Chatiryworld

The faces of poetry

Jon and I currently feature on the homepage for BBC Radio 3's Poetry Season.  If that seems completely random, let me explain.  The photo was taken about 10 minutes after we got engaged and I titled it using a quote from Edwin Muir's The Confirmation.  This was one of the poems selected by presenter Mary Anne Kennedy for the season, and when someone from the BBC searched for images using the same quote I used as a title, they got our photo.  I thought the photo might appear on a page about the poem, rather than the general one as it's not really clear why we're there.  Not that it matters, we (and you) know why.

I am finding it very surreal that people start arriving in Edinburgh tomorrow for our wedding.  I'd blog more about it all but I'm finding it all pretty tiring.  Nearly there though when all our hard work will be worth it.

Quirky travel books

Via a couple of the too-many-design-blogs-I-read, I saw a new guide book for Paris yesterday, Paris: Made by hand.  I ended up having a little explore around the publishers (The Little Bookroom) website and they seem to have a good selection of slightly quirky travel books.  I've already had Chic Shopping Paris down as one to look out for, and The Patisseries of Paris sounds like something we should check out (no actual plans to go to Paris, but we probably will in the next few years).

The books aren't all for Paris and France though, The Civilised Shopper's Guide to Edinburgh and Glasgow sounds like my kind of thing, and I think Jon and Hugh would both enjoy The Traditional Shops and Restaurants of London (as an aside, do other Edinburgers remember that shop on Victoria Street that seemed to sell brushes and broom handles?).

If you're looking for more travel book suggestions for the UK, Anne at I like has a very interesting Amazon store.  As well as a very interesting blog of course, that I found via Amateur Ramblings a couple of years ago.

Sea change

Just going through my pile of magazines to see which ones I can live without (and give to Jon's mum and sister to read on the train).  One of them is the October 2008 edition of Coast, which has got to be one of the most self-indulgent magazines out there, but I like it.  There's a photo shoot that's themed around a lovely poem by Cromarty poet Jane Verburg, Sea Change.  You can read it over at Cromarty: Living by the sea.  I think it sums up living by the sea very well.

Shirley Hughes

Fascinating interview with Shirley Hughes in today's Guardian Review - did you know her father set up the TJ Hughes chain?  What was your first encounter with Shirley Hughes?  I think mine may have been her illustrations for My Naughty Little Sister , and then her book Lucy and Tom Go to School.  We also had Dogger and the first few Alfie books.  There's something very cosy, warm and comforting about her illustrations, and researching links for this post is making me want to compile my own Shirley Hughes library.  I suppose a good start for it would be her autobiography, A Life Drawing .  I bought it for my mum several years ago but haven't read it myself.

The illustration above was taken from a BBC online gallery, worth perusing if you want to see some more of her work, or just want a trip down Memory Lane.  You can even buy prints at the Art of Illustration.

Children's books

There's an interview with the great Oliver Jeffers in the Guardian today.

Children's books that have come to my attention recently:

• Blueberry Girl by Neil Gaiman , looks a like a wonderful book to give little girls, and seems like a good 'welcome to the world' book as well.  Not out until March.
• I Don't Want a Cool Cat by Emma Dodd , admittedly I only saw this in a shop window but it involves cats and has a ball of yarn on the cover, always good.
• Yum Yum! What Fun! by Mara Bergman by Mara Bergman is a lovely story involving baking and children in chef's hats.
• ABC UK by James Dunn may not be to everyone's taste but I think it's pretty cool, an ABC of all things British.  I particularly like that P is for Punk.

Worth 2 minutes and 47 seconds of your life

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

Honest.  Even better if your computer has decent speakers.  Via I like.

The Bookshop

I've never officially announced that I have a bookshop.  Not bricks and mortar, just an Amazon a-store.  I don't expect to make much or any money from it, I haven't got the energy and drive to whore it out all over the site all the time, plus I don't want adverts everywhere.  There's a widget on the sidebar though, that I should probably make more of.  I just thought it would be nice to put together books I recommend and love, maybe you just want to nose at them rather than buy.  It's certainly not all the books I own I should add!  All the books there are either ones I own or, in the case of the children's picture books, have bought for others and am familiar with.  I've tried to add my own comments in on each book as well so it is more like 'my' bookshop.

Enjoy browsing Chatiryworld Books.  Sorry I can't chat with you and enjoy a cake at the same time!

Judith Kerr

Fascinating interview with author and illustrator Judith Kerr in today's Guardian.  I'm still not sure I'm over the loss of Mog.

Puffin Post is back

Look!  I was never in the Puffin Post club, but before going to school I was in the Junior Puffin Club.  A story in the magazine you got with it was the first thing I ever read by myself, I can still remember.  It was one of those stories that replaces words with images (I know they have a proper name but my memory has been eaten by Prozac so I can't remember useful and intelligent things like this, only things I have no need to remember).

Richard Jefferies on the countryside

'The endless grass, the endless leaves, the immense strength of the oak expanding, the unalloyed joy of finch and blackbird; from all I receive a little.  Each gives me something of the pure joy they gather for themselves ... The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours when we really live. These are the only hours that are not wasted - these hours that absorb the soul and fill it with beauty.  This is real life, and all else is illusion, or mere endurance.'

More information about Jefferies here.  Found in The Lost Village by Richard Askwith, a book I'm enjoying at the moment.