Book Spine Poetry Returns
The literary world continues to revolve, rapidly replacing all in-person events with online ones. On Thursday night I was meant to be in London seeing Anne Tyler. Instead, I spent the evening on Twitter, watching a literary prize announcement, attending two virtual book launches, and (pre)ordering three March releases from my nearest independent bookstore, Hungerford Bookshop. Today I sent the shop owner a long list of book recommendations for the website. I offered remote bibliotherapy for customers and she asked me to add to her curated lists of Long books, Books that are part of a big series, Books to make you laugh, and Books about hope (that last one was really hard). I’m also going to be taking part in two blog tours in early April for novels whose book tours were cancelled. A hint is below.
I’m continuing to read and write to the blog plan I had set up for March into April. What else is there to do? In the meantime, I assembled some titles, mostly from books on my bedside table, into a few impromptu poems. Remember what fun book spine poetry was back in 2016? (My efforts from that short-lived craze are here and here.)
A partial haiku for our times:
Plus two more wee poems of hope and lament.
Refuge
The song of the lark,
The nightingale
Abide with me
A sweet, wild note.
The Sorrows of an American
News of the world:
My own country,
Red at the bone.
I hope you are all staying safe and keeping your spirits up.
What have you been reading that has felt particularly appropriate or comforting?
Birthday Happenings
One of the best things about being a home-based freelancer is that I can arrange my work schedule to suit my life. Having my birthday fall on a Friday this year was especially good because it meant I got until Monday to submit my daily editing load. My husband was working as usual, so I spent much of the day reading under the cat and charity shopping. I bought seven books, a nice mixture of England-themed nonfiction and juicy novels, plus new-to-me comfy black flats. (Total spend: £10.25.) Being short on time that evening, we lazily ordered delivery pizza for probably the first time in eight years, followed by cocktails and cake.
I didn’t end up using my literary cakes and cocktails books this year, but that gives me a chance to proffer my own pun names for what we did make. We tried two gin cocktails we’d found recipes for in the Guardian. The one they called “Elderflower Collins” was absolutely delicious: lemon juice, elderflower cordial and gin, topped up with San Pellegrino Limonata (lemon soda) and garnished with a lemon slice and a mint sprig. I dub it “A Visit from Mr. Collins,” as in the Bennet girls will have to down quite a few of these before…
Unfortunately, the second cocktail was not a hit. The “Miss Polly Hawkins” combines chamomile-flavored gin (I steeped two chamomile teabags in 60 mL of gin for a week), rose syrup (we didn’t have it or want to buy it so substituted our homemade rosehip syrup), plain gin and egg white. Egg white is a fairly frequent ingredient in cocktails – it adds gloss and body – but we found that it made the drink gloopy. That plus the overall floral and medicinal notes meant this was fairly hard to swallow; we had to drown it in sparkling water and ice cubes to get it down. Alas, I modify Iris Murdoch to call this “An Unappealing Rose.”
However, my cake was an unqualified success. I usually go for chocolate or chocolate/peanut butter desserts, but decided to be different this year and requested the Italian Pear and Ginger Cheesecake from Genevieve Taylor’s cookbook A Good Egg. It was sophisticated and delicious. Running with the Italy thing, I’ll pick out a Forster title and call it “Where Angels Pear to Tread.” (It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense; then again, neither do a lot of the names in Tequila Mockingbird and Scone with the Wind!)
On Sunday the birthday fun continued with a trip to Hungerford Bookshop (our nearest independent bookshop) and a gentle country walk. I bought two secondhand books but came away with a total of four – in the basement they have a table covered in free proof copies, so my husband and I grabbed one each (how I wish I could have taken the lot!). It’s a great idea for rewarding customer loyalty and dealing with unwanted proofs; perhaps I’ll donate a stack of mine to them next time I’m there.

Two proofs (left) and two nonfiction purchases.
This year I got a Kindle case and two bookshop-themed memoirs as presents: The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap by Wendy Welch and Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs by Jeremy Mercer. I started reading the former – the story of a married couple opening a bookshop in recession-era Virginia – right away. I also got a poster frame so I can finally hang my literary map of the British Isles on the wall above my desk, and a “Shhhh, reading in progress” mug.
Consuming tasty food and drink + acquiring a baker’s dozen of books + getting out into the countryside = a great birthday weekend!