Book Festival Fun

September 26, 2018 / Eleanor Jane / Leave a comment

We are currently in the middle of one of my favourite weeks of the year – Appledore Book Festival.

I love book festivals anyway but there is something about Appledore which makes me extra happy – perhaps it is the sea or the fact that the sun always seems to be shining!

I always have a stall at the book fair, this year on the first Sunday of the festival. It is always nice to share my books with so many book lovers and I had a great time.

Bookseller’s view of a book fair

I also spend a few days working at the festival which is another joy. I get to meet so many fascinating people and, again, talk to loads of other book lovers.

Perhaps best of all though is the reading time – it doesn’t get much better than this!

Book Review – Pages & Co

September 20, 2018 / Eleanor Jane / 6 Comments

I love books about books so I was very excited to receive a review copy of Pages & Co: Tilly and the Bookwanderers by Anna James from Harpercollins. The heroine lives in a book shop – what could be better?

Publisher’s Blurb
A captivating, curl-up-on-the-sofa debut about the magic of books and the power of the imagination.

Since her mother’s disappearance, eleven-year-old Tilly has found comfort in stories at Pages & Co., her grandparents’ bookshop. But when her favourite characters, Anne of Green Gables and Alice from Wonderland, appear in the shop, Tilly’s adventures become very real. Not only can she follow Anne and Alice into their thrilling worlds, she discovers she can bookwander into any story she chooses.

Tilly’s new ability could even help her solve the mystery of what happened to her mother all those years ago. But danger may be lurking on the very next page.

I was so excited to read this one – not least because one of Tilly’s favourite characters is Anne of Green Gables so I was predisposed to like her. From the very first chapter I was sucked in. Pages & Co sounds like the very best kind of book shop with log fires, plenty of comfy places to sit and the most amazing sounding coffee shop. I really want to try some of Jack’s delicious concoctions.

Tilly is very like me in a great many ways so I was right at home in this book. The idea of bookwandering is wonderful and I spent a lovely few hours lost in Tilly’s world. It is a charming book and I was so absorbed that I really didn’t want it to end. It might be aimed primarily at children but it is perfect for book lovers of all ages.

Book Details

Pages & Co: Tilly and the Bookwanderers by Anna James

ISBN: 9780008229863

Publisher: Harpercollins

RRP: £12.99

The Joy of Serendipity

September 12, 2018September 12, 2018 / Eleanor Jane / Leave a comment

On Monday I was hurrying along the street towards the railway station when I came upon an Oxfam bookshop. I didn’t really have time to stop but I could see a very attractive classics section just inside the door and decided I could spare a couple of minutes to browse that at least.

There were some good books there but nothing I wanted to buy and I was just turning away when my eye fell on the poetry section – specifically a book of medieval Latin lyrics.

In a few weeks I will be going to the Cheltenham Literary Festival and I am especially excited about a talk on how to read a Latin poem. This focuses specifically on two poems – one (part of Ovid’s Amores) I have already and the other the Confession of the Archpoet which I have been struggling a bit to find. The problem is that I want an edition with both the Latin and the English translation – although I have done some Latin I am not yet good enough to read a whole poem easily but I didn’t want to just have the translation which would kind of defeat the point!

Anyway, there I was in the bookshop with the Latin lyrics in my hand and thinking that the Confession is a medieval poem – and a pretty famous one at that. Surely it might well be in this very book? A quick flick through located it and even better it was there in both Latin and English. I snatched it up. Thankfully I also managed to catch my train home.

It just goes to show – it is always a good idea to visit any bookshop you may come across!

Book Review – The Moonstone

September 5, 2018September 5, 2018 / Eleanor Jane / 2 Comments

I have wanted to read The Moonstone ever since Kate Summerscale talked about it in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher – and I read that book years ago!

Somehow though, I just haven’t got around to it before now. When I was in Dartmouth I naturally visited every bookshop I found – including the Community Bookshop. It is a lovely little shop and as I gravitated towards the classics section I found several books with the best covers. They were all published by Alma Classics and I so wanted to have one of those covers! I seemed to own all of the titles already though and it was only a determined second look which unearthed The Moonstone. It’s like it was meant to be!

Publisher’s Blurb

When Rachel Verinder’s legacy of a priceless Indian diamond is stolen, all the evidence indicates that it is her beloved, Franklin Blake, who is guilty. Around this central axis of crime and thwarted love, Collins constructs an ingenious plot of teasing twists and surprises, and an elaborate multi-voiced narrative that sustains the tension all the way to its stunning ending.

Described by T.S. Eliot as the first, the longest and the best of modern English detective novels, Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone is an important precursor of the modern mystery and suspense genres.

This was my first proper Wilkie Collins book – I used to have an audio book of The Woman in White but it was a dramatisation and not the full novel. However, I knew I had enjoyed that so I was fully expecting to like this one too.

I was right – it was an intriguing mystery and although I guessed the culprit fairly early on there were so many twists and turns that I was never quite sure of myself. I also think that I was basing it more on my dislike of the character than any actual evidence! The methods used to solve the crime were fantastic too and I was very satisfied with the ending.

It was a much easier read than I expected and I very much enjoyed it. I will definitely be seeking out more of Wilkie Collins’ books. Perhaps I’ll even finally read the whole of The Woman in White!

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