it out since. So I am inordinately – let me say that again, inordinately – grateful for our functioning central heating, and the new fire, although I suspect the current happy times of having the fire on every evening will last until we get our electricity bill, when it will be turned off forever in an avalanche of mutual recriminations.

Old skool tie. Deconstructed!

I have been patchworking the lovely silk from Mountain Heirlooms. It’s great to work with. I’m making a bag, and I’m using a mix of bold stripes and small prints on a black background. I was thinking along the lines of a quilt in the Jane Brocket quilt book where she mixes striped tie silk with woollen suit fabric, but I wanted to do something a bit different, and I’m liking the wintry-jewel-colour combination. I must get away from patchwork squares and do a different shape, but I’m still liking squares at the moment and I want to do a few skirts before I move on. After that, log cabin, beware.

I wanted to tell you about a couple of new books and things I’ve seen around.

• First, Malka Dubrawsky from A Stitch in Dye has a new book out – I love, love, love her style, and although I accept this isn’t strictly relevant, she’s a really nice person as well. I once bought a mini quilt from her etsy shop which got lost in the post, and she was so helpful with trying to track it down and finally making a new one for me that I look at it with fondness every time I see it in its place in our hall (the original apparently turned up eventually, having been on an exciting trip to all sorts of inappropriate places). I think this book looks great, I might have to buy it.
• Also, there’s a new Stitch’n Bitch book out – did you know? I didn’t know. How could I not know? Anyway, I had a flick through in Heffers, and it looks worth buying, although there don’t seem to be any techniques in it that haven’t been covered all over Ravelry etc. If you’re a fan, though (I do tend to be), it looked worth getting.
• And a fabric find - I was in Oxfam earlier, and they had packs of fabric squares from The India Shop – they looked at least 4.5” square, and you got 60 for £4.99 – I almost got a couple of packs to make a quilt, and then I thought, no, Susie, step away from the squares. They don’t have them on the website, but if you’re going past Oxfam it might be worth having a look in.
• And one more thing – I’m late to the party with this as ever, but a while ago my brother Dan gave me a CD of the Dresden Dolls – if you haven’t heard them, go out and buy/ download whatever, now. That’s all I’m saying.

Keep warm, everyone!

A book review (of sorts)

After I did my post a while ago saying I never read fiction, you’ll be excited to know (well, possibly not that excited, I do understand ;-) ), that I’ve read a book! Yes! A fiction book! Pride and Prejudice! It doesn’t count, because I’d read it before (albeit years and years ago), but now I’m reading another! Bleak House! Which doesn’t count either, because I read it when I was doing my A-Levels, but, baby steps, people, baby steps, and as this is the first time I’ve actually enjoyed reading fiction for God knows how many years I am rolling with it. Perhaps after I have finished Bleak House I will branch out, gasp, and read something I haven’t read before! Even something written after the death of Queen Victoria! (possibly not to start with, actually. Let’s see). (Just as an aside, for those of you who haven’t read Bleak House, I do recommend it: I actually think it’s probably the best English novel ever. I think everybody could have given up and gone home after Bleak House and that would have saved us a lot of trouble. This is a bad attitude, though. I know. I am working on it).

Bleak House! I like books you buy by the yard

Anyway, that is not the Book Review to which I refer. I am also reading Jane Brocket’s book on quilting and I thought I would share what I thought about it with you. I have been stepping round this book for a while. I first saw it at the V&A when I went to their quilt exhibition, flicked through it, decided there was nothing in it, and put it back. Then I kept seeing it in Heffers. Anyway eventually it wore me down and I decided to buy it, it came, and I have perused. Now. Here is the review of it as a quilting book: if you, like me, are interested in the kind of quilting where it is all about simple shapes, colour combinations, and never doing anything alarming like paper piecing, you will love this book and it is definitely worth buying. I am glad I finally succumbed and got a copy, and I like and will probably even make a couple of the quilts in it, and find the advice about putting fabrics together very interesting.

A lovely silky quilt! (Although pls stylists, I am kind of over shabby chic. K Thnx bai)

However. For those of you who are not familiar with the work of Jane Brocket, here is a quick summary and you will see why things are a little more controversial than you would expect a book with some nice quilts to be. Jane writes the Yarnstorm blog, which has lovely pictures, and is very much of the genre of ‘finding beauty in little/ unexpected things’, which is always cheering. A few years ago she published a book called The Gentle Art Of Domesticity, which I also have, and which I enjoy. Anyway: cue lots of angry people on one side saying that publishing a book about domesticity was oppressing women, a lot of people on the other side saying they loved knitting/ quilting/ brushing the guinea pig’s hair into a surprising shape/ and they most certainly weren’t oppressed thank you very much, a fight on Women’s Hour, a nasty review in the Telegraph, and a thread on Ravelry which ran to over 100 pages and turned into a discussion on whether or not you should be a surrendered wife (you shouldn’t).

This is how I know Partner has failed at the gentle arts, because his favourite thing in life is to bark at me, 'The world is a terrible place, Susie! Deal with it!' while I sniffle at the poor abandoned puppies on Animal Cops Houston

Now, I have tried to come up with a sensible position on the Domesticity and Feminism debate which I could sum up in a blog post, and readers, I have failed. I think it is complicated. I do. I will only say that I think reclaiming domesticity is a fairly radical act in and of itself, whichever gender does it, and that if we valued domestic skills generally we perhaps wouldn’t be a nation who thought Tesco ready meals were food, and that it was fun to go and buy a skirt made by someone paid less-than-poverty wages in a third world country because we haven’t got the first idea how such things are produced. Also that because a woman writes a book celebrating domesticity it doesn’t mean all other women have to give up their jobs, slip into a pinny, and start decorating cupcakes with their teeth gritted, because I believe we as ladies are allowed to act independently and have different interests. However (and I speak as someone who likes both the Jane Brocket books I have got), I have to say that her version of domesticity does involve quite a lot of not talking about ugly things, and there seems to be quite a narrow line between celebrating the beauty in everyday life and simply not engaging with the things that are not beautiful (Kate Davies did a good post about this, here, when the book came out; I thought this was a good reading). I also always think, when I read Jane Brocket in the Domesticity book talking about how she’d love to knit with Vanessa Bell, about the Wendy Cope poem on Vanessa Bell, The Sitter, from her collection If I Don’t Know, (which is great, by the way - I love Wendy Cope), which explores Bell’s snobbery towards her model. Domestic heroines: not always uncomplicated people. Domesticity as a concept: not always free from problematic class issues. Bugger!

But, I have gone off my subject. What I mean to say is:

• Read Bleak House because it is great

• The Jane Brocket book on quilts is definitely worth buying

• Embrace radical domesticity, but the operative word there is radical

• The world is not always a nice place: there is blood and politics as well as cupcakes, and if we engage with it as it is, rather than a prettified version, our lives will be richer and more honest

Anyway. Lavender bags. They have entered my brain and stopped me thinking coherently: off to make more coffee.

My Secret Shame - exposed.

Here they all are oppressing me, dammit (are there any I've borrowed from anyone? Do shout)

Forgive me, internet, for I have sinned.

I have slightly more qualifications in English literature than are entirely compatible with being happy and well-rounded. I have a library on my doorstep. I have books in my house. I have a mother who brings me a bag of all the latest fiction, pre-reviewed and digested for me whenever she visits (‘don’t read this one, somebody dies and it’s miserable. This one’s funny, you can read that. This one’s by that man who wrote the one that was on telly. It’s not as good’).

And yet.

I do not read fiction. And what’s more:

I don’t care.

I'm afraid you can indeed see What Not To Wear in the left hand corner there. Look: you think I got to be stylish without research? And sweat?

Other kinds of books, goodness yes. Knitting books, craft books. Vintage sewing books. Books on Wicca. Books on politics. Books on sociology. Books on psychology. Cookery books. Books on feminism. Spell books. Poetry. Newspapers. Graphic novels. Bonus points for political feminist graphic novels. Travel guides. The Argos catalogue. Fashion magazines. Home Improvement magazines. I read all these all the time. I’m never not reading something like that. Is there a new critique of capitalism with a feminist eco slant somewhere? Marvellous. I’m right there. Some book or other about a thrilling new knitting technique? Here I come, credit card in hand. Obscure feminist craft zine with recipes, only available in San Francisco? Thank God for Airmail and Paypal. New Argos catalogue out? Here I am, skippety-skipping across the Beehive centre carpark to see if they’re doing anything different this season in terms of woolly rugs. If I’ve run out of anything else I read the Boden catalogue. Look, they send me hundreds. They make such an effort. Someone needs to appreciate all those little questions they ask their models. But fiction? No, nyet, nope, sorry, not interested unless you stick a few Kitchener stitch directions or a nice recipe in between chapters 10 and 11.

Ah, Le Chat, comme je l'aime. But I do not understand Tardi

So I am at a crossroads. I am wondering whether I should just accept a happy utilitarian future in which everything I read is Useful and Improving, or if I should bite the bullet again and engage with fiction. Because I must have read some at some point. Perhaps I should, you know, go wild and (try and) enjoy myself. It’s not as if I’m a total aescetic: I do read poetry (says she desperately). And I do like a bit of fiction. I like Dickens! I like things you buy by the yard where everyone’s emotionally repressed and married to the wrong people! I liked Harry Potter! But beyond that – as someone says in one of the Adrian Mole books (ok, I do like them as well), ‘I have never read Dostoevsky. And with good luck and a fair wind, I shall never have to’.

Do feel free to leave me any fiction recommendations, to tell me I’m wrong, or to sympathise (although, please: no Magic Realism. That is where I draw the line, and I draw it firmly). Those of you who know me in real life – feel free to tell me off. I know you all will. But I have broad shoulders. Me and the Argos catalogue, we can take it. Off to look for a woolly rug. (I want one in beige. I’m not adventurous).

Interview: Libra Aries Bookshop

Well, you remember I promised you interviews on Fridays? Well I had to have a metaphorical break for a week after doing Keith, who was quite, shall we say, an intense experience and rather unusual in his opinion of mass production, but I’m back with my interviews today! This is Tim and Jean from the Libra Aries bookshop.

I used to work just off Mill Road in Cambridge, and the Libra Aries bookshop was close by so I used to go and have a mooch round at lunchtime. It was my absolutely favourite bookshop in Cambridge, and I got some fabulous books and zines from there, including some great seventies craft books which I’ve never seen anywhere else, the Reiki Subversive’s handbook, some brilliant pagan Yule cards, my favourite book ever on Wicca, and lots of other stuff. What I loved about it was that it stocked books and zines from what were clearly tiny producers, and had a wonderful, eclectic range of stock which you just don’t get at the large retailers. Then it closed down, after having been quite an iconic part of that bit of Mill Road, and I thought that was a real shame.

I go on about local shopping (and I’m going to be going on at some length next week, brace yourselves. I’ve been reading up!), but I really think shopping locally for books, and making an effort to buy books from independents AND NOT JUST AMAZON, is something we (and definitely I) need to be much more aware about. We’ve lost so many bookshops recently in Cambridge, really nice bookshops, and if a well-off university town can’t sustain independent bookshops then that’s a bit scary. We all end up losing out. Anyway, before I get too far up on my high horse (neigh!), I’ll just add that I saw the Libra Aries bookshop in its new incarnation on Cambridge market one morning, and it was so fabulous to see that it hadn’t disappeared completely that I leapt on it (I leapt on it in cyberspace!) and I asked Tim & Jean to be interviewed. And so here we are, I hope you enjoy.

1/ Tell us a little bit about you and your shop.
We are Tim and Jean we live in Romsey, and we ran Libra Aries Bookshop for six years, tucked away in a cosy corner of  the Romsey end of Mill Rd. The Bookshop closed in June this year, and frankly we'd been doing very badly for about 18 months. It seems to us that small independent bookshops are becoming a thing of the past, which is a terrible shame.

2/ What makes your shop different?
We always tried to seek out unusual titles from small and sometimes underground publishers, and to deal directly with authors where possible. We decided early on to specialise in subjects that we personally were interested in, and which were not so easily available in larger corporate bookshops. (We call them book-supermarkets because they treat books as if they were tins of beans!)

3/ What would you say has been your biggest learning experience with Libra Aries, and what achievement are you most proud of?
For me our greatest achievement at Libra Aries was our Sunday Tea Party series, which ran every week from March till August 2005, and took the format of a talk or lecture, followed by informal discussion over a cuppa. We were privileged to host talks by a number of published authors - Nigel Pennick, Anna Franklin, Andy Worthington, Bob Trubshaw (publisher of The Folklore Society's Book of the Year), Gordon MacLellan, Prudence Jones - as well as local speakers. Organising and promoting an event every week was exhausting, but rewarding.

Our biggest lesson from running Libra Aries is that nobody EVER got rich selling books.

4/ Are there any of the lines you carry that you’re particularly excited about, or would like to tell us about?
We sell the Earth Pathways 2011 diary, which is a beautiful creature and has contributions by the writer Jean Dark and by the artist Tim Neate, both Tim & Jean live in Cambridge, so there's a local element there. And we are already taking orders for the lovely blue & silver Moon Calendar Posters that were so popular in the Mill Rd shop.

5/ Do you think there’s been an increase in interest in alternative ideas over the last few years, or is it still a niche market?
We think there has certainly been an increase of interest in environmental issues, unfortunately more people are buying books via the internet so the growing awareness has not translated into sales from bookshops, so small independent bookshops will continue to close. Did you know that 4 independent bookshops in Cambridge, including ourselves, have closed in the last 2 years? [Note from me, this includes Galloway and Porter, and Brown's which were also wonderful bookshops].

6/ Does owning an independent shop affect the way you see mass production/ big corporations? Do you try to support independent producers when you shop/ source services yourself?
Obviously we were very aware of the crucial role small & independent authors, publishers and distributors played in supplying books on alternative issues, and we purposely set out to support small independents by buying direct from them, which as a small independent bookshop we could easily do this. It is harder for international giant corporations to be that flexible & work with such diversity. It is a sad fact that centralised ordering based on profitability inevitably leads to a reduction in the range available to the reader. Only the bestsellers get a look in. As more small bookshops close you'll find fewer and fewer titles on sale. We ourselves always shop locally for food and provisions on Mill Road.

7/ What are your plans for Libra Aries for the future?
We are going to continue selling mail order via the internet and taking our bookstall out to camps and festivals, hopefully Strawberry Fair will be back again soon [note from me, this was a bit of a scandal, the police stopped Strawberry Fair], that's one of our favorite events! We also stand on Cambridge market square every wednesday.

You can see more of Libra Aries on their website, where you can buy online, and see them in real life on the market on Wednesdays on their cheerful stall. It’s lovely to have you still around, Tim and Jean, and I hope things go from strength to strength for Libra Aries (the one question I didn’t ask, was, why are you called Libra Aries, and my partner is upset because he wanted to know the answer. Never mind. Interviewing, it is hard ;-).