Bookmarks

Currently I am reading ‘Wolf Hall’ and it’s the hardback version (Christmas pressie) so quite cumbersome to read. In more than one way, I’m finding. I’m about a third of the way through and there’s something very satisfying about closing the book on a bookmark and looking at how much I’ve read.

And the current book mark? There are two. One in the front of the book where the character lists are, as I keep having to refer back to that….and one marking the place I have reached in the story.

I vaguely remember a TV programme which did a very funny slot on ‘book marks found in library books’ – including if I remember correctly a flattened goldfish (one can only wonder how that got there) and paper money.

I’m always loosing bookmarks myself and therefore pick up something that’s to hand. Mine at the moment is nothing better than an old shopping and ‘to do’ list.

What are you reading and what do you recommended for my next book? (And with what are you marking the page?)

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Author: Sarah

No time to lose. No, time to lose. Make time to stand and stare.... Did you see that?

89 thoughts on “Bookmarks”

  2. Thank you Tocino… I had a look at the link and it doesn’t seem quite my thing. Have you read others of his?

  3. Snap, Pseu – as in finally ‘doing’ Wolf Hall! I love it; so very different to usual bodice ripper stuff you usually get in historical genre.
    My oldest bookmark is a very plain white from la librsirie de Toulouse. I think I must have got it sometime mid nineties when I lived near there. It keeps turning up, all dog eared every couple of years or so!
    Saw your blog re poets cornered on MyT by the way, but haven’t had time to commment. It’s a shame though; those little challenges were great fun. Are you thinking of doing it here?

  4. Pseu,

    Never read any before and if I ever get to finish it, probably never again. Over the past few months, I have read several fictional books about the Knights Templar’s. Really interesting reads as well!

  5. I was disappointed in Wolf Hall, excellently written but only really covers about 4 years or so, the second half of the book seems awfully dragged out. I would have thought that as he didn’t last too long after that she could have got to the end of his life. I suppose that will be a sequel. I actually bought a copy but have sent it round the garden club I don’t think I care if I get it back I don’t think I would bother to reread it.

    I have to agree that hardbacks are much more satisfying than other methods, I couldn’t be bothered with electronic readers ever!

    Currently reading ‘Memoirs of Madame de la Tour du Pin’ Century Lives and Letters series. Plus rereading ‘Bad Popes’ by xxx chamberlin, which I find rather funny.
    Book marks, silver paper from cigarette packs generally!

    claire not sure how you manage to equate the historical genre with bodice rippers! Sounds like too many bad airport paperbacks!

  6. Oh CO how could you. I loved Wolf hall. I borrowed it from the library but now have a paperback copy of my own. Apparently HM is going to write a sequel. One of the things I loved about it is that I know London pretty well, especially the City, and I know where Cromwell’s house near London Wall used to be. So in my mind’s eye I was travelling back and forth and around familiar places but at several centuries remove. I had never had time for TC, Henry VIII’s fixer, and the novel made me look at him afresh. I wrote about it on MyT about Christmas time.

    But the question was about bookmarks. I have various. Mainly ones from art exhibitions, which rather like Claire’s Toulouse one reappear from time to time. But I am using a picture of two dachshunds that was part of a calendar at the moment.

  7. I find the easiest way of keeping my place is to rip out the page once I have finished. It has the advantage of making the book lighter.

  9. Actually, as I somehow manage to lose my bespoke bookmarks, I tend to use anything that comes to hand. A business card, my car keys, a sock! Have just finished reading ‘The Ascent of Money’ by Niall Ferguson, which was very interesting. Not sure what to start next as I don’t have Empire yet, but it will probably be D-Day by Anthony Beevor. All my female friends are trying to persuade me to read ‘Shantram’ by Gregory David Roberts, but after 30 pages, I decided that it was very definitely chick-lit, well, lit for chicks, so I don’t imagine I will be taking that any further.

  10. Sipu, and use after ripping out? I understand that on long expeditions novel paer can then double as loo paper.

    Page 3, Ara?!
    I hope you find a little headspace soon. 🙂

  14. ‘Shantram’ by Gregory David Roberts… will look that one up. Not heard of it.

  16. He was Australia’s most wanted man. Now he’s written Australia’s most wanted novel. ‘Shantaram’ is a novel based on the life of the author, Gregory David Roberts. In 1978 Roberts was sentenced to nineteen years’ imprisonment as punishment for a series of robberies of building-society branches, credit unions, and shops he had committed while addicted to heroin. In July 1980 he escaped from Victoria’s maximum-security prison in broad daylight, thereby becoming one of Australia’s most wanted men for what turned out to be the next ten years. For most of this period he lived in Bombay. He set up a free health clinic in the slums, acted in Bollywood movies, worked for the Bombay mafia as a forger, counterfeiter, and smuggler and, as a gun-runner, resupplied a unit of mujaheddin guerrilla fighters in Afghanistan. This is the setting of ‘Shantaram’. Apart from having this highly unusual personal background, Greg Roberts is a very gifted writer. His book is a blend of vivid dialogue, unforgettable characters, amazing adventures, and superb evocations of Indian life. It can be read as a vast, extended thriller, as well as a superbly written meditation on the nature of good and evil. It is a compelling tale of a hunted man who had lost everything – his home, his family, and his soul – and came to find his humanity while living at the wildest edge of experience.
    http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UVJiT6439HkC&dq=%E2%80%98Shantaram%E2%80%99+by+Gregory+David+Roberts,&source=bl&ots=vJUBeP7DHZ&sig=85S0Js1Zhkp3jDYSO0RBbTNts5M&hl=en&ei=fyy6S8zGCo380wSErqwt&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CA0Q6AEwAQ

  17. CO; Ah, you got me; I’m the closet Phillippa Gregory fan club on here. I blame the other Boleyn Girl.. But historical fiction does always seem to me to be very bodice ripper-ish.. it’s good to get something a bit harder. Can you recommend anything else in the historical genre?
    TOcino; I went through a Knights’ Templar phase as well, around the time of all that Da Vinci Code stuff. I found it fascinating, but alas, only retained a huge bundle of fact, conspiracy theories and fiction all rolled into one!

  18. Pseu, “It can be read as a vast, ……, as well as a superbly written meditation on the nature of good and evil.”. You see what I mean? No red blooded chap wants to read that sort of thing. Just gives us the good and evil, don’t meditate about it.

  19. claire, if you want something historical but not too heavy that is not a bodice ripper I suggest Ken Follet’s The Pillars of the Earth. A cracking read, well paced like his thrillers but a very different subject matter, google his website. It is about an architect/builder building a Cathedral in mediaeval England.
    Wolf Hall is somewhat repetitive after a while the story doesn’t go anywhere, easier to read it in a good history book. But it is so very well written.
    I was forced to throw the DaVinci code away half way through, total ghastly rubbish!
    straight in the bin! Well recycling actually!!!

  20. isobel no time for Thomas Cromwell?
    No Cromwell, no Reformation!
    Without him we would all still be Catholic.
    no thanks!

  21. Ah thanks CO! I’m a shameful addict of the boddice ripper, so wil definitely take your advice on that!
    Can I ask; are you something of an expert on the period of the English civil war…?

  22. I’ll own up – I looked at Wolf Hall, all set to buy it, and didn’t. I have an almost pathological aversion to ‘critically acclaimed’ books, the price at $45 didn’t help, and I wondered whether I’d end up arguing my way through it – as I did with ‘The Other Boleyn Girl!

    I’m interested to see Christina that you also re-read books – so do we.

    Claire – if you’ve never come across Sharon Penman – try her. Her first book was very badly written, but she told the tale so well I forgave her and have read most of her other stuff – I like the fact that she tells the reader where she has deviated from historical ‘fact’. I’ve also read Colleen McCullough’s early Rome series. Probably helps that I don’t know much about the subject, but it strikes me that she has really done her research.

    At the moment, I’m ploughing my way through an early book of an author I usually like, I’m not sure I can persevere to finish it. And that is unusual.

    Bookmarks? Whatever comes to hand.

  23. William Napier is quite a good read. I enjoyed his trilogy on Atilla the Hun, and it helped me guess Boadicea’s last quiz.

    Ken Follet is patchy, in my opinion, but I certainly enjoy some of his books. Dan Brown is totally light weight, unless you are seriously into conspiracy theories.

  24. POI Co we were still catholics under Henry VIII, but anglican catholics not roman. I say ‘we’ loosely. i don’t think any of my family had got to England by that time.
    I did another comment but presumably that was when Cat decided I was not paying him enough attention and I must have forgotten to submit it.
    Can’t stand PG. Like you, Boadicea argued non stop with her while reading the Other Boleyn Girl. Not that she could hear me. Wolf Hall a totally different experience. Like comparing Barbara Cartland to Jane Austen. But Claire do try Alison Weir’s Innocent Traitor about Jane Grey. AW is an historian, but she has now also written two historical novels. I went to a talk by her and she said how much she had enjoyed the freedom and what ifs that fiction allowed her. If your local library has restocked them you could try Margaret Irwin’s trilogy about Elizabeth i. i think the first one was Elizabeth Captive Princess.

  27. Tocino – I enjoyed Smith’s first ancient Egypt book, but the later two were really just money spinners. I haven’t read any of his other stuff.

  28. Len Deighton, Isobel: yes. I have most of them. Brilliant. I loved them, but I used to work for his publisher at one point, so I am biased here, and I didn’t have to pay for his earlier stuff.

  29. Boa, have to say, he has gone off the boil a bit now. His African stuff was very good IMO.

  30. Did you meet him Araminta? Not a chap for literary events. Brilliant writer. I have given most of mine away in the misguided belief that they would always be available in the library. They aren’t.

  31. No, I didn’t meet him, Isobel. He was not an easy author, as you say. He switched publishers many times. Which of his works can’t you find?

  32. All of them. the library doesn’t keep books anymore that have not been borrowed for twelve months. Unless they are by Dickens or Trollope for example. Deighton has gone rather out of vogue, so his books have been ditched. The same goes for Margaret Irwin. I tried to borrow one of hers a couple of years back. They had a copy in large print, but I was told she was not popular with younger readers. They wouldn’t get me a copy either. said it wouldn’t be worth it. ow she has been reissued ad I think she’s back in our library, presumably having been rediscovered. Makes me v cross!

  33. Ah, well Isobel, I may be able to help here. I’m having some of my books; er about 30 cases delivered soon. I really have to decide to cull some, so I will give you first refusal on any Deighton. I’ll let you know in the next month or so.

    I am hopeless with books, I hate to part with them, but I would happily give some of them a good home. We are inundated, and they are taking over.

  34. Thank-you araminta! I am hopeless too Araminta. So I am now feeling very torn between wanting any copes you aer going to dispose of and wondering where they would go. Maybe we could do a swap?
    I’ve freecycled quite a few in the past year, sold lots a few years back and have given loads to charity shops but my shelves are still too full. I’m trying to be a bit more ruthless, but it isn’t easy.

  35. Negotiations will commence when I know what I have, and where to put them.

    I have the added problem that some five or so years ago, some friends decided to live afloat, so I naturally said I would house some of theirs too.

    Frankly, it’s impossible and I must sort it out. It is becoming a major worry.

  36. Pseu – afraid I don’t do much book reading, though currently ploughing through the Music Instinct, an almost scientific appraisal of what it is in music that bends or moves our ear. As for bookmarks, I have used bus or train tickets. (To keep a hymn book open at the right page I use elastic bands and the latest gadget – chunky hair clips!)

  37. I have my ‘office’ contents behind the sofa. I never look at them. Need them only (!) for the Inland Revenue and if someone queries something I’ve written. Another good reason to stay away from journalism. Freecycle is quite good as you know that someone wants them. Our local charity shops chuck a lot of things away. A boot sale is quite effective too.

  38. Thanks Boa, Sharon Penman…will bear her in mind. I’ve been reading Lindsay Davis as well – Rebels and Traitors – although I think Hilary Mantel is far better because she doesn’t read like an encyclopedia of the civil war.
    Isobel and Ara; my husband has sort of banned me from adding any more to our bursting bookshelves, although I’ve sort of gone along with it, in the short term at least, thinking that it will make me a better teacher! PRoblem is, I just end up getting loads of stuff out from the library. Or borrowing/ ie nicking books from my sisters!
    Tocino, my dad has all these hardback Wilbur SMith books, but I never borrowed ie nicked them. I suppose I’ve sort of pigeon holed them as my dad’s sort of books, really!

  40. claire was there anything specific you wanted to know about the civil war? I tend to know as much about this side as that. So many of the colonies were started then, especially the theocratic townships of Massachusetts. Interesting that people went back and forward as much as they did. One always gets the impression that they left England and that was the end of that, nothing could be further from the truth!

  41. There is nothing like concentrating the mind on keeping books as having to ship them across the Atlantic a few times! All shipments are priced on a computation of volume and weight, and books are seriously heavy! How to get ruthless in one easy lesson!

  42. I thankfully do not have that problem, Tina but even so, they are quite an expense when one is moving them about; even nationally.

    Still hate to part with them though; it is against my religion! 😉

  43. Tocino, right – Wilbur SMith it is! But don’t ask me to read my dad’s endless encyclopedias and science manuals as well. Please!

  44. Christina, I do find that period of English history particularly fascinating and have been trying, on and off – and time permitting – to find out more about it in the region of Lancashire. Ana did a good blog on my T about the siege of Lathom House, which is/was just a couple of miles away from where I used to live. I’d love to know a bit more about that. Archeologists have just discovered the remains of the old house, after years of speculation over where it was originally located.

  45. Claire: as to the Civil War, I think Boadicea was very generously referring to me as the “expert”.

    It is a period that I have studied, and time permitting, I will try and write something. I have to warn you, it was a long time ago.

  46. Ara, really? Oh, sorry, I had no idea! But yes, I would love to see a blog on that.
    I blame the national curriculm for my ignorance on such matters – my husband is always tut tutting about how French people just know certain things that seem to have completely passed me by at school!

  47. claire one of the most interesting facts apropos of this blog is that Thomas Cromwell and Oliver Cromwell were related, ‘n’th cousins ‘n’ times removed.
    Two people that changed the whole face of Britain and helped form what we know today.

    Your husband is more than likely correct, | have noted appalling lacunae of knowledge in people that you think have had a sufficient education to know better, but they don’t! School courses are so hideously hopping about and the 17th and early 18th century are dodged like the plague below Uni level in both History and English. One can see why, the politics are dirty, so is the religion, the literature is scurrilous and our wars are dubious and inept at best. Most people never catch up as adults by infilling with private reading.
    Haven’t you noticed how many kids seem to go from the Tudors to Hitler? with very little in between!

  48. Claire and Tocino. I used to love Wilbur Smith. His early books were great and his first, ‘When the Lion Feeds’ in my opinion, his best. Well, I enjoyed it. That being said I have not read him for 25 years! Incidentally he is probably eating his breakfast 400 metres from where I am sitting right now. In the same genre, is John Gordon Davis. ‘Hold My Hand I am Dying’ is a good yarn, though to be fair, they are all books of an age.

  50. Sipu,

    I have a feeling that John Gordon Davis was a solicitor in Hong Kong at one time. He also wrote a book Typhoon about the typhoon (Typhoon Rose) that hit the colony in the early 70’s. I knew a mate of his, ex HP policeman who was running a charter yacht in the Seychelles in the 70’s.

    P.S. I think that joke in Africa about the book title, Hold my Hand Im’ Dying was, Hold My Gland I’m Dying?

  51. Christina, you’re absolutely right on that one. My other half can quote chapter and verse of english history, but I’m damned if I even know half the basics…the schools are too busy teaching stuff like citizenship and media to be bothered with real things like history and languages. Don’t get me started…!
    I had to play catch up at uni because half of my degree was Enlish Literature, so some knowledge of history was essential for reading stuff like Milton and Dryden etc. But literature courses hop about from Shakespeare and Donne to the 18th century, skipping over politically heavy stuff like Milton, only to end up practically salivating over all that ‘reader I married him’ stuff in Austen and the Brontes. Is it any wonder I’ve ended up in Phillippa Gregory land!

  52. I read very little fiction these days, but I just finished reading Donna Tartt’s The Secret History … over-long and flawed, I thought, but quite enjoyable none the less.

  53. Claire, I started reading D-Day yesterday, as had I threatened to do. I learned that that great Gallic leader, Charles de Gaulle wrote a history of the French Army, but somehow forgot to mention the Battle of Waterloo. I would be very careful about trusting your husband’s authority on matters historical, especially where the English and French are concerned.

    I think the important thing about history is to learn the salient facts – a time line of rulers, leaders and significant events over the entire period. Once you have mastered that, then the details can be filled in over time. It makes much more sense. It helps too if the time lines cover events in other countries and other fields, such as science and art.

  54. A propos Elizabethan times, I’ve just enjoyed reading Anthony Burgess’s novel about Christopher Marlowe, ‘A Dead Man in Deptford’. So now I’m tempted to read ‘Nothing Like the Sun’ – about WS. Any views?

  55. Sipu; very true. Many French have a completely different take on the Second World War; strange how one nation’s version of history can differ to another’s. I think their memories/shame have a huge impact even today on how they view all matters military.
    NOw I am going!

  56. Tocino, yes, I think you have it. Its opening line is a favourite in our family. “It is hot in the Zambezi Valley, in the spring it is pregnantly hot.” Much laughter ensues.

    Brendano, I remember when Secret History came out, the accolades were high. Donna Tartt’s name was one everybody lips, well everybody on BBC Radio 4. I never read it and am somewhat relieved to hear it is not perfect.

  57. Sipu, I’ve just seen TSH described as follows (not entirely unfairly): ‘The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale.’

    http://books.google.ie/books?id=x3tyKCRXESYC&dq=Donna+Tartt&source=an&hl=en&ei=PQS7S8KGEMKd-ga9xMjACA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=11&ved=0CCwQ6AEwCg

    Janus, I enjoyed A Dead Man in Deptford too … haven’t read the Shakespeare one, but I imagine it will be lively and entertaining.

  58. Brendano, Thanks. By the way, I have just heard that Derek Crozier, aka Crosaire, died on Good Friday. He was 92. He was still composing the Irish Times Crossword to the end. RIP.

  60. Wow!

    Brendano :

    TSH described as follows (not entirely unfairly): ‘The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale.’

    My sentiments exactly – hated it!

  61. Oops, I have just realised, I was thinking of her much later, second novel, The Little Friend (2002) which won the WH Smith Literary Award.

  62. Sipu – after reading her first book, I was not going to spend money on her second…

  63. Yes, Boadicea. I quite enjoyed parts of it and kept hoping it would step up a gear, but the characterization was poor, I thought … I found it difficult to differentiate betwen the characters or to care about them. We know by the end, for example, that Camilla is beautiful, smokes and drinks a lot and has a weird relationship with her brother, but not much else about her.

    Also the narrator showed a serious lack of common sense, which made it hard to sympathize with his woes. There was far too much self-indulgent detail about every little thing or thought.

    However, Ruth Rendell said ‘It takes my breath away, it is so accomplished’ (!).

  65. Janus – I read Dead Man in Deptford years ago. A great novella.
    CO and Claire – I had to study the Tudors and the Stuarts and the French Revolution. Twice.
    Claire there’s a Margaret Irwin about the English Civil War too, but it is quite heavy going. the focus is on Prince Rupert. The NPG can be a good place to go too to get a handle on who was who through the portraits. It has activities for kids as well and some great talks.
    I am finally reading (well page one) La Symphonie Pastorale which I somehow missed up until now.

  66. It’s a long time since I read the book, Brendano, so I don’t remember the details too well. But I can remember feeling that it was a distinctly unpleasant book, about extremely unpleasant people. I also remember that I viewed the person who recommended it to me saying what a fantastic book it was very differently after I’d finished reading it!

  68. Great minds again B. and a good caff too. I think they have changed the no smoking sign, or perhaps removed it as superfluous. It was a favourite of mine, showing Harold Wilson with his pipe.
    I shall be pounding the streets of Kennington this afternoon and will probably have questions to ask you when I get back!

  69. The hazards of book-recommending, Boadicea.

    A publisher recommended it to me … she said something I’d written reminded her of it!

    The NPG is certainly good, but a bit small compared to the nearby NG.

  71. That’s the beauty of it Brendano. I go to a Christmas party every year at St Martin’s. We have a great time. The Photographer’s Gallery up the road is good for elevenses.

  72. Yes, it’s a great area, Isobel … so much within walking distance … Covent Garden, the bookshops in Charing Cross Road, etc.

    Have you been tempted to do a spot of etching in St Martin’s? They used to give classes; don’t know if they still do.

  73. I didn’t know that Brendano. You can still do brassrubbing there. Did you know it’s the Queen’s local Parish church? Also the Admiralty’s? That’s why there are those two Royal Box affairs inside.

  74. Doh! I meant brass-rubbing, not etching … it’s been a while. 🙂

    No, I didn’t know any of that. Interesting details.

    You may pass Charlie Chaplin’s birth place in your Kennington travels. I was surprised do see a statue of him on the seafront in Waterville, Co. Kerry … apparently he used to go there a lot.

  76. Sorry, Isobel … I’m really showing my ignorance today. Definitely saw a Chaplin-related plaque on a house in Kennington, though … he lived there as a child, I think.

  77. Yes he spent a lot of time in Kennington. Moved around a great deal. Should really have as many blue plaques as Dickens who must have kept Pickfords in business.

  78. Joyce is the same in Dublin … plaques everywhere. (Moving swiftly to safer ground … less likely to make a fool of myself. :-))

  81. Thanks, Boadicea … very interesting. Yes, I did miss it.

    On the subject of connections to silent movies, I’m pretty sure that Rex Ingram (director of Valentino) had previously lived in the first house I lived in as a baby … his father had been a clergyman in our town.

  82. Thanks Tocino. My Great grandfather fought in the Peninsular War (200 years ago. That still impresses me). Somewhere, back in England, I have a copy of the letters he wrote home. It will be interesting to compare the two.

  83. Sipu,

    It really is well worth a read, I have read it several times. They were certainly good at what they did even all those years ago.

  84. Hello Pseu: Late to this as usual, busy weekend, house building, may post about it later.

    My bookmarks somehow end up staying in the book when finished. I have many but only seem to use them once, very similar to carpenters pencils in their ability to hide almost immediately after first use. Most times I’m with Soutie, just repeat the page number a couple of times and close the book.

    CO: Have you read Follet’s sequel to “The Pillars of the Earth”, World Without End”? I think it’s also a good read

    Boadicea: Sharon Kay Penman is an interesting author, an American from New Jersey and has developed quite a following for her very English historical (almost fiction) works. I agree about the quality of her first (Here Be Dragons)
    but the tale was a good one and her telling of it from the perspective of Joanna the daughter of King john and her marriage to Llewellyn was masterful.

    Both Christina’s choice and Boadicea’s have a theme in common, the strong characters in each are women, why is that not a surprise?

  85. LW Yes have read both. Excellent I thought and fit the bill of what claire seemed to want.
    Yeah, you can really see me reading PC, pinko, hand wringing, guilt ridden, introspective, I’m a ‘plucky’ victim sort of literature too?
    I note the libraries round here in liberal WA are awash with such utter drivel.
    Fortunately they have a sufficiency of biography that no-one ever reads, had they done so they would have had liberal book burnings chanting the usual shibboleths!

  87. LW. Edith Pargeter is also pretty good. She also wrote about Llewellyn from a completely different perspective. Quite interesting to see how authors treat the same events. Edith also wrote the Cadfael books as Ellis Peters.

    CO I’m not into the hand-wringing style of writing either, a thundering good story, or biographies – but only of those who are dead.

  88. CO I’m not into the hand-wringing style of writing either, a thundering good story, or biographies – but only of those who are dead.

    What is the hand-wringing style of writing? I don’t think I know it. I loved Edith Pargeter’s books when I was a teenager. Ah, happy days.

  89. Boadicea: Thank you, I have read the Cadfael books and enjoyed them, also liked the TV series with Derek Jacobi. I have not read “The Green Branch” but I shall seek it out forthwith.

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