Our literary journal, exclusive to members of Suffolk Book League |
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LETTER FROM THE CHAIR Our shared enjoyment in reading books over the past 40 years of the life of the Suffolk Book League is reflected in this rich edition of BookTalk, No. 181. Those who predicted the demise of the printed book in favour of electronic alternatives seem to have been incorrect, and we are glad to hear about healthy book sales, flourishing literary festivals, proliferating book groups and independent booksellers. We heartily support all of these things, and contribute where we can to the encouragement of new writers and writing. You can be reminded here of the excellent events of the past few months, and enjoy the suggestions for further reading which our visiting speakers have provided. Our visitors took us to Barcelona (Rupert Thomson), Puritan Manningtree (A. K. Blakemore) and Bath (accompanied by Jane Austen and Richard Jenkyns), as well as the Swansea home of Dylan Thomas (with Brian Theodore Ralph). The coming year will take us to yet more wonderful places. Our own archives of BookTalk yield many interesting reviews and visits by writers who are now well established, and we intend to publish a retrospective collection of what there is to enjoy there. As always we take special pleasure in contributions from our members, who tell us what they have enjoyed reading. Among them, in this edition, is an appreciation of Ronald Blythe's recently published Next to Nature: a Lifetime in the English Countryside (2022), which sums up a life and career spent in celebrating the people and the writings of our part of England. Natania Jansz tells us about editing the Booker Prize winner. Out of the archive Janet Bayliss revisits the visits of Hilary Mantel to SBL in past years. Do send more responses to the books you like to: enquiries@suffolkbookleague.org May I thank you for the habit of booking in advance for our meetings? So far we have managed to accommodate the audience in the beloved Ipswich Institute library, but sometimes it has felt a near thing and our dread is that we shall turn away loyal members at the door because we have overfilled and been taken by surprise. Your habit of advance booking eases our anxiety. Now we look forward to the splendid programme arranged for 2023, details of which are on the website. A Happy New Year's reading to everyone. Keith Jones Chair of Suffolk Book League enquiries@suffolkbookleague.org |
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N.B. BookTalk online is packed with links to 23 articles and will probably be shortened by your email provider. To ensure you can get the most from BookTalk, use: View in a browser - at the very top of this email. |
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Recent Author Events and Authors' Book Recommendations |
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Rupert Thomson As Keith Jones and Rupert Thomson settled into their conversation, Rupert surprised the audience by confiding that he’d last come to Ipswich at the invitation of the police. He then went on to say that he was researching Death of a Murderer (2007) at the time. Rupert was such an interesting speaker and constantly surprising. | | |
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A. K. Blakemore With the sellout audience all sitting comfortably, the evening of our October event with A. K. Blakemore began. Janet prompted the conversation on all sorts of topics and insights were shared with an enraptured audience. | | |
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Richard Jenkyns Richard Jenkyns is a distinguished classicist and author who has written books on aspects of Greek and Roman literature and history; also a monograph about Westminster Abbey. On this evening, he spoke in his role as President of the Jane Austen Society and offered us a sideways view of Austen and her work in a revealing and fascinating manner. | | |
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Brian Theodore Ralph On a suitably frosty night we came in from the cold to join a full room of people at the Ipswich Institute. Brian Theodore Ralph, whose mother was from the Rhondda Valley, a snowball’s throw from Dylan Thomas country, was about to perform Thomas’s classic poem of Christmas past, A Child’s Christmas in Wales. | | |
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Upcoming Events Tickets to all our 2023 events are now on sale. You can book your tickets on our website via the following links: |
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| | Frances Gibb Ipswich Institute 7.30 pm Thursday 9th February | | |
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| | Natasha Brown Ipswich Institute 7.30 pm Wednesday 8th March | | |
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| | Sophie Green Ipswich Institute
7.30 pm Wednesday 19th April This event will also be our AGM | | |
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| | A Time and A Place by Frances Gibb Read by Jeff Taylor | | |
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| | Assembly by Natasha Brown Read by Gill Lowe | | |
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| | Potkin and Stubbs by Sophie Green Read by Dymphna Crowe | | |
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| | Next to Nature by Ronald Blythe Read by Tricia Gilbey | | |
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| | Foster by Claire Keegan Read by Dymphna Crowe | | |
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| | Tenderness by Alison MacLeod Read by Gareth Jones | | |
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#5 of occasional articles considering material from our archives. Janet Bayliss looks back at Hilary Mantel's visits to SBL |
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Hilary Mantel by Janet Bayliss With the recent passing of Hilary Mantel, it seemed to be a good idea to scour the archives for information about her visits to Suffolk Book League. I have checked and she came twice: in April 1994 and May 2010. | | |
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I was thrilled to see that the book which won the 2022 Booker Prize, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, by Shehan Karunatilaka was edited and published by Natania Jansz of Sort of Books. Some of you will remember her wonderful talk in 2020 about Tove Jansson... |
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The Curious Life of Elizabeth Blackwell |
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Pamela Holmes told us a little about her new book in her 2022 visit. We asked her to tell us more about it now it's been published: Imagine for a moment that you’re a young woman born and bred in Aberdeen in 1730. Your parents are prosperous, your father successful in the stocking trade. You meet and fall in love with a young man who everyone knows is brilliant and gifted but they also agree he is unpredictable. Alexander Blackwell would not make a suitable son-in-law. But you are determined to be his bride. Though your parents will be devastated and horrified, you decide to elope. | | |
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Q&A with Poet Nicola Warwick |
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The poet Nicola Warwick was born in Kent but has lived in Suffolk for most of her life. Her work has been published in a number of poetry magazines including Acumen, Agenda, The Rialto, Poetry Review, Artemis, South Poetry Magazine and Envoi. Her debut collection, Groundings, was published in 2014 and her second collection, The Knifethrower’s Wishlist (2017) was a winner of the 2016 Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize. Her poems describe the various facets of the county of Suffolk and encompass history, landscape and folklore. Nicola kindly agreed to provide the following answers to questions about her writing. |
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The Things You Didn’t See |
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Ruth Dugdall’s latest novel The Things You Didn’t See (Thomas and Mercer: 2018), set in rural Suffolk, is partly inspired by Trinity College Cambridge’s attempts, in recent years, to sell Innocence Farm near Kirton, to the Port Of Felixstowe to develop a lorry park for 3,000 vehicles. The novel was originally to be entitled Innocence Lane, a by-way which links the A12 with the road from Kirton to Trimley St Martin. It’s worth noting that in 2020 the lawn at Trinity College was dug up in protest at the college’s attempts to sell the farm and that planning permission for the project was refused in 2020. |
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Edith L. Elias: A Short Biography |
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Between 1909 and 1947 Edith wrote many children’s books, 25 at the last count, but probably a fair number more. One of the most substantial of these was The Book of Polar Exploration published in 1928. In her research for this book she amassed a large collection of books which, on her death, she bequeathed to the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge. | | |
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Interview with Susie Keepin of Woodbridge Books |
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The second in our series on local bookshops. Read about Woodbridge Books' customers; Susie's team's book choices; their championing of local authors; and see the wonderful new children's room and the bookshop dog and more... | | |
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Local Festivals and Eventsnow and then... If you have a literary talk, festival or project that you would like to include please contact us at enquiries@suffolkbookleague.org |
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This year, as usual, Suffolk will be host to a range of literary festivals and events. Time permitting, we hope to add details of these to our events calendar at https://www.suffolkbookleague.org/literature-festivals as soon as they become available and also promote them on our social media platforms. |
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East Anglian Storytelling Festival |
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‘Storie Storie?’… ‘Storie!’ The call and response from Alim Kamara, British-Sierra Leonean rapper and storyteller who spun the audience into a web of wonder about Anansi the spider. It wasn’t my first storytelling event, but it was my first festival, and it was like being cast under some otherworldly spell. The stories wove around me and into my bones through the wild words of tellers old and new. A far cry from hushed libraries, the audience shouted, whooped, passed round singing bowls and threw tulle scarves in the air. We laughed from the place inside us that made our eyes twinkle. |
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Young Readers Rewarded: Suffolk Schools Book Mastermind 2022 |
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In May your Chair, Keith, and Secretary, Sue, felt honoured to be invited to attend the finals for the Suffolk Secondary School Book Mastermind. Suffolk Book League has been sponsoring this event since 1997/8, as part of our outreach work. The event is organised by Suffolk Libraries’ Literacy, Books and Reading Team and provides a celebration of the joy of reading, very much commensurate with our mission: ‘to promote, encourage, foster or strengthen by all and every suitable means the habit of reading and to encourage the meeting and discussion of all persons connected with or interested in books.’ |
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A note from Tracy Rogers: Schoolreaders is a wonderful charity that recruits volunteers to listen to children read in primary schools. I think your members might be very interested to learn about the charity and might even consider volunteering. This is an entirely free service to schools and volunteering does not preclude holidays during term time! Schoolreaders is looking for volunteers to provide one-to-one reading support to children in selected Shotley Peninsula primary schools to help pupils catch up with their reading, post-pandemic. |
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Notice is hereby given that the:
Annual General Meeting of the Suffolk Book League will be held on 19 April 2023 At the Ipswich Institute, Tavern Street, Ipswich at 18.45 for 19.00. Full details will be sent to all members shortly. |
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