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Book 7 – Money in the Bank

As I said in my post last year announcing this project of reading a book a week for a year,  some of the books involved would be ones I’d  read before. Money In the Bank  by PG Wodehouse is such a volume. 

Wodehouse is probably best known for the Jeeves and Wooster stories and the Blandings Castle  saga (as he named it). But a significant portion of his books are standalone stories, albeit  sometimes the  same characters occur in different books. 

First published  in 1942 Money in the Bank is one of these, and is in my opinion one of his very finest books. It contains a wonderful character in Lord Uffenham, the hero is the England scrum half and in Anne Benedick has arguably his finest heroine. It can fairly be said that as his writing progressed through the years the young female characters in Wodehouse’s books became more of a lightly drawn sketch, rather than a fully developed character, but Anne is a living woman who leaps out of the page.

One characteristic of Wodehouse books is the recurring theme of The Imposter, something that occurs innumerable times. Almost every Blandings book has at least one person pretending to be someone else. Money in the Bank has four of them, including Jeff Miller, the afore-mentioned England scrum half and Cakebread the butler who for long and complicated reasons is actually George, Viscount Uffenham. 

The book has charm, wit, humour and tells the story well. But it also has a great description of falling in love. An example:

“Anne Benedick gave a sudden laugh,  so silvery, so musical,  that it seemed to Jeff that his great passion, in the truest and deepest sense of the words, really dated from this moment. Ever since she had come in, shimmering across the threshold like the spirit of the June day,  he had known,  of course, in a sort of  general way that the strange emotion she woke in him was love,  but this laugh – hitherto she had merely smiled – seemed to underline the facts and clarify his outlook.  There was all Heaven in Anne  Benedick’s laugh.  It conjured up visions of a cozy home on a winter’s night,  with one’s  slippers on one’s feet,  the dog on one’s lap,  an open fire in the grate and the good old pipe drawing nicely.”

The feelings between Anne and Jeff change through the book before the inevitable happy ending,  and in my opinion it is better described here than in any other Wodehouse – certainly better than in any of the dozens that I have read.

This is a brilliant book.  If you are a Wodehouse fan then you probably know this anyway,  and if not then you are strongly encouraged to give it a go. 

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Book 6 – A Madness of Angels

Another daughter, another book. A Madness of Angels came from Kat as a Christmas present. She’d read it and really enjoyed it, and told me she thought I would too. And I must give credit where credit is due, because enjoy it I did.

Written by Catherine Webb under the name of Kate Griffin, this is her first adult fantasy novel. The publishers say she has written books for young adults as herself, but I’ll admit to never having heard of her before. But after this I will keep an eye out.

A Madness of Angels is another story of magical fantasy set in modern London, though it’s very different in tone from The Hanging Tree (see week 2). It has a truly different hero for a start – but you’ll have to read the book to find out just how different. The magic comes from all life, including the mechanisms invented by man. Suffice it to say that the ghosts of every phone call exist in the phone lines and talk to those who can hear. It’s a story of self discovery and revenge, of gangs, criminals and immensely powerful sorcerers and magicians (and there is a difference between the two).

It explores in greater depth than anything I’ve read since the Witches books of Pratchett’s what magic is and where it comes from, and for that alone I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading modern fantasy. It’s not a great book, but it is a good read.

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Book 5 – The Living Mountain

A couple of weeks ago we went into London to help my daughter and her boyfriend get some fixtures into their new flat. As Marianne was opening boxes to populate the new bookshelves she held out a slim volume, said “Dad, you have to read this book” and handed me The Living Mountain, which is a book about the Cairngorms.

Nan Shepherd was born in Aberdeen in the late 19th century,  graduated from Aberdeen university in 1915 and spent the next 41 years teaching English at what is now the Aberdeen College of Education.  She published three modernist novels between 1928 and 1933, and a book of poetry in 1934. The Living Mountain was written towards the end of the Second World War but was put away in a drawer and was not published until 1977, only four years before Shepherd’s death in 1981.

This book is extraordinary!  But it’s  rather hard to define what it is; easier to say what it isn’t. It isn’t a guidebook, nor a travelogue, and there’s very little of the Wainwright in this book. It only has one map showing the rough layout of the Cairngorns and details no trails, routes or paths.

What it is instead could be described as a prose poem, a paean to the Cairngorms, a celebration of being and place. The Guardian called it “The finest book ever written on nature and landscape in Britain”. The Canongate Books edition that Marianne gave me has an introduction by Robert MacFarlane (a name that will crop up later in the year) who made a documentary about it for BBC Scotland in 2014 – alas not currently on iPlayer or the BBC Store.

Shepherd came to realise that the truest joy of the mountains is not climbing to the highest peaks, but just to be there, as she calls it “in the mountain”.She writes about the plateau that is at the heart of the Cairngorm as well as the peaks.  She talks of views and experiences and weather – wind and rain and ice and snow and sunshine. She describes shapes and colours and sensations and tastes and smells. There is one chapter about snow and ice where three pages are taken up with describing the forms ice takes as running water freezes. I could go on….but honestly, read it yourself and find out. 

There are another 47 books to go as part of this 2017 reading project but I think that when the final reckoning is made The Living Mountain will be right at the top of the list of books that made the greatest impression on me.

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Book 4 – The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper

Sometimes a book comes your way entirely by accident and such was the case with The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, the first novel by Phaedra Patrick. My wife Jacqui and I were in Toppings in Ely (in my opinion probably the best bookshop in England other than Blackwells in Oxford) and she a picked this up knowing neither the book nor the author. It looked interesting,  but the thing that decided her to buy it was one review that compared it to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry which, if you haven’t read it,  is a fabulous book and I urge you to do so as soon as possible.

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper tells the story of Arthur Pepper, a widower who is still lost in mourning  one year after death of his wife who discovers a hidden charm bracelet that he has no recollection of ever seeing before. He decides to ring a phone number that is engraved on one of the charms and what that call reveals sets him on the path of finding out about the other charms. In the process he discovers a lot about his wife but even more about himself. 

It’s thought-provoking  and warm hearted as it goes through Arthur’s confusion, hurt, bafflement and anger as he slowly uncovers the life that his wife lead before they were married.  And it takes a richer turn as this process not only makes him more open with people that he meets but also brings him closer to his daughter.  

The best thing about the book in my opinion is not the detective work that leads to the finding about each of the charms but his development as a man and as a father as he goes through this.  It’s a great book and I can highly recommend it. 

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Book 3 – The Inside Track

As a general rule I don’t read many autobiographies. But The Inside Track by Laura Trott and Jason Kenny (written with Tom Fordyce) attracted me because I’d been captivated by their incredible wins at the London and Rio Olympics. 

When it comes to watching sport I am usually rather picky. Rugby, cricket, some athletics, Formula 1 occasionally, a little bit of tennis and cycling. (Never ever top level football because I can’t stand prima donnas).

Road cycling and track cycling I enjoy watching because I spent many years cycling – for fun and for transport, never as a sport. And perhaps because I never treated it as a sport I am even more impressed by the skills and talent of those that do. When it comes to track cycling Laura Trott and Jason Kenny are amongst the finest in the world at the moment,  a married couple who between them have ten Olympic gold medals.  Laura has been in four Olympic finals and won the lot, which means she has won more Olympic gold medals than any other British female ever; Jason has six, which makes him the equal highest British gold medal winner of all time, along with Sir Chris Hoy.

Their autobiography is told in the two voices,  Jason and Laura commenting in parallel on their lives from early years up to their wedding,  one month after the Rio Olympics. The book is sandwiched by them talking through one fantastic hour on 16th August 2016 when Laura won her second gold of the Olympics and Jason won his third. They tell of their early training, developing from promising children through to their enrolment into the British Olympic development team. It tells of Jason at the Beijing Olympics, then them both at the London Olympics and then their five events at Rio, ending with their marriage in September.

I found it a great read,  cleverly assembled (no doubt by the ghost writer) and gives quite an insight into the mental processes involved in being two of the finest athletes in the world today. It is a personal tale, involving,  emotional, touching and remarkably frank. I loved it. 

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Book 2 – The Hanging Tree

The Rivers of London, published in 2011, was the first in the eponymous series of books by Ben Aaronovitch.  It’s a series of police procedural  novels that combine imagination,  wit and, rather surprisingly given the subject matter,  a deep realism. The Hanging Tree  is the sixth and latest volume and like most the preceeding books is set in London.

The series places a world of magic,  gods, elves,  underground beings and even vampires  right into the middle of modern London with the narrator being a  constable in the Metropolitan Police – who finds himself working in a small section that deals with what one senior police inspector calls “weird bollocks”. Unlike the Harry Potter books where the magical society is hidden from and lives independently of the world of ordinary folk, the various magical, divine or fae people in these books live in the world, albeit hiding their talents. And the bit that I love is the gamut of gods and goddesses of the Thames and its  tributaries  – yep, old Father Thames is real in these books. 

Sounds strange I’ll admit,  but ever since first reading Rivers of  London I’ve been captivated by the whole world of it and always eagerly await the publication of the next book.  The juxtaposition of real and the fantastic is better done than anything I’ve read in years. There is romance,  history, bravery, wit, humour, pathos and evil – and Aaronovitch  does not shrink from the last,  for the evil is truly wicked and malicious. The history includes Sir Isaac Newton who was the first to define the laws of magic (well who else? ).

If you fancy reading this book I’d  strongly advise you to go back to the beginning and catch up because there’s a developing back story that evolves through the series.  But if you want to dive in feel free – it’s  a really good book! 

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Book 1 – Jeeves and the Wedding Bells

Because we were away over New Year and I didn’t want to add the weight of a bound volume to the already rather over-full suitcase, the first book in the 2017 project had to be something that was already on my Kindle. And as the Sebastian Faulks’s Jeeves book was bought on the Kindle when it first was published I decided finally to give it a try.

Jeeves and the Wedding Bells caused quite a furore when first published as many Wodehouse fans felt that Plum’s work was well-nigh sacrosanct and any attempt to add to it by a different author would be doomed to failure at best and an insult to Wodehouse at worst. But Faulks writes in an Author’s Note at the beginning of the book that it was intended as a tribute to the great man, rather than any attempt merely to copy him. And the result is a book with the familiar characters – and a few new ones, as was usually Plum’s wont – written in the style of Wodehouse but plainly not by Wodehouse.

IMHO the book carries off the author’s stated aim with some aplomb. Plum was a superb author in the mode that he employed; his prose, his lightness of touch and his humour were unsurpassed until the advent of Pratchett. But I think that Faulks is a better writer overall and it shows in this book. There are emotional touches and human insight that do not often appear in the main canon. And though the plot is perhaps overly complex  I admit I loved it. It is a book that I can recommend, especially to Wodehouse fans who, like me, have not read it until now, and is one that will definitely be read again.

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My 2017 project

Recently my imagination was fired up when I heard about Howards End is on the Landing, Susan Hill’s book about spending a year reading the books in her house. As anyone who has been here knows, this house is full of bookshelves and I admit to not having read everything there so I’ve decided to attempt to copy Susan Hill. However she put a restriction on herself  of not buying any new books at all but I’m not going that far.  After all I am an avid fan of Toppings bookshop in Ely and couldn’t stay out of it for a year!

So starting on Sunday 1st January I will attempt to read a book a week, mainly those on our bookshelves, though some are on the Kindle and,  as mentioned above,  I can’t not buy books for a year! And each week I’ll try a blog about the book.  It won’t be a review of it but hopefully it might prove to be vaguely interesting. 

The final point: not all the books will be new to me.  Some of my books are old friends and demand to be re-read regularly,  but the majority I won’t have read before. 

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Paean to the swifts

Around the end of June or early July last summer a young male swift was guided out of the nest by his mother. He fell, flapped his wings a few times and was suddenly flying. Young swifts can fly immediately and within moments he was up in the air in that darting way that swifts move, flying off on his own. For swifts, once in the air are immediately left to their own devices by their parents.

All through the high summer he flew, catching flying insects or drifting spiders for food, until one day in early August he felt that mysterious tug to leave, the call for migration whose effects we can observe but never experience and along with his peers, turned south. He flew down to the coast, then over the channel, down through France and Spain and crossed the Straits of Gibraltar. He carried on down the west coast of Africa, until past the Sahara Desert his journey ended in the tropics of southern Africa.

While we shivered under feet of snow in the coldest winter in a century our swift flew under the hot African sun, feeding in the air, delighting in the sheer joy of flight. Until, some time probably in February he felt that tug again, pulling him back to the land of his birth. Turning northwards he retraced his journey and in approximately mid May he crossed the Channel again to cry his high squealing cry in English evening sunlight.

But why do I tell you all this?

Because the most amazing thing about our swift is that from the moment he left his nest until he flew again in the following English summer he flew non-stop! For the swift is the greatest flying machine ever evolved. He eats on the wing, sleeps on the wing and unique amongst birds, mates on the wing. The frigate bird and the great albatross will glide over the oceans for days or even weeks at a time, but they always return to land to mate and to rest. But the swift will only stop if he pairs with a female and builds a nest with her, and even then the nest is built with material that he finds in the air. It is estimated that over an average lifespan of 7 years a swift can fly 2.5 million miles!

We have one of the great natural wonders of the world whirling and crying over our heads through high summer, and yet few notice, and even fewer know the glory of what they see.

The swifts have left now. I last saw a few in the evening sky on Sunday night; by now they are probably the other side of the channel on their way back to Africa. Their arrival in May each year signals for me the start of summer; and their departure in early August indicates that though the sun is still strong summer is coming to an end and before we know it we’ll be heading into winter.

So when, one evening next spring you hear a high screeling noise way over your head and you see birds with crescent shaped wings whirling through the sky, welcome the swifts back to England, marveling that they have been flying since they left last summer. And point them out to your mates and tell them of the greatest flier on the planet.