So are all books really created equal?

According to new statistics, literary classics are being left on the shelf in favour of ‘chick lit’ and crime novels at our local libraries. So does this mean we’re no longer interested in the arguably more highbrow works of Dickens and Tolstoy? And what constitutes a ‘good read’ anyway?

I like to think I’m an equal opportunities reader, open to romance, drama, thrillers and the occasional autobiography, just so long as it’s packaged up in an eye-catching cover and ideally in the ‘3 for 2’ section of my local bookshop. Even so, I can’t help but be a little judgemental when I see an unashamedly girly, pastel pink book cover on a friend’s bedside table, or of the women hovering around Katie Price’s latest ‘autobiography’ at the supermarket.

In March 2007, a MLA survey of 4,000 readers found that almost half of those questioned said that reading classics makes you look more intelligent. It’s perhaps no surprise then that 40% of participants said that they had lied about having read certain books ‘just so they could join in with the conversation’. I’d be lying if I said that I’m not swayed by the press hype, five-star reviews, or compilations of the 1000 books to read before you die type lists – War and Peace remains proud but unopened on my bookshelf ­– but I believe that any book that makes you eager to turn the page is a good read, even if it is frothier than a Starbucks cappuccino, or with more plot holes than a slice of Swiss cheese.

In the last two months I’ve chosen to read three novels that have been turned into big screen films, and I’m eager to make a start on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby before the latest Hollywood version, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan, hits the screens later this year. Why? Because if all my friends are talking about a book-to-film adaptation, or an actress I admire has landed the leading role, I want to know more. I want to be informed and entertained, so who cares if a 30-second film trailer was the reason I picked up the book off the shelf?

What constitutes a good read is down to the individual holding the book, and for me it’s all about capturing my imagination and transporting me to another world. The best books are those that make you feel like you’re right there, watching each chapter unfold, whether that’s being buried alive in a remote Swedish forest, or wearing the wrong outfit to a fundraiser in the Deep South in the 1960′s. When you’re so enthralled by a piece of fiction that you can’t wait to get home to read it, that’s a good book.

I may not reach for a ‘whodunit’ or the latest Marian Keyes novel the next time I’m at the library, but in an age where one in six adults in Britain struggles with literacy, surely we should be encouraging those who want to read, regardless of the subject matter. Crime fiction and ‘chick lit’ are ‘easy’ options (you probably won’t need a dictionary by your side to appreciate them) but if they encourage you to come back to the library or bookshop then that’s fantastic. The one thing that all fiction authors have in common is a desire to entertain you, to create that sense of escapism for ten minutes a day which lets you live in someone else’s shoes. Any book that can take its reader on a journey, harness their imagination and flex their vocabulary is fine by me, regardless of whether it’s Herman Melville, Stephenie Meyer or anything in between.

The trailer for The Great Gatsby – you could also read the book…

Hemingway's Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises

If you fancy a holiday but can’t quite face the thought of having to pack your suitcase (or raid your bank balance), then we suggest you pick up Ernest Hemingway’s Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises. You won’t even need to bother with suncream.

Through the acclaimed writer’s words, we are introduced to 1920′s Europe: the dusty, scorched exoticism of Pamplona contrasting with the sophistication and mystique of Paris. Expat Americans – many of them writers such as Hemingway himself – often travelled around Europe; they’d sit on the pavements outside shabby cafes, squinting in the sunshine, smoking cigarettes and drinking gin, sunbathing in the balmy temperatures before returning to their hotel to write their next article. They were, theoretically at least, living the dream.

Written in Hemingway’s sparse style, you won’t find gushing descriptions in this novel. Rather, every word hammers home the uncomfortable, heartbreaking truths that his book represents. He presents a world on the brink of massive change and by the end of the novel his hero and heroine are still suitably uncertain, fragile – and perpetually hopeful.

Hemingway’s book is a perfect slice of social history, capturing the spirit and attitudes of the Western world in the aftermath of the First World War (you can read more about Hemingway’s own war experiences in this article). The characters are struggling with what they have become in light of the global destruction and horror; they are now nomads, travelling around Europe, absorbing the culture and doing their utmost to escape the realities of their lives. However, they are all painfully aware of the fact that, try as they may, this simply won’t work;  “going to another country doesn’t make any difference. I’ve tried all that. You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”

The 30-somethings who met the war full on were described as the ‘lost generation’ by the American writer and critic Gertrude Stein. Their lives were changed irreparably by the impact of the First World War, and as a result they sunk into damagingly decadent lifestyles as a means of coping. Hemingway himself was part of this generation, and spent much of his life travelling in this way (predominantly to Spain and France), soaking up the culture and ideas of the people, and enjoying copious amounts of alcohol to wash it all down with.

Featuring multiple themes, one of the book’s main concerns is the idea of male authority, and it aims to subtly undermine the stereotypes and preconceptions surrounding gender in the early 20^th century. Alpha male protagonist Jake has been left ‘unmanned’ following a grizzly injury, sustained while fighting in the war. His lack of masculinity stands in direct contrast to the raw testosterone of the Spanish bull-fighters he idolises; he envies them for their craft, their bravery and, most of all, their fearlessness.

Meanwhile, heroine Brett – the object of Jake’s affections – has been given masculine qualities, while still managing to maintain her feminine delicacy. She wears her hair short, dresses in jumpers and jerseys, and drinks and smokes. Even her name has a masculine quality. However, despite these traits, she holds the group of men in the palm of her hand, with many of them falling in love with her at one point or another.  Just like any good heroine, Brett is, naturally, a tortured soul herself; under the bravado, flirtations and her cropped hair, she is deeply unhappy.

Aside from the devastating prose and the unhappily-ever-after characters, what we love the most about the book is its title. Yes. That simple. There is something so deliriously uplifting about it; it epitomises the optimism, no matter how faint, of the era. Despite the destruction of the war, the depression of the economy and the destitution of the people, the sun will still rise and tomorrow will still be another day. We may have nothing else but we will always  have that.

Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway is available to buy online here.

An Ernest Hemingway recording from the late 1950s

F. Scott Fitzgerald with his wife Zelda

Most people have a favourite type of book, whether it be a preferred genre, an author whose work they enjoy or even an era they’re interested in. Personally, I like to read about the social outsider, or choose books set in the decadent America of the Jazz Age. I love the romance and the glamour of the 1920′s, and how the adventures and love affairs seem a world away from the society we live in today. The social outsider is always the character I feel myself drawn to, they are often the ones to have the witty and most insightful observations about life and the world around them. Here is my selection of good books, the majority of which fall into these categories.

Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

Documenting the letters between F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda is as engaging as any of the novelist’s works of fiction. It’s clear to see how his own life inspired his writing and the couple’s tragic, passionate relationship would not seem out of place in one of his novels.

Despite time spent apart, financial and professional problems and mental instability, the inspiring, fierce love between Scott and Zelda never wavered. Although the book is predominantly made up of letters from Zelda, the documentation of her mental downfall gives a real sense of their relationship and how Fitzgerald’s work provided a means to support the wife he loved so dearly. Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda is a romantic read with a difference.

1Q84 – Haruki Murakami

It’s not often that I enjoy modern literature but Haruki Murakami, in my opinion, is one of the greatest novelists of our time. 1Q84 was a long-awaited novel, first published in Japanese before being translated into English. Making what might seem obscure truly readable, Murakami often puts the reader’s imagination to the test. And 1Q84 does just that, by creating a parallel world where seeing two moons means everything is not as it seems. Through a ghost-written book and a cult, Murakami maps out the lives of two protagonists during 1984.

Though following the simple story concept of boy meets girl, Murakami’s aim was to make the story complicated as he could. Alternating between the two characters chapter by chapter is a clever way of keeping the reader interested and entertained, often making this book hard to put down, despite its three volumes.  It’s rare to find books that really make you stop and think, but 1Q84 does just that.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter – Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers’ first novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, takes place in small mill town in Georgia where most of residents have lost their way. In a strange turn of events, the town’s ultimate outsider, deaf mute John Singer becomes the confidante to most of the town’s inhabitants. The eclectic cast of characters includes young musically-minded tomboy Mick Kelly, bar owner Biff Brannon, African doctor Dr Benedict Copeland and drunk Jake Blount, all of whom find their lives held together by the silent support they receive from Singer.

Each character is fighting against their loneliness and despite being surrounded by people; Singer is in fact the loneliest of them all. Separated from his best friend, a fellow deaf mute, Singer goes through the motions of living each day so that he can visit him. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a fascinating, thought-provoking insight into devotion, dependence and otherness, and every bit as readable now as when it made the bestseller lists in 1940.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky

If you’ve forgotten how tough fitting into school can be, Charlie’s honest letters in The Perks of Being a Wallflowermay act as a stark reminder to its cruelties. From first dates to best friends, family dramas and doing things to fit in, Chbosky sums it all up in this coming of age novel. An intimate diary, Charlie’s letters dig deeper into his thought processes without giving too much away. We don’t know his real name or anyone else’s, we don’t know where he lives and we don’t know who receives the letters. All we know is that Charlie has feelings whirling around his mind he needs to let out.

James Frey's shocking account of abuse

“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.” Teenage feelings like this make this novel pull on the reader’s heart strings, showing that teenage feelings can often be the ones that follow you throughout life and how, sometimes, we’ll never truly ‘come of age’.

A Million Little Pieces – James Frey

A shocking account of a drug addict’s journey to overcome addiction, James Frey’s semi-autobiographical novel captures the harsh reality of overcoming drug abuse and piecing back together the broken life it leaves behind. Despite the fact that rehab saves Frey’s life, this does not make his journey any easier and the book presents a painful insider’s view on the struggle to tackle addition.

No details are spared and the transformation effected by drug abuse is often disturbing and hard to believe as being a non-addict leaves you with no point of comparision.  A Million Little Pieces is a well-written read that puts into context the value of life and shows how addiction can take this away, tackling destruction and reconstruction without pulling any punches.

Inspiring: Simone Weil's An Anthology

Simone Weil was born in France, 1909 to agnostic French-Jewish middle class parents and died in a sanatorium in England in 1943. She was a teacher, philosopher, mathematician, physicist, activist and mystic. Weil’s politics informed her actions, which in turn helped shape her writing.

Throughout the 34 years of her life, Weil produced a remarkable quantity of work and this anthology, featuring essays, excerpts and collections of notes, a full introduction and a detailed bibliography, serves as a very good introduction to her writing. Subjects treated in Weil’s works include the differences between the human and the inhuman, needs, the soul, dignity, god, love, poetry and oppression.

In his introduction to her 1949 work and seminal text The Need for Roots, T.S. Eliot wrote that Weil was “more truly a lover of order and hierarchy than most of those who call themselves Conservative and more truly a lover of the people than most of those who call themselves Socialist.”

Weil’s writing blazes off the page with such an astounding beauty there were several moments where I had to stop myself from reading passages aloud on the train. An example of this is from my favourite essay in the collection, The Iliad, or The Poem of Force. It is force, she believed, and not class that is the key to human history. Through applying this to Homer’s Iliad, which she considers to be “the purest and the loveliest of mirrors,” Weil expresses one way in which force can be enacted on a human soul. Debasing, transforming the human into an object:

“He is alive; he has a soul; and yet – he is a thing. An extraordinary entity this – a thing that has a soul. And as for the soul, what an extraordinary house it finds itself in! Who can say what it costs it, moment by moment, to accommodate itself to this residence, how much writhing and bending, folding and pleating are required of it? It was not made to live inside a thing; if it does so, under pressure of necessity, there is not a single element of its nature to which violence is not done.”

Weil handles humanity and the soul with a careful and attentive love. Everyone, she writes, needs poetry as they need bread. This poetry is only authentic if it includes fatigue and the hunger and thirst that come with fatigue. Simone Weil’s work, in and of itself, achieves this all simultaneously. It is poetic and it is necessary.

Please don’t take our word on any of this. Read her, read her, read her.

Simone Weil: An Anthology is available to buy online here.

The trailer for the film An Encounter With Simone Weil

Jennifer Worth's autobiographical work

“My dear fellow,” says Sherlock Holmes in the opening lines of A Case of Identity, “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which really are mere commonplaces of existence.”

Call The Midwife by Jennifer Worth proves Holmes’ point beautifully. Set in the East End of London during the 1950s, it’s an autobiographical account of Worth’s time as a newly trained midwife working for an order of Anglican nuns in the heart of the London Docklands. Published in 2002, the book was written as a response to a 1998 article published in the Midwives Journal by Terri Coates which drew attention to the non-existence of midwives across European and English-language literature.

In the preface to her book, Worth writes: “(M)idwifery is the very stuff of drama… A midwife is in the thick of it, she sees it all. Why then does she remain a shadowy figure, hidden behind the delivery room door?”

The midwives documented by Worth worked on behalf of the women and children in the community. Through midwifery and district nursing Worth explores the aftermath of workhouses, poverty and grief, prostitution and immigration; she illuminates post-war Docklands with stark honesty. There is little need for embellishment or romanticism when real life stories are so extraordinary.

Written with humour and warmth, Worth has created a whole order of  literary heroines; my favourite character is Sister Evangelina who is loud, brash, business-like and a champion of “lavatory humour”. The book is perfect for commuting, with short chapters each of which has its own storyline, resulting in rich characterisation of both the midwives and of the people living in the Docklands community.

Above all, Worth shows how the National Health Service transformed the lives of the working class in 1950s London, which is particularly relevant at a period of time in the UK when politicians are using the recession as an excuse to cut back the welfare state. Privatisation is dismantling services that are essential to the health of the nation, and it is imperative that we use books such as Call The Midwife to fight back. Worth’s work deserves to be a classic in its own right.

Call The Midwife by Jennifer Worth is published by Phoenix, and is available to buy online here.

If you would like to suggest any books (preferably by European women) for review, please let me know in the comments section.

An interview with Jennifer Worth about Call The Midwife

Elaine Dundy can write her sexy ass off...

Don’t worry – it’s not like I’m in love with Angelina Jolie or anything. No cheesy-cliché-typical straight girl/sickly-stickly-starlet lesbian love affair fantasies pour moi — I’m different. (Besides, as far as starstruck starlet-inspired lesbian love affair fantasies go, I’m more of a Rose McGowan girlcrush girl myself.) (It’s her aura of dirty-hot whisky sex that does it for me.)

En plus ? My woman that I’m in love with? With the uncle I also have the hots for? Uhm, she’s dead. Has been for a few years. So there’s that too.

The thing about Elaine Dundy is that while she most certainly was a woman, she was most certainly not a lady. Nor a chick or a gal or even a dame. Elaine Dundy? She was a Broad. In the biggest, boldest, broadest, Broad-iest sense. She was sex and the city four long decades before “Sex and the City” (but not, of course, before sex, or cities, or desperate housewives). She was sex and a single girl when they’d already invented both sex and girls, but of all the sexy single girls, she really knew how to pull it off. You know – in that lusty-boozy-busty-Broad(y) kind of way. Which is why I love her. Wouldn’t you?

Oh, and another other thing about Elaine Dundy? She could write her sexy ass off.

I met her here in Paris. (Well, O.K., so I didn’t really meet her-meet her, her being dead and all, but you know…) I met her through her novel, The Dud Avocado. (Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, but once you read the book you’ll get the title.) There she is “…drifting down the Boulevard St. Michel, thoughts rising in [her] head like little puffs of smoke…”  Eleven o’clock in the morning, and she’s wearing an evening dress as brazenly as if it was still eleven o’clock in the evening. (Holly Golightly be damned, when Capote would eventually create her years later.) She was doing what ladies call the Walk Of Shame and what broads call the Stride Of Pride. Anyway, that’s what I’d like to believe. Wouldn’t you?

This was la Belle Époque. Well, not the real Belle Époque (it being the 1950s and all), but back when francs were such soft currency they smelled strongly of fromage, back when the euro didn’t even exist, let alone teeter on the cheese-plate of extinction, like Camembert left outside on a summer luncheon table. Back when American trust-fund babies and G.I. Bill babies and American students and American scholars and American beatniks and their even more horrifying British counterparts tore up the Left Bank (where all the wrong ones, or their ungodly grandchildren, still have their pied à terres) playing make-believe bohemians like the privileged brats that they were. And life was fabulous. Formidable. Fromage-y. Truly, really, la Vie en Rose, la Belle Époque, the Banquet Years. This was Elaine Dundy’s world, she was a part of all this, tearing up far more than her share. Makes me kinda jealous as hell. Et vous ?

Elaine Dundy (and/or Sally Jay Gorce, her fictitious/autobiographical protagoniste) was a part of all this…and yet somehow she wasn’t. While she hung out with her compatriots, she found them more than kind of annoying too: “A rowdy bunch on the whole, they were most of them so violently individualistic as to be practically interchangeable…The ones who Did Anything (and there were plenty not averse to Taking It Easy – or whatever the course was called at the Sorbonne), mostly painted. That any of them would actually be talented had never occurred to me…” Of course, mais oui, this didn’t stop her from letting them buy her drinks, or even sleeping with them, and sometimes even talking with them, of which I honestly, thirstily, wholeheartedly, hornily approve. Et vous ?

The back jacket blurb on my edition of The Dud Avocado bills her novel, her unexpected, unprecedented first novel like this: “…Dyeing her hair pink and vowing to go native in a way none of the natives can manage, she’s busy getting drunk, bedding men, losing money, losing jewellery, and losing God knows what…” (Oops – forgot to tell you before: She dyed her hair pink.) (In the Fifties.) (Pink!) (Long before there was Manic Panic.) (Paris!) (Pink!!) As far as book-pimping book-jacket blurbs go, this one bombs: Elaine Dundy may have lost her pearl necklace, her passport, and even her pinky-pink virginity, but in reality (fictitious or autobiographical or otherwise), she didn’t lose a pink thing. She gained. She gained so much more. (And what the hell’s wrong with losing your virginity anyway?) (And why do we call it “losing” in the first place?) (What the – pardon the pun – fuck?) (As opposed to your house keys, which are important —  when was the last time you went hunting between the cushions for your virginity?) (How much does it weigh, anyway? Can we total it up as weight-loss?)

“I want my freedom!” a not-quite-but-almost-nearly 13-year-old Sally Jay (Elaine Dundy’s autobiographical etc.) protests to her Uncle Roger. (Uncle Roger’s the guy who eventually ends up funding her séjour in Paris.) (Because Uncle Roger’s filthy-stinking rich.) (Dear Old Uncle Roger.) (Let it be said: Along with Elaine Dundy, I’m kind of in love with Uncle Roger, too.) “Your freedom? Ah yes, of course. What are you planning to do with it?” inquires Tonton Rog, all wisdom and wryness and wit. (He’s so hot.) “I want to stay out as late as I like and eat whatever I like any time I want to…I think if I had my freedom I wouldn’t allow myself to get introduced to all the mothers and fathers and brothers of the girls at school…I wouldn’t get introduced to anyone. I’ve never wanted to meet anyone I’ve been introduced to. I want to meet all of the other people…” (I’m so hotly-hot for him.)

An unexpected, unprecedented first novel

Freedom. Call up any woman in any city – like Pittsburgh or Poughkeepsie or Pemberton or Paris (Texas) – and tell them that you live in Paris (France). They sigh. Loudly. Plaintively. Parisian-ly, as best they can. And then they go silent. You can hear them rifling through their Rolodex for a divorce lawyer. Or for the number of their own Uncle Roger. Ahh, freedom. Always easier to attain with a chequebook-wielding Uncle Roger in the wings, bien entendu. But . . . freedom. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? (Ahem, Uncle Roger….??)

“All the outrageous things my heroine does like wearing an evening dress in the middle of the day are autobiographical,” she told the Elvis Information Network. (Yeah, I know – but it makes sense because later on she wrote a book on Elvis.) (And in the context of contemporary journalism, how can the EIN not be at least as credible a source as….well, fill in the acronym.) “All the sensible things she does are not.”

Elaine Dundy went on to be free and then not free and then free again, and sensible and unsensible and probably insensibly unsensibly sensible too. There was a failed marriage (he was a famous theatre critic, incredibly so, and sounds like he was a jerk, incredibly so too), and a daughter, and acting stints, and more books, and splashy cocktails with Orson Welles and Tennessee Williams and Laurence Olivier and Vivian Leigh in between. But as for Paris? A girl gets the impression that it was here that she figured it all – or at least the most important stuff – out.

“It was around then, in Paris, that I became aware of something about myself only previously suspected,” Dundy wrote, writing about her writing The Dud Avocado. (Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I KNOW…but this is what happens when you let your jerky jealous critic husband title your genius first novel.) “I had an alter ego, a second self, a not so ghostly increasingly intrusive highly comic character whom I had to acknowledge. In fact whose presence I could no longer deny. I had to accept her, had to give her space, for she would pop up getting things wrong when I least expected her to…” You’ve probably met that bitch, haven’t you? Isn’t she your best, bestest friend? Elaine was so lucky — she met her when she was so young, and so very much in Paris.

The back jacket blurb on my edition of The Dud Avocado gets one thing right. It describes Elaine Dundy’s fictitious/autobiographicalprotagoniste as “…a woman hellbent on living.” She was, certainly, but I’d go further: Elaine Dundy/Sally Jay Gorce was too much. Much too much. And that’s why I love her/her. Ladies: Girls: My Bitches: Ever been told you’re too much? Of course you have. Know what? At the risk of sounding preachy? In that annoying self-helpy-sounding preachy sense? Be too much, too too much, much too too much, and then be that much more. Because even when we’re not being too much, they’re gonna tell us we’re too much anyway. So why not go all the way?

I’m quite sure that’s what Elaine Dundy would’ve wanted.

And Uncle Roger, too.

Scarlett Thomas' Our Tragic Universe

I commute for work one hour each side of every weekday. Most people think that I’m mad to do this. The truth is, and it’s a controversial statement to make, I really like commuting. The reason being that it gives me time to read (though most of the time with the elbow of a fellow passenger firmly lodged just under my ribs), and so those two hours of my day have become very important to me.

Throughout this series of articles I will be reviewing a broad range of books written by women in Europe that are good to read whilst commuting. The first book I’ve selected for review is a novel, Our Tragic Universe, by the English writer Scarlett Thomas.

The book was brought to my attention when it was thrust into my hands a couple of weeks ago by a friend, who hadn’t yet read it and wouldn’t have time to read it for a while, so perhaps, would I like to read it? I took it, having not read anything by Thomas before, nor read any reviews of the book, nor been offered a personal recommendation. But the pages were edged with black and there was a quote from Philip Pullman on the front declaring that it was ‘a delight’. That was enough for me.

Our Tragic Universe was not what I expected from the blurb on the back, which made it out to be a sort of mystery adventure. In fact the book, which is predominantly about writing a novel, is constructed of various narrative strands that are spun through the main character, Meg.

Our Tragic Universe is a non-linear novel. It is built up of stories from Meg’s past, the pursuit of lines of thought, conversations held between friends on philosophy, literature, science; emotions felt at the beginning, middle and – inevitably – the end of relationships. It doesn’t rely on the exploits of a hero, a fixed morality, or one final resolution. Instead it is constructed of a multitude of elements that spark off each other, almost in the manner of a storyless story, which is one of the narrative aspects within the book.

Thomas’ prose is rich and her dialogue very human. I’m not sure whether it is a testament to the strength of her writing, or puts a question mark over the quality of my memory, but I have been in conversations where I’ve been close to hitting my head against objects around me in an attempt to recall which book I read about cultural premonitions, or some crazy idea about how, once the universe ends, all living things ever created will be perpetuated for eternity at Omega Point. I later remembered that these are elements within Thomas’ playful and very engaging book.

Our Tragic Universe is well suited to commuting. Whilst there are no chapters, there are plenty of marked breaks providing opportunity to put the book down. It is also very easy to pick back up again.

There is just one bit of the book that I’m still not entirely sure about; the paragraph on the reverse of the novel suggests that Meg finds a knitting pattern for the shape of the universe. Although Meg does knit in the book, it is socks that she learns how to make. Does this, then, suggest that the universe is shaped like a sock, or cosy feet? Or maybe a pair of hands holding four slim double pointed needles is knitting the universe in four-ply, continuously? I may just have to let that one go…

Our Tragic Universe by Scarlett Thomas is published by Canongate Books, and is available to buy online here.

If you would like to suggest any books (preferably by European women) for review, please let me know in the comments section.

An animation by the Oscar-winning Tandem Films to celebrate the launch of Scarlett Thomas’ novel Our Tragic Universe.

The Art of Colour: Georgia O’Keeffe

A year in art, music, cinema and literature features and there have been some fascinating, thought-provoking pieces on everything from banned books to cinema in Berlin. For your reading pleasure, we’ve rounded up the best of best; a look back over Culturelle in 2011…

Brits and the Boards: Women in UK Theatre

Alice Stride edits a go-to guide to the brightest and most brilliant women working in British theatre today: an inspiring must-read for any budding theatre-luvvies out there.

The Enigmatic Artists

Plum Woodard takes a look at five of music’s most enigmatic female artists, from rock and pop, soul to blues – and from ceaselessly out there to near on unknown…

The Art of Colour

In considering the works of celebrated artists, the exploration of the expressive use of colour can unveil ardent sensitivity and insight into some of the great masters in history and how they inspire us, even today. Kaiti Vartholomaios looks at the art of colour.

Ten of the Best… Historical Novels

As a fun and engaging way to learn about the past, historical novels offer more than your average ‘airport’ read. Viola Levy noses through ten of the best.

Street Art Now

Spray cans at the ready; SJP takes a look at the progression of street art, key artists and where you can see the best tags, bombs and burners…

Banned Books: The Novels You Weren’t Supposed to Read

Banned by governments, Brogan Driscoll presents an edit of some of the most famous outlawed titles – and a few that might surprise you.

Brushstrokes and Bitch Fits: Women who Changed Art

It’s certainly not that female artists don’t exist – it’s simply that they’re not given the wall space that their male counterparts are. Sandra Smiley considers ten key female figures from the art world…

Magathèque: Volume 20

It’s your final Magathèque and the best ever yet! To conclude two years of short film exploration,  Pippa Rimmer reminds you of some of the best shorts we’ve profiled…

On Location: Greece

It’s been a long time since Greece was one of the globe’s greatest exporters of culture, but that hasn’t stopped international production companies from turning its landscapes into cinematic starlets…Kaiti Vartholomaios explores the Greek cinematic landscape past and present.

Upper Class Reads

The fictional – and not so fictional – adventures of the rich and fabulous have fascinated readers for centuries, and it is hardly surprising, thinks Katie Byrne.

Running in Heels: Jasmine Cullingford – Artistic Director

Alice Revel  takes a peek behind the curtains and meets the lady who makes the on-stage magic happen at one of the UK’s most inspiring, eclectic arts venues.

Meet Diana Athill 

Speaking to Harri Sutherland-Kay , the legendary, award-winning British writer and editor adresses the important themes of writing, political activism, feminism, education, religion and the afterlife.

The Ex Factor Playlist

SJP presents your essential guide to the best break-up tracks of all time. Grab a bar of chocolate, arm yourself with tissues and press play to listen to the Ex Factor…

Work by artist Yolanda Dominguez

A Space to Write

Monique Rubinslooks at how a woman needs time, a means to live and her own space if she is to find form for the muddled – but wonderful – ideas that for too long have been buried somewhere at the back of her brain.

Blogging in Heels: Katy Evans-Bush – Baroque in Hackney

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Five of our Favourites… Northern Soul

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The Magic of Writing: Patricia Duncker

Literary doyenne and idea aficionado Patricia Duncker speaks to Deirdra Eden Keane about love, suicide cults, literature festivals and everything in between…

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Literary doyenne, Patricia Duncker

Let it never be said that Patricia Duncker is a person of few words – the author is a complex and engaging character with a depth of literary knowledge as rich and yielding as the treasures contained within the John Rylands library; part of The University of Manchester where Duncker is Professor of Contemporary Literature. Recently, Duncker delivered her short story, The Madonna at the Midland, a specially commissioned work set and read aloud by the author at the iconic Midland hotel as part of the Manchester Literature Festival. Duncker’s voice is one that shakes and inspires, each word burying the story deep within its recipient. With Duncker, for every word there is a story, for every laugh an experience.

An author of five novels, two collections of short stories and volumes of essays, Duncker’s award-winning work echoes a philosophical precedent set by Michel Foucault.  Duncker’s novels are concerned with, or touch upon a ghostly void – whether dealing with group suicide (The Strange Case of the Composer and his Judge, 2010 Bloomsbury) or of lost love that continues to linger, (The Madonna at the Midland) Dunker orchestrates chilling yet tender tales that ignite and then haunt our imaginations.

What was it about the Midland hotel that inspired you to write such a tender love story in The Madonna at the Midland?

I was appointed writer in residence at the Midland Hotel in May 2011 as it was one of the sponsors of the Manchester Literature Festival, so it was a way of bringing it into the literary aspect of the festival. I had always gone to the Midland with my friend and it was one of our pleasure sites. So that element in hotels — the mixture of public space and private space is something that has always interested me. Jean Paul Sartre lived his whole life in a hotel.

Listening to the author deliver their story adds an extra element of listening and engagement. Is there an ideal way to read a short story?

I tend to write short stories specifically for the voice. A novel is more capacious, it’s a larger scale space and you can afford to incorporate ideas that take a bit of time to think about. I often do that with more philosophical novels that I am very fond of reading. With a short story the action is the main thing. A short story should give you emotion and event.

Tell us about your most recent novel, The Strange Case of the Composer and his Judge.

There is a close link between the novel and the places where I spend my life. Part of the novel is set in France, part in the Jura and Lübeck before it eventually comes back to Britain.

There are two big themes in this book – faith and what we believe and why; and strength of the ways in which we believe.

I am interested in mad, religious sects and I was also intrigued by various suicide sects from the 1970s and 1980s, particularly the Temple of the Sun. A part of that sect killed themselves in Switzerland in the 1980s and then another part killed themselves in the mountains of the Jura in 1994. That is where the book starts, with the bodies in the snow.

Much of your work retains a haunting quality. Are you interested in Gothic literature?

I am very interested in Gothic and in the supernatural because there is a magical element to writing, we are prepared to use our own imaginations to allow the fantastic in. One of the problems with material reality is that it is very intractable, whereas in imagined realities you can transform lives. Often, we imagine different destinies for ourselves and that can be the very way in which we change our lives. I am an uncompromising defender of our right to imagine anything. But you have to realise that if you open your mind to imagined worlds you also let the horror in.

Is it a difficult transition moving between short story and novel writing, particularly as they are concerned with divergent ways of storytelling?

I would stick with Edgar Allan Poe’s definition of a short story, of being “A piece of writing, a tale that can be read in one sitting” so that the short story’s definition has a relation to the reader. It has much more impact if you read it in one go and you don’t do anything else until you have finished.

Duncker's most recent literary work...

France appears in much of your writing — does this stem from a personal love of the country or do you feel that travel within fiction enriches your novels?

I was born in Jamaica and so one of the things about my childhood is that I had not only come from an island that was one of Britain’s colonies, I come from a mixed family [Duncker’s father is West Indian and her mother is English]. When I studied literature in school I was studying something that was entirely alien to me. I consciously chose English as my language and literary tradition so my investment in the history of English is huge.

In 1986 I was very ill. I thought that I didn’t want to die in England so I went to live in France where I then lived for nine years. One of the reasons I went to France was because I couldn’t understand the language so I was encased in silence, which was where I wanted to be. This is amusing because not 60 miles away, Montaigne had done this before me. In Montaigne’s time the life expectancy was 35-40 years. When he reached his 30’s he decided he would retire to his tower near Bordeaux and prepare for death but he lived into his 60’s. He sat there writing essays and thinking about life.

For some writers there is an anxiety to be original. When you are in a process of writing do you read other people’s work?

Absolutely. I hold on to other writers with both hands. Quite often I come across young writers who are anxious to be original and therefore fear to be influenced. I have just finished reading Elizabeth Cook’s Achilles. The Iliad is one of the oldest stories we have, it stands at the head of Western literature as one of the most extraordinary stories of love, betrayal, honour, hatred, courage, bravery, magic. Cook has done a wonderfully condensed re-writing of the story. I know the story of Achilles backwards and I sat there reading it as if for the first time. Anyone who isn’t a voracious reader has no business trying to be a writer.

How do you decide when a novel is completely finished?

It changes over your writing life. I’ve got two whole, full length novels in drawers. I haven’t destroyed them because they are good as a memory. I use my journals as writing books and they are like my private room and practice space. I always write about my reading and reactions. I recently re-read my reaction to Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending because I read it before it won The Booker Prize and I wrote down my rather savage opinion. I went back to see if I still agreed with it and I found that I had become even more rabid in the intervening period. I think it is important to have quite extreme views about writing because I think you write better if you do.

What’s next for you?

I have two trains in the tunnel, they are both historical. Very often when you finish the first draft of a novel there is a temptation to start on the second draft right away. Don’t. Always leave it for as long as you can. What tends to happen when you have finished your first draft is you see the book you wanted to write, not the one you have actually written. When you stand back you will then see what you did write and you will be able, with renewed ruthlessness to pull it around, cut it down, and trim it off, re-think whole sections if you have to.

BBC’s Frozen Planet depicts an arctic moth that takes 14 years to complete its metamorphosis because it’s waiting for just the right moment. The moth seems to fit the writing process you have described.

That’s the writing process for you and that is the metaphor for writing as it should be. People write for different reasons: some write because they want to or need to make money and they write commercial, crowd-pleasing material to make a quick buck. Others write for fame and that is the maddest reason of all. What will fame be for you? To be remembered like Achilles, thousands of years hence? They are certainly not prepared to pay for it with their lives as Achilles was.  I’m with the moth and hibernation — if you want to write something that is literature rather than a heap of books you go with the moth.

The Strange Case of the Composer and his Judge is available from Bloomsbury, or from Amazon for Kindle.

Duncker’s short story, The Madonna at the Midland is expected to go live on her website from 6^th December 2011.

Novels, collections of short stories and volumes of essays by Patricia Duncker - extracts are available to read on her website

Acclaimed British writer, Diana Athill

You can see the original version of this interview on Women’s Views On News.

When Diana Athill decided to move into a residential care home in north London last year, she faced the task of having to dispose of most of her belongings. Initially she enjoyed the process, it was “like giving presents” she says. “But my books,” she adds, “nearly killed me.”

It was thanks to Athill’s nephew spending a day going through the collection of books with her, that she was eventually able to whittle them down to the 300 she could fit into her room. It was also her nephew who sorted out her room, hanging the curtains, making the bed, putting her books on the shelves and hanging the pictures which bring her compact and colourful room, where we met earlier this year, to life.

Athill, now 94, is a British writer and editor who first made her name editing for the publishing house André Deutsch. She has had two books published this year; a collection of short stories that she wrote years ago and which appeared in magazines, were published by Persephone Books in April, as well as a volume of letters (Letters to a Friend) published by Granta last month. The letters, which she exchanged with American poet Edward Field, she says, “are a record of something very valuable. They are a record of a very good friendship and pretty much my life story over 30 years.”

Athill loves writing; she says that it has always come very naturally to her and has never been a labour, but she doesn’t feel that there’s another book in her. She has “always written from personal experience and nothing much happens to you in your 90s.” Best known for writing memoirs, Athill has written three books since the age of 80 – something she wasn’t expecting to do. The public recognition of her work increased dramatically after her 2009 memoir Somewhere Towards the End won the Costa Biography Award.

We talk about the way in which her fame has gone against the grain of the norm in that she has become much better known in her later years. “It is quite the most strange thing in my life,” she says, “I really find it very baffling.” One of the advantages of her reputation as an older writer has been the avoidance of celebrity culture. Her fame, Athill says, has been interesting and fun, but it hasn’t actually changed her, whereas for younger people it seems vitally important.

She tells me that she always felt guilty about not being politically active; although she was sympathetic to the cause of feminism, she wouldn’t refer to herself as a feminist because: “I didn’t join in, I wasn’t active. I’m a sort of fellow traveller.” Athill talks of how disillusioned she has become with party politics. “Imagine waking up in the mornings and thinking ‘oh God, I’m Prime Minister, I’ve got to run the country’. It’s not possible to run the country. It’s such a problem now, economically, in every way, I don’t know how any of them could do it and certainly not all the fools who stand up and think they can. It’s just depressing, so depressing. I don’t have any idea of how it could be solved.” Her disillusionment has increased through feeling more cut off the older she gets: “I was thinking the other day, each week I read the paper there are more things that I’m not interested in, and I turn the page quickly because they are irrelevant to me.”

Having said this, there are still political issues that Athill is passionate about, including library closures and the state of education in the UK. On libraries she argues that: “We should all get out there like the Egyptians…because so many people depend on them.” On education, she is concerned that the standard of teaching and our expectations of pupils are dropping. “They are knocking back education, which is absolutely the last thing any government should do.”

We agree that the key to a good education is curiosity. However the current political obsession with targets and the drive to get young people through exams, often means that curiosity and creativity are forgotten. Part of the problem, Athill says, is that “prosperity has become taken for granted in the world. Everyone’s become so comfortable in the developed countries…it’s taken for granted…So the whole of life now has to be convenient, everything has to be easy, luxurious really, and it’s hard for people to have other values. We are much more materialistic now. The higher standard of living is a good thing, but it hasn’t come with the right sort of education.”

Our conversation meanders onto religion, in particular Athill’s stint as guest editor for the BBC Radio 4 Today Programmelast year, when she spoke with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. “It was wonderful,” she says, “I knew I was going to like him the minute I went into his study. I’ve never seen such an untidy study with so many books. I mean there were books knee-deep in every direction.” Athill wonders how much enjoyment Williams gets from being Archbishop, having to be constantly involved in the tedium of church politics, dealing with the “fools” who make an issue of gay and woman priests, the traditions around which she describes as nothing more than “habit, silly habit”.

Athill's recent collection of letters

She and Williams came to the conclusion in their short meeting that, despite their opposing opinions on the existence of god, there really wasn’t that much difference between them. “I don’t think there is all that much difference between people who say, ‘I believe in it and I call it God,’ and people like me who say, ‘I simply don’t know’. I don’t understand why people should suppose that they could be capable of knowing what it is. It is a mystery. Life is extraordinary.”

We discuss the intriguing beauty of that which is unknown, and Athill expresses her annoyance at people who are constantly looking to the idea of an afterlife to cement the reason for being alive. “Life is, in fact, coming and going, it is starting and ending. Everything begins and ends making way for something else to begin and end. That’s how it works,” she says. “The planet is wearing out,” Athill continues, “and nature is going to very cruelly sort out our problems…I think sooner or later we’re going to go the way of the dinosaurs.”

A brilliant raconteur, Athill tells me about the pleasure she shared with her friend Edward when they learnt that a publisher had accepted her letters. She talks about one of her co-residents who, at the age of 105, still attends demonstrations and strides around the garden, and of how her perception of residential care has been transformed by the Mary Feilding Guild’s home in which she now lives.

An incredibly insightful writer with six volumes of memoirs, one novel, a book of short stories and a collection of letters, Athill’s is a life very much told in her own words.

Women’s Views On News is the women’s daily online news and current affairs service, operating on a ‘not for profit’ basis. The site provides up to date news on all the major national and international stories of the day, in much the same way as any newspaper or online news service, but the stories featured are always about women.

Diana Athill introduces Instead of Book: Letters to a Friend, from her home in north London