I have never had a personal desire to get on a horse, but watching show-jumping on telly was a fixture that I looked forward to while growing up.

The Horse of the Year Show with the Puissance always ending with that gigantic wall getting higher and higher, the relay races, and the incredibly tight courses riden against the clock was a week of great viewing. The Hickstead Derby with the iconic Derby bank and swimming pool of a water jump was a must as a relief from tennis which tends to dominate June.  There were also Nations Cup events, where the teams had to ride each other’s horses.

Show-jumping back in the 1970s was full of real characters. Who could forget Harvey Smith, who on having won two Derbys on the trot made a ‘V’ sign to the judges. I always enjoyed watching the Irishman Eddie Macken who cut a dash with his wavy blond locks and green jacket on his horse Boomerang.  It is a shame that show-jumping has all but fallen off the TV schedules.

So, on to Riders by Jilly Cooper.  We’ll be discussing this 919 page chunkster at Book group next week, but as I have to pass the book on promptly to give one of our other members a chance to read it, I decided to write it up now, and will come back with the group’s reactions later to this unconventional choice of reading (for a book group in general that is).

Set in the Cotswolds, Riders is the first in Cooper’s ‘Rutshire Chronicles’ and was published in 1985.  It concerns just two things in its 340,000 words:  Show-jumping and Sex.  It’s a true bonk-buster – one of the originals, complete with an utter cad, toffs and comedy accents, a poor boy made good, with the added thrill of the show-jumping ring, however at its heart it really is a romance and you’re always hoping for a happy ending.

The main story concerns Jake Lovell, an orphan born of gypsy stock who ran away from school to learn about horses.  He wants to set up his own yard and jump horses, but he’s just a groom as the book opens and penniless with it.  Contrasting  with him is Rupert Campbell-Black, rich and charismatic, who beds every woman who crosses his path, unless they’re fat and ugly that is.  A champion show-jumper already, he’s not known for treating his horses with respect.  As it happens, Jake’s mother was the cook at Rupert’s prep-school, and Rupe was always nasty to Jake, so a rivalry is born.

Jake luckily manages to marry a rich, but plain, girl – Tory, who bankrolls his ambitions.  However their relationship is a loving one, well at first! Rupert goes after a rich American socialite, the ravishingly beautiful but brittle Helen.  He eventually gets her, but theirs is not to be a happy relationship, Rupe can’t cope with monogamy, and Helen finds it very difficult to lose her inhibitions.

After Rupert had come, with that splendid driving flourish of staccato thrusts which reminded Helen of the end of a Beethoven symphony, he fell into a deep sleep. Helen, lying in his arms, had been far too tense and nervous of interruption to gain any satisfaction.

It’s not all sex though, there are horses too. Tory’s younger sister Fenella is a promising show-jumper and could, if she tried harder, be picked for the British team with her horses Laurel and Hardy. Being still a teenager, she’s too interested in partying and Jake takes her to task…

‘You’re not going to make a fool of yourself at Olympia,’ he said.
‘I suppose Tory and Dino have been sneaking.’
‘They didn’t need to. One of the Olympic scouts was in Amsterdam. He said if Jesus Christ had ridden that donkey into Jerusalem the way you were riding Laurel and Hardy all week, he deserved to be crucified.’

Cooper engineers many crises and cliff-hangers to keep the gargantuan story moving.  There is a huge cast of other characters, most of whom are simply portrayed, and conform to  type, but fit well into the story. I particularly liked Billy, Rupe’s best friend who rises from being co-tormentor of Jake to being a decent chap and ace show-jumper too, and the only person who can keep Rupe in check, occasionally.  These show-jumpers are the equivalent of stadium rock stars in their world, on tour for ten months of the year, just touching base occasionally – unless they or the horses get injured that is.   Everything moves from Jake’s humble beginnings in the horsey world towards the major climax of him and Rupe starring at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

The writing is breezy, earthy and robust, with some swearing and obviously lots of raciness – I remember it being considered very naughty when it came out; of course many novels go far further these days. I do wish we could have reached the end around 300 pages sooner as 919 pages, even if easy to read does take time; but I have to confess that I really enjoyed this racy doorstop of a book!  I will no longer turn my nose up at Jilly Cooper books when I encounter them in bookcases on holiday, I’ll search them out instead, and she could become my guilty secret read.  (8/10)

* * * * *
I bought my copy. To explore further on Amazon UK, click below:
Ridersby Jilly Cooper, Corgi paperback.

First up after the initial pro dance was footballer Robbie Savage, dancing with Katya (as Ola and James are not on the tour this year) to ‘entertain us’ with his salsa.  Not a great dance, but a good opening number.  Following him was Anita Dobson with Robin doing their Charleston which was fun. Next came tall swimmer Mark Foster, brought back from 2008 to dance with Natalie, and a rather nice but slightly wooden waltz.

Then it was Nancy’s turn. Thankfully, she was now dancing with Artem, and his tweaking of Anton’s ‘Be Italian’ tango routine played down the slapstick, but upped the comedy with a great fun pass the rose from mouth to mouth sequence.  She commanded a real presence where the judges were concerned and declared that she was after Craig!

Then we had the three finalists – Jason’s ‘Wham’ jive with Kristina – great fun and no wrong steps; Chelsee’s airline stewardess quickstep with Pasha, and Harry and Aliona’s steamy argentine tango.  Then half-time ice-creams beckoned and we texted in our votes so far.

All seven couples danced again in the same order inthe second half.  Robbie did his groin-clutching ‘Bad’ Paso – and yes he did jump up on the judges desk again! Robin and Anita did their samba (or was it a salsa?) to a Harry Belafonte number.  Mark did his wooden cha cha cha in the seethrough black shirt that got ripped off to reveal his pecs (‘They didn’t invite me back for my dancing’, he quipped).  Then came Nancy…

Artem and Robin dressed as slaves carried her in as Cleopatra recumbent on a bier cum stretcher and she Walked Like an Egyptian for a bit and brought the house down.  She is comedy gold!  Then we had the big three again.  Jason and Kristina danced a perfect Argentine tango (loved K’s red dress), then Pasha and Chelsee did their show dance, and one of the lifts went wrong which put her off a bit, poor love. This left Harry and Aliona to clean-up with their lovely quickstep.

Predictably, Harry won, but this is only the beginning of the tour.  Some of the dances are a little rusty yet, and who knows – I wonder if they do the same ones every show?   I was willing Jason to win today – Harry has had his turn.  Better luck next time Jason.

The tour goes on through February around the UK, and goes over to Dublin too.   We went last year too.  My daughter like this year’s more, I’d be hard picked to choose,  but if there is one next year, we’ll definitely be going again.

I can well remember the publishing phenomenon that was the first Adrian Mole book.  I was a few months into my first job for an electronics company in Great Yarmouth and finding it hard to get along in off-season Norfolk after the hustle and bustle of London.  A good funny book was just the thing to banish the blues and I loved it.

Adrian is somehow, for someone so pompous and superior, surprisingly easy to love.  Underlying his unerring seriousness about life and his secure knowledge that he is a great intellectual. tortured poet and novelist manqué, is an insecure young man who just wants to be loved.  This is Townsend’s triumph; if Adrian hadn’t been so, it couldn’t work as brilliantly as it does. I do love his pretensions…

Sunday January 11th
First after Epiphany
Now I know I am an intellectual. I saw Malcolm Muggeridge on the television last night. and I understood nearly every word. It all adds up. A bad home, a poor diet, not liking punk. I think I will join the library and see what happens.

In years to follow, seven more volumes and occasional extra episodes will appear in Adrian’s story taking him up to his fortieth birthday.  Of course it’s not all about Adrian, but also his family, friends, colleagues, enemies and Pandora Braithwaite, the undying object of his affection and love object through the years.

Sunday May 9th
4th after Easter, Mother’s Day (USA and Canada)
I have just realized that I have never seen a dead body or a real female nipple. This is what comes of living in a cul-de-sac.

Monday May 10th
I asked Pandora to show me one of her nipples but she refused. I tried to explain that it was in the interest of widening my life experience, but she buttoned her cardigan up to the neck and went home.

(The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, 1984)

Poor Adrian! Of course by the time he’s in the sixth form, he looks back on his earlier diaries with the benefit of hindsight…

Mole on Lifestyle
October 1985
I often look back on my callow youth, and when I do a smile flits across my now mature but pitted face. I hardly recognize the naïve boy I once was. To think that I once believed that Evelyn Waugh was a woman! Of course now, with a couple of ‘O’ levels under my belt, I am far more sophisticated and I know that Evelyn Waugh, should he be alive today, would be very, indeed, dead proud of his daughter, Auberon; because of course Evelyn is the father of Auberon and not, as I once thought, the mother.

(True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole, 1989)

The new 30th Anniversary editions from Penguin

I’ve loved getting to know Adrian and his extended family again. I don’t really like Pandora, but then we’re not meant to.  I have though loved the episodes with Adrian’s arch enemy Barry Kent, who starts off as school bully, only to eclipse our ‘hero’ in the literary stakes much to Adrian’s disgust and envy.

So far I’ve re-read the first four in the series, and am about to embark on new territory with the remaining volumes which I haven’t read before.  What I’ve loved is the whole nostalgia trip so far, reliving the 1980s through Adrian’s warped lens.  I’ve guffawed and chuckled, and gone ‘Aww’ when not so good things have happened – but such is Townsend’s skill that it only takes a sentence to turn it around into pure comedy once more.

It’s no wonder that Open Book listeners on BBC Radio 4 have voted the first book in the series as the funniest novel ever.  In his naïvety, the young Adrian is funnier than the older more knowing one, who can be a bit of a jobsworth and pedant. A couple of books on and the comedy is beginning to become slightly farcical and more mannered rather than that of the innocent abroad. Adrian is also beginning to  realize that he’s wasting his life, but short of finding a publisher for his life’s work doesn’t really know what to do about it. It’ll be fun to find out what does happen.

Secret Diary (Mole 1) was a huge crossover hit, popular with both teens and adults of the time. Reading these books now was/is a joy for me, but I get all the jokes – I was there. Today’s teens and YA audience may struggle to find the humour in parts if lacking the cultural references of those days; however the character types are all recognisable and basically funny anyway with traits we can all identify with or know examples of.  I wouldn’t want to discourage them from enjoying this brilliant saga. As the press release from Penguin says …

“1982 – While British soldiers fight a war far away and the Conservative government grapples with mass unemployment, the country celebrates a Royal wedding.
2012 – Not a lot has changed.”

Book #1 – (10/10), #2 – (10/10), #3 – (7.5/10), #4 – (8/10)

* * * * *
My books were kindly supplied by Penguin Books – Thank you! The new editions to be published on Jan 19th come with a host of extras in the back – Adrian’s family tree and potted biogs of all the main characters, Adrian’s CV, Q&A with Sue Townsend and much more.

To explore further on Amazon UK, click below:
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 (Adrian Mole 1) by Sue Townsend.

Usually I find it difficult to read more than one book at a time, unless one is fiction and the other non-fiction. Experience had previously shown, that although I may start off alternating a couple of chapters at a time, when I try to read two or more fiction books alongside each other I always end up favouring one. Indeed the other book often then just sits there half read for ages, or maybe is never finished.

This is often the case with readalongs for me. Putting the book aside often means that the goldfish bit of my brain promptly forgets about it, and by the time I pick it up again, I’m a month behind and forgotten a lot of what happened in the previous section. The readalong is doomed then as far as I’m concerned.

At the moment though, I’m doing something different… I have two chunksters and one series of books on the go – all at the same time – and so far I’m managing to get them all read bit by bit.  I’m reading:

• Oscar and Lucinda  by Peter Carey – 515 dense pages.  I’m now halfway through and loving it. I started reading it about a week and a half ago, around 25 pages at a time.
• Riders by Jilly Cooper – 919 pages of horsey bonkbuster.  We’re actually reading this for bookgroup.  Not my normal fare, but it’s total racy fun, and the pages speed by.  I started reading it about 3 days ago and am up to page 205.
• The Adrian Mole books by Sue Townsend.  I got sent the entire set of eight, and they’re wonderfully funny and nostalgic.  I’m four volumes in.  (A major post on the series coming up in a couple of days.)

So how am I, previously a one book at a time girl, managing to juggle three successfully?  By reading each at different times of day…

• I read O&L in the mornings in bed. I’m a lark anyway and have good concentration first thing.  I try to get at least half an hour’s reading in before getting up.
• I read Riders when I go to bed.  Again I like to read for thirty minutes or more if I can before falling asleep (many times with the light on, glasses on and thumb wedged into the book).
• I’m reading Adrian Mole at those other times during the day when I have short gaps – ideally suited to diaries. I’ve been reading them off and on since the New Year.

So far, so good.  I’m sure it’s only working at the moment because of the length of the books I’m reading.  The average length of the books I read tends to be around 300 pages, and that doesn’t present the same challenge in terms of the time needed, and I know I won’t feel the need to juggle them.

My “Little and Often at the Right Time Of Day (LORTOD)” approach is working well.

Do you read more than one book at a time, or different books at different times of day?   See how Fleur Fisher copes with many books at once …

January never used to be this busy – or am I imagining it?

I’m doing well on the TBR Double Dare.  Five books have come through the door, but they’ve gone into an ‘embargo pile‘ except for Stasiland by Anna Funder which is our book group choice for Feb into March.  At the moment I’m nearing halfway through Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey – I’m enjoying it very much but it is a dense, almost Dickensian read – more of that in posts to come. I’m also up to book four of the Adrian Mole books by Sue Townsend; those nice people at Penguin sent me a set before Christmas – but again, more of him in a while.

Alongside reducing the TBR by reading it, I’ve managed to sort out a single bag of books to go to the charity shop since the start of the month.  These days I cull bag by bag, and as one goes I start a new bag. When that’s full, off it goes, and so on. Much less painful than doing it in large chunks.

What will I be reading next?  Well top of the pile is Riders by Jilly Cooper – which is our book group read for Jan into Feb. An indulgence?  Maybe, but I for one have never read her.  Also, The Man Who Rained by Ali Shaw – a second adult fairy-tale from this promising young author, and The Child Who, the third novel from Simon Lelic, author of the acclaimed debut Rupture.

How’s your 2012 going book-wise?

Abingdon’s Literary Quiznight for charity,

MOSTLY BOOKBRAINS

returns for a third outing on

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 3rd,

Quiz starts at 7.30pm

at the MANOR PREP SCHOOL,
Faringdon Rd, Abingdon, OX13 6LN
(click here for map.)

Entry £5 in advance, £6 on the door.

The quizmaster is me once again, assisted by Mark and staff from our town’s wonderful independent bookshop Mostly Books.

This year we will be raising money for two local charities - SeeSaw which supplies grief support for the young in Oxfordshire, and Abingdon Alzheimer’s Club which provides daycare for dementia sufferers at Abingdon Community Hospital.

There will be questions, there will be prizes, there will be a cash bar (from 7pm). There will be a magnificent trophy and the accolade of being crowned ‘Mostly Bookbrains of the Year’ for the winning team.

There will also be the return of the infamous bookswap table – bring along a book you’d like to share and recommend (or one you couldn’t stand and can’t wait to see the back of!) and grab something different.

As before, there will be no shortage of bean-burnishing and brain-straining, but it should be a great deal of fun. Come as a team – but if you don’t have a team, don’t worry – teams will be formed on the night.

So – think you know your Lee Child from your Lionel Shriver? Spot a Penguin Classic from a celebrity biography? Why not pit your literary wits against others to compete for the team prize of Mostly Bookbrains of the Year? 

Back in the early days of my blog, I posted about my favourite 1970s pop music as I was a 70s teenager.  The first song I talked about there was, is, one that still inspires me ever since it first appeared back in 1971. It immediately resurfaced in my mind during my reading of Hari Kunzru’s latest novel…

On the first part of the journey
I was looking at all the life
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz
And the sky with no clouds
The heat was hot and the ground was dry
But the air was full of sound

I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain
La, la …

The song was Horse with no name by America, from their self-titled first album. It has that sense of getting away from it all, losing and finding oneself again that being out in the desert can bring, and this is a big theme in Kunzru’s book too.

He prefaces the novel with a number of quotes, including one from a short story by Balzac: ‘Dans le désert, voyez-vous, il y a tout, et il n’y a rien … c’est Dieu sans les hommes’ – ‘In the desert, you see, there is everything and there is nothing … It is God without men.’ (my trans)

At its centre, Gods Without Men is the story of Jaz and Lisa Matharu, and their four year old autistic son Raj. They are a successful couple living in New York, although their relationship has its difficulties due to Lisa being Jewish and Jaz Sikh, and their families not being able to come to terms with that. Their marriage has faced fresh challenges since Raj’s diagnosis, for he is disruptive, a physically challenging child; Lisa in particular is worn out. It’s difficult to go anywhere en famille with Raj’s behaviour, so this is how they end up in a cheap motel outside LA with the Californian desert close by.  One night they have a huge row, Lisa drives off, leaving Jaz to stew with Raj.  Later when she returns, they go to the desert, where Raj suddenlt goes missing.  Lisa and Jaz are plunged into the media spotlight which soon turns against them as parents.

Running parallel to the main event are the stories of a British rock star addled by excess who runs away from the recording studio, and an refugee Iraqi teenager who has a job as a ‘villager’ in a military simulation to acclimatize US troops before their deployment. Their stories too converge with that of Lisa and Jaz in the desert out near the rock formation known as the Pinnacles, as do those of many through the ages. We hear from many different people whose stories climax in the desert –  from a Spanish missionary in 1775, to the beginnings of a cult in the late 1950s through to its early 1970s incarnation as a commune dedicated to the Ashtar Galactic Command.

This adds up to a rich tapestry of story threads that interweave in and out of each other with the desert as the canvas.  Although Lisa and Jaz are rich and privileged,  we can only sympathise with them as they try to cope with an autistic four year old. Their attempts to not let their cultural heritage get in the way of their modern life are not always successful either, and Kunzru leaves us with no doubts about how they are doing, we suffer with them.

Of the other characters I particularly loved Nick, the Keith Richards-like guitarist who is finding fame fickle and wishes he was back in happier times in London.  The cult is seen through the eyes of two of the women involved, Joanie and then Dawn. Both get carried along with the allure of spiritual salvation, plus drugs and free love, before realising that they are being asked to prostitute themselves for it.

Kunzru shows us all the characters’ lives with great clarity and honesty, and really makes us care about them. I found myself really wanting to hear the next installments in their stories, yet not at the expense of the person’s I was reading.

I have previously read and enjoyed Kunzru’s second novel Transmission, (reviewed here). Gods Without Men, his fourth, shows his evolution as a writer. The writing is as searingly hot as the dense desert heat and as cool as the starry night-time sky. It’s stunningly good. (9/10)

* * * * *
I received my copy through the Amazon Vine programme. To explore further on Amazon UK, click below:
Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru. Pub Hamish Hamilton, Aug 2011, Trade paperback, 400 pages.
Transmission by Hari Kunzru
America, History – America’s Greatest Hits by America

in 2011, I had aimed to join in with DGR’s ‘Team Troika’ readalong of War & Peace, but never got started. Also, despite good intentions, I got derailed halfway through the Dark Tower readalong hosted at Shelf Love (a series I definitely will finish though … sometime).

So not a good record – yet I find myself itching to follow and readlong closely with all these irrestistible things:

• January is Australian Literature Month over at Reading Matters. I’m planning to read Oscar and Lucindaby Peter Carey, but to do it readalong style with Lizzy if we can manage it.
• This year’s DGR classic readalong is Middlemarch
  by George Eliot. Again, if I can just get started ….
• Later in January, from the 23rd, Stu at Winston’s Dad is hosting a Henry Green Week. An author I’d never heard of, but upon researching, one I’d be keen to read. I’ve acquired Loving, Living, Party Going, which has three of his short novels together in one volume, so I’ll have plenty of choice.
• Although I don’t intend to formally follow Simon’s plans at Stuck in a Book to read one book from each year of the 20th century, it is a fascinating premise, and I plan to chart my progress out of pure listy-lovingness.  I am trying to read more books from the years before I was born, so following Simon’s progress in this challenge should help with that aim.
• Then there’s my monthly face to face Book Group which has its own tab at the top of the page. Our January read will be Ridersby Jilly Cooper – I’ve never read one of her books, so I’m looking forward to this.

Phew!  That’s enough for starters.  Let’s see how I get on.  What about you?

Amazingly, the actual book still exists and current custodians are my brother’s girls – they went to retrieve it.  What arrived was a volume with a faded and scribbled on lilac cover, no spine, and delaminating boards – it looked even worse more loved than this copy on the right. Originally it would have looked more like the copy below with it’s gaily coloured dust-jacket.

366 Goodnight Stories, illustrated by Esme Eve et al, was published by Paul Hamlyn in 1963 (reprinted ’64).  Our ‘family’ copy was given to me for my birthday in May 1965.Inside is an anthology of little stories and poems, for each day of the year.  Some are no more than a single verse, other stories are a page long, afew of the poems are old classics from Lear, R L Stevenson et al.

There are two particularly charming features of this collection I want to tell you about though …

Firstly the illustrations – each day has a picture or two. The spreads alternate between four illustrators, all with different styles – sadly I couldn’t tell you which is which.  To the right is one of my favourites – bright and cheerful.

Secondly – the seasonality of the book is lovely.  It is arranged starting with spring, so the first story is for March 21st.  Many of the stories and poems relate to the seasons in the countryside, the weather, flora and fauna.  See below for a typical late spring page, featuring more of my favourite illustrations.

In between the nature stories are many more – about toys, trains and cars, dolls and teddies, parties and celebrations. Interestingly, the story for the 29th of December was a cautionary tale  ’Warning’ about excess guzzling – pity the poor child who had that one on their birthday!

I hope the big pictures didn’t take too long to load for you, but I had to share some of this wonderful book with you. It has been read by three of one generation to four of the next, and so far two of the following one. I wish I’d known it was still in the family when my daughter was a toddler – she’d have loved it too.  I’ve vowed to return it to my nieces who, although they’re now teenagers, are rather loath to let it go – they can guard it for me, or pass it on to the next younguns in the family perhaps, but I think I’ll have to scan in a few more pages before handing it back!

I love having my own personal library to choose from.  But for every volume I pick off my own shelves, I read a shiny newly published title, and maybe add another onto the shelf.

That’s why I’ve signed up for the TBR Double Dare hosted by C B James.

I took part in the first one this year – and lasted the full three months.  I read only from my TBR, and acquired fewer books too, so it was a success, although I didn’t read as many books as I’d have liked – I got derailed by life in the first part of the year. After the TBR dare finished though, I managed to read over 30 books published in 2011 during the rest of the year!

Although I couldn’t/wouldn’t impose a book buying ban on myself, I do intend to try to acquire less this year and to continue to read more from my TBR after the end of March.  I’ll probably be moving and will need to reduce the TBR as much as I can. I keep a lot less books once I’ve read them these days.

It’s not too late to sign up.  I’m in good company – blog-friends Teresa of Shelf Love and Lizzy of Lizzy’s Literary Life are doing the TBR Double Dare too.

… and all this makes me realise – I don’t hate my TBR – I love it!