This newsletter goes out to thousands of readers every month, but sometimes it’s hard to remember that. Often I ask a question at the end of a segment, and some readers reply. You certainly don’t have to, and to be honest, if everyone did, I’d be doing nothing else for days but politely thanking you all. However, I did recently ask for more definite and individual responses, and was curious to see what sort of number I’d get.
Jewellery in Literature
A recent query was about scenes in fiction where jewellery played an important role. This brought many responses and some really excellent suggestions of scenes I’d forgotten or never thought of. Many thanks for all the help. My Jewels in Literature talk is now prepared and ready to present.
The Books You Couldn’t Finish
In my last newsletter, I asked what tomes you had started but been unable to finish. I even offered a free signed copy of my Great Writers and the Cats Who Owned Them to one lucky responder.
Interestingly, my ‘bribe’ didn’t bring in a vast number of nominated books, but I was fascinated by the list. Ulysses, Voss, Anna Karenina, Moby-Dick, The Lord of the Rings, The Scarlet Letter, The Grapes of Wrath, Les Misérables, A Suitable Boy, Madame Bovary, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Crime and Punishment were all nominated. I was rather devastated to see Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey on the list, but hope that I have persuaded the nominee to give it another try. Had anyone put Emma on the list, my newsletters might have mysteriously stopped reaching them.
I also felt sad when A.S. Byatt’s Possession was named – to me it is one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
The most-nominated book was War and Peace, which is sad because it is a superb novel, though I do think the ending is rather poor. A signed copy of my book is making its way to Clare Kelly. Once again, my thanks to those of you who did reply. At least I know some people are reading this newsletter!
Thank You
It is always cheering to hear, in person, in a comment, or by email, when someone has loved a book I’ve recommended. It’s a long time since I’ve had as much positive feedback as I’ve had about A Case of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith, a delightful murder mystery set in London in 1900. Most of those readers rushed to read the second book in the series and, like me, are eagerly awaiting the third. Only one person was unenthusiastic about it. I loved chatting with others who had gained the same reading pleasure as I had, so thank you for that feedback too.
Hearing from readers is one of the great pleasures of writing this newsletter, and I’m always delighted to know what you are reading, enjoying, struggling with, or discovering for the first time. Leave a comment, or reply to the newsletter.
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Graham H.
This is not an original observation but feedback about books, from other readers of Notes from a Book addict, does leave me thinking only one thing:
‘Even if the title and author are defined, and we all go and read “that” book, none of us are, really, reading the same book.’
There’s always at least two stories – the story the author writes, and the story each reader reads. So sharing responses in the blog proliferates the number of different books that a particular book, is – not that that’s a bad thing. Everyone has been looking at everything from their own perspective, at least since the puppet-show man in Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones famously made the following candid observation about religious sectarianism:
“I don’t care what religion comes; provided the Presbyterians are not uppermost; for they are enemies to puppet-shows.”