Books, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Judy Blume to W. B. Yeats

It’s that time of the month – #6degrees again. Read about it here and join in.  Play the animation and the book chain will appear! Our start point is Judy Blume. Her Are you there God? It’s Me Margaret (1970) was a bit of a sensation in the children’s lit world because it shockingly dared to mention the unmentionable (menstruation!…

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Books, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW2

Secret Agent, Mother, Saboteur, Bomb-maker, Spy Chief, Novelist, Housewife

As of last week, the only thing I knew about Agnes Smedley was that The Feminist Press had reissued her most famous book and that the poet Robert Lowell had objected that she – a known communist sympathizer – was allowed to stay at Yaddo – the artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs. Getting to know her a little better has…

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Books, RattleBag and Rhubarb

#6Degrees Freestyle

The November #6degrees is freestyle. Instead of everyone starting in the same place with the same book, each participant starts with the last book on a previous chain or – if a newcomer – with the last book they read. #6degrees is the book version of Six Degrees of Separation. It usually starts with a book suggested by Kate at…

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Books, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The 1956 Book Club and a Game

And the #1956Club is open for business and this time I’m joining and you can too.. I’m old enough to actually remember quite a bit about 1956 and it’s technically possible that I read some of these books in the year they were published. I was an avid three books plus a week reader as a child and at eight…

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Books, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Book Chain: Six Degrees and the Invention of Sex

Long before the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, bookish teens had Iris Murdoch. As the poet Philip Larkin (1922-1985) explained in Annus Mirabilis, sex was invented in 1963      Sexual intercourse began    In nineteen sixty-three    (which was rather late for me) –    Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban    And the Beatles’ first…

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Books, Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The School is Dead, Long Live the School

This is actually a story about books but somehow the schools took over. It does start with the books – four old books from a library of a defunct school and each with this lovely bookplate.  Beneath the tree is the line  “And some of the blossoms shall turn to fruit” And some of the blossoms of the Lincoln School…

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Art, Film, Photography, RattleBag and Rhubarb

From Minty to Moses – the Extraordinary Fierce and Fearless Harriet Tubman

In September we heard Ta-Nehisi Coates in conversation with Oprah Winfrey at the Apollo in NYC. The topic was his first novel The Water Dancer and the ticket price included a copy of the book. The conversation was interesting – Oprah is really good at this kind of thing and she clearly loved the book. And so did I. It’s…

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Books, Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Angela Brazil, the Tribal World of School and School Change

Scooterons-nous vite. It’s Back to School with Angela Brazil Long before Harry Potter – and indeed long before all those school story authors who gave us Malory Towers and St. Clare’s and the Chalet School and the Abbey School and Jennings and Billy Bunter – there was Angela Brazil. Brazil – rhymes with dazzle – didn’t invent the school story…

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Books, RattleBag and Rhubarb

All Hands Above Board for the Scuttlebutt

It’s always fun when someone you know – a friend – has a book published. Here’s Three Sheets to the Wind by Cynthia Barrett about the nautical origins of everyday expressions.  This is not a compendium of sailing idioms – all that tacking, luffing, jibing and heeling language of the business of sailing. This is rather the expressions we use…

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Books, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Pulp Fiction Surprise

Just over 20 years ago now a teacher walked into my office and said that he had just found a bag of books on the street and would I like them.  Of course I said Yes and in the books came. Quick look at the top of the bag – looked like a whole load of pornesque pulp fiction from…

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Books, Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW2

Angela Brazil – Rhymes With Dazzle – at Dunkirk

When intelligence officer Arthur Marshall was on the beach at Dunkirk in 1940 he turned to the work of Angela Brazil for psychological support. Wounded in the ankle, he encouraged his men to face enemy fire and so reach the awaiting ships with: “Come on, girls, who’s on for the Botany Walk?” In his autobiography he explained how he managed…

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Books, Food, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW2

Much Ado About Food: Kate Atkinson and Elizabeth David

Novelists and film makers often struggle to find the right period details to anchor their work in a particular era. And when it’s a much mined time and place – London in WW2 for example – it often results in rolling out the same set of shorthand cliches. You know the drill – the air raid siren, a gas mask…

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Books, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW2

Much Ado About Deception and Delusion: Kate Atkinson’s Transcription and London 1940

The sandwich was no comfort, it was a pale limp thing a long way from the déjeuner sur l’herbe of her imagination. . . . Recently she had bought a new book, by Elizabeth David — A Book of Mediterranean Food. A hopeful purchase. The only olive oil she could find was sold in her local chemist in a small bottle. ‘For softening…

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City and Country, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Save Your Neighborhood

Buy local. If you live in a city, town or village you probably appreciate the local amenities. These include the local shops. If you want to preserve your neighborhood then buy local. Small independent stores and businesses are under siege and we need to support them if we care about preserving our neighborhoods.  Let’s imagine a densely populated city like…

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Books, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Choosing books by the cover

I once worked in a school where the librarian arranged the non-fiction by the color of the spine. It made for some serendipitous browsing. He was a friendly fellow with a big bushy beard, a scholarly demeanor and who claimed to have a PhD in philosophy. We got along well. There came a day when two men in suits arrived…

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