Books, festivals, plans

An old year has ended; a new year has begun..

Despite all the political turmoil and woe of the past months, last year had many highlights for me, so I'm going to start (or re-start) this blog with a post about reading, because in 2019 it brought me such great pleasure, and several new friends.

In January I heard about Simon @stuck_inabook's #projectnames, a plan to read only books with names in their titles. (One of the initial rules was also to stick to books already on one's shelves, but that was an idea doomed to failure if ever there was one....)  #Projectnames was exactly what I needed to get my reading out of the doldrums into which it had lately descended, so in I plunged. It's been a wonderfully rewarding experience - I've read more, and more widely, than I ever would have without this focus, and although not every book I chose was a winner, discovering writers like Iain Maitland and his Mr Todd's Reckoning (a terrifying, suffocating, depiction of the psychopath next door), was immensely invigorating. This was a genre I'd never have touched if it hadn't been for the project, and also for the review copy from Sara Hunt at the estimable Saraband Books, one of my favourite publishers.

#Projectnames led me far and wide, from Patrick Dennis's hilarious Auntie Mame to Henry James's Daisy Miller and Dorothy Stevenson's Charlotte Fairlie. It also led me back to an author I had loved in my student days: Professor Carolyn Heilbrun (left), the first woman ever to receive tenure in the English department of Cornell University. Heilbrun wrote detective stories under the pen name of Amanda Cross; the Kate Fansler mysteries are so firmly rooted in the radical feminism of my youth that I did wonder if they would stand up to a second reading over 30 years later, but I'm pleased to say that revisiting them - in the shape of The Question of Max and, especially, No Word from Winifred - was pure joy. I've since snapped up several others (The Players Come Again, Poetic Justice, The Theban Mysteries, A Trap for Fools) that I found languishing on charity shop shelves (around the university, where else?)

Saraband sent me not only Mr Todd but also The Nature of Spring, the latest in Jim Crumley's quartet of season-based books. Jim is the best nature writer I have ever come across (Esther Woolfson is a close second - her Field Notes from a Hidden City made me realise just how much I had missed in ten years of living in Aberdeen); there is no hyperbole in his descriptions of Scottish wildlife, just pure observation, quiet enthusiasm and beautiful, unfussy prose. If you haven't found him yet, I recommend the excellent Nature's Architect, which is about beavers - their persecution, recent reintroduction (both official and slightly more clandestine) and huge importance in the management of our rivers and flood plains - but also about architecture and jazz. Who else could so seamlessly connect Frank Gehry (designer of the spectacular Fondation Louis Vuitton building in the Bois de Boulogne), Louis Armstrong and a bunch of hairy rodents with big teeth?

And this leads me to the very best book-related experience of my entire year. In September a Central Fife Open Studios weekend found me in Burntisland, visiting my artist friend Leo du Feu. Who should be there at the same time but Jim Crumley himself ? Jim and Leo have become acquainted through their shared love of birds, nature and the Scottish countryside. I have heard Jim speak at festivals on several occasions, but to meet him properly was both an honour and a joy.






Book festivals events can vary, and I sometimes find them a bit too commercial and packaged, though I'd love to attend the one that Jim himself recommends, on the tiny island of Colonsay.

At the Edinburgh International Book Festival this summer, however, I did hugely enjoy one particular session. How to be a Writer for Life was officially part of the Young Adult programme, but I managed to secure a review ticket to hear two brilliant, generous, thoughtful writers, David Almond and Lauren James, talk about their work, and what advice they could give to young people setting out on what they hoped might be a lifelong writing career. Instead of plugging their own books, these immensely successful authors shared so many ideas and techniques, and did so with so much modesty and humour, that no-one could have failed to come away inspired. There's no magic about writing, said Lauren, just;

'Read everything and steal all the best bits.'

Simon's not choosing a particular theme this year, though he will still be co-hosting the much-loved #1920Club in April (The #1930Club was another high point of 2019 - I read Nan Shepherd's The Weatherhouse and was spellbound by this story of a small community in rural Aberdeenshire, living out its idiosyncratic story as World War One rages in Europe.) 

I have decided that I still need a focus for my own reading, so I am going to read books whose titles include place names, be they real or fictitious. Here's one for starters: Peg's Adventures in Paris, whose numerous enticing chapter titles include 'Peg Has A Gruesome Adventure' and 'Vera's Odd Behaviour at the Chinese Umbrella.'

I hope Simon won't mind if I call this idea #projectplaces. I've spent some happy hours this morning sorting out all my books - and there are lots, far more than I anticipated. I'll write more about them next time, in case anyone is looking for inspiration, as I was back in January 2019.