strange and random happenstance

Bookstore: Myopic Bookstore

Location: Chicago, Illinois

Why I Love Them: Whenever I go somewhere I try to find a bookstore nearby to visit. One November I was headed to the Chicago area to go to a Lauren Willig event and the whole day would oddly, aside from Lauren, have been a book bust if not for the Borders on Michigan Avenue having a going out of business sale. Because earlier in the day I had decided to take a chance on a bookstore that everyone raved about but that left me oddly cold. You might be wondering why I would profile a store that didn't bowl me over... well truthfully, I just want to say my two cents on a store that so many people rave about and secondly, all bookstores deserve a second chance and I haven't been there a second time and everyone in this day and age needs to support brick and mortar stores. Let's get to the point, I'm talking about Myopic Bookstore. Myopic looks exactly like what you'd expect a used bookstore in Chicago to look like. The "L" is right behind the store and creates that clackity whooshing sound that is the lifeblood of the city. The building is old and the top two stories have a wonderful bay window. But inside the store feels tenuous. Some landings feel as if they'd collapse with too much weight on them. Ceilings are occasionally really low as you look through old crates that have been lashed together to create shelving. As for the basement? The least said the better, although it could easily have been in The Silence of the Lambs. But for all that, they had great marketing graphics, and for that I'm willing to forgive a lot.

Best Buy: For all it's rickety and temporary feel, some sections felt homey, like there was a glow about them, most likely from the 80s desk lamps strapped to shelves so you could see. It was in one of these comfortable nooks that I found my best buy: a few Angela Thirkell books. Now most people probably don't know her, but to those of use who crave things to be even more British in our lives, she is a comfort read. Anthony Trollope wrote a series of books set in Barsetshire. They were famous, loved, and memorable, and not just because of the miniseries starring Alan Rickman. Though Alan Rickman is sheer perfection so you should check out The Barchester Chronicles as soon as you can. In the 1930s, almost fifty years after Trollope's death, Thirkell started to write books set in Barsetshire. They were contemporary, much like Trollope was in his day. They were funny and satiric, and just lovely, making it no surprise why Virago Press finally got around to republishing many of these classics. This book buying excursion was before Virago got involved. At this time the only editions were pricey copies published by Moyer Bell, the same publishers as Helene Hanff if you're into those kinds of weird facts. In fact many of the editions I found that day at Myopic were never released and don't appear to be in the pipeline at Virago, no matter how many times I email them! So this proves that even in the most odd of stores I can still find a best buy... but in truth, I can always find an excuse to buy a new or new to me book.    

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alan Rickman, Angela Thirkell, Anthony Trollope, Barsetshire, Borders, Chicago, Helene Hanff, Illinois, Lauren Willig, Moyer Bell, Myopic Bookstore, Support Your Brick and Mortar, The Barchester Chronicles, Virago

I've never been a big one for biographies. In fact, non-fiction in general has never been a big draw for me. There's just something that rubs me the wrong way, and occasionally makes me see that I could write better than a particular author given the drive. Yes, I've read my fair share of celebrity biographies over the years, but in truth I've always been turned off by learning the less glamorous side of things. As I've gotten older this has changed to an extent. Perhaps it's the rise of authors like David Sedaris and Jenny Lawson who bring humor to their writing but are also relatable in that damaged way that calls out to me. Or perhaps I'm now more willing to peak behind the curtain and see the great and powerful Oz for what he really is. Though despite this change I rarely pick up a biography unless it's for a book club. Therefore perhaps that's what's really changed, I'm willing to let my fellow book club members and fate decide what I should read. I think that is actually the best thing about my book club, not how awesome everyone is, though they are, it's that I'm reading books I would never pick up on my own and reading outside my comfort zone. So here's to something different! Here's to the biography!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Autobiography, Backlog Bonanza, Beverly Cleary, Biography, Book Clubs, Celebrities, David Sedaris, Gerald Durrell, Helene Hanff, Jenny Lawson, Non-Fiction, Oz, Victoria Laurie

When I think of literary New York I think of Helene Hanff. The diminutive author of the literary classic 84, Charing Cross Road is the definitive New Yorker, despite being born in Pennsylvania. Helene became the voice of America, and more importantly New York, to all of England when she published her correspondence between herself and Frank Doel, the British book seller, in 84, Charing Cross Road. The book changed her life. Helene was finally able to visit England and do the type of long dead literary stalking I dream to do in New York. She also saw her life transferred to radio, television, film, and stage (realizing her lifelong dream of being a playwright). And as a side note, also a bit ironic for someone who didn't like the limelight and even hated having her picture taken (take the above picture as proof, as she is obviously trying to dissuade the photographer).

In her seminal book there was a connection forged between a store in England and a home in New York, a home which she mentions is "a real apartment with real furniture" which she moved into "AFTER September 1 [1956], 305 East 72nd St., New York, N.Y." She bought into this little apartment before it was even built, sadly she couldn't very well afford this Upper East Side location today. Charing Cross House, named after her book, is located at East 72nd Street and 2nd Avenue, there's a plaque and everything! Why does this apartment hold such fascination for me? Because my favorite book of Helene's is actually a collection of five minute radio pieces she did for the BBC's Women's Hour Broadcast called Letter from New York. In it we get a glimpse of Helene's day to day life. How she walked around the block every night with the apartment's dogs. How the building wasn't just part of a neighborhood, it was a community, a city entire onto itself within one of the greatest cities in the world.

And the closeness of Central Park was just an added bonus. If you continue from Helene's apartment on 72nd street westward five blocks later you will enter the park at the 72nd street entrance. Here is the little conservatory where people sail their model boats, made famous by such books as Stuart Little. Here you can see the statue of Hans Christian Anderson reading, usually being climbed on by gaggles of children, or literary geeks who have always been susceptible to climbing on public art. If you infer that that is me I shall not correct you. And just to the north of the water feature is one of my favorite places in central park, the statue of Alice in Wonderland. The fact that I love and enjoy a place that also resonated with Helene brings me more joy then you can imagine.

If you were to continue going north on East Drive, past Alice, you will hit the 79th Street Transverse. Back in 2005 when I went to New York several times the 79th Street Transverse was my path from the West Side to the MET. I wish I had taken a little more time examining the surroundings then just using it as a conduit. At the foot of the Belvedere Castle there is a little garden. If I had but done more then just glimpse at the wooden fencing I might have learned that this is Shakespeare's Garden. Helene adored this garden because it contains every flower mentioned in the works of Shakespeare.

In Letter from New York Helene mentions how her heart broke when the garden fell into disrepair. But New Yorkers love Central Park, as it's basically their communal backyard, so some industrious New Yorkers took to restoring it. Though the restorers weren't able to get all the plants because many were only available in England. This is where Helene's listeners came in. They heard the broadcast and inundated the little rescue project with seeds and flowers to restore the garden to it's previous glory.  Since then the little garden has remained in good repair, with new walkways and even bronze plaques with quotes from the Bard littering the pathways. So as you luxuriate in the beauty, take a moment to remember Helene, a true original who contributed more to literature and New York then most know.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 84 Charing Cross Road, Alice in Wonderland, Central Park, Frank Doel, Helene Hanff, Letter from New York, Letter from New York: BBC Woman's Hour Broadcasts, New York, Shakespeare, Stuart Little, Upper East Side

Originally I was thinking of calling September's theme month "Autumn in New York." But then sense weighed in saying, while yes, September is the month autumn starts, I was technically going to be in New York in August, not autumn (plus the one time I was in New York in autumn, it wasn't very autumny)... plus, well, I shall never name a theme month after a lame Richard Gere movie, and that is my promise to you! So this theme month started when I was planning my trip to New York for this past summer. I was looking up all the places I wanted to go, ie, stalking long dead author's haunts, and inspiration struck! Instead of just doing this for fun, I could do it for my blog, which, technically means I was doing it for fun because that's what this blog is to me, besides a labor of love. But then I ended up not going to New York, long sad story, I've moved on; yet despite the trip being defunct now, I couldn't give up on this idea of "Literary New York" (which I had finally settled on as the name of the theme month). So I decided that I'd use this as more extensive planning for when I finally get back to New York, which will happen despite the fact that it appears that like The Doctor I am timelocked from the city.

Therefore I invite you to virtually stalk the artistic haunts of New York with me. Walk the streets that Dorothy Parker and Helene Hanff walked. Breath deep of the city that inspired the likes of Edith Wharton to put pen to page. Live in the shadows of some of the greatest American Authors the world has known. New York has always been a melting pot of genius and I hope with the few authors I have chosen to spotlight that you will see not only their greatness but also the breadth of their works, from playwrights to cartoonists, satirists to biographers, I tried to find a cornucopia of genres to explore. Also, I hope that if you are as lucky as I hope to be that one day you will be able to walk these streets for yourself. Until such a time I hope I can give you a flavor of that greatest of cities housing the spectres of those greatest of authors!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:01 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Autumn in New York, Dorothy Parker, Edith Wharton, Helene Hanff, Literary New York, New York, New York Public Library, Richard Gere, Theme Month

From Wildthyme with Love by Paul Magrs
ARC provided by the author (Thanks Paul!)
Published by: Snowbooks
Publication Date: April 1st, 2012
Format: Paperback, 431 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Iris and Panda are sadly separated, but despite the time and distance between them they are keeping in touch until the happy day when Panda is back aboard the Celestial Omnibus. While Iris has her bus and is in the far flung reaches of the galaxy, Panda has been more Earth bound going to parties with Ngaio Marsh and spending Christmas aboard an ill-fated star cruiser. Yet they both miss each other so much that Iris aligns herself with a robot version of Panda, Pand R, and Panda goes off exploring the galaxy with an older, sexier, but bleaker version of Iris. Sadly for us readers, once they do reunite we will never get to read anymore of their fabulous correspondence.

I have always been a sucker for the epistolary novel. The nature of reading someone else's correspondence is illuminating and also slightly thrilling, like it's something you're not supposed to read. Fact or fiction, this device gets me every time. I always wonder what it would have been like if Jane Austen had kept Sense and Sensibility in her original epistolary form... ah, what I wouldn't give to have read that version as well. The most famous and one of my most favorite examples is Helene Hanff's 84, Charing Cross Road. In her correspondence with Frank Doel she created an instant classic, a classic that Paul and I are very much a fan of. In fact Paul wrote an homage, if you will, to Helene in his book 666 Charing Cross Road. He perfectly captured her and her voice, though never actually writing in the epistolary form. It has to be said that his foray finally into this style is an unequivocal success. This is Paul's personal epistolary tribute to Doctor Who with Panda and Iris poking fun at and saying all the snide asides we have all voiced from time to time but in the end come from a place of love. From Wildthyme with Love is a snorting good time, literally.

Speaking of snorting... let's talk about the literal LOL, the laugh out loud. If you are lucky you have a good sense of humor. You know what's funny and what isn't and you take joy in sharing a joke and laughing. Yet there are many forms of laughter. There is of course the unexpected laughter where you're out in public and you try to contain it because you don't want to draw attention to yourself, here I will add a note that perhaps it's not best to watch How I Met Your Mother on a treadmill at the gym because, well, this will happen quite frequently. There's the slow build laughter the leads to painful clutching of sides and perhaps falling off furniture, this usually requires other people, usually close friends to help induce and sustain this state. There's just the quick bark or smile you get while watching television, which is probably the most common. But there is a rare laugh... the embarrassing kind that I find to be the truest form of laughter.

When reading I rarely laugh out loud, there's usually a small knowing smile that I get, but beyond that, no verbalization. So when I say that From Wildthyme with Love actually had be doing my most embarrassing snort laugh... you can be guaranteed of the humor. The snort laugh is so guttural and also mildly offensive, that it comes from deep within you and can not be contained. If others are present, you will be red with embarrassment. The fact that I did it more then once... yeah, this book's a keeper. Almost everything in this book is a laugh out loud joke and if I were to highlight all my favorites, well, the whole book would be highlighted if I did each one. In fact, because I just had the word doc that Paul sent me I had to order a copy for my shelves because I knew that without this book proudly displayed my shelves wouldn't be quite the library they would be otherwise.

So what was it that made me snort? Well, Panda and his rather disastrous Christmas back in 2007. In his letter to Iris he said:

"You've missed Christmas. I went off and spent it on a cruise liner. Turned out we were traveling through bloody space! I met a nice girl serving drinks who looked a bit like that one off 'Neighbors'... I wasn't quite sure what was going on at that point - something about angels chasing after us and I almost spilled my drink walking a tightrope over a bloody inferno."

This succinct and cynical take on the David Tennant/Kylie Minogue Doctor Who episode "Voyage of the Damned" captures everything odd and wrong about the episode but never goes so far as to condemn it. This whole book is an ode to The Doctor and his fifty years. There is real love from Iris. There is love for the camp and the crazy, the stunt casting and the multiple bickering Doctors. Having just recently watched "The Three Doctors" I was loving Panda's recap of his own personal "Three Pandas" experience: 

"There are two other Panda's here! One is much younger and far more frivolous than I, and the other seems to be terribly old and venerable. He didn't even make it through the Event Horizon or whatever, and we can only see him on Skype, thank goodness. Looks like he might smell of wee, TBH."

With loving jabs at everything from lost footage to negotiating with an over-sized scrotum (I call him penis face, but to each his own), to the "penultimate question," to a hilarious party where Panda messes with Ngaio Marsh saying that in the future nobody knows who Agatha Christie is but was later interrupted by a giant wasp, from the Hartnell years up to the present series, each and every joke and insight made me want to just embrace this slim volume and never let it go! Also, this book with a nod and a wink brings up the fact that, just perhaps, The Doctor has been taking all of Iris's best stories and claiming them as his own...

This book gave me faith in the show again. This past season with Matt Smith where I kept feeling that the material never lived up to the potential was nicely recapped as "I think she's got her knickers in a twist recently because of the convoluted story arc she's muddled up in. Feeling a bit mithered as a result." After reading and living life as a full time Whovian for the past few weeks I was feeling the same, I was flagging there, but this book brought me back. It refreshed me and made me so happy, which I have to say, some days that's a hard thing to do. If you aren't a Doctor Who fan... and I do know you're out there, will you be able to enjoy this book? Hell yes, even if you don't get all the context, the content is beyond a doubt hysterical. With Pand R being like an annoying Scrappy Doo and little jokes about Philippa Gregory, it does work outside the sphere of Doctor Who. From Wildthyme with Love is wonderfully funny, snarky, and just lovely.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 84 Charing Cross Road, Agatha Christie, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Doctor Who 50th Anniversary, From Wildthyme with Love, Helene Hanff, Iris Wildthyme, Ngaio Marsh, Panda, Pandas, Paul Magrs, Philippa Gregory

From Wildthyme with Love by Paul Magrs
ARC provided by the author (Thanks Paul!)
Published by: Snowbooks
Publication Date: April 1st, 2012
Format: Paperback, 431 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Iris and Panda are sadly separated, but despite the time and distance between them they are keeping in touch until the happy day when Panda is back aboard the Celestial Omnibus. While Iris has her bus and is in the far flung reaches of the galaxy, Panda has been more Earth bound going to parties with Ngaio Marsh and spending Christmas aboard an ill-fated star cruiser. Yet they both miss each other so much that Iris aligns herself with a robot version of Panda, Pand R, and Panda goes off exploring the galaxy with an older, sexier, but bleaker version of Iris. Sadly for us readers, once they do reunite we will never get to read anymore of their fabulous correspondence.

I have always been a sucker for the epistolary novel. The nature of reading someone else's correspondence is illuminating and also slightly thrilling, like it's something you're not supposed to read. Fact or fiction, this device gets me every time. I always wonder what it would have been like if Jane Austen had kept Sense and Sensibility in her original epistolary form... ah, what I wouldn't give to have read that version as well. The most famous and one of my most favorite examples is Helene Hanff's 84, Charing Cross Road. In her correspondence with Frank Doel she created an instant classic, a classic that Paul and I are very much a fan of. In fact Paul wrote an homage, if you will, to Helene in his book 666 Charing Cross Road. He perfectly captured her and her voice, though never actually writing in the epistolary form. It has to be said that his foray finally into this style is an unequivocal success. This is Paul's personal epistolary tribute to Doctor Who with Panda and Iris poking fun at and saying all the snide asides we have all voiced from time to time but in the end come from a place of love. From Wildthyme with Love is a snorting good time, literally.

Speaking of snorting... let's talk about the literal LOL, the laugh out loud. If you are lucky you have a good sense of humor. You know what's funny and what isn't and you take joy in sharing a joke and laughing. Yet there are many forms of laughter. There is of course the unexpected laughter where you're out in public and you try to contain it because you don't want to draw attention to yourself, here I will add a note that perhaps it's not best to watch How I Met Your Mother on a treadmill at the gym because, well, this will happen quite frequently. There's the slow build laughter the leads to painful clutching of sides and perhaps falling off furniture, this usually requires other people, usually close friends to help induce and sustain this state. There's just the quick bark or smile you get while watching television, which is probably the most common. But there is a rare laugh... the embarrassing kind that I find to be the truest form of laughter.

When reading I rarely laugh out loud, there's usually a small knowing smile that I get, but beyond that, no verbalization. So when I say that From Wildthyme with Love actually had be doing my most embarrassing snort laugh... you can be guaranteed of the humor. The snort laugh is so guttural and also mildly offensive, that it comes from deep within you and can not be contained. If others are present, you will be red with embarrassment. The fact that I did it more then once... yeah, this book's a keeper. Almost everything in this book is a laugh out loud joke and if I were to highlight all my favorites, well, the whole book would be highlighted if I did each one. In fact, because I just had the word doc that Paul sent me I had to order a copy for my shelves because I knew that without this book proudly displayed my shelves wouldn't be quite the library they would be otherwise.

So what was it that made me snort? Well, Panda and his rather disastrous Christmas back in 2007. In his letter to Iris he said:

"You've missed Christmas. I went off and spent it on a cruise liner. Turned out we were traveling through bloody space! I met a nice girl serving drinks who looked a bit like that one off 'Neighbors'... I wasn't quite sure what was going on at that point - something about angels chasing after us and I almost spilled my drink walking a tightrope over a bloody inferno."

This succinct and cynical take on the David Tennant/Kylie Minogue Doctor Who episode "Voyage of the Damned" captures everything odd and wrong about the episode but never goes so far as to condemn it. This whole book is an ode to The Doctor and his fifty years. There is real love from Iris. There is love for the camp and the crazy, the stunt casting and the multiple bickering Doctors. Having just recently watched "The Three Doctors" I was loving Panda's recap of his own personal "Three Pandas" experience: 

"There are two other Panda's here! One is much younger and far more frivolous than I, and the other seems to be terribly old and venerable. He didn't even make it through the Event Horizon or whatever, and we can only see him on Skype, thank goodness. Looks like he might smell of wee, TBH."

With loving jabs at everything from lost footage to negotiating with an over-sized scrotum (I call him penis face, but to each his own), to the "penultimate question," to a hilarious party where Panda messes with Ngaio Marsh saying that in the future nobody knows who Agatha Christie is but was later interrupted by a giant wasp, from the Hartnell years up to the present series, each and every joke and insight made me want to just embrace this slim volume and never let it go! Also, this book with a nod and a wink brings up the fact that, just perhaps, The Doctor has been taking all of Iris's best stories and claiming them as his own...

This book gave me faith in the show again. This past season with Matt Smith where I kept feeling that the material never lived up to the potential was nicely recapped as "I think she's got her knickers in a twist recently because of the convoluted story arc she's muddled up in. Feeling a bit mithered as a result." After reading and living life as a full time Whovian for the past few weeks I was feeling the same, I was flagging there, but this book brought me back. It refreshed me and made me so happy, which I have to say, some days that's a hard thing to do. If you aren't a Doctor Who fan... and I do know you're out there, will you be able to enjoy this book? Hell yes, even if you don't get all the context, the content is beyond a doubt hysterical. With Pand R being like an annoying Scrappy Doo and little jokes about Philippa Gregory, it does work outside the sphere of Doctor Who. From Wildthyme with Love is wonderfully funny, snarky, and just lovely.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 84 Charing Cross Road, Agatha Christie, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Doctor Who 50th Anniversary, From Wildthyme with Love, Helene Hanff, Iris Wildthyme, Ngaio Marsh, Panda, Pandas, Paul Magrs, Philippa Gregory

Poison Penmanship: The Gentle Art of Muckraking by Jessica Mitford
Published by: NYRB Classics
Publication Date: 1979
Format: Paperback, 288 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Jessica Mitford is a self admitted muckraker, once she found out what the label meant, she heartily agreed and called herself such from then on and was happy to see that each new dictionary had a nicer take on the word as it became more commonly used. In 1957 she published her first expose, which, as she was willing to admit, was rather dull and fell flat. Yet that is the charm of this book. Jessica views this book as a kind of "how to" for the muckraker to be. She details her techniques and theories of friendlies and unfriendlies and then after you read a given article of hers, she has a little commentary on how she felt the article worked or didn't work, and in some cases, the far reaching consequences of that article. Therefore, without any hesitation, she republishes some very slip shod work, and she agrees that it is such. Yet how are we to learn if we don't see her mistakes along the way.

For Jessica there where many mistakes, even later in her career there are articles that fall dreadfully flat, while others sparkle with her wit and wisdom. To say this is an uneven book would be an understatement. For me, being a worshiper of her autobiography Hons and Rebels, it was interesting reading Jessica's writing over a twenty year period and seeing how she was able to find her voice. Her first articles are so stiff and uninviting. Plain facts infused with no Mitford wit. Yet, if you look at the articles that fail versus succeed, you can see a pattern. The stories she was more involved in have a great depth and a personal feel, like a diary. Jessica's style not only lends itself to this way of writing, but it feels as if she was made for writing memoirs and autobiographies. You feel as if you are gossiping over tea as she is telling you about going to the extravagant Maine Chance Resort run by Elizabeth Arden, not reading an article in McCall's. Or as she tells you how important life long enemies are and that Liberace was really excited to hear her ideas about his role in the adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One. These stories make the book enchanting to read. Though it's not all tea and biscuits with the Hon.

The article, "St Peter, Don't You Call Me" is one that sticks out because it was what would become the basis for her famous book, The American Way of Death. At this point I will admit that I have not read this yet, seeing as funerary exposes are not exactly "my thing." Yet, seeing as it was written by Jessica Mitford, I will admit that I will eventually get to it, it's waiting on my shelf for me even now. The article though is so stiff and boring that I wondered, would the book that came from this article be like this. Later though she includes three more articles about what has happened since the first article spurred the book and therefore changed her life. These articles, written five years later, have more of her conversational style that I love. Which makes me wonder... was her style still developing during the time of the article and therefore the book will be fabulous, unlike the article, or was it just the freedom of being done with the book that let her sink back into her witty patter? Because, if I could get more stories about Pet Cemeteries and directors running wild in funeral parlors, sign me up.

One thing that nagged me though was once she was known for The American Way of Death she wouldn't shut up about it. It didn't feel like she was inflating her ego... but that she was riding the books coattails was very evident. Her teaching and anything she was to speak on was all "The American Way of..." I felt a little sorry for her that this book had so become synonymous with her name that they became inseparable. Yet she didn't seem to mind. I think I might have minded a little... or at least stopped harping on about it. Though she went on to do several other big exposes, from the deathly dull expose on the Famous Writers School, to prisons and policies existing in California Universities, to me it was the little stories that I loved best. The rude treatment at a restaurant, the little things that lend a similar feel of Helene Hanff to them, who is another author whom I adore. Though, in the end, it was of course the article on Egypt that kept me way up until the wee hours. While she thought it a failure of an article because she didn't rake any muck, I felt it wonderful, because it was just what I loved about this book, a little diary about an English woman in Egypt immune to the Eyptomania as she called it, which sadly, I think she would diagnose me as having.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Egypt, Evelyn Waugh, Helene Hanff, Hons and Rebels, Jessica Mitford, Mitford March, Muckraking, Poison Penmanship, The American Way of Death, The Loved One

666 Charing Cross Road by Paul Magrs
Published by: Headline Publishing
Publication Date: 2011
Format: Paperback, 390 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Liza Bathory loves books. The older, more gothic and mysterious, the better. Her niece's boyfriend, Daniel also likes old books, but this will never endear him to Liza. She just doesn't like Shelley's man. She likes him even less when she learns that Shelley is rushing things and has moved in with him on the Upper West Side, giving up her own shitty apartment. If this relationship fails, which Liza is sure it will, then where will Shelley go? To Liza's own little sanctuary on the Upper East Side. At least Liza has her young gay friend Jack. Sure the bookstore he works at is no longer the type of olde thyme bookstore that Liza loves, instead selling all the hip and sexy vampire fiction you can shake a stake at, but he knows Liza's tastes and helps her to find the books she wants.

That's where the trouble starts. Jack sees a little ad in the paper for a bookshop in London, 666 Charing Cross Road, which specializes in what Liza loves, gothic, mysterious, macabre, old vintage paperbacks with lurid covers. They have no phone or website and do their sales only by correspondence, Liza is in heaven. Her first selection of books is beyond her wildest dreams, Fox Soames rarities, paperbacks of the most lurid nature, even if it turns out their address is the more prosaic 66b Charing Cross Road. The second package leaves something to be desired. Mr. Wright, the proprietor, has sent Liza a grimoire stained in blood. The book exudes evil, and Liza should know, she spent a great deal of her past fighting vampires and demons, but that's all done and now she just reads and edits books.

On Thanksgiving when she takes the book to Daniel's for dinner with her niece, Jack and his new boyfriend, Ricardo, a chain of events is set in motion that no one could have seen coming. Liza berates herself later that she should have, given her past, but who could have known? Shelley is stressed but still crowing over the discovery of a weird effigy her and Daniel are showing in their Museum of Outsider Art that has the whole town talking. The weird "Scottish Bride" or Bessie, as she comes to be called, is bringing patrons to the museum for the first time. The effigy has a strange life to it, almost as if she where once alive.

Then all hell breaks loose. Liza gives Daniel the grimoire to just get it away from her and he ends up possessed by the book and becoming a vampire King, who turns Jack's boyfriend, Ricardo. Than Bessie comes to life and shows up at Liza's apartment. Soon all of New York is overrun with Vampires and Bessie is convinced that she was brought back to life to help vanquish them. If they can return the book now in Daniel's possession from whence it came, perhaps they have a chance at stopping the evil, or perhaps they might spread this evil to two continents.

This is the book that first alerted me to Paul Magrs. I am a Helene Hanff devote. I liked her most famous book, 64, Charing Cross Road, but I adored her followup, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street and her collection of radio spots for the BBC Woman's Hour. She is, in my mind, New York. Therefore, if you where to pick someone that exuded the book world to be a protagonist in a new series set in New York, I don't think you could do better than to model the lead on Helene Hanff. It also helps that for some reason, despite Helene being played by Anne Bancroft in the movie adaptation of 64, Charing Cross Road, I have actually always pictured her more as Ruth Gordon. The Ruth Gordon most known for the macabre Harold and Maude and of course Rosemary's Baby, is eerily the perfect combination of who Helene Hanff was and what Paul's book is about. Old New York dame, who happens to be an ex vampire slayer, demon hunter and witch defending the world against evil.

For me, the book was a leisurely stroll through the holiday season in New York with impending evil. They didn't really feel like they where pushing to solve the problem, but doing a lot more thinking and then, when push came to shove, solved it all in a flurry of action that left quite a few loose ends, that, while giving the book resolution, also left it open ended enough so that more books could come. I don't know if it was my mood or the writing style, but it felt like a book where you read a little every night and think on it versus pushing through till the end. I like reading this kind of book. It's a less demanding book and more of a nice calm that you lose yourself in. I know, it's weird thinking of vampires and demons as calm, right?

There was a part of me though that felt this had maybe a few too many similarities to Paul's much loved Brenda and Effie series. We have the sweet intentioned gay side kick with the otherworldly boyfriend, the lady made up of spare parts, who really is this world's Brenda, the elderly witch, and than the younger female sidekick with man troubles. Yes, there's much much more than this, but the basic character traits where eerily similar. But I could forgive this all because I loved the parody of modern literature and the hatred Liza has to the modern vampire literati, Moira Sable, who is basically a Laurell K. Hamilton type that goes for sex and blood versus real ability to write. Paul nails the parody of current literature trends with Fangtasm. He also perfectly captured the previous era of literature with Liza, and I can't tell you how amused I was with every little nod and wink to Helene Hanff and her life. Her wacky neighbors and all!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 64 Charing Cross Road, 666 Charing Cross Road, Bride of Frankenstien, Eliza Bathory, Grimoire, Harold and Maude, Helene Hanff, Laurell K Hamilton, New York, Paul Magrs, Rosemary's Baby, Ruth Gordon, Vampires

So, as you've by now guessed, this month is dedicated to the writer Paul Magrs.There's a banner designed and a giveaway, this shouldn't be a surprise. Paul was more than generous with his time and willing to be submitted to my silly questions which I will post, along with his answers, every Sunday this month. To start us off, I figured some general questions about the life of a writer and his books was as good a place as any to start, so let's cede the blog to Paul!

 Question: I personally have this question asked about me a lot, but how do you find the time to do all you do? From writing and reading and reviewing and events, not to mention making sure Panda and Fester are happy, how do you do it all?

Answer: I think I developed a good relationship with time and its management from working and teaching in universities for all the years that I did. You get used to working on your own writing in the gaps and spaces of your days. That kind of training sticks with you! So, today, for example – as well as emails and a spot of writing practice and some contract and business stuff – I’ve worked on four different projects (two of them first draft and still top secret, with 1200 new words on each, and then in the afternoon – two more projects, both scripts, at a second draft stage.) It’s always a question of structured time management – and with that in place – you can spin off through time and space wherever you like. Usually.

Question: How important is having other writers as friends and part of your community to inspire and help out and commiserate with?

Answer: I’ve always had lots of writing friends, and I’ve been very lucky with that. I think it’s vital to have some kind of network of pals you can connect with. Not necessarily reading each other’s work and critiquing all the time – sometimes it’s just nice to know they’re out there, doing the same kind of thing. What’s great about lots of the writers I know is that they like to have a good, gossipy time when they actually manage to get out of the house and meet up – at festivals or writers’ retreats, or whatever. I’ve got some great friendships with people in the same world as the one I’m in.

*Paul pictured with fellow author George Mann

Question: You are that rare breed of author whose public readings not only connect the listener to your writing but also enhance subsequent readings of your books. Have you ever considered pulling a Neil Gaiman and doing your own audio books?

Answer: That’s very nice to hear, thank you! And, yes, I recorded my own unabridged audio for my 2010 YA novel, ‘The Diary of a Dr Who Addict.’ It was terrific fun to do and I learned a great deal from my producer while I was at the studios in Bath. We also got snowed in as all these blizzards in Jane Austen's town. It was just after New Years’ – and three of us were recording books that week in those studios – Nerys Hughes, Jacqueline Wilson and myself. We thought we were going to be snowed in for weeks!

Question: With many of your books having characters that jump from one book to the next, do you consider all your books as existing within the same universe?

Answer: Perhaps – or maybe universes that touch upon each other at oblique angles. A recurring motif throughout many of the books are the magic Pinking Shears that get passed along between characters such as Iris Wildthyme and Noel Coward. Whoever ends up with them generally causes chaos, cutting a swathe through the Very Fabric of Space and Time and stepping through…

I think it’s because I grew up loving Marvel and DC Comics that I ended up obsessed with the idea of crossovers and cameos and guest appearances. But I do like to make sure that each book is explicable on its own terms, with little or no prior knowledge of my many universes required…

Question: I was first made aware of you and your work by 666 Charing Cross Road, an obvious wink and nod to Helene Hanff and her book 64 Charing Cross Road. How much did Helene’s own writing affect how you handled the book?

Answer: I read all of her books in one go, a few years ago. I knew ’84 Charing Cross Road’ of old – both the book and the film – and I was delighted to follow her adventures further in these slim, erudite and irascible books. I loved her book about visiting London at last, and her book about rediscovering New York. I wish there was more of her in the world. I hope a little of her spirit and her tone went into the character of Eliza Bathory – the literary demon hunter – in my novel.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 666 Charing Cross Road, 84 Charing Cross Road, Doctor Who, Eliza Bathory, George Mann, Helene Hanff, Neil Gaiman, Paul Magrs

Last year I was lucky enough to meet this unique and talented author. I had heard of Paul Magrs (pronounced Mars) in passing because I am a fan of Helene Hanff, of 84, Charing Cross Road fame, and Paul came out with 666 Charing Cross Road last year, and the title alone made me giggle and want to pick up the book. After hearing him do a reading from his books I knew that I just didn't want to read 666 Charing Cross Road but every book he'd written, in particular his stories about Brenda and Effie, where Brenda is the Bride of Frankenstein and she opens up and Bed and Breakfast in the North East of England.

On the last day of Teslacon, we got to talking and I mentioned I had a blog and shortly after that Paul sent me the info for his publicist and shortly after that I received some amazingly lovely books in the mail. I had been planning on reading them and reviewing them anyway, but to have Paul go out of his way so that I could read his books, well, that deserves a whole themed month says I! Oh, and a giveaway with one of the books! So this month is all Paul Magrs all the time! I'm reviewing all the Brenda and Effie books, as well as a few others. There will also be some fun questions and answers every weekend, including the importance of Pandas, as well as the giveaway previously mentioned. So prepare yourself for some spooktacular fun (sorry, I had to say that, not sure why, it just came out, it's October, these things are known to happen...)

Prizes:

1st Prize: Never the Bride, the first book in the Brenda and Effie series by Paul Magrs

2nd and 3rd Prize: A Lovely Victorian Christmas Card overflowing with so much Christmasy cheer that it could burn out your eyes. Mrs. Claus would approve.

A close up of the cards so they will haunt your nightmares... I mean, so you'll want to win them! Side note, I can't believe I just found these hanging out in my closet! Too perfect, they where waiting for Magrs Month!

The Rules:
1. Open to EVERYONE, just because you haven't been following me all along doesn't mean you don't matter, you just get more entries if you prove you love me by following.
2. Please make sure I have a way to contact you if your name is drawn, either your blogger profile or a link to your website/blog or you could even include your email address with your comment(s).
3. Giveaway ends Wednesday, October 31st at 11:59PM CST Yes, that's Halloween!
4. How to enter:

Answer me this: What is your favorite B-Movie/Horror Film?

• +1 for answering the question above
• +2 for becoming a follower
• +10 if you are already a follower
• +10 for each time you advertise this contest - blog post, sidebar, twitter (please @eliza_lefebvre), etc. (but you only get credit for the first post, so tweet all you like, and I thank you for it, but you'll only get the +10 once). Also please leave a link! There's a handy code on the side for your sidebars!
• +25 if you comment on any of the posts this month, with something other than "I hope I win" or a variation thereof.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:01 AM 2 comments  

Labels: 64 Charing Cross Road, 666 Charing Cross Road, B-Movies, Brenda and Effie, Halloween, Helene Hanff, Horror, Magrs Month, Mrs. Claus, Pandas, Paul Magrs

Instead of having to slog through all the books I've read, I'm sure you want to know which ones to just go out and buy. So here are my top 10. These are the best of the best. They made an impression on me and I hope they will on you. They where so good, many where presents to others this year.

10) Q's Legacy by Helene Hanff: The most fully autobiographical of her books, covering most of her life. We get a bit of 84, Charing Cross Road and Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, but so much more. Anyone who hasn't read a Hanff book is missing out on one of the most original voices in biographical literature.

9) It Ends with Revelations by Dodie Smith: Smith is most known for 101 Dalmatians and I Capture the Castle, but It Ends with Revelations really struck me. It's so modern and frank in it's views of sexuality. There are a few cliches thrown in at the end that threaten to destroy it, but it's a book that really left an impression on me and I'm happy to see that it's going back into print this year.

8) Never the Bride (Brenda and Effie Book 1) by Paul Magrs: When I met Paul at TelsaCon this year, it was his reading from his first Brenda and Effie book that made me realize I had to know more about this author and this little world he has created. Paul has made a nonsensical world around Witby, a northern town where Dracula's ship happened to crash land, wherein the more absurd it gets the more it works. This kind of fantastical writing is a balancing act that two books in (I still have 3 more to read!), Paul seems to have mastered. Jasper Fforde better pay attention.

7) Cry Wolf (Alpha and Omega Book 1) by Patricia Briggs: The first book in the spin off from Patricia Briggs' successful Mercy Thompson books is action packed, but in a very small way. We have four "people" out in the cold and snow of Montana, like some extreme survivalist Michael Crichton novel. The fact that they're witches and werewolves and have pasts going back hundreds of years just adds to an already wonderful book.

6) Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin Book 1) by Robin (R.L.) LaFevers: This book, which actually doesn't come out till later this year, is drastically different from any of Robin's previous books. But be it Edwardian England or France in the 1400s, she has a way of making historical fiction come alive. She incorporates the history so well that it's easy to understand and part of the narrative. I never felt lost or at sea, which some historical authors are wont to do. But add a human element, add characters you love, and it's a new favorite series waiting to be read. It even made me pull out a history book to find out more about the time period!

5) I Am Half-Sick of Shadows (Flavia De Luce Book 4) by Alan Bradley: Flavia De Luce has been a favorite of mine since the first book came out and my friend David at Murder by the Book was like, "GET THIS BOOK!" The previous three installments where wonderful, but the conclusion always left me a little cold. This book, while I could say it left me cold, because of the chase over the snowy rooftops, it ended just right. A perfect holiday read, and a perfect Flavia book... I hope there are many more to come.

4) The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicles Volume 1) by Patrick Rothfuss: I know, bad me never picking up the book till this year... him being a local author and all... but, I hated the original cover, and I actually met Pat before I started reading it, so I knew it was always going to be read eventually. With the second book coming out I finally read it and LOVED it. It's just so wonderful. Exquisite world building where there are characters you love to hate, hate to love. Magic! Dragons! A haunted childhood wherein Kvothe will one day avenge the death of his parents by mystically evil badasses. I can't wait for the final volume!

3) Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick: This book, aside from the amazing illustrations, is just a wonderful story. How two generations clash through shared experiences, shared traumas and shared secrets. I could not put this book down, one sitting, and 6 AM where what this book did to me, and it was worth it!

2) Madame Tussuad by Michelle Moran: The French Revolution, or more precisely, what led up to the revolution, has never been more clear or more fascinating than in Michelle Moran's book. Being an artist myself, it was fascinating seeing the world radically changing though another artist's eyes. To see that Madame Tussuad wasn't just that waxworks lady, she was at the center of a revolution. Her displays showed the people the news of the day in the most extraordinary ways, through her tableaux. I can't wait to get my hands on Michelle's next book which also takes place in France!

1) The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern: BEST BOOK THIS YEAR! I've been struggling writing a review for this book because it is so awesome. I can't do justice to the lyrical quality of the writing or the depth of the storytelling. Saying it's about a circus wherin two opponents do battle, it's just not right. It's just an aspect of the best book I've read in years, so easily the best book of this year!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alan Bradley, Brian Selznick, Dodie Smith, Erin Morgenstern, Helene Hanff, Michelle Moran, Patricia Briggs, Patrick Rothfuss, Paul Magrs, R.L. LaFevers, Robin LaFevers

Q's Legacy by Helene Hanff
Published by: Penguin
Publication Date: 1985
Format: Paperback, 177 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy
Helene Hanff holds a special place in the heart of book lovers for her love affair with the Marks and Co bookstore at 84 Charing Cross Road which she chronicled in the book of the same name. That slim volume is possibly one of the most popular books about books ever written. So popular there was even a movie adaptation with Anthony Hopkins. You bring Anthony Hopkins in and you know it will be a classic. In the book she passingly mentions getting her education through a man she nicknames "Q." Q is known to others as the Cambridge professor, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, and doesn't have anything to do with James Bond. I wondered a bit about how a poor girl from Philly was educated by this elusive Q. Well, lucky for us 84, Charing Cross Road was only one of a few autobiographies Helene wrote. Q's Legacy starts with that first day she realized that she couldn't afford college anymore and found his books on a shelf at the public library. She instantly found a kinship with this man an ocean away and knew that he would teach her all she ever wanted to learn. Through him she became a writer, after a failed attempt at acting and play writing.

Helene was always living hand to mouth, writing whatever she could to make a buck. When 84, Charing Cross Road unexpectedly became a huge hit she didn't know what to do with herself. She wasn't such a celebrity that she couldn't answer her own fan mail, but still, it opened doors she never thought would open. While she doesn't repeat herself with ground covered in 84, Charing Cross Road or her triumphant trip to London as a result of the book which she documented in the sublime sequel, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, she adds so many more stories that where possible because of her book. Helene talks about the joy of going to England to see her book become a movie for the BBC and how she got to go to television center and watch her life come alive. She also recounts her trip to England for the opening of the stage adaptation that was a hit in England and a bomb in America. But it's not just the trips, it's the characters that people her life, the way she sees the world. Every time she said that she had a book that she hated writing so badly and chucked it down the incinerator my heart skipped a beat. If only the world had more of her books not less! She was too harsh a critique and because of that we are left with only a few slim volumes of a writer who has the most distinct and original voice I've ever read. So go out a buy this book before it becomes out of print, like so many of her wonderful books ironically are.

I'll leave off with recounting an interesting story of how I found out our lives intersect. On August 13th, 1978, she finally got to pay her regards to Q. She was invited by the widow of his biographer to come to Cambridge while she was there for the opening of the play and to visit Q's study. It was still as it always had been, preserved in memoriam. This was the day where she walked where her mentor walked. The whole book, perhaps her whole life had been building to afternoon tea in Q's study. Half a world away I was born. I say that makes August the 13th 1978 a rather significant date for the two of us.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 84 Charing Cross Road, Anthony Hopkins, Helene Hanff, Marks and Co, Q, Q's Legacy, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street

Apple of My Eye by Helene Hanff
Published by: Moyer Bell
Publication Date: 1978
Format: Paperback, 144 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy
Helene Hanff is such a quintessential New Yorker that when the BBC wanted someone to present a little five minute piece on New York once a month on the Woman's Hour they looked to Helene. In the minds of the British, Helene IS New York. Plus, they have taken her to heart ever since 84, Charing Cross Road. So logically, when a publishing house in New York was looking for someone to write captions to accompany pictures taken of New York they too looked to Helene to provide her sharp wit to their venture. Whatever happened of the original venture is not mentioned in the book. There may or may not have been a book that resulted from her three months of writing. But instead we get the play by play diary of Helene and her best friend Patsy, a born New Yorker, who both quickly realize that, while living almost their whole lives in New York, they aren't in touch with the New York tourists who'd be buying this book would be. So the two of them set out to "write that down."

From the Statue of Liberty to the newly opened Ellis Island. From the Cloisters to the newly constructed World Trade Center, they troll through the island of Manhattan to see what the tourists would go to see, even if they are both terrified of heights and 107 stories is really up there. Intermingled with their experiences are little bits of history that Helene has picked up over the years, such as the fact that Wall Street really did have a wall, and that the cathedral of St. John the Divine is a combination of American know-how and European elegance, and every neighborhood thinks their deli is the best. It's also an interesting glimpse into Helene's opinions, her views on corrupt early industrialists who left gorgeous houses from the Morgan Library to The Frick. Also, Helene really dislikes anything happening to central park and her rage against The Met's expansions is a big theme.

This book is so interesting in that, for someone who has spent time in New York, you can see how much remains, but, especially with September 11th now 10 years in our past, something that is such a big feature of this book and of New York is now gone. I can't help but wonder what Helene would make of the changes that have happened to New York in the 15 years since her death. I'm sure her pride in New York would never waiver and she would have been in the forefront of commentators. I can't really see this book appealing to tourists though. It's such an intimate portrait. She goes to the great sites and attractions, but her writing style is of one who lives there and knows the terrain. Constantly referencing streets or subway stops, while repetitive at times, won't help a tourist, it was more confusing than anything, with the map at the back a kind of joke. It is the perfect gift for someone who loves the city and wants a kindred spirit to go on a journey with.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 1799 Clay Street, 84 Charing Cross Road, Apple of My Eye, Helene Hanff, New York, St. John the Divine, The Cloisters, The Frick, World Trade Center

Q's Legacy by Helene Hanff
Published by: Penguin
Publication Date: 1985
Format: Paperback, 177 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy
Helene Hanff holds a special place in the heart of book lovers for her love affair with the Marks and Co bookstore at 84 Charing Cross Road which she chronicled in the book of the same name. That slim volume is possibly one of the most popular books about books ever written. So popular there was even a movie adaptation with Anthony Hopkins. You bring Anthony Hopkins in and you know it will be a classic. In the book she passingly mentions getting her education through a man she nicknames "Q." Q is known to others as the Cambridge professor, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, and doesn't have anything to do with James Bond. I wondered a bit about how a poor girl from Philly was educated by this elusive Q. Well, lucky for us 84, Charing Cross Road was only one of a few autobiographies Helene wrote. Q's Legacy starts with that first day she realized that she couldn't afford college anymore and found his books on a shelf at the public library. She instantly found a kinship with this man an ocean away and knew that he would teach her all she ever wanted to learn. Through him she became a writer, after a failed attempt at acting and play writing.

Helene was always living hand to mouth, writing whatever she could to make a buck. When 84, Charing Cross Road unexpectedly became a huge hit she didn't know what to do with herself. She wasn't such a celebrity that she couldn't answer her own fan mail, but still, it opened doors she never thought would open. While she doesn't repeat herself with ground covered in 84, Charing Cross Road or her triumphant trip to London as a result of the book which she documented in the sublime sequel, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, she adds so many more stories that where possible because of her book. Helene talks about the joy of going to England to see her book become a movie for the BBC and how she got to go to television center and watch her life come alive. She also recounts her trip to England for the opening of the stage adaptation that was a hit in England and a bomb in America. But it's not just the trips, it's the characters that people her life, the way she sees the world. Every time she said that she had a book that she hated writing so badly and chucked it down the incinerator my heart skipped a beat. If only the world had more of her books not less! She was too harsh a critique and because of that we are left with only a few slim volumes of a writer who has the most distinct and original voice I've ever read. So go out a buy this book before it becomes out of print, like so many of her wonderful books ironically are.

I'll leave off with recounting an interesting story of how I found out our lives intersect. On August 13th, 1978, she finally got to pay her regards to Q. She was invited by the widow of his biographer to come to Cambridge while she was there for the opening of the play and to visit Q's study. It was still as it always had been, preserved in memoriam. This was the day where she walked where her mentor walked. The whole book, perhaps her whole life had been building to afternoon tea in Q's study. Half a world away I was born. I say that makes August the 13th 1978 a rather significant date for the two of us.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 84 Charing Cross Road, Anthony Hopkins, Helene Hanff, Marks and Co, Q, Q's Legacy, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street

Today the book world lost a great man, David Thompson. He was the assistant manager at Murder by the Book in Houston and my book guru. He died suddenly yesterday at the young age of 37, 21 of those years being spent at Murder by the Book. I never met him, though we joked about me making a journey just to Houston so that our correspondence would be less like 84, Charring Cross Road and I could stalk more of the authors I love in person. Like Helene Hanff, I have left it too late, but know that the store will continue on with his memory to inspire them. It wasn't just my bookshelves that were better because of him, but my life.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 3:48 PM 1 comments  

Labels: 84 Charing Cross Road, David Thompson, Helene Hanff, Houston, Murder by the Book

Letter from New York: BBC Woman's Hour Broadcasts by Helene Hanff
Published by: Moyer Bell
Publication Date: 1992
Format: Hardcover, 140 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
Out of Print

For six years Helene Hanff appeared on the BBC Woman's Hour in England. Once a month she recorded a five minute piece on her life in New York for the radio show for a country in her thrall ever since 84, Charing Cross Road. Written in a very conversational style to emulate the stories she'd tell her friends, the spot, which was to last six months, lasted far longer. This delightful collection compiles all extant copies she had and presents them in one wonderful book. Helene Hanff and I are polar opposites, in fact, I have a feeling that, were I to know her, I wouldn't much like her. But there's something about her writing style and her frank and humorous observances that I find totally compelling and a compulsive read. From the detailed lives of the dogs living in her building to her complicated cooking routines for the holidays, a rare feat for those living in studio apartments who need to rely on their neighbors counter tops as well as their own. I couldn't get enough and was saddened when it came to an end, of course I'm going to be even more dejected when I have to return this book to the library. Helene Hanff is the quintessential New Yorker, she loves everything her town has to offer, from the Park to the parades and she is able to convey this to her readers with such an easy air you feel like you're reading about a dear friend. If you ever see this book pick it up (I would then say, pass it along to me, but I have a feeling you will not want to part with it.)

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 84 Charing Cross Road, BBC Woman's Hour, England, Helene Hanff, Letter from New York, Letter from New York: BBC Woman's Hour Broadcasts, New York, Radio

So here is the breakdown of my book buying breakdown of the month. It wasn't as bad as past months, though a few of the items were a bit more on the pricey side, but I'd been looking for them for awhile. As I see it, if it's on my list of books that I'm looking for (yes, I have a list, it's alphabetized and in my wallet, and no that's not strange) then I allow myself the splurge, seeing as I usually hunt for bargains on everything else. Also I went to a library sale... there were many books purchased there not on this list... but I only spent $20 and a lot of them are for all you, my lovely blog readers. That's right, I was stocking up on giveaways as I stocked up on Elizabeth Peters novels for myself. Anyway... onto the list of damages:

1) 84 Charing Cross Road and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff - I can't believe I finally found The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street!!! I can give my friend back her copy and stop drooling over the $40 editions online. I found mine at a quirky downtown bookstore for $7! $14 for the pair.

2) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - I can't help it, I see pretty leather bound editions that are to those mega sets through the Easton Press and I have to buy it! $50.

3) The Man with Two Left Feet by P.G. Wodehouse - FREE! Went to Borders the other day and spent all this time trying to decide if I should get the final volume I needed to complete my Jeeves and Wooster collection seeing as I'm short on funds. The book obviously won, I don't know why I thought it could be otherwise... so I get to the register and I somehow have $25 in Borders bucks! Free book! Score!

4) A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris - From my friends at Murder by the Book, signed to me at her big Huston event this past month.

5) Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris - Again my friends in Huston don't let me down. There was also another author there who I got a book from, but seeing as one of my friends reads this blog I don't want to spoil her Christmas present. Needless to say, it too was awesome!

6) New York Public Library Editions: O Pioneers! and Other Tales of the Prairie by Willa Cather, Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington and Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman - I have a confession... I covet these New York Public Library Editions! When they were released quite a few years back I wanted them and didn't get them and then they went out of print as books I like tend to do. I've spent many years hunting down a complete set. My friend Matt can attest to the weird maniacal glee that happened earlier this summer when at Half Priced Books I found half the set in mint condition for sale. After these three I only need Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, with a dust jacket... I found a crap edition but still I hope. Decently priced, I got a sweet deal on one and another was a little overpriced, so it balanced out.

7) Lady Macbeth's Daughter by Lisa Klein - I've really been wanting this but didn't feel justified spending the money and then I found it for $5.

8) The Pale Assassin by Patricia Elliot - Found at Frugal Muse for $5, didn't realize until after I bought it that it was the same Patricia Elliot who wrote the book Murkmeer which I loved, the cover almost more than the book.

9) Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte - The Twlight Tie-In Edition. I can't help it, I don't like the Stephenie Meyer books but their design is brilliant, so at least this is a book I love designed the same. Plus only $4.

10) The Case of the Missing Servant: A Vish Puri Mystery by Tarquin Hall - It looks so fun and I found it for $6!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 1:47 AM 6 comments  

Labels: Charlaine Harris, Helene Hanff, Jane Austen, Lady Macbeth's Daughter, Patricia Elliot, PG Wodehouse, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, The Man WIth Two Left Feet, Wuthering Heights

The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff
Published by: Lippincott
Publication Date: 1973
Format: Hardcover, 137 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
Out of Print

The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street is Helene Hanff's followup to the popular 84, Charing Cross Road. This book though is not a continuation or a building on of the twenty years of correspondences between Helene and Marks & Co. but a look into what the writing of 84, Charing Cross Road brought to Helene's life. Due to the popularity of the book, Helene, while not becoming exceedingly famous or wealthy, developed a sort of cult following which enabled her to go to England to promote her book. Her long dreamed of sojourn to England was made possible by this little book and in return we are blessed with another, her diary of the trip. The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, the title Helene bequeaths to herself, is just as sweet and engaging as the original, but with a little more structure due to the day by day progression without long periods of time missing, which so annoyed me in 84, Charing Cross Road. We follow Helene's journey across the ocean to a world populated by people who's lives were touched by her book. From Frank Doel's widow and daughter, to a Colonel, to a portrait painter, to a famous actress, to an old Etonian, all these people populate her time in England, from sightseeing to dinners (because the fewer dinners she has to pay for herself, the longer she can stay in England.)

After the publication of 84, Charing Cross Road Helene was literally besieged by people saying she must go to England now. But in the book you had sense of hesitation on Helene's part. Whether it was just her fear of travel or the country not living up to her expectations she kept putting off the trip, and at the end of the book you felt that perhaps she had waited too long, ending on a bittersweet note. But Duchess is not in the least bittersweet, euphoric would be the word Helene would use. She realizes, that while people keep telling her that she's about 15 years too late, she isn't. There is still Donne's St. Paul's, Shakepeare's local ale house, even Dicken's London (even if she isn't really a fan). Everything is as she had pictured it in the books she had read. And while she regrets not being as well read as others, being a re-reader to the point of memorization, she would not change it because of the words that flow into her as she enters St. Paul's from Walton's Lives. Having "the whole lovely passage right there in my head" and "for at least that moment, I wouldn't have traded the hundreds of books I've never read for the handful I know almost by heart."

Despite being a middle aged women having just undergone a hysterectomy, she is like a kid in a candy store. Everything is perfect and just as she always wished it to be. Her dreams were literally coming true and you have a desperate urge to just take her book and get on the next plane to see if thirty years later it is the same as when she left. From Russell Square to Hyde Park, Helene revels in her one shot of glory that has enabled her to live her dream. Even if, at times, she does seem a bit of a leech. Whatever she can get out of others in order to stay a day longer she accepts, mainly in the form of food. Of course England seems enamored of her as well as she of it, and they view her presence as enough, either at book signings or on the radio. When Helene runs into an old friend who is as baffled as she is as to England's love of her, she has a strong desire to tell her that the fairy tale will soon be over and Cinderella will go home, to the old jeans and gin while typing away at her 2nd Avenue apartment.

In the end the book is almost like a dream of England come to life, as Helene remarks on the plane, "suddenly it was as if everything had vanished: Bloomsbury and Regent's Park and Russell Square and Rutland Gate. None of it had happened, none of it was real. Even the people weren't real. It was all imagined, they were all phantoms." But even if Helene could not believe her good fortune, you will enjoy reading her exploits, even if they seemed improbable to the author they are a wonderful dream you hope you won't wake from. The book ends appropriately with a quote from Shakespeare's The Tempest:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors
....were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air...
The Cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples...dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 2:09 AM 4 comments  

Labels: 84 Charing Cross Road, Book Review, Charles Dickens, Cinderella, England, Frank Doel, Helene Hanff, Shakespeare, The Tempest

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
Published by: Penguin
Publication Date: 1970
Format: Paperback, 97 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Helene Hanff's 84, Charing Cross Road is a compendium of the twenty year correspondence between the New York writer Helene Hanff and the British bookseller Frank Doel. One day Miss Hanff saw an ad in the Saturday Evening Review for the Marks & Co. Bookshop at 84 Charing Cross Road saying they specialize in antiquarian and out-of-print books and immediately writes them with a list of the rare non-fiction she is looking for which she is unable to find stateside. The shop is able to supply the books to her in wonderful clean and tight copies for next to nothing, and there starts the connection. Through the years she becomes a part of the staffs' lives and they hers, though they never meet.

With this book you walk away with the feeling you wish more bookshops were still like this. That intimate one on one friendship where they knew what you were looking for and were able to find you gorgeous books for a pittance. I also thought of my friends down in Houston who run Murder by the Book, maybe I should start sending then ham and eggs at the holidays to show how much I really appreciate them. Also the love of books that these people had is rarely seen nowadays. They bonded over a shared love of knowledge and history.

While at times Miss Hanff comes across as abrasive, the British view it as her type of wit, and perhaps it is, because she generously sends them holiday gift baskets to help during the hard times inflicted by the continuation of rationing. Or perhaps she just liked being a fairy godmother to those far away, embracing those who were dear to her in the only way she could. See Helene Hanff hated travel and never actually met Frank Doel, and perhaps these gifts were her way of saying sorry for me not being there. But at the end when Frank dies you are conflicted. You are left with on the one hand, you should never leave anything too late because you never know what might happen. But on the other hand, could Helene or Frank really have lived up to the others expectations?

In her last letter contained in the book to her friend Katerine, you feel that perhaps all along you never knew how much that book shop meant to Helene, that behind the false bravado of a New York writer there was just someone longing to connect to someone else and she found it half a world away with people she never truly knew. You also cry out, the book is too short, the sequel is out of print, the time lapses sometimes go for months or years, was this due to letters being lost or just edited out? You just want to live in this long ago and far away world a little more, even if it isn't the stuff of fiction, which is how Helene would like it.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 11:13 PM 2 comments  

Labels: 84 Charing Cross Road, Book Review, Frank Doel, Helene Hanff, Murder by the Book