May Reading

It's been another fairly busy month in terms of reading - 104 books in total. I was a little surprised by this figure, as the second half of the month was quite stressful for me one way and another and I couldn't really concentrate on many heavy reads, instead preferring to get on with some domestic arts (in fact, I'm finding knitting and cross stitch as relaxing as reading and quite a good alternative - sometimes when you read as much as I do, it is nice to have a chance and do something completely different). However, the total is higher than it might otherwise be due to having purchased a number of Babysitters Club titles - since these really don't take much reading at all, having read one of those a day has effectively "kept my numbers up", not that I read for numbers, but rather for relaxation and their completely unchallenging unliterary nature has been exactly what I have needed over the last couple of weeks.

Obviously the big highlight of May was the Persephone Reading Week which I think you'll all agree was a huge success. And one of my best reads of the month, The hopkins manuscript, was read as part of this week. Other good reads included Christina Hardyment's The canary coloured cart (which I must write about), Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther (Elizabeth Von Arnim - review coming up on my Virago blog), and Miss Matty by Richmal Crompton which Simon from Stuck in a book lent to me and snuck in at the very end of the month.

I should confess too that May was quite a bad month for book purchasing and acquisitions. According to my librarything account, I added over 100 books to my collection (which now totals more than 1400 volumes). I guess it was bound to happen when the month started with a cheerless bankholiday weekend that necessitated a trip around the charity shops and a trip to London for a book bloggers meet up that involved much second hand book shopping!

What are my plans for June? I have about 20 books on my TBR pile, but I need to work out which of those I want to save for summer holidays and things. I have a few library books on loan, and I have a few VMCs awaiting me. And I'll be continuing my Orange Wednesdays feature as that is proving interesting to me and popular with readers. But I also want to spend more time knitting and doing cross stitch, and I'm thinking quite hard about the pattern of my blogging. Accepting review copies over the last few months has skewed my blog somewhat; as life is far too short for me to write about everything that I read, I end up just writing about review books rather than books which I am more enthusiastic about. And also some of my favourite blogs are not ones which are heavily dominated by reviews - I love to read about the other things that people do - holidays, days out, crafts, baking and general bookishness, and to some extent this is more what I like to write about than reviewing books per se. So having passed my first bloggiversary, and changed my name to Cardigan Girl Verity, there may be some changes around here, but then there may not be. We'll see what happens!

Persimmon tree and other stories	Barnard, Marjorie
Many conditions of love	Zama, Farahad
Sue Barton: Superintendent nurse	Boylston, Helen Dore
The expendable man	Hughes, Dorothy	P
Skinny bitch	Freedman	NF
Sand in my shoes	Rice, Joan	AB
An interrupted life	Hillesum, Etty	AB P
The baking bible	Collister, Linda	NF
Elizabeth's adventures in Rugen	Arnim, Elizabeth von
The barracks	McGahern, John
Looking for Enid	Maclean, Duncan	NF RR
Julian Grenfell	Mosley, Nicholas	B P
Still glides the stream	Thompson, Flora	AB
Private life	Smiley, Jane
Dimanche and other stories	Neriemovsky, Irene	P
Sarah Strick	Hurley, Randle
Private places	Craig, Amanda
Open the door!	Carswell, Catherine	VMC
Getting mad, getting even	Saunders, Annie
Plats du jour	Grey, Primrose	P
Good things in England	White, Florence	P
Easy baking	Marks and Spencer	NF
Unicorn girls	Holden, Ursula
Surfacing	Atwood, Margaret	VMC
Felicia's journey	Trevor, William
Instructions not included	Moreman, Charlotte	NF
Mandoa Mandoa	Holtby, Winifred	VMC
Housewife married	Penton Harper, Alison
Writing on my forehead	Haji, Nafisa
Hopkins manuscript	Sherriff, RC	P
Fifteen	Clearly, Beverley	C RR
Two vandals and a wedding	Secombe, Fred	AB
High heels and a head torch	Duke, Chelsea	NF
Wigs on the green	Mitford, Nancy
After you'd gone	Lingard, Joan
Shop girl diaries	Benet, Emily	AB
Sweet desserts	Ellman, Lucy
Summer will show	Warner, Sylvia Townsend	VMC
Where I belong	Latham, Joyce	AB
Mr Rosenblum's list	Solomons, Natasha
The robber bridegroom	Welty, Eudora	VMC
Sue barton: neighbourhood nurse	Boylston, Helen Dore	RR
Enormous changes	Paley, Grace	VMC
Tin toys	Holden, Ursula
Minack tales	Tangye, Derek	AB
Wishing for tomorrow	Mackay, Hilary	C
Celia	Young, E.H.	VMC
War-workers	Delafield, EM
Rhapsody	Edwards, Dorothy	VMC
Sleeping with Mozart	Church, Anthea
Children of the house	Fairfax-Lucy, Brian	C
Liza of Lambeth	Maugham, Somerset
Five go to Finnegan's farm	Blyton, Enid	C RR
Last year when I was young	Dickens, Monica
A future CS girl	EBD	C RR
Nobody has to be a kid forever	Colman, Hilla	C
Fall on your knees	Macdonald, ann
Love bites	Hirst, Christopher	NF
Northbridge rectory	Thirkell, Angela
Delta wedding	Welty, Eudora	VMC
Underfoot in showbusiness	Hanff, Helene	AB
Q's legacy	Hanff, Helene	AB
Loving without tears	Keane, Molly	VMC
World of girls	Auchmuanty, Rosemary	NF
World of women	Auchmuanty, Rosemary	NF
Love me tender	Feaver, Jane
Things I wish I'd known	Green, Linda
Stacey's big secret	Martin, Ann	C
Sights unseen	Gibson, Kaye	VMC
Toys were us	Whittaker, Nicholas	NF
Claudia and the phantom phone calls	Martin, Ann	C
Kids cakes and party food	Good Housekeeping	NF
Family meal planner	BBC Good Food	NF
I will not serve	Mahere, Evelyn	VMC
Miss Jemima's Swiss Journey		NF
What Katy did next	Coolidge, Susan	C RR
Borderlines	Hospital, Janette Turner	VMC
It so happens	Ferguson, Patricia
New York, New York	Martin, Ann	C
The quickening maze	Foulds, Adam
A single swallow	Clare, Horation	NF
Mary Anne saves the day	Martin, Ann	C
Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther	Arnim, Elizabeth von	VMC
In my father's places	Thomas, Aronwy	AB
Dawn and the impossible three	Martin, Ann	C
A time in Rome	Bowen, Elizabeth	NF
A canary coloured cart	Hardyment, Christina	AB
Here come the bridesmaids	Martin, Ann	C
The captain's wife	Lewis, Eilunedd
Hector and the search for happiness	Lelord, Francois
Claudia and mean Janine	Martin, Ann	C RR
The matriarch	Stein, GB	VMC
California Girls	Martin, Ann	C
Belinda	Broughton, Rhoda	VMC
Logan likes Mary Anne	Martin, Ann	C RR
Letters from Lamhedra	Williams, Marjorie	NF
Mother of the bride	Lawson, Kate
Babysitters summer holiday	Martin, Ann	C
Jasmine Farm	Arnim, Elizabeth von
Babysitters on board	Martin, Ann	C
Divorced and deadly	Cox, Josephine
Miss Matty	Crompton, Richmal
Babysitters winter holiday	Martin, Ann	C

Two Vintage Classics

Vintage classics is a wonderful imprint from Random House devoted to the republication of writers from both the twentieth century and previous centuries. The list covers a wide range of authors from Graham Greene to George Grossmith and they are all handsomely issued in paperback with wonderful covers and sleek red spines. Perusing the site, a couple of titles caught my attention, and Fiona from Vintage was kind enough to send them to me to read and write about on my blog.



Liza of Lambeth was Maugham's first novel, and although reviews on both Amazon.co.uk and librarything suggest (I only found this out afterwards!) that it is not the best place to start, I think it was actually a very good introduction. Before Maugham became a writer, he studied medicine in London, and often had to attend maternity cases down backstreets near to St Thomas Hospital where he was based. He writes in a preface to the book that it was these experiences which gave him the inspiration for writing the novel, and then it was the success of writing this book which led him to give up his medical career and concentrate on writing. It's often said that writers need to write about something which they know about, and the realistic portrayal of working class life in London through the colloquial dialogue and vivid descriptions of the streets in the novel show that this was something which Maugham really knew about.

The plot itself is fairly simple. The book is the tale of 18 year old Liza and her life in the Lambeth slums. She works in a factory and hangs out in the streets. She has a steady admirer, Tom, although is not particularly enthusiastic about their relationship. She then meets Jim, a married man, and they embark on an affair. Initially they manage to keep it a secret, but eventually the neighbourhood works out what is happening and Liza is eschewed. Ultimately it is a somewhat tragic tale; I won't reveal the ending, but suffice to say it is not a happy one.

Has anyone read any other W Somerset Maugham? He is certainly an author that I think I should probably have read more of. What should I read next? The title Cakes and ale sounds quite appealing, although I have no idea what the story is about!


At this time of year, it's time to think about summer holidays, and even if one isn't able to get away then it's good to be able to make a virtual escape. Thus Elizabeth Bowen's A time in Rome caught my eye - a description of the city and its history based on three decades of visits and a three month stay in the 1950s. In some ways it could be seen as a guide book, but Bowen suggests that it is more like her personal notes on a guide book which gives it a wonderfully individual tone. What I liked most was the way that Bowen managed to evoke the feel of the city - from the golden sunlight of the daytime, to the shutdown of the city during the siesta and the spectacle of the night life.

I've never been to Rome and would love to go ; this book really brought the city to life for me and is definitely something that I would take along to reread if I get to go there. A perfect book for an armchair vacation.

Thank you very much to Vintage for sending me these two very different but equally enjoyable and interesting books.

Latest acquisitions

I've had a huge number of acquisitions in the last couple of weeks, so I thought it was high time that I wrote about some of them. I've actually read my way through quite a few of them and I will be reviewing some of them in due course.

Puffin by design is one of the most exciting of my recent acquisitons. I'm sure most readers will know the fantastic Penguin by Design, and this book has been issued to celebrate Puffin's 70th anniversary. I was brought up on a diet of Puffin books - they published some absolutely wonderful reads - and this book charts the development of the imprint. It's a lovely book for browsing through. I should also mention that there is a new biography of Kaye Webb, the first editior of the Puffin books imprint, called So much to tell, by Valerie Grove which I am top of the waiting list for at the library, and also that Puffin are also going to bring out mugs! I am sure I will need a couple of those to complement my rather more grown up Penguin mugs.

Sandy, the true story of a boy and his friends growing up in Cornwall in the late 1800s is something that I read about on Fleur Fisher's blog, and thus decided to order from Amazon. Whilst Jane is lucky enough to have plenty of Cornish books available in her library (unsurprisingly since she lives in Cornwall) I have to resort to online shopping to fuel my interest in the county. Letters from Lameldra is another Cornish read that I got from the Cornish publisher Truran in their half price sale.

First term at Cottisford is a lovely republished school story by an author that I don't know at all, published by Bettany Press, whom I say more about a little further down.

Little gods was advertised on the back of the Guardian Review section last week and sounded intriguing; I picked up a second hand copy on Amazon.

Vintage Classics very kindly sent me two of their recent Vintage Classics editions - Liza of Lambeth and A time in Rome, which I will write about tomorrow. I do admire these handsome red editions.

Jackie from Farmlanebooks sent me Hector and the search for happiness - the title intrigued me and it has been mentioned a lot recently in the blogosphere. Jackie didn't enjoy it very much which was why she kindly let me give her copy a new home, so I am interested to see what I make of it - Jackie and I like some, but not all, of the same books so I will be fascinated to see if it is one that we agree on or not!

[Not pictured because I've lent it to my Dad] A colleague (possibly the worst influence on me outside of the blogs that I read, in fact, I think she is even worse than the blogs that I read) suggested that I read Christina Hardyment's A canary coloured cart : one family's search for storybook Europe. Having loved Hardyment's Captain Flint's Trunk, I need little persuasion when I heard that it was the book about her family's literary excursion around Europe in a camper-van in the 1980s. This is definitely one that I will be reviewing very soon.

I've also ordered, but am still waiting for, two more Greyladies titles to add to my collections. I was lucky enough to get a very generous booktoken as a belated leaving gift from my Saturday job. Book tokens however are quite difficult to spend; I don't like to buy full price books in bookshops when I can get them on Amazon for less or second hand. Most of the books that I buy new, at full price, are from independent publishers. Blackwells were singularly unhelpful in helping me spend it, but Rachel at The Woodstock Bookshop has been wonderfully helpful. Although she was unable to get two of the titles I wanted, she managed to order the Greyladies for me, and has also ordered me two Girls Gone By titles which are coming out later in the year. I'm glad to give my custom to a reliable

On the theme of ordered-but-not-quite-acquired, I did treat myself to the two books that I couldn't get with my book token, both published by The Bettany Press. This imprint is a bit like Girls Gone By, in that they specialise in books for fans of British girls fiction. I was pleased to discover that they have republished two books by Elinor M Brent-Dyer which I had not come across - Jean of Storms (a discovered adult novel), and The school by the river, which is apparently loosely connected to the Chalet School series. I can't wait for these two to arrive!

I've also acquired a large number of Babysitters Club books over the last couple of weeks. I read these as a child and spotted a big collection in Oxfam a few weeks ago. I've been backwards and forwards buying a couple at a time, and I've also been on ebay picking up some cheap sets. They're not in any sense literary, but I have found reading them (it turns out I don't think that I read very many at all as a child) extremely comforting over a couple of quite stressful weeks - it is nice to have a book which you can read in twenty minutes at the end of the day without any effort at all and to know that everything will turn out ok at the end! I was very excited to discover that there is a new prequel to the series, which is just out, by Ann Martin called The summer before - I've not yet read that, but you can spot it in the acquistions picture above.

A foray into the domestic arts (part 1)

Back in January I decided to take up knitting. This was something I did as a child - knitting long, holey scarves for my cuddly toys - but had not done in at least a decade an a half. My decision was prompted by spotting the pattern for a very pretty little flower corsage in a magazine - I wanted one myself, and thought that they would make excellent birthday gifts for my friends. Unfortunately, I had almost completely forgotten how to knit. A knitting book from the library later, a trip to a knitting shop for needles and wool, and I realised that perhaps a flower corsage was a tad ambitious. So, I decided to start by knitting a dishcloth; I have a very eco-friendly friend who I thought would love a dishcloth for her birthday, so I chose an attractive shade of pink and congratulated myself on the fact that I had five months to finish it. It was slow progress - I found knitting very very tiring at first, and combined with my tiredness at starting a new job and ongoing health problems, it was soon abandoned. A fortnight ago, I realised that my friend's birthday was in just a week's time, and guiltily took up my needles. Unfortunately, despite knitting hard, I didn't manage to finish it in time (she got some rather yummy books instead, lucky girl), but a week late, I did eventually cast it off. And here it is - some dropped stitches, a bit wonky, but actually something I'm quite proud of. And at least it's not too nice to use :)




My next project is to learn how to do purl; a colleague tells me that dishcloths or scarves are definitely the best way to practice, so maybe my friend will get another cloth in time for Christmas. My colleague has promised to show me how to do that, and also to translate the original corsage pattern for me. I am confident that I will get there eventually!

Orange Wednesday: The Bonesetter's daughter (Tan)

When I spotted Amy Tan's The joy luck club in the library booksale for 20p, I couldn't resist it. This amazing multistranded debut novel tells the story of four Chinese mothers and four first generation Chinese-American daughters. The novel is cleverly constructed so that it is almost like a collection of stories - the mothers reveal their experiences of growing up in China, and these are contrasted with their daughters experiences in America. I found it to be a wonderful evocation of mother-daughter relationships as well as a fantastic insight into both Chinese and immigrant cultures.

Whilst this was not longlisted for the Orange prize, two of her later novels had been: The bonesetter's daughter and The hundred secret senses. And having read The joy luck club, it was not long before I sought one of them out.

If anything, I enjoyed The bonesetter's daughter even more than The joy luck club. It was somewhat similar, in that it combined the experiences of a first generation Chinese-American daughter with that of her mother in , but I felt that by focussing on just one pair, the characters and the story were much more developed. Ruth and her mother LuLing have many of the same issues as the women in The joy luck club - Ruth frequently struggles to understand her mother who, despite having lived in the United States for 50 years, is very keen to hold onto her Chinese customs and heritage and only speaks very poor English, and her mother has obviously had to try to come to terms with bringing up her daughter in a culture very different from the one that she was brought up in. This becomes more apparent after the mid-section of the book which describes LuLing's story of life in a small village in China in the 1930s.

Amy Tan's writing is both beautiful and easy to read, so coupled with an interesting story and details about a culture with which I am not particularly familiar, I hugely enjoyed this novel.

I'm extremely keen to get hold of The hundred secret senses now, but I'm also intrigued to seek out her memoir, The opposite of fate. Has anyone read either of those?

Some new baking toys

I'm increasingly recognising the importance of good presentation to my baking; partly this is a result of reading wonderful cake decorating books, partly having watched Raymond Blanc's cookery series, and partly just trying a bit harder. It's not something I'm very good at, so I often rely on other things to help me! I couldn't resist a set of gorgeous mini silicon loaf tins the other day; I have never tried cooking with silicon before and these were such pretty colours.

I made two different recipes to try them out - firstly, a basic sponge recipe, which I flavoured with orange zest and sultanas and then covered with a thick orange icing...

Secondly, some dairy free flapjacks into which I mashed banana and stirred in some jam. Yum! I've now got oats back in my diet and am making up for lost time with flapjack consumption.
I didn't notice any difference to cooking with regular baking tins, aside from the fact that I didn't need to line them. My only quibble was the size - they were a bit on the big side for an individual portion. But they are rather pretty.

And, going back to presentation - I made some more apple flapjack the other week, and decided to press them into mini tart tins to make them look a little different...

Bloggiversary (and name change!)

Yesterday marks exactly a year since I started my blog. And what fun I've had along the way! I've made scores of new friends across the globe, fuelled my book addiction more than I would ever have thought possible both in terms of numbers of books borrowed from the library, and books bought (although I have undertaken two successful periods of abstention from the latter). I've embarked on reading projects, such as my Cornish Cornucopia, and my Orange Wednesdays. I've had the privilege of hosting two wonderful Persephone Reading Weeks, and tea as a result at the Persephone Book Shop, and been given my very own Persephone endpaper pinny (see above!). I've won several people's giveaways, been sent books by people reading my blog (and other things too like handknitted scarves!), and been the fortunate recipient of a number of review copies, particularly from the kindness of Sophie and Victoria at Virago, Fiona at Vintage and Helena at Honno Press. I've baked copiously. And it turned out that one blog wasn't enough - I started a second blog too for my challenge of trying to read my way through the Virago Modern Classics series!

It's been wonderful - thank you to all of those that read and comment on my blog - you're all fantastic!

When I set up the blog, I chose "cardigangirlverity" for the web address, but then decided to call it The B Files to reflect the fact that I loved Books, Baking and my Boyfriend. I still love Books and Baking but the Boyfriend is now a fiance, and I feel that my cardigans are becoming neglected*, so from now on my blog will just go under the header - cardigangirlverity.


* Early on I wrote a post about my cardigans - I've got rid of two on the list (the bobbly grey Jane Norman one and the then unworn H and M charcoal cardigan which shrunk terribly in the wash), but have acquired another black Jane Norman cardigan with a lovely big cowl neck and a sparkly silver zipped number from Pineapple which is very eighties funky.

Sunday cake (and some hearts)

My OH has been away for most of the week - he's back this afternoon and here's what I've made to welcome him home - it's a cranberry, ginger and pecan loaf (from here) which I decorated with marzipan. Ostensibly a Christmas cake, it did lend itself rather well to being decorated like this.

BTW, I've been meaning to post a picture of my heart themed kitchen equipment for quite a while - here it is...we have ice cubes, many many cookie cutters, measuring spoons, a little silicon tin, two Le Creuset ramekins, silicon muffin cases, ice cubes, sprinkles, a set of four spoons and the mug which my OH gave me for my birthday!

Trespass (Tremain)

I first encountered Rose Tremain the summer before last when she won the Orange Prize with The road home - regular readers of this blog will know that I use the prize to extend my reading into authors that I haven't previously come across, and for me, I found The road home to be a worthy winner. I discovered that Tremain had quite a substantial backlist; her historical titles were strongly recommended to me (particularly The colour and Music and Silence, neither of which I have yet got around to reading), and I read a couple of her more modern novels (The swimming pool season and The way I found her). Tremain is one of those writers who seems to write extremely widely, something I always find particularly impressive (as it is often rather tedious when a favourite author becomes boring by churning out extremely samey reading material)

Trespass, Tremain's latest novel, kindly sent to me by Fiona from Vintage to review, is one of Tremain's "modern" novels, and is located in France, in a setting not dissimilar to that of The swimming pool season. This is a book about siblings; brother and sister Veronica and Anthony, both English, and brother and sister Aromon and Audrun, who are French, and the theme of the book is sibling rivalry, dispute and ultimately revenge.

Aramon and Audrun have had a feud for years, but it is not until Anthony, who, escaping his life in England to live near his sister, comes to buy Aramon's house that things come to a head. It is obvious from the beginning that something bad is going to happen to the characters in this book; the question is how and it is difficult to synopsis the plot any more without giving too much away.

All of the four main characters are profoundly damaged human beings, and the book gets its name from the fact that all of the characters have been responsible for a "trespass" in some way, albeit not necessarily in the conventional sense involving land; I found this concept to be more interesting than the plot itself, and the idea that trespassing can be metaphorical as well as literal.

Unfortunately I felt that in comparison to The road home, the book was quite slow. The langorous descriptions of the French countryside may have been appropriate, but they didn't help to keep my interest in the book. So I'm afraid that this wasn't my favourite Rose Tremain to date. Has anyone else read this yet and what did you think? And do you have a favourite Tremain novel - as I have read very few I'd be interested to hear what people recommend.

Shiny pennies and grubby pinafores (Foley)

I have always had a fascination with autobiographical writing; it fills in the background to the past and adds colour and interest that I didn't initially get when I studied history. Of course, the further into my history degree I got, the more I realised that autobiographies and memoirs were a hugely important part of studying the past, providing a basis for studying social history, revealing details about everyday life and experiences. Even though I no longer study history in any formal sense, I still frequently seek out stories of the past, particularly when they focus on the domestic sphere.

A long time ago, I read Winifred Foley's classic autobiography, A child in the forest, and its follow up, Back to the forest, and was hugely pleased to discover earlier this year, that thanks to Abacus Books (part of the Little, Brown group) they are now back in print. The first volume has been retitled Full hearts and empty bellies, and the second, Shiny Pennies and grubby pinafores. Initially written down in notebooks, which were then serialised on the BBC as part of woman's hour, the books were originally published in the 1970s. The first book is an absolutely engrossing account of Foley's upbringing in the now forgotten world of the Forest of Dean in the 1920s, growing up in a cottage lacking running water, electricity and rarely with enough to eat. At the age of 14, Foley left the forest to go into service, embarking on a fascinating career working in London, Cheltenham, as a kitchen maid at a ladies college and then as a "nippy" at a Lyon's corner house.

In the second volume of autobiography, Foley is now married to Syd, and living in a London tenement. She scrapes a living as a charwoman and dreams of returning to the Forest of Dean to be near her relatives and to give her children a better chance of life. Syd lands a job in the area, complete with a tied cottage and the family are able to return.

Life in the forest is easier than it was in her childhood but it is by no means an idyllic existence. Foley still struggled to make ends meet, but there was a far better quality of life.

One of the things that amused me was Winifred describing how shortly before they left London they had become a "two wardrobe family" which gave her a "real sense of affluence". This was reminiscent of the importance of having a piano to members of the working class in other memoirs that I have read of the period.

Victoria from Abacus kindly sent me the latter volume to have a look at; I was particularly interested in it as it also contained an extra portion of autobiography from a book of writings originally entitled called No pipe dreams for father. I hope that they may also republish her other volume of memoirs, In and out of the forest.

If you are at all interested in life in the early twentieth century, have enjoyed Cider with Rosie or Lark Rise to Candleford, then I do recommend these books, either in the lovely new editions, or you might be lucky enough to spot the older titles somewhere (I think mine came from a village fete!)