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Inspired by the well-known rare and second hand bookseller Michael Polek, whose fascinating website Forgotten Bookmarks records a selection of the things he has found stuffed and forgotten between the pages of second hand and antiquarian books, I’ve decided to record and share my own finds. I wish I’d done this when I first started to deal in second hand books way back in 1997 or ’98. I didn’t although there were some fascinating, and sometimes distressing, finds providing small, sideways glimpses into lives lived at a different time and in a different place.   As my dentist would say, we are where we are and this as good a time as any to start.  Having opted out of the book dealing world in favour of more secure employment some six years ago (although that didn’t cure this confirmed bibliophile of the tendency to buy 10 times more books than will ever be read), have already begun to buy & catalogue the beginnings of a new stock of books and am planning to open a wee second hand bookshop next year.  These ‘lost between the leaves’ posts will over time build up a record of small, interesting and touching ephemera that previous readers have used to mark their place or have placed for safekeeping or association inside their books. The first find in my second incarnation as a book dealer is this little ‘ticket’ found carelessly folded and tucked in an old, pictorially bound edition of The Children of the Village by Emily M Bryant (Charles H Kelly, London, 1901) which I recently acquired as part of a large lot (around 250 titles) from a collector of Victorian and Edwardian pictorial bindings in Twickenham, London.  She told me that the collection had been put together over the previous 10 or so years and for the most part had been bought individually from second hand book shops from all over the UK.  The book also has a bookseller’s stamp on the front paste-down endpaper, indicating that it was originally sold by one George Eustice, Stationer and Bookseller, of Falmouth.   The ticket itself bears the date Wednesday 26 October, 1960.  The quality of the paper and its aging is consistent with that date.  It also carries a partial, bastardised quotation from a poem, The Journalist, by the American author and journalist, Mary Clemmer (1831-1884).  At one time Mary Clemmer, aka Mary Clemmer Ames and Mrs Edmund Hudson, was the highest paid woman in the newspaper industry earning £5,000 for her work in 1871. “Only a newspaper! Quick read, quick lost. Torn, trampled under feet who counts thy cost.” [gallery ids="eyJ1cmwiOmZhbHNlLCJ0aXRsZSI6IlVudGl0bGVkIG5nZ19waWN0dXJlcyIsImNhcHRpb24iOmZhbHNlLCJhbHQiOiIiLCJkZXNjcmlwdGlvbiI6ImV5SnBaRjltYVdWc1pDSTZJa2xFSWl3aVgxOWtaV1poZFd4MGMxOXpaWFFpT25SeWRXVjkifQ==,eyJ1cmwiOmZhbHNlLCJ0aXRsZSI6IlVudGl0bGVkIG5nZ19waWN0dXJlcyIsImNhcHRpb24iOmZhbHNlLCJhbHQiOiIiLCJkZXNjcmlwdGlvbiI6ImV5SnBaRjltYVdWc1pDSTZJa2xFSWl3aVgxOWtaV1poZFd4MGMxOXpaWFFpT25SeWRXVjkifQ==,eyJ1cmwiOmZhbHNlLCJ0aXRsZSI6IlVudGl0bGVkIG5nZ19waWN0dXJlcyIsImNhcHRpb24iOmZhbHNlLCJhbHQiOiIiLCJkZXNjcmlwdGlvbiI6ImV5SnBaRjltYVdWc1pDSTZJa2xFSWl3aVgxOWtaV1poZFd4MGMxOXpaWFFpT25SeWRXVjkifQ=="]   Have you found something interesting wedged into the pages of an old book? Get in touch and share your find! Want to see more Lost Between the Leaves posts? Just click on the tag.

Jane Austen is rare among writers: she has remained a perennial favourite with readers since her novels were first published in the early 19^th century and has sustained scholarly and critical analysis.  Her novels have been read, loved, studied, parodied, satirised, plagiarised, dramatised and filmed for the big and small screen.  Her characters have entered the cultural psyche and her works are stalwarts of the literary canon.  Every aspect of each novel has intensely examined, evaluated and re-evaluated from every perspective by generations of readers, students and academics.  Walter Scott admired Austen. Charlotte Bronte did not. Edward Said saw her as complicit in the agency of Empire and oppression, an allegation others have defended her against with passion and vigour.   But the packaging of her books – the bindings, covers and artwork of her novels – is the Cinderella area of Austen studies.  With the notable exception of Deirdre Gilbert’s 2008 short essay for Jane Austen Society of North America, From Cover to Cover: Packaging Jane Austen from Egerton to Kindle, what little commentary there is tends to have been incidental. Margaret C Sullivan’s Jane Austen Cover to Cover – 200 Years of Classic Cover is a superb and tantalising start to plugging that gap.  It is itself elegantly designed and generously proportioned. It feels as good as it looks and overflows with high-quality reproductions of a sparkling range of bindings, cover art and dust jackets which have adorned and, in some cases, detracted from or obscured Austen’s texts.  The generously, gorgeously presented illustrations take centre stage. Yet Sullivan’s own regard for Austen shines through on every page. Her commentary is not only lovingly crafted but also insightful, well-researched and tempered with personality and humour.   At times it also delightfully pointed.  So brew a cuppa, lean back and let Margaret Sullivan take you on a lively and educational 200 year tour of the fabulous, beautiful, misleading and sometimes, frankly, dull or bizarre ways in which Austen’s works have been presented to the book-buying public.   But do not dismiss Cover to Cover simply as a coffee table book – although it is that – as there is depth here too, both in the scope of the survey and in Sullivan’s interpretation.  It is a sort of reverse reception history. Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park were first published by Thomas Egerton between 1811 and 1814.  Austen subsequently moved to the more prestigious publisher of Lord Bryon and Walter Scott, John Murray, who produced first Emma and then, a year after Austen’s death in 1817, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion together in a single, four-volume edition.  At this time, as Sullivan explains, books, once printed and assembled, were usually sold either unbound or wrapped in plain card with a simple paper label affixed. Wealthier readers may then have their books bound to match their family library or personal tastes.  As a result, the appearance of early editions of Austen’s works are not uniform, but are often lavishly bound in full calf or morocco leather with heavy gilt lettering or half bound in leather with beautiful marbled paper, so typical of the age, covering the remaining portions. [caption id="attachment_433" align="aligncenter" width="247"] First edition of Austen's Pride and Prejudice, published by Thomas Egerton[/caption] Richard Bentley, who purchased the copyright to five of Austen’s six novels from her sister Cassandra shortly after the author’s death, produced a series of small cloth-bound volumes which sold for six shillings when they were published in 1832, extending Austen’s readership to those of lesser means.  What Sullivan doesn’t say is that the Bentley editions were remarkable as much for their feel as their look.  As Deirdre Gilbert explains, “Bentley’s covers were the first to include a sales strategy that not so much caught the eye and rather replaced the eye.  Anthony Rota in Apart from the Text details how the Bentley ‘get up’ proved ingenious not so much for its cover look, but for its cover ‘feel’.  Poor lighting forced shopkeepers to grope among dark bookshelves. On the spines and covers, Bentley included a wide range of ornaments that one could feel: ‘ribs, rugosities, and other crenellations. The texture of the Bentley cover was recognisable; chances are that a missing Bentley title would be noticed quickly and selected for reorder over others”. Sullivan presents other early editions briefly but the real fun starts with the beginning of illustrated covers – a process which Sullivan tentatively identifies as starting with the coming of frequent train travel: smoother ride and lighter than a horse-drawn carriage, train carriages  facilitated reading on the part of the newly literate middle classes.  W H Smith capitalised on this, opening a bookstall at London’s Euston station at the height of railway mania in 1848. The first of many station bookshops, it sold cheap ‘yellow back’ editions of popular fiction to train travellers. With lurid, sensationalised covers designed to tempt travellers, these were the cheapest editions of Austen’s works published to date. [caption id="attachment_437" align="aligncenter" width="195"] The Peacock Edition of Pride and Prejudice, 1984[/caption] Sullivan features one of the most beautiful books ever produced.  The 1894 ‘Peacock’ edition of Pride and Prejudice is “the first truly iconic edition of Austen’s work”.  With stunning gilt decoration on the front cover (and 130 black and white line drawings internally) by Hugh Thomson, one of the most popular illustrators of the era, the Peacock is still much prized by collectors.  This edition is interesting too for the introduction written by the literary critic George Saintsbury in which he coins the term “Janeites”, although spelt here as Janite.   The Peacock was swiftly followed by deluxe editions of Sense and Sensibility and Emma illustrated, unusually for the time, by a women, Chris Hammond.  As Sullivan points outs, by incorporating more Art Nouveau touches, the Hammond editions reflected developing trends in art and aesthetic taste. Highlighting just a few among the hundreds of covers that Sullivan presents should give a strong flavour of Cover to Cover.  Among those which may be familiar to some are the wonderful Brock watercolour editions from J M Dent in the early days of the 20^th century. Harking back to a simpler, purer age, Brock’s illustrations lead the reader away from the troubling disruptions of industrialisation and urbanisation and the horrendous prospect of war to an idealised time in which the nation was more at ease; and the post-war, egalitarian and elegantly utilitarian Penguin editions from the father of the paperback, Allen Lane. The c 1950 edition of Emma, in which the cover illustrator forgoes featuring the hero and instead, in an abundance of contemporary cliché, selects the more risqué, tipsy Mr Elton, making his Christmas Eve proposal to Emma in the cosily romantic privacy of a carriage, probably less familiar but reveals contemporary marketing practices. Sullivan argues that “in retrospect, the 1960s and 1970s seem almost too hip for Jane Austen”.  This may seem glib, but Sullivan makes her case well, drawing evidence from both trends in scholarly analysis. Critical activity was at that time dominated by New Criticism which favoured concentration on the text to the exclusion of contextual matters – too serious and too grand to be diverted by extraneous contextual matters. These were also the decades in which publishers of soapy, formulaic romantic fiction such as Harlequin and Silhouette were hugely popular. Witness the hyper-gothic treatment accorded to Northanger Abbey by the Paperback Library in 1965,  which was complemented with the tagline of which any horror B movie might be proud: “the terror of Northanger Abbey has no name, no shape – yet it menaced…in the dead of night”. Cover to Cover also presents cover art from Austen’s minor and incomplete works, as well as a bedazzling array of foreign language editions, parodies, sequels, movie tie-ins, and parodies and later editions of Austen six major novels right up to the early years of the present century. Among the most memorable is the e-book cover of Sense and Sensibility which manages to have not one but two spelling mistakes in within five words of text, seeming to sum up so much of what is wrong with the ways in which some e-books are published; and the fantastic 2013 re-imaging of Fitzwilliam Darcy as a smoldering, cigarette-smoking pulp fiction anti-hero by David Mann for Pulp the Classics. [caption id="attachment_434" align="aligncenter" width="187"] Pulp the Classic's 2013 cover for Pride and Prejudice[/caption] There’s very little not to like in Cover to Cover but it is not perfect.  The first of two low points for me was the introduction, which I found overly-soapy and sycophantic: “Many an Austen heroine must learn to read other people better, beyond first impressions, and to know herself well.  Elizabeth Bennett, the writer’s most beloved heroine, judged her relatives, her neighbors, and, certainly, Mr Darcy, with his taciturn and unfriendly demeanour. So how can Janeites, trained in such a school, do any differently?  If Austen teaches us anything, it is that first impressions are often false…” (p.7).  The second was one of the later chapters which purports to give tips for those tempted to take tentative steps into the world of book collecting. The guidance is so high-level, so cursory, that I cannot help but think that the novice collector may have been better served by a simple reference to a decent general guide to book collecting, such as John Carter’s ABC for Book Collectors. (The most recent edition of Carter’s book is freely available as a PDF on the ILAB website.) But these are small flaws which do not detract from the pleasure of Cover to Cover. It is a study which, in a gentle and accessible way, begins to hint at how literary taste, target audiences and book marketing and manufacturing processes can be illuminated by book packaging.  Be dazzled by the artwork and illustrations, laugh at the bizarre, read it as an introductory bibliographical history or as a social commentary – whatever approach you take to Cover to Cover, it delivers. Few, even among avid Austen aficionados, will be able to browse Cover to Cover for half an hour without discovering some new fact or an alternative, previously unconsidered perspective on Austen or her legacy.  But be warned! It could trigger a whole new passion for collecting books for their covers or a serious interest in book design.  Cover to Cover is lovely: Sullivan has given this Cinderella a beautiful, haute couture ball-gown. You can see a random collect of Jane Austen's book covers on this Pin Interest Board: Jane Austen Book Covers. Jane Austen Cover to Cover – 200 Years of Classic Covers by Margaret C Sullivan is published by Quirk Books on 11 November 2014 at £19.99.  ISBN 978-159 474 7250.

I buy a lot of books. Too many, my dear husband would say. I love each and every one of them. I am a godsend to second hand booksellers and those who sell new books, buying several a hundred a year through bricks and mortar bookshops and on line. I care about the condition of my books as much as content. Most booksellers I know are kind, knowledgeable and operate with the highest professional standards and integrity, whether they are selling on line or more traditionally. Many of those booksellers sell through Amazon.co.uk’s marketplace, where I have long been a stalwart customer. But here’s the thing. I hate fulfilled by Amazon. I have just spent my entire morning removing labels and their sticky residue from books supplied via Amazon marketplace from sellers using “fulfilled by Amazon” and I’m really irritated. I don’t mind spending a bit of time and money restoring and repairing old books, but if I buy a book described as “new” or “as new” I expect it, I require it, to be exactly that. If I’m buying a pre-loved or pre-read book, I expect all the faults to be disclosed in the description. I do not expect to have to spend 15 minutes gently dredging a pointless label in smelly, dangerous chemicals trying to remove labels without damaging the book cover. Sellers, if you cannot supply a book in new condition, do not describe it as such. If you are going to add an imperfection through your selling processes, disclose it in the description. Of course, sellers may not know that Amazon apply inappropriate labels to their books (although I suggest that a bookseller who doesn't take the care to investigate the condition in which their book will be delivered isn't among those who I described earlier as meeting the highest standards of professionalism and integrity). As a former (and soon to be again I hope) second hand bookseller, I know just how tight margins are and how important repeat customers can be. I also know it pays to take care of your customers and supply books in the promised condition. Booksellers should be demanding that Amazon does not deliberately and routinely damage and devalue their stock. So here’s my gentle message to those booksellers who do use fulfilled by Amazon. The next time I receive a book described as ‘new’, or ‘as new’ through fulfilled by Amazon with a label that doesn't peel away easily, that leaves a sticky, dirt-gathering residue, or where removal by peeling damages the jacket or cover, the seller will be receiving a return. And as the return will be because the goods were not as described, the seller will bear the costs of that return as well as the refund. If that doesn't work, I will just stop buying from ‘fulfilled by Amazon’ sellers (who are fortunately marked as such on Amazon). As a book buyer, I am tired of shoddy standards in on-line book-selling, tired of being treated as second-rate customer. And as the booksellers’ friend, I am telling you that you do yourself, your customers and your industry no favours by offering sub-standard service.

There are lots of reasons I love this book. First, it was given to me by my Auntie Queenie. She wasn’t a real aunt, not by blood or marriage, but the eccentric sister of my grandmother’s best friend and a huge, slightly scary, presence in my early years. She lived in a big black and white house, Ferndale, in Tilley, a small hamlet on the gorgeous, plains of north Shropshire. With its creaking stairs and warped floorboards, open fires and old-fashioned range in the kitchen, beams and secrets hiding places, the house was rather like a fairy tale itself, and digging this book out never fails to remind me of her and the thousands of happy hours spent exploring Ferndale. The book itself dates from 1918 when the horrors of the First World War were scarring generations. Auntie Queenie, a child at the time, was given this book as a Christmas present in 1919. She passed it on to me as a birthday present. I don’t recall exactly when and unfortunately she didn’t write an inscription in it but it would have been when I was five or six, perhaps. But the inscription written in 1919, by ‘Stanley’ remains. I wonder who Stanley was? Having been the plaything of at least two children, both with jealous siblings, my copy is a little battered and bruised. I wouldn’t have it any other way. As a child, I loved the stories simply for their sheer escapism and was entranced by the detailed, colourful and fantastical illustrations (there are 16 colour plates and 43 monochrome drawings). But more than that, it was this book which triggered a life-long love of reading, of illustrated books, and an enduring interest in the origin, morality and symbolism of fairy tales. It was the first book I attempted to read on my own, and I vividly remember hiding under bedsheets and blankets with a torch, listening out for my father’s footsteps, desperate to read just one more tale way after ‘lights out’ and before being caught. [gallery columns="2" ids="eyJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczpcL1wvYm9va2FkZGljdGlvbi5jby51a1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAxNFwvMDlcL2lsbHVzdHJhdGlvbi1hcnRodXItcmFja2hhbS1lbmdsaXNoLWZhaXJ5LXRhbGVzLXRocmVlLWJlYXJzLmpwZyIsInRpdGxlIjoiSWxsdXN0cmF0aW9uIEFydGh1ciBSYWNraGFtIEVuZ2xpc2ggRmFpcnkgVGFsZXMgVGhyZWUgQmVhcnMiLCJjYXB0aW9uIjoiU29tZWJvZHkgaGFzIGJlZW4gYXQgbXkgcG9ycmlkZ2UgYW5kIGVhdGVuIGl0IGFsbCB1cCAtIFRoZSBTdG9yeSBvZiB0aGUgVGhyZWUgQmVhcnMiLCJhbHQiOiIiLCJkZXNjcmlwdGlvbiI6IiJ9,eyJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczpcL1wvYm9va2FkZGljdGlvbi5jby51a1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAxNFwvMDlcL2lsbHVzdHJhdGlvbi1hcnRodXItcmFja2hhbS1lbmdsaXNoLWZhaXJ5LXRhbGVzLXRhdHRlcmNvYXRzLmpwZyIsInRpdGxlIjoiSWxsdXN0cmF0aW9uIEFydGh1ciBSYWNraGFtIEVuZ2xpc2ggRmFpcnkgVGFsZXMgVGF0dGVyY29hdHMiLCJjYXB0aW9uIjoiVGF0dGVyY29hdHMgZGFuY2luZyB3aGlsZSB0aGUgZ29vc2VoZXJkIHBpcGVzIC0gVGF0dGVyY29hdHMiLCJhbHQiOiIiLCJkZXNjcmlwdGlvbiI6IiJ9,eyJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczpcL1wvYm9va2FkZGljdGlvbi5jby51a1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAxNFwvMDlcL2lsbHVzdHJhdGlvbi1hcnRodXItcmFja2hhbS1lbmdsaXNoLWZhaXJ5LXRhbGVzLW1yLWFuZC1tcnMtdmluZWdhci5wbmciLCJ0aXRsZSI6IklsbHVzdHJhdGlvbiBBcnRodXIgUmFja2hhbSBFbmdsaXNoIEZhaXJ5IFRhbGVzIE1yIGFuZCBNcnMgVmluZWdhciIsImNhcHRpb24iOiJQaWNjYWxpbGxpIENvdHRhZ2UgLSBGcm9udGlzcGllY2UiLCJhbHQiOiIiLCJkZXNjcmlwdGlvbiI6IiJ9,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,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,eyJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczpcL1wvYm9va2FkZGljdGlvbi5jby51a1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAxNFwvMDlcL2lsbHVzdHJhdGlvbi1hcnRodXItcmFja2hhbS1lbmdsaXNoLWZhaXJ5LXRhbGVzLWNhdHNraW4tc2hlLXdlbnQtYWxvbmcuanBnIiwidGl0bGUiOiJJbGx1c3RyYXRpb24gQXJ0aHVyIFJhY2toYW0gRW5nbGlzaCBGYWlyeSBUYWxlcyBDYXRza2luIFNoZSBXZW50IEFsb25nIiwiY2FwdGlvbiI6IlNoZSB3ZW50IGFsb25nLCBhbmQgd2VudCBhbG9uZyxhbmQgd2VudCBhbG9uZyAtIENhdHNraW4iLCJhbHQiOiIiLCJkZXNjcmlwdGlvbiI6IiJ9"] It was fortunate that it was this particular book which my aunt gave me: Rackham’s earlier works had been much wilder, more violent, terrifying even. James Hamilton (Arthur Rackham: A Life in Illustration, Pavilion, 1995, pp109-10) described this change in Rackham’s style thus: where previously “Rackham happily includes illustrations of people battering each other to death or hanging by the hair and caught in brambles alive or half-dead, this kind of image is not dwelt on” in Rackham’s war time works “even though some of the stories are as red in tooth and claw as any of their type, and certainly would have allowed a violent interpretation. Reports coming back from the Front, eye witness accounts of devastation, violation and butchery, were quite enough to suggest…that [readers] could be spared violent images with their family reading at home”. The child under the bedsheets was wholly unaware of such things and the influences they would have upon art, illustrations and literature. I simply enjoyed being transported into an illusionary world of fantastical beings and wonderful things. But as an adult, it is the multi-layers of meaning in Rackham’s work which keep me coming back for more as much as their sheer beauty. Many of the stories included in the volume are established favourites recognisable from their titles alone - Jack the Giant Killer, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Three Little Pigs, Dick Whittington, Henny-Penny – although with 41 tales in total, some are more unusual. They were collected and retold by Flora Annie Steel, a prolific English writer who spent much of her life in India. Steel was an unusual sort of memshabid, keen on women’s suffrage and a staunch feminist but a firm proponent of the Raj. One cannot help but wonder whether it was her concerns for the British empire or compliance with the mood of patriotism which swept Britain during the First World War that led her to place “St George of Merrie England” as the first story in her collected fairy tales. A few years ago, while studying for my MA, I took a module examining how literature effects nationhood and the experience of national identity. Rudyard Kipling, with his India-inspired writings, was of course required reading on that course. His works have remained part of the English canon. Flora Annie Steel’s have not but in her time she had the reputation of being Kipling’s only serious rival. And so, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, I found myself slap-bang back where I had started reading as a child, deep in Steel’s English Fairy Tales. This then is truly one of the books which has mapped and shaped my reading life.

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A version of this post first appeared as a guest post on Lavender Likes, Loves Finds and Dreams  

A little earlier today, I blogged about the potential for book bloggers to influence reading trends and to do so in collaboration with the more traditional book industry. These thoughts were prompted by a blog post on Juxtabook which acknowledges that comments, discussion and feedback can be one of the marks of an influential book blog. Blog readership though can be much deeper than the raw number of contributors may suggest. I am not confusing readership with subscribers. Subscriber levels can be a useful indicator of influence but they are not a measure. And yet, like Catherine Hawley – the book dealer behind Juxtabook – I too am guilty of reading far, far more book blog reviews than I comment on. Many book bloggers put huge effort into their reviews and reading guides, and some show real talent and insight. They book reading and book buying choices, helping to maintain the vibrancy of a well-tended Mount TBR. Would it be too hard to hit the ubiquitous ‘like’ button or leave a few words in response? No. So I’m joining Juxtabook in an idea initiated by another great book blogger, James Reads Books, in commenting on a book blog review today. The challenge is simple. As James explains it: “"Go out into the world, well, into cyber-space, and read a book review today. After reading it, leave a comment." You may also tag a few other book bloggers to invite them to do the same. I’m tagging some of my personal favourite book blogs (in complete ignorance of their views on commenting and other book bloggers) - Liz at Liz Loves Books; Annabel at Annabel’s House of Books; Lynne at Dovegreyreader Scribbles; Ali at Heavenali and Simon at Savidge Reads. Absolutely no pressure guys – play it forward if you like, or don’t. There’s no chainy-wainy guilt thing about this. I’m just sharing what I thought was a neat idea.

[caption id="attachment_384" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Photo Credit - Sharon Drummond[/caption] My cup runneth over. Mount To-Be-Read (TBR) runs to over a thousand volumes. Others bemoan the size of their TBR pile, apparently intimidated by the scale of the agenda they have set for themselves, fearful of ‘getting behind’ in their reading or joining with friends in a challenge to ‘tackle mount TBR’, to tame the invading monster. Perhaps I’m contrary but my Mount TBR is a source of exquisite delight. Turning the closing page of one book is inevitably followed by the magical moment of choosing the next, browsing bookshelves with an expectation of pleasure, reward or insight. What to discover next? Where to go? Who to travel with? It’s a delicious dilemma. Rows of beautifully designed jackets and covers entice. Intriguing new titles and compelling blurbs vie for perusal against time-tested favourites. Sometimes folded-in reviews stripped from the broadsheets, Literary News or Slightly Foxed nestle against book bloggers reviews and recommendations or scrawled, hand-written notes – messages from my former self recording the whim or reason that earned the book its place. Several will be subject to Professor John Sutherland’s ‘page 69 test’.* And yet as I scan the familiar spines, gently easing out one or two to remind myself of its promise (and occasionally bemoaning the shallow layer of dust gathering along the upper edge), I know that each and every one is a book I want to read, because I have shelved and maintained it as TBR. The disruptive risks and uncertainty of choosing books in a bookshop or online is reduced while all the excitement of anticipation remains. Mount TBR is nothing less than a self-curated bookshop and library rolled into one. Mount TBR is, then, precious. Readers of a certain ilk will tend it, as others tend garden roses. And like roses, Mount TBR can be a hungry and demanding beast. It needs weeding. It needs feeding with new books and fertilising with commentaries and reviews. Finding the right foodstuffs and fertilisers isn’t easy though. A reader at outset of the 17th century, wealthy enough to buy books and sufficiently at leisure to read, had a reasonable chance of reading every book ever published in the English language (reckoned to be around 2000 titles) in their life time. Last year (2013), some 150,000 new titles were published in the UK alone. The figure was almost double that in the USA. Yet, while choice increases exponentially each year, traditional sources of guidance on discrimination have diminished. Few newspapers and magazines give books the space or serious treatment they used to and those which have persisted tend to focus exclusively on new books. The collapse of the Net Book Agreement in 1995 has forced out of the market a myriad of niche, reader-orientated independent bookshops and allowed the chain stores to focus more on promotions, profit-margins and high volume sales at the cost of well-curated and categorised stock. On most High Streets where a bookshop has managed to survive the competition from out-of-town retailing and on-line sellers, it’s likely to be a big name chain store, where window-space is I suspect as often allocated on the basis of how much the publisher will pay, the celebrity status of the acknowledged author and the likelihood of share-holder returns as on reader recommendations. Add to this the growing abundance of self-published and e-only books, the majority of which are published without any signposting for potential readers, and bemusement of the part of the curious browser is understandable. Book bloggers are one possible aid for readers here. Such is the shift in publishing and bookselling dynamics that there is an opportunity for book bloggers to step up and become major influencers of reading trends. Indeed, certain elements of the publishing industry have recognised this: Book Expo America, the largest annual trade book fair in the United States, hosted a parallel book bloggers conference in 2014 and plan to do so again in 2015. Some UK publishers are also making forays into the book blogosphere, making ARCs or galley proofs available to bloggers via the likes of Netgalley, Bookbridg and Amazon’s Vine Programme. Others engage directly with bloggers. Some innovative bloggers, authors and publishers have come together for blog tours, cover reveals and author Q&As but as a whole the UK industry has yet to exploit the potential power of book bloggers to extend readerships. There are of course risks on both sides in creating a dependency between the book blogosphere and the more traditional book industry. Part of the joy of book blogs is that they can be fiercely independent and wildly random, forging unique reading journeys oblivious to the demands of markets and sales. They are freer than other influencers to explore and expose the classics, backlists, underrated authors and forgotten gems. They are often intensely personal, with an intimacy that can rapidly establish enduring connections with their readers. They offer the opportunity for free, frank and open debate (and what reader doesn’t like to talk books?). Bloggers tend to respond to those who comment, fostering a sense of community and involvement. And equally importantly, free from commercial relationships with and dependencies upon the book industry, their views need not be tempered with financial considerations. Closer working between book bloggers and the book industry could undermine each of these assets, perverting book bloggers most valuable characteristics. Nor is greater intertwining risk-free for publishers. There are thousands upon thousands of book blogs. Quality and nature vary greatly. Some are more akin to fanzines, offering unquestioning adoration to a particular genre or author and largely preaching to the already converted. Others seem to exist for no purpose other than to convince publishers to send the blogger free stuff. Many, many get very, very little traffic. Yet others are littered with giveaways, challenges, memes, games and bizarre and unheard of blogging awards to the extent it’s hard to find anything about reading a book. (I am not arguing against this sort of blog – they can be a lot of fun – but that they are not obviously fertile ground for publishers and authors wishing to extend their readership.) Discrimination then is all for publishers wishing to exploit book bloggers’ influence; and moderation in use will also be important if the book blogger is going to be able to preserve the integrity which drew their audience in the first place. Mediation and facilitation of healthy and mutually beneficial relationships between the book blogosphere and those who produce and sell books would be helpful – a challenge which the likes of the London Book Fair or the Booksellers’ Association might take up.

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*In How to Read a Novel (Profile Books, 2006), John Sutherland, Lord Northcliffe Emeritus Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London, suggests one trick for intelligent book browsing: turn to page 69 and read it. If you like it what you read there, read the whole book. Sutherland in fact credits Marshall McLuhan, guru-author of Guttenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographical Man (University of Toronto Press, 1962) as the originator of this test. It’s as good a test as any other and for me has worked surprisingly well.

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*Photo of "Flying Books" in London's Leadenhall Market was taken by Sharon Drummond and shared via Flickr under a Creative Commons Licence.

Diary of a London Book Obsessive... to Battersea Arts Centre, 6 September 2014 According to the Mental Health Foundation, 1 in 4 people in the UK experience some form of mental health problem each year, with by far the most common condition being a mixture of depression and anxiety.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States has estimated that by 2020, depression will be the second most prevalent mental health condition in world.  Figures from the Office of National Statistics suggest that as many as 1 in 5 adults in the UK experience some symptoms of depression at any one time.  Depression can be a debilitating condition, affecting almost every aspect of life and relationships, making it difficult for suffers to lead normal lives and perform routine activities. At the extreme, it can lead to self-harm, overpowering feelings of worthlessness and suicide attempts. Yet, despite such prevalence and its debilitating and potentially fatal effects, depression remains a social taboo, rarely discussed openly or with ease. Use of the term “the Big C” used to be widespread but society has become more comfortable with the language of cancer and oncology and less fearful of naming that particular demon.  Not so depression which, is more often known as ‘the beast’, ‘the common cold of mental health’ and, mostly famously perhaps, the black dog.  Those with depression often feel stigmatised by society, labelled as weak or whining, and blamed for a having mental disorder when in reality it is far from being a matter of individual will.  It is telling that the late, great comedic artist, Robin Williams, frequently spoke quite openly and frankly of his troubles with addiction and substance abuse but chose not to discuss publicly his inner battles with the black dog of depression, a war which he so tragically lost.

"Winston Churchill had a black dog his name was written on it It followed him around from town to town It’d bring him down took him for a good long ride took him for a good look around"

Reg Mombassa, Black Dog

[caption id="attachment_375" align="alignright" width="119"] Matt Haig speaking at Battersea Literature Festival[/caption] This, then, makes the decision of Matt Haig, the super-talented, award-winning author known for treating troubling themes with side-splitting wit in novels such as The Dead Father’s Club (Jonathan Cape, 2006)  and The Last Family in England (Jonathan Cape, 2004), to speak out about this own experiences with depression both brave and refreshing. At a recent “meet the author” evening at Battersea Arts Centre (and event put on as part of Battersea Literature Festival), Matt spoke frankly of his own depression, of his darkest times – in 1999, while living Ibiza, he came close to suicide – of the effect his disorder had and continues to have on him and his family.  He also said he was a peanut butter-eating, social media-time wasting, liar.  To prove the last of these he recounted a time when he falsely told his tutor at university that his girlfriend was pregnant to explain a lack of application to his studies – a pretence he kept up for some weeks. Haig admits that The Humans (in which an unnamed alien takes over the body of a quirky but genius Cambridge maths professor who, while struggling to get a grasp on the nature of humanity, becomes increasingly fond of his inherited earth-wife and earth-son who, in turn, seem not to notice any change in the professor) draws his own experience of depression.  The alien is from a race of Vonnadorians.  Their homeland is a loosely drawn Heaven.  But it’s a Heaven where such things as art, painting and peanut butter – the small pleasures which bring joy to mankind but which most depressives are deprived of – are unknown.  The parallel is deliberate: Haig argues that depression causes feelings of alienation, making outsiders of those it afflicts and detaching them from the giddy and glorious whirls of human life.  The Humans, though, is still chokka-full of Haig’s trademark wit and relief and ultimately delivers a positive, life-affirming message. This is important to Haig: he believes that “depression lies about the future”, convincing those who have already reached the blackest depths of despair that there is no light, no way out and that it’s only worse from here on in.  He calls The Humans “depression as comedy”. As such is it attempt to prove that depression, not Haig, is the liar of the piece.  It might equally be called love is truth – as the alien/father tells his son in a 97 point letter of advice on how to live.

Quizzed by the audience, Haig explains how his experience of depression sensitised him to the good in life, to take pleasure in the small and the joyful and to be thankful for them.  It seems there is also a direct connection to the formation of his creative style: after depression, the typical devices of narrative structure such a clear beginning, middle and end become reassuringly attractive.  This shines through in The Humans which is ultimately a firmly plot-driven story well told.

Haig’s next outing promises to be equally brave but on a wholly different level and this time, despite some semi-autobiographical elements in The Humans, much more personal. In Reasons to Stay Alive, through a series of conversations with his younger self, Haig explores more directly the nature of his mental illness and discusses anxiety and depression alongside autobiographical anecdotes and reader contributions. Writing ‘fact’, Haig says, is scary: there is no fiction for the self to hide behind. With the same self-effacement and contrariness that Haig shows in taking a comedic slant on depression in The Humans, he keeps the audience at Battersea Arts Centre laughing and joking while dwelling on a challenging and uncomfortable topic.  (In this he ably assisted by Isabel Losada, author of The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment - the only book which has ever made me laugh out loud on the tube in rush hour. Londoners will understand such behaviour is wholly inappropriate.) If Reasons to Stay Alive has similar compassion and reassurance, then Haig need not worry much about putting himself on show; in doing so he will be making a valuable contribution towards dispelling the stigma of depression.  After all, as Haig says on his blog “Stigma is what happens when ignorance meets realities that need an open mind”.

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  My thanks to Karen Sullivan, Managing Editor at Arcadia Books, for inviting me to the event; to fellow book blogger Liz Barnsley for making me feel not so completely out of my depth; to Matt Haig for making the evening both thought-provoking and entertaining (and for signing my copy of the The Humans; to Isabel Losada for making Battersea Literature Festival happen and for making me laugh (again); and to all four of them for being such great company.

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  Matt Haig’s Reasons to Stay Alive will be published by Canongate Books in April 2015. The Humans (Canongate, 2013) is available right now from all good bookshops and probably some not quite so good ones too.

In "The White Masai", Corinne Hofmann recounts her story of holidaying in Kenya where she falls head over heels in love with a Masai warrior. Despite the enormous cultural gulf between them, not be mention the lack of a common language, Hofmann, a middle-class Swiss boutique owner, gives up western life, western comfort and western wealth to re-join her Masai warrior and live his way of life. The story engenders little sympathy for Hofmann. Despite the enormous, and at times life-threatening, challenges she encounters, she comes over as arrogant. The lasting impression is one of a naive white women who thinks that her wealth and education, coupled with an all-consuming love for another human, will overcome all eventualities. While one has to admire her tenacity, there is a sense from the very start that the whole adventure is doomed to failure. Hofmann seems to accept the physical hardships of life in a Masai village with admirable disregard. In contrast, her almost total refusal to compromise towards, at times even to acknowledge, the strong social traditions which dominate the life of the Masai, is cavalier. The White Masai's strength does not lie in originality: there is little here to distinguish Hofmann's story from those of others who have gone native only to abandon the experiment. The little it offers terms of insight and analysis of the Masai culture or way of life is tantalising but ultimately disappointing and leaves one wishing for more. Hofmann has, surprisingly and disappointingly, decided to share little of her impressions of Kenya more generally. This is a practical book with no airs or graces. The writing style is journalistic - always punchy and to the point - but lacks the finesse that might have created a more evocative experience for readers. Occasional inconsistencies in the story line are irritating and distracting, although it is hard to determine whether these are the result of Hofmann's "stream of consciousness" style, or poor translation from the German in which the book was originally written. These faults are however quite insignificant in comparison to the pleasure that Hofmann's free and frank style and engaging story engenders. I enjoyed reading The White Masai. It is a brutally honest, vivid, adventure story, infused with romance and humanity. Written with great pace, one seems to move from Mombassa, to Nairobi, to Kenya's rural villages, with an ironic ease given the difficulties that Corinne, her warriors and sundry others encounter on such trips. Read and reviewed 2005 (c) Jessica Mulley 2005, 2014

Reading The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society (Transita) is a rare treat. It is a joyous celebration of the ageing process as a liberating experience, with a cast of engaging, eclectic and eccentric characters. It isn’t always entirely believable: there is a series of remarkable co-incidences which, should one analyse it too closely, makes the plot incredible. But if you are the sort of reader who can just go with the flow and enter into a world that isn’t quite the one we think we know, curl up with Christine Coleman’s novel and you’re in for a real treat. (As an aside, I would recommend that you start reading early in the evening, otherwise you will find yourself propping your eyes open in the wee small hours as, on top of its other qualities, The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society is quite unputtdownable: the story motors along with such verve and vitality that leaving Agnes, or Jack, or Felix, in the midst of their latest drama would seem like treachery.) Agnes, seventy-five next Tuesday, gathers all her courage together to overcome her fear of heights and flee from the care home in which her loving but unthinking and repressed son, Jack, has placed her. She sets off in search of her grandchildren with whom she has lost contact following the break-up of Jack’s marriage. Through a series of bizarre and hilarious encounters with good people who have all lost their way somehow, Agnes not only casts aside the shackles imposed by society on the elderly but also her own fears: she learns to live life and to love doing so. There are elements here that reminded me of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, not least the unusually satisfying and life-affirming denial of being old and the side-splitting wit with which subjects such as death and emotional betrayal are handled. But where A Short History fails, The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society succeeds with style and aplomb. The story is not artificially weighted down with pop psychology nor overlaid with memories of political conflict. It is simply what it is: a witty depiction of the third age, full of hope, full of vitality and brimming over at the edges with humanity. Read and reviewed in 2007. © Jessica Mulley 2007, 2014

By turns witty and profound, The Curious Enlightenment of Professor Caritat: A Novel of Ideas (the title itself is a pun), is overflowing with good things. Caritat, a professor of the Enlightenment, is imprisoned in his home state of Militaria for the dangerous crime of spreading optimism. Sprung from prison by a former student, Justin, he is recruited by the guerrilla resistance group, the Visible Hand, to wander a fantastical domain in search of grounds for optimism and the best of all possible worlds. Caritat travels through a range of ideologically-driven states, and many readers will recognise not only numerous strands of modern Western political thought but also the satirical caricatures of Reaganite America, Thatcherite Britain (although the predictable appearance of the phrase ´there is no such thing as society´ is somewhat disingenuously taken literally) and the former Soviet Union. In each state Caritat finds aspects of its organisation and ideals worthy of admiration but each also has grave weaknesses when measured against Enlightenment ideals which are increasingly exposed through Caritat´s experiences and his internal dialogue with Western thinkers. Clearly modelled on Voltaire´s Candide, reminiscent of Gulliver´s Travels and adopting an approach to political discourse similar to Orwell´s Animal Farm, one might be tempted to think that Lukes novel is so rich in intertextuality that it is a ´difficult read'. Not so. Lukes´style is so fluid, his story-telling so light-handed (most of the time), so elegant, that even the most novice reader is carried through Professor Caritat´s adventures as skis glide over snow: the pages just keep turning. If the novel has one disappointment, it is the apparently casual analysis given to the Marxist Utopia in comparison to the more satirical treatment accorded to some other political philosophies. Dismissed lightly as no more than an impossible dream, Marx and Engels avoid the acute criticism which Lukes levels at others – in particular the Utilitarians, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. There are other flaws too – the ending seems ham-fisted and abrupt in the comparison with the lyrical nature of earlier episodes and the characterisation of Professor Caritat´s constantly off-stage children appears pointless: Justin provides sufficient audience for all Caritat´s musings. Nevertheless, the Curious Enlightenment of Professor Caritat is an entertaining and – with apologies – an Enlightening read: a readable travelogue of western political theory. Read and reviewed in 2007. © Jessica Mulley 2007, 2014