On the Stack #3

On my desk there's a stack of books which, for the last couple of weeks, has been slowly growing taller. This is my 'to review' pile and it's full of some absolute corkers. I will get around to reviewing them, particularly They Are Trying to Break Your Heart and The Repercussions, but I really need to figure out exactly how I feel about them first.

For now though, I thought I'd have a little chat about what I'm currently reading and what I hope to read next.

Earlier this week I finished The Repercussions by Catherine Hall and immediately moved onto something quite different (although still war-related): Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski. This is one of the Persephone books I picked up on the London Bookshop Crawl in February and it came highly recommended. I am really enjoying it; there's plenty of intrigue and it feels like there's a lot being left unsaid, although it isn't as pacey as I thought it might be. I think it's going to be another Persephone hit (is there even such a thing as a Persephone miss?!).

After Little Boy Lost I'm going to get stuck into The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf. I've been meaning to join in with Heavenali's #Woolfalong and the theme for March and April was beginnings/endings where we're encouraged to read either The Voyage Out, Night and Day and/or Between the Acts. I had an aborted attempt at reading The Voyage Out at college (pre my To the Lighthouse discovery), and it's been sitting unloved on my shelf ever since, so it's about time I gave it another go and I think this is the perfect opportunity.

Alongside Woolf I think I may dip my toes into Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic. I had a discussion about the book with one of my colleagues a couple of weeks ago and she found it really inspiring. I'm in need of a bit of creative inspiration at the moment so I think reading that in combination with Woolf will be just what I need.

What are you reading?

Weekend Adventuring

I mentioned in my post on Sunday that I've been spending a lot of weekends outside of London - partly to relax, partly for some fresh air, and partly to escape my flat. It has been lovely and I've realised that perhaps I don't need to rely on London as much as I do. There is life outside of the city!

Last weekend I was in Essex staying with Mike. We didn't really have any plans for the weekend, but felt like doing a bit of exploring around the local countryside. Contrary to the 'Essex' portrayed on television, proper Essex is beautiful. Lots of endlessly rolling fields, villages tucked into the countryside, quaint pubs, and some really stunning architecture (including a windmill or two). On Saturday, after a quick trip to Pets at Home, we set off in the direction of a village called Finchingfield.

We went there with only one goal in mind: to get a cream tea. This goal was achieved pretty much on arrival, much to my stomach's delight, so we then began to amble around the village, stopping to take the occasional picture, and hoping to burn off at least a portion of the giant scones we'd eaten.

Finchingfield is, for want of a better word, picturesque. It's got the tea room, the cosy pub, the war memorial in the middle of the green, the windmill, and the higgledy piggedly houses. There were ducks and geese lounging on the grass and plenty of people out for an afternoon stroll with their pooch - just what you'd expect from village life.

We were following the path to the windmill, stopping to admire a westie out on his walk, when my WW1 senses started to tingle. Unbeknownst to us, we'd ventured to Finchingfield on the exact weekend that they were hosting a WW1 memorial day in the village hall. I adore serendipitous moments like that.

Having found our way to the Guildhall we were met by an assortment of characters - an injured soldier, a Red Cross nurse, an army chaplain - all in character and all there to talk about their role in the war. Now, I'm sure you can imagine how excited I was by this. I was even more excited when it became clear that they were happy for me to talk with them for near enough twenty minutes each!

I love days like this, when you go out with no intention of doing anything particularly special and stumble upon something amazing. It happens relatively often in London, but I'd never thought it was possible in a sleepy village in the depths of Essex - I must stop making assumptions.

Have you ever stumbled upon something wonderful? Any recommendations for places to explore around London/UK?

Things That Made Me Happy This Week #52

1// Yoga For the last month I've been attending an 'introduction to zen yoga' course. It's on a weekday evening in a studio about twenty-five minutes from my flat and I love it. I've been practicing yoga in my bedroom for about a year now and it took me that long to find the confidence to actually go to a class. I'm glad I did. This week I was in an absolute fury before the class - furious almost to the point of speechlessness - but that all melted away after an hour of breathing, being mindful, stretching and moving. Sometimes I get so frustrated with my body's limitations (short, tight muscles and stupid hips), that I forget to recognise the full benefits of yoga, particularly what a difference it can make to my mood.

2// Heresy live recording on Thursday one of my colleagues asked if I wanted to go to a recording of a Radio Four show called Heresy. I almost declined because I had planned a date with my pjs, but I talked myself into saying yes and went. It was amazing and I'll be certainly listening to Radio Four a bit more from now on.

3// Early mornings I'm trying something a little different for my morning routine at the moment and it seems to be working quite well. I'm setting my alarm just a little earlier, getting myself a cup of hot water and lemon and then settling back into bed for twenty minutes with my book before showering and facing the day. I adore early mornings - they make me feel so calm - and I can't wait for them to be even lighter.

4// Productivity I feel like I've really found my spark again this week and I've been busy busy doing lots of things - writing, reading, tidying, planning. Having a completed to do list is a wonderful feeling.

5// Essex I've not been spending a huge amount of time in London recently. I'm very uncomfortable and unhappy in my flat so I've taken every opportunity to go away at the weekends. This weekend I've been in Essex with Mike and, as usual, it's been glorious. We even had a sneaky cream tea!

What made you happy this week?

Hello & March in Books

Hello!

So it would seem that I've had a month-long unplanned hiatus from Lit Nerd and blogging. I've not posted on here since International Women's Day and I've taken a semi-conscious step back from twitter (although instagram still kept a firm grasp of my heart and imagination). I'm not sure what prompted my withdrawl from the interwebs; I think it was the combination of being simultaneously busy and un-busy, with the vague fuzzy haziness that seemed to settle on me somewhere towards the beginning of March. Thankfully things seem a bit clearer and brighter now, no doubt as a result of the clocks going forward - the lighter evenings are making such a difference - and a few weekends spent outside of London.

I'm not going to apologise for my absence. Neither will I make empty promises about regular posting schedules or suddenly becoming a social media whizz. Yeh...not happening. What I will say is that I missed this - I always do - and that I'm going to focus on talking about the things I want from now on. If I want to write about another serendipitous Simenon find (for real, that guy is haunting my life), the frustrations of not being able to run (for the millionth time), or the things I did at the weekend (which is frequently little more than drinking coffee, perusing bookstores and walking), then I'm sure as hell going to do it.

And now, without further ado, I'm going to crack on with talking about the books I read in March.

Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins

Poppyganda by Matthew Leonard

The Playroom by Olivia Manning

Pretty Is by Maggie Mitchell

Four Frightened People by E. Arnot Robinson

The Suffragettes by various

The Circle by Dave Eggers

March turned out to be an excellent month for reading (with the exception of The Circle, but we won't talk about that). I've been feeling quite disconnected from books and reading for the most part of this year so far, moving from reading enthusiastically to almost hitting slump point, and this month was no exception. However, looking back I read some absolute corkers in March, even though one of those novels almost made me abandon my kindle on a tube platform (we definitely won't talk about The Circle). 

I seem to have rekindled my love for Virago Modern Classics, which means that I'll be shopping my own shelves much more as I have plenty of VMCs pre-loved by my Mum. Four Frightened People was decidedly odd, but interesting in how before its time it is. The Playroom was brilliant and has encouraged me to give Olivia Manning another go after I set aside The Great Fortune after only a few chapters.  

If I were to recommend only one book from this selection it would have to be Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins. This was recommended to the bookshop crawl gang by the lovely people at Persephone Books, although it was actually on my list for the day too! It's a fantastic, if sad and frustrating novel and the character of Harriet still lingers in my mind a month later.

I don't plan on writing about any of these books - clean slate and all that - but if you would like to know my thoughts on them let me know in the comments.

What did you read in March? Do you have a favourite from the month?

If you're still here after my disappearing act then thank you for sticking around!

Celebrating Women Writers

In honour of International Women's Day I thought it would be nice to share a list of my favourite female authors and which of their works I love the most. I've included authors that longtime readers of this blog will already know I adore and a few others that I don't often get the chance to speak effusively about (which I'm still not doing here, but might do in the future).

Aside from the odd foray into the Russian literary greats and my enduring love of Wilkie, for the majority I read books written by women. That's not through any particularly conscious choice because I do not let gender determine my reading habits, it's just how it's turned out. All of my favourite authors, the one's whose books I will always read, are women (except Wilkie, who is forever the odd one out).

Looking through this list I can see some common features among the novels that these authors write. Many of them have or do focus on war, and most of them are very 'person' based. I'm not really sure how to explain that, but Gardam, Dunmore, Atkinson, Vickers and Barker as examples all very much focus on people and how circumstances and situations have an impact on people. Perhaps that's the thing that grabs me, perhaps it's the intuitive and insightful exploration of real lives that draws me to these particular female writers.

Virginia Woolf

Read: To the Lighthouse

Rebecca West

Read: The Return of the Soldier

Meg Cabot

Read: The Princess Diaries

Jane Gardam

Read: The Queen of the Tambourine

Daphne du Maurier

Read: Rebecca

Dorothy L. Sayers

Read: The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club

Helen Dunmore

Read: The Lie

Kate Atkinson

Read: Behind the Scenes at the Museum

Salley Vickers

Read: Mr Golightly's Holiday

Alison Moore

Read: The Lighthouse

George Eliot

Read: Middlemarch

Tracey Chevalier

Read: Falling Angels

Jacqueline Wilson

Read: Bad Girls

Pat Barker

Read: Regeneration

This list is, in my opinion, the creme de la creme of women writers, but I'd love to hear who your favourites are - let me know in the comments and I'll add them to my 'to read' list!

Things That Made Me Happy This Week #51

1// Unexpected coffee dates my mum ended up in London on a course this week so we grabbed a couple of hours before her train home to drink herbal tea and have a chat. I don't get too see my parents too often so moments like this are wonderful.

2// Ticking things off I've been in the mood for getting things done this week and submitting my application for a PhD studentship was probably the biggest and most satisfying thing I've done in a long time. I'm not expecting to get it, but it made me feel good to go through the process of re-writing my CV and working on the application.

3// Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins what a book! It felt like I was in turmoil the entire way through this novel and even now I've moved on to my next read, Harriet is lingering.

4// Starting new books I'm sure many of you feel the same but I adore the feeling of starting a new book and being so excited for what its pages might hold. I've started Pretty Is by Maggie Mitchell which is so far very good. One of the narrators talks a lot about Samuel Richardson's novel Pamela which I had to force my way through in uni, but I love how Mitchell is using it to link with the story.

5// Spending time in the countryside I've not left London since Christmas so it was about time I got some fresh air with Mike's family in Essex this weekend. I tend to get a little crazy if I don't get a break from London, particularly since starting work in Holborn, and the last month has been full of whole weekends spent in central London. Suffice it to say, I feel much better now.

What made you happy this week?

March Goals

Tackle the TBR pile (at this point it's basically my entire bookshelf) and donate books that I have no intention of reading.

Slowly rebuild my strength by swimming and doing yoga - try to incorporate five gentle workouts a week.

Take one evening a week for 'me' time.

Continue to experiment with new recipes and cook from scratch. Limit meat intake and eat fish three times per week.

Write all the posts currently sitting in my drafts folder.

Indulge in a book that I've not got around to reading yet but really want to.

Do you have any goals for this month?