Category Archives: Blogs

Klootzak of the year

Posted on December 25, 2016 by | Leave a comment

Father Christmas listens. It’s amazing how, even quite close to Christmas, the man in red has time to listen to find out what people want. I obviously wanted nothing, but happened to mention that I could do with educating a bit, in regard to music. Lo and behold, what did I find? CDs featuring Bowie’s and Adele’s finest.

Other than that, it was – unsurprisingly – mostly books. What better way to celebrate the end to 2016 than with good old Enid Blyton’s Famous Five on Brexit Island. That will be a jolly read. We also cheered ourselves up by laughing uncontrollably at electric chairs. Yes, it is in very bad taste. I’m sorry. Daughter had bought another quiz book, but the questions were so hard – even for the Resident IT Consultant – that we abandoned it and went back to last year’s quiz volume.

Daughter was shocked at how few presents I got. I was surprised at how many there were for me. She is now an adult. This was made clear by how many gifts she gave and how few she received. (She has rubbish parents.) The generations have swapped places. Luckily a famous author called at Bookwitch Towers last week, with a Christmas present for the witch. Flemish insult on the outside – specially for me – and a migraine trigger on the inside, so I will share it with the Resident IT Consultant. We are both happy.

There were elephants. I have no idea why.

Amaretti. I think I know why. Socks. Obviously.

And the Resident IT Consultant went to bed with Sophie Hannah, looking very happy. (I await my turn.)

Next year I shall have to resort to wrapping individual toffees to increase the number of presents under the tree.

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The cheap gift

Posted on December 24, 2016 by | 2 comments

‘Just to be safe, don’t touch the tree lights,’ said Uncle. ‘I had to cobble something together to make them work.’

Mother-of-witch and I spent Christmas 1980 (I think) with her brother and sister, i.e. Uncle and Favourite Aunt, in the latter’s home. She’d not hosted Christmas for years and the lights had not been out for a few decades. Hence Uncle’s making the best of things.

We wanted to keep things simple, now that even the child (that’s me) was an adult, so had agreed to give each of the other three a gift costing no more than the equivalent of £1. I can’t for the life of me remember what I got anyone, nor what Mother-of-witch came up with.

But Uncle gave us each an ugly brown cardboard magazine folder box thing. I used mine for years and it only died a death of mould about ten years ago, in a Stockport cellar. I always suspected he might have ‘found’ them at the office.

And Favourite Aunt gave the three of us a small bound notebook. Stationery in Sweden has always been pricey, and certain things you just didn’t buy if you were poor, or sensible. Which explains my pleasure in receiving this tiny black notebook, complete with red spine and corners.

Notebook

I know. It’s nothing special, and I have a feeling it was Made in China. But I loved it! I was going to keep it and write something important in it, and not waste it on everyday notes.

But you’ve guessed it; I have yet to write a single word in the book. I get it out every now and then, thinking I’ll use it. And then I don’t.

It did fulfil the criteria well, though. It was a small, cheap-ish present. And it’s one I remember better than most other gifts I’ve ever received. Besides, lots of other treasures I have already parted with, during one of many clear-outs.

The notebook is still here.

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Posted in Blogs, Christmas

Christmas card

Posted on December 23, 2016 by | 5 comments

Advent candles

Wishing you a Happy Christmas!

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Posted in Blogs, Christmas

A good little publisher

Posted on December 21, 2016 by | 2 comments

So, this cutting from the Guardian has been sitting on my desk for over a month and I was worried it might become stale. And then it turns out it fits right in with what I’ve been saying this week.

I was so charmed by this small publisher – Oneworld – who apparently have managed to pick two recent Man Booker prize winners. (I know. I said ‘bad’ stuff about the Booker only yesterday…) I loved the way they were interviewed and how they work. In fact, they are the kind of publisher I would obviously be if I wasn’t a) so lazy, and b) not in the slightest talented that way.

They mainly seem to like the kind of books I don’t go for, but that’s all right. They do seem to know what makes a good book, though, and then they give that book all it deserves. None of this ‘he/she is a comedian so I can hear the tills rattling and I will be rich’ syndrome. (I obviously don’t know where they stand on trade unions, but I’m hopeful they do the decent thing for all 23 staff.)

Oneworld likes foreign books. This is far too unusual. And in general it would appear that they are talented at sourcing new books and authors that might not be the new Harry Potters or J K Rowlings, but that do really very well. Winning awards and that. I could be wrong, but I understand they do this simply by reading books, and buying them if they like them. Not this celebrity thing, or ‘will the buyer from Waterstones like it?’ that is far too common.

When the Resident IT Consultant and I bought our Amstrad 30 years ago, we didn’t do what Oneworld’s Juliet Mabey and Novin Doostdar did; starting a publishing firm. Maybe we should have.

And I like the way they have no wish to be bought or merged or anything.

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The sorting

Posted on December 16, 2016 by | Leave a comment

‘Don’t forget Ness comes between Nesbit and Newbery,’ I said to the Resident IT Consultant. (That’s of particular interest, as Linda Newbery used to look at the shelves in bookshops before she was a published author, thinking she’d fit in nicely next to Nesbit. We didn’t know about Patrick Ness at the time.)

We were sorting the bookcases. Again. I have done bits of it on my own, but if any serious work was going to happen on the top shelves, especially forming a second row behind, then I needed the Resident IT Consultant. And I’m sure he was pleased to be needed. Climbs well, and can hug a larger pile of books in one go than I can.

My job was to tell him what to do and where, and to choose a few books that would be put up for adoption.

The Ns happen to live on the second top shelf, the one to the right of the As and Bs, and not having been a double row before, on account of stability, they were all out front. ‘Here are some Newberys,’ he said. ‘And some more. Oh, there are a lot of Newberys,’ he said as the full range of Linda’s books hit him. Not literally, I hasten to add.

The very awkward Gs improved a lot with our work the other day. I may have mentioned before that there are many Gs in my book world. There were McMacs coming at us from all directions, but they are more orderly now.

In some instances he had me worried when saying he thought there’d be more of someone’s books. I thought so too, until I recalled that this is what my bedside special bookcase is for. The bestest of the favourites live there.

It also turned out we were both alphabetically challenged. We discovered several books that needed to move left. And then a bit more left, before going furher left where they belonged. We must be getting old.

This was the kind of job you put off and put off because it strikes you as hard work. In actual fact, we only needed a couple of hours, and some of it was me sitting down to think about my books.

And then, of course, I had to go and do my best of list and I wanted a photo of the selected books of 2016, so I had to pull them out again, on my own, and put them back. But at least the sorting meant I knew where to find them, even if it was the top shelf.

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The 2016 best

Posted on December 15, 2016 by | 2 comments

Yes, there were good books, even in a year like 2016. Let’s not lose [all] hope, shall we? In fact, after careful consideration, there were more serious contenders than I could allow through to the final round. Sorry about that.

During 2016 I seem to have read and reviewed 154 books. Before you gasp with admiration, I should mention that 40 of those were picture books.

2016 books

And here, without me even peeping at other best of lists, are my favourites, in alphabetical order:

Beck, by Mal Peet and Meg Rosoff

Broken Sky + Darkness Follows, by L A Weatherly

Crongton Knights, by Alex Wheatle

Five Hundred Miles, by Kevin Brooks

Front Lines, by Michael Grant

Knights of the Borrowed Dark, by Dave Rudden

More of Me, by Kathryn Evans

The White Fox, by Jackie Morris

I believe it’s a good list, and I’m glad that two of the books are dyslexia friendly; one at either end of the age spectrum.

And, you are human after all, so you want to know who just missed this list. I’m human enough to want to mention them. They were Hilary McKay, J K Rowling, Malcolm McNeill, G R Gemin, Jonathan Stroud, Kate DiCamillo and Philip Caveney.

Two dozen more on my longlist, and we mustn’t forget; if a book has been reviewed on Bookwitch at all, it has passed quite a few quality tests. So there. You’re all winners. But some are more winners than others.

I love you.

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Second class children

Posted on December 13, 2016 by | Leave a comment

Did I ever tell you about the restaurant somewhere in the Highlands? The Resident IT Consultant and I had dinner at a highly recommended restaurant somewhere almost in the middle of nowhere. It was 1984. (A bit ominous, that.) It was a lovely meal and the place was full. As we exited we discovered a parked car, with three children inside, in their pyjamas, eating crisps. The parents were dining in the restaurant.

Fast forward to last week’s Guardian recommendations of what food to buy [not make] for Christmas. Their baking expert Ruby Tandoh picked Betty’s Classic Mince Pies. ‘They’re wonderful, but coming in at a tenner for a dozen, they’re maybe not ones to waste on the kids.’

No. Quite. Wouldn’t want the children to have quality, or anything expensive. (Personally I wonder how many children really want to eat mince pies, but that is another matter.) When they are grown up they will automatically morph into people with taste. People who in turn will discriminate against children.

I’d like to think that her comments just sort of slipped off the keyboard while she wasn’t looking, or thinking. But as it said elsewhere in the same paper, ‘bias may be unconscious – but that does not make it excusable.’ That was about a black person, but bias against children works too.

Is that why our society is the way it is? Because children don’t merit ‘the real thing?’

As a child I was occasionally treated to a restaurant meal. About as often as the Mother-of-witch. Money was in short supply and she was the one paying, and she always took me. We ate good food in those restaurants, with silver service and the lot. (Mostly because there weren’t really the more casual eateries we have now.)

I was never discriminated against, by her. If she could afford it, both of us had whatever it was.

(This neatly reminded me of another childhood treat; chivalry.)

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