According to their Facebook page the Wimbledon Station bookswap was closed on the 12th January in light of Covid-19, and the bookcase removed from the waiting room – which was not a surprise. As a result I easily have two bags worth of books to donate piling up, and as the bookswap hasn’t reopened yet and the charity shops here are overflowing with books (that’s a post for another time) I’ve decided to revive my Bookmooch account and put a few up at a time in case people want them.
(and if anyone stumbling across the blog would like one, you can leave a comment. I don’t anticipate a rush here as not that many people read this blog).
So – what’s in the bag?
First of all Lord Byron’s Major Works. It’s a hefty Oxford Classics paperback and I don’t remember why or when or where I bought it. I read very little poetry, and Byron is obviously available at libraries and almost certainly from Project Gutenberg.
Next down are the four books which form Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet. I really like the early 60s handprint design of two of these. I'm less struck by the others which have measly small figures in a sea of swirly blue possibly meant to be a heat shimmer.
The Alexandria Quartet, despite some oddities of it’s time or even of before it’s time, and Durrell’s slightly odd (and occasionally disturbing) attitude to sex and motivation, is remarkably clever and engaging. If I’m remembering rightly the city of Alexandria has personality and impetus, is almost another character in the book, and we get one version of a period of time and a series of events which is wholly convincing, a complete and satisfying tale - and then in the second book we get a different view which both questions the first and is coloured by a different personality - and so on through.
I still have the Avignon Quintet on my shelf to read.
Next is Conspicuous Consumption by Thorstein Veblen, a slim ‘Great Ideas’ Penguin with one of the prettiest covers I’ve ever seen on a book – in fact I’m tempted to frame it rather than let it be mooched. I think I bought this one in Borders in Kingston – they had a whole rack of ‘Great Ideas’ Penguins.
The Cherry Tree by Adrian Bell is next. A curious book that reads as a journal of Bell’s farming and country life in an almost pre-mechanical age (although things are visibly changing), but is classified by Penguin as fiction (it’s a battered orange paperback) while the preface states says that none of the descriptions should be taken as portraits of living people. Bell undoubtedly was a farmer, but how true to life it is and whether he could have made a go of the farm without writing, I couldn’t say. It’s a joy to read anyway.
Goodbye Christopher Robin by Ann Thwaite. This book is really about A A Milne, and the tension between his actual son, who the Christopher Robin character of the books was based on but who was never called that by his parents, and the fictional character of the books, permanently stuck in smocks at the Now We Are Six stage. I found the book very easy to read but rather light, and much preferred Christopher Milne’s own book The Enchanted Places. Having said that she is very readable, so I would certainly be purchasing her full size biography of Milne if the subject interested me more.
Simon Schama – The Bastille Falls. Another dinky slim penguin, this time from the 'Penguin 21' collection. It’s an extract from Citizens - the larger book looks really interesting but I can see me buying it and leaving to collect dust.
Stella Gibbons – My American. I hadn’t remembered this book as being so large! It’s ok. Perfectly fine, but the American side of the story never quite worked for me. I think I was more interested in comparing the quality of life between the Brits and Americans in the book than what happened next.
Fire in the Thatch by E C R Lorac. One of the British Library Classics. Most notable because the murder victim was someone I really liked, and by the end when the motive for his death was revealed I liked him even better.
Brave New World Revisited – Aldous
Huxley. I never actually read this. It’s sat waiting, and it’s sat long enough.
Alice's Adventures Under Ground – Lewis Carroll. This is rather a pretty book, with what is apparently the original text written out for Alice Liddell and her sisters and some drawings and photos. A Christmas present sort of book.
Antigone – Jean Anouilh. Another version of the Antigone story, bought for the OU course or perhaps just to compare.
The Narrative of John Smith – Arthur Conan Doyle. I don’t think anything much happens in this one. John Smith is unwell (or possibly just started as a doctor and not very busy. Stuck indoors for some reason anyway) and has some opinions to share and is trying to write. The young Conan Doyle was finding his voice at the time and this book reflects that and is interesting for that reason, but the book itself is not brilliant.
Remind Me Who I Am Again – Linda Grant. About Linda Grant’s mother who had dementia, which becomes a backwards look into growing up, the influence and lives of her parents and her father's business. It’s easy for this kind of book to go horribly wrong, but it doesn’t here. Grant doesn’t sugar coat, and she isn't only interested in her parents as they relate to her.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly – Jean-Dominique Bauby. Is anyone not aware of this book? Bauby dictated it despite having locked-in syndrome after a massive stroke. It’s quite short, and comes in short chapters, and despite obvious sadness for the things he’s lost he manages to pack in quite a lot of humour and plenty of interest in the world around him.
The Book of Disquiet – Fernando Pessoa. Reviewed here for 1982. Also a very attractive cover. I've spilt tea or coffee on it at some stage though. (edit. Book already mooched)
Merry Hall – Beverley Nichols. I thought I’d already let go of this. Simon at Stuck in a Book is to blame for my reading Nichols. So far I’ve preferred the book he didn’t and felt a bit ‘meh’ about the book he really did. Reviewed here in passing (that's another culling post. I must have changed my mind and changed it back).
No Place like Home – Beverley Nichols. This is the one I did enjoy. I like travel books, and I liked seeing Nichols' interest in people and places. Some of his attitudes are dated, but he’s very funny and rather a kind person, in the way men sometimes even now feel they have to apologise for (and certainly did then). Bizarre that someone should be made to feel bad about being kind, but there it is.
Springtime in Paris – Elliot Paul. This follows on from A Narrow Street (published as The Last Time I Saw Paris in the US) when Paul returns to France after the war. It’s not as good as the earlier book, and I’m sure it’s at least partly fictionalised, but it was good to catch up with those old friends who made it through the other side.
I’m only about halfway through these books, but will put the rest up as part 2.
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