Comfort and Joy by India Knight

First of all, a small disclaimer. The wonderful India Knight is not a stranger to me.

We inhabit the same milieu, have a million mutual pals and have come to be, largely over the marvel that is Twitter, friends.

We haven’t been to each other’s houses, which is my definition of a proper friend, but I’m sure we will.

Meanwhile, we would hack our way across a cocktail party to greet each other and I was invited to the glorious launch of this book.

But let’s be quite clear, none of the matey matey stuff has any impact on what I say here. I love this book quite separately from liking its author.

In fact, I have such a girl crush on India’s writing, they are pretty much divided into two people in my head, or I would be too shy to speak to her. India my hilarious Twitter pal and India the amazing writer.

So, to the book. It’s not like her first two novels at all. I loved them both – hilarious romps – this is much more measured. I’m sure India wouldn’t mind me saying it doesn’t have a gasp-making cliff hanger plot. It hardly has a plot at all, but it is an immensely satisfying read.

I’d say it is more in the style of my favourite of her books until this one, The Shops, than the novels. That was an immensely elegant book about that art of shopping, this is a novel about the complex emotional landscape of a modern family, told over three Christmases, but the tone is similar. Sophisticated, yet earthy and real.

You live every emotional moment of it with the main character, Clara, as she observes and analyses the patchwork of ex-husbands and inlaws, half sisters, immediate family, friends, waifs and strays, who make up her Christmas landscape. And at the end, you shed a poignant tear.

It is, with great humour and style, an uncompromising appraisal of the ongoing emotional cost of modern marriage – and breaks up – to all involved.

But in the end it is a glorious Christmas carol to the wonderful gift that is family, be they ever so dysfunctional.

A comfort and joy, indeed.

Reading satisfaction: 8
Un-put-downable-ness: 8
Recommend to best girlfriend: 10
Recommend to mother: 10
Recommend to niece: 10
Recommend to gay best friend: 10
Recommend to man pal: 9
Recommend to Helen Razer: 9
Read on public transport: 10
Unpleasantness: 0

Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey

Gosh, so sorry I’ve left this blog alone for so long.

Between my book tour and all the hoo ha over the end of my column and then starting my new Style Notes blog, I just haven’t had time.

Ah yes, the new blog. If you haven’t seen it yet, please do have a look. It’s at http://maggiealdersonstylenotes.wordpress.com/

The idea is that I will post a Style Notes to it each week and if you subscribe (the little button is right at the bottom of the blog), it will land in your in tray each Saturday morning, just like a newspaper plopping through your letterbox.

But obviously better, because it’s free and doesn’t use paper.

Although if you do have any elderly rels or neighbours who used to enjoy my column in that magazine, whatever it was called, and who aren’t on line, do please print out the new online version and give it to them.

I’m also doing an added extra post from the archives mid-week as well, and if you subscribe, that will also just turn up. The miracles of the interweb. I love it more each day.

Especially as I already have subscribers from America, Singapore, Switzerland, Qatar, UK and other farflung spots and none of them could get my column before.

It’s all good.

Now, back to books. The other reason I haven’t blogged on here for ages was that I couldn’t write about the last two books I read because the lovely Jennifer Byrnes invited me to appear on the Christmas special of First Tuesday Book Club, while I was in Sydney last month, and I didn’t want to spoil the show by revealing my thoughts on here.

It has now aired (rather cheekily, considering the first Tuesday of its title isn’t until next week, but whatever…) so for those who didn’t see it here’s what I thought of Carey’s latest.

I THOUGHT IT WAS ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I’VE EVER READ.

I love, respect and worship Peter Carey’s writing with an unhealthy fervour (except for the one set in Singapore which I just didn’t get at all). True History of the Kelly Gang is one of my top ten books of all time. Possibly top five actually.

And I can now reveal that I wrote the voice of Theo in my latest book without using any commas, as an homage to the master. There isn’t a single comma in the whole of the Kelly Gang and I wanted to see if I could do it and have it still make sense. I hope I pulled it off.

This book charts the lives of two 18th century men – Parrot, the son of an English printer and Oliver, a French artistocrat – as they career around the world (there are journeys to Australia, as well as the America of the title). The chapters alternate the two voices.

It’s fast-paced, ridiculously broad in its scope and very funny. It’s really a study of the rise of democracy, via a compare and contrast of post-revolutionary France and early independent America, but it’s also a marvellous romp. There’s also some very sexy sex in it. Beautifully done.

But what I really loved about it was its flaws. It’s incredibly flawed. The plot hinges on the most outrageous coincidences – I counted five – and the side trip to Australia, with Joseph Banks, was completely unnecessary, but all of that just made me like it more.

I felt about it, just as I did with Martin Amis’s The Pregnant Widow: the flaws make it all the more alive and interesting. They make you feel somehow very connected to the great artist at work. And I do believe Peter Cary is a great artist. There are sentences in this book, of such glorious perfection they made me squeal with delight.

It was also the first book I read on my tragically lost Kindle *sobs*. About which more, next time.

PS If you live in Australia I think you can watch the First Tuesday Book Club Christmas special on the ABC iPlayer thingo.

Reading satisfaction: 9.5
Un-put-downable-ness: 8.5
Recommend to best girlfriend: 9
Recommend to mother: 8
Recommend to niece: 9
Recommend to gay best friend: 9
Recommend to man pal: 10
Recommend to Helen Razer: 10
Read on public transport: on a Kindle 10, in hardback 0, in paperback 10
Unpleasantness: 0

Thank you

I’m sure there must be a quick way to reply personally to each comment that is left on this blog, but I’ve never been able to find it.

Which is a big fat bore because I would so like to thank each of you separately for the lovely, heart warming, very personal and supportive messages you left beneath my last post. (Cue bugles.)

I keep expecting the morning to dawn – or more like the 4 am high anxiety breathless wake up – when I am consumed with depression over the ending of the column, but so far the black dog has stayed in its kennel.

I’m sure it’s your warm messages that have helped me avoid it.

You hear in the news people going through personal tragedies, saying how cards and notes from strangers keep them going, and now I understand what they mean.

On the scale of what life can throw at you, this is an irritating – and hopefully temporary - career reversal, not a life crisis, and your support has helped me to keep it in that perspective. If it doesn’t sound too cheesy, I feel cocooned in a big fluffy cloud of kindness.

Thank you all so much.

And if anyone can enlighten me how to reply instantly to individual blog comments, please tell.

PS I have added these images in the spirit of that most optimistic of songs 'My Favourite Things'.

The end of my Good Weekend column

What a strange day. Much of it spent feeling like George Clooney (but unfortunately not feeling George Clooney…) in Up in the Air, comparing Qantas lounges around Australia.

They really should put meat pies out.

Then it got even weirder because today was the day that it finally hit the media – via Caroline Overington’s excellent piece on The Australian blog – that my column in Good Weekend is coming to an end after 12 years.

I found out a couple of weeks ago, while I was packing for my two week book tour. My first reaction was to keep it a secret, as though that would somehow make it not true.

But it quickly became slightly surreal to stand at my book events there with audiences telling me my column is the ‘only thing’ they buy the Saturday Sydney Morning Herald/The Age for and knowing it was about to cark it. So it only seemed to right to starting warning them that November 20th is the last one.

I must say the timing is excellent. To be greeted with rooms full of the smiling faces of lovely people – sometimes two different events in a day – who are there because they really like my work is exactly what I needed to get through it.

Mind you, I have been a journalist for thirty years, so I do know how these things work. Also I’ve known since I moved back to the UK to be near my ageing mother (she’s 88) that I was probably on borrowed time and I’m proud that I managed to get 600 of them out before the axe fell.

So I’ve taken it on the chin. And I didn’t shed a tear until the beautiful tweets and blog comments started rolling in today. Here are a selection:

Dear Maggie,
I've just read on Girl With A Satchel (via your Twitter feed) that the Good Weekend column is about to come to a full stop. How sad. I love your column, it's one of the first things I read, and I read it aloud to 'my other half' in bed, either on Saturday night or Sunday morning. Regret that I couldn't get one of your book events. I look forward to reading you where and when I can.
Ian


@milijana_: nooooo :( what will I have to look forward to on Saturdays :(

@pruereid: I just read the Aust. blog, even sadder now that I realise it wasn't ending by your choice, 3 generations of my family will be too!

@batrock: I actually had one of your columns in either my HSC or trial HSC English exam - I had already read the column so I did pretty well!


@alice_elizabeth: I'm devastated to hear this Maggie. Your Style Notes opened my world to so much more than the small town I lived in as a teenager.


@stolenredbasket: No! This isn't true? I quoted your column for my high-school yearbook 'Whoever said the right pair of shoes can't change your life'

@fashion_hayley: No reason to buy the paper on Saturday's without my favourite column by
@MaggieA there to greet me


@jules_stonesoup: it’s the only reason I buy the weekend paper RT @Reemski: @MaggieA end of your column?? WTF??


@BeeDreams: I am gutted that @MaggieA Will no longer grace the pages of the GW- and who gives a shit where she lives? She's great- booooooo to you GW!


So I had a little weep when I read those, but they were such a comfort. Thank you so much. Then I put on a pair of truly fabulous high heels (see photo above) and headed off to my Canberra book event.

One lovely young woman said that she couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t read my column. Then another told me her mother has recently died, aged 93. In her last few months she couldn’t see well and each Saturday she asked for my column to be read to her.

When she died they read one out at the funeral. It was ‘If The Shoe Fits’, which I think is in one of the books. So that set me off welling up again. I think it’s one of the most touching things that has ever happened to me. Another lady brought me a beautiful bunch of roses from her own garden.

I feel very blessed to be so appreciated, but now is the time for the end to my sadness and the seizing of the opportunity. I may be absent from the pages of Good Weekend, but I have no intention of disappearing from your lives. Oh no.

There will be a much improved website (the current one is in limbo) and two more blogs, which I have been planning for some time. Please follow me on Twitter @MaggieA for news on those.

And if anyone out there needs a columnist who comes with thousands of truly gorgeous, bright, funny, stylish readers of all ages and both sexes – gun for hire.

One last thing. If my columns do end up being available only on line, I feel it is an act of apartheid against my loyal readers who aren’t internet attached, which tends to be the older ones.

I have so enjoyed the letters I’ve received from this group – men and women - over the years, so I have a request. If any of you have older rels or friends, would you please print out my column and give it to them each week?

With much love

Maggie xxx

SHALL WE DANCE? by Maggie Alderson

Dress? Check. Shoes? Check. Several other dresses? Check. Blow dry appointment? Check. Extra shoes? Yes.

OK, I’m ready for my book launch.

My new novel Shall We Dance? is in the shops in Australia. How did that happen?

It seems only a minute ago that I was the only person on earth who knew who Loulou and Theo and Chard and Marc were and now I am getting lovely tweets from people telling me they are reading about them in the hairdressers and on the bus.

It's also great to get tweets from some Twitterers I will be meeting over the next few weeks at the various events I’m going to be doing around Australia. I love putting real human faces to Twitter tags.

Here is where I’m going to be to have a chat, answer questions and sign books. Please come along because a) being alone at a book signing is every editor's worst nightmare and b)I would love to meet you.

My new book is set in a vintage store, so one of the things I will talk about is the joy of vintage clothes and accessories – so please bring some of your favourites along to show me.


Tuesday October 26th
SYDNEY
Ariel Books, 42 Oxford Street.
7.0pm

Wednesday October 27th
MELBOURNE
Readings, Hawthron
6.30pm

Thursday October 28th
BRISBANE
Mary Ryan’s book shop, 40 Park Road, Milton.
6.15pm

Friday October 29th
NOOSA
Sheraton Hotel, hosted by Mary Ryan’s, Noosa
5.30pm
This one is ‘cocktails’ yee haw!

Wednesday November 3rd
ADELAIDE
Adelaide Library, 176 Tynte Street, North Adelaide
Hosted by Dymocks
10.30 am

CLARE
Collins book shop, 2/260 Main North Road, Clare
6 pm

Thursday November 4th
CANBERRA
Woden Library, Corinna Street, Phillip
Hosted by Dymocks
5.30 pm

Friday November 5th
ERINA
Reef Restaurant, Terrigal
10.30 am for morning tea (snacks, hurrah!)

THE KINDLE by Amazon

After months of prevaricating – Kindle? Sony? iPad? books? - I have finally ordered a Kindle.

I asked the wonderful Twitterverse for its advice and the Kindle was the overwhelmingly preferred device.

I also asked a man I saw reading one on the train yesterday if he was happy with his gadget and he was very enthusiastic about it, saying he was reading a lot more since he’d bought it.

Glancing at the huge tote bag on the seat next to me, containing the hulking great hardback (a Booker prize nominee, so not available as a paperback for a whole year…) which I have to read for work by next week, and my mind was made up.

One click this morning and I am £149 poorer – and keenly anticipating the postman.

Apart from the portability – and with three weeks work travel coming up, that is very attractive – the other thing which convinced me finally to get an electronic reader is comfort of reading.

I like to read in bed, lying on my side, and with a great big hardback, it’s just not comfortable. There are wrist issues and I need my wrists for typing. With a Kindle, all books will be rendered equally readable, no matter where they sit in the publishing hierarchy.

I will also be able to manipulate the font size, another issue that has seriously affected my reading pleasure this year.

I keenly ordered a book people had been raving about on Twitter, only to discover the type was just too small for me to read without glasses – and it’s completely impossible to read in bed lying on your side wearing specs. I tried.

So rather than being the death of books and publishing, I’m hoping my Kindle will solve all these problems and have me reading more. I’ll let you know how I get on with it.

And the Diane von Furstenberg limited edition cover that was also accidentally purchased…

Wait For Me! by Deborah Devonshire

To my very great surprise this is a fail. I’m hoping only a temporary one.

I’d like to think I will finish it one day and that my decision to put it down half way through (she’s not even Duchess yet…) has been hastened by the book I have waiting next in line.

(It’s a cracker, just too tempting, sitting there by the bed, and I’m desperate to get stuck into it.)

It’s not that Wait For Me! is boring – it’s just that so far I have known all the best bits, described so hilariously by Debo’s big sister Nancy Mitford in her novels The Pursuit of Love and Love In a Cold Climate.

And the less good bits – the family’s close pre-war friendship with Hitler – has always been offputting in the extreme. Although I must say that Debo is wonderfully frank and level-headed about all that.

There are some new gems to savour, such as her father – Farve, better known as Uncle Matthew in Nancy’s books – calling his last cup of cold coffee, which he liked to take off to his study, ‘my suckments’.

One morning a new maid cleared them away before he’d had a chance to take them out of the dining room. ‘Some monkey’s orphan has stolen my suckments!’ he roared.

From that day on he kept the cup in his safe until the moment of perfect drinking.

Also, to be fair to Debo, she has always maintained that she is the quiet Mitford, preferring wild flowers and poultry to the extreme politics and sparkling society (meaning mostly gay society, in Nancy’s case) that her sisters were so drawn to.

I will finish it. My devotion to Nancy Mitford borders on a cult. I have several shrines to her in my home and office and the least I can do is finish her baby sister’s memoir.

And considering I drove an hour and a half from my mother’s house to Chatsworth especially to get hold of a signed copy, it would be crazy not to.

Just not at the moment.

Debo, aged 20, in 1940. So beautiful and doing what she likes best.

Reading satisfaction: 5
Un-put-downable-ness: 5
Recommend to best girlfriend: 8
Recommend to mother: 10
Recommend to niece: 8
Recommend to gay best friend: 6
Recommend to man pal: 7
Recommend to Helen Razer: 0
Read on public transport: 7
Unpleasantness: 0