The Book Habit

I’m finding my current book habit hard to shake!

Just finished:
Tolkien and the Critics: essays on J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ (ed Neil D Isaacs and Rose A Zimbardo)
Might write about that later. The book was dirty… some of the stains looked as though they were older than my big sister (and probably very nearly were).

Currently reading:
The Memoirs of Cleopatra (by Margaret George) [I'm on the home straight!]
My Dear Cassandra: The Illustrated Letters of Jane Austen (intro and ed by Penelope Hughes-Hallett & Elizabeth Drury) [It's sitting beside my bed... currently overtaken by the following book...]
Under Brinkie’s Brae (by George Mackay Brown) [He was writing these little snippets back in the 70s, and comes out with some real gems. Like when they finally got three TV channels in Orkney (having had only BBC1 up till then), and he realized it was still just the beginning. He wonders if the increase in technology might not make for 'colder social relations' in the future].
Starbucked (by Taylor Clark) [It was in a charity shop. I don't like Starbucks coffee (flavoured foam), but I like the couches. Figured I might as well read the book. ]

Book Wishlist:
Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me)
Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It
The Now Habit [Unfortunately doesn't seem to be available from the UK book shops just now, but it seems to be one of the more popular books on procrastination].
Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour [At last I will be able to figure some of you out. ]

Was going to have a list of books waiting their turn to be read, but if I’m going to be listing them in the future as books I am reading or have read, that could easily turn a bit repetitive.

Off to bed to pick up Under Brinkie’s Brae again… it has sobering stories of women of long ago, such as Betty Corrigall with her outcast’s grave.

About a Scottish Poet

I quickly finished the biography of George Mackay Brown by Maggie Fergusson. It’s shorter than it looks because of the references at the back. I enjoyed it and found it more informative than GMB’s autobiography (From the Islands I Sing) but it was fairly dry in the middle, around the period when GMB was spending a lot of time with the other poets.

I suppose each person’s life is bound up with others and you really can’t separate them too much. These other people supported, influenced etc.

In his serious writing, GMB had a taste for the dark things of human existence (such as what happened to the local witches). But he also had his lighter, friendlier moments.

GMB suffered from periodic depression as well as agoraphobia. I wonder if many of the reviewers and critics really understood how that would impact on him. I was reading a review by someone who had read the biography who kept saying “but it was hard to work out why GMB [this, that or the other]“. In turn, it made no sense to me how anyone could read that book (or know anything about him) and not understand.

It’s true that some people think in black and white terms. They would imagine that if you have agoraphobia, you never leave the house. And if you leave the house regularly (like GMB going to the shops), you don’t have it any more. But as GMB found, it hangs around… sometimes it’s bad, and sometimes it’s barely even present. He stared at the island of Hoy and wondered how he ever found the energy and courage to go out there. I do that myself – I think about places I’ve been and things I’ve done, and marvel. It doesn’t mean I would never be able to do them again – I would just feel currently unable.

To come close to understanding another, you really have to join up the dots.