Month: February 2021

The Barsetshire Chronicles

/ Eleanor Jane / Leave a comment

For the past several years – with many gaps in between – I have been slowly reading through The Barsetshire Chronicles. I had never really thought much about reading them until I saw the BBC adaptation of Doctor Thorne in 2016 and absolutely loved it. Naturaly that made me want to read the books. I looked up Anthony Trollope and found a quote from – as I thought – Dickens describing him as too sentimental (or possibly romantic). That I thought sounded wonderful and I embarked straight away on The Warden. Now I come to look for that quote again I cannot find it – if you know it please do let me know! All I can find are references to Trollope’s own satirising of Dickens as ‘Mr Popular Sentiment’.

I fell in love with Trollope soon after beginning The Warden. I found his writing style delightful and I was completely hooked by the story line. Perhaps even more importantly – for me anyway – I really cared about the characters and what happened to them. Of course I had to read more and so Barchester Towers was obtained. In fact, my puchasing habits became fairly predictable – usually within a few chapters of starting one of the books I knew I had to keep reading and I would buy the next book so that it was ready for me as soon as I needed it. That wasn’t normally as soon as I thought – by the end of the book I wanted something else to read – but I always came back to it eventually.

This afternoon I finished The Last Chronicle of Barset. During the course of reading it I have both laughed and cried and there was something very sad about the last lines promising that this was indeed the last book. Tollope’s authorial voice in the books has been one of my favourite parts and, although I am glad to have all the loose ends tied up, I am sorry not to have the next book ready to go.

Of course, Anthony Trollope wrote many, many other books which I am sure I will enjoy just as much as I did these. Which should I read next?

Lockdown Browsing

/ Eleanor Jane / Leave a comment

This has been a good week for me as it saw the arrival of the latest magazine from the Friends of the Chalet School.  I love this magazine with its huge range of interesting articles written by club members. Reading it is like having the best kind of bookish conversation with friends.

This time though, I found myself reaching for the sales and wants section (where members can advertise books for sale – and, of course, those they want) before embarking on reading the magazine itself.  That is not so usual for me and it got me thinking.  Lockdown has obviously stopped all visits to the bookshop and although books can be bought online – for which I am very grateful right now – there is nothing quite so good as browsing in a real, bricks and mortar bookshop.

Part of that joy is of course the browsing among the shelves, not looking for anything in particular.  Those unexpected, unlooked for finds of books I didn’t even know existed are for me even more exciting than finding a book I knew I wanted.  That is something I find much harder on a website and is I think part of the reason I was so happy with my sales and wants list.  You never know what you will find listed there and although most of the titles are familiar there is always something which tempts me into trying to secure it for my collection.

This then is how I will be spending my evening – with a large cup of tea and a highlighter to hand.

On Icicles and Barsetshire

/ Eleanor Jane / 2 Comments

The weather today has been absolutely glorious.  Bright blue skies with endless sunshine and not a sign of a cloud.  So much so that I was tempted to take my books out to read.  Of course, in reality it is far too cold to do that for long.  We may not have had the snow here that has covered most of the rest of the country but it is a bit of a winter wonderland nonetheless.  After working on the hedges this morning I went for a bit of a wander along the stream in the hopes of finding icicles.  I was not disappointed!

My reading this week has slowed down considerably.  Partly that is because despite the lockdown I have been busy with other things (the aforementioned hedges and the stationery I am hoping to start selling online soon) and so my reading time has shrunk back down to coffee and lunch breaks.  That is of course much more normal for me anyway – although I am tending to draw out those breaks to read for just a bit longer! 

A lot of it is to do with my reading matter though.  As much as I love Anthony Trollope (and that is a lot!), I just can’t read him as fast as all the cosy crime I read last month.  The book is about three times as long too!  My other current read is Barnaby Rudge – I’m reading a chapter a day as part of a buddy read which is lovely but not the way to read quickly! The bookmark was presented with The Sunday Companion in 1924 and I love it.

Of course, none of this really matters anyway.  Yes I will read far fewer books in February than I did in January but that isn’t important.  At least I’m reading – and even if I wasn’t it would be fine.  The books aren’t going anywhere.  Now though, I need to pour myself a cup of tea and settle down in Barchester for the evening.  Or possibly London or Allington.  This book moves around a lot!

Literary Meetings

/ Eleanor Jane / Leave a comment

Before the pandemic I loved going to meetings of my local branch of the Jane Austen Society. They were lovely places to meet like minded people for bookish chats, lunch and plenty of tea. Best of all were the talks we enjoyed – two at every meeting – and we had some great ones. My favourite is probably still the dramatic reading of extracts from Austen’s Juvenilia – it was hilarious – and I also remember one several years ago about William Beckford. I loved Amy Frost’s talk so much that I immediately went and borrowed every book by Beckford I could find in the library.

In fact, Amy Frost spoke at the last meeting I attended – in January last year – and gave another fascinating talk about what is wrong with location in Austen adaptations. Since then of course we have been kept at home. I have enjoyed several online events – including the literary festival hosted by Chawton House – but it has been a few months since the last one I saw. I was therefore delighted to be invited – along with the rest of my branch – to a Zoom meeting hosted by the Scottish branch of the society.

We were determined to do things properly so we set out a nice tea for ourselves and sat down to a talk on Jane Austen and the weather by Katie Halsey. I very much enjoyed listening to it and of course it made me long to read the novels again (it has been maybe two months since I read any Jane Austen – you wouldn’t think I would need more yet!). It was a thoroughly delightful way to spend the afternoon and I am definitely looking forward to the next opportunity to hear talks like this. They might not be quite the same as meeting in person but they are definitely filling an intellectual hole. If you know of any please do let me know!