Bookylicious

Contents

Editorial 3

Reading Recommendations 4–5

Scarygirl? More like Scaredygirl! 6–7 by Marie Anne Cope

In the footsteps of... Thomas Hardy 8–11 by Paul Jeorrett

Review. Boys in the Trees: a Memoir 12–13 by Allan Howells

The Book Diaries 14–15 by Gwyneth Marshman

Contact details and links 16

2 Editorial

Welcome to the first edition of Bookylicious!

The idea for this zine came out of a community radio show we are both involved in: Calon Talks Books. We thought it might be fun to write up all of our book recommendations in one place — and then the remit grew as we thought of more and more articles we could include alongside the book lists.

So this edition is our first bash at putting something “out there”. We have no real idea how it will take off or where it will go, but as the show is dedicated to exploring the world of books and reading, this zine will remain true to that spirit — we may reach heights we never even dreamed of while sitting in that hot little studio, scrabbling for the next Richard Thompson track to add to the playlist.

Please read, enjoy, and share with your friends.

Gwyneth Marshman Paul Jeorrett

3 Reading recommendations

In each issue of Bookylicious, we will bring you the books we’ve recommended/discussed on Calon Talks Books in the last few months, from local authors to new writers to old classics. We hope these updates will provide you with enough reading material to fill several lazy weekends!

October to December 2015

Oliver Twist Charles Dickens Satin Island Tom McCarthy The Dragon of Allerton Oak Jude Lennon The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Washington Irving The Taxidermist’s Daughter Kate Mosse Après les Vendanges Colin S. Story NeuroTribes Steve Silberman A Brief History of Seven Killings Marlon James Coastlines Patrick Barkham Beatlebone Kevin Barry Faust Goethe Village Christmas Laurie Lee A Vindication of the Rights of Woman Mary Wollstonecraft Riding Rockets Mike Mullane Countdown Frank Borman The Way of the Explorer Edgar Mitchell Alice in Waterland Mark Davies 4 Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll King of All Balloons Mark Davies Les Liaisons Dangereuses Choderlos de Laclos The Last Campaign of Marianne Tambour David Ebsworth The Song-Sayer’s Lament David Ebsworth Bonds Marie Anne Cope Broken Bonds Marie Anne Cope Bonds Rebound Marie Anne Cope The Jacobite’s Apprentice David Ebsworth Boys in the Trees: A Memoir Carly Simon To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee Dracula Bram Stoker Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink Elvis Costello Dune Frank Herbert Kolymsky Heights Lionel Davidson

And if you’re intrigued as to what music we played on the shows to accompany these books, just tune in to our Spotify playlist and browse through our very eclectic choices. We usually select tracks that relate to the topics under discussion, but occasionally we like to throw in something wild, weird and unexpected just to mix things up. Enjoy!

5 Scarygirl? More like Scaredygirl!

Marie Anne Cope

Marie Anne Cope is the author of Bonds, Broken Bonds and Tales From A Scarygirl. The following article comes from her blog Scary Ramblings, and provides an insight into the mind of an author - specifically the fear that comes from sharing one's work for the first time.

What is fear?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is “a feeling of apprehension, distress or alarm caused by impending danger or pain.” Wikipedia gives us a variation, describing fear as “an emotion induced by a perceived threat”, and goes on to say “fear is the ability to recognise danger, leading to an urge to confront it or flee from it”.

In essence, fear is a basic survival instinct. It protects us by alerting us to danger and then preparing the body to respond to this danger. Yet how often do we actually find ourselves in a life-or- death situation, where the fight-or-flight response is critical? For most of us, never. Instead, we find ourselves hanging back, dawdling... in a word, procrastinating. I welcome you to my dilemma.

As I sit here now, my heart is racing, my breathing is quickening and my blood pressure is elevated. My body is preparing itself for physical action – to fight or to run. But why? A sabre-toothed tiger doesn’t have me trapped in a cave, Freddie Krueger isn’t plaguing my dreams and Michael Myers certainly isn’t my brother (I don’t think!). Yet I am afraid and my body responds in the same way, regardless of what it is I am afraid of.

6 For the longest time I have wanted to write; to explore the deepest recesses of my mind, where monsters roam and evil lurks. But how deep do I go? Dare I push open the rusted iron door and step through into the blackness? Dare I explore the darkest and most despicable depths of my psyche, where a certain kind of magic has taken root? You cannot see it, you cannot touch it, but I assure you it is there. The voices whisper to me in the dark of the night, calling to me, drawing me to my journals, whilst the world sleeps on, oblivious to the danger that prowls inside.

What I fear is fear itself. Fear that my resolve will come crashing down. Fear that the walls I have built to protect me from the demons within might crack and crumble as I impart the secrets that I hold. Welcome to my world.

How much to share with you I have yet to decide. How much I can trust you can only be proven with the passage of time. Is this why it has taken me so long to write this blog? Perhaps. I want you to know me, to know my words, but are you ready? Are you brave enough to open yourself up to the whispers of a warped and twisted mind?

Will we be bonded by what has been or what is to come? Will my ramblings entice you to linger, entice you to share? Oh, would that I had a spell that I may cast, so that I may but know your mind. I must, however, content myself that you have found my words.

May fear protect you when the darkness comes.

Follow Marie online! Website: www.marieannecope.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Marie-Anne-Cope-Author Twitter: @MarieAnneCope Blog: scaryramblings.blogspot.co.uk

7 In the footsteps of... Thomas Hardy Paul Jeorrett

The first in a series of articles, with a strong connection between the first few authors in whose steps we might tread.

Why start with Thomas Hardy? For many of you, I am sure the first thought that comes to your mind is “his novels are a bit on the bleak side!” Perhaps you even dread them, if you had to do Tess or The Mayor of Casterbridge for GCSE or A-level English Literature.

For me it’s personal. From childhood, I remember my grandparents reading Hardy’s novels and poems aloud to each other in front of an open fire. Along with this came a lot of family history and tales of connections with the Hardy family in Dorset. My grandfather was born in Tolpuddle in 1899, and the Hardy family lived only a few miles away: it was a very small world. Reality is often stranger than fiction: would you believe my grandfather’s Aunt Sally was best friends with Thomas Hardy’s sister, Kate Hardy? Aunt Sally even eloped with the village blacksmith: very Hardyesque!

Hardy wrote a poem, Farmer They buried him on a Sunday Dunman’s Funeral, about one of So folk might not be balked my distant ancestors: His wish, as 'twas their one day, And forty couples walked. "Bury me on a Sunday" They said to have it Sunday He said, "so as to see Was always his concern, Poor folk there; 'tis their one day His meaning being that one day To spare for burying me." He'd do us a good turn.

With forethought of that Sunday We must, had it been Monday, He wrote while he was well, Have got it over soon. "On ten rum bottles one day But now we gain, being Sunday, Drink for my funeral." A jolly afternoon.

8 Farmer Dunman sounds like a nice chap, doesn’t he? Even though the poem is about a funeral, it has a positive message.

With all this in my DNA, you might find it surprising that I have rarely visited Dorset and have never been to Hardy’s birthplace – but on a very wet summer’s day in 2015, that all changed.

The adventure began when my wife and I took a short break in Litton Cheney and Lulworth Cove Youth Hostels. Litton Cheney is a beautiful village set in a valley that hasn’t changed much in centuries, overlooked by the long barrows and other prehistoric monuments that regularly appear in Hardy’s writing.

One thing Hardy does really well is to evoke a feeling for the past and, in many ways, the unchanging nature of the human condition. At one point, waiting for a bus in the driving rain and brooding mist in the middle of rural Dorset, with only sheep for company, we felt plunged into the film set of a Hardy adaptation.

Eventually we arrived at Lower Bockhampton, where the National Trust manages Hardy’s Birthplace. Immediately I was surprised at how remote and rural it felt, even though it is only a few miles from Dorchester. The walk from the Visitor Centre to the cottage winds for about half a mile through wonderfully atmospheric woodland, with wild heathland just beyond (known as Egdon Heath in the novels). You then emerge into a clearing and see this idyllic cottage (R).

What you don’t get in this photo is the smell of wood smoke and the garden after a summer shower of rain. You don’t have to like Hardy to fall in love with this place!

9 The National Trust have tried to keep the cottage as it was when the Hardy family occupied it throughout the 19th century and early 20th century. The real moment of revelation came for me when I entered Thomas Hardy’s original bedroom and looked out of the window (R).

It was this exact view that faced Hardy when he wrote his early novels Under the Greenwood Tree and Far From the Madding Crowd. Despite my passion for his writing, only at this moment did I really ‘get it’. He used the countryside outside his window as the settings for his characters to live out their passions and challenges. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that you still feel his presence.

Our next stop was a few miles nearer to the county town of Dorchester: the house that Hardy designed and built for himself and his first wife Emma. Max Gate (below) has a very different feel to the cottage; it lies on the outskirts of the town and is not an attractive or even welcoming place.

Max Gate was Hardy's home for 40 years until he died in 1928, but whilst there he wrote some of his most famous works: The Mayor of Casterbridge, The Woodlanders, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure and The Dynasts, as well as numerous poems and short stories. Those 40 years were not always happy, as he and Emma did not have an easy relationship. This really hits home when you realise that she existed in the upper attic rooms almost in exile for the last years.

10 Hardy himself changed his study at least three times, but you can see that he tried to keep something of the view he had enjoyed in the Higher Bockhampton cottage (R).

He found happiness here with his second wife Florence, and Max Gate saw a regular trail of celebrity visitors from the literary elite of the time.

Visiting the houses and haunts of writers has always added to the enjoyment of their works for me. It helps you understand what they experienced and why they wrote what they did. Why not indulge in some literary pilgrimages of your own? You won’t regret it!

So, to finish, here are three reasons to give Hardy’s books a try:

1. His characters are vivid and 2. Few writers have woven the spirit of timeless. Although they exist in a the English countryside and natural pastoral world that was vanishing world into their plots as Hardy does. even when Hardy was writing, they If you like country walks in all still say something of the human weathers, I’d be surprised if you condition today. didn’t enjoy Hardy.

3. His humour. (Yes, really!) In many of the stories, some of the best moments are the exchanges between the rural workers. They are often funny, a new perspective on life: a tradition that goes back to Shakespeare and beyond.

So, have I convinced you to re-read Hardy, or try his books for the first time? If you’re starting from scratch, I recommend my all-time favourite, Far From the Madding Crowd. If you don’t feel up to the reading challenge, you can try one of the two excellent film adaptations: the 1967 version with Julie Christie and Alan Bates, or the 2015 version with Carey Mulligan and Michael Sheen.

Until next time...

11 Review. Boys in the Trees: A Memoir Allan Howells

Boys in the Trees: A Memoir is the recently published autobiography of American singer-songwriter Carly Simon. She remains an active award-winning musician who, in her sixth decade, continues to record and publish magical music.

The publication of her autobiography is complemented by the release of her album Songs from the Trees, which includes recordings from her entire career. Her autobiography is an honest and open account of the early years of her life, from childhood in the 1950s and 1960s through to the mid-point of her career in the 1980s. It covers her formative experiences as a child, and takes the reader through the love and turmoil of her marriage to (and subsequent divorce from) another American music icon, singer- songwriter James Taylor.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with her music, Carly Simon has the ability to write lyrics that the listener can't help but transform into rich, colourful images whilst listening to a distinctive voice and strong melody. Boys in the Trees provides an understanding of how her life experiences have equipped her with this talent. She shares how, in some cases, a song can be composed within an hour, as she waits frustratedly for her film-star date to turn up for dinner; whilst others can take a few years to finalise, with key lines and phrases stored in a notebook, to be pulled out and developed into lyrics at the appropriate time.

The account of her life takes the reader through some uncomfortable experiences in her early childhood. An undesirable sexual encounter, a loving parental relationship torn apart by adultery, a difficult relationship with her father who suffered great

12 difficulties as he fought depression, all shaped her personality. It is illuminating to discover how she battled though her own depressive tendencies (which she refers to as "the Beast"), overcame stage-fright and developed coping skills to manage her stutter, which emerged at the age of eight.

Although Carly Simon will be best known in the UK for the hits Nobody Does It Better (the theme from the Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me) and You're So Vain, she can boast a huge catalogue of music and has worked with a number of influential artists. She describes the experience of recording alongside Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Cat Stevens, to name but a few, and provides an account of what the music scene was like in the 'Swinging Sixties' and the flamboyant and promiscuous 1970s.

It is clear from her memoirs that Carly Simon did not live a chaste lifestyle; rather, she experienced many of the delights and opportunities afforded to artists at that time. However, what does come through in this book is that, when she found love, she believed in it and fought hard to hold on to it.

Carly Simon has skilfully adapted her talent for writing lyrics to produce prose which, in its longer and more detailed format, allows the reader to create colourful pictures from pages of text. Boys in the Trees is a must-read and will enable you to gaina new understanding of her life. It is a fascinating opportunity to experience new emotions from sounds you have already heard.

I only hope that, having written about the first chapters in her life, she will continue her writing and share with us all the experience of her more recent career. We may then even discover the identities of the three people who inspired her to write You're So Vain!

13 The Book Diaries Gwyneth Marshman

In my blog, the Book Diaries, I explore how I can make practical changes to my life as a result of each book I read. This challenge was born from a simple desire to read more, but it has grown to what sometimes feels like epic proportions.

Each fortnight, I read one book and then decide what I’m going to do differently in my life, inspired by the thoughts and feelings that book has awoken in me. This can be something simple, or something much more far-reaching. For example:

I will get back in touch with my intuition.

I will undertake some sporting activities.

I will pursue my drawing practice.

I will schedule my time better.

I’ve realised that committing to even very small changes on a regular basis makes the whole process of change so much easier. Taking action – in other words, actually DOING something, as opposed to just thinking about it – has a surprising effect on the brain. It feels as though a muscle is being exercised, and the more it is exercised, the easier it becomes to think “This isn’t just pie-in-the -sky thinking; I CAN make a real difference…”

One of the key factors in this process, for me, has been to make myself accountable. Around 3 months into the process I found myself wondering whether I’d actually done what I said I would. Remember: it’s not enough simply to say “I will do X”; you have to really do it for that change to happen in your brain.

So I decided to check in with myself 2–3 months after each blog post, to find out whether I’d put my promises into action or whether I was just spouting hot air.

14 And guess what? Knowing that I would be reporting back on my progress spurred me into action! The possibility that I might have to admit to failure made me more determined. Much like an office worker, prior to a meeting, who casts their eye back over the actions from the last meeting to see if there was anything they should have done, I scan my posts to see whether I’ve fallen behind on any of my intentions, and take action if necessary.

It does make the whole thing seem a little forced, I concur. But my aim is not to claim that this is a natural process or that I am somehow gifted with superior abilities, but to gradually persuade myself into a better habit: the habit of creating change rather than sitting around believing I have no control over my life. And if a little forced accountability helps that habit take root, then it’s all good.

These 3-monthly updates are currently for my eyes only. In the interests of openness, however, I have decided to write them up, along with the original posts, into a book which I will be self publishing this year. I would dearly love my explorations to be an inspiration for others to make similar changes, and I can only do that if I am honest about my own success. If you’re trying to do the same but are struggling, it may help you to know that I too have struggled with some of my promises – and that’s OK. It’s also likely that, as you develop, your priorities will change, and the things that seemed so important 6 months ago have now been superseded by much more relevant ambitions.

This is how life works. You start small, you grow, and you develop. And I can think of no better ‘change’ to create in my own life than to encourage others to become empowered too.

Follow the Book Diaries! Blog: gwynethmarshman.com/book-diaries-2016

15 If you like Bookylicious, why not find and follow us in our other hangouts?

Calon Talks Books Radio: 105 FM in the Wrexham area Web: www.calonfm.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/ CalonTalksBooks Spotify: open.spotify.com/user/116435791/ playlist/61ien0UGG9ZxMalmLGYQyX

Gwyneth Marshman Website: gwynethmarshman.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/ tothelibraryandbeyond Twitter: @gwynethmarshman

Paul Jeorrett Blog: anobelquest.wordpress.com Twitter: @jeorrettp

The next issue of Bookylicious is due out at the end of April. Our call for contributions will be issued on our Calon Talks Books Facebook page, so if you are interested in writing a piece and would like to know more, just visit and give us a ‘Like’!

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