Major Pettigrew's a minor distraction

Yes, I know I should be engrossed in Evelina, but somehow this week I ended up reading Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (thank you, Angus).  It's easy to be snobby about a first novel by a bored Englishwoman in New York who enrolled for creative writing classes (in fact, I'm full of admiration and no little envy) which is promoted by the Richard & Judy Book Group and which has reviews from Easy Living (who?) and the Daily Mail on its back cover.  In truth, however, it is a gentle, amusing and ultimately uplifting read. A quintessentially English comedy of manners which features cultural clashes, late love, a get rich quick City son, an American who wants to buy up the countryside, the wise and delightful Mrs Ali and the kind, charming and throughly decent Major Pettigrew who is fighting a rearguard action against the erosion of traditional good manners. Despite his background, Major Pettigrew is far more open minded and culturally aware than those around him, including of course the residents of the stylised and idealised (unless people really live like this in English villages?) village of Edgecombe St Mary in Sussex. If you have enjoyed Alexander McCall Smith's novels, you will enjoy this.  And to be fair to Helen Simonson, it is now a New York Times best seller. And now.......back to Evelina.

A plug for a blog

It's catching...... but this one is professional.  My friend Dinah reviews children's books for The Sunday Telegraph. Her English graduate daughter, Maudie, also has the children's book bug. Together, they have started a blog reviewing and commenting (sometimes quite wryly) on children's books.  Over the last few years Dinah has provided me with a steady stream of book recommendations for my children and her taste is impeccable - she nearly always gets right. As you will see from their Lady Book Bird blog, they write wittily and beautifully; fame and fortune are bound to follow as soon as publishers realise what they are doing.  They are raising the book blogging bar. Here is is: www.ladybookbird.tumblr.com Enjoy!

Couples therapy!

I thought I'd share with you some tips from a recent newspaper health article promoting bibliotherapy for couples whose relationships need a little bit of spicing up every now and then. Now I'm not suggesting that any of us needs any help at all but read it here rather than pay for a bibliotherapist (yes, really!) to tell you how to do it.  Like all self help guides, the top tips are blooming obvious.  Here they are with my helpful comments in passionate red:

1. Make reading dates, times when you will turn off the TV and spend quality bookish time together, snuggled up in bed or in front of an open fire. This assumes that the kids/teenagers will consent to the shocking notion of the TV being turned off and that the house is quiet once you have taken that step and that you can both resist the lure of the computer. 

2. Share your literary experiences: make time to discuss what you have read, perhaps over a glass of wine or an intimate dinner. People often want to share their experiences reading with someone but don't have the opportunity. Couples' bibliotherapy can give you new worlds to delve into together. This will involve me pretending to be interested in the history of the ski, ancient Greek armour or high mountain routes in Romania so I forsee some tensions developing. Isn't this why we have a book group? 

3. Keep a notebook, noting down a few sentences each time you finish a book on what you thought and felt. Even two or three sentences will help crystallise it in your mind and make it easier for you to talk about it together later, especially if one isn't going to read it for a few months. See 2 above: fat chance of me reading the aforesaid.

4. Read aloud to each other. It takes you to a different place. See 2 above: it depends on the subject matter whether this kind of transportation is an attractive proposition.

5. Find new ways of slipping books into your life, especially if you are hard-pressed for time. Whether it's listening to audio books on your iPod while making dinner or doing the washing, or reading on the train, we often have more reading opportunities than we think. Agreed as to the last point, and my friend Jude swears that she reads more now that she has a Kindle.

6. Visit a bookshop together and choose a book you would both like to read. If you share a favourite, see if you can find an event or signing with the author which you can both attend. The idea is to find ways of making the books come alive and help you to bond as a couple. Our recent experience of shopping together (for kitchen lights) doesn't bode well.  The salesman told us that he was training to be a relationship counsellor and he recommended that we leave the shop, talk to each other over a cup of coffee and then return refreshed to make a decision on which lights we could agree on!