January Reading

I have been using my Persephone Diary to record my reading thus far in 2011 (as my trusty notebook that had been in use since 2003 was about to run out), and I'm rather enjoying it. It is lovely to see the beautiful endpapers as I jot titles down. I've done well with my reading in 2011 so far; I am back on track with reading "proper" books after my slump into Babysitters Club books last May that I never really recovered from. I am doing pretty well with my Virago Modern Classics reading too, spurred on by Rachel and Carolyn's Virago reading week. Most days I have managed to read two books, though do not be too incredulous, normally this has been one novel and then a childrens book or a cookery book or something like that as a second title.




Here is the full list, copied from my Excel spreadsheet - I have made some slight refinements to my categorisation which I think will help me make better statistics of my reading.- here are the abbreviations:
VMC = Virago Modern Classic
P = Persephone
LBD = Little Black Dress (my current guilty indulgence!)
CB = Cookbook
T = Travel
AB = Autobiography
B = Biography
NF = Non fiction (other than the above categories)
C = Children's
CW = Cornwall related in some way
RR = Reread.

Mystery of Mrs Blencarrow	Oliphant, Mrs	P
Bid me to live	H.D.	VMC
Mrs Marridge Project	Fisk, Pauline	C
Goldengrove Unleaving	Walsh, Jill Paton	Cw
Christmas at Fairacre	Read, Miss	RR
Stoner	Williams, John
Fortnum and Mason's Afternoon tea		NF
Girl in translation	Kowk, Jean
12 days of Christmas	Ashley, Trisha
Salem Chapel	Oliphant, Mrs	VMC
Yes sister, no sister	Craig, Jenifer	AB
Good daughters	Hocking, Mary	VMC
Diary of a lady	Johnson, Rachel	AB
The love boat	Lace, Kate	LBD
Izzy's war	Dewar, Islar
Indifferent heroes	Hocking, Mary	VMC
The air hostess		LBD
The good psychologist
Easy chocolate	Marks and Spencers	CB
Salzburg: City Guide		T
Skippy dies	Murray, Paul
Word watching	Horne, Alex	NF
The loved and the envied	Bagnold, Enid	VMC
Papercraft	Marie Claire Ideas	NF
Housebound	Peck, Winifred	P	RR
Hidden places of Cornwall		T
Welcome heroes	Hocking, Mary	VMC
Seagulls in the attic	Hadsworth, Tessa	AM	CW
The village	Laski, Mangerita	P	RR
Millennium hall	Scott, Sarah	VMC
Comfort and joy	Knight, India
Return to Peyton Place	Metalious, Grace
Voices in summer	Pilcher, Rosamund
Room	Donahue, Emma
Learn to cook wheat, gluten and dairy free	Savill, Antoinette	CB
Tiny bit of marvellous	French, Dawn
Dean's lighthouse adventure	Fiddler, Kathleen	C
Repeat it today with tears	Peile, Anne
Animal instincts	Dixon, Nell	LBD
Every home needs a balcony	Dunn, Raina
Party frock	Streatfeild, Noel	C	RR
Daddy's gone a-hunting	Mortimer, Penelope	P	RR
Pete, Pam and Jim: the investigators	Fiddler, Kathleen	C
Glitter of Mica	Kessoon, Jessie	VMC
Noel Streatfeild	Bull, Angela	B	RR
We that were young	Rathbone, Irene	VMC
Starter marriage	Harrison, Kate
Susan Spray	Kaye-Smith, Sheila	VMC
Barrow Lane Gang	Streatfield, Noel	C
Growing up gracefully	Streatfield, Noel	C	NF
Christmas cooking with kids	Rigg, Annie	CB	C
Zoe	Jewsbury, Geraldine	VMC
Seriously good	Vickery, Phil	CB
Sunlight on a broken column	Hosain, Attia	VMC
Diary of a medical nobody	Lane, Kenneth	AB

I feel quite pleased with this start to the year...I am sure the Persephone Diary has made me try hard with my reading :)

And what will I be reading in February?
Here's my stack of chick lit (on the left), slightly more serious reading in the middle, and three books which I have recently acquired. Can't wait to read We had it so good. Oh, and I hope to be reading from my recent haul of Viragos too!

Persephone Reading Weekend

With less than a month to go, it is time to formally announced Persephone Reading Weekend which Paperback Reader Claire and myself will be running at the end of February. We have run two very successful Persephone Reading Weeks (May 2010 and September 2009) and will be running the weekend in the same style.

The week started out in 2009 when I decided to spend a week off work reading a Persephone book a day; it was so much fun that I decided to do it again on my next week off, and Claire joined me and helped me to make it into a proper bloggy event.

There aren't any rules; to participate all you need to do is to read a Persephone book. You can read more if you like, and hopefully if you have a blog you'll blog about your reading too. If you don't, then Claire or I can put posts up on our blogs. Each day we'll round up the Persephone posts (you'll be able to post links in the comments of our blogs) so that everyone can share in the Persephone fun.

I'm not sure what I'll be reading this time; in the last Reading Week I managed to complete my reading of the entire Persephone collection, but I have recently started re-reading some of my favourites.

We hope to have a couple of giveaways too and think that the weekend should be really fun! No need to sign up, just get your Persephone books ready...

Virago Reading Week Bake

A brief interlude from my Library Day in the Life posts this week - there is still one more to come as I work on Sundays, but today at least I am not at the library. I have been participating in the wonderful Virago Reading Week hosted by Carolyn and Rachel over on my Virago Venture blog (and have been enjoying having the company of others as I read my way through the Virago Modern Classics list). I have a Virago inspired bake to share today on this blog, and yes, of course it features apples!

I saw this recipe a few weeks ago, but in the spirit of "baking from the cupboard" I didn't think I could make it, as although I had apples, I didn't think that I had any demerera sugar. But I found some! All this Virago-ing has made me crave apples, so I decided to make the cake with a mix of ground almonds and gluten free flour and vegan margarine so that I could have some too; I hoped that the moistness of the apples would counteract some of the grittiness of the gf flour and the apple would make up for the vegan margarine which doesn't taste as good as butter!



Yum! I show it here with two appropriate titles as my entry for Carolyn and Rachel's photo competition.

Library Day in the life Day 5

Very tired as it has been a long week, but manage to drag myself to the pool as usual. As I cycle into work, I feel relieved that I have an off-desk session this morning. I have mainly managed to catch up with the urgent tasks of the week so am looking forward to getting on with some of the non-urgent, nagging tasks. And I never fail to feel slightly cheered up as I approach the beautiful buildings which are my place of work. However, as I climb the stairs to the Upper Reading Room, I run into one of my colleague's husbands (who works in a different department) telling me that he is very sorry but she is poorly today (and that she feels bad as she knows Friday mornings are bad for the Main Enquiry Desk (where she is based). At least I haven't got as far as taking my coat off, so I go down to the Main Enquiry Desk (and try not to feel too grumpy); at least my colleague was off this afternoon anyway, so the only rota-change is me. I postpone the meeting that I was supposed to attend at the History Faculty, as I am manning (womaning?) the Main Enquiry Desk with our Graduate Trainee and it is not fair to leave her on her own for a long period of time (although she will cover my tea break)

Miraculously it is very quiet, unlike Wednesday; as I am the only fully-Main-Enquiry-Desk trained person in the department this morning I have to sort out the emails. By the time I've deleted the junk emails, there's only 9 left, most of which can be forwarded onto other departments. Once I've worked out what needs doing to them, I enlist the help of our Graduate Trainee to send them on, print them out for the files, and record them on the spreadsheet.

We spend a little while trying to work out an enquiry from a reader who wants a particular edition of the Daily Mirror from 1908; as I am not at the Main Enquiry Desk very often it takes me a little while to work out that we don't actually have it (newspapers are an area where our coverage can be less good). It gives me a chance also to explain the difference between a catalogue record and piece record to the Graduate Trainee.

It gets a little busy between 10.30 and 11:00 while I am on my own; I answer the phone twice, dealing with an admissions enquiry and a thesis enquiry (both passed onto other departments), help someone print something out, and help a gentleman with a book which is out to one of the staff offices. I then help him to order a 1612 edition of the bible.

At 11am I drag myself over to the common room and sit and stare at my book for a bit before coming back to the desk where I help more readers with stack requests and answer a couple of emails.

1pm brings lunchtime; hurrah! As my fiance has an appointment in town at 14:50, we meet up. I have a couple of books to pick up from the public library, so we head there before going for a coffee in Pret a manger.

In the afternoon, I am back in the Upper Camera. Luckily it seems to be a bit quieter than it has been earlier in the week (there is a definite trend that Mondays and Tuesdays are busier than other days), so we have a chance to catch up on the various projects that we are working on. And although there are two book deliveries, there are comparatively small.

5pm and it is time to go home! I am looking forward to being out of the library for 36 hours, although I will be back here on Sunday - one final Library Day in the Life post then.

Library Day in the Life Day 4

I forgot to actually hit "post" on yesterday's post until today, so I shall try to keep today's post shorter (I had wondered why there weren't any comments!). It helps that I don't start work until 12pm on Thursdays; we all work until 7pm one evening a week (and Thursday is my night at the moment). I normally spend my Thursday mornings having a slightly longer swim than usual, doing some cooking, cleaning the living area of the flat and then having a nice sit down. Unfortunately, today, although I do the first three things as usual (make soup, tuna and pasta salad and some cookies), I have to go to the Post Office to renew my driving licence so I leave home an hour earlier than usual, and the PO experience was so hideous I can't bear to think about it any more.

I get into work at 12pm, going first to the Personnel Office to speak with one of the managers there. I come back into the main bit of the library and switch on my off-desk computer; it takes a while to boot up so I catch up with the Upper Reading Room team. I LOVE the hour or so that I have off-desk on Thursday as it enables me to get on with a few things in peace and quiet. Or that is the theory. Unfortunately I have an urgent request for a reference that takes most of the hour to write. Next week's rota also arrives and I check it carefully to see that my reading rooms are covered and that no-one is missing! I remember that I am attending two training sessions next week and have a couple of meetings, so check that this works.

At 2pm I head round to the reserve in the URR for the afternoon. Fortunately it appears to be quieter than earlier in the week and between readers I classify books to go on the open shelves that I ordered up for the English librarian on Monday. The collection in the URR is quite static and I rarely classify books here, so it takes me a little while as the system is more complicated (or it feels like it!) than in the UCam. I then send an email to the URR team asking whoever next has a moment to update the catalogue, label the books and get them out onto the shelves.

At 3.30pm the delivery arrives and it is all hands to the deck to check it in and get it put away. Luckily it seems smaller than the ones earlier in the week are.

At 4.15 I go off on my teabreak, missing the final delivery of the day, and pop to M and S to pick up some smoked mackerel and some leeks, and have a cup of takeaway tea. At 4.45 I get to the UCam and catch up with the staff there, checking the progress of their work and finding out whether there are any issues that I need to be aware of on evening duty.

From 5-7pm I do my evening duty in the Upper Camera. As I am on duty with our Graduate Trainee, she is capable of looking after the readers, leaving me to hide at my desk - keeping an eye out in case it gets busy, and get on with a spreadsheet of books that I am checking. At 6pm she goes and does the book replacing/shelving so I look after the desk while she is out in the reading room At 7pm the late shift arrives - we're open until 10pm on weekdays in termtime, so I can put on my coat and go home without having to worry about persuading the readers to go home.

Library Day in the Life Day 2

I hope today's post will be slightly shorter now that I have filled in some of the background explanation to what I do... Lots of people seemed to enjoy reading the first post; comments mainly centred around the fact that I swim before work (after 3 years it is so much part of my routine that I don't even think about it - yes it is a little painful but no more than getting in the shower is when you are sleepy) and the heavy lifting involved. This is in part as a result of the historic building in which I work - there is no lift in the Radcliffe Camera so all of the books have to be carried up and downstairs by hand. But even in the Upper Reading Room where the books are brought in by a lift, we still have to unpack the books from the boxes and transfer them to a trolley and wheel them to the desk to be scanned in (and then put them away). It doesn't really bother me because carrying books around has been an element of every library job that I have had, although it is worse in Oxford's historical buildings. We all recieve manual handling training in how to lift books safely and it is just a question of getting on with it.

Like yesterday, I am spending the morning in the Upper Camera. The morning begins again with the turnout (although I have forgotten my swipe card and have to pop out when my fiance kindly brings it in for me), and I carry a large pile of books downstairs. After that it is on to Trying To Get Things Done.

Today I am focusing on a task for the history librarian. She has identified a list of titles which are in high demand in the History Faculty Library which are not on the open shelves in the Upper Camera, so we will need to order these up. There has been some discussion as to whether or not to ingest them into the normal classification sequence, but we have decided to make a temporary sequence. Unfortunately there is already a temporary sequence, so in order to avoid confusing readers, I need to arrange for that to disappear too (luckily the books in it were only here "temporarily" (and they've been here about 5 years). I end up having a discussion as to whether we should investigate using printed sticky labels rather than using paper and paste. This needs to be referred to the supervisors' meeting and then to the Reader Services Senior Staff Meeting, so I submit this as an agenda item. I consult with my Upper Camera colleagues as to the progress they are making on other work before deciding how to allocate the tasks.

Delivery arrives at 10.30; we put it away and I head off to coffee break. On the way back, my manager has asked me to call in to finish going through the risk assessment for the Upper Reading Room (we did the Upper Camera last week, but it was such an involved process that we couldn't face doing 2 on the trot). I have a couple of other things to talk to her about so I don't get back to the UCam until 12:15, just in time to give a hand with the next delivery, catch up on emails that have arrived since I left for coffee, and then go off to lunch.

After buying some hyacinths in M and S to cheer up a rather gloomy day and a coffee in Pret a Manger, I head off to the Upper Reading Room for the afternoon. I have various things to check as a result of the risk assessment conversation earlier and email my manager with various updates (checking that cables are tidy, checking the number of lights out, checking when a first aid certificate will expire and acquiring some more heavy duty gloves for the team member who finds them helpful for unpacking boxes). One of my team asks me about a problem with a missing book that we had yesterday and I update the catalogue. I then field readers for a bit while two members of staff put some books back on the shelves; we had a leak before Christmas, followed by clouds of dust as a result of building work which meant that the books which had been moved for the leak got quite dirty. They have now been cleaned by conservation and have to go back on the shelves. As readers return books that they have finished with, I either put them back on the shelf for another day or scan them out and box them up to be taken away. It is busy and I don't get much done apart from dealing with readers.

Delivery arrives at 3.30pm and it's all hands on deck to unpack the boxes, check that the right books have been sent, scan the books in and put them away. I get excited as someone has ordered up a Virago Modern Classic, Sunlight on a broken column, which I have never come across and it looks like a particularly interesting one! I may have to order that up to read sometime as copies on Amazon are pricey. We have about 150 books in this delivery. Tea breaks also need to happen. I was resigned to not taking one but need to nip out for some sugar so take ten minutes while my other colleague takes his full half hour before the other two go. We're still putting away the first delivery when the second delivery arrives at 4.30. It is another big one - we've all forgotten how busy term-time is but it feels like things are busier than ever. At the same time the photocopiers are having big wobblies - they connect to an external payment server, but in the afternoon when everyone is photocopying in all of the libraries around Oxford the system is at full capacity and today it is struggling to cope so there are readers to pacify; we put that away, and then there are just 10 minutes left to wrap things up before I leave. I haven't quite finished things at 5pm but I've asked for a lift home as I'm tired and it's raining and don't want to keep my fiance waiting.

Oxford book fair outing

On Saturday afternoon, K took me to the Oxford Book Fair. It wasn't really planned - road signs had been appearing over the city directing cars to the event, and then I spotted a poster at work on Friday about it. I then emailed my friend Geraldine, who I met through this blog, and asked her if she'd ever been, and it turned out that she was planning to go, so I thought I should make the effort to go, since it was only 10 minutes drive from our flat! I text Geraldine to describe what I was wearing, and immediately on entering the building she correctly identified me and came up to say hello with her husband. They had already been there for a while, so were able to take me to the childrens book specialists, where we drooled over lovely first edition hardbacks of Chalet School books and many other lovely childrens books, often in their dustwrappers. I was very envious of Geraldine who kept saying that she had such and such a book, having been lucky enough to start collecting before prices went so mad. I did spot a couple of books which I could afford, and having sensibly (?) come out with only a couple of pounds, entered negotiations with Ken to have some money. Two lovely Noel Streatfeilds - Party Frock - which I'd read, and The fearless treasure - which I'd never come across before, but which is a historical novel.

I am not sure how interested I am in book fairs generally; they are aimed at the serious book collector, which, whilst I would describe myself as a serious book acquirer, I don't think I am. I don't have the money to buy beautiful editions of all of my favourite books, and obtain much pleasure from second hand bookshopping which somehow feels a bit different - you are more likely to spot a bargain. If I was to collect an author, it would be Noel Streatfeild, and seeing copies of her books has reignited my desire to collect her books. I don't think I can aspire to first editions (the hardbacks I picked up were later ones), but I would love to own her books in hardback eventually. I am definitely on the look out for her autobiographical "Vicarage" books again as I saw those at the fair (£55 each - eek!).

It was lovely to meet Geraldine and her husband after exchanging so many emails; we went for a cup of tea too.

PS: Lots of people asked commented on my planned trip to Black Swan in my last post - we didn't go in the end I'm afraid. After reading the synopsis and finding out that it was more about eating disorders and self harm than ballet, we thought it seemed like a depressing way to spend my afternoon off. And as it was so sunny we couldn't bear to be stuck inside, and went for a walk instead. I think I may wait for the DVD so that if it's unpleasant, I can just turn it off.

Bits and bobs

Apologies for the lack of blogging action this week; I've been re-doing my First Aid at Work qualification, which has been remarkably tiring, and I've been catching up with work when I got home in the evenings. I had various things I wanted to blog about this week, but they haven't happened - I wrote a post about some wonderful soup that I made, but it all got eaten before I photographed it (so will have to have another make of it tomorrow!), and I had some books that I wanted to tell you about. Oh well, as our First Aid trainer kept saying, "You can't do what you can't do". I quite liked that phrase. I passed the assessment with flying colours, which was good, especially since I've done the course before, and had just lost my certificate... We celebrated with a trip to Argos to spend 4 years worth of Nectar points on a Sony Microsystem - I have been without a working CD player for over a year, and this one will connect up to my ipod too! Very exciting.

The weekend will start at lunchtime; having missed my Thursday morning off due to the course, I have Friday afternoon instead. Bliss! We are going to the cinema to see the film Black Swan, which I am quite excited about, being a ballet lover. Swimming tonight, and then a relaxing day on Saturday (what will I bake, I wonder - I have yet to decide) before back to work on Sunday - oh the joys of the current 6 day week.

Next week's blogging will be somewhat different as I will be participating in Library day in the life. This is a project designed for librarians to share what they do all day! Lots of the participants will be those who already blog about libraries - my blog is more personal, but I still thought that my blog readers might be interested in what I get up to. To be honest, at the moment next week doesn't look too exciting but you never know - we have had an awful lot of excitement of the nasty kind at work recently (power outages, broken lifts, leaks), so a quiet week would be fine by me. I hope you will all enjoy it!

Hope you have a good weekend!

Christmas pudding cupcakes from Eat me! (Xanthe Milton)

Eat me! is a fantastic collection of cupcakes and cookies which was recommended to me by Joan Hunter Dunn from Flowers and Stripes. When I saw that the Book People had it for only £5, I couldn't resist ordering myself a copy, and what a good buy it has proved to be. The recipes are divided into four seasons - so winter contains bakes for Valentines Day and Christmas, Autumn for Halloween, and so on, as well as based on seasonal ingredients - e.g strawberries in the summer. I don't think I have come across a recipe book where I wanted to make so many of the bakes immediately. Of course, with my baking challenge limits imposed upon me I am restricted in what I can try immediately, but there are actually a number of possibilities. As we're still reasonably close to Christmas, I began by making the Christmas pudding cupcakes with brandy buttercream. A spiced cupcake filled with soaked dates, raisins (should have been sultanas but didn't have any) and currents topped with a buttercream made from butter, icing sugar, ground almonds and brandy. The icing was so moreish! I didn't think I'd have enough to ice all of the cupcakes so initially piped icing just in the centre, but there was plenty left over so I did the little dots around the edge which I think looks quite attractive - only my second time piping icing so I was quite pleased with that.

House-bound (Winifred Peck)

Over the last two months, I've been doing a lot of rereading. I used to reread books constantly as a child as supply of books could never keep up with the demand, and I realised that there are lots of books on my shelves which I have only read once. In frugal circumstances where I am trying to buy less books, and in busy times where I am only getting to the library about once a week, re-reading is just perfect. It is lovely to revist books which were enjoyed first time around and enjoy them again. Many of the books which I have been rereading are Persephone books. When I first came across the publisher, I could not afford to buy many of them, so I checked the Persephone catalogue against the library catalogue and borrowed those that were in stock, usually in old hardback editions. Now I have a nearly complete collection of Persephone books (all but 4) it is good to reread them in the Persephone edition, especially as the titles often have new introductions or afterwords. Plus I get to admire the beautiful endpapers.

I re-read House-bound at the end of last week. It's not one of the Persephone books which is that frequently mentioned which is one of the reasons I wanted to write about it here. The book tells the story of Rose as she and her household are affected by the war - the book is particularly interesting because being published in 1942, it was written during the war and not retrospectively. After difficulties in getting domestic servants, Rose decides that she will take on the running of the household herself. However, she has no domestic experience at all - she cannot even cook. Luckily, she manages to get hold of the wonderful Mrs Childes, a daily lady who comes in for 2 hours to give Rose a hand in the house and to provide instruction in how to clean/make lunch etc. Unfortunately, Mrs Childes is a bit of a mixed blessing as she insists on the proper way to do everything - which is quite an onerous task for someone new to domesti work, when perhaps Rose should be advised on short cuts. I did feel sorry for Rose coping with a husband who didn't seem to be of much assistance, but at the same time I felt that she rose splendidly to what was asked of her.

What I liked about this book is how it made me think about my own experiences of domesticity. As a child I helped out with the odd domestic task, the occasional bit of hoovering or cleaning the bath, and sometimes cooking, but not very much. When I came to university, my room was cleaned once a week (and my bin emptied every day), and I had meals provided by my college. I spent the summer between second and third year living in the flat where I live now, but it was in the process of being refurbished:

(I spent three months without any carpet, plaster or paint on the walls, without washing machine or wardrobe (the wardrobe is the suitcase you can see) or any bookcases (!), and with builders going in and out).
What I am trying to get towards saying is that it was not until I was 21 and suddenly working full-time that I had to try to get my head around being domesticated. It was difficult to know where to begin, but how much easier was it for me on my own in a 2 bedroom flat than it must have been for Rose in a house with streams of visitors and the expectations of her husband. I'd like to think that I am quite domesticated now - I am certainly very house-proud and enjoy trying to make meals out of nothing as well as baking creations. I very much hope that 2011 is the year when I will have a house of my own - I wonder if I will manage to be quite so domesticated with more space...