The George Inn

The George Inn is one of my favourite pubs in London and it's not hard to explain why. Built during the medieval period in a courtyard just off Borough High Street in Southwark, South London, The George Inn (or the George and Dragon as it was once known) is the only remaining galleried London coaching inn left in the city.

During the medieval times, The George was one of many public houses of its kind, The Tabard being arguably the most famous as it was where Chaucer began the Canterbury Tales in 1338. The George itself, now a National Trust building, was no stranger to literary names though, with the likes of Shakespeare (The Globe is just a short walk down the river) and Charles Dickens frequenting the inn when its Middle Room was used as a coffee house. Dickens actually referred to The George in his novel, Little Dorritt. Dickensian drawings now hang on the wall so that, together with the charmingly wonky galleried wooden front, you really feel you have stepped back in time.

You would have thought that The Great Fire of London in 1666 would have made the people of Southwark south of the Thames rethink things a little but in 1676 a small fire in an oil painting shop spread fast and wide, destroying much of Southwark. The George and the Tabard were both severely damaged in the blaze and were subsequently renovated. The Tabard unfortunately does not still stand today, though, as it was pulled down in the 19th Century, and others of its kind fell victim to the Blitz.

Part of the inn's charm is the way it is made up of lots of little rooms, narrow staircases and wooden balcony's that look over the courtyard. The Old Bar on the ground floor was used as a waiting room for passengers on coaches, the Middle Bar as I explained before was a Coffee Room and upstairs, which is now a restaurant, would have had bedrooms to let.

You really have to visit this place if you get the chance. You'd be forgiven for getting carried away with the atmosphere and thinking you are a writer yourself after you've had a drink here...

The George Inn Yard

77 Borough High Street

Southwark

London

SE1 1NH

RSC to stage Wolf Hall

"From the moment I started writing Wolf Hall the characters were fighting to be off the page." ~ Hilary Mantel

I think I may have more posts about Hilary Mantel than any other author... except maybe my fav, Ginny Woolf... but Mantel really is continuing to take the literary world by storm. Not only has it today been announced that she has become the first person to win both the Costa AND the Booker in the same year. The other news? Her Booker-winning Tudor trilogy is to be transformed for the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company.

The books, which will be performed in two parts, will take to the stage as part of the RSC's 2013 Winter season at The Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Londoners don't worry, though, it looks likely that the plays, if successful, will most likely come to London eventually.

We have been promised some extra material that did not originally feature in the books. Seriously, how is that possible? The books are humungous! Is it just me or do you think that Hilary Mantel's head should be a lot bigger? Like Noddy or something so that all this info that she has researched can fit... what an intellectual force she is.

Mantel has been working closely with RSC artistic director, Gregory Duncan, so that the theatrical language of the time is captured successfully. See how she feels about her books making the leap to the stage in the video above.

Tolkein's Towers

You needn't have read Tolkien's famous Lord of the Rings trilogy, or perhaps even have seen the films, to know who he is and to have heard of the famous Two Towers that overlook his fictional Middle Earth: Minas Morgul and Orthanc.

Tolkien spent much of his childhood in Birmingham and it is thought that the two towers were inspired by two buildings that he would have been landmarks in his childhood memories of Stirling Road: Perrott's Folly and Edgbaston Waterworks Tower.

Built in 1758, Perrott's Folly is a 96 ft tall Georgian tower and Edgbaston Waterworks Tower, which stands close by, a grand Victorian building with distinct Gothic architecture. You can see why both towers would have caught any one's imagination. 

Perrott's Folly that once towered magnificently 139 narrow steps above a large park is now said to sway in strong winds and has rarely been opened since it was closed in 1979, has just been bought... for £1. Yup, no missing zeros - one single pound.

It's been bought by Trident Reach, The People Charity, who have reopened the tower for Birmingham's citizens and Tolkien pilgrims the world over after raising a million pounds to restore the historic landmark. The mastermind behind this project, Ben Bradley, is hoping that it will eventually be more than just a pit-stop on the tourist trail and instead grow into a place for people of all ages and backgrounds.

Charing Cross Road

I've lived in London since I was born, so I'm reasonably well-accustomed with the places to go when shopping for specific things. If I was a musician and wanted to buy a new guitar or saxophone, I'm pretty sure Denmark Street would sort me out. If I wanted to buy a tailored man's suit.. which, you know.. I might want to do, I'd probably head over to Saville Row. As with any modern city, you can probably find most of these things in lots of places but, for me, if you're on the lookout for second hand books in Central London, it's got to be, and has been for generations, Charing Cross Road. At the north end you will find the Foyles flagship store and one of the few remaining Blackwells. South of Shaftesbury Avenue, though, you will walk past bookshop after bookshop filled to the brim with second-hand reads.

I went for a walk along Charing Cross Road this weekend. There's something really lovely about walking down a street filled with shops that have been trading for years and years but in any other case, the stock will have changed significantly. With books, second hand ones in particular, new ones may come in and old ones may be bought, but there will still be books, whether the originals or new editions of old titles, that are still filling the same shelves and will, hopefully, continue to do so.

Everyone is guilty of buying a book online instead of in the shop, but a trip down Charing Cross Road is all you need to remind yourself that bookshops are just way more fun than amazon. You can browse easier and they smell. so. good. I did learn recently that some people don't smell books. I found it odd to find that I myself was the unusual person, but if you don't smell books, I recommend you start doing it. That's my weird tip of the day...

Other second hand bookshops you may wants to try:

Blackheath Bookshop, Blackheath, London

Waterloo Bridge Book Market, London's Southbank

The London Bookbarge, Regents Canal

Shakespeare & Company, Vienna

The Great American Novel: First Round

You may remember that back in the summer I came across a competition started by Guardian journalist and blogger, Matthew Spencer, to find out which is the greatest 'Great American Novel'. The first round has taken place now, setting duals up between several top notch candidates. Some great arguments were made and information taken from numerous sources in this highly anticipated first round draw. The results are as follows:

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner (W)
vs

JR by William Gaddis – The Battle of the "Difficults"

That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx (W)
vs

Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton (W)vs

Something Happened by Joseph Heller

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (W)
vs

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

Rabbit, Run by John Updike (W)
vs

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin

Billy Bathgate by EL Doctorow (W)
vs

We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates

Libra by Don DeLillo (W)
vs

42nd Parallel by John Dos Passos 

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (W)
vs

The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster

Now I don't know about you, but I would say that although there are some top authors on both sides of the drawer, this seems like some authors didn't have a chance. By that I mean that I know every single one of the winners and only three of the losing novelists... So perhaps I am not as well-read in this department as I hoped... oh well!

Anyway, in summary, there don't seem to be any particularly controversial decisions I think you'll agree, but there were some definite contests - namely Steinbeck vs. Auster and Wharton vs. Heller. Although the winners aren't hard to guess, each author has a big and long-standing following. Luckily, though, I am yet to hear of any violent fights breaking out in libraries... but, saying that, I'd pay good money to see book geeks flapping bookmarks and library cards at each other...

In the second half of the drawer we are expecting to see the likes of Fitzgerald, Nabokov, Chandler, Toni Morrison and post-modernist Pynchon who my brain will never ever understand. Ever.

You can follow Matthew's blog via the Guardian website here.

What to read when it's snowing?

There are plenty of stereotypes about the Brits - I'm sure we don't know most of them - but one that I am particularly fond of is our complete and utter obsession with the weather. We can't have a conversation without mentioning it, we are the first to jump out into the parks and onto the beaches as soon as it gets over 15 degrees, we deny profusely that it rains all year round (particularly when it's raining) and by God do we love talking about snow.Well, as it's been snowing quite a lot more than we are normally used to in London, I thought we needed a suitably snowy post. Here are three books that we should all get off the shelves when everything goes white and all we can do is snuggle down and read:

The Classic:

Dracula by Bram Stoker

"We are in Transylvania, and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things. Nay, from what you have told me of your experiences already, you know something of what strange things there may be."

Collected inside this book are diary entries, letters and newspaper clippings that piece together the depraved story of the ultimate predator. A young lawyer on an assignment finds himself imprisoned in a Transylvanian castle by his mysterious host. Back at home his fiancée and friends are menaced by a malevolent force which seems intent on imposing suffering and destruction. Can the devil really have arrived on England's shores? And what is it that he hungers for so desperately?

I'm a big fan of this book. It's a bit long but it really is all it's cracked up to be. For me, it is one of the few old fashioned scary books that is actually pretty scary. Oh, and it's absolutely swelling with innuendo...

The Costa:

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penny

“Clearly the secret of happiness...is a variation on the general principle of banging your head against a wall, and then stopping.” 

1867, Canada: as winter tightens its grip on the isolated settlement of Dove River, a man is brutally murdered and a 17-year old boy disappears. Tracks leaving the dead man's cabin head north towards the forest and the tundra beyond. In the wake of such violence, people are drawn to the township - journalists, Hudson's Bay Company men, trappers, traders - but do they want to solve the crime or exploit it? One-by-one the assembled searchers set out from Dove River, pursuing the tracks across a desolate landscape home only to wild animals, madmen and fugitives, variously seeking a murderer, a son, two sisters missing for 17 years, a Native American culture, and a fortune in stolen furs before the snows settle and cover the tracks of the past for good.

I absolutely loved this book. So much so that there is already a review of it on this blog! It's a real quiet, un-wordy book, which is sometimes just what you need - especially when it's snowing. It's also set in a very wintery landscape in northern Ontario. Read my review here.

The Children's Book:

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

"You are so young, Lyra, too young to understand this, but I shall tell you anyway and you'll understand it later: men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain."

Lyra Belacqua and her animal daemon live half-wild and carefree among scholars of Jordan College, Oxford. The destiny that awaits her will take her to the frozen lands of the Arctic, where witch-clans reign and ice-bears fight. Her extraordinary journey will have immeasurable consequnces far beyond her own world...

You can't get more snowy than the Arctic and that's exactly where you're taken in this absolute classic. I don't know anyone who has read this book and hasn't fallen completely in love with Lyra's world. It is simultaneously one of the most exciting, terrifying, emotionally testing and beautiful worlds you could come to in a book. I feel these kinds of worlds are reserved just for children but really we should all be reading them if we ever missed them as a child. Just to put a stop to all that squishiness, this trilogy is also flipping brutal. Perhaps that's why only kids should read it...

Got It Covered?

Thanks to magazine, We Love This Book, we have probably the best literary quiz of 2012 and that's saying a lot considering how amazing my Harry Potter Christmas quiz was. Anyway, after guessing embarrassingly few answers in the quiz at our work Christmas 'do', I have now been through the answers kindly provided by the magazine and think you should all have a go! Click here to see a bigger version (that you can print if you're really keen) and then once you've had a go, have a look at the answers. Just to clarify, these books were all published in 2012 and are a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. Good luck!

Restless

Blurb: It is 1939. Eva Delectorskaya is a beautiful 28-year-old Russian emigree living in Paris. As war breaks out she is recruited for the British Secret Service by Lucas Romer, a mysterious Englishman, and under his tutelage she learns to become the perfect spy, to mask her emotions and trust no one, including those she loves most. Since the war, Eva has carefully rebuilt her life as a typically English wife and mother. But once a spy, always a spy. Now she must complete one final assignment, and this time Eva can't do it alone: she needs her daughter's help.




In 2010, Channel 4 broadcast William Boyd's Any Human Heart in a four part series starring Jim Broadbent, Kim Catrall, Matthew McFadyen, Hayley Atwell and Gillian Anderson. It was extremely well-received, winning a BAFTA and sending the original 2002 novel soaring up the bestseller charts once again. Completely unaware at the time that it was an adaptation, I got completely carried away with watching it that I denied myself what so many people have told me since was 'one of the best ever books' they've read. One of the most annoying things in life is when someone goes 'oh, but you haven't read the book?'. Conversation is struck dead and you have to retreat into that clearly deeply uncultured world in which you live. Why do we do that to each other? It's almost as bad as saying 'you really didn't know that?'. Cruel.

Anyway, I wasn't going to make that mistake again so as soon as it was announced that Hayley Atwell would star in a new William Boyd adaptation for the BBC over Christmas, my then complete and utter apathy for work and ten idle fingers lead me to quickly add Restless to my Christmas wish list. A couple of months later here I am having read it and about to tell you allll about it.

I've got to say, I was a bit disappointed at the beginning. The writing seemed to me a little average for someone so highly praised and I wasn't feeling particularly excited by the plot (which was odd considering 1939 female spy sounds just up my street). The narrative alternates between 1939 and the 1970s when the protagonist is employing her daughter in one final mission. The problem is that you know that Eva is going to survive at least until the 1970s so any threat she comes to feels inevitably less potent.

By the time I got into the bulk of the novel, though, I was involved. My train journeys seemed suddenly quicker as I kept reading, wanting to see who was going to betray who and when and why. I liked the way Boyd alternates between the reality of spying during the war and the reflective moments where you can start to see where Eva's story fits in the big picture.

I would say that I wasn't a big fan of Eva's daughter for the most part. I can't put my finger on why, just a bit annoying, but she felt believable and so it didn't really matter. My favourite character has got to be Romer. He was the only one, to me, who had any real mystery around him and this novel, ultimately, is supposed to be a mystery! I wasn't entirely convinced by his relationship with Eva and would have perhaps liked to see him come out a little bit smarter than perhaps he does at the end. That's not to say Boyd doesn't do this with Romer, I just think perhaps I'd have liked him to push it a little further.

Overall, though, I enjoyed this book. It was a classic Costa winner - easy to read, unpretentious and a solid plot.

6.5/10

Les Miserables

In 19th-century France, Jean Valjean, who for decades has been hunted by the ruthless policeman Javert after he breaks parole, agrees to care for factory worker Fantine's daughter, Cosette. The fateful decision changes their lives forever.

I've been wanting to see Les Miserables for almost a year, which gives us an idea of how long the hype surrounding this Oscar nominated adaptation has been going on. Almost a year ago to date, I was thinking of what books I wanted to read in 2012 and that I needed at least one classic in there. I'm always shamefully apathetic with classics - they just normally take so long to read that, no matter how good they are, I become bored. In anticipation of the film, though, I wanted to try Victor Hugo's original novel. Holy mother... it's a frickin' doorstop of a book. Thus, not unsurprisingly, I have not read the book. I have, though, just seen the film and completely loved it.

Whenever I go and see a musical, be it on screen or on stage, somehow I always seem to forget that they are going to do a hell of a lot of singing... so much so that Amanda Seyfried, one of the headline names, does not have to test her English accent skills even once as every single line she says is sung. The director, Tom Hooper, approached the singing, as you have probably heard by now, in an interesting way. He didn't cast the best singers in Hollywood for this film and he didn't stick them in a recording booth for days on end to perfect each track. They just sang there and then as they were acting in an effort to get across the reality of their characters' situations and I think it really works.

I completely understand that, as a result of Hooper's approach, some people are distracted from time to time as the singing in places is a little shaky, but I see the result as showing singing to be the ultimate form of expressing emotion. Unfortunately, I am completely awful at it. I cried my way through Anne Hathaway's surely Oscar-winning performance of I Dreamed a Dream, but I'm not entirely sure whether I was crying more about Fantine's desperate situation or the fact that, despite many hours screeching along to Glee's version of the classic song, I still cannot reach those high notes.

As a story, I am sure that massive chunks have been cut out since the original novel. Impossible not to. I could complain, but there's something nice about the fact that we don't have to go back 2 more times before we see the ending...*cough* the Hobbit... You really go along with Jean Valjean the entire way through his journey - you wouldn't want that disrupted. I also am a sucker for any story related to the French Revolution (as you may have noticed in my review of A Place of Greater Safety...)

Controversially, none of the four main cast members are British despite it being a British film. Don't get me wrong, Jackman, Hathaway, Crowe... they're all phenomenal in this movie, but I feel, as a Brit, I need to praise the stand-out British performances - Eddie Redmayne's voice didn't falter once and he nailed his heart-wrenching solo, Samantha Barks is a true star that I hope comes back to the big screen again, the pairing of Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen is hilariously spectacular, little Gavroche is a scene-stealer and it was great to see members of the West End cast, including Barks, transform their characters for film. Plus, it was lovely to see France come to life on my doorstep as the Royal Naval College in Greenwich was transformed into Revolutionary Paris.

There were tiny aspects that didn't work for me - some of the lyrics, the slightly rushed feeling from time to time, the occasional strained note and perhaps unfairly I could have done with a little more dialogue - but overall, I really enjoyed this film. And it made me cry at all the right times and for all the right reasons... I have been known to cry at all the wrong times in other films...

Virginia Woolf at Tavistock Square

Yesterday in 1924, Virginia and Leonard Woolf bought the third floor flat at 52 Tavistock Square. Tavistock Square is located in Bloomsbury, a notoriously literary district of London (an area where I conveniently work...) that gave its name to the highly influential and well-regarded Bloomsbury Set of which the Woolfs were members. The square is a stone's throw from the British museum.

Virginia Woolf's relationship with Bloomsbury began in 1902 when she and her her three siblings moved there following their father's death. It was not until 1924, though, that Tavistock Square became home. 64 years since Virginia Woolf's death, the square has gained a more somber reputation as the location where the Number 30 bus was destroyed by one of the explosions on 7th July 2005. This was not, however, the first time that war visited number 52. In October 1940 the Woolf's home fell victim to a direct hit from a German bomb:

So to Tavistock Square. With a sigh of relief saw a heap of ruins. Three houses, I sh. say gone. Basement all rubble. Only relics an old basket chair (bought in Fitzroy Sqre days) & Penmans board To Let. Otherwise bricks & wood splinters. One glass door in the next door house hanging. I cd just see a piece of my studio wall standing: otherwise rubble where I wrote so many books. Woolf, Virginia, 'Sunday 20th October 1940', Patrick Rosenbaum, Stanford, The Bloomsbury Group: A Collection of Memoirs and Commentary, (University of Toronto Press, 1995), p. 62

The site where Number 52 Tavistock Square stood now forms part of the Tavistock Hotel but Woolf has not been forgotten; a statue of her stands today in the gardens of Tavistock Square.

A Place of Greater Safety

Georges-Jacques Danton: zealous, energetic and debt-ridden. Maximilien Robespierre: small, diligent and terrified of violence. And Camille Desmoulins: a genius of rhetoric, charming and handsome, yet also erratic and untrustworthy. As these young men, key figures of the French Revolution, taste the addictive delights of power, the darker side of the period’s political ideals is unleashed – and all must face the horror that follows.

I felt it was time for a new book review. I find Christmas, though, is not ideal reading time for me and so I've picked one I read a while back and one of my favourites: A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel.

It's fair to say, this is an historical novel of epic proportions. Yes, it tackles the monstrous subject of the French Revolution in literary HD, but it is also very long. The first hundred pages of character exposition, although necessary rather than indulgent, have yourself looking at your watch wondering if you'll be able to read a hundredth of this novel before tea time ( *cough* 3pm sharp...I can't help it that my life revolves around food).

The novel is meticulously researched though and, with help from Mantel’s name guide, most characters are explained and easily followed. The more minor personalities, the Seamus Finnigans and Dean Thomases if you will, can though sometimes become a little lost in the bustle of the rest of the plot. Consequently, scenes that were particularly dramatic or well-known, such as Marat's murder in the bath (it really doesn't spoil that much), ended up being more caricatured than sentimental.

Saying that, Mantel’s female characters are strong. Witty, opinionated and far from submissive, Mantel’s women give Katniss a run for her money and protect us all from nine-hundred pages of the traditional phallocentric drivel present in so many other historical novels. This in partnership with great writing (I actually prefer the writing in this than Wolf Hall...) makes this vast brick of a novel and all Mantel's meticulous research accessible to the average, slightly apathetic reader - aka me. And she does it without writing all the characters into an orgy a la Philippa Greggory, not that orgies don't have their place in historical fiction... 

Mantel throws you into the action of the revolution, she doesn't position the reader too far away. Importantly, though, she didn't try to impinge a particular viewpoint on me - I like that. All in all, I'm quite happy for this book to sit alongside earlier more famous interpretations by Dumas and Dickens, as a more modern, pool-side alternative. And you really do need to read this at the poolside.. it needs a chunk of undisturbed time. It's really not a commuter read ladies unless you want massive man shoulders from lugging it about for months on end...

This novel gets 9/10

Costa Book Awards 2013

Happy New Year!  The festive season officially finishes today so I am back in business.

The New Year has kicked off well for female writers, securing every single prize at the Costa Book Awards for the first time in the Awards' history. Carrying on her 2012 winning streak, guess who walks away with best novel of the year? Yup, Hilary Mantel for Bring Up the Bodies.

So, if you're struggling to choose which novel will start your 2013 reading list, then take a look at these:

Costa Novel Award: Bring up the Bodies Hilary Mantel

See my review here

Costa First Novel Award: The Innocents Francesca Segal

What if everything you'd ever wanted was no longer enough?

Adam and Rachel are getting married at last. Childhood sweetheartswhose lives and families have been intertwined for years; theirs is set to be the wedding of the year. But then Rachel's cousin Ellie makes an unexpected return to the family fold. Beautiful, reckless and troubled, Ellie represents everything that Adam has tried all his life to avoid - and everything that is missing from his world. As the long-awaited wedding approaches, Adam is torn between duty and temptation, security and freedom, and must make a choice that will break either one heart, or many.

Costa Biography Award: Dotter of her Father’s Eyes Mary and Bryan Talbot

Part personal history, part biography, Dotter of Her Father's Eyes contrasts two coming-of-age narratives: that of Lucia, the daughter of James Joyce, and that of author Mary Talbot, daughter of the eminent Joycean scholar James S. Atherton. Social expectations and gender politics, thwarted ambitions and personal tragedy are played out against two contrasting historical backgrounds, poignantly evoked by the atmospheric visual storytelling of award winning comic artist and graphic novel pioneer Bryan Talbot. Produced through an intense collaboration seldom seen between writers and artists, Dotter of Her Father's Eyes is intelligent, funny and sad - a fine addition to the evolving genre of graphic memoir.

Costa Poetry Award: The Overhaul Kathleen Jamie

The Overhaul is Kathleen Jamie’s first collection since the award-winning The Tree House, and it broadens her poetic range considerably. The Overhaul continues Jamie’s lyric enquiry into the aspects of the world our rushing lives elide, and even threaten. Whether she is addressing birds or rivers, or the need to accept loss, or sometimes, the desire to escape our own lives, her work is earthy and rigorous, her language at once elemental and tender. As an essayist, she has frequently queried our human presence in the world with the question ‘How are we to live?’ Here, this is answered more personally than ever. The Overhaul is a mid-life book of repair, restitution, and ultimately hope – of the wisest and most worldly kind.

Costa Children’s Book Award: Maggot Moon Sally Gardner

Narrated against the backdrop of a ruthless regime determined to beat its enemies in the race to the moon, MAGGOT MOON is the astonishing new novel from award-winning author Sally Gardner. When his best friend Hector is suddenly taken away, Standish Treadwell realises that it is up to him, his grandfather and a small band of rebels to confront and defeat the ever-present oppressive forces of the Motherland. Utterly original and stunning, it is impossible not to be moved by MAGGOT MOON's powerful story and the unforgettable heroism of Standish.