A good read

Hearing of the tragic suicide of Anthony Bourdain last night made me think of his wonderful book ‘Kitchen confidential” which I remember devouring one summer  in North Devon. To me, having a good book on the go  is up there with cooking on the beach, outdoor swimming, Earl grey tea, Japanese rice crackers  and cheese. 

I didn’t finish  a book for about two  years after Tim died. For some reason my mind just couldn’t focus long enough as I hopped   from title to tile , hoping desperately that one would hold my imagination long enough to untangle my jumbled mind and soothe me into a vestige of calm in order to contemplate sleep. 

There  are certain books that stay with us, much loved dog eared copies sitting on the bookshelves that have seen us through childhood, adolescence to middle age  (yes, I said it)  and all that comes between, like a favourite coat or a pair of boots. 

When I was young,  Moomintroll  and Mrs Pepperpot were my bedtime companions, along with Pippi Longstocking, Uncle ( an elephant who lived in a castle), Grimble ( a story about a latchkey kid which combined story and recipes), and What Katy did ( I can’t for the life of me remember), CS Lewis and E. Nesbit and Little House on the Prairie. Even younger adventures were with  Babar, Ant and Bee, Dr Seuss ( green eggs and ham) Topsy and Tim and Janet and John from  the Ladybird series,  which are better known these days for their very funny re written editions.

However, the ones I remember the most were the  books about ponies ( such was my love for them). I have just found one of these, smelling slightly of woodsmoke with yellowed pages. ” Horse in the house” a spectacularly badly written story about a very smug child called Melanie  and her palomino stallion Orbit. While  her parents are away she decides to move Orbit into the house with her. You can imagine.This theme came back to me about 15 years ago on meeting my birth dad for the second time, the first having being 30 years before  that when I was a newborn baby. We went into his kitchen to make a cup of tea, and I noticed that each of the terracotta tiles on the floor had regular cracks in each corner. His reply when I asked how they got there was ” Oh, that’s when I had the horse living in the house”. And you can bet your bottom dollar that if he had written about it his story would knocked Melanie and Orbit out of the water in the bestseller list

The first books I started  reading for myself were ‘Swallows and Amazons’, sadly now so dated that my own children just couldn’t understand the appeal , with the characters now seeming stuffy and priggish. But seriously, who could not want to be Nancy?  Or Jo from ‘Little women”? 

At boarding school books were a bit like albums, some you had because they were cool, like  ‘On the road’, though I always preferred the book written by Kerouacs then girlfriend Joyce, or’Catcher in the Rye’, again I found his’Franny and Zooey’ more accessible, or others simply because you loved them and would fiercely  defend their presence on your  book shelf. . As a teenager I read voraciously, everything written by Daphne du Maurier, Edna O Brien and HE Bates, and pretty much every book Gerald Durrell ever wrote, to the point that I decided I wanted to ‘work with animals’ ( along with everyone else) .  I loved the way he wrote, with such rich descriptions and humour, even though the ‘pigeon  english’ in the ‘ Bafut  Beagles ‘might be considered unacceptable nowadays. Jane Eyre and The Ginger man  fuelled my love of words, and Thomas Hardy became, and still is, a favourite and ‘Far from the madding crowd’ would be a contender in my top ten. 

Travel books have always been my stalwart,  my go to section in the bookshop, guaranteed to satisfy. If pushed, one of my all time favourite travel writing authors EVER is Dervla Murphy. Anyone who hasn’t  read ‘Full tilt’ needs to take themselves off to Waterstones without delay. Similarly Eric Newby and Alexandra David Neal. 

Reading this back has made me realise that there is so much more , so many more books that I have loved, that have made me think about things, have influenced me, have sowed the seed in my soul. I couldnt  go on without mentioning’Midnights children’ or “100 years of solitude’, Margaret Atwood, Isabelle Allende, Barbara Kingsolver.. I could go on and on and on.

So I will end with a qoute  from JP Donleavy , quite the most brilliant of writers, author of ‘The Ginger man’ one of the funniest books I have ever read and a reminder of youth and love . He is trying to avoid his landlord, the unpleasant weasel of a man Mr Skully

Dear Mr Skully,

I have caught my neck in a mangle and will be indisposed for eternity.

Yours in death 

Sebastian  Dangerfield