What are you reading now?

[smittims]

A few responses to posts seen since I last visited this thread.

Sorry to disappoint you,Ian, but there was never any chance of my doing any research, either for my own or anyone else's amusement. For the umpteenth time, if you look at my post of 31 October (no. 3683) which I think is what started all this, you should see that , like many other people before me, I was simply expressing an opinion based on my experience. I suppose some people would be flattered at the attention it has received, but I don't go in for that sort of thing.

Yes, Petrushka, I agree . Howard and Mortimer are not 'chick-lit.' nor did I mean to imply that they were . My idea of chick -lit is

'Still bruised for a broken relationship, Rachel returns to the beautiful Cornish village where she grew up, and sets about restoring a lovely old tea room by the sea. But rugged , handsome local landowner Nick Tregennis seems to get in her way at every step. What is his interest in her? And can it lead to love?'

...in other words, very far from man-hating feminism.

And finally, ff , no, I have never writen any book reviews. Don't apologise for being boring: I am never bored; whatever else I suffer from , boredom and loneliness have never affected me. As to my opinion, well, without wanting to stray away from the question 'what are you reading?' :

I've always found novels interesting and revealing ;

I've always found women interesting, especially the way they differ from men;

I've noticed that an increase in ill-feeling between the sexes seems to have coincided with the growth of a new, assertive strain of feminism.

Since writers, I believe ,cannot avoid revealing their inner nature in their art, feminist novels might be one way (I'm sure there are others but I'm not a sociologist nor a psychologist) to grasp what is happening and how the problems might be resolved before they get worse. Men and women need to work together for the good of everyone , including the plant and animal population which I care about (not relevant to this thread) , and discord and hatred are getting in the way.

The Independent published an article 'nine things women wish men would understand'. I thinkit most unlikely they will publish a balancing article 'nine things men wish women would understand' but I think it woiuld help. I think feminists don't realise how much their words and actions are fomenting the anti-female resentment which is an increasingly ugly feature of the present day. We need more understanding all round, and a first step is to read and hear what the other side are saying.

[Serial_Apologist]

....while I do have a couple of non fiction social histories on the go at the moment (on stall would be more accurate). I have recently finished the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant....(so should I decide to wage war in the seemingly always/endlessly wet and boggy terrain of the Southern States of USA, I shall be well boned up on the logistics of such a task) [a needless bracket, but then that is my style]....What I have done for some time is to take a waterproof pillow (improvised) down to the wooded streams and rivers hereabouts and just sit puffing on my vape; watching, not a lot excepting water passing by....The passage of leaves churning and hesitating is a joy of wonderful random....not much need for the socratic, nor Reid or Kinesic methods ....Today I saw a Kingfisher and a Goosander and hardly thought about ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬at all

These are the approaches I take to my "Zen walks", or "walking meditation" according to many committed practising Buddhists: to shut off the thinking process by paying the fullest possible attention to the ambient sounds, scents, physical sensations and visual impressions: treating external and internal states as one indivisible by indulging "actuality" as a sort of Gesamtwerk until (and if!) the sense of self and other dissolve into one - which usually happens for a few seconds at most, but longer, apparently, for someone more practised than me. If undertaken successfully ones walking pace can slow right down, any urgency to get to where one intended going likewise dissolved, leading to any sound etc becoming no more significant than any other - the way one imagines animals pay attention. Under other circumstances this state is associated with acute attention to potential danger. Value derives from allowing (rather than forcing) the mind to relax. Unlike yourself I find I can do this more easily when walking. The mind state so described eventually gives way to purposive thought when the body signals some need or urgency, such as a need to drink, eat or fatigue. This is also one way to deep listening to music though this tends to be focused on the music at the expense of peripheral phenomena - John Cage would disagree with this seeing intrinsic merit in allowing all sounds and sensations to percolate into attentive consciousness. The practice can be extended into everyday activities as spiritual practices - not, in Alan Watts's words, more or less, "thinking about God while peeling the potatoes, but rather fully engaging fully in peeling the potatoes". From personal experience the world would be a much more peaceful, harmonised place were these practices to become the norm rather than for instance using mobile phones or gaming consoles to fix the attention, which to Zen would constitute unhealthy narrowing of the field of attention rather than being all-inclusive. In terms of inner fulfilment and attunement it costs both the environment and the pocket little, and one can experience so much more than in overuse of everyday consciousness with its anxiety-provoking reminiscences and anticipations. Write stuff down that requires practical attention - time management - and put it to one side until needed.

Zen has a saying, "Blink when the lightning flashes and you miss It". Unfortunately the way life prioritises our immediate and longterm requirements vitiates this: under a different system technology would take care of much needless mentation activity. Capitalism encourages, nay urges perpetual dissatisfaction with the ordinary everyday, rendering the environment unsustainable and at the mercy of our overstimulated desires, which then need further stimulation.

[Petrushka]

I love the idea of Smittims doing his research for our benefit so that we need not have to unnecessarily plough through so much chick lit ourselves. I am sure that it is attricious but regret that no examples have been presented for our amusement. Like Frank, i am amused by this debate.

I wonder just how much of this is smut ? I was given a copy of 50 shades of grey as a secret santa present at work. All the women had read it and someone bought it more me as a wind up. I never opened the cover and ended up giving it to a female colleague who accepted it rather too readily. Her enthusiasm and keen interest for this gift gave me some pretty unpleasant images in my head to such an extent that I could not look her in the eye again.

I think there are sometimes things in books concerning woman that us blokes are pleased to remain ignorant about !

Fair play to Smittims for taking the plunge and saving the male contributers the job so that we can read about more niche topics such as Islamic art between 800 and 1700 AD.

Apologies to anyone here who enjoys erotic literature. Is there a point at which you become too old to read this stuff ..... a bit like middle aged blokes wearing replica football jerseys ?

I wouldn't myself categorise authors such as Elizabeth Jane Howard and Penelope Mortimer as chick lit, a term which, in any case, didn't appear until the early 1990s. They are both serious novelists using their own experiences, as most writers do, to tell a story and their books date from the 1960s and might be more meaningfully classified as semi-autobiographical. Whether one likes them or not is a matter of opinion.

I think the ultimate chick lit book, and the one that set the trend, was Bridget Jones' Diary.

Most of the women in the office where I worked eagerly purchased Fifty Shades of Grey but not many actually finished it. One who gave up told me that it was very badly written. Copies frequently appear on the local street bookstall.

Full disclosure: I've not read any of the books mentioned!

[Historian]

....while I do have a couple of non fiction social histories on the go at the moment (on stall would be more accurate). I have recently finished the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant....(so should I decide to wage war in the seemingly always/endlessly wet and boggy terrain of the Southern States of USA, I shall be well boned up on the logistics of such a task) [a needless bracket, but then that is my style]....What I have done for some time is to take a waterproof pillow (improvised) down to the wooded streams and rivers hereabouts and just sit puffing on my vape; watching, not a lot excepting water passing by....The passage of leaves churning and hesitating is a joy of wonderful random....not much need for the socratic, nor Reid or Kinesic methods ....Today I saw a Kingfisher and a Goosander and hardly thought about ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬at all

Both the Grant memoirs and the stream/river watching seem excellent ways to spend your time 8th0.

As you probably know, Grant wrote the memoirs at tremendous speed after he had been diagnosed wit terminal throat cancer. His friend Mark Twain managed to negotiate a very favourable book deal which ensured that Grant's widow did very well out the huge sales.

[french frank]

French Frank

Reading the Amazon on line review of the book by Kate Sharam, are you suggesting Smittims wrote this review ? Can Smittims please confirm or deny? I am quite curious

Ian

Just read it. So as a novel it is what it is, as they say, but it doesn't quite suggest a marvellous woman and an evil man if they're both equally 'orrible. I see where I went wrong: I searched novelist "Kate Sharam" and Google replied "Showing results for novelist "Kate Sharma" Search instead for novelist "Kate Sharam" but I'd already clicked on one of the Kate Sharma hits

[french frank]

Cum grano salis. Link 2 was the key.

Oh, yes. Says she was born in 1950. Her birth was predicted and registered (as Kathleen Furnivall) in advance back in 1948 in Cardiff. Who knew that, I wonder?

[Ian Thumwood]

French Frank

Reading the Amazon on line review of the book by Kate Sharam, are you suggesting Smittims wrote this review ? Can Smittims please confirm or deny? I am quite curious

Ian

[Ian Thumwood]

I love the idea of Smittims doing his research for our benefit so that we need not have to unnecessarily plough through so much chick lit ourselves. I am sure that it is attricious but regret that no examples have been presented for our amusement. Like Frank, i am amused by this debate.

I wonder just how much of this is smut ? I was given a copy of 50 shades of grey as a secret santa present at work. All the women had read it and someone bought it more me as a wind up. I never opened the cover and ended up giving it to a female colleague who accepted it rather too readily. Her enthusiasm and keen interest for this gift gave me some pretty unpleasant images in my head to such an extent that I could not look her in the eye again.

I think there are sometimes things in books concerning woman that us blokes are pleased to remain ignorant about !

Fair play to Smittims for taking the plunge and saving the male contributers the job so that we can read about more niche topics such as Islamic art between 800 and 1700 AD.

Apologies to anyone here who enjoys erotic literature. Is there a point at which you become too old to read this stuff ..... a bit like middle aged blokes wearing replica football jerseys ?

[AuntDaisy]

They do indeed: Kathleen Furnivall b 1948. Second wife of Norman Sharam. How the deuce did you find those links? (Not that I'm surprised - you are a professional ferreter out of facts, a miner of salt grains). She's bit tight-lipped about her fixation with evil men.

Cum grano salis. Link 2 was the key.

BTW Her literary agent claims...
" ... that inspired her first book, THE RUSSIAN CONCUBINE which became an international bestseller..."

Perhaps her fixation predates the historical novels? An earlier relationship with a non-cat person?
From the Power Cut dust jacket front flap...

Until you have read Power Cut, you will never know how truly shattering a woman’s power can be...
For years Jenny Cranshaw has put up with David: his infidelities, his patronising attitude and his thoughtless neglect.
Constantly exposed to her husband's condescending criticisms and open contempt, she has lost her self-respect. Or so she thinks...
Then David goes too far in a fit of temper he strikes out with unforgivable results. He has opened an old wound, the catalyst that triggers Jenny’s latent anger. And she embarks on a secret war against her husband. As Jenny Cranshaw executes her extraordinary revenge, her carefully-laid plans snowball with devastating, and sometimes totally unexpected, effects.
Power Cut is an intense and gripping novel from a highly original new writer, who carries the battle of the sexes into chilling new territory.

[french frank]

Do these help? New to me...
Link1 Link2 Link3

They do indeed: Kathleen Furnivall b 1948. Second wife of Norman Sharam. How the deuce did you find those links? (Not that I'm surprised - you are a professional ferreter out of facts, a miner of salt grains). She's bit tight-lipped about her fixation with evil men.

[HighlandDougie]

I had forgotten all about Jocelyn Brooke. 'The Orchid Trilogy', and the Denton Welch Journals are in Scotland. I'm in France so, in the interim, have ordered, 'The Dog at Clamberdown', through Abe Books to remind me of how much I enjoy his writing. Un grand merci, M. Vinteuil for the reminder.

While giving my (French) garden its final trim of the year and trying to avoid clipping the increasingly large number of Orchis Militaris plants which start springing up at this time of year, I had a sudden memory that the first book of 'The Orchid Trilogy' is of course 'The Military Orchid' - which Brooke was determined to find in England. My brother - who knows his plants - told me that orchids produce plentiful seeds from the flowers which then get dispersed by the wind. That would explain why two plants ten years ago must now be almost 100. 'The Dog at Clamberdown', is an interesting, if, at times, slightly discursive (that Marcel Proust has much to answer for) meander through various incidents in Brooke's life, complete with a mention of 'Vinteuil' (not that the latter in forumista guise would necessarily approve of the context as in a discourse about a piano piece by John Ireland) . I've been alternating between it and the latest Alan Hollinghurst. Definite whispers of the former writer in the latter.

[eighthobstruction]

....while I do have a couple of non fiction social histories on the go at the moment (on stall would be more accurate). I have recently finished the Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant....(so should I decide to wage war in the seemingly always/endlessly wet and boggy terrain of the Southern States of USA, I shall be well boned up on the logistics of such a task) [a needless bracket, but then that is my style]....What I have done for some time is to take a waterproof pillow (improvised) down to the wooded streams and rivers hereabouts and just sit puffing on my vape; watching, not a lot excepting water passing by....The passage of leaves churning and hesitating is a joy of wonderful random....not much need for the socratic, nor Reid or Kinesic methods ....Today I saw a Kingfisher and a Goosander and hardly thought about ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬at all

[AuntDaisy]

I'm grateful to you for your concern over my wellbeing but I actually enjoy this type of debate (possibly more than you do? In which case I do apologise (and to whom it may concern) for being boring). What is very interesting to me is not the novels themselves but your opinion and why you hold it. It's an investigation, if you like. Yes, finally, after drawing several blanks, with your help I have discovered Kate Sharam's one-star rated novel Power Cut ("A novel about the battle of the sexes in which a vengeful wife eventually snaps when her adulterous husband wounds her beloved cat") but I can find nothing about Kate Sharam herself. Does she exist? Is she even a woman? I've been fiddling with the anagram - was it perhaps someone called Mark? I've carried out researches to find someone born in the UK called Kate or Katherine Sharam; or someone called Kate or Katherine who married a Sharam. Is it a pen name? Perhaps the blurb on the novel casts more light?

It's not that I'm trying to disprove what you say: I'm seeking to verify it.

Do these help? New to me...
Link1 Link2 Link3

Kate Sharam (Kate Furnivall)
1950-
Kate Furnivall Sharam was born and brought up in Penarth, Wales. She studied at London University before pursuing a career in advertising. She lives in Devon with her husband Norman Sharam who writes under the pseudonym 'Neville Steed'. Visit also this site (which does not mention the novels written as Kate Sharam).

Dust jacket info...

[french frank]

Moreover, I'm not sure it's good for you to keep tugging at this point like a dog with a bone; I think for your own peace of mind you need to let go. You've said more than once that it isn't interesting to you but you've gone on for pages.

I'm grateful to you for your concern over my wellbeing but I actually enjoy this type of debate (possibly more than you do? In which case I do apologise (and to whom it may concern) for being boring). What is very interesting to me is not the novels themselves but your opinion and why you hold it. It's an investigation, if you like. Yes, finally, after drawing several blanks, with your help I have discovered Kate Sharam's one-star rated novel Power Cut ("A novel about the battle of the sexes in which a vengeful wife eventually snaps when her adulterous husband wounds her beloved cat") but I can find nothing about Kate Sharam herself. Does she exist? Is she even a woman? I've been fiddling with the anagram - was it perhaps someone called Mark? I've carried out researches to find someone born in the UK called Kate or Katherine Sharam; or someone called Kate or Katherine who married a Sharam. Is it a pen name? Perhaps the blurb on the novel casts more light?

It's not that I'm trying to disprove what you say: I'm seeking to verify it.

[smittims]

In my experience obituaries are not 'unduly flattering' maybe not flattering at all, but they tend to avoid anything disparaging or controversial. They wouldn't say that EJ Howard or P Mortimer were obsessed with spite against their ex-husbands (Kingsley Amis and John Mortimer) thus fuelling their novels. As I said earlier,they may not even have been aware that they were retaliating.

I've already said that I'm not providing chapter and verse, because I no longer have the books to hand and I won't quote unless I'm sure it's verbatim. Moreover, I'm not sure it's good for you to keep tugging at this point like a dog with a bone; I think for your own peace of mind you need to let go. You've said more than once that it isn't interesting to you but you've gone on for pages. Why not treat it like so many other opinions expressed on these boards : Ian's low opinion of Mozart, for instance? Repeatedly demanding 'evidence' isn't I think proportionate to the nature of this discussion .

We had a cantankerous old chap in our office of whom it was said that if you said 'Good Mornng' to him, he'd shoot back 'How do you know that? Where's your evidence? What meteorological qualifictations do you have for that claim? ' etc. I think he was just lonely and wanted someone to sound off. You'll be delighted to know he was a lifelong bachelor.

(By the way, Kate Sharam's novel Power Cut ('Jenny embarks on secret war against her husband') was published in 1995 as a Sceptre book by Hodder and Stoughton, just in case you thought I'd invented her.)