At news of the queen's death, I pulled Alan Bennett's whimsical novella, The Uncommon Reader off my shelf to reread. It's even better than I remembered—funnier, sweeter, and beautifully modulated. If you haven't read it, do.
And for more of Charlotte Strick's dust jackets, click here.
To work up a writing exercise, I am herewith stealing from Kathleen Jennings' blog post, Five Things to Steal from a Cafe (hers is for illustrators, too). (1) Find a place where you can take notes on your surroundings—a room of your own, a park bench, a public place (library, grocery store, filling station), a performance space, etc. (2) Write down five things you could "steal": objects, patterns, textures, colors, shapes, sounds, smells, light effects, mood, etc. (3) List three ways you could incorporate each of your five items into a story. (4) Choose a few of those ideas, mull over them a few minutes, then in twenty minutes work them—or something like them!—into an outline or the opening of a story.
I made myself work through the exercise.
Literary tip for Anglophiles: Angela Thirkell's long Barsetshire series was written, in effect, in real time. Jutland Cottage (1953) and What Did It Mean? (1954) include the death of King George VI and the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Here at the end of the queen's long reign, I have pulled them out for a nostalgic visit to the England that shaped her. And for good measure, Corgi owner that I am, I have ordered a copy of All the Queen's Corgis.) Keep calm and read on?!?
Blog post alert: A post at Jane Austen's World, Sydney Gardens Restoration in Bath, provides information on an upcoming celebration of a restored garden in the English city of Bath—and much more. I loved the video on laying out a labyrinth and followed the links to renting Jane Austen's house (£165 a night for the end of September 2022). The image is from an article, The History of Sydney Gardens at The Bath Magazine on-line. It shows the bandstand as Jeanette and Edward might have seen it if they visited on their honeymoon (for a larger version, click here).
For a fantasy story I am writing, I've been reading up on the gemstone Lapis lazuli and came across a story in ChemistryWorld— Blue teeth reveal medieval nun's artistic talent. Yippee! The archeological discovery of a particle of ultramarine pigment in the nun's dental tartar offered material proof that nuns worked as illuminators by at least the late Middle Ages. The finding is also covered in Harvard Magazine's Manuscripts Illuminated…by Women. It's of no use to me for my story, but, oh, what about in future?!?
Blog post alert: A National Park Service post on Women in the Labor Movement can boost our spirits at a time when Amazon and Starbucks are fighting as hard as big business can against unionized workers' rights, librarians are under attack, and teachers are leaving their jobs in droves. This moment in history may be discouraging, but let's not lose faith that there is strength in numbers if we only pull together. Happy Labor Day!
Blog post alert: Sienna McCulley, a 2021 intern at the American Antiquarian Society, recently posted Quicken the Thought — The Game of Authors. The card game was first published in 1861 and has gone through countless iterations, as can be seen in a published compendium.
Picture this! Renoir once noted "that it was not uncommon to discover watercolors from his [Cézanne's] hand discarded in the fields around Aix-en-Provence, sprouting here and there like the forgotten verses of an absent-minded poet" (Matthew Simms, Cézanne's Watercolors, p. 146). Image via MOMA. Read More
In Cézanne's Watercolors: Between Drawing and Painting by Matthew Simms, I was astonished to read that a single sheet has this gorgeous, limpid still life on one side and the beckoning woodland on the other. Can you imagine owning something like that?
Blog post alert: The brilliant composite photographs of Jupiter captured by NASA's James Webb telescope make you understand the appeal of optimistic science fiction!
