Joyous June Reads

The sun is beaming down and it's like another country here. Today's books go with the happy mood, being light-hearted and interesting, besides not being in the usual run of reads.

Even if you have never had much interest in making music, you could well enjoy 'Making and Playing Bamboo Pipes' by Margaret Galloway. The author's name even has the ring of the piper about it somehow. It was published by Dryad Press of Leicester, UK, in 1958. Dryad used to produce leaflets on every type of handicraft, and I well remember carrying bound copies of them home from the library with glee; any handicraft you can think of was described in these volumes; if you never made anything yourself out of them, they were a sheer pleasure to read. This book is a reject from the same local library. I don't think modern handicraft books come even close to the variety so simply and yet comprehensively described in Dryad's books, This particular work begins with the” Directions for Making a Simple Treble Pipe” and ends with an account of the Pipers' Guild and how to join it. The instructions embrace every aspect of the pipes, including how to polish them and most importantly how to play them.There are tunes to test the pitch of the pipes too, and how to amend errors; everything is considered. Definitely this is a joy of a book.

The next book asks “What are the Seven Wonders of the World?” A church sale find, it is written by Peter D'Epiro and Mary Desmond Pinkowish, and springs from an unusual idea: starting with a section entitled 'Three', it asks “Who were the three sons of Adam and Eve?”, then “ Who were the three gods of the Hindu Trinity (the Trimurti)?” It carries on through various numbers up to and including twenty-four. One, Two, Eleven, Fourteen, Sixteen, Seventeen, are conspicuous by their absence, as well as from nineteen to twenty-three inclusive; it is intriguing to wonder why these numbers have been of little significance in the life of humanity. It deals with, for example, the six “major European invasions of Russia since the time of Peter the Great”, the 7 Deadly Sins, the 9 Lyric Poets of Ancient Greece, the 12 Tribes of Israel, “the unoffical Homeric titles of the 18 chapters of James Joyce's 'Ulysses' “ I think you get the picture now. This is a paperbook published by Metro Books, London, in 1999, and is certainly an interesting approach to a lot of historic and pseudo-historic questions.

'Too Good to Be True – The Colossal Book of Urban Legends' is another fascinating read. You know all those weird stories you read about on computer forums and in mass-circulated emails - this book gathers them all together and debunks them.It is published by W.W.Norton & Company, New York – London, 2001. It is a paperback in fine condition and came from a school sale. The author explains that the urban legend is the sort of story which you are told is totally true because the teller knows the person it happened to for sure, but then it turns out when you ask them again that it was actually a cousin of a friend's neighbours uncle to whom it happened but they swear it is true! One of these urban legends is about “The Baby on the Roof”:

“Did you hear about this couple driving through Southern Utah? They were on their way to California, and they went to change drivers and the wife took the baby out of the car and put him on the roof of the car. Then they both switched sides and got back into the car. She just assumed that the husband had put the baby back in, but he hadn't even seen it. They drove off, and the baby slid off, but he was OK because he was in a plastic infant seat. About two hours later they realised that they forgot the baby. So they drove back, and someone had stopped for the baby, and the baby was OK"
.The author, Jan Harold Brunvand, says that he has on file news stories or first-hand accounts dating from 1975 to 1993 of fourteen such incidents occurring either in the US or Germany with varying outcomes for the infant. What interests me is that this urban legend was travelling around therefore before the internet got going. What does puzzle me, though, is why it was necessary to take the baby out of the car at all, just to change drivers. Anyway, this book is full of stories, good to read for themselves even before you consider them as urban legends, with titles such as: “The Killer in the Back Seat”, “A Bug in the Ear”, and “The Devil in the Disco”. My own mother had a version of that one, which told of a girl meeting the devil in a local dancehall, allowing him to leave her home and then just in time spotting his cloven hoof; that was not today or yesterday. Obviously these stories have been doing the rounds for some time. Jan Harold Brunvand looks on them as a type of folklore, which of course they are, and they have that most vital characteristic of folklore, staying power.

'Where Joy Shines Through' is a lovely little hardback, and I brought it home from the recycling centre because I love drawings of any kind; this is full of illustrations of all sorts, from the cartoon type to the representational – plants, animals, human beings and landscapes as seen by artists with just one thing in common, that is, they are disabled to some degree, and these illustrations have been created with the help of mouths or feet.They are really done, however, with the hearts and minds of wonderfully talented artists. Accompanying the pictures are aphorisms such as “Thrift is most admired by an heir!!!” which do not necessarily have any connection to them, which is perhaps a little quirk of the book, not anything to spoil it, but slightly puzzling. This book was published by the Disabled Artists Association of Cork (Ireland) in 1986, so someone treasured it for a good few years before parting with it.

I could well be accused of having cornered the market in second-hand house plant books, by the amount I have collected over the years. I make no apology for this – growing and reading about house plants have cheered many a day in my life. One of the Reader's Digest Successful Gardening series, 'The Indoor Garden' , published in 1994, is a winner of a book I came across at a car boot sale. What I really like about this book is the way it categorises the plants according to the growing conditions they prefer, such as “Plants for humid air”, “Plants for shady areas” and so forth. A lot of people dislike house plants because they see the same type over and over again in their local supermarket. But there are many many more types of plant for growing at home, than will be encountered in the supermarket or even in the gardening store. Since the arrival of the computer in all our lives, it has become easy to meet other enthusiasts and to trade with them; in this way I have discovered the most intriguing plants, some of which you will never see for sale, except perhaps at a school or church 'bring & buy' sale, or of course at those run by gardening clubs. For instance, Ceropegia woodii is a lovely little succulent plant, also known as Rosary Vine or even more aptly, String of Hearts, because the leaves are shaped like little silver and green hearts and strung out along their trails; this plant is almost never seen in ordinary shops although it is much easier to grow than most you will see while you're doing your weekly shop. One reason for the amount of quite difficult house plants commonly to be found on sale, in my opinion, is that if all our indoor plants thrived, we would not need to come back for more as often as big business would like. This morning, I received in a trade a variegated form of the Ceropegia woodii, with leaves of silver bordered with white, a most appealing and pretty plant. I wager I will have a better chance of keeping this happy than the myriad of languishing indoor plants from the supermarket displays, which have already experienced too much heat or too much cold, draughts, over and underwatering, and perhaps even rough handling before they got to the shelves in the local Tesco or Woodies. When you think that these are living creatures, a vital part of our environment, you would think that they deserve a little more dignity than they commonly receive.

"Frankly Speaking' came from the recycling shelf, and is a book of humourous stories told by ministers from most of the Irish churches, and they are told with a certain winning innocence. The editor, Frank Sellar, is a minister of Adelaide Road Donore Presbyterian Church since 1990, we are told, although I'm not sure if that holds true today. It was published in aid of 'The Road Ahead Project' – a “major million pound redevelopment project which will involve constructing a purpose-built complex behind the current listed facade. This will enable the church to continue to provide a range of programmes for people who are unemployed, parents and children from all backgrounds in Dublin City Centre.” I don't know if the project ever got off the ground, but hopefully it did and succeeded in all its aims. Here is one of the stories, contributed by Rev. BHS. Liddell, Former Senior Minister, 1^st Coleraine Presbyterian Church:

“80. An Invitation to Prayer

During a visit to an old farmer I asked Robert if I could “Keep Worship”. “Aye” he replied “but wait till I call in James”. James was the farmhand and was working in the yard. Robert went over to the kitchen window, knocked on it and gestured to James to come in. Then, turning to me, he said, “James will get a 'quare gunk'. He thinks he's being called in for his supper!”

“9. Don't Noah” was submitted by Rev. Joe Mooney, Retired, Grange Presbyterian Church.

“The minister had been talking to the children about Noah and the Ark. After Church, one little boy asked his grandad, 'Granda, were you in the Ark?' 'No, son, I wasn't' replied Granda. “Then”, asked the boy, “how come you weren't drowned?"

 So, it is June, the days are long and bright, we even had sunshine today. Keep your hearts up. Mother Ireland is managing to smile a little.

The Light Side Of Life

The pull to be in the garden is so strong now that spring is really here that it's hard to find time to write my book blog. However,the rain of the last few days gave me time to hunt out the next lot of books. Although sitting down to read them was not in the plan, I had forgotten how readable and inspiring was “My Rock Garden”, a book which a friend found at a sale years ago and dropped in to me on her way home, one of those kindnesses that are never forgotten for their spontaneous generosity. Reginald Farrer wrote this book, and my copy is from The Garden Book Club, London 1942, when a lot of gardeners had other things on their mind. No doubt it cheered many a person who was wondering if he would ever enjoy growing flowers again.

I had a little Brownie 127 camera when I was very young, and when the children were growing up we had a little Halina. But I was never really a photographer, for lack of both time and money. Things changed in the years since 2000. Digital cameras arrived, and at the same time, people began throwing out their old film cameras as well as film, often out-of-date; many found their way to charity shops and I brought them home. When we got our first computer, the bundle that came with it included a Kodak digital camera. It had a viewfinder but no lcd screen and I hadn't a clue how to use it. Around the same time I found a Halina 3000 in the Oxfam charity shop attached to the recycling centre, and at a library sale the next day I found 'The Amateur Photographer Handbook', published by Hamlyn in 1987. It's a very thick, smallish-sized hardback, with lots of text and drawn illustrations, as well as, naturally enough, photographs, although they are not many for the size of the book. Since then I have never looked back. I found that the way to learn how to take pictures is a combination of reading and doing, and for the active part of the adventure, the Halina 3000 is a wonderful camera. It has an uncoupled light meter on top with a little pointer to a number, and you set the speed and aperture so that the same number appears in a little box on the camera, then you take your photo. If you change the shutter speed, for instance to take a faster-moving object, you will have to change the aperture setting in order to get the same number again in the box, and this is how you suddenly realise what it's all about. Of course, you may have known all that already, but I didn't. Then, once I started to read about light meters, shutter speeds and apertures, everything became clear. If you start your picture-taking life with a modern digital point-and-shoot it is a different learning experience, but ultimately, both film and digital cameras work on the same principles. More sophisticated cameras, both digital and film, have coupled light meters, and the camera chooses the shutter speed and aperture, but with one of those I wouldn't have learnt the function of the camera settings.

I bought the next photography book, 'The Instant Picture Camera Handbook' by Michael Langford, published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1980, to go with an instant camera I found in the same Oxfam shop. Although one might think that digital photography is 'instant photography', this is just not true. When I take pictures with a digital camera they lie a long time on the computer, and I hardly ever feel moved enough to print them. My Fujifilm Instax camera gives me the print immediately, without the need for printer or ink. Granted there is the cost of the film but you can get good deals online. Polaroid film disappeared around 2008 except in hugely expensive buy-it-nows on E-Bay, but there is a new company called the Impossible Project making it now for the old Polaroid cameras, and Fujifilm for many years have been making peel-apart type film FP100C and the like for the old Polaroid Land cameras. I however find Fujifilm Instax is all I need. The Impossible Project film is very expensive, also it is not all that stable yet, so results are often unpredictable. If you are interested in just taking out a camera for fun, I recommend the Instax range of cameras. Also remember that Instax film won't fit Polaroid cameras nor will the new Polaroid type film fit the Instax cameras. Go to www.flickr.com and put Instax in the search box and you will get an idea of how good these photos can be.

There are many many books on photography of all types, film, instant film and digital. I have found that the fancier the book and the more packed with photos it is, the less you can learn from it, at least at the very beginning. Just learn what shutter speeds are about, why you might need to change the aperture, how to take pictures in different lighting conditions, things like that, and you will soon have it all. On photography forums you will find all kinds of lofty conversations about lenses and refraction and parallax and so forth and it may mean nothing to you; believe me, you don't need it, just a simple camera even with very few manual controls, and with practice the ability to compose a shot will become second nature, and you're away.

Two companionable books that are worth keeping on your shelf are both Oxford publications, one from Oxford University Press, 'The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose', edited by Frank Muir, my copy published in 2002, the other from the Clarendon Press, Oxford, 'The Oxford Book of Literary Anecdotes', edited by James Sutherland, and dated 1975. The former is a very thick paperback, in lovely condition, and I honestly cannot remember where I got it, while the latter is a hardcover book about half the size of the other, and I see it came from a library sale and is besmirched with the dregs of torn-off labels, 'withdrawn from stock' stamps and lumps of now redundant brown paste.

The first book I have wandered through, picking here and there, but I always finish my session with it by reading one of my favourite pieces of writing of all time, James Thurber's 'The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty'. It is amazing that this short story was made into a long film, but to me one of its major virtues is its compactness; another is that it actually makes me laugh, something that few things in life do, and in particular those which are manifestly intended to do so. Frank O'Connor's 'My First Confession' also figures in this book, another gem which if for some reason you have not encountered before, I bid you to seek out as soon as possible, You will be reading this book forever, and will probably find it a little amusing at least, even if, like me, you do not seem to share the commoner type sense of humour.

The Oxford Book Of Literary Anecdotes' is a collection of writings too, and is satisfying in a different way. It is full of the doings of famous writers, as commented on by their contemporaries. They are the sort of stories that can freely be written now that their subjects are dead, which they most certainly are, since the book starts with the Venerable Bede (673 - 735) and ends with Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953). Well, in truth it starts with someone called Caedmon (670), of whom I have never heard, and in the end I have to be honest about it.

Now I hope you will excuse me if I go back to Reginald Farrer, and all those little plants which he considered to be personalities in their own right, at the same time recalling my old friend who so generously gave the book to me. But first, I think, a cup of tea is in order. Goodnight all.