16-FEB-2012
A white rose would be more symbolic…
…because this old and well-loved book which landed on my doorstep recently concerns a mystery about Richard 111 of England, formerly Duke of York, whose symbol was the white rose. The House of York and the the House of Lancaster, whose symbol was a red rose, fought a series of dynastic battles against one another in the fifteenth century.
In The Daughter of Time, Inspector Grant, a Scotland Yard detective, spending a period in hospital suffering immobility due to a broken leg, uses the time to overcome his boredom by pondering the mystery behind an old portrait of Richard 111. Grant approaches the mystery surrounding this enigmatic king in much the same way that he might apply his investigative powers to a criminal investigation and thus begins his effort at explaining the facts behind a mystery that has endured for four hundred years.
The story is fascinating, and the ruminations of the immobile inspector make his conclusions about this intriguing mystery of the past truly fascinating.
Josephine Tey was a pen name of Elizabeth MacKintosh, who wrote unconventional mysteries under the name Gordon Daviot as well. The Daughter of Time was almost her last novel before she died in 1952. The book is still available in paperback and kindle editions. Apparently her work motivated historians to reconsider their own conclusions about Richard 111.
The Working Camera by John Hedgecoe and Ron Van Der Meer
I have had this book for over twenty years, and every time I decide to tidy my bookshelves and get rid of excess books I let my hand slide over this one, a brilliant three-dimensional publication by the late great John Hedgecoe and Ron Van Der Meer and I decide anew that I am not ready to part with it.
It is a brilliantly laid out book, with the clearest pictures and diagrams, explaining in detail the principles behind SLR photography. It has a hands -on approach, where there are sections of the book one can pull out and experiment and arrive at a more concrete understanding of the theories of photography.
For the first time ever, today, I even assembled the flash light stands and reflectors as suggested on one of the last pages of the book.
This is a book that is still relevant to those who want to learn the basics of photography. It is so clearly written and imaginatively designed around Hedgecoe's crisply clear photos that it would still be a worthy rival to many of the online video tutorials one can access so readily.
A quick google search this evening revealed its presence as a second hand book, but it seems a pity that this should be its status. There is a case to be made for reprinting this classic and bringing it into the digital age.
14-JUN-2010
The cookbook
A friend who knows how much I enjoyed the work of Alexander McCall Smith
surprised me yesterday by sending me a copy of this cookbook.
It is full of interesting images,stories and customs from Botswana
and it pays due homage to the wonderful character,Precious Ramotswe,
who made her first appearance in "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency".
29-MAR-2010
501 must-read books
A kind friend recently presented me with this fine tome.
As I go through it I'm discovering lots of "old friends"
no longer present on my shelves. They've been passed on
to family members, friends, booksales...
It would be lovely to keep all the books you encounter
in life. Unfortunately in my case I'd need a fine bank
balance to afford a bigger house to hold all those I'd
love to have kept. Perhaps I should've become a librarian...
22-MAR-2010
The old cookery scrapbook
This is the scrapbook I started some decades ago when I was a penniless student
and unable to afford the lovely glossy cookbooks in the bookshops.
I read and tried and then cut out and kept recipes that worked for me.
The much battered and abused scrapbook was recently found
at the back of a cupboard.
Here it is open at a page that holds Constance Spry's recipe for a chocolate roulade.
She was the founder of the Cordon Bleu School, and legend has it that she
paid £100 to a Paris chef for this recipe.
21-MAR-2010
Irish Names of Places
by P.W. Joyce
The three volumes of this work belonged to my late father,
and I was delighted to be given them by my mother.
The first volume was published in 1869, with a forty four year gap
to the publication of volume 3. Together all three volumes
represent a lifetime of scholarship and dedication by
P.W. Joyce in his ground-breaking work on tracking and
explaining the origins and meanings of place names in Ireland.
It prepared the way for the many modern scholars who
have continued to add further enlightenment to an area of
scholarship that helps us to understand the history and geography
of our local environment.
20-MAR-2010
The Writers
The Writers
This book was published thirty years ago and has had pride of place on my shelves for a long time.
It was a gift from six of my colleagues when my second child was born,
and I have treasured it ever since.
It contains new writing by many of Ireland's best writers,
and it is doubly valuable to me because of the way it is arranged.
In every case a photograph of the writer faces the first page of his or her work.
The photographs were taken by Mike Bunn especially for this book
and they are works of art in themselves.
15-MAR-2010
The Remorseful Day
by Colin Dexter
I loved Inspector Morse: firstly on reading the Colin Dexter books
as they were published and subsequently as John Thaw
took on his character in the television series.
I loved his crankiness, his cleverness, his obsession with crosswords,
his passion for music, and his vulnerability in his human relationships.
While the Morse novels appeared to be crime novels they were far more than that.
They had the ability to touch the reader deeply.
This one is the last in the series, and is a truly absorbing read for all lovers of the Morse series.
Colin Dexter has served his readers well.
15-MAR-2010
Rain on the Wind
by Walter Macken
This much-handled copy of Rain on the Wind is the third novel
of the west of Ireland writer,Walter Macken.
It was published in 1950 and brought him international recognition.
His ability to portray a sense of place is well utilised in this novel
where he constructs a passionate and dramatic story set
among the fishing community in Galway city.
In it there is life and death, love and loss, the hardship of poverty,
with the all-pervasive influence of the social and political mores of those years of post-independence Ireland.
It is a novel that many Irish people,at home and abroad, have read and enjoyed and often say that they must re-read.
A romantic and moving story of its time, it is one
that will always find a special place on the bookshelves of our home,
not just for the fact that it is a good old-fashioned page-turner
but also because its late author is my children's grandfather.
15-MAR-2010
The Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver
This is the story of an evangelical missionary family who have been uprooted from their American home when their preacher father takes on an assignment in a Congo mission. He is presented as a harsh, strict man who sees his mission as enlightening the savage pagans and ruling his family with a huge lack of understanding. The story is told through the voices of his wife Orleanna and their four daughters in alternating chapters that reflect their individual interpretations of the experiences they undergo. The father is not given a voice in the book, and the mother's voice is one of retrospection as she looks back on a time that caused major upheaval in the Congo and in their own lives.
There is a wonderful story between the pages of this novel, told with great sensitivity and in a manner that allows you to get know all the characters in the book. Barbara Kingsolver has woven the affairs of the state they live in with the life events of this family in a complex and skilful way.
15-MAR-2010
Part of the Furniture
by Mary Wesley
This Mary Wesley novel , which has been passed around to many readers in my family and is now back on my shelves looking a little the worse for wear, is a fascinating story of a young woman, Juno, whose complicated family and love life leaves her to fend for herself as the single mother of twins during the harsh period of the second world war.
Mary Wesley herself was a woman who would encourage those who enter their "troisieme age" to believe that there can be many good things ahead for them. Her first adult novel, "The Camomile Lawn" was published when she was in her seventies, and she followed that with nine others before her death.
All her novels are very readable, with vibrant characters and strong plots that draw on her own life experiences, especially during the period of World War II. Her own fascinating life was documented by Patrick Marnham, and her story is even more interesting than the fiction she produced.
For a glimpse at her turbulent and interesting life see this summary and a review of Marnham's book click
HERE.
14-MAR-2010
The Joy Luck Club
by Amy Tan
This is one of the few books that I discovered by first seeing its film adaptation. The book is more intricate than the film but equally enjoyable.
Amy Tan has a rare talent to draw the reader into her complex tales, and this one is no exception.
It explores the life and culture of Chinese immigrant families in America, and has enjoyed much critical acclaim. It is many years since I read this book, but it is one of the few that I know I could read a second time, and will probably do so soon.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery
This book was a runaway success when first published in French.
It has translated excellently into English, and explores the lives and minds of its two main characters: Renée, the 53 year old concierge in an upmarket Paris apartment building, and Paloma, a 12 year old daughter of one of the wealthy bourgeois families in the building. These two very different characters have more in common than they might realise, and the book leads the reader slowly through the events that draw them together.
It has also been made into a film with Josiane Balasko in the lead role. While adaptations of books into films frequently disappoint, the ingenuity of the casting of the actors and the devices used to allow the viewer enter into the minds of the principal characters ensure that the person who reads the book before seeing the film will be pleasantly surprised.
Mis by Biddy Jenkinson
A very fine work in poetry
based on the ancient Irish tale
of the doomed lovers
Mis and Dubhros
Yellow (Buí) 1
The Irish language translation of John Lawrence's wonderful children's book This Little Chick
Resolution
Resolutions for 2008
• To practise what I’ve read in the books I’ve bought –hence the notebook!
• To lose my reluctance to learn properly the use of layers in Photoshop
• To shoot the moon
• To take candids of strangers with their permission
• To conquer my sense of the ridiculous when I try to take SPs
• To leave a little fuel in my energy reserve tank!
My country in books
This image of a quick random choice from my shelves represents a lot of what my country symbolises for me:
Celtic Ireland and the Book of Kells to indicate our pagan and christian origins
Poetry in the Irish language, represented by Michael Davitt’s final collection Seimeing Soir, published shortly before his untimely death
Poetry in the English language, represented by Seamus Heaney, now a Nobel Laureate
Reflections on a Life by Teresita Durkan, a woman of formidable intelligence who continues to represent a tradition of missionary work which goes back hundreds of years
An Irish Adventure with Food – one of the myriad of new food movements in Ireland in the last decade
Slanguage: an amusing and very true documentation of modern language development here
Irish in the Primary Schools: a report that analyses its current status
The RSA Rules of the Road: in my house because of those doing driving tests here. There is an enormous waiting list for tests for learner drivers, a fresh tightening up of laws: all part of the effort to deal with unacceptable levels of road accidents.
This choice was made in about five minutes. If I were to do it again I’d probably have a completely different set.
For the Up Close and Personal Challenge
Sometimes a higgledy piggledy bookcase can give you an up close and personal peek into the reading activity in a house. This is one such peek at one of our bookcases.
Night Ride
One of my all time favourite children's books, given to me by a good friend some years back when my grand-daughter was a toddler. We read it every night for weeks, and it still has pride of place on her bookshelves.
The Sleeping Giant
A wonderful retelling of an old Irish legend
by the writer and artist
Marie Louise Fitzpatrick
Blue light
One of my cures for insomnia
2 for 1
This is a lovely children's story and I got the pleasant task to translate it into Irish!