One of my favourite books is Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. I read it first when I was in my mid-teens, and needed something to read. In Mum's bookshelf was an old hardback with a yellow dust jacket. On the spine it said The (then a gap where the dust jacket was torn) "Rebecca". Mum had ripped the price out as it was a bargain 2/6 in 1954 and she didn't want the price showing. I genuinely thought the book was called The "Rebecca" and that it was about a ship or something. Booooring!!!!
Mum's bookshelves were full of old hardbacks from the 40s and 50s. Many of them looked awfully unappetising, in fact downright boring, with a few exceptions, the best being They're A Weird Mob by Nino Culotta (John O'Grady to you), which I adore.
"Read Rebecca," Mum advised. "You'll love it." Only the week before she had urged me to read Green Dolphin Country and I just couldn't get into it; historical drama - not my thing at all.
Anyhow, I thought I'd give Rebecca a shot and I fell in love. It inspired me to seek out Daphne du Maurier's other novels and they have all been good companions and re-read over the years. Except for Julius. I hated it. Julius murdered his cat near the beginning of the book. That ruined it for me.
Every couple of years I re-read Rebecca; yes, I can quote from it, but I don't care. When I was living in our old place I borrowed the book from Mum, and when we moved in here I brought it back and put it in its rightful place in Mum's old bookshelf, which is in the room which is now my office.
Last week I wanted to read it. I knew where I'd put it. Right next to They're A Weird Mob. But it wasn't there. That yellow dust jacket is unmistakable. I checked the shelf again. I pulled out the books at the front to go through the books at the back. I looked through the front books, where it should have been, three times in total.
Had I loaned it out to Whingy? I had loaned her other DduM books but had resisted loaning her Rebecca as, in its 1954 'cheap edition' it was priceless to me and I didn't want her losing it or giving it away, forgetting who had loaned it to her. No, I hadn't loaned it.
So, it must be downstairs with most of G and my books. We have six bookshelves downstairs. I went through every single one of them, hunting for that yellow cover. Where the books were double stacked I took them out, and cast my eyes over thousands of books in total.
I was puzzled. Where on earth -? There was one more bookshelf in my office I hadn't checked, my own where I keep business books; it would be unlikely to be there but even so…
I chuntered back upstairs and into my office. And there it was. Bright yellow cover and all. Right next to They're A Weird Mob. Right where it should be.
I swear Mum was playing a joke on me. I did ask her, when I was downstairs, where the book was. It seems inconceivable that I could look at that book three times and not see it, not with that bright cover. I'm looking at it now and it's unmissable.
Now I just have to find my copy of Susan Hill's Mrs de Winter, which was written as a follow up. I've read Sally Beauman's Rebecca's Tale, which was excellent and a believable sequel to Rebecca. But hey, I can't find the book downstairs and it's not in the bookshelf in my office. Mum….?
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Monday, February 9, 2015
Monday, August 18, 2014
My Dad's list of books - a penchant for philosophy
"What's that pile of papers and magazines?" G asked, opening the cupboard under the kitchen bench.
The top shelf held tablecloths and napkins, the bottom phone books and a pile of…well… newspapers. Mum used to put old newspapers there to use to line the birdcage/cat tray/whatever.
"Isn't it funny," I said, "how you can live with things for years and not really notice them? I'll go through it all and chuck it out. Since we get the newspaper every day we don't need a store cupboard for the stuff."
So I did. Half way down, beneath the more recent newspapers (recent meaning dating back to 1997!), there was a heavy sheet of cardboard, and it became obvious that beneath that were magazines and news clippings Mum had hung onto.
I diligently went through them. Most of them were binned after a cursory read through, but I kept a few I found interesting (heaven help me! I'm turning into Mum!).
At the very bottom was an old-fashioned 1940s cardboard-bound foolscap ledger. I flicked through it and recognised Dad's elegant handwriting.
Most of the ledger was empty, and it had been used as an address book and notebook rather than for recording figures. Judging by some of the dates, it was Dad's book in the late 1940s. He'd written addresses for men he'd served with in the RAAF, with little notes beside their names about their families or what relationship they'd been to him during WWII.
Following the addresses, after many blank pages, Dad had headed a page Books. It was a list of books he owned, because I recognised several of the titles. They are still here in this house (although many of them are destined for the local church fete as I've tried to read them but they're not my sort of books). Most of them are popular fiction of the time by authors such as Ion Idriess.
The next page was headed Books to be read in order for educational purposes.
Now, Dad wasn't the most educated bloke on earth. He'd been second-last in his class in maths in high school. Having said that, he was intelligent - he'd been an officer in WWII, he was well-spoken and clever, but he hadn't had a classical education or been to university. Clearly in 1946 he thought his education needed finishing, for the list of 112 books began with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. It included all the Greek philosophers. Marcus Aurelius and Leonardo da Vinci made the list. Erasmus. Francis Bacon. St Thomas Aquinas. Milton. Descartes and Hume. Classics authors such as Thackeray, Defoe and Swift. Voltaire. Goethe. Darwin. There were 112 authors on Dad's list, which ran to nearly four pages.
He'd marked off the ones he'd read or obtained:
I feel as if I've discovered someone I never knew at all; the Dad I remember is the Dad of my toddlerhood. Hardly a man to be sprouting philosophy to his two year old daughter.
The Dad Mum spoke of wasn't a philosophiser either. He was an intelligent man with a sense of humour, a careful attitude to driving and piloting, a man with a successful betting system for the races, a part time SP bookie, a carpenter and handyman, a man with a taste for beer and good wine, a man with a sometimes carefree attitude to spelling and written grammar, a man who'd pull his hat down over his ears and make a silly face for the camera, a man who had an affair and buggered off. I feel as if I know that Dad reasonably well.
I wonder now about that list from the 1940s; why he lost interest. I wonder who inspired him to create that list in the first place.
And now I'll never know.
The top shelf held tablecloths and napkins, the bottom phone books and a pile of…well… newspapers. Mum used to put old newspapers there to use to line the birdcage/cat tray/whatever.
"Isn't it funny," I said, "how you can live with things for years and not really notice them? I'll go through it all and chuck it out. Since we get the newspaper every day we don't need a store cupboard for the stuff."
So I did. Half way down, beneath the more recent newspapers (recent meaning dating back to 1997!), there was a heavy sheet of cardboard, and it became obvious that beneath that were magazines and news clippings Mum had hung onto.
I diligently went through them. Most of them were binned after a cursory read through, but I kept a few I found interesting (heaven help me! I'm turning into Mum!).
At the very bottom was an old-fashioned 1940s cardboard-bound foolscap ledger. I flicked through it and recognised Dad's elegant handwriting.
Most of the ledger was empty, and it had been used as an address book and notebook rather than for recording figures. Judging by some of the dates, it was Dad's book in the late 1940s. He'd written addresses for men he'd served with in the RAAF, with little notes beside their names about their families or what relationship they'd been to him during WWII.
Following the addresses, after many blank pages, Dad had headed a page Books. It was a list of books he owned, because I recognised several of the titles. They are still here in this house (although many of them are destined for the local church fete as I've tried to read them but they're not my sort of books). Most of them are popular fiction of the time by authors such as Ion Idriess.
The next page was headed Books to be read in order for educational purposes.
Now, Dad wasn't the most educated bloke on earth. He'd been second-last in his class in maths in high school. Having said that, he was intelligent - he'd been an officer in WWII, he was well-spoken and clever, but he hadn't had a classical education or been to university. Clearly in 1946 he thought his education needed finishing, for the list of 112 books began with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. It included all the Greek philosophers. Marcus Aurelius and Leonardo da Vinci made the list. Erasmus. Francis Bacon. St Thomas Aquinas. Milton. Descartes and Hume. Classics authors such as Thackeray, Defoe and Swift. Voltaire. Goethe. Darwin. There were 112 authors on Dad's list, which ran to nearly four pages.
He'd marked off the ones he'd read or obtained:
- Plato's Dialogues
- Aristotle's works
- Lucretius' Of the Nature of Things
- Ovid's Metamorphosis
- Marcus Aurelius' Meditations
- The New Testament
- Maimonedes' Guide for the Perplexed
- St Thomas Moore's Utopia
- Montaigne's Essays
- Shakespeare's Complete Works (which I have in the house)
- Thomas Hobbes' Elements of Philosophy
- Rene Descartes' The Passion of the Soul
- Milton's Paradise Lost
- Newton's Opticks
- Kant's Critique of Practical Reason
- Ricardo's Principals of Political Economy and Taxation
- Hegel's Philosophy of History
- Darwin's Origin of Species
- Wundt's Outline of Psychology
- Nietzche's The Will of Power
I feel as if I've discovered someone I never knew at all; the Dad I remember is the Dad of my toddlerhood. Hardly a man to be sprouting philosophy to his two year old daughter.
The Dad Mum spoke of wasn't a philosophiser either. He was an intelligent man with a sense of humour, a careful attitude to driving and piloting, a man with a successful betting system for the races, a part time SP bookie, a carpenter and handyman, a man with a taste for beer and good wine, a man with a sometimes carefree attitude to spelling and written grammar, a man who'd pull his hat down over his ears and make a silly face for the camera, a man who had an affair and buggered off. I feel as if I know that Dad reasonably well.
I wonder now about that list from the 1940s; why he lost interest. I wonder who inspired him to create that list in the first place.
And now I'll never know.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Fiction and friction
I've been pondering an interesting thought today: that the most difficult people I've worked with in the last few years are not readers of fiction. I wonder if this means something in the broad scheme of things; perhaps it's a lack of imagination or perhaps they set their thwarted imagination loose on beleaguering whomever they are dealing with... like... er... me.
I had a situation with a client about six years ago. I thought she sounded like trouble when I first spoke to her, but the task itself sounded interesting - developing the layout for a book - so I took her on. She had virtually no budget. Which brings me to another thought: that people with little or no budget cause the most bloody trouble and are the most pernickety.
She was a nightmare. Total nightmare. Would ring me at 10pm or before breakfast with changes she wanted to her template. Was hassling me the day before my wedding until my soon-to-be-husband took the call and told her to bog off. (I'd told her not to call but to no avail.) The weird thing was that she wouldn't tell me what the book was about so I had no sample material to draft up and show her. Finally I loaded one of my own short stories in so she could see margins, how images fitted in etc. She read it and said it was very well edited, but on the whole she didn't read fiction.
I visited her home office a few times. She was right. She had bookcases lined with business books, books on success, books on self-help, books on every subject but those you could escape into with an imaginary character.
Same goes for last year's client who still owes me thousands and who is, it seems, untraceable at the moment. She doesn't read fiction either, but reads inspiring books, business books, books on neuro linguistics...
75% of my books are fiction. I like my life that way. In future, before I take on a new client, I'll ask them who their favourite author is.
I had a situation with a client about six years ago. I thought she sounded like trouble when I first spoke to her, but the task itself sounded interesting - developing the layout for a book - so I took her on. She had virtually no budget. Which brings me to another thought: that people with little or no budget cause the most bloody trouble and are the most pernickety.
She was a nightmare. Total nightmare. Would ring me at 10pm or before breakfast with changes she wanted to her template. Was hassling me the day before my wedding until my soon-to-be-husband took the call and told her to bog off. (I'd told her not to call but to no avail.) The weird thing was that she wouldn't tell me what the book was about so I had no sample material to draft up and show her. Finally I loaded one of my own short stories in so she could see margins, how images fitted in etc. She read it and said it was very well edited, but on the whole she didn't read fiction.
I visited her home office a few times. She was right. She had bookcases lined with business books, books on success, books on self-help, books on every subject but those you could escape into with an imaginary character.
Same goes for last year's client who still owes me thousands and who is, it seems, untraceable at the moment. She doesn't read fiction either, but reads inspiring books, business books, books on neuro linguistics...
75% of my books are fiction. I like my life that way. In future, before I take on a new client, I'll ask them who their favourite author is.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Only 363 days till NEXT Christmas...
So now we're knuckling down to consuming turkey leftovers for the next few days. The cats think it's heaven and so does the dog. We had a good Christmas Day at my mother's house, where Birman Boycat amused himself by removing some of the Christmas tree decorations and batting them around the floor, then to make sure we paid attention to him jumped on the dining table. Luckily we'd finished eating. He doesn't dare jump on the table at home but takes enormous liberties at Mum's house. He simply turns those big blue eyes on her and she melts. Dog played politely with guest dog belonging to our friends and Birman Girlcat said "Bah, Humbug!", ignored everyone and slept through the day.
My ear, nose and throat bug is threatening a return, and I felt less than good yesterday. Scottish husband recommended a whisky cure last night so I had two nips followed by a hot toddy, and while I feel better today I still don't have the energy to go cycling. Which is annoying because it's stopped raining. Yes, we had a wet Christmas rather than a white one, and very grateful we were too in this droughty old land.
Never mind... I have eleventy gazillion new books to read courtesy of family and friends, which I can indulge in while my cough goes away and my ears return to normal. At the moment I'm reading a new bio of Anne Boleyn by Alison Weir, and it's riveting. The evidence points towards her well and truly being framed by Henry's cohorts and henchmen, who convince Henry she's been unfaithful and treasonous. With Jane Seymour already in his lustful sights Henry is all too willing to believe it...
Another hot toddy tonight and Penelope or Petunia should be able to have some exercise tomorrow, even if it's only a ride to the shops. Meanwhile, Tudor England beckons.
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