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In our house the Nativity scene has been put out, the Advent calendar hung up and the first candle lit for the first Sunday of Advent. Behind each window of the Advent calendar there's a scripture verse telling the Nativity story.
I get most of my reading material on loan from the local library or buy them from charity shops, but I did order a book from Persephone Books, a publisher that specialises in reprints of neglected mid-twentieth fiction and non-fiction. The Persephone Biannual Magazine is also sent out to regular customers and is always full of interesting articles and reviews. The book came in the post last week together with the Persephone magazine so I've had plenty to read for the times when I've been resting.
The Country Life Cookery Book was written by Ambrose Heath, the pseudonym of Francis Gerald Miller (1891-1969) who lived with his wife and daughter in Surrey. He had gone into journalism before he was 20 and he became a well-known cookery journalist and broadcaster. He wrote many cookbooks and The Country Life Cookery Book was first published in 1937. For each section of the book there are headings 'The Kitchen Garden in January' and so on with recipes using seasonal ingredients with advice on growing produce. There's a chapter on herbs, information about fish and a calendar regarding when to grow vegetables throughout the year. What also interests me about the book is the fact that the illustrations are by Eric Ravilious especially since reading more about his life and visiting an exhibition of his work during November 2017, Ravilious & Co., at the Millennium Art Gallery in Sheffield. Eric Ravilious was born in Eastbourne in 1903 and went to the art school there and to the Royal College of Art. In 1930 he married the artist Tirzah Garwood. His work included murals, engravings, designs for china and water colour paintings. He became a war artist in 1939 and sadly was killed in an aeroplane crash in 1942.
A library book I've been browsing through is Jacob's Room is Full of Books - A Year of Reading written by Susan Hill, an author I've enjoyed in the past. It's another book that follows the months of the year and in this volume, a follow-up to Howard's End is on the Landing, the author writes about a year of her life through the books she has read, re-read or returned to the shelf. I started reading the chapter for November, continued on into December and have found the every day, small observations regarding the place on the east coast of England where she lives just as interesting as her reflections on her reading and writing experiences.
She writes in December...
'Heron all over the mudflats. I counted seven, which is most unusual as they tend to be solitary birds, still as statues, waiting patiently, ever watchful. But these were pottering about. Were they herons?
It was very cold.
Came home to light the wood burner and read Hugh Aldersey-Williams's biography of the eighteenth-century scientist Sir Thomas Browne.'
'I just went outside. It smells of cold and the grass is crisp. Wish I could find the poem I read many years ago, about opening the door at night and just standing, taking in what it is like out there...'
There's a list of books mentioned in this memoir. There are many authors in the list that I've not read. However, I've enjoyed my own reading this year and thankful that I've access to many interesting and entertaining books, whether regular volumes or audio books.
A library book I've been browsing through is Jacob's Room is Full of Books - A Year of Reading written by Susan Hill, an author I've enjoyed in the past. It's another book that follows the months of the year and in this volume, a follow-up to Howard's End is on the Landing, the author writes about a year of her life through the books she has read, re-read or returned to the shelf. I started reading the chapter for November, continued on into December and have found the every day, small observations regarding the place on the east coast of England where she lives just as interesting as her reflections on her reading and writing experiences.
She writes in December...
'Heron all over the mudflats. I counted seven, which is most unusual as they tend to be solitary birds, still as statues, waiting patiently, ever watchful. But these were pottering about. Were they herons?
It was very cold.
Came home to light the wood burner and read Hugh Aldersey-Williams's biography of the eighteenth-century scientist Sir Thomas Browne.'
'I just went outside. It smells of cold and the grass is crisp. Wish I could find the poem I read many years ago, about opening the door at night and just standing, taking in what it is like out there...'
There's a list of books mentioned in this memoir. There are many authors in the list that I've not read. However, I've enjoyed my own reading this year and thankful that I've access to many interesting and entertaining books, whether regular volumes or audio books.
