My Life in Book Quotes
I keep an ongoing Word file with details on my year’s reading: books finished with the date, number of pages, and source – similar information to what’s recorded on Goodreads – plus any quotations that particularly stood out to me. It occurred to me that by looking back through these annual book lists for the quotes that meant the most to me I could probably narrate my recent years. So here are the 2015–2016 quotes that tell my story.
Career
“I’m learning that what’s important is not so much what I do to make a living as who I become in the process. … the heroine, when at a juncture, makes her own choice—the nonheroine lets others make it for her.”
(A Year by the Sea: Thoughts of an Unfinished Woman, Joan Anderson)
“The dishes. The dishes! The goddamn dishes! No wonder women don’t succeed.”
(The author’s mother’s explosion in The Year My Mother Came Back, Alice Eve Cohen)
“Success says, What more can I get?
Craft says, Can you believe I get to do this?”
(How to Be Here: A Guide to Creating a Life Worth Living, Rob Bell)
“Amateurs look for inspiration; the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
(Everyman, Philip Roth)
Finding a Home
“In Orcadian, ‘flitting’ means ‘moving house’. I can hear it spoken with a tinge of disapproval or pity: the air-headed English couple who couldn’t settle.”
(The Outrun, Amy Liptrot)
“Where, after we have made the great decision to leave the security of childhood and move on into the vastness of maturity, does anybody ever feel completely at home?”
(A Circle of Quiet, Madeleine L’Engle)
“there is no such thing / as the right route or a clear passage / no matter where you start, / or how you plan it.”
(from “Aneurysm,” Selected Poems, Kate Clanchy)
Life vs. Books
“He had accepted that if you were a bookish person the events in your life took place in your head.”
(Golden Age, Jane Smiley)
“my way of seeing has always been different, shyer. To see the world I’ve always opened a book.”
(The Violet Hour: Great Writers at the End, Katie Roiphe)
“Other people’s lives, and the lives I read about in books, seem richer, mine seems so threadbare.”
(The Past, Tessa Hadley)
Overthinking
“She remembered finding her first white hair somewhere near her thirtieth birthday and it had sent her on a tailspin for half a day. It’s starting, she’d thought then. The follicle that produced that hair is dying. I’ve reached the tipping point and from now on it’s nothing but slow decline.”
(Dog Run Moon: Stories, Callan Wink)
“All the most terrifying Ifs involve people. All the good ones do as well.”
(A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara)
“I wished then, and still do, that there was something in me also that would march steadily in one road, instead of down here or there or somewhere else, the mind running a net of rabbit-paths that twisted and turned and doubled on themselves, pursued always by the hawk-shadow of doubt.”
(Now in November, Josephine Johnson – to be reviewed here within next couple weeks)
Book Spine Poetry
April is National Poetry Month, so I thought I’d try my hand at some book spine poetry. Thanks to Naomi at Consumed by Ink and Cathy at 746 Books for the fun idea! I have taken the liberty of adding punctuation between some lines, but the book titles themselves appear exactly as on the spines. This has been a fun project to do a bit at a time over the last couple of weeks – it’s always a nice break from my editing and more analytical writing.
Peruse your own shelves or the local library’s and have a go. It’s an easy way to get creative!
The years go by so fast…
Landmarks
Summertime
Harvest
A time of gifts
Winter
A week in December
March
Spring
Snow in May
A year on the wing
A morbid little number, with a riff on Stevie Smith:
All at sea
Cold beacons:
The iceberg,
The whirlpool,
The depths.
Drowning Ruth,
Wave.
Memento mori:
In fond remembrance of me
How to read a graveyard:
A tour of bones,
Mostly harmless.
Last night on earth?
Nothing to be frightened of.
Thanks to my husband, we have a ton of bird-themed books. The concluding line from Emily Dickinson makes this one a bit of a cheat.
Adventures among birds
To see every bird on earth:
The secret lives of puffins,
Last of the curlews,
The life of the skies.
Rare encounters with ordinary birds:
Songbird journeys,
An eye on the sparrow,
The goldfinch.
Falcon fever:
The armchair birder
Feeding the eagles,
Chasing the wild goose.
Hope is the thing with feathers.
An attempt to lay the groundwork for some progressive theology:
How (not) to speak of God
Jesus among other gods:
Atonement?
Blessed assurance?
Everything is illuminated?
The nice and the good
Crossing to safety?
A new kind of Christianity
The story we find ourselves in.
An unquiet mind
Until I find you.
Love wins;
No man is an island;
We make the road by walking.
This one’s my favorite – a tribute to my peaceful days spent working from home.
Still life
The house tells the story:
A room with a view
A slanting of the sun
The shadow hour
A circle of quiet.
So many books, so little time;
Leave me alone, I’m reading.
A Book-Themed Concert and Goody Bag
On Saturday my husband and I headed to Hungerford to see The Bookshop Band for the second time. A year and a half ago I first had the chance to see them live at the 2014 Hungerford Literary Festival, when they gave a performance tied in with Rachel Joyce’s release of The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy.
The band formed about five years ago to provide music for author events at their local bookshop, Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath, England. Since then they’ve written somewhere between 120 and 150 songs inspired by books. Their basic genre is indie folk, with plenty of guitar, ukulele and cello as well as a bunch of improvised percussion and three intermingled voices. Depending on the book in question, though, the feel can vary widely, ranging from sweet to bizarre or haunting. Especially when I’ve read the book being sung about, it’s intriguing to see what the musicians have picked up on – often something very different from what I would as a reader and reviewer.
This year the band (now down to two members) is making an effort to record and release all their songs in 10 albums. I participated in a crowdfunding project so am lucky enough to receive all their new releases in digital format before they’re available as printed CDs. The first album is Curious and Curiouser, the title track of which was inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Other sets of songs are based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the steampunk novel The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder, while “Once Upon a Time,” a commission for radio, strings together famous first lines from fiction.
My favorite Bookshop Band song (so far) is “Bobo and the Cattle,” inspired by Alexandra Fuller’s Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight. Two great ones new to me from Saturday’s performance were “Faith in Weather,” based on Central European fairy tales, and “You Make the Best Plans, Thomas,” about Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies.
You can listen to lots of their songs on their Bandcamp page and dozens of videos of their performances are on YouTube and Vimeo (I’ve linked to several above). When performing events they often get the authors to play with them: Louis de Bernières pitched in with mandolin on a song about The Dust that Falls from Dreams, and Yann Martel played glockenspiel while promoting The High Mountains of Portugal.
We had started off the day with lunch at a Berkshire country pub, The Pot Kiln, where we didn’t mind the 40-minute wait for food because we had books and half-pints of beer and cider to while away the time over as sunshine poured through the windows. The menu is mostly based around game shot by the chef himself in the fields opposite the pub, so we indulged in a venison and wild boar hot dog and venison Scotch eggs before setting off on a windy several-mile walk near Combe Gibbet and then continuing on to Hungerford.
Now for the goody bag: on the venue tables the owner of Hungerford Bookshop had placed a ten-question literary quiz to work on and hand in during the intermission. I was fairly confident on some of my answers, had a guess at the others, and after literally about 45 minutes of wrestling with anagrams finally figured out that “Lobbing Slates” gives the name of novelist Stella Gibbons. We won with 7 out of 10 correct; an elderly lady joked that we’d Googled all the answers, but I pointed out that we don’t own a smartphone between us! Now, I suspect we were actually the only entry, but that doesn’t diminish our accomplishment, right?! I was delighted to win a couple of free books I hadn’t necessarily intended on reading but now certainly will, plus a metal bookmark and a notebook, all in a limited-edition “Books Are My Bag” tote designed by Tracey Emin.
All in all, a fantastic and mostly bookish day out!
If you live in the UK and get the chance, don’t hesitate to go see The Bookshop Band play; they’re touring widely this year.
It’s the One-Year Anniversary!
Today marks one year exactly that I’ve had this blog. In that time I’ve posted 80 times, for an average of 6.67 posts per month. To start with I only managed 2 or 3 posts a month, but from July I picked up the pace and recently I’ve been trying to manage at least twice a week.
My most liked posts were Literary Tourism in Manchester, The Best Fiction of 2015: My Top 15, Final Stats for 2015, and my Early One Morning review.
The posts that generated the most discussion were: “How Many Books Is Too Many? (to be reading at once),” my review of The Novel Cure, and (tied for third) The Best Fiction of 2015 and my review of The Goldfinch.
My most ever views were on December 29th, when I published a list of My Favorite Nonfiction Reads of 2015.
So far I’ve had 3,018 visitors and 5,438 views.
I thought that at some point my ideas would dry up, but I currently have four posts in progress and a three-page Word file full of ideas for more, so as long as people are still interested, I’ll keep going.
Thanks to everyone who has supported me this past year by visiting the site, commenting, re-tweeting, and so on. You make it worthwhile!
Let me know how you like my redesign and new features, and if there’s anything else you’d like to see from this blog.
Seeking Fellow Bloggers’ Advice
I’ve had this blog for almost a year now (tomorrow’s the anniversary!), and although I’m enjoying the writing practice and the interaction with readers, it hasn’t necessarily grown as much as I might have wanted it to. So I am seeking advice – from all my readers, but from fellow bloggers in particular.
From those of you who are experienced bloggers, especially book bloggers, I would love to know how you’ve made it work: what your strategies are for types and timing of posts; how you use social media to your advantage; how you connect with publishers and authors; and how you’ve carved out a niche for yourself.
I’d be glad to hear your thoughts about anything from the loooooong list of questions below – and if you’d rather reply at length and in private rather than via a comment, feel free to get in touch with me via e-mail: rebeccafoster.books@gmail.com.
Blogging
- How often do you post per week?
- How long do you try to make your posts?
- Does a post’s timing (day of week and time of day) matter?
- How do you encourage blog comments?
- Do you try to reflect on book trends and controversies?
- How can I help create advanced buzz about books?
- When’s a good time to write about book prize races – before and/or after?
- How many book blogs do you follow and how do you keep up with them all?
I generally publish one straightforward review per week, usually on a Monday, and then my general strategy for other posts is to alternate between lists on a theme (with mini reviews), event or travel write-ups, and personal reflections or opinion pieces. I also do a monthly reviews roundup and often report on my library borrowing at the end of a month.
I try to make my post timings sensible for both US and UK readers, so I usually aim for 9 am ET / 2 pm GMT. I follow about 10 fellow book bloggers and already that feels like the limit of what I can sensibly keep up with, though I’d love to be supportive of others in return. I’d like to think it’s not always a tit for tat scenario, but I also accept that I’m more likely to get follows, likes and comments if I’m returning the favor.
Social Media
- How can I attract more followers (blog and/or Twitter)?
- How often should I check Twitter and post on it?
- Where do you draw the line in terms of who you follow on Twitter?
- How can I best use Twitter to my advantage?
- Do you always tag a book’s author and/or publisher when you tweet a review?
- Is it worth making a Facebook author page?
- Are there any other groups (Facebook or other) I should be part of?
- Are there blog networks or directories I could join?
- Can you think of any blogger perks websites I should sign up for apart from NetGalley, Edelweiss and Blogging for Books?
I think I follow about 300 Twitter accounts. I go on there every few days and find it completely overwhelming; I can be scrolling for 20 minutes and not even get through a few hours of posts, let alone a few days’ worth. I follow a lot of publishers, so use the site mostly to keep an eye out for new books and enter giveaways, plus I link to my blogs and bylined reviews. However, I don’t know whether I should be following all the authors, publicists, fellow reviewers, bloggers, and freelance writers I can. It just seems to snowball!
I also cross-post my reviews to Goodreads and sometimes to Facebook, either on my own page or in a UK Book Bloggers group.
Publishers and Authors
- Do you request books, or are they sent to you unsolicited?
- How do you keep track of what’s coming out and decide what to ask for?
- How far ahead would you request a title?
- Are certain publishers particularly helpful and accommodating?
- How can I know definitively whether an American title is also coming out in the UK, maybe at a later date?
- Are your requests always granted?
- How many times do you follow up with a publicist before giving up?
- How can I help support debut novelists?
- How can I get involved in blog tours and giveaways?
- How could I bag invites to literary events in London?
- Is it possible to get involved in judging a literary prize?
Maybe my expectations are unrealistic, but I’m sure I’ve heard other bloggers talk about receiving boxes full of review books, unasked, months in advance of the publication dates. Some people seem to be doing blog tours and interviews every few days. I’ve gotten a bit braver about sending e-mails to publishers asking for a book I fancy reviewing on my blog, but I don’t feel like I quite have the etiquette down yet.
My long-term aim is to be a judge for a major book prize, like the Bailey’s Prize or the Man Booker Prize. (Hey, a girl can dream! I certainly read enough in a year to keep up with the load.) I also like the sound of getting dressed up for a book release soirée or similar.
Finding a Niche
- Would you rather see more straightforward reviews on my blog, or fewer?
- Is it important for me to specialize in terms of what genres I review?
- Is it advisable to list my e-mail address on the blog?
Tomorrow I’ll unveil an updated blog design to mark the one-year anniversary. I’m also tailoring my “About” page.
I’m grateful for any and all pieces of advice. I may have been doing this for a year now, but I still feel like an utter newbie! Here’s to another year of reading and writing.
Five Things I Loved about the BBC War & Peace Miniseries
As soon as I got back from the States in January, my husband and I rushed to catch up on the BBC’s War & Peace miniseries. It’s the latest costume drama from screenwriter Andrew Davies, who is behind many favorite literary adaptations, including Bleak House (2005). I enjoyed War & Peace much more than I expected to given my utter unfamiliarity with Russian literature. I can’t comment on how well the miniseries captures Tolstoy’s plot or tone; my response is just that of a literature lover who appreciates gripping television. (My understanding is that this has already shown in North America too, on various networks, but for those who haven’t watched it and still plan to, I’ll avoid spoilers in what follows.)
![Natasha Rostova's first ball, Leonid Pasternak [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0_%D0%BF%D0%B0%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BA.jpeg)
Natasha Rostova’s First Ball, Leonid Pasternak [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
2. The superb casting. At first it seemed strange to see Paul Dano, an indie movie favorite, in a TV role, but I quickly saw why he was just right for the part of earnest, indecisive Count Pierre Bezukhov. An illegitimate son who wants to live a meaningful life but keeps falling into dissolute behavior, Pierre unexpectedly inherits his father’s fortune and marries the wrong woman, yet turns personal disappointment to the good when he devotes himself to serving his fellow man through the Masons. With his little smile, deliberate speech and round glasses, Dano is perfect.
Initially Lily James, as Natasha Rostova, seems to be just like her bubbly, flirtatious Downton Abbey character, Lady Rose, but suffering and regret chasten her. I also loved Jim Broadbent as irascible Prince Nikolai Bolkonsky and Adrian Edmondson (especially with his fez and other assorted headgear) as the Micawber-ish Count Ilya Rostov. Callum Turner and Tuppence Middleton as Anatole Kuragin and Hélène Kuragina are a skeevy, scheming brother-and-sister pair worthy of Dangerous Liaisons.
3. The authentic settings. The series was filmed on location in Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia, including at the Catherine Palace outside St. Petersburg. It makes a difference to know this wasn’t shot in a London studio; the dachas, Orthodox churches and snowy vistas are all genuine.
4. The action scenes. The CGI crowd shots are unconvincing, but the up-close battle scenes are excellent: bombs, bayonets, amputations and all. Seeing one battle, Borodin, partially from Pierre’s viewpoint is an especially effective way of contrasting civilian life with soldiers’ daily reality.
5. The philosophical depth. I should have known what I was in for from a Russian novel, but I was startled afresh each time a character paused to stare death in the face or to question what his or her life was heading towards and consider how to change course. There are beautifully symbolic moments of forgiveness between separated sweethearts or former rivals. Another highlight is when Pierre, the rich count temporarily laid low, connects with a peasant and his dog. He even learns how to eat mindfully.
Now for something I didn’t like: with the mixture of cut-glass British and toned-down American accents, you’d be forgiven for thinking this takes place in an English-speaking country. It takes characters singing folk songs in Russian, wearing bearskin hats and participating in Orthodox rituals to remind you that, oh yeah, this is Russia. I’m not saying I wish the actors had all spoken in heavy Slavic accents, but especially after an extended period in a refined drawing room, it can be jolting to see onion domes and Cossack uniforms.
I’m not sure if I’ll ever read War & Peace; I have a feeling that, like Moby-Dick (an assigned book I never made it all the way through in college), it could have done with an editor. Even though I adore Tolstoy’s storyline and characters, I don’t think I’d have patience for long passages of historical exposition. Moreover, Philip Hensher (in a Guardian reader’s guide) thinks War & Peace has the worst opening and closing lines in literature. Actually reading the Russian masters can wait for another time.
For now, I’m happy to have seen this top-notch adaptation. In just six hours of television, Davies and director Tom Harper brought an epic world classic into vibrant life, full of romance, betrayal, sacrifice and redemption.
My rating: 
If you’ve already seen War & Peace and are interested in reading more about it, this appreciation piece by Clive James in the Guardian is great (but spoilers abound). See also this interview with Andrew Davies.
Have you seen the miniseries? If so, what did you think? I’m particularly interested to hear how it matched up to the book if any of you are familiar with both.
Images of Women Reading
I was going back through the 2015 miniature calendar my in-laws gave me for Christmas last year, “The Reading Woman,” and thought to myself what a strange set of images it featured. Perhaps the manufacturers were scraping the bottom of the barrel, because I had not seen a single one of these paintings before, and some were downright hideous. Even some that were aesthetically pleasing were ideologically a little weird: the women tend to look either vapid or downright unpleasant. This got me thinking about how reading women have often been portrayed in the history of art.
Bored; so rich she doesn’t know what to do with herself but read? Reading seems to be but one small step away from pure idleness.
Portrait of a Woman in a Fur Wrap, Herman Richir (Belgian)
Ditto, except it’s a girl reading picture books. I don’t admire art this abstract.
Girl in Pink, c. 1906, Samuel John Peploe (Scottish)
These next two women could only be described as unfortunate-looking, if not masculine. Perhaps people worried that too much reading would rob women of their natural femininity?
Woman Reading, 1913, Rik Wouters (Belgian)
Caterina Reading a Book, c. 1888, James Kerr-Lawson (Scottish)
Here’s a sweet one. The subject seems pensive, even troubled. Is it by what she’s reading, or is the book her temporary solace from life? I love the colors and the faint echo of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Interesting also to see that it’s by a female painter – all these others have been male visions.
Portrait of Winifred Roberts, c. 1913, Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale
Now this one I really love. The hues and textures in this Renoir-esque painting are soft and inviting, and the subject is looking straight at the painter with a confident, almost flirtatious air. She’s no stick-in-the-mud who’s picked up a book because she has nothing better to do. It’s no wonder this was chosen as the calendar’s cover image.
Parisienne Reading, 1880, Albert Gustaf Aristides Edelfelt (Finnish)
Beyond the calendar, a couple of reading women paintings I’ve always liked are by Sir John Lavery and Mary Cassatt. In the former I appreciate how the book cover matches the subject’s lips, and how she seems absorbed without being inaccessible.
![Miss Auras, c. 1900, Sir John Lavery [Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lavery_Maiss_Auras.jpg)
Miss Auras, c. 1900, Sir John Lavery [Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]
![Woman Reading in a Garden, 1880, Mary Cassatt [Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Cassatt_Woman_Reading_in_a_Garden.jpg)
Woman Reading in a Garden, 1880, Mary Cassatt [Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]
Two of the most common images of women reading (you see these turning up as users’ avatars on Goodreads all the time) are by Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Gustav Adolph Hennig. I think they’re so popular because of the warm shades, the straightforward composition, and the subject’s apparent indifference to being watched. These are plucky heroines you feel you can relate to.
![A Young Girl Reading, c. 1770, Jean-Honoré Fragonard [Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fragonard,_The_Reader.jpg)
A Young Girl Reading, c. 1770, Jean-Honoré Fragonard [Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]
Lesendes Mädchen, 1828, Gustav Adolph Hennig
Do you have any favorite – or least favorite – paintings of women reading?
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 