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Victoria Corby

~ Reading, writing, living in France

Victoria Corby

Category Archives: Books

The Reading Box

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by victoriacorby in Books, France

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boite a lire, Bordeaux, Reading Box

France has a great library service, even tiny villages often have some form of library.  Admittedly the one in our commune, pop 276, is staffed by volunteers, is only open once a month and doesn’t have a huge amount of books but it’s the principle that counts.

On a visit to the Parc Riviere in Bordeaux this week we came across this:

June 13 013It’s a boite a lire where you’re invited to ‘liberate’ your books and magazines and leave them for someone else to read.  Or you can take one home to read for yourself.  Or browse a book while lying on the grass in the sunshine of course.

There’s a whole lot more of these distributed around Bordeaux.  What a wonderful, generous and uplifting idea!

I’m trying…

02 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by victoriacorby in Books, Reading

≈ 9 Comments

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book addiction, book buying habit, New Year's Resultions, to-read pile

I was never one for making New Year’s Resolutions , even as a child, perhaps I’ve always been aware of the unwisdom of trying to commit yourself to something you know you’re unlikely to be able to achieve.

I’ve never been rash enough to try to commit myself to a dry January which would have made me both miserable and feel like a failure when I finally toppled (inevitably) off my wagon but this year I did make a couple of sort-of resolutions.

The first, which is more of an ongoing rather than a New Year’s resolution is to do new things.  I got the idea off a fellow blogger a couple of years ago – she was doing a new thing every week which I feel veers into doing things for the sake of it, my objective is to do things I’d normally wimp out of (I still haven’t driven the OOH’s elderly 4 x 4 or the tractor mower which terrifies me), be impulsive occasionally, not refuse to buy something because I don’t know how to cook it, generally not allow myself to sink into a rut.  I can’t say that I’ve done anything startlingly new this year, I have a feeling that buying myself a Desigual handbag in the sales doesn’t really count, even if I’ve never owned anything by Desigual before or a jade green and pink bag r.  There was nothing new about one of the daughters saying airily as she clutched the bag, ‘If you decide the bag’s too young for you I’ll have it.’

It’s mine.

Marginally more successful was the decision arising from my realisation that my book buying habit had got out of control.

BOOKS  MOREbook addictsSadly I don’t have a local English language library though I do have the excitement of parcels in the post.  As a result this is the bookcase in the bedroom where I keep the to-read pile.

book case 015It doesn’t look like that much – except that I haven’t read any of them and all the shelves are double stacked so there’s about 190 books in there.  That’s only our bedroom too…

So I took myself in hand and decided that with effect from New Year’s Day there would be no more book buying, except for my book groups, until the end of March.  I prudently put in an order on December 31st.

I can say that for a month now I’ve been clean – well there was a slight lapse when I was ordering two books for the book groups and saw that there was a copy of Frances Spalding’s biography of Gwen Raverat which I’ve been after for ages, but is both hard to find and very expensive, for £4.  Even the sternest resolution monitor would have agreed that it would have been foolish not to snap it up.

book addictOtherwise I’ve been really good, I’ve only read what was already in the house (and what came in the post from that last order) and I felt inspired to do some bookish housekeeping.  Sorting out the to-read bookcase and ejecting the books I know I’ll never read, it’s not really a cheat’s way of diminishing the pile, going through all the many shelves and culling what I’ll never read again and the girls and OH have no interest in, and collecting all the books that various people have left on tables, the edge of the units, the middle of my desk in the expectation that the tidiness fairy is going to sweep them up and put them away and doing it myself.

There lies the rub.  I was hoping, expecting really, that at the rate I read I’d have cleared at least one front layer of books off the to-read bookcase by the end of March.  Except that in going through all the shelves culling and sorting I’ve been discovering books I forgot I had and want to read.  And where do the books I want to read go?

My to-read bookcase now has more books in it than it did on January 1st.

So much for New Year’s resolutions.

Something Stupid at the The Fussy Librarian

06 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by victoriacorby in Books, Writing

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Something Stupid, The Fussy Librarian

SomeI’m thrilled that Something Stupid has been picked by the Fussy Librarian to be featured this Sunday, december 8th.  The Fussy Librarian, a new website that offers personalized ebook recommendations. You choose from 40 genres and indicate preferences about content and then the computers work their magic. It sounds like another way of adding to the ever mounting TBR pile and what’s wrong with that?  Knowing that you’ve got enough books to read is sheer bliss!  Their website is www.TheFussyLibrarian.com

The Parisot Literary Festival…

15 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by victoriacorby in Books, France, Writing

≈ 12 Comments

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Amanda Hodgkinson, Dalmatians de Puech Barrayre, Martin Walker, Parisot Literary Festival

…was absolutely terrific.  I had a whale of a time.  It was really nice meeting Vanessa who’d invited me to speak at the festival – up to now we’d only known each other through our blogs, all the events I went to were super, my hosts who had me to stay for the night were super and I think my part didn’t go too badly either.  Put it this way; no-one threw rotten fruit or sighed loudly.

Parisot is a small but obviously very lively commune in the Tarn and Garonne and despite the filthy weather – pelting rain and temperatures that seemed to be dropping by the minute the Parisot library was already filling up when I arrived before Amanda Hodgkinson’s talk in the afternoon.  I took Amanda’s novel, 22 Britannia Road, with me to Brussels recently, expecting it to last me the weekend.  It was such a good read that I finished it on Sunday morning and had to face the dreadful prospect of travelling back on Ryanair without anything to read.  Luckily my daughter arrived with an emergency book supply so the panic was soon over.

Amanda is absolutely charming and gave us a wonderful and funny talk about her writing, moving to France and getting close to concrete mixers, how the germs of the plot for 22 Britannia Road sprang out of stories she heard her grandmother and great-grandmother telling each other, and related one or two of the more unusual happenings on her American book tours.  She also read us various passages from her books which was sheer pleasure as she’s such a good reader.  My one regret about the weekend is that I didn’t get more of a chance to talk to her.

Amanda was followed by the urbane and witty Martin Walker, author of the Bruno, Chief of Police series set in the Perigord, who talked about his journalistic career, his French holiday house and the personalities in the local area who have shaped the characters in his books, especially the real life model for Bruno.  The fictional Bruno is muscular, slim, the flesh and blood version is ahem, a bit more rounded…

As Martin, like Amanda had been, was surrounded by an enthusiastic audience telling him how much they’d enjoyed his talk, I was horribly conscious that I had two very hard acts to follow…

Funnily enough, most of the nerves that bedeviled me all last week had largely disappeared and I was left with a que sera sera feeling of I’d do my best and if it wasn’t that good at least I’d tried.  Everyone involved in organising the festival and in the audience was so nice that it would have been difficult to feel nervous in such a friendly atmosphere.

There was a ‘Meet the authors’ dinner that evening parisot3awhich had a terrific, relaxed atmosphere and was a super way to end the day.

Richard and Anita, whom I was staying with, live in the most gorgeous old schoolhouse.  They were looking for something that didn’t need much work, not a near decrepit shell, but when they opened the crumbling shutters in the old schoolroom they fell in love.  Not surprisingly: this is the view from outside my bedroom (and it was a filthy day), looking towards NajacOct 13 001aAs Richard said, they’ve got all the best parts of a château – enjoying looking at it without having to look after it.  The schoolhouse also has a wonderful oak staircase, nothing fancy or grand, but a thing of beauty because it is so perfectly made and proportioned. The bannister rail has been worn smooth by years of hands rubbing it and it so tactile that I felt like going up and down just for the sheer pleasure of feeling it under my palm.

The next morning Anne Dyson, who used to run the Greedy Goose cookery school, gave a demonstration of making canapes.  Sadly I couldn’t stay to taste everything as I had to get ready for my own bit but I can tell you her savoury filled choux buns were scrummy and something I’ll be trying myself.

In the audience for my talk was Sally Clegg, the breeder of a magnificent line of Dalmatians, who gave us her retired show dog Jez – one of the best presents ever.  Jez died, aged 14, several years ago but her indomitable spirit lives on in her grandson Flynn and great-great granddaughter Desi. I haven’t seen Sally for about five years so it was lovely to catch up, she has a Facebook group for Dalmatians de Puech Barrayre which is sheer dog porn – picture after picture of beautiful dogs!

Vanessa introducing me and being nice enough to say Up To No Good had made her laugh.

Vanessa introducing me and being nice enough to say Up To No Good had made her laugh.

My speech – what can I say?  I didn’t dry up, I managed not to have to read from my cards unless I was quoting directly – naturally I realised afterwards that there was quite a lot I’d missed out though as I spoke for over half an hour it was probably a good thing.  Amanda and Martin’s tremendous talks the day before even worked to my advantage as they held diametrically opposing views on writing matters such as how detailed a plot synopsis you need to do before you start and I was able to refer back to them.   People laughed a bit, nodded in agreement with what I was saying a few times and as I’ve mentioned no-one threw tomatoes or remembered half way through that they had something better to do.  They even asked questions.  So yes, I was pretty pleased.  Let’s be honest, I was delighted.  I hadn’t made a complete T of myself.

If I’ve used a lot of superlatives in this it’s because I had one of the best weekends in ages; I’m still riding high.  I hope that Vanessa, Gina – the powerhouse behind getting the Parisot Literary Festival off the ground, and everyone else involved in it is riding high too because it was terrific.  It’s incredible to think that it was the first, everything went so smoothly that you’d believe they’d been doing it for years.  And I’d like to thank them for inviting me to take part.

Something Stupid – Free!

14 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by victoriacorby in Books, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

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Kindle freebie, Something Stupid

Some

For the first Something Stupid is being offered free on Kindle for three days until Sunday.  So if you fancy something light and funny why not go over to Amazon now:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Something-Stupid-ebook/dp/B00A3EXIPC/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371225038&sr=1-2&keywords=something+stupid

It’s not going to cost you anything!

The Sublime and the Compelling

12 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by victoriacorby in Books, Reading

≈ 4 Comments

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A Glass of Blessings, Barbara Pym, Blood Harvest, S J Bolton, slow reading

It was only just over a week ago that I declared I had a new favourite author – Barbara Pym.  She’s refined, restrained, very English, writing with an acerbic and witty pen about “good women” and church affairs, genteelly fading areas of London and the deluded convictions of high church protestant vicars that they will remain celibate – (deluded because a vicar in possession of a living is always in want of a wife, according to some of his parishioners anyway) and other such matters which could be sneered at for not being very important but are so enjoyable to read about, especially from her pen.

I’ve only read three of her books so far; Excellent Women, Jane and Prudence and, for the Barbara Pym reading Week,  A Glass of Blessings which has a self-confident heroine not unlike Emma in many ways but to my mind so much more appealing.

June 13 116This is the cover of my copy, from a 1989 edition, which gives padded shoulders to the elegant Wilmet Forsyth as if she’d just stepped out of one of those women-rising-to-the-top-and-doing-everything-including-getting-the-best-man-in-town novels of the 80’s.  If I’d been buying on cover alone I’d have passed it by but I’d already been alerted to Barbara Pym and I absolutely loved A Glass of Blessings.  It’s not as funny as Excellent Women, it’s more subtle and a delight. I’m going to be grabbing every Pym I can in future, but I won’t be reading them one after another for this is delicious stuff, to be savoured and appreciated at your leisure, not something to gollop down in one hit lest you miss something and where you allow yourself the luxury to re-read paragraphs for the sheer pleasure of her prose and sly humour.

And at the same time that I fell in to the joys of slow-reading with Barbara Pym I discovered an author who is quite, quite different.  Margaret from Books Please wrote a post about her six years blogging and mentioned Blood Harvest by S J Bolton as being one of the books she has most enjoyed. I wasn’t totally sure if it was my sort of thing.  I usually find books that promise terror barely raise a ripple down my spine (in the same way whose covers say that “only the hardest-hearted won’t cry at the end” merely prove that I must be made of grante) but Margaret was so enthusiastic, and she shares my tastes in a lot of books, that I put in an order. Here’s what she had to say:

“Crime fiction set in the fictional town of Heptonclough in Lancashire where the Fletcher family have just moved into a new house built on land right next to the boundary wall of the churchyard.  I was completely convinced not only by the setting but also by the characterisation that the place and the people in this book were real. It’s full of tension, terror and suspense and I was in several minds before the end as to what it was all about. I had an inkling but I hadn’t realised the full and shocking truth.”

Blood harveestimagesIf I really enjoy a book I’ll usually buy one other by the author and build the collection up quite slowly.  I finished Blood Harvest and ordered the whole of S J Bolton’s back list that evening.  When it arrived a few days later I went through three of her books on the trot, something I don’t do often as I get bored with reading the same style over and over again.  Sacrifice, her first book, is slightly slow to start and I’d agree with Margaret that it’s far-fetched in places but so riveting that I didn’t give a toss.

Now You See Me and Dead Scared, are the first two in a police procedural series with a more straightforward tone than her previous ones.  Dead Scared is frightening in the sort of way that gives you bad dreams and I’d challenge anyone to read it slowly.  My general tension level wasn’t helped by my daughter, who’d been snatching up the books as I finished them, eyeballing me and going, ‘Mum, haven’t you finished that yet?’  (About an hour after I’d started it).

As you might gather I’d wholeheartedly recommend S J Bolton.  And Barbara Pym.  But perhaps not to read at the same time.

Serendipity – aka Barbara Pym

02 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by victoriacorby in Books

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Barbara Pym

My new favourite author has to be Barbara Pym.  One of the great advantages of being a compulsive tsundoko-ist (if the Japanese will allow such a word) is that amongst the sheer quantity if volumes piled up on bookcases around the house you sometimes get wonderful surprises and find books that you can’t remember buying.  So it was with Excellent Women.  I have no idea how it got there, I have a feeling that I must have thought that Barbara Pym was a writer I should read “one day” but not just yet.  For some reason I just didn’t fancy her.

Then the time just seemed right to start reading Excellent Women, so I did – and had the book glued to my hand until I finished it.

exwom

It’s an absolute joy and Amanda at Fig and Thistle is so right when she writes about Pym’s superb dialogue.  She also very funny – not laugh out loud funny but smile and ‘I want to remember that’ funny, like much of Wodehouse in fact.

Jane and PI discovered that tsundoko was also concealing Jane and Prudence which I gobbled up while on holiday in Sicily, events in the C of E made a nice contrast to the high baroque churches we were visiting.  I left it behind for my daughter to read with firm instructions it is to make its way back to France.

Then this morning I chanced on this, the Barbara Pym reading week, it’s the hundredth anniversary of her birth this week and realised that I have yet another unread Barbara Pym so I can join in too.

https://victoriacorby.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/486cd-pymlogomulti.png

And it gives me an excuse to abandon the boring detective novel set in France that I’ve been reading out of a sense that I should know about stories set in this area.  I’ve got A Glass of Blessings which I’ve heard doesn’t quite match up to Excellent Women, but even if it’s only half as good who cares?

Do check out some of the other blogs that are participating in the reading week too.

 

 

 

 

The Nicest Surprise

09 Thursday May 2013

Posted by victoriacorby in Books, Writing

≈ 9 Comments

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Kindle, Royalties

I’m not sure whether I should be delighted or slapping myself on the head and going, ‘Durrr!’

As I’ve been doing quite a lot of work today (aka much effing and blinding) on setting myself up a Facebook author page, doing a LinkedIn profile etc I thought I might as well check how the sales of my books on Kindle are doing.  Normally this is pretty gloomy viewing and needs a strong drink before I have the courage to click on “Prior Six Week’s Royalties”.

Today I noticed for the first time that what I assumed were my total sales were just those for Amazon.com, including India. Since I’ve never been published in either place and all my publicity has been aimed at the UK so far it isn’t surprising that my sales haven’t been astronomic.  Now I’ve looked at Amazon.co.uk my general sales are quite healthy, well better anyway.

So while I’m not looking forward to royalties like this for March,

poundsit’s still going to be one hell of a lot more than I thought I’d be getting.

I have a feeling some other people will be going ‘Durr!’ for me.

Seven-Week Itch

25 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by victoriacorby in Books, Writing

≈ 4 Comments

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KindleTheo Wayte, owl criticism, Seven Week Itch

Seven-Week Itch is finally up on Kindle, something very strange went on with the formatting but it seems to have been sorted out now.  Much to my surprise as I’ve barely even told my nearest and dearest that it’s gone live it’s already sold a few copies.  Not a lot but every little helps!

I love this cover by Theo Wayte;

book---itch---2

the ram has a small but important role to play in the plot so fully deserves his place on the front cover, and he’s such fun too.

In many ways I’m fondest of this book of all that I’ve written because it was so easy.  I started it high on the excitement of having a proper two-book contract and it simply flowed out, I was writing 2-2,500 words a day without pushing myself, I’ve never managed that sort of output again.  I still like it, it’s unashamedly light and I really enjoyed editing it for this edition.

I’m come across a couple of on-line reviews that give it a thumbs down because it’s about ‘big country houses’ which is strange, as it isn’t.  Susie, my heroine, is living in a tiny cottage and while it’s true that her wayward friend has married someone with a big house the story isn’t about the house.  I can only presume it’s Owl Criticism (a brilliant idea coined by Charles Baxter here) which goes, ‘There’s an owl in the book and I don’t like owls…’

Oh well, I trust I don’t have too many potential readers who suffer from country-house phobia, sadly there isn’t a specific word for it though a phobia about houses is the splendid oikophobia, so perhaps the mansion version could be called ‘big-oikophobia’?

 

The new cover

15 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by victoriacorby in Books, Writing

≈ 2 Comments

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covers, Seven Week Itch, sheep

for the Kindle edition of Seven Week Itch.

book---itch---2Designed by Theo Wayte of course.  The first design she came up didn’t work when it was reversed into white on black, it funny how it changes the look of things but I absolutely love this one.

Seven Week Itch will go live on Kindle as soon as I can sort out the glitch that’s playing havoc with the paragraph indenting, it doesn’t affect how it reads but it doesn’t look nice.

Theo did worry that people might see this cover and think that it was Vet Lit, all I can say is that if anyone buys the book thinking it’s about a flock of sheep suffering from a mutation of sweet itch – sorry and isn’t about time you expanded your horizons with a bit of romantic comedy?

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