March 21, 2011
My Adventures in the Land of Books
Our last vacation was in the land that books forgot, so I was excited to get away to England, the storybook centre of the universe. 
Whenever we go to England, we always come back with enough books to fill another suitcase (especially that one time), and this trip was no exception. Though I had less luck in the charity shops than I was hoping for– they used to be rife with 1960s Penguin Paperbacks but they’re all gone now, and now all that’s left are copies of Jenny Colgan novels that came free with a copy of Cosmopolitan. And the children’s books picks were rubbish in the charity shops, but I suppose I can imagine why the second-hand children’s book market might have its challenges.
The only books I ended up getting in charity shops were I Am Not Tired and I Will Not Go to Bed by Lauren Childs at the Oxfam in Ilkley, and Tyler’s Row by Miss Read at The Panopticon Shop in Glasgow (which is a charity shop to rebuild a theatre that burned down in 1938, and we sort of got turned off their cause when they made Stuart wait out in the rain with the pram). I also got a Brambley Hedge treasury at the Oxfam in Fleetwood.
And though I didn’t end up buying anything, the Oxfam Bookshop in Glasgow was beautiful– 
much more boutique than charity shop. It was in the same square as the massive old building (now vacant) that used to house Borders, and I was informed that the loss of that store had been a tragedy– it had been a wonderful place. We also had a good time in the Waterstones in Glasgow, which looked like not much from the outside, but as I rode the escalator down to the lower level, revealed itself to have this hidden middle section between the two floors, sort of like the half-floor in Being John Malkovich, and also a coffee shop, with made my reluctant partner in bookshopping a very happy man. We found the children’s section, and Harriet hurled picture books, and then ate part of a sandwich that she found on the floor.
I was thrilled to discover The Grove Bookshop in Ilkley, because independent bookshops are few and far between even in England, and also because this one was bustling. The store has gorgeous window displays, a great selection, and seemed like a thriving community hub. There was a line-up at the till, and another woman there to pick up her special order. I delighted in the selection of Penguin merch, and bought a tote bag, and also Old Filth by Jane Gardam (and now I have to read The Man in the Wooden Hat). I also like The Grove Bookshop in Ilkley because their website boasts a “fast and efficient ordering system [which] means the vast majority of customer orders arrive the following day.”
We spent our second-last day in London, and had scheduled bookshops a-plenty. I was so happy 
to have a chance to visit Persephone Books, and actually, I’m grateful that budget constraints forced a limit of one book only, or else I would have bought the place out. Their books are so lovely, the shop so homey (but 
crowded! With Persephone books! Can you imagine anything more wonderful?), and I wanted to paw everything. To keep my fellow-travellers happy, I’d pre-selected my purchases so there was less browsing than you might imagine, but if I’d started, I never would have left and would no longer have a family.
I also enjoyed visiting the London Review Bookshop, which was not too far away. 
The Cake Shop proved disappointing, sadly, as it was too small to accommodate Harriet’s stroller or Harriet, and was crowded with people discussing existential things who probably didn’t want to listen to Harriet talk about her bum. I bought The Tortoise and the Hare here, though I’d been debating another Rachel Cusk instead, being that day in the thralls of her book The Lucky Ones. And I am a little bit sorry now that I didn’t get the Rachel Cusk books, because she’s so great, and I never found another of her novels in a bookshop the rest of the time we were in England.
Under Waterloo Bridge, I was happy to see the booksellers again, as well as a bit of sunshine. I didn’t buy anything because nothing immediately struck my eye, and because Stuart and Harriet were being very patient but I didn’t want to push them too far. I am sure if I’d browsed just a little while longer, I would have come up with one treasure or another. (I also wonder if the fact that I found less treasures amongst the used books this trip is because it’s now been a few years since I bought everything Margaret Drabble ever wrote.)
We spent the rest of our London day at The Tate Modern, and I enjoyed exploring 
both its bookshops with their wonderful selections of children’s books. It was especially exciting to see Sara O’Leary‘s beautiful Where You Came From on display, amidst some fine company.
We spent our last day in Windsor, where I tried and failed to find a bookish treasure in the charity shops (including a wonderfully stocked Oxfam Bookshop, but everything good they had, I had already). We stopped in at the Windsor Waterstones and bought Harriet The Gruffalo and Alfie’s Feet, and I tried and failed to find a Rachel Cusk novel to buy, just as I would do the next day at the airport. Regrets, I’ve had a few.
But not too many. Our trip was full of bookish wonder. I arrived home with a most respectable stack, and what’s more, I’ve since read each and every one of them.
March 6, 2011
Below stairs
My Anglophilia is really curious when you consider that if I’d lived in England back when times were really merrie, I would have worked six days a week in a cotton mill and my husband would have been killed in a coalmine, because truly, this is the stock we descend from. If I was in a Barbara Pym novel, I would probably be the charwoman. Virgina Woolf would have kept me safely below-stairs. Class is such a funny thing, easy to overlook when we’re reading Rachel Cusk back home in Canada, but while reading her during the few days we spent in Windsor, I realized that I’m not the kind of woman Rachel Cusk writes about at all. I have never seen such well-dressed women as those I saw pushing expensive prams up and down Windsor’s cobblestone streets, whose accents were so cultivated I could scarcely understand them, which didn’t matter because they weren’t talking to me anyway. These women made me terribly ashamed of my shoes, perhaps for good reason.
Nevertheless, it is my great fortune to be a Canadian married to an Englishman, because it means my English indulgences also fulfill familial obligation, but moreover that said family puts us up in the spare-room and entertains the baby. It means that I get to call myself middle-class, and that Kate Middleton is also middle-class, even though her parents are millionaires and she has nice shoes. It means that I can go rural-England crazy again (too much Midsomer Murders) and start lusting after a floral-printed garden spade with matching Wellington boots. I start raiding farm shops for delectable sausage. It is a good thing we get to come home from England, because I’m so annoying when I’m there, and my husband would probably divorce me if we stayed too long.
Last week, I bought a gorgeous new string of bunting from a woman who has survived the 
recession by going into the bunting biz. It seems the English are stringing a lot of the stuff these days, while stiffening their upper lips, and it’s kind of admirable. So many empty store-fronts– it’s devastating, really, in a way we barely fathom over here. And maybe it’s just spring time, but things do seem to be beginning to make a turn for the better. The tulips are up, and there are buds on the trees. Here, there is just fresh snow.
We had the most wonderful trip. I bought all kinds of books, but managed to read almost all of them en route, so it’s like I didn’t buy any books at all (very frugal). Stay tuned for an upcoming post about our literary escapades. In fact, stay tuned for upcoming posts galore, but only about our trip, because I can’t think of anything else right now. Real life will come back quickly, I’m sure, but we’re still not finished our washing, I’m still not finished reading my new English books, and there is a bar of Dairy Milk still to be devoured (but not much longer).
February 27, 2011
Can Lit?
I br0ught a few Canadian novels with me, but have actually forgotten that Canada was ever such a place, so they’ve remained unopened in my suitcase. Instead, I’ve delighted in three epistolary novels in a row. The first was Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster, which wasn’t remotely English, except for the umbrellas on the cover, and that was enough– I really liked it. Next was Burley Cross Postbox Theft, which was absolutely brilliant– I loved the ending. And on Friday, I read Felicity and Barbara Pym by Harrison Solow, which was even stranger than Nicola Barker’s novel, if such a thing was possible, but I adored it. The novel consists of correpondance from an 
academic to a student undertaking the study of liberal arts at an American university who is about to begin a seminar on Barbara Pym. Who is unclear about why she should bother to read Barbara Pym, and the academic is unscathing in her criticism of the student’s point of view, of her limitations. Unbashedly snobbish (but not in all respects. She recommends Miss Read and Jilly Cooper’s Class in order to understand Pym’s world), as she takes down the student for her own provincialism and then proceeds to outline why we should bother reading Barbara Pym, as well as how we should approach the liberal arts, which is by drawing a connection between impeccable literary analysis and the wider world. Connections between the insular nature of Pym’s village life and ideas of the earth-centred universe, and the island mentality of the English anyway. Absolutely fascinating, and though I appreciated Barbara Pym before I read it, I picked up her Less Than Angels next, of course, and I am a better reader now.
This weekend, we had a wonderful time in Glasgow with good friends (two of whom hopped over from Ireland for the occasion). The drive was lovely, the city was so vibrant and beautiful, and the sun shone and shone and we haven’t paid for it yet. Plus, we had afternoon tea at the Willow Tea Rooms, and had the kind of fun last night that is only possible in the company of the Scottish and the Irish. Tomorrow, to Yorkshire, and then a drive down South, then a day in London, and a day in Windsor, and before we know it, we’ll be home again, home again (and happy to be there. Though apparently, there is snow?).
February 24, 2011
Report from the (wrong side of the) road
The most amazing thing that ever happened to me happened on our trip to the UK in 2007 when I predicted that our car rental would be upgraded to a Saab convertible, and it was, and so we drove with the top down from North Yorkshire over the dales, across the Pennines until it started to rain– it was perfect. Similar fortune wouldn’t have worked as well this time, as the carseat would have been a tight squeeze in the Saab, and there would be no room for our enormous suitcases. Besides, the Saab was far too wide for maneuvering down English roads, I kept scraping the alloy wheels against curbs, and got charged 200 pounds (which brought our total up to the cost of a Saab in the first place, and so it goes).
No, this time I predicted that we’d get upgraded to first class on the flight over, and I’m not sure if I’m psychic, or merely good at conjuring realities, but it worked again, and our flight was a dream. We were not so first class that we got to sleep in pods and actual silverware, but we got comfortable seats and foot-rests, and a kit with earplugs and an eye-mask. We actually slept! Arriving in London on Sunday morning, feeling much better than we’d ever imagined we would.
Since then, we have seen old friends, Harriet has played with scores of children, we have driven 
from Berkwhire to Lancashire, I have mastered round-abouts, I avoided hitting a pheasant on a very scary journey along a two lane road with brick walls built up on either side, many twists and turns, a 100km speed limit, and some points at which the two lanes were narrowed to one. I am reading The Burley Cross Postbox Theft by Nicola Barker, which is the best possible book I could be reading at this time. Tomorrow we are driving to Scotland to see friends from our Japan days who we haven’t seen since our wedding five and a half years ago. Today we walked along the sea front, and Harriet watched the tide come in, and the sun shone, and it was lovely. When the sun shines here, people like to tell you that we’ll pay for it later. We have been eating copious amounts of cake and tea and scones. On Monday, Stuart and I are taking a trip for afternoon tea in at Bettys in Ilkley, because Ilkley is the constabulary serving Burley Cross. We’re looking forward to a day in London near the end of next week, and another day exploring Windsor.
And most of all we’re looking forward to the fact that we’ve been away for nearly a week, and our vacation isn’t even half over.
February 19, 2011
If you need me…
…I will be beside the seaside. In February, no less! And with my computer, so you’ll be hearing from me from time to time.
February 16, 2011
Light at the end of the tunnel
On Saturday, we are going to England, baggage handler strike notwithstanding, and don’t worry, I have a new spring coat (the Christine trench, in geranium) because the weather is calling for rain. We are going for two weeks! I have never gone on a two week vacation in adulthood– this is a monumental occasion. I am exited about numerous things, and terrified about others (round-abouts!). But mostly at the moment, I am excited about books. I had a bunch of books to read for various reasons in the last two weeks, and then all my Toronto Library holds came in at once, so that reading is about all I’ve been doing this last while. But as soon as I’m finished with my final library book, I am going to read magazines until our departure, because, of course, I have to start every journey with a fresh book. It’s a superstition of mine.
I am going to take Jean Webster’s Daddy Long Legs with me to read, and on a six hour flight with a toddler, my goal is to read at least five pages. Once we’re settled and Harriet is in the care of her grandparents, however, there will be reading time aplenty (fit in around trips out for cream teas). I am also going to read my final Canada Reads Independently book, Lynn Coady’s Play the Monster Blind, and I am bringing an ARC of Timothy Taylor’s new book The Blue Light Project.
Whilst in England, I plan on buying Burley Cross Postbox Theft by Nicola Barker, a novel by Rachel Cusk (but which. Any suggestions? I’ve only read Arlington Park and A Life’s Work), and a very odd book called Felicity and Barbara Pym by Harrison Solow, which isn’t actually British, but oh well. I will probably buy many other books too, especially since we are going to visit the London Review Bookshop (which is also a cake shop).
Once I’m home again, there’s a packed shelf of books I’m looking forward to bringing in the spring with, books that are too big for travel: Allison Pearson’s I Think I Love You, the new PEN Anthology Finding the Words, and Zsuzsi Gartner’s story collection Better Living Through Plastic Explosives. Among others, oh yes. Many, many others.
September 28, 2010
When Fenelon Falls
I wrote about my adventures this summer in the land of (almost) no bookshops, and had determined that this area of the Kawartha Lakes region was about as unliterary as they come. And then, this Sunday at the Word on the Street Festival, I discover hot off the Coach House Presses is When Fenelon Falls by Dorothy Ellen Palmer– somehow this unliterary land has generated a book of its own. Having spent about fifteen childhood summers in the vicinity, in addition to a week in August, this book is now a must-read, and though Palmer’s story takes place long before I came along, I am sure some bits will still be quite familiar.
August 9, 2010
Adventures in the land of (almost) no bookshops
So we made a major error when we went away on vacation, assuming that the second half of The News Where You Are, a magazine, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo would be books enough to tide Stuart over. It distinctly wasn’t, and though he came to the end wanting to find that girl who played with fire, he said he’d be content with any book, and so we went searching. We spent a couple of hours in Bobcaygeon on Tuesday, where Stuart was generally irritable because The Tragically Hip had got his hopes up. In amongst many stores gone out of business, there was one bookshop, but it was so crap that my one purchase there was a wind chime. Not knowing then quite how much desperate times would call for desparate measures, we’d had the nerve to turn our noses up. (I had also been promised $30 Birkenstocks at Bigleys. We really did leave Bobcaygeon terribly disappointed).
The next day we went to Fenelon Falls, which had been pretty central to my childhood summers, and I was sad to see the main strip had become a bit bleak, with Canadian Tire and the grocery store moving into bigger stores on the outskirts, leaving a few (very) poor man’s Bargain Harolds in their midsts. We thought maybe the grocery store might stock a novel or two, but they didn’t, and they didn’t even have good magazines. I kept driving up and down the one street in Fenelon Falls, willing a bookshop to appear, but one didn’t and I was so sad. “What kind of town doesn’t have a bookshop?” I kept railing, slapping the dashboard. “What does this say about us as a people?” Fed up with my melodrama, Stuart asked a passer-by if there was a bookshop. The woman shook her head, said we could try the library, but it was closed by now. Which made us even more depressed, because it was only 3:00.
“Maybe Coboconk has a bookshop?” I wondered, which is when you know you’re really desperate. At the very least, we thought it might have a Shopper’s Drug Mart, which does stock mass-market paperbacks. So we drove into town, and noted they had a Rona AND a Home Hardware, but no bookshop. So we turned around to go back where we’d come, when Stuart noticed a dilapidated warehouse with a sign that said, “BOOKS!”. It was one of those places that sold liquidation stock, with other signs including, “WINDOWS!”, “TIRES!” and “FIREWORKS!”. Not holding out a great deal of hope, we stopped and went in. They had a toilet seat section. The books section was totally bizarre though, comprising mainly horrid romance novels and study guides for 19th century classic novels. There was a massive stack of a book about Grace Paley’s short stories. There were three copies of the Louise Fitzhugh biography for $2 each. Of the lot, we found one novel which Stuart might have contemplated reading not under duress (or even reading for pleasure) and it was Watchman by Ian Rankin, so we bought it for a grand six bucks.
That night, back at the cottage, I was recounting our adventures, and somebody said to me, “Why didn’t you just go to Bob’s?” Which, apparently, is Fenelon Falls’ great used bookshop, across the road from the library even. A few blocks off the main strip, around the corner from the LCBO, and Fenelon Falls grew eight sizes bigger in my estimation at that moment. The world was a less bleak place, where the crap books aren’t always on sale with the toilet seats. (We also phoned my mom, and asked her to bring up the next Steig Larsson when she came).
We went to Bob’s on Friday, which is actually Bob Burns’ Books, and it was everything I’d been promised. Big and bustling, stocked with cottagey tomes, yellow paperbacks in alpha-order, but also a wonderful selection of literature, and children’s books, and plays and poetry, and coffee. I wanted to kiss the ground it stood on, or at the very least its floor, but I didn’t. Instead, I bought The Guy Not Taken by Jennifer Weiner, because I am enamoured of commercial fiction short story collections, and The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas, because I’d heard him on the CBC the week before and it sounded interesting. Though I read now that the book might be misogynistic, and that India Knight hates it, so it’s probably not my usual thing, but should make for something interesting.
August 8, 2010
Not glad to get home at all
Interestingly, this last week of going along, listening to all the things we couldn’t hear and not bothering turned out to be quite monumental. During our escape to the wilds of The Kawarthas, Harriet learned to walk, learned to dance, and made her first friend, who was called Izzy and is two. (Harriet has other friends, but I have for the most part projected these friendships upon her, whereas Izzy was friended independently. Harriet was totally in love, they hugged each other good-bye at the end of the week.)
Stuart and I spent a week without the internet, and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly, in particular our games of Scrabble on the porch in the evenings. We were both unsurprised to come home and discover we’d missed not much at all while we were away.
And to my great benefit, Stuart started reading Stieg Larsson en vacance, which meant that for a few days my husband loved reading just as much as I did. This was how I managed to get almost five books read during Harriet’s naptimes (which were made expansive by her running around like a wild animal when out of doors, and thus becoming exhausted). It also led to some book-buying adventures, which I’ll be recounting here in coming days.
It was a wonderful week, everything we wanted and needed, and also full of corn-on-the-cob and fresh peach pie. And no matter how often we swept the floor, there was sand underfoot, and there was sand in the shower, and on the table, and finally throughout the bed, so we were glad to get home and lose the grit. But other than that I really don’t think we were so glad to get home at all.
