Top Ten Tuesdays: Fictional Bookstores

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This
week it is a freebie so I am choosing to post a theme from earlier in the year. Back in October, I did all the thinking around the theme is Favorite Bookstores OR Bookstores I’d Love to Visit. I chose all the books, I just had to add the pictures and the words and I was done. Except I never got to it!  My twist to the theme is that I have focus on fictional bookstores rather than real bookstores. So, here are ten books set in bookstores.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon - Starting out strongly with one of my favourite boosk ever!

Aria's Travelling Bookstore by Rebecca Raisin - I love that way that Rebecca Raisin writes about food, books, Paris and more!

84  Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff - What a delight this book was!

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan - I must get back to reading or listening to Jenny Colgan's books!

The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George - I am hoping to visit at least one Paris bookshop soon. I am happy with big or small!

The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton - I haven't read this book yet but the title is intriguing.

The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin - This book is on my must read soon list.

Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan - this is another bookstore book I haven't read yet. It sounds like fun.

The Bookstore Sisters by Alice Hoffman - I know that this is an extra one but I thought I would share it seeing as it is a really short short story that is a recent release.

So there's my list of Fictional Bookstores.

Top Ten Tuesday: By the numbers

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to this week's edition of Top Ten Tuesday which is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's theme is Books with Numbers in the Title. 

I haven't done a TTT for a few months as I have been too busy at work to do the thinking and composing that is required for one of these posts, but this week I have time off so it seems like a good time to make the effort. When I started thinking about this topic, I was sure that I had already done a post with this theme but it turns out I might have only done this in my head. Recently I nearly did a Six Degrees of Separation post using numbers but decided against it for the same reason.

I am still going to go with my original idea which is a play on numbers rather than specifically in the title. Let's see how this go

Battle Royale by Lucy Parker - my first book by this author, but not the last. Also the first book in the Palace Insiders series.

Second Place by Rachel Cusk - I listened to Rachel Cusk's session at Melbourne Writers Festival. I am not sure that she is an author that I would read but it was interesting listening to her talk.

The Cartographer's Secret by Tea Cooper - the third book that I gave a rating of 5/5 this year.

The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde - For obvious reasons.

The Life She Imagines by Maggie Christensen - The fifth book in the Granite Springs series.

The Time of Singing by Elizabeth Chadwick - the sixth book I read by Elizabeth Chadwich. She has a new book out which is why I had her on my mind. I also need to get back and read her as I am now a few books behind.

The Seven Sisters by Lucida Riley - Another obvious choice.

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff -  I know....cheating! but it starts with an 8 right?

Snowy Mountains Daughter by Alissa Callen - The ninth book I read this year. The next book in this series has recently been announced and I can't wait to read it!

The Sundial by Shirley Jackson - the tenth book on my kindle to read right now. This is the upcoming group read for RIP XVI. 

Bookish Quotes: The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff

A couple of months ago I read 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff for book club. Like millions of other readers before me, I thought it was a lovely gem of a book. I loved the letters, the humour, the conversation about books and so much more!

I knew, therefore, that I wanted to read the follow up book, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. Unfortunately my library didn't have the book so I had to request the Helene Hanff Omnibus from another library via interlibrary loan. I was planning to read at least one of the other short books contained in the omnibus but I think I am going to run out of time because I actually picked up three interlibrary loans on the same day and they are all due back on the same day as well.

Now that I am a fair way through The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, I do feel that I can compare the two books. Whilst Duchess is a fun read, I don't think it is as well balanced as 84 Charing Cross Road. Rather than being an epistolary book comprised of the letters between Helene Hanff and the staff at the bookshop at 84 Charing Cross Road, this book is more of a diary format, telling of Helene's experiences when she finally makes it to London after so many years of wanting to visit. To be honest, I miss the letters that provide a counterbalance to the voice of Helene. She is still funny, but there are times when it comes on too strong. I am withholding final judgment until I do finish it, but I think it is fair to say that I liked Duchess but it won't get as strong a grade as the one that I gave to 84 Charing Cross Road.

Having said that, I do find Hanff's pure joy of finally living her dream by visiting London and meeting some of the people that she had corresponded with for years totally infectious and is making me wish I could go to London again. One day I will get back.

One thing that I did find interesting that I thought I would share today is the story of Helene's reading journey.

Q (Quiller-Couch) was all by himself my college education. I went down to the public library one day when I as seventeen looking for books on the art of writing, and found five books of lectures which Q had delivered to his students of writing at Cambridge.

"Just what I need!" I congratulated myself. I hurried home with the first volume and started reading and got to page 3 and hit a snag:

Q was lecturing to young men educated at Eton and Harrow. He therefore assumed that his students - including me - had read Paradise Lost as a matter of course and would understand his analysis of the 'Invocation to Light' in Book 9. So I said, "Wait here," and went down to the library and got Paradise Lost and took it home and started reading it and got to page 3, when I hit a snag:

Milton assumed I'd read the Christian version of Isaiah and the New Testament and had learned all about Lucifer and the air in Heaven, and since I'd been reared in Judaism I hadn't. So I said, 'Wait here,' and borrowed a Christian Bible and read about Lucifer and so forth, and then went back to Milton and read Paradise Lost, and then finally got back to Q on page 3. On page 4 or 5, I discovered that the point of the sentence at the top of the page was in Latin and the long quotation at the bottom of the page was in Greek. So I advertised in the Saturday Review for somebody to teach me Latin and Greek, and went back to Q meanwhile, and discovered he assumed I not only knew all the plays of Shakespeare, and Boswell's Johnson, but also the Second Book of Esdras, which is not in the Old Testament and not in the New Testament, it's in the Apocrypha, which is a set of books nobody had ever thought to tell me existed.

So what with one thing and another and an average of three 'Wait here's' a week, it took me eleven years to get through Q's five books of lectures.

I am not saying that I would like to take 11 years to read a single book, but I can trace my reading tastes and habits to a degree. For example, I read Diana Gabaldon because her book was given to me as a gift. From there I discovered Sharon Kay Penman and Paullina Simons. From Sharon I started reading Elizabeth Chadwick and from Paullina Simons I read Belinda Alexandra! I could go on and on, but it gives you an idea of what I am referring to.

Can you track your reading from one book or one author to the next?

Weekend Cooking: Yorkshire Pudding

For this week's Weekend Cooking I am sharing a portion of two letters that appear in Helene Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road, a lovely little book that many book lovers would definitely enjoy if they read it. The book is a collection of letters that have traversed the Atlantic Ocean starting when Helene Hanff starts ordering rare and unusual books from Marks & Co that was located at 84 Charing Cross Road and a correspondence begins between the author and the staff of Marks. Incidentally, the building at that address is now a Pizza Hut which seems a little bit wrong really!

There are quite a few discussions about food within the pages of the book, particularly emphasising the difference in the post-war food situation between Britain and America. Here, Cecily shares the recipe for Yorkshire Pudding with Helene.

Yorkshire Pudding seems to me to be a quintessentially British dish. There are lots of other foods that we probably think of in that way, but that does get eaten the world over (an example is fish and chips), but the only times I have eaten Yorkshire Pudding was when I was in the UK or when I ate roast meals at people who have British heritage.

A good yorkshire pudding served up with roast beef, crispy roast potatoes and sweet roasted carrots smothered in lashings in gravy is really delicious! Oh my goodness, I am making myself hungry just thinking about it!

Eastcote

Pinner

Middlesex

20-2-51

Helene my dear -

There are many ways of doing it but Mummy and I think this is the simplest for you to try. Put a cup of flour, an egg, a half cup of milk and a good shake of salt into a large bowl and beat altogether until it is the consistency of thick cream. Put in the frig for several hours. (It's best if you make it in the morning.) When you put your roast in the oven, put in an extra pan to heat. Half an hour before your roast is done, pour a bit of the roast grease into the baking pan, just enough to cover the bottom will do. The pan must be very hot. Now pour the pudding in and the roast and pudding will be ready at the same time.

I don't know quite how to describe it to someone who has never seen it, but a good Yorkshire Pudding will puff up very high and brown and crisp and when you cut into it you will find that it is hollow inside.

Love

Cecily

14 East 95th St.

February 25, 1951

Dear Cecily

Yorkshire Pudding out of this world, we have nothing like it, I had to describe it to somebody as a high, curved, smooth, empty waffle.

Best -

Helene

Before I finish for this week, I just wanted to add that this week I made a Weekend Cooking recipe that someone else put up last weekend. I made the Strawberry Lemonade muffins that were posted by Anita from A Woman, a Wife, a Mom, and they were absolutely delicious! I will definitely be making them again!

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. For more information, see the welcome post.