Last Post- Carol Ann Duffy

Written in honour of Henry Allingham and Harry Patch's deaths, the last two men to have fought in the First World War. Printed in the Guardian.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin,
that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud ...
but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood
run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
see lines and lines of British boys rewind
back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home -
mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers
not entering the story now
to die and die and die.
Dulce - No - Decorum - No - Pro patria mori.
You walk away.
You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
like all your mates do too -
Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert -
and light a cigarette.
There's coffee in the square,
warm French bread
and all those thousands dead
are shaking dried mud from their hair
and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,
a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released
from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.
You lean against a wall,your several million lives still possible
and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.
You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.
If poetry could truly tell it backwards,
then it would.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/31/carol-ann-duffy-last-post

Mightier than the sword

I just filled out a form volunteering to work for English PEN (www.englishpen.org) a charity that promotes literacy and literature in prisons, schools and local communities. They also campaign against censorship and help writers who are being persecuted for their words. Being a book geek in this country makes me very lucky, and PEN (and its international cousin) do vital work to make sure words are safe and free, as well as introducing more people to the magic and power of literature.

All I Want Is A Room Somewhere...

I don't know whether it's growing up in a not particularly big or old house (though it's about 100 years old) or a childhood spent reading fairy tales full of castles and secrets but I've always wanted to live in a Gothic pile like Manderlay or Gormenghast (but not peopled by the characters in either). So here's a list of books featuring splendid ancestral houses that loom large in the lives of the characters.

Rebecca - Daphne DuMaurier

Gormenghast - Mervyn Peake

Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

I Capture The Castle - Dodie Smith

Whistling For Elephants - Sandi Toksvig

The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets - Eva Rice

Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

So tell me about yourself...

I don't often read biographies, or autobiographies, mostly because many people lead pretty boring lives and also because I prefer fiction to reality. I read to escape, not to be dragged down. However I do make an exception for people I find interesting, though this tends to mean famous people, I don't read misery memoirs at all, although they seem to fall more into the fiction category than anything else. I've got Dawn French's Dear Fatty in my to-read pile as well as Spike Milligan's series of war memoirs (Hitler: My Part in His Downfall is just one of them, and they're all hysterical). I'd recommend Anthony Keidis' (Red Hot Chili Peppers) Scar Tissue as one of the best I've read. Also Adeline Yen Mah's Chinese Cinderella, The Tale of the Rose by Consuelo De Saint-Exupery (about her husband Antoine, author of The Little Prince), Without You by Anthony Rapp, Helene Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road, as well as the brilliant Boy and Going Solo by Roald Dahl. Ok, so that was a longer list than planned! But sometimes people's stories are better than fiction!! All of the suggested are fascinating insights into the lives of an interesting bunch of creative people. Enjoy!

The Brilliance of Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie was a genius, and if she'd wanted to, she'd have been a criminal mastermind! The creator of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple (though I far prefer the former to the latter), she wrote dozens of books set all over the world and involving all manner of crime and murder. While the books are not long or hugely complex, they contain all manner of twists to keep the reader guessing whodunnit til the last page.
Hercule Poirot is probably the second most famous detective in literature in English (Sherlock Holmes is the first) and his cases range from the stereotypical country house murder to some rather odd adventures both in his adopted home of England (famously he is Belgian, not French as some characters often refer to him as!), and on his many adventures overseas. The television adaptations of Poirot's cases are good, David Suchet looks more or less as described, though his moustache should be more luxuriant than the little one he sports.
Most of Christie's books have been adapted for television at one time or another, and she also penned the novel "Three Blind Mice" that was adapted into the stage play The Mousetrap, famously the longest running play ever! Her books make excellent holiday reading, and also for rainy days when you want to stay inside all cosy. Just don't start one just before going to bed, you might end up staying all night trying to solve the case!

Millennium Trilogy

Steig Larsson's books The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire (both available in paperback from Quercus) are brilliant thrillers, impossible to put down and it's sad to realise that after the third one is released (The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest), there will be no more.
Larsson died in November 2004 after delivering the manuscripts for the 3 novels that make up the Millennium Trilogy. It's a shame because I'm sure there was a lot more to come from this talented individual. The books are set in Larsson's native Sweden and revolve around journalist Mikael Blomkvist and talented but socially awkward hacker Lisbeth Salander. The first book is more about Blomkvist and how he comes to know Salander and discover the truth about a mystery surrounding the wealthy, and isolated Vanger family and their family corporation.
The second book, which dropped through my door only yesterday (thanks to amazon pre-order), was every bit as good as I'd hoped. I read it in one sitting, struggling to put it down to do anything. Like the first it's a clever, gripping story, and the twists keep on coming. This time the focus is more on the secrets of Salander's life as Blomkvist comes to her aid as she did for him in the first book. I don't want to give too much away, but if you like densely plotted, but easy to follow, intelligent thrillers then I highly recommend Larsson's two magnificent novels and hope that the third and final installment is every bit as great as the preceding pair.

Travels in Literature

From my perch here in London, I have travelled all over the world and into the realms of fantasy. Without ever having to actually go anywhere, especially useful when it's cold or raining. From modern Paris to ancient Greece, the Discworld and Earthsea, all without needing a coat or a map, although some books helpfully supply them so you don't get lost!

Books also allow for time travel, slipping back and forth in time, allowing glimpses into lives that would otherwise only exist in history textbooks, facts without the interesting personal life stuff.



A few interesting books to start your travels in this world and others:

City of the Beasts - Isabel Allende (or any of her books)

Wicked - Gregory Maguire

The Luminous Life of Lily Aphrodite - Beatrice Colin

Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys