My author website has had a makeover!
It had been a few years since I made any significant changes to my author site, but I’ve now fixed all the broken links, updated the information and reduced some of the clutter. Most importantly, it’s now much easier to look at it on mobile phones and tablets. (Thanks to HTML5 UP for providing the snazzy free template.)
I hope you find the site useful and easy to access. Let me know if you have any suggestions for further changes.
I’d planned to publish this for Love Your Bookshop Day, to say thank you to all the Australian booksellers who have worked so hard to keep us supplied with books during the pandemic. Unfortunately, Love Your Bookshop Day was two weeks ago. I would have known the correct date if I was still on Twitter. But not being on Twitter meant I had lots more spare time to write this. Swings and roundabouts. So, here, belatedly, for booksellers and book readers, is a fluffy FitzOsbornes short story. I’m afraid it won’t make a lot of sense unless you’ve read The FitzOsbornes at War.
The Mystery of the Dashing Widower
One of the most enjoyable aspects of Miss Lancaster’s job at the bookshop — apart from the unlimited access to books, of course — was contemplating the hidden lives of the customers. Such mysteries! There was The Major, a gruff elderly gentleman who always had a Mills and Boon romance concealed in the stack of military history books he brought up to the counter each month. (“For the wife,” he’d muttered, when he saw Miss Lancaster’s glance snag upon Desire is Blind. She wasn’t sure if it would be more endearing if this turned out to be the truth or a lie.) There was the tall, thin lady who was slowly making her way through a badly-foxed copy of The Interpretation of Dreams in the dimmest corner of the shop, marking her place each week with a red cotton thread. There was The Brunette in Blue, who always contrived to be in the shop at the exact same time as The Shy Accountant, although Miss Lancaster had never managed to catch them exchanging a single word, let alone touching.
However, her favourite mystery by far was the Dashing Widower, whom she’d first encountered two years ago when he’d rushed in and begged for book recommendations.
“It’s for my sister,” he’d said. “She’s very clever and has read absolutely everything but we must keep her in bed, doctor’s advice, you see, first baby and all, and magazines and newspapers simply aren’t working anymore.”
“Ah,” said Miss Lancaster, brightening. It had been a very dull afternoon and the young gentleman had blond curls and sparkling blue eyes and a charming smile. “Well, what interests her?”
“The human condition,” he said solemnly, then laughed. “Let’s see. She likes Austen and Trollope and the Brontës and there’s a novel she’s just finished, I wrote down its author — Davey, I have to put you down for a moment while I find that note.” He’d been carrying a dark-haired child, perhaps two years old, who grumbled quietly as he was lowered to the floor. “Look, old chap, a book about yachts, you’ll adore that. Here we are — Rumer Godden. Can that be right? Is that really someone’s name?”
Up close, the gentleman was older than she’d first thought, with scarred flesh running down the side of his face and neck. He limped, and later she realised he had a wooden leg. The war, she supposed. What a tragedy, and then to have lost his wife, too — because surely he was a widower. Why else would a man spend so much time looking after his small children? Because soon after that, he began to visit the shop every couple of weeks or so, sometimes with a baby in a fancy silver perambulator, more often with his son on their way back from sailing toy boats in Hyde Park. He mostly bought books for the children, Ladybirds and Dr Seuss and a beautiful leather-bound collection of fairy tales. Sometimes he accepted further recommendations for his sister (“The Grand Sophy! Oh, yes, that’s perfect.”), but he always claimed he didn’t read himself.
“You do, Daddy,” corrected Davey. “You read about aeroplanes.”
“Yes, maintenance manuals,” said his father, and Miss Lancaster filed that away. Ex-RAF? Former fighter pilot? Current pilot? Except he didn’t ever seem to go to work.
“We had a box of Biggles come in this morning,” she offered. “Excellent condition.” She picked up Biggles Sees It Through and handed it over. A curious expression came over his face and he went very still.
“What’s that?” said Davey, peering closer.
His father shook his head and smiled down at the boy.
“Sorry, lost in thought. Your aunt loved these books. Oh, look, Davey, The Adventures of Wonk: Going To Sea! Shall we get that one?”
Miss Lancaster stayed well away from aeroplanes — indeed, anything military — after that. Her standard recommendation for men who claimed not to read was a collection of humorous short stories, but she didn’t dare suggest P. G. Wodehouse, not after all the fuss about his broadcasts during the war. Nazi propaganda, they’d called it. Sometimes it felt as though the war would never be over…
Months later, Miss Lancaster spied the Dashing Widower by The Serpentine with a pretty blonde who looked so much like him that she could only have been his sister. Davey was hurling bread at the ducks, his sister had by then grown big enough to stand on her own legs and the lady was fussing over a smaller baby in the now-familiar perambulator. Her baby? Presumably. She did not, Miss Lancaster had to admit, look like a Biggles fan, but appearances could be deceiving.
However interesting this sighting was, it was nothing compared to the momentous afternoon the following year. Miss Lancaster had been walking through Belgravia. This was not, strictly speaking, on her way home, but sometimes she couldn’t resist the lure of those grand old mansions, so imposing, so intriguing. Since the war, some of them had been turned into embassies — mostly for tiny countries no one had ever heard of, but still, imagine all the fascinating people inside, the diplomats and press officers and spies… She turned a corner and there, across the road, was the Dashing Widower with little Davey, talking to one of the most beautiful women Miss Lancaster had ever seen in real life. She looked like a film star, except she was dressed in a sensible navy trouser suit and her only makeup was a slash of scarlet lipstick. The three of them were standing on the steps of the grandest house on the street and the resemblance between Davey and the woman was striking.
Miss Lancaster did some hasty editing of her mental file. Not a widower, then? Perhaps his beautiful wife was one of those modern career women and he’d agreed to take care of the children? Because his injuries were so serious that he knew he could never work again? Although she suspected that no one who lived in a house like that would ever need to worry about working at any sort of ordinary job. Old money, as her boss had said that morning when he’d returned from that deceased-estate auction in the country. Miss Lancaster sidled rapidly across the road to the neighbouring house and arranged herself behind a marble pillar, where she spent some time with her head bent over her handbag, carefully adjusting and re-adjusting the leather strap.
“I must go,” said the lady. “Meeting Daniel for tea at Westminster.”
Could she be a lady MP?
The woman climbed into a rather battered-looking motor car and Davey waved vigorously as she drove off.
“Bye, Aunt Veronica!” he cried.
Ah. Not his mother, then. An aunt, and this one looked even less like a Biggles reader. Miss Lancaster was just wondering whether she could stroll ahead now, perhaps nod hello and get a glimpse of their foyer as they opened their front door, when a far more impressive motor car pulled up and Cary Grant stepped out.
Well, not Cary Grant, because he was in Hollywood, but close enough, double-breasted pin-striped Savile Row suit and all. Davey ran down the stairs and threw himself at the man.
“Oh, you just missed Veronica,” said the Dashing Widower.
“Good,” said Not Cary Grant, hoisting up Davey. “How’s my boy?” he asked with obvious affection, and now Miss Lancaster could see the family resemblance between those two as well. “Is Julia back yet?”
“Yes,” said the Dashing Widower. “And the meeting went exactly as you predicted. But never fear, she’s plotting her next move.”
“You were away for two days,” said Davey accusingly, holding up two fingers.
“Yes, and I missed you,” said Not Cary Grant.
“Did you miss Mummy?”
“Yes.” He put the child down so that he could pull his suitcase out of the car.
“Did you miss Daddy?”
“Yes.”
“Did you miss Mr Simpkins?”
“Who’s Mr Simpkins?”
“The cat with three legs.”
“The one that chewed up my favourite silk tie? No, I did not miss him. And I wish your uncle would stop foisting all these defective animals on us—”
The three of them disappeared through the glossy red front door, which shut firmly behind them before Miss Lancaster could catch a glimpse of the interior.
Miss Lancaster pursed her lips. This was getting very confusing.
She had progressed no further with solving the mystery of the Devoted Father, as she’d re-named him, on an icy winter’s afternoon a few months later. Anyone who had any choice in the matter would have been tucked up by the fire at home with tea and crumpets. Davey, however, had birthday money to spend and was taking this book-buying expedition very seriously.
“I could get this one about sailing ships and this quite small book about a fireman or I could get this very, very good book about how to defend a castle from invaders…”
Meanwhile, his little sister was sitting on the rug in the children’s section, her stout legs stretched out in front of her. She was the most angelic-looking child, all golden curls and enormous blue-green eyes, but her rosebud frock had mud smeared down the front. (“Toni fell in a puddle,” Davey had said disapprovingly. “On purpose. And she just laughed.”) Her father was holding up a book for her approval.
“I want bunny,” she said.
“We say please when we want something. And we do not need any more bunny books,” said her father. “Now, who’s this? Look, he’s grey and has floppy ears!” He handed her The Story of Babar, which she examined dubiously. “You sit here quietly and look at this for a moment. Davey! Have you decided yet?”
The little boy was frowning at two books. “I decided, but I don’t have enough money. This one costs two shillings and two pence and this very, very good one is three shillings and nine pence.”
“So how much are they, when you add them up?”
“Five shillings and eleven pence. But I only have five shillings and eight pence.” He held out a palmful of coins.
“So how much more money do you need?”
“I’m only four, Daddy,” said Davey. “I can do adding up, but I can’t do adding down.”
“It’s called subtracting and yes, you can. You were doing it this morning. Here, I’m going to lend you thruppence and you can pay me back from your jam jar when we get home. How much do you have now?”
“Five shillings and eleven pence!”
“So if you subtract three pence from five shillings and eleven pence, you get—?”
“Daddy, Toni is climbing the wall.”
Miss Lancaster, distracted by the arithmetic lesson, had also failed to notice the little girl, who had tucked her dress into her bloomers and scaled the bookshelf in the Natural History section as far up as Alpine Flora and Fauna.
“Good Lord, I leave you alone for thirty seconds!” said her father, who’d dashed over to rescue her. “No climbing, Toni! That’s very naughty. You could hurt yourself. And look, now you’ve torn your new dress—”
“Excuse me, I would like to pay for these books, please,” said a firm voice somewhere below the counter.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Miss Lancaster, leaning over to take the books and handful of coins from Davey. “Thank you, that’s the exact amount. Shall I wrap them for you?”
“No, thank you. I will put them in my bag.” Davey was carefully stowing them away in his satchel when his father came up, carrying the little girl.
“Give the book to the lady, please,” said the Devoted Father, rather wearily.
“No!” Toni clutched the book and shook her head. Then she suddenly changed her mind and thrust The Bunney-Fluffs’ Moving Day at Miss Lancaster, with a dazzling smile that showed off two new pearly teeth.
“Ah, a bunny book. How nice,” said Miss Lancaster blandly. “That will be 2/6, please. Shall I wrap it for you?”
“Put this in your bag, please, Davey,” said the Devoted Father. “Right! Have we got everything? Toni, where are your mittens? Let’s go or we’ll be late for tea. Remember, we’re going to see Elizabeth this afternoon.”
“Princess Elizabeth?” said Davey, and Miss Lancaster’s eyes widened.
“So we’ll be on our best behaviour, won’t we, Toni?”
“Bunny book,” said Toni.
“Yes, you can share your bunny book with her. I’m sure she’ll love that. Good afternoon,” he said, nodding to Miss Lancaster. “Terribly sorry about the mountaineering. Won’t happen again.” He herded the children out and the bell clanged behind them.
Miss Lancaster propped her elbow on the counter and her chin on her hand. She was considering getting some cushions for the children’s section and perhaps a Winnie-the-Pooh to sit on the windowsill. Her boss said she should not encourage children in the shop because they were noisy and smelly and had sticky fingers, but Miss Lancaster had pointed out that this also applied to a significant number of their grown-up customers. She very much enjoyed observing the various children who visited the bookshop and remained hopeful that one day, little Davey would let slip enough information to enable her to solve the mystery of the Devoted Father. In the meantime, she was going to put the kettle on. She was planning to have a nice cup of tea and an arrowroot biscuit. And then she had a box of Margery Allingham detective stories to sort through. Miss Lancaster really did adore her job.
© Michelle Cooper 2020
Ten years ago today, I started this blog with a post about how I learned to hate poetry. Three hundred and twenty-one posts and about two hundred thousand words later, here I am, still blogging, although far less frequently than at the start.
Here’s a selection of Memoranda posts from the past decade.
First, ten discussions about children’s books, in no particular order:
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
Friday’s Tunnel by John Verney
Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
The Years of Grace and Growing Up Gracefully by Noel Streatfeild
Peter’s Room by Antonia Forest
Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner
And ten discussions about favourite novels and novelists:
The Cazalet Chronicles by Elizabeth Jane Howard
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The Mapp and Lucia Novels by E. F. Benson
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
What I’ve Been Reading: Muriel Spark
Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead by Paula Byrne
Careful, He Might Hear You by Sumner Locke Elliott
Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith by Valerie Grove
Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford and Meet the Mitfords
Here are ten posts about writing:
How To Write a Novel, about writing advice
Same Book, But Different, on editing books for different countries
Book Banned, Author Bemused – my book got banned in the US!
Five Ways in Which Writing a Novel is Like Making a Quilt
The Creative Vision Versus the Marketing Department
Goatbusters, or How The Writerly Mind Works
The ‘Aha!’ Moment and Three Things That Didn’t Happen In The Montmaray Journals
Mrs Hawkins Provides Some Advice For Writers
And ten rants about book-related topics:
Just a Girls’ Book, followed by Just A Girls’ Book, Redux and Girls and Boys and Books, Yet Again
Looking for a Good, Clean Book
I Hate Your Characters, So Your Book Stinks
A Public Service Announcement: Smoking Is Bad For You
Here’s to another ten years of Memoranda. Hopefully I’ll be blogging a bit more from now on, because I’ve just deleted my Twitter account.
I am not what is termed an ‘early adopter’ of new technology. I don’t own a smart phone or an iPad or a digital radio, I don’t subscribe to any streaming services, and my entire music collection consists of cassettes and CDs (played on my trusty 1990s Panasonic boombox). In fact, some people who know me have gone so far as to mention the word ‘Luddite’, but this is inaccurate. I’m not really a technophobe. I studied maths, physics and computer studies at high school, I have a science degree, and at Day Job, I’m the go-to person for solving tech problems, whether it’s modifying our database software or unjamming the photocopier.
Outside work, though, I only use new technology if it’s both affordable and essential. That’s why I’ve avoided ebooks for the last decade. I already had a cheap, efficient way to read books, so why would I pay a lot of money to buy some electronic reading device? Anyway, I spend all day looking at screens for work. I didn’t want to spend my leisure time staring at yet another screen.
However, with my library now closed for physical book borrowing for the foreseeable future and with limited access to bookshops, I finally decided to invest in an eReader. There are really only two options for Australians — a Kindle or a Kobo. I don’t much like Amazon and I wanted a device compatible with library ebooks, so that left me with a choice of three different models of Kobo eReaders. I chose Clara, the smallest (and cheapest). Clara has a six inch screen, fits comfortably in my little hand, weighs less than a paperback, but can store up to 6000 ebooks.
There are various options for screen brightness and colour, font type, font size and moving between pages and chapters, some of which work better than others for me. I like being able to increase the size of the print, although as the screen is fairly small, I need to swipe up and down to read a single page. I could have avoided this problem if I’d bought one of the bigger models, but they’d probably have been more awkward to hold. (In different times, I’d have visited a shop and tried out the various models before I bought anything. But if I could go to shops, I’d also be able to go to the library, so I wouldn’t need an eReader.) It takes about two hours to charge Clara fully and this apparently lasts several weeks, as long as you turn the power off whenever you finish reading. I discovered that if you use the Sleep Mode, it eats up energy very quickly. However, if you’ve turned off the power, you need to re-set the viewing options when you open up your book again, which is annoying.
Clara also provides ways to bookmark pages, highlight sections and check word definitions using the built-in multilingual dictionaries, but I haven’t tried out these features yet. I did find it a bit awkward to swipe back to previous pages to re-read an earlier section — that’s definitely easier to do in a paper book.
Clara displays nice, sharp images, including book covers, in shades of grey. Apparently you can read graphic novels and picture books with Clara, but I can’t imagine it would be a very enjoyable experience, compared to paper editions.
I bought a separate black leather cover with a magnetic clasp, which not only keeps Clara safe and clean, but can be flipped to make a convenient hands-free stand. This is a vast improvement on my usual propping-a-paperback-against-another-book-and-using-one-hand-to-stop-it-from-snapping-closed, which is how I tend to read books while eating lunch.
Clara also asked me about my favourite books and provided some amusingly unhelpful recommendations for future reading. Here’s what she thinks I should read next: all of Anne Tyler’s recent novels (which I’ve already read); The Complete Works of Plato (no thanks); The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels (ha ha! actually, I have read that, a long time ago); Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (what?); and Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. I fear Clara has the wrong impression of me. I hate to disappoint her, but my next read is actually a library copy of Courtney Milan’s Proof by Seduction, a Regency romance whose cover features a lady in distinctly unRegency underwear swooning across a bed. I have downloaded a free copy of Machiavelli’s The Prince, though.
I was interested to see whether I’d read and comprehend ebooks differently to paper books. I think I might read ebooks quicker, with more skimming and less contemplation. But the two ebooks I’ve finished so far have been YA and middle-grade novels, so maybe I’d read them quickly anyway?
In conclusion, Clara and I are getting on very well, thus far. Please do let me know if you have any helpful e-reading tips.
Disclaimer, because this is an Australian book: I’ve never met Kate Constable but we internet-know each other and she is a regular commenter on this blog. However, I wouldn’t write nice things about her books unless I really, truly enjoyed them. If I don’t like something written by an Australian writer I know, I just don’t write about it. I rarely spend time blogging about books I don’t like (unless the books are amusingly bad and the author is either dead or so famous that my opinion is irrelevant to their well-being).
The January Stars by Kate Constable is a warm-hearted, thoughtful novel about family, in which twelve-year-old Clancy and her older sister Tash accidentally kidnap their grandpa from his awful nursing home and set off on an adventure to find him a better life. In the fine tradition of children’s literature, the grown-ups are mostly dead, absent or useless, so the girls need to be resourceful and clever. Clancy is an endearing and relatable protagonist — initially shy and anxious, reluctant to take risks or challenge the rules, but ultimately able to draw on hidden reserves of resilience and courage. It’s lovely to watch how her relationship with her confident older sister evolves. I also liked Pa, who has had a stroke, is partly paralysed and has aphasia, but is always depicted as a strong-minded person with a sense of humour and varied interests. He’s also shown as able to communicate effectively with his granddaughters, despite the challenges posed by his speech and language difficulties. (I did wonder why he didn’t have a communication board attached to his wheelchair or some sort of electronic communication aid, but perhaps it got lost in the tumult of the kidnapping.)
Something I really loved about this book were the vivid descriptions of the settings, from inner-city Melbourne apartment blocks to leafy outer suburbs to a rural ashram and a seaside town. I dislike it when children’s books have either generic settings (for example, Odo Hirsch’s novels, set in vaguely European cities) or else vast swathes of descriptive prose that read like creative writing exercises, but The January Stars gets it exactly right, for my tastes.
Kate Constable’s books often involve fantasy and in this one, Clancy begins to believe her dead grandmother is assisting their quest. There is also a short section involving a time-slip or possibly a parallel, pocket universe, which the girls decide not to think about too much because “if you can explain magic, it’s not magic anymore”. I mean, personally, I would not have been able to resist researching the magic bookshop and its owner, but some readers (and authors) prefer mysterious events to remain enigmatic.
Also, I don’t often pay attention to book covers, but I need to mention this one because it’s so eye-catching. It looks like a paper sculpture, but I believe it was done digitally by Debra Bilson. It’s a very appropriate image for a beautiful, layered story.
If you like the sound of The January Stars, you may want to try Cicada Summer, for slightly younger readers. Poor Eloise, mute with grief over her dead mother, is dragged off to live in a drought-affected country town with her odd grandmother. Fortunately, there is an intriguing old family mansion to explore, as well as a mysterious but friendly girl who might possibly have slipped through time … This is a charming, poignant story with a genuinely surprising and clever twist.
I also really enjoyed New Guinea Moon, set in the 1970s, in which Australian teenager Julie visits her father, a commercial pilot working in Papua New Guinea. It reminded me a little of those Rumer Godden books in which a young white woman arrives in India, falls in love with it, gets into conflict with the old India hands over their racist views, blunders about for a while naively causing damage, then departs, sadder but wiser. Papua New Guinea is Australia’s closest neighbour, but is rarely part of our literary world, especially in children’s fiction, so this novel was fascinating to read. In common with many Australians, I have a family connection to PNG — my father worked there in the 1960s — and I also grew up in Fiji in the 1970s, in and beside an expat community that sounds very similar to the one Julie finds herself in. The descriptions of that community — the insularity, snobbishness and racism — felt very true to life, in my opinion. I also wallowed in all the lush, evocative descriptions of tropical life in this book — the sudden downpours, the geckos falling off the ceiling, the bright bougainvillea against whitewashed cement walls, the tang of salty plums. I did marvel at Julie’s mother sending her all the way to another country to stay with a near stranger for a summer (particularly given what subsequently happens in this story!), but hey, it was the 1970s — they did things differently back then.
You can find more about Kate Constable’s books here.
