Two entertaining reads for the weekend

Foolish lessons in life and love is the hugely entertaining debut from author Penny Rudge. Its hero, Taras, is a Bukovinian young man, living with his mother in a flat in South London, working through a perpetual hangover in his job at the ill-named firm IBS for which he works, and trying desperately to regain the attentions and affections of his ex-girlfriend, the Russian Katya. Wonderfully observed, the characters leap off the page, especially his overprotective mother who dishes up Balkan breakfasts, scrutinises his bowel habits and resurrects all the previous years birthday cards on his birthday. Taras himself is certainly not a traditional hero - he makes too many mistakes, gets drunk too many times and isn't enough of a success, but he is extremely loveable. The story follows Taras as a dark family secret comes to light and he tries to work his way through.

I looked on Amazon and all of the 13 reviews give it 5* - I definitely agree and look forward to seeing more from Penny Rudge in due course. Absolutely hilarious!

Having hugely enjoyed Farahad Zama's book The marriage bureau for rich people last year, I was very excited when he wrote a follow up - The many conditions of love. The marriage bureau for rich people tells the story of the agency set up by Mr Ali, in modern day India, to match couples for arranged marriages. The many conditions of love continues this story - the bureau is now flourishing and we meet many of the same characters. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the first book, partly because it was very much more of the same, but it was a warm and entertaining picture of Indian life and customs with likeable characters and not too much effort required to read.

Thanks to Victoria from Abacus for kindly sending me both of these books to review!

Orange Wednesdays: Feasting and fasting (Desai)

Anita Desai is an author I came to as a child, when I read her Village by the sea, so when I spotted her book Fasting, Feasting, on the Orange Longlist for 2000, I decided to borrow it from the library. Set in both India and America, I enjoyed the insight that this book gave me into Indian culture, and the comparisons that Desai drew with Western culture.

The book falls into two halves. The first tells the story of Uma and her family who live in India. She is the eldest, put upon daughter, with a more beautiful younger sister who easily achieves a good arranged marriage, and a much younger brother, who is a long awaited son for the family. After failing to find a husband, she is effectively tied to the house, looking after her parents who are best described as oppressive. I thought that Uma was beautifully characterised and felt a great deal of sympathy for her. The second half, which didn't quite fit with the first half, tells the story of Arun, Uma's brother, and his life in America after he goes to study there. Again, it was interesting gaining an insight into the clash between the different cultures, for example, the family that he stays with over the summer while his university dorm is closed struggle with his vegetarianism. They also expect him to be able to cook wonderful Indian food which leads to an entertaining episode where Arun attempts to make a meal; of course, being the cherished only son, Arun has always been waited on hand and foot and ends up having to make up a recipe, which is completely inedible! Although it seems like Uma and Arun have completely different lives, there are actually parallels in their experiences - both are hugely controlled by the wishes of their parents and neither are hugely happy with their lives and where they have ended up.

It was certainly a thought provoking read and I did like Desai's style of writing. Another of Anita Desai's books, The zig-zag way, also appears on the Orange longlist for 2005, so I shall be reading that in due course.

Cake and cookie decorating

I am an absolute sucker for baking books, and I have branched out in the last year to acquire a range of beautiful baking books, where the presentation is (I blame Hayley from Desperate Reader partly for this, for her post last year about Susannah Blake's Afternoon Tea Parties, an absolutely exquisite book, and posts about other books such as this lovely book by Fiona Cairns which I just had to own after reading about) as important as the content. I love the pictures, the ideas and the potential inspiration for having fun in the kitchen.

Baking as you all know is one of my passions - I love to make yummy edibles for my fiance, but baking has proved somewhat frustrating in 2010 as due to being on a diet that excludes both dairy and gluten. So, I have decided to embark on a cake/cookie decorating project so I can get pleasure from what the things look like as much as the taste (plus I can make dairy free icing and marzipan!). Ultimately I hope to go to a day school or evening class, as I'd love to learn how to ice a celebration cake (wouldn't it be amazing to do my own wedding cake?) but time and money has put this on hold for now.
Instead, I've been having some fun at home. I've acquired a few books to inspire me of late. Bake me I'm yours is full of beautifully decorated cookies, but far too hard for me to imitate. The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook came from the library, as still very expensive, and annoyed me slightly, but provided the recipe for making some wonderful cupcakes (see below). Cupcakes (Susannah Blake), Cakes and bakes from my mother's kitchen (Linda Collister) , Bake and decorate (Fiona Cairns) are all lovely lovely books to browse through and drool over. I've also got a couple of sugarcraft/cake decorating magazines and a goodhousekeeping book. In the end I didn't really follow any of them, but they got me in the mood for having a play around.

Here are some recent creations:
Hummingbird bakery cupcakes - very disappointed by these actually, as neither the icing nor the cake were a patch on my traditional recipes.
Sugar biscuits decorated with water icing and sprinkles.

Sugar biscuits decorated with sugar paste - I enjoyed using mini plunger cutters to cut out the mini hearts, flowers and stars.

I've got a lot of bookmarks in the Fiona Cairns book, and I am sure that I will be posting some results of my experiments with it in due course!

Persephone Reading Week : Wrap up

It's the end of the second Persephone Reading Week - I hope you've all enjoyed the opportunity to read Persephone books together and to be inspired to read more from other people's posts and reviews. I'm sorry for my absence over the weekend but Claire has done a sterling job keeping you all up to date. Thanks for your lovely comments on my What a lot of books post!

I'd like to say three big thank yous. Firstly, to Nicola Beaumann at Persephone who kindly gave us the books for our giveaways and without whom there would not have been a Persephone imprint and thus a Persephone Reading Week! Secondly to my wonderful co-host Claire from Paperback Reader who has organised and posted and generally been inspirational. And thirdly to all of you for joining in - it's been fantastic to see quite so many people get involved, especially people whose blogs are new to me.

Finally, the results of the competitions! Claire is announcing hers separately, but the winner of my WW2 themed quiz is HJ Elliot - I had 8 entries and she was the first one drawn! Email your details to me or Claire and we'll get Doreen sent to you.

I had some interesting answers to my film giveaway where I asked you to tell me which Persephone book you'd most like to see filmed and why. Most people agreed that the books are generally quite "internal" and involve focus on individual characters rather than the plot driven books which make good films (obviously not enough people have read Expendable Man or The Hopkins manuscript which I think would be fantastic on the big screen!). Anyway, my favourite answer was Merenia's:

"I think The Village would translate well to screen. It is not terribly 'internal' and the clash of social classes in a small English village would make good viewing. This novel is all about characterisation and would lift easily into a film script. The horrid Mother Wendy, would give some bite to the story. Also the immediate post WW2 time period would be interesting. Ohhhh, I want to shoot the film myself now! "

Email me your address Merenia (verityDOTormeATgmailDOTcom) and I'll get the DVD to you!

Claire and I offered a prize for our favourite post of the week, to win a copy of The closed door and other stories by Dorothy Whipple. We were unanimous in deciding to award it to Thomas from My Porch for his post at the beginning of the week issuing a stern warning to Persephone Books about the unacceptable situation whereby they have only republished 6 of Dorothy Whipple's books. Fittingly Thomas wins the volume of Dorothy Whipple's short stories which I hope you will enjoy! Email one of us with your details.

So that's it for the week! Do stick around on my blog - I'll be reviewing my last Persephone book (The hopkins manuscript), I have a post about baking tomorrow and my Orange Wednesday series will resume on Wednesday.

What a lot of books!

I had a wonderful time out yesterday in London with Claire from Paperback Reader. Although TFL scuppered our plans to visit the Carlyles' House, we had a fantastic time bookshopping, in an amazing secondhand book shop in Notting Hill, a very posh remainders bookshop and then of course the Persephone bookshop! Claire presented me with a lovely Persephone jute bag (which was perfect for carrying around my new purchases) (and in return I gave her the pink Penguin one!), and I treated myself to 5 of the bookmarks that my Persephone books lack (sadly on 38 of my books have bookmarks, so I still need another 50 which was a bit too much of an expense to get all in one go!).

You can see the amazing stack of books that I came home with. Sorry about the blurry photo - my hands are ridiculously shaky today.
Working from bottom up:
Their eyes were watching God (Hurston) - this was my most expensive 2nd hand purchase of the day, it is one of the 30th Anniversary Virago hardbacks, and means I am only lacking 1 more of the whole set! Definitely the highlight of my finds.
Cats Eye (Atwood) - this is my favourite Atwood novel, and a duplicate that Claire no longer wanted.
Enormous changes at the last minute (Paley) - I think Claire would have bought this if I hadn't spotted it first, a lovely green edition of a book for my Virago challenge.
Diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner - another one for Viragoing
The skin chairs (Comyns). The book shop had a copy of The vet's daughter by Comyns which I initially picked up, and then I felt confused as to whether it was Vet's Daughter or Skin chairs that I already owned. A £2 mistake was saved by asking one of my friends who was at home to check my library thing account!
After you've gone (Joan Lingard) - a modern novel by an author I enjoy
Sweet dreams (lucy Ellman) - a modern Virago novel
Wigs on the green (Mitford) - this came from the table of 50 books that Persephone wish they had published - now that I've read all of the Persephone books (review of my last read to come next week I think) I thought that I could read some of those! May sit down with this one later.
Ponies plot and Children of the house were two puffin books that looked enjoyable - I used to love puffin books as a child.
Fell farm holiday is a book that I already own, and love - it is a wonderful children's story, and at only 50p I couldn't leave it on the shelf - I hope to pass it on to someone who will enjoy it in due course.
Two vandals at a wedding (Fred Secombe) - I described this to Simon from Stuck in A Book as James Herriot, but a vicar instead of a vet. I read Secombe's series as a teenager, and enjoyed rereading this last night.
Fifteen (Clearly) - this was a book about a teenager called Janie that I remembered enjoying at school, and I enjoyed rereading it on the bus on the way home yesterday.

I also bought a copy of Finn Family Moomintroll (not pictured) for my cousin's birthday and Peppa Pig goes to the library for the niece of my friend who helped me out by checking my librarything account. Being a librarian I just couldn't resist it, and Lily is the only person of my acquaintance that is the right age for it!

I'm really sorry for such a blurry picture!

It was lovely to meet some ofthe UK bloggers in the Persephone shop - sadly my health didn't permit me to stay for the main meet-up - it was a struggle to get home as it was with all of those books after a tiring day (which I am now paying for...:( ). I hope you all had a good get together.

I can see that there have been lots of wonderful Persephone related posts - I apologise for not commenting on them all, but I'm in need of a day away from the computer. I'll be back tomorrow to round up the week, and Claire and I will announce our competition winners and the result of our favourite post of the week. Thanks for all joining in so overwhelmingly!

Persephone Reading Week: Gone shopping

No roundup this morning - by the time this is posted I shall be sitting on the bus to London reading my final unread Persephone (The hopkins manuscript) and looking forward to an outing which has coincided wonderfully with this week. Simon from Stuck-in-a-book has organised a meet-up of UK book-bloggers, and although I'm not sure that I will be well enough to manage the long day required to go to the meal planned, I am intending to meet up with some of the other book bloggers at the Persephone bookshop beforehand. Before that however, I have much excitement to look forward to as I'm meeting up with my wonderful co-host Claire for bookshopping and bookchat. We intend to visit a fantastic secondhand shop that Claire introduced me to in January (where I found many lovely Virago modern classics, and am hopeful of doing the same again!), and then to go to the Carlyle's house , which obviously has a Persephone connection since they have published The Carlyle's at home, and which Book Snob Rachel drew my attention to a little while ago.

Claire will be doing a final round-up tomorrow, and wrapping up the week from her perspective. I'll be doing the same on Monday, and we'll be announcing our giveaway winners and our favourite

Have a wonderful weekend, hopefully involving as much Persephone fun as mine!

Persephone Reading Week : Two recipe books

Most of the posts we've had this week have unsurprisingly featured the novels from the Persephone list. So I thought I'd redress that by writing about two of the recipe books which were among the last Persephone titles that I had left to read. Whilst you can't "read" recipe books in the same way as fiction or biography or even poetry, I hugely enjoy browsing through recipe books for inspiration of things to make and often just to look at the pictures.

Good things in England (Florence White)
This recipe book is a marvellous collection of 853 English recipes, spanning 5 centures (the earliest is from the 14th century) and almost all of the regions to provide what White describes as "a practical cookery book for everyday use". As someone predominantly interested in baking,
I was particularly taken with the section entitled "homemade bread, huffkins, wiggs, oatcakes etc" - I hadn't heard of a huffkin or a wigg before. The former comes from Kent and is a sort of flat yeast cake, a wigg is a slightly sweetened yeast bun. The regional specialities were also fascinating - there were two completely different recipes for Banbury cakes. I also came across a recipe for Deddington Pudden Pie - Deddington is a small village between where I live and Banbury where a friend is shortly to become curate; I have told him that this recipe which was "originally made for the Deddington Fair on November 22nd known as "Pudden Pie Fair", and is essentially a custard containing currants filling a puff pastry case should feature on his first dinner party there.


Plats du jour (Patience Grey and Primrose Boyd)
This book, first published in 1957, led the way in introducing the English to French cookery. Written at a time when the English were still suffering from the memories of wartime rationing, recipes that I make all the time such as pasta, pizza and risotto were extremely novel. It was difficult too to source the necessary ingredients - there's a chapter on storecupboard ingredients which suggests making trips to Soho to buy them - irrelevant now that our supermarkets are so well stocked but a definite mark of the 1950s.

Persephone Reading Week : Julian Grenfell

"A book depends on what a writer feels. This need not distort objectivity. Feelings can be observed,like that which they are about. It must be clear to anyone who reads this book that I have some love for Julian Grenfell. He seems to have achieved in a short life a rare authority. I wanted to understand what made someone so full of life and irony in the end adore war: what was his experience of people, that made him feel closest to horses and dogs"

Nicholas Mosley's life of Julian Grenfell initially seemed like a strange book for Persephone to have republished, but once I started reading it I understood. Although Mosley has an obvious interest in the life of Grenfell (as illustrated by the extract above), the first half of the book almost completely concentrates on the life of his mother, Ettie Desboroug, because he believed that she was responsible for Grenfell's mindset and gives a wonderful insight into life in Edwardian times.

Grenfell was killed in 1915 during the First World War, but had actively welcomed the opportunity to go to war, along with many other men of his era. In a letter in October 1914 he wrote: "I adore war. It is like a big picnic but without the objectivelessness of a picnic. I have never been more well or more happy." It is this desire which Mosley sought to investigate. Mosley believes that it was in part a rejection of the world of "society" in which his mother was involved which led him to these beliefs - she was beautiful and notorious for her charm, and part of a group which wasn't interested in much more than hunting or the latest parties and making conquests of one another.

I loved the endpapers for this book - called "Poppies" and printed on a velveteen fabric, it was produced in 1888, the year that Grenfell was born. This has a double edge as poppies are of course symbolic of the sacrifice made during the First World War.

Persephone Reading Week : Roundup #7

How exciting that we're on roundup #7 of the week, and the posts are coming thick and fast. Do check out Claire's roundup from yesterday too.

First up is a very exciting post from Fleur Fisher - she's very kindly giving away copies of Miss Pettrigrew Lives For the Day and Making Conversation - all you have to do is comment on her post and tell her which Persephone book is calling you the most, so do head over and join in.

Hannah Stoneman recieved her copy of The Persephone BiAnnually, and is planning a Persephone fest for today.

Buried in print continues her Persephone wartime reading.

Claire at Captive Reader was shockingly reading a non-Persephone book...when two of the characters visited the bookshop!

Mrs B at the Literary Stew shares her story of discovering the imprint whilst living in Hong Kong.

Chasing Bawa has reviewed Good evening Mrs Craven, her first Persephone, which she has enjoyed enough to want to seek out its companion, Minnie's Room.

HJ Elliot has reviewed Hetty Dorval on librarything (but beware, it does contain a spoiler!)

Anna from the Green Room was seduced into reading Greenery Street despite the fact that she has no time to read anything other than for her studies! I love it when a book calls so strongly!

Lyn at I prefer reading reviews one of her favourite Persephone books, Little Boy Lost, and lists her top 5 too - do you agree?

Katherine at A girl walks into a bookstore reviews The young pretenders, and also updates us on her current reading here.

Don't forget to check out my competition to win a copy of the DVD of Miss Pettigrew lives for the day - some interesting answers already! And don't forget about the other giveaways on our blogs - closing at the weekend.

Persephone Reading Week: Film giveaway

I have one copy of the 2009 film of Miss Pettigrew lives for a day to giveaway today. It's a wonderful, light and uplifting film based on the book which partly lies behind Persephone books huge success in the last few years.

All you have to do is tell me which other Persephone book you'd most like to see filmed and why - your why could include suggestions for a couple of lead actors, or a location where it could be filmed, or a quirky way of directing it. I'll choose my favourite answer from all of those submitted.

Competition closes at Midnight on Sunday, UK time.