What's On the Box....

By Helen Lacey

I don't get to watch much television. With my writing, my day job, a husband, three horses, three dogs, two cats and an elderly parent (plus a sizable extended family), time often seems to be in short supply and if I do have any I generally prefer to read or spend as much time writing as I can. But there are a few shows I love....

- Big Bang Theory....I love the banter between the characters and it always makes me smile, much like Frasier or MASH have done in the past.

- Supernatural....okay, I'm a girl and a huge Dean Winchester fan. And because there's often a humorous element to the storylines, it really can't be taken all that seriously.

- Air Crash Investigation....yeah, I have a somewhat morbid curiosity about this show, but can't seem to help myself listen as they go through the clues to find out the how's and the why's of the crashes.

 - Bold And The Beautiful....half an hour of tossing hair and deep sighs and cued pauses....what's not to love? But I don't get to see this much as it's on during the day, so I catch maybe one episode a week (and can still follow the storylines....go figure)

- Downtown Abbey.... I did watch this until they killed off poor Matthew Crawley...my heart it seems is forever broken and I haven't quite summoned the heart to try again. So it probably shouldn't be on the list, but I liked it enough to give it a plug.

Now,  a week ago I gave in to all the hype and peer pressure and watched the first two episodes of Game Of Thrones....then I made a teeny comment on Facebook and people came out of the woodwork to tell how wonderful it was. Alas, I didn't find it so. The murder, rape, incest, betrayal, animal mutilation....to name just a few things....well, they kind of disturbed me and I felt like I was having a minor panic attack the whole time I watched the show. I was on edge and uncomfortable for the entre duration. And yes, I've never been one for graphic violence - I'd much rather watch When Harry Met Sally than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And I read mostly contemporary romance or biographies, although I love Austen and devour any BBC adaption of any of her  books. Murder and mayhem aren't generally my cup of tea - unless is wrapped up in a Sci-Fi movie, al-la Terminator or Start Trek. But as a writer I am interested in plot and characters and storytelling. So I tried with this show. And failed in spectacular fashion. Much to the despair and outrage of several of my friends. I was looking for a hero in the two episodes I watched, and couldn't find one - someone redeemable - but he or she never came. And the violence put me off because it seemed unrelenting.

So, did I bail too soon after just two episodes? Probably. And since my husband just bought the first couple of seasons of Sons Of Anarchy, I think I'm about to do the same thing again.

Have you ever bailed on a TV show or a book? Or walked out on a movie at the cinema?
Love to hear about it if you have.

My English Literary Tour

In a crazy fit of spontaneousness, I booked a trip to Europe last month and left a few weeks later. Main destinations – Paris, London, The Lake District and Hampshire.

Why Hampshire?

Jane Austen’s House Museum

Well, there’s a lovely little village called Chawton and in this little village is the house where Jane Austen spent the last eight years of her life. It was in this gorgeous 17^th century cottage that Jane revised Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice which were published in 1811 and 1813 respectively.

Encouraged by their success, Jane began to write with renewed vigor. Mansfield Park came out in 1814 and Emma in 1816. It was in this comfortable home that she completed Persuasion and began Sanditon, but illness prevented her from completing the manuscript.

Jane isn’t buried in the local churchyard next to her sister and mother.  She’d travelled to Winchester to be near her doctor. She died there on 18 July 1817. She’s buried in Winchester Cathedral.

We walked down to St Nicholas Church and visited the graves of Jane’s sister Cassandra and her mother. The church grounds were covered in a gorgeous display of spring flowers. So beautiful and haunting at the same time.

There were some amazing things on display in Jane’s house.  One of the most interesting was Jane’s gold and turquoise ring. The ring nearly left the UK on the finger of American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson who bought the ring at an auction at Sotheby’s in 2012.  But due to a temporary export ban, a massive fundraising appeal, which saw Austen fans from around the world contribute and an anonymous donation of 100,000 pounds, the ring now lives in a display case in the cottage. Isn’t that a great story?

The most fascinating piece of furniture for me was the ‘desk’ where it is believed Jane wrote her novels.  Here’s me being star struck by this little wooden table.

I loved visiting Jane’s house, reading tributes from Sir Walter Scott and Sir Winston Churchill, wandering through the rooms where Jane would have dreamt up her stories. It was a wonderful treat.

Dove Cottage & the Wordsworth Museum

The trip to Dove Cottage in Grasmere in the Lake District was another literary treat. When William Wordsworth visited the area as a boy, it seemed like paradise.  During a walking tour of the Lake District in 1799 with fellow poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge he discovered an empty inn. Wordsworth fell in love with the building and moved in with his sister. It was here that the great poet wrote some of his greatest work.

I wandered lonely as a cloud


That floats on high o'er vales and hills,


When all at once I saw a crowd,


A host, of golden daffodils;


Beside the lake, beneath the trees,


Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Daffodils, William Wordsworth

Beatrix Potter’s Hill Top Farm

Image source: National Trust

Our visit (I had my daughter with me) to Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey in the Lake District was brilliant. Visiting the beloved children’s writer’s house with my little one made the experience so magical. My daughter ran around the garden imagining Peter Rabbit nibbling carrots. She spotted the rat hole used by Mr. Samuel Whiskers and was able to look up the chimney Tom Kitten escaped up before being covered in butter and dough.

We bought a copy of The Tale of Samuel Whiskers or The Roly-Poly Pudding from the gift shop and my daughter read it cover to cover that night sitting by the fire of our  gorgeous hotel.

I absolutely loved my literary tour of England. I wished I could have rented a little cottage in the Lake District and been inspired by daffodils to write some of the greatest prose of all time. I did take lots of notes and it just so happens that my latest book is set near Lake Windermere just at the time when the spring flowers are blooming.

Favourite Books of 2013

So I've been thinking back over the books I've read this year and which are my favourites. And I thought I'd make a list - partly to share the joy and partly to get recommendations in the comments for my 2014 reading. 

I'm going to start with the single title books, and look at my favourite category reads in another post. The books below weren't neccesarily published in 2013, I just got around to reading them this year.

So, in no particular order, here are my top 5 favourite books I read in 2013:

Captive of Sin, by Anna Campbell
Can you say intensity? This book gripped me from the start and didn't let me go. Gideon is a fabulous hero who had me sighing. 

Arabella, by Georgette Heyer
I'm slowly making my way through all of Heyer's Regencies, and this is definitely one of my favourites so far. Arabella was a fun heroine to be with, and Mr Beaumaris was so adorable in his journey to becoming a hero.

Emma, by Jane Austen
This one is a bit of a cheat, because I've read it before, many, many times. But this year I watched the mini-series staring Romola Garai and Johnny Lee Miller, then read the book again with those faces in mind. It's the most enjoyment I've had reading Emma since before 1996 when the two movies came out and the faces in my head changed from the ones I'd created.

Demonosity, by Amanda Ashby
This YA was so much fun and so beautifully layered with emotion that I wanted to read it again as soon as I'd finished.

Dream Lake, by Lisa Kleypas
I read this on the recommendation of MJ Scott, and I loved it. Great heroine, an emotionally damaged hero, a sick grandmother and a ghost, all set on an island in Washington State. What's not to love? 


So, what about you? What were your favourite single title reads of 2013? I'm looking for suggestions for my Christmas wishlist. :)

Jane Austen and the New Year!

by Emily May


What I'm reading: Jane Eyre

Watching: Dexter

Listening to: Fat Freddy's Drop







Welcome to a brand new year everyone!

To start 2011 with a regency flavour, I'd like to share some quotations from the incomparable Jane Austen. Since this is a blog for people who love to read, I'll begin with Mr Tilney's views on reading -- or rather, his damning views on people who don't read!



"The person,
be it gentleman or lady,
who has not pleasure in a good novel,
must be intolerably stupid."





None of us are intolerably stupid, right? If we were to meet Mr Tilney among the pages of Northanger Abbey, he would suitably impressed by our novel reading and pronounce us tolerably intelligent, wouldn't he? So, from one avid reader to another, let me wish you all many hours of joyful reading this year!

Secondly, here is a piece of Jane wisdom (said by Mrs Morland to her daughter Catherine, also in Northanger Abbey):

"You should never fret about trifles."

I'm a big trifle-fretter, but I'm going to do my best to follow this advice. Hopefully 2011 is the year I'll conquer this habit!

Another excellent observation of Jane's (via the eponymous Emma of Emma) is this:




"Silly things do cease to be silly
if they are done by sensible people
in an impudent way."




I love this quote -- it's definitely an invitation to us all to do silly things!




My favourite Jane Austen quote, however, is this one from Sense and Sensibility (as uttered by Edward Ferrars):





"I wish as well as every body else
to be perfectly happy;
but like every body else
it must be in my own way."



Very, very true. We each need to find our own happiness in our own, unique way. If we haven't already found it, may 2011 be the year that we do!



I'd like to finish with some excellent advice from Jane:

"Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint!"

And to illustrate the excellence of that advice, here's Mr Darcy in his wet shirt after doing a little running mad (or rather, swimming mad)...








Happy 2011 everyone -- may it be a fabulous year for us all, full of reading, and no trifle-fretting, and lots of silliness, and finding our own happiness, and running mad -- but not fainting!
If you have any favourite Jane quotes, please feel free to share them!