Reasons to be Cheerful

Kate Atkinson's new Jackson Brodie novel is now available! Need I say more?

Reviews have been laudatory, and customers have been hopping up and down from foot to foot, waiting for 'Started Early, Took My Dog' to arrive.

Well, all right, I made that last bit up. But several people have asked when it would be in, and have rushed home having purchased their copies, obviously all set to lock the doors, turn off the 'phones, probably prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, etc. etc. and indulge in a Thoroughly Good Read.

We also have the new Philippa Gregory, 'The Red Queen'. After writing extensively about the Tudors (in The Other Boleyn Girl and others), PG has gone back a generation. Her previous novel 'The White Queen' told the story of Elizabeth Woodville, mother of the Princes in the Tower, and of Elizabeth of York, Henry VII's Queen. The Red Queen is Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII's mother, a fascinating, complex character, married three times and a consummate politician.

And in paperback - 'The Snowman' by Jo Nesbo. Several people have fallen on Nesbo to fill the gap left by Stieg Larsson's untimely death, although there's a hard core of readers who can smugly claim to have known and appreciated Nesbo for years - better than Mankell, they say, doesn't get the recognition he deserves in this country....We hope to rectify this.

It's nearly the end of summer (boo!), but there's lots of good reading coming up this autumn, so keep checking the website (www.whitehorsebooks.co.uk) and this blog for news or suggestions. Let us know if you've read anything you want to tell people about, we'll post your reviews.

With Jam on.

Glorious sunny weather, despite the forecast (meterological voices prophesying precipitation), and I've been ranging around the cookery shelves looking at jam recipes. Yesterday I picked pounds and pounds of redcurrants, and turned them into what looks like perfectly successful jam, but if I'd waited and looked at Preserves, by Pam Corbin I could have made jelly, or cordial!

I still might of course, but having looked at the book I now want to make (among other things) 'Compost Heap Jelly'. And Gooseberry Chutney, to eat with mackerel. Yum.

One to Ten and Two by Two

Some new entries in the Top Ten fiction paperbacks this week, although Hilary Mantel is obviously aiming to be the Bryan Adams de nos jours.....
At number one - The Lacuna. Barbara Kingsolver still selling well.
2 A new entry - New York by Edward Rutherfurd
3 Family Album, Penelope Lively
4 Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel, hanging in there....
5 Ordinary Thunderstorms, by William Boyd (v. good book)
6 The Earth Hums in B flat, by Mari Strachan
7 One Moment, One Morning, by Sarah Rayner
8 Notwithstanding, by Louis de Bernieres -slipped out of the top ten, now back in again
9 Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith
10 The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

Did you notice? NO Stieg Larsson. The Girl who Kicked the Hornets Nest has dropped off the chart, but as people are still coming in to buy the first two titles in the trilogy we may well see it again.
Of course what people are buying most of is pretty meaningless when it comes to choosing reading matter for your summer holidays, weekend afternoons or long train journeys, but it is interesting to see what is popular week by week.
Well, I think it is, anyway.

We're still pairing books, in case you're wondering what to read next. So our selection of similar or complementary titles at the moment has Border Songs next to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, and Simon Schama's Citizens paired with Hilary Mantel's (there she is again!) A Place of Greater Safety, her novel of the French Revolution and the ensuing Terror. Then we've put Dudley Green's biography of Patrick Bronte:Father of Genius next to Jane Eyre, one of the products of that genius (though for those who have read J. Eyre and don't want to go back to it I urge you to read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall). We've also put Brideshead Revisited (a perfect summer read, or re-read) beside Madresfield, Jane Mulvagh's study of the house and family who so influenced Evelyn Waugh. Lastly, Antonia Fraser's Robin Hood, a fairly tradtional re-telling of the ballads is parked beside Adam Thorpe's Hodd who is shown as a venal and violent felon - a novel about the creation of myth and legend.

Let us know if there are any pairings, connections, or natural literary affinities that you can recommend.

Fifty - and Seventy - years on. Oh yes, and pictures.

Stayed up past my bedtime last night to watch the BBC4 documentary on 'To Kill a Mockingbird' , visting Montgomery, Alabama 50 years after the book was published. As Harper Lee has steadfastly refused to be interviewed about the book for years, there wasn't much that was new in the programme, although it did contain a terrifying interview with Ku Klux Klan member - terrifying because this Grand Wizard (or maybe just an Ordinary Wizard?) was entirely calm and open about how he doesn't hate 'niggers'. He doesn't hate dogs either, simply regarding both as inferior creatures who need to be controlled and if necessary killed. I did have to keep reminding myself that it's supposed to be 2010, although in this man's self-professedly 'closed mind' it is forever 1930 it would seem.

Lots of people appear to have read 'Mockingbird' as a set text at school so it is (deservedly) very well known. (I never got 'TKaM' as a set text, I had Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights, and Great Expectations and The Mill on the Floss. Also a book which is apparently very popular and much loved, 'Jock of the Bushveld' by Percy Fitzpatrick. Perhaps I should give it another go, because I keep reading glowing reviews and comments about it, but my only memory is of complete dreary tedium, and at the end when (spoiler alert) the dog dies, twenty-five 12-year-old girls all chorused 'Good!'. Which must mean something.)

Anyway, whether you read 'To Kill a Mockingbird' at school, or discovered it for yourself, it's always worth a re-read. As well as standard paperbacks, we have a hard-back copy printed for the 50th anniversary, which would make a great gift.
If you haven't read it - please do so at once!


Moving on, but actually, I now realise, staying on-topic, I've just started reading 'Alone in Berlin', by Hans Fallada, and am completely hooked and finding it hard to put down. It's described as 'utterly gripping' by Justin Cartwright (who he? I thought, so trotted along the fiction shelves and remembered - shortlisted for the Booker with 'In Every Face I Meet', winner of the Whitbread Award for 'Leading the Cheers' - that J Cartwright.....).

The novel is a crime story/thriller set in Berlin during WW2, lightly fictionalising (is that a word?) the story of a couple who quietly resisted the Nazi system by spreading anti-Party propaganda, and who were caught and executed. The rather tenuous 'link' to 'Mockingbird' is in the depiction of a society which accepts injustice and evil and how difficult it is to change when the majority, for whatever reason, are maintaining the status quo. I'm only a couple of chapters in, but would urge you to read it.

Finally, for now, if you come into the shop over the summer, to look for these, or something else for holiday reading, be sure to go upstairs to see the exhibitions of local artists' work.
Details on the website - www.whitehorsebooks.co.uk

What to read next....

....a perennial problem. We've started looking around the shop and matching books, by linking themes, matching novels to non-fiction so you can get the 'true story', or just because they go together like ...

Well, like almost anything, if you study The Flavour Thesaurus, by Niki Segnit, which uses the model of a colour wheel to suggest complementary combinations of foods and flavours which are apparently bizarre, but allegedly work! Definitely one to reach for when you've got a fridge full of oddments, none of which seem to be anything you'd want to put together.

But in the meantime - What more can we tell you about Wolf Hall?– it really is as good as people say! If you’re now gripped by the Tudors, we've put it on the stand next to Dissolution from C J Sansom’s ‘Shardlake’ series.
And what is it about Scandinavian crime writers? If (like me) you stayed up all night with Stieg Larsson’s trilogy, and want more, try Jo Nesbo (or Henning Mankell. Or Hakan Nesser.....)
Georgette Heyer never really went away, but you might have forgotten how very good she is.There’s nothing ‘romantic’ about Georgette Heyer, at least not in the usual sense. She’s not sloppy, sugary or sentimental, just wry, dry, witty and impeccably researched. As Jane Austen wrote so few novels, it’s good to have GH to fall back on.
We've put a new paperback edition of David Boyd Haycock's A Crisis of Brilliance next to Life Class by Pat Barker.Both books are about artists before, during,and after the Great War and their responses, personally and artistically, to the conflict.

You could also think about The Help (Kathryn Stockett) with The Negroes (Lawrence Hill), novels looking at different periods in America's history of race relations.
Or you could read Le Morte D'Arthur in conjunction with Christina Hardyment's biography of Malory, (or Bernard Cornwell's Arthurian trilogy), or 'compare and contrast' Roberts Graves and Harris and their fictionalisation of Ancient Rome . Douglas Jackson's Claudius is now out in paperback.Or read Suetonius's Twelve Caesars for the near-contemporary view.
We're sure you can think of more....

In the charts this week

Well, as the late Eric might have said, it looks as though you're reading all the same books, just not necessarily in the same order. This week's Top Ten paperback fiction sales list looks like this....
1 Remarkable Creatures, by Tracey Chevalier (a very good book).
2 The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver
3 Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel - moving back up!
4 Family Album, by Penelope Lively
5 Love and Summer, by William Trevor
6 The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, by Stieg Larsson. Just as it looked as though she was about to drop off, she bounces back
7 Corduroy Mansions, by Alexander McCall Smith
8 The Scarecrow, by Michael Connolly
9 Gentleman's Relish, by Patrick Gale
10 Trust Me, I'm a Vet, by Cathy Woodman

I've been trying to work out if these titles have anything in common, but I don't think so - here are thrillers, historical novels, family stories, short stories, light and shade, sprawling narrative, and the prize-winning and 'literary'. Eclectic, I think we could say. But as a lot of people are obviously reading these titles, I'm guessing there really is something for everyone.

What people are reading this week.

It’s all change - this week’s Top Ten Fiction paperbacks are....(der der der der DERR ...)
1) Love and Summer, by William Trevor
2) Remarkable Creatures, by Tracey Chevalier
3) Gentleman’s Relish, by Patrick Gale
4) The Scarecrow, by Michael Connolly
5) The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver
(winner of the Orange Prize, see previous entry)
6) Family Album, by Penelope Lively
7) Turbulence, by Giles Foden
8) Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel (off the top spot, but hanging in there)
9) One Day, by David Nicholls
10) The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, by Stieg Larsson
(also going down, but still in the game!)

In other news.....Peter Marren, author of Bugs Britannica will be in the shop signing the books and talking about insects, on Saturday 26 June. Watch this space, or visit our website for further details.
We're also selling tickets for the first Marlborough LitFest, in September - a range of authors and events.

Orange Prize

So, Barbara Kingsolver has won the Orange Prize 2010 with 'The Lacuna'. Interesting to read in 'the Independent' today that those who loved 'The Poisonwood Bible' haven't liked this one quite so much. Does that mean that if you weren't so keen on PB you'll like this one? The only way to find out is to read it - we have copies in stock.

For younger readers we've just taken delivery of 'Young Sherlock Holmes' by Andrew Lane.
Rather as Charlie Higson has recreated the early years of James Bond, so Andrew Lane has set out to show us how Holmes became the Great Detective. We'd be interested to know what you think.

Top Ten

The White Horse Bookshop's Top Ten paperback fiction list this week....something for everyone!
1 Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel
2 Notwithstanding, by Louis de Bernieres
3 The Glass Room, by Simon Mawer
4 The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, by Stieg Larsson
5 The Tourist, by Olen Steinhauer
6 Turbulence, by Giles Foden
7 Trust Me, I'm a Vet, by Cathy Woodman
8 Corduroy Mansions, by Alexander McCall Smith
9 One Day, by David Nicholls
10 Dancing Backwards, by Salley Vickers

Have a look at our Alice in Wonderland window if you're passing.

Marlborough Movies (KENNET VALLEY ARTS TRUST) are showing Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland
(cert PG) on Friday 4 June 2010, at the Theatre on the Hill, St John's School. Doors open 6.00 pm for a 6.30 showing.
We sell tickets for this event: £5 adults, £3 children under 15, available fthe White Horse Bookshop (cash or cheque only, please).

Welcome!

The White Horse Bookshop, in Marlborough, Wiltshire carries a wide range of fiction, non-fiction, children's books, travel books and maps. We also have an excellent art supplies department on the upper floor of our four-hundred-year-old building, and regularly run art workshops on the premises. We are happy to order any book that is not in stock, and please ask the staff for recommendations, as we're all very enthusiastic (and knowledgable!) Watch this space for news of new stock, events and any interesting snippets we'd like to share with you.