First, before anything else, a little-big piece of news:
- Eve's Alexandria is going to the Orange Prize party on the 6th June! That is, Nic, Esther and I will be donning our party dresses and going to the actual announcement and ceremony. Yes, we'll be joining London's literati for an evening of champagne and unabashed syncophantism. Which means, in turn, that once I've cleared my currently reading, I'm buckling down to the shortlists. Only 8 books to read in 4 weeks. Piece of cake.
[NB: I admit that I wasn't so calm and poised when I opened that lovely little black envelope and pulled out my invitation. I gasped; I squealed; and then did an impromptu dance around the living room. :-)]
Overall, it's been a very exciting week for post and packages; the Orange Prize invitations were just the icing on the cake. On Wednesday, I received two books from Picador on the back of my review of Cormac McCarthy's The Road: a copy of Graham Swift's new novel Tomorrow and a proof copy of Self Help by Edward Docx. (Apologies for the poor photo; I don't know what happened with the light there...) I've already read the former with great enjoyment (or nearly anyway, only 20 pages to go) and am suitably curious about the latter, which comes out in hardback in July. 'Tis apparently Picador's big hope for the Booker and other literary prizes:
'For Gabriel Glover and his twin sister Isabella, St. Petersbury is home from home. When their mother, Masha, dies there suddenly and alone, they must leave their seperate lives in London and New York and return together to confront the contorted legacy of the past - in the shape of their estranged malevolent father, and the pitiless stranger Arkady Artamenkov.
Self Help is the startling account of a family, half-English, half-Russian, with many secrets and a dark disturbed history. Set in the thick of present-day Europe but haunted by the shadows of the old East-West order, it examines with great wit and tenderness the bonds and strains that history imposes on siblings and their parents, and the traps they unwittingly create for themselves.'
My first instinct, having scanned the first page, is that this is one of those novels that a blurb can't really encapsulate or properly evoke. We shall see.
Parcels two, three and four came courtesy of various BookMoochers - a lovely copy of Ray Robinson's Electricity, about a young woman with epilepsy; a pristine Penguin edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence; and an old, well-thumbed Virago, My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin. I haven't read the Lawrence - yet another lacuna in my reading education - and I was inspired to pick up the Franklin by Fay at Historical/Present (who, sadly, closed her blog this week).
Also in that little pile: Going Postal: Rage, Rebellion
and Murder in America by Mark Ames, kindly sent to me by Snowbooks. When I read about it in the aftermath of the shootings at Virginia Tech, I had to have a copy - what is it about people at the extremis of their humanity that we find so compelling, so horrifically fascinating? And a sparkly new copy of Jane Eyre as published by Oneworld Classics. What can I say? This was the only book Est and I bought all week: we couldn't resist it. It's a beautiful publication - compellingly fat and squat, with a haunting cover and high quality paper. Also, 'tis a great novel and the only copy I have is the old Puffin children's edition I read when I was ten or so.
Finally, the postman brought a delightful parcel from Hesperus this morning:
George Eliot and Elizabeth Gaskell are both in my top 10 of female authors and I'm excited at the prospect of reading some of their shorter and less well-known works; Virginia Woolf is, quite probably, my favourite writer; and the Jonathan Swift and Chaucer are surprisingly pleasing bonuses.
The only problem is: what am I going to read next? How am I supposed to choose from amongst this glut of riches? I'm so spoilt. ;-)
~~Victoria~~