my life is in sketchbooks

 Every few years I come to a big moment, a new sketchbook!  

This one above is now full and it was started in 2012. 

For me a sketch book is more of an ideas book. Its where I jot down ideas, make notes, stick in articles and photos that I like and of course some sketching!  Its a way I can look back at ideas and memories and maybe draw from them in the future.

 This is my sketch book before last, the cover was a piece of embroidery I had done when I had broken my ankle and was stuck on the sofa for a few weeks!

 But this was my first ornately covered sketch book,

 before my books, were covered but just in simple fabric or leather.

 A few page from my last sketch book

 showing sketching, image and ideas...

 ....some pages are better than others, but its about a record, a record of thoughts and inspirations.

This is my new sketch book and as you see I am definitely carrying on with embellished covers, which make me happy!

What have the Child Catcher and Goldfinger got in common?

 Ian Flemming!

As well as all his very famous series of books - James Bond, he also wrote one children's book, which now is more famous as a film, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!!!!

 I was in our local bookshop when I saw this elegant little book by 'Macmillan Collector's Library'. 

 I must admit, I had never realized that CCBB was anything other than a film script, 

let along that it was written by the great Ian Flemming. 

 Its beautifully presented, with an embossed hard back cover under the fly sheet.  

So it came home with me.

 Well it a very well written story and very enjoyable,  but to say that Hollywood took 

liberties with the story is the understatement of the year! 

 The beginning is very close, but then it all changes, 

different countries, different plots and very different baddies.  

Shock Horror - The Child Catcher doesn't exist!!!!

I certainly will be able to sleep easier at night.......

being a fan!

You may remember a while back I did a blog post on this beautiful book

Well any way, a couple of weeks ago I go an email from the artist Jean-Loup and his wife Florence to say they were in Guernsey for a few days and would like to come in and see my Gallery.

Wow, this guy is a seriously good water colourist, very excited.

So I made sure I had my copy of the book in the gallery

so that when ever they popped in I would be ready!

And I was, and I got more than a asked for, not just an autograph but a beautiful little sketch,

so chuffed!

 really lovely couple, so lovely to meet them.

and I even heard rumours that there might be another book in the pipeline........

Roald Dahl memories

Last week photos were popping up all over my face book of my teacher friends and children in fantastic fancy dress for Roald Dahl day, celebrating what would have been his hundredth birthday.

I loved his books as a child, BFG was amazing and The Twits has induced a life long hatred of facial hair on men (but also a brilliant book)!

But it brought back a memory that I hadn't thought about for a long time.

When I was a little girl my Mum was very active in setting up the Children's Library in Guernsey, and there used to be Book Gatherings every year, where the kids would have fancy dress competitions and children's authors would come over and do reading, it was brilliant, I loved it.  I still remember my friends Hayley and Douglas dresses as the most amazing octopus with huge papier mache heads and crepe paper tentacles!  Funny what you remember isnt it?

Any how I believe these were organized through the Puffin Book Club 

Every year the Puffin Book Club also organized a massive one of these every summer in London and one year Mum and I went.  And the headliner that year was Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, totally my heros, so I patiently stood in line for their autograph.

And I still have that treasured memento hanging on my wall.

beautiful, beautiful book....

Last winter I was in our beautiful library and I cam across this beautiful book.

Its a ships log of a voyage up from the Chausey Islands

(down by St Malo - the only French Channel Islands) up through our archipelago.

The artist is Jean-Loup Eve and the author/skipper is Gilberet Hurel who is from Chausey.

It is a stunning book, very very strokable.   

The water colour sketches of St Peter Port are some of the best I have seen.

And he definitely captures the atmosphere of Sark, its piece and tranquility.

In contrast to some of the seas we get round here!

I am sorry to say but I WANTED IT!

But this gorgeous book played hard to get, it wasn't in any of my local bookshops, or on their data bases, it wasn't on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com had only the French version.

On a closer look through the book I found the publisher,

it turns out that these chaps self publish, and have a lovely small series of these books set round Brittany.  And you could order them on-line.......but not the English edition....

So armed with my French dictionary, an email correspondence grew,  turned out they only had a handful of the English ones left, and a few months later, my gorgeous book arrived.

I must say it was so worth the effort.

Lovely strokable book xxx

Island Magic

One of my all time favourite books is Island Magic (1934) by Elizabeth Goudge.

Elizabeth's mother was from Guernsey and the island and its stories were a huge influence on her.

The plot revolves round the du Frocq family in 1888,

(its always been a huge source of pride to me that one of my great great grannies was a Mary de Frocq, as there are no longer any of those names in the phone book)

Their struggling farm is on the south coast cliffs, I think near to Moulin Huet, and the main story revolves around a shipwreck and a washed up sailor who comes in too their lives.

But I wont spoil the plot for you!

If you love Guernsey and you love history, I think you will love this book,

but for years its been out of print, so its been a question of trying to find copies in antique and junk shops, as you can see from my motley collection!

 That is until this week, Hendrickson Publications has re printed it,

and 10 copies have arrived at the Tapestry Gallery, very happy day (£9.99)

One last little snippet on Elizabeth Goudge, her 1946 children's book The Little White Horse was J.K Rowlings favourite book as little girl and a big influence on her Harry Potter books.

It captured my heart.

Bit of a surprise last week.

Was chatting to Joan upstairs in the office and she said she had seen me in Good Housekeeping forum, now I probably wasn't really thinking, but I thought she meant there Face Book site that I follow and do occasionally comment on.

But no, she meant the printed magazine its self!!!!!

 

 

The FB site had asked us for our Favourite book of all time

Now, knowing my choice was going to get this much attention, I wish I had put a bit more detail regarding why I chose 'I captured a Castle' By Dodie Smith.

Most people know Dodie Smith as the author of '101 Dalmatians' but this book is a bit more grown up, probably aimed at a teenage audience, though a 1950s one as it was written in 1949.

 

It a love story/coming of age book, set in beautiful English country side in the 1930's and follows Cassandra and Rose dealing with their decline into gentile poverty while growing up with a very eccentric father and living in a ruined castle. It may be a little rose tinted, but to me its a duvet book, one that I want to wrap my self up in and escape into.

 

My mother introduced me to it when I was about 12, and I loved it straight away, I was a booky child, happiest when lost in my own imagination and this one just clicked.

Then back in 2010 by beloved Aunty Betsy passed away, she was married to my Mums brother and they were living back up in Yorkshire where my Mum grew up.  She was a worse bookaholic than me!  So awhile later my uncle asked to look through her books and see if there were any I would like.  I could have gone mad, but was flying, so could only take what I could carry......

So frustrating.

Then I found this, a first edition copy and inside were written both my Granny and my Mothers name and now it has mine too, and I treasure it more than you can believe.

So I love book because it is a gorgeous story, but also I love the emotional connection it gives me to two amazing women who are no longer with us.

Just as a last point 'I captured a castle' was made into a film back in 2003 staring Bill Nighy as their father, it was a good depiction of the book but I do think you should read it first.

Marco's Imagination

Penguin have launched a range of sample books called Little Black Classics (80p)
giving you bit size books by authors that you might have be nervous of when faced with one of their classic tombs.  Was in the Press Book Shop last month and picked up a few,
including

Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls

Marco Polo born 1254 Venice, died 1324 Venice

 

Now he wrote this 'Travels' from which this book is taken, while in prison in Genoa after having spent twenty-four years in Asia as an important agent for the Kublai Khan.

Its a strange book, that felt more like pure fantasy at times than a travelogue that we are used to today, read this section and you will see exactly what I mean!!!

 

 

Diamonds are also produced in this Kingdom, and we will tell you how.  You should know that in this kingdom there are mountains in which diamonds are found, as you will hear.  For you should know that when it rains the water rushes down through these mountains, cascading wildly along vast ravines and caverns.  And when the rain has stopped and the water has drained away the men head out into the ravines through which the water has flowed in search of diamonds, which they find plenty. In summer, when there is not a drop of water to be found here, they uncover plenty in the mountains themselves.  The heat, though, is so intense as to be all but intolerable.  And let me tell you that these mountains are so heavily infested with great fat serpents that men cannot go there without fearing for their lives.  But all the same they make their way as best they can and find some very fine, large diamonds.  I can also tell you that these serpents are highly venomous and vicious, so men do not dare enter the caves where these vicious serpents live.  And again I can tell you that the men extract the diamonds by other means.  You should know that there are great, deep valleys whose rocky sides are so steep that no one can penetrate them.  But I will tell you what the men do. They take some lumps of bloody meat and fling them down into the depth of the valley; and the places where the meat is flung are littered with diamonds, which become embedded in the flesh.  Now the fact is that many white eagles live among these mountains and prey on the serpents.  And when these eagles see the meat lying at the bottom of the valleys, they swoop down, seize the lumps and carry them off. The men, meanwhile, have been carefully watching where the eagles go, and as soon as they see that one has alighted and is swallowing the meat they rush over as fast as they can.  the eagles are so fearful of the men who have surprised them that they fly off and fail to take the meat. And when the men reach the place where the meat is, they pick it up and find it studded with diamonds.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It wasn't till later than a knowledgeable friend  told me 'Travels' was basically marketing, that it all made sense.  He was trying to raise capitol to fund trade trips back out to Asia
and so was doing what advertising/travel/marketing guys always doing,
bigging up the product, seeing it through rose tinted glasses, etc
Though I really don't think he would get a publisher today!
 

a dyslexic with her nose always in a book

Books again!

When I was little growing up in Guernsey my mother was involved in the setting up of a mobile children's library called Bookworm mobile. If my memory serves me right this was

a converted van that was filled with wire shopping baskets of books. 

 It went round the schools delivering these , so that children constantly had new books

 to read and stimulate them. 

Because of this huge interest in book and reading, she twigged quite early on that I was dyslexic.  But at that point there was nothing set up in the island to test me or help me. 

When I was in the 3rd year of primary school, Mum spoke to the teacher and said

'This child is struggling to read, but the curriculum books aren't inspiring her either.'

(She was referring to the dreaded Janet and John books.)

'Could you let me have a term where I choose the books?'

And thankfully my teacher agreed.

So by Mums choice of exciting and stimulating books (with fantastic illustrations - she felt that was very important!) she got this dyslexic child hooked on stories, and if you are hooked on stories it motivates you to conquer reading, as you really want to know what happens next!

Now I am not claiming that she cured my dyslexia, far from it. But I learnt to love books. 

And my reading style is unorthodox, I think I speed read.  One time she was watching me read when I was 18 and commented that my eyes were zooming all over the page.  Oh well I don't think it matters, I am not proof reading, I am slowly sinking into another world.

So thank you Mum, a very generous gift that I will have with me always xxxx



Heaven that is a bookshop!

My mother had a lot to answer for.

When I was growing up the mantra I was taught was, you don't need to feel guilty buying fabric or books, and as my husband can vouch for, that has led to over flowing book shelves and

boxes of fabric stuffed under beds.......

I can see where my mother was coming from, its better to make your own clothes than to buy them and well I think books is self explanatory. 

I just might have got carried away!

But it has led to a life long love of book shops, now I am not going to try and be puritanical, I do use Amazon some times, but often I use it as a search engine and then go and order it in town. 

Because for me, I want to discover books, just seeing the front cover isn't enough, I want to feel it, hold it, stroke it (maybe), and as well as reading the back cover I want to flick through it, see if we would get on.  Bookshops allow me to discover the unexpected, or revisit old friends. 

Take for example, this copy of 'The Wind in the Willow'  I had read it as a child, and when I popped in, it certainly was not what I was looking for, but look at this amazing cover,

both inside and out, its exquisite.

Even better the design is embossed so you can feel all the stitches, and I feel in love and just had to hold it, absorb it and own it.  And re discovered an old favourite in the process.

That couldn't happen on Amazon.

And before you ask, no I am not a Kindle girl, I can see the point of them, but they aren't beautiful and you cant read them in the bath with out risk of electrocution, so thank you but no.

Bookshops for me every time!!!!

A loyal supporter of The Press Shop, Smith Street, Guernsey