Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh but according to experts, the sad reality is that his work has never been fully appreciated in his homeland and a lot of his work hasn’t ever even been seen in Scotland. A new website launched in Edinburgh today hopes to rectify that.
The site features a large collection of Stevenson’s written work including letters and works previously unseen as well as photographs and other personal paraphernalia drawn from collections around the world.
Stevenson is best known for the novels Treasure Island, Kidnappedand Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde but the experts behind the site hope to introduce the world to the author’s larger body of work which encompasses poetry, travel writing, children’s stories, literary essays, and even historical novels.
I know I could learn a lot more about Robert Louis Stevenson. If I was well-versed I would have thought to include him in my Movember Literary Moustaches list!
Now 39 1/4, Adrian, still married to Daisy, is diagnosed with prostate cancer (note, the typo in the title is intentional and that is the book’s title ). Apparently despite the typical Adrian Mole topical humour, there is a darker-side to the story than Adrian fans are used to. Happily though, Pandora is said to make the expected dramatic entrances that she is known for as do Adrian’s parents.
And in true Adrian Mole fashion, during his radiation and chemotherapy, Adrian dwells upon the fraught love-life of the hospital nurse.
No matter what, the thought of Adrian Mole makes me chuckle to myself and chant, also to myself fortunately for those around me, We shall, we shall wear red socks!
Says Shephard, “There is a word for this. It begins with ‘p’ and it isn’t poetry.”
“Ridiculous,” counters Motion who explicitly states in his poem’s introduction that lines from Shephard’s book were used.
Motion states the poem is a compilation in the tradition of “found poetry” that dates back to Shakespeare and that the accounts are drawn from a variety of sources. To this Shephard responds, “the ‘voices from a variety of sources’ were not ‘found’ by Motion, but by myself.”
According to The Bookseller (via Beattie’s Book Blog) there’s been a massive slump in non-fiction hardback sales…
Could it be that everyone wants a little less reality after a year of battling recession? Or perhaps everyone finally got over the myriad of crappy celebrity memoirs that were being pumped out? Or maybe its a reality TV backlash?
Retailers are concerned about the performance of hardback non-fiction books in the run-up to Christmas, despite hardback fiction books “muscling” in to replace some of the lost revenue. Sales of this year’s top 10 non-fiction books in October were down 52% year on year, while sales of hardback fiction titles have soared by 90%.
Attention Londoner’s - This weekend (November 6 and 7th) over 75 dealers from around the UK and abroad will congragate at the Chelsea Old Town Hall (King’s Road, London SW3 5EE) for two days of rare books, prints, maps, photographs, ephemera, letters and manuscripts.
Tickets are £5 at the door, but if you head to the Chelsea Boook Fair website you can print off a ticket to give you free entry to the fair. Fair Hours are Friday 2-7pm and Saturday 11am-5pm.
As a special attraction this year, the fair will also stage an exhibition on behalf of the London Library celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first publication of Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of the 11th century Persian poem, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
The Library’s collection was donated by Edward Heron-Allen, a London solicitor who himself produced a prose translation of the Rubaiyat. Representative samples from the Heron-Allen collection, including the earliest editions (and even some of the strangest), will also be on show.
The label on a bottle of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce lists vinegar, molasses, sugar, salt, anchovies, tamarind extract, onions and garlic as key ingredients but the true secret is hidden under the guise of “spices” and “flavouring”. For 170 years, the specific contents of the popular sauce has been a closely guarded secret. That is until now.
A former employee of Lea & Perrins Brian Keogh, found a valuable treasure in a trash bin outside the sauce company - neatly written notes dating from the mid 19th century, in two leather-bound folios, detailing the original Worcestershire Sauce recipe. When Keogh died three years ago, his daughter came across the notes amongst his possessions and is now working with the Worcester Museum to have the notebooks displayed.
According to these notes, the tangy flavour could also come from cloves, soy sauce, lemons, pickles and peppers. The way the sauce is mixed and made however, remains unknown as do the quantities the noted recipe was intended to make.
Whatever the exact ingredients, ratios, or blending methods the sauce was, and is, a rip-roaring success. In a 2007 poll, Worcestshire Sauce was named the number one British ingredient to have the greatest impact on the food industry. Even English chef and restauranteur Marco Pierre White says that the sauce is what enables his to create the ‘the most delicious sauce in the world to serve with beef’.
After reading an article about the previous record holder who, at the age of five years and 11 months, had completed all the climbs in Wainwright’s guides, Sail’s parents realized that he had trekked most of them at just 4 years old.
Sail’s accomplishment was documented by his family through photographs and logs and is now being verified by the Ramblers Association.
The hikes are a great opportunity for the family to talk and spend time together but when asked what he likes best, Sail says, “My favourite thing about it is the sandwiches.”
Oh to be five again!
Alfred Wainwright’s seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells originally published between 1955 and 1966, is made up of reproductions of the British fellwalker’s handwritten manuscript and is considered the standard reference to the 214 fells of the Lake District. In 2006, a 50th Anniversary Edition Box Set of the guides was released. What a great gift idea for avid hikers!
The Guardian has posted a list of the 20 most beloved characters in children’s literature as voted on by children aged 5-12 in the UK. There’s a few I don’t recognize (because I’m Canadian, I’m supposing), and there are a couple for which complete media saturation can be blamed *cough*Hannah Montana*cough* but I was pleasantly surprised to see that children are still reading, and enjoying, some classic characters that I loved as a child.
The BBC is taking a look at forgotten classics in literature on Radio Four’s Open Book program. They are interviewing 10 British and Irish authors, asking each to suggest the work which they feel is the most under appriciated. After each author has given their pitch the public will be asked to vote on the book they feel is the best example of a forgotten classic. The book which recieves the most votes will be dramatised by Radio Four for our collective listening pleasure.
The UK reading charity Booktrust has just released the results of its survey of over 3,000 children and parents. While the results show that reading has become more popular with children, one in 20 families have less than 10 books and only one in three parents read to their children each day. This is particularly sad since 96% of the children said they enjoyed reading and books.
More results from Booktrust’s press release:
• More dads reading with their children than in previous years: 40% increase since September 2008.
• 60% of children like to share a book with their parents/carers as it shows that they like to spend time with them.
• Households with girls have ten more children’s books than those with boys. One in every 20 family homes in
Britain today has fewer than ten books.
• Children enjoying reading more: 96% of all children surveyed say that they enjoy reading, peaking at 99% among
seven year olds and falling to 89% of 12 year olds (overall, this represents a year on year increase of 5%).
• 56% of all parents and carers (and almost half of all parents of 4-5 year olds [48%]) say their child spends more
time facing a screen, playing computer games and watching DVDs rather than reading.
• Parents and carers of boys are twice as likely not to read with them compared to those who have girls.
• Technology, home entertainment and work (through emails and home working) are impacting on book time.
While flexible working is supposed to enable a positive work-life balance, children are increasingly losing out.
• Bookshelves under threat in a third of British homes: one in three parents and carers (34%) say shelves are
increasingly being filled up with DVDs and computer games, especially in homes with older children (this is the
case in 41% of homes of 11-12 year olds).
• The UK’s all time favourite fictional character according to over 1,300 children is Harry Potter, followed by Horrid
Henry and Tracy Beaker. Action heroes Captain Underpants and Ben 10 relegate children’s classic Cinderella and
Peter Pan out of the top 10. Roald Dahl’s characters including Matilda, Charlie (from Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory) and the Fantastic Mr Fox make multiple entries in the top 20 all time favourite characters.
In an effort to encourage more reading, two free books programmes - Booktime and Booked Up - are giving away 2 million free books to schoolchildren across Britain.
I’ve just finished reading Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones and must say, in all sincerity, it is one of the best books I have ever read. I’ll confess I was reluctant to read it at first - it had been on the bestseller lists and I feared that it was just another book that achieved greatness by hype.
But I was wrong. The book deserved to be a bestseller - in its own right.
Somehow, Sebold manages to capture the pain and angst of a family experiencing a horrific loss - the murder of their daughter, sister, friend. You can understand the actions of the individuals which could, offhandedly seem irrational, irresponsible or even hurtful. But because you feel their pain, you can understand why they do the things they do.
The sadness is tempered by the fact that Susie, the victim, narrates the story. It’s not that the sadness isn’t there - it most certainly is - but somehow, her presence is comforting. Perhaps it’s this that people suffering such a loss are looking for and that Sebold has skillfully captured. And no matter what your beliefs are about death and what happens thereafter, there is nothing offensive or off-putting about Sebold’s tale and you can actually view what happens from many different angles.
Having read the book, I fear the movie which is due out in December. Could a film adaptation really do this book justice? Fortunately, the movie was put into the very capable hands of director, Peter Jackson which leads me to believe, okay hope, that this will be the best adaptation that there could be.
But that doesn’t mean that I’ll like it. The characters were so real to me, I know that the actors will not match what was in my mind. And viewing the trailer confirms that. Susie doesn’t look like “my” Susie, even Holiday the dog doesn’t match. Also, as I feared, the movie seems to have to spell out some of the details that you simply pick up when reading the novel and looks perhaps to focus more on the hunt for the killer than the story does.
Saying that, I probably will watch the movie - I have a couple of months to psyche myself into it and to have the book pale in my memory. I do strongly recommend that the book be read prior to seeing the movie so that you fully “get” what Sebold was portraying and not the “Hollywood” interpretation.
It has also just been announced that The Lovely Bones has been chosen for this year’s Royal Film Performance. The Royal gala is a charitable event with all money raised going to The Cinema & Television Benevolent Fund (CTBF), which helps families connected to the film and TV industry who are experiencing financial struggles.
But I say it again - read The Lovely Bonesnow before seeing the movie in December.
He may be moody and not that handsome but Mr. Rochester from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre was named the most romantic literary character in a Mills & Boon poll. I guess most people can overlook the insane wife locked up in a room thing.
Mr. Darcy of Pride and Prejudicefame, often a favourite, took third place while Bernard Cornwell’s character Richard Sharpe trumped him at second position.
The results of the survey were announced earlier today at the Cheltenham Literary festival. Apparently guests were served pink champagne by scantily-clad waiters. Interesting . . .
Along with the prestige of winning the Man Booker Prize, Mantel will also receive a nice fat £50,000 cheque and of course a massive spike in book sales. Upon accepting the award she was quoted saying “I can tell you at this moment I am happily flying through the air,” and if previous Booker sales are any indication she won’t be flying economy.
The book has been selling well for several weeks, pushing prices of signed Wolf Hall copies to over $300, it seems that even if they we’re not placing bets with the bookies people were wagering that Mantel would bring home the prize.
Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh but according to experts, the sad reality is that his work has never been fully appreciated in his homeland and a lot of his work hasn’t ever even been seen in Scotland. A new website launched in Edinburgh today hopes to rectify that.
Getting my 5-year-old niece to walk a block can at times be a challenge. But to Sail Chapman, a block would be a baby step. This five-year-old boy is the 
He may be moody and not that handsome but Mr. Rochester from Charlotte Brontë’s