A Book & Sketch a Week: #1

Starting things is a particular strength of mine. Finishing on the other hand…that doesn’t always happen. At the beginning of a new year I always enjoy thinking about the year ahead and what I intend to start. This year is no different and I have set myself the challenge of reading a book a week and doing a sketch/painting a week.  At the end of the first week I am pleased to say that I am 100% on track, as my goodreads 2016 reading challenge metre happily told me. This time next week will probably be a different story – but for now I’ll indulge in the fact I have finished 1/52 of what I have started.

Sketch of the Week: 

I was particularly inspired to paint again after watching a Sky documentary on the winner of the Portrait Artist of the Year award. Christian Hook is an artist with the remarkable ability to empathise with his subjects and then translate this into his portraits and studies. In the weekend I had watched this program at my in-laws, my husband had many cuddles with his childhood best friend, his black labrador Inca. The result of this was a watercolour sketch of Zac and Inca:

It was a challenging paint as I had to get familiar with watercolours again. Not entirely happy with it and poor Inca looks a bit out of shape, but I’m determined to keep up with the painting in the year ahead!

Book of the Week:

This week I read: ‘The Man Who Forgot His Own Wife‘ by John O’Farrell. It’s a humorous read about a man who has a sudden onset of amnesia in the middle of a tube journey in London. Vaughan finds himself without phone, wallet or keys and not a clue of who he is or where he is going. As the story unfolds he starts to piece his life back together, only to find he’s in the middle of a messy divorce.

I came across this book by chance when a friend left it by accident after staying at my house. John O’Farrell is not an author that I had heard of prior, nor was this a book I had seen on the shelves. However, a couple of sentences in and the humorous, sarcastic tone of O’Farrell had won me over.

After reading a few books with a slow start (The Miniaturist being the most recent) I welcomed the fast pace of which the story kicks off. A few pages in and I was already concerned for Vaughan and his sudden flight of memory. However, where I felt the book started off strongly, the second half frustrated me somewhat. O’Farrell’s witty writing seemed to turn into your average chick-lit, with certain scenes towards the end which made me cringe at the end shouting: ‘That would never happen in real life!’. That being said, there are some moments in the book where O’Farrell presents some particularly thoughtful questions to the reader. For example, in one scene Vaughan is in a pub with his best friend Gary, discussing his state of amnesia. He questions whether his new personality post-memory loss is a result of not being able to remember the events that had shaped his character:

“Is it possible that all the character-defining experiences of my life were wiped along with the memories of them? I had a teenage cycling accident which I don’t remember. I still have the scar on my leg. But do I still have all the mental scars of a failed marriage and all the other disappointments and unrealised ambitions, whatever they may have been?” p.309

Passages like this throughout the book show O’Farrell’s ability to touch on something more in his writing. However, for me this was not sustained throughout the story. All in all, it was a laugh-out-loud read, and an enjoyable way to kick of year of reading.

So that’s my first week of reading and painting in 2016. Just 51 weeks to go!

A Little Bit of Colouring…

Today I want to talk about adult colouring books. Yes, they are a thing now.

Since I am now on the other side of my degree, deadlines met and exams completed, I can look back and say that I wouldn’t have made it through without my daily colouring sessions. Adult colouring books have taken a recent surge in popularity, and as a self-confessed lover of these books I totally get why. Throughout my time at university, I struggled with insomnia. After long days of pouring over books, writing essays and creating presentations, my brain found it incredibly difficult to switch off at night. However, I found that colouring books provided my busy brain with something to focus on that at the same time was relaxing. My favourite of these books is the ‘Can’t Sleep Colouring Book’ by independent publishers Michael O’Mara Books who are leading the way in adult colouring books. The patterns and designs in this book encourage relaxation with their repetitive curves and swirls, making for very soothing colouring. The designs are also not too intricate and fiddly, perfect for someone who is trying to get to sleep. I also love that the thickness of the paper meant that I could use either pens or pencils. Here’s an example of one of the pages I have been working on from the book:

A page in progress from the ‘Can’t Sleep Colouring Book’

My enjoyment of colouring has continued even now I’m not so busy with a degree. Luckily for me, there’s a huge range of colouring books out at the moment to satisfy my colouring cravings. Publishers have really picked up on this growing trend, and now there are colouring books for people practicing mindfulness, for cat lovers and even a colouring book solely of Ryan Gosling pictures. Designs have got more creative, intricate and unusual, perhaps best displayed in ‘Animorphia’, a colouring book that is visually stunning before it’s even been flooded with colour. With all of these different colouring books the same outcome is always achieved; there’s a satisfaction in a completed page of colouring. This is another reason why I have clicked so much with colouring. As someone who loves to be productive, adult colouring books provide me with a quick fix way of feeling that sense of productivity. That is why these books are also great for people who are not particularly creative or artistic. Most of the hard work has been done, you can just sit back and colour and still feel as if you have achieved something artistically.

A page from Animorphia for people to colour at the London Book Fair, April 2015

‘Animorphia’ by Kerby Rosanes

An Owl from Animorphia that I can’t wait to get my hands on!

So next time you are in need of an activity to unwind, try a spot of colouring. It’s a welcomed change from the time we spend staring at a screen. Get familiar with pen and paper again and let your brain switch off.

Now excuse me, I’m off to find my Crayola’s.

If you are interested in buying or finding out more about the colouring books mentioned in this post, please check out the Michael O’Mara Books website: http://www.mombooks.com/

Some thoughts on why a Senior Flute Recital and ‘cheeky nandos’ went viral…

Last week, a boy in Santa Barbara woke up to find 90,000 people were coming to his senior flute recital. Azeem Ward had made a public Facebook event for his friends and family. Overnight, the event went viral amongst British students. The lad ended up on Jimmy Kimmel, a live YouTube stream was put up and one student actually flew to California to attend the event.

Despite how ridiculous the whole thing seemed, it highlighted some interesting trends which are key to understanding the use of social media amongst students in Britain today. Firstly, it’s no coincidence that this viral phenomenon occurred in the middle of May, the month all British students dread. It’s a month of exams, dissertation deadlines and various forms of procrastination. Azeem’s Senior Flute Recital appeared to be one of them. Attending his event and subsequently browsing the internet for all knowledge there was to be found on Azeem was a distraction that students gladly welcomed. It shows that online procrastination is a vice that marketing agencies and content creators can utilise. Buzzfeed are currently dominating in this field. Their daily lists that, to put it bluntly are full of absolute rubbish, are an example of how companies can be reaching out to students. People say students are apathetic and disengaged from society. Azeem’s flute recital showed that students are hungry to be involved and interact with the world outside of the four walls of the university library.

Another contributing factor to Azeem’s overnight surge in popularity is that there is a severe case of FOMO amongst students (Fear Of Missing Out). For me, most of the reason I clicked attending to Azeem’s Flute Recital was that the majority of my friends were going. People don’t want to be missing out. This is a time when people put a lot of trust in other people’s taste. It’s arguably why a beauty vlogger in another country can recommend a product to a stranger watching in England, and their advice is actually taken. The trust that students place in cultural trends shows that they are a body of people that companies should want to get behind them. Gain the support of one, and you’ve gained the support of many.

Whilst Azeem was being stunned by his new found fame in England, hundreds of Americans were puzzling over a phrase popping up all over the internet: ‘Cheeky Nandos’. They turned to Tumblr for advice, yet found the answers even more confusing:

Source: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cheeky-nandos

For British students, the appeal of defining a ‘Cheeky Nandos’ was that it highlighted a distinct British culture, something they could own that Americans couldn’t understand. Everyone wanted to have their take on a ‘Cheeky Nandos’. It shows how significantly social medial channels are building and defining cultural trends. Through hashtagging, new phrases assert a place in British language. If people want to understand how British students talk, misspelt ‘text talk’ is no longer the way. But a glance at Twitter and Tumblr hashtags will speak volumes. Social media is the place where student culture is being defined.

The internet often gets bad press. Smart phones, apps and tablets have made people more inward, avoiding reality and self-absorbed. But last week’s viral phenomenon’s showed that people are joining in conversation all over the world. Through Azeem’s Flute Recital, $8000 was raised for the Nepal Earthquake Relief Fund. Students are willing to engage, people just need to realise that this is happening in new spaces and on new platforms.

Favourite Bookish Spots- London

If there’s one thing I love nearly as much as reading a good book, it’s browsing through stacks and stacks of books. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who would confess that being locked in a book shop overnight would be an absolute dream. At a time when book shops (especially independent ones) are closing at an alarming rate, I want to bring any attention I can to the wonderful book corners in this country that still exist. 

Presently, there are two bookish spots in London that I am loving. There are so many great places in London for book lovers, and I’m excited for those I’ve yet discovered. But as it stands, these are my two current favourites: 

The Southbank Book Market

  

There are many great things about walking along the Southbank. Admist all the street entertainers and food vendors is the Southbank book market, tucked under the bridge and overlooking the river. It’s a treasure chest of rare editions, second hand and signed books on a huge variety of genres. Childhood books lie amongst old Penguin editions; the last time I was there they had the entire Charles Dickens collection in Vintage Classics. Prices are incredibly cheap and it’s hard to walk away empty-handed. Plus, what could be better than browsing long tables of books with the London skyline behind you?   

South Kensington Books

  When I’m paying a visit to the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, I always drop by this wonderful independent bookshop. South Kensington Books has a great selection of best sellers, literary fiction, and non-fiction. I particularly love their History, Art and Music sections and will be forever grateful for the rare book I found on Soviet ballet there (gold dust for my dissertation!). Their hardbacks are a steal at £8 and the staff are lovely. They also rocked a fab Penguin Little Black Classics window display when I last visited. It took enormous willpower to not ask if I could buy the book bunting. 

  
So these are two of my current favourite bookish spots in London, with hopefully more to add over the coming summer months. Next I’ll be blogging about my favourite spots in the city which will always hold a spot in my heart- Nottingham. 

Love, 

The Grad Girl x 

Book Review: We Are All Completely Besides Ourselves

We Are All Completely Besides Ourselves- Karen Joy Fowler
(Serpent’s Tail, 2014)

‘What if you grew up to realise that your father had used your childhood as an experiment?’

There are a lot of ‘good’ books out there. And then there are books that shape you, change who you are and leave something of themselves with you. That was what reading We Are All Completely Besides Ourselves was like for me.

This gorgeously written novel by Karen Joy Fowler challenged me to think about family, sibling relationships and childhood memories in a new and provocative way. But the way Fowler does this is incredibly smart, and takes you by surprise. At the beginning, you meet Rosemary, the narrator. Her sister vanished when she was five. It’s been ten years since she last saw her brother Lowell. You know there’s a mystery there. What you don’t quite realise is how unusual and unconventional this mystery is.

All I’m going to say about this ‘mystery’ is that when the first twist in the novel came, I felt a bit cheated. However a few chapters later and there I sat, tears streaming down my face. I had totally bought into this twist and I myself was now in Rosemary’s shoes. Fowler is very successful at making Rosemary’s bizarre, alien and unfamiliar situation seem suddenly very familiar. For me, part of my emotional attachment to Rosemary came from her internal monologues where Fowler captured the essence of a particular moment or emotion so accurately. Rosemary’s description of feelings, for example, was so spot on for me that I made a note of these words:

‘We call them feelings because we feel them. They don’t start in our minds, they arise in our bodies, is what my mother always said, with the great materialist William James as backup. It was a standard component of her parenting- that you can’t help the things you feel, only the things you do. (But telling everyone what you felt, that was doing something).’

Another beautiful hit-the-nail-on-the-head moment came when I was- yet again- crying along with Rosemary:

‘You wouldn’t have thought I had any tears left, but down they dripped. At least we were at the train station. Airports and train station are where you get to cry. I’d once gone to an airport for just that purpose.’

For me, the irony of reading those sentences was that there I sat, at a train station, crying. And its passages like these that made this book connect so profoundly with me. Not to mention I learnt a great deal too. Rosemary’s unique upbringing clearly required detailed research on Fowler’s part, and that is evident throughout the story. Fowler has written an intelligent piece here. However, the intelligence in her writing lies in the way she uses scientific papers, theories and evidence as if it’s coming from someone’s heart, not head. There’s no retelling or regurgitating of facts, no forced intelligence. This is someone who has not only done their research, but has experienced it. It’s this quality in Fowler’s writing that makes this extraordinary story believable to the reader. At the end of the book, Fowler gives a little explanation about why she wrote it and what life experiences she drew from. These few sentences made the story come to life even more.

The few criticisms I have of this novel would be the pacing of the narrative. I found the ending to be rushed in places and would have preferred for it to unfold a bit more. However, Fowler’s approach in telling the story is told by Rosemary as ‘starting in the middle’ so arguably in that context the ending did work. I’ve also spoken to some people whose biggest frustration with the book is that ‘nothing happens’. In response I would say that the story is very subtle and slowly picks up. Rather than fast-paced action, it’s a progression. A lot happens and at the same time nothing happens. However, with this book it’s not so much about what happens but rather how it is told and what it means for Rosemary to tell this story. It’s about Fowler, through Rosemary’s narration, investigating how memory, upbringing, childhood and personality affect someone’s story. The beauty of this book is in the storytelling.

Overall, We Are All Completely Besides Ourselves is a remarkable, quirky read. It brings ‘what ifs’ and unusual thoughts to mind, thoughts that stay and linger long after the last page.

One Step Closer…

It’s done!

Today is the deadline for my dissertation, and I’m happy to say that for the first time ever I got something in the day before a deadline- and I’m pretty relieved that that something was my dissertation!

This last month has been an absolute blur of what has felt like endless days sitting at my desk, writing sentences, deleting sentences, writing sentences and then deleting them again. Copious amounts of tea have been involved, and I think I’ve used enough lined paper to wipe out a forest (Although I will recycle all my notes when I can bring myself to chuck them away). So yesterday when I handed in my final copy, printed and bound, I was feeling pretty relieved to say the least.

But at the same time, I wasn’t feeling very relieved in the slightest. It’s very hard to let go of something you have focused all your energy and attention on for the last few months. With anyone who is a creative type, finally putting the pen down on a piece of work is a near impossible thing to do. Leonard da Vinci said that art is never finished, only abandoned, and that’s exactly how part of me felt when I handed in my dissertation. I could always return to it (although I’ll be staying clear from books on ballet in the Soviet Union for a while) but I guess that’s not the point. Right now, I’ve done all I need to. My dissertation is completed and I’m that one step closer to graduating.

It wasn’t a requirement to write any acknowledgements in my dissertation, but it doesn’t feel right to not give credit where credit is due. So, here are my thank you’s:

Thank you to all the people who pointed me in the right direction- my dissertation supervisor, my lecturers and the archivists at the National Archives, Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Music and Dance, the Islington Local History Centre and the National Resource Centre for Dance.

Thank you the people who kept me sane- my housemates, coursemates and family.

Thank you to the wonderful Naomi for being so selfless in doing something no normal person would do, giving up her own time to read and edit 10,000 words on ballet in the Soviet Union. Thank you for the comments which corrected me, helped me and made me giggle.

Zac- there are far too many things to thank you for, so thank you for being you.

And thank you to my Auntie Jo for taking me to my first ever ballet performance, aged ten, to see the Nutcracker at the Royal Opera House. You started in me a love for ballet that I won’t ever lose.

But my greatest thanks goes to the one who gives me strength daily, a peace beyond understanding and a love that surpasses all. It is only because of Jesus that every day I am able to say, no matter what, it is well with my soul.

 

Late Night Rambles (a poem)

Another sleepless, sleepless night,

The street lamp outside far too bright,

The pillows I rest on not quite right,

My mind it seems to want to fight…

 

Another night lying awake,

Can’t give in, there’s too much at stake,

Tomorrow is busy for goodness sake,

But oh- the time slips through the slits of a rake…

 

Another night I toss and turn,

My body it aches, my eyes they burn,

That caffeine earlier- when will I learn?

Time to be stricter, time to be stern…

 

Another night, no sleep for me!

Too many worries I can’t seem to flee,

Too many thoughts to let me be,

And too many unknowns that I can’t see…

 

And yet-

He’s with me in my darkest night,

There’s nowhere I’ll flee from his sight,

He’ll give me strength, he’ll give me might,

And in the morning- it will be alright.

 

Rhapsody on a Windy Night

By T. S. Eliot

Twelve o’clock. 

Along the reaches of the street 

Held in a lunar synthesis, 

Whispering lunar incantations 

Dissolve the floors of memory 

And all its clear relations, 

Its divisions and precisions, 

Every street lamp that I pass 

Beats like a fatalistic drum, 

And through the spaces of the dark 

Midnight shakes the memory 

As a madman shakes a dead geranium. 

Half-past one, 

The street lamp sputtered, 

The street lamp muttered, 

The street lamp said, “Regard that woman 

Who hesitates towards you in the light of the door 

Which opens on her like a grin. 

You see the border of her dress 

Is torn and stained with sand, 

And you see the corner of her eye 

Twists like a crooked pin.” 

The memory throws up high and dry 

A crowd of twisted things; 

A twisted branch upon the beach 

Eaten smooth, and polished 

As if the world gave up 

The secret of its skeleton, 

Stiff and white. 

A broken spring in a factory yard, 

Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left 

Hard and curled and ready to snap. 

Half-past two, 

The street lamp said, 

“Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter, 

Slips out its tongue 

And devours a morsel of rancid butter.” 

So the hand of a child, automatic, 

Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay. 

I could see nothing behind that child’s eye. 

I have seen eyes in the street 

Trying to peer through lighted shutters, 

And a crab one afternoon in a pool, 

An old crab with barnacles on his back, 

Gripped the end of a stick which I held him. 

Half-past three, 

The lamp sputtered, 

The lamp muttered in the dark. 

The lamp hummed: 

“Regard the moon, 

La lune ne garde aucune rancune, 

She winks a feeble eye, 

She smiles into corners. 

She smoothes the hair of the grass. 

The moon has lost her memory. 

A washed-out smallpox cracks her face, 

Her hand twists a paper rose, 

That smells of dust and old Cologne, 

She is alone 

With all the old nocturnal smells 

That cross and cross across her brain.” 

The reminiscence comes 

Of sunless dry geraniums 

And dust in crevices, 

Smells of chestnuts in the streets, 

And female smells in shuttered rooms, 

And cigarettes in corridors 

And cocktail smells in bars.” 

The lamp said, 

“Four o’clock, 

Here is the number on the door. 

Memory! 

You have the key, 

The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair, 

Mount. 

The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall, 

Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life.” 

The last twist of the knife.

What they don’t tell you about writing a dissertation…

It’s meant to be your most important piece of work from your time at university. ‘The piece of work you’ll be most proud of,’ they said. ‘You’ll really enjoy it once you get going.’

Well, I’m two weeks shy of my history dissertation deadline. I’m not proud of it, it’s not going well and I’m certainly not enjoying it. I’m sure I will once it’s in my hand, bound, edited, and about to be given in. But right now I can’t see anything past the blank word document that stares me in the eye.  However, despite how frustrated and unproductive I feel, I can’t deny that during the last few weeks  I’ve learnt some invaluable things  about my working ethic and writing style.  So, on the chance that you too are writing a dissertation, or battling your way through any writing exercise, here are the tips I have found most useful:

1.  If you’re an avid tea drinker, don’t even bother sitting down until you’ve made yourself a decent cup of tea. You’ll only get up and go to the kettle ten minutes later otherwise.

2. Find a space that you know you can work in, and stay in that space. If you need background noise, pick a coffee shop with opening hours that suit your working hours. If you need silence, don’t go sit in the local library during nursery song hour with a bunch of 4 year olds (I say this from experience).

3. Make a to do list not only to tell what you need to do, but to tell you what you’ve done. At the end of the day it’s encouraging and satisfying to look back at a completed to do list. (Even if this means writing things down just so that you can immediately cross them out).

4. The night before your have a whole day of writing, plan what you are going to do first thing in the first hour. I’ve found the first hour of work is usually the most crucial, and sets the tone for the rest of the day. If you start by reading everything you’ve written so far, it’s a lot easier to pick up where you left off.

5. Following on from that, never finish for the day when you’ve completely run out of things to say. Leave yourself with a few more ideas up your sleeve to work on later. Equally never walk away from your computer mid- sentence with the last word being ‘however’. You will only find yourself coming back to the computer screaming ‘however what??!!’

6. Have snacks. And lots of them. None of this carrot sticks and hummus nonsense. I’m talking high in sugar and high in fat.

7. Give  yourself incentives to finish a piece of writing. I have a ‘finish the paragraph, then pee’ policy. Yours might need not be as extreme.

8. Find music you can work to. If you can’t work to anything with lyrics without singing along then there are some great instrumental albums (try Bethel ‘Without Words’ and anything by Snarky Puppy).

9. Let yourself cry, scream and shout every once in a while to release all that pressure. Then dry your eyes and crack on.

10. Remind yourself of the outside world and gain some perspective. Take a walk down the street, watch the news, ring up a friend and listen to how they are. Remember there is a life outside of your work, and your life will continue whether you meet this deadline or not.

And if all else fails, stick on the Lion King soundtrack and sing Hakuna Matata.

Love, The Grad Girl.

A Student’s Experience at the London Book Fair 2015

You know you’re a book nerd when you leave the history books at your desk to go spend your day surrounded by more books. Well that’s exactly what I did today. I made the pretty spontaneous decision on Monday night to book a ticket and get myself along to the London Book Fair at Olympia Exhibition Centre. And I am so glad I did. It was a wonderful day of books, seminars and networking that has left me inspired and itching to get stuck into the publishing world. As a first time goer, and pretty clueless about what I would find there, I thought I would share my experiences from the day to encourage other students to get along.

A beautiful stall by Usborne Publishing.

So what exactly is the London Book Fair? Well, the first thing it’s important to get straight is that the LBF is not a retail book fair. That means, apart from a small Foyles book stand, it’s not a place for customers to buy books (despite lots of books being on display!). What the LBF is, is an exhibition of hundreds of publishing houses, independent publishers, self publishers, booksellers and literary agencies. Here they exhibit what they do, what publications they’ve worked on and who they represent.  Running alongside this are over 200 free seminars covering a wide variety of topics: careers in publishing, how to get an agent, book design, digital publishing. Like I said, over 200! This is what I was most interested in, and about as much as I knew about the LBF before I arrived on the first day.

Books, books and more books.

Walking into the London Book Fair was like walking into a book lover’s fantasy. Hundreds and hundreds of books lined classy shelves that were set up to make little enclosed areas for each publisher. Penguin Random House and HarperCollins were the publishers that framed the front of the entrance, and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face as I entered to see my two favourite publishers alongside one another. But I couldn’t stand there with my mouth wide open for long as I was soon swept into the fair by the crowds behind me.

Penguin Random House remind everyone why they’re one of the big 5 in publishing.

That brings me to the next thing you need to know about the London Book Fair: it’s very busy and very big. Huge. So it’s best to grab a map and know where you want to go first, or where you want to start. I had listed some of the seminars I wanted to go, and so I set off on a hunt for the Author HQ to attend the Introduction to Publishing seminar.

‘The Principles of Successful Book and Book Cover Design’ seminar.

The seminars throughout the day were really excellent. I attended 7, which may seem like a lot! But at 30-45 minutes each, the seminars were both concise and in-depth, so 7 in one day was definitely manageable. All the seminars allowed for questions from the audience. When you’ve got an audience of authors, publishers, agents and students, great questions get asked!

Particular highlights from the seminars include:

• Being taken through the process of designing Tom Jones’ autobiography book cover from the Creative Director at HarperCollins.
• A fantastic guide to effective PR and Marketing from Midas PR and Quercus Books.
• An inspiring talk from Ella Kahn,  co-founder of Diamond Kahn & Woods Literary Agency.
• And poetry recitals from George Szirtes, James Knight and Mauricio Montiel Figueiras – all who publish their poetry through tweets.

James Knight reciting one of his poems from his twitter @badbadpoet.

On a whole, the London Book Fair opened my eyes to lots of things I didn’t know about the publishing industry. It also reminded me of a lot of things I love about the publishing industry. The London Book Fair showcased it’s vibrancy, diversity and collaboration of creativity. Many people ask me why I want to work in publishing. ‘Surely no one really reads books anymore?’ they say. Well, the London Book Fair filled me with confidence, inspiration and pride for the way the publishing industry is developing.

People certainly are still buying books.