Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation by George Washington

A Charming little book reportedly written by George Washington, (yes, that George Washington) when he was just 14 years old.

The book is laid out as a list of 110 rules for decent behaviour in polite society. This may sound a bit dull but each rule is very short and easy to digest and most of them are perfectly relevant, even today. For example; 56: "Associate yourself with men of good quality, if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company" and 89; "Speak not evil of the absent, for it is unjust"
Of course some of the rules aren't useful anymore, and some are just beyond my understanding, such as 55: "Eat not in the streets nor in the house out of season". Some of them are quite funny such as Rule 7 "Put not off your clothes in the presence of others, nor go out your chamber half dressed"

My personal favourite is 44: "When a man does all he can though it succeeds not well blame not him that did it"

It's a shame that we don't all carry around a little copy and adopt its ideas, i'm certain modern society would benefit from a few old fashioned rules of behaviour.

Well worth a read

Overall rating 4/5

Chris

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

I cannot think of this book without thinking of Dame Maggie Smith’s Oscar winning performance of the main character Miss Brodie. Throughout the book I had her voice exclaiming ‘I am in my prime’ ringing in my head in that accent of hers.

But back to the book. On the face of it this book has quite a funny plotline. Miss Jean Brodie is a teacher in a posh school in Edinburgh who is in ‘her prime’, she decides to use her prime and influence on a group of girls she takes under her wing to make them into the ‘crème de la crème’. Her rather bonkers teaching methods are detailed in the book and most of her lessons seem to involve her holiday snaps and detailing her past and present love life while someone looks out for the headmistress.

It’s all quite amusing up to a point and throughout the book there are some really funny lines.

"Jean Brodie: “Dear Miss Brodie, I hope it will be convenient for you to see me in my office this afternoon at 4:15. Emily Mackay”. Four fifteen. Not four, not four thirty, but four fifteen. Hm. She thinks to intimidate me by the use of quarter hours?

But everything is not quite right with Miss Brodie and it soon transpires that having influence over young girls is one thing but what if the person with that influence was a fascist who also had some rather strange ideas when it came to the paths she has chosen for her girls?

Spark herself is the all knowing narrator throughout and the narrative will quite often jump forwards in time (sometimes mid-sentence) by about twenty years so that even when the narrative is in the present the reader knows what exactly what will happen to Miss Brodie and what became of the girls.

I can see why this is Muriel Spark’s most famous novel and while the story-line is a cracking one, it’s the humour and Spark’s use of narration that ensures I’ll read more from this author.

Recommended

The Pearl by John Steinbeck

The Pearl is a retelling of an old folktale which has a strong message about the corruption and evil that springs from wealth and power.

Kino is a poor fisherman with a young family who finds an enormous pearl. He dreams of the many ways he can spend his newfound wealth. Soon his community’s curiosity and good will turn to envy and spite. They try to cheat Kino and when that doesn’t work they resort to violence in an attempt to take the pearl for themselves. Kino is forced to flee the town with trackers hot on his trail.

There is a strong morality theme throughout the entire book, Steinbeck never lets the reader forget that despite the outward promise of riches and happiness the pearl only brings misery and pain. The futility of chasing money is spelled out clearly here. The metaphors are as subtle as a slap in the face with a brick but the message is poignant and ageless. It isn’t telling us anything new but at the same time a reminder doesn’t hurt.

It is a far cry from some of Steinbeck’s more popular works and certainly not one of his best but it was an entertaining novella and worth a read as a Steinbeck fan.

Overall rating 3.5/5

Chris

The Girls of Slender Means by Murial Spark

Towards the end of Murial Spark week which has been organised by bloggers Stuckinabook, My Porch and Harriet. All three have been busy bees as my googlereader has been littered with various Murial spark images for a week now which have been constantly reminding me to get a review up here.

The girls of Slender Means is my second Spark novel and I randomly choose based on its cover mainly while browsing Amazon a couple of weeks ago. The novel is set in a female hostel in London during WWII and describes several young girls war time experience in typical Spark fashion. 

The narrative will at times suddenly jump forward in time for a paragraph or two before returning to the present, there is a great deal of wit throughout along with a sense of amusement. The girls seem more interested in their boyfriends and having fun than the War around them but this isn’t the first novel I’ve read which has described a London wartime experience in this fashion and it's an interesting viewpoint to read about.

The actual hostel itself was better described in its routine and appearance than the characters themselves but given the novels length and the sheer number of girls this is perhaps deliberate.

I gave a quick perusal at other reviews and many seem to agree that this isn’t Sparks best, a fact that I cannot comment on as I simply haven’t read enough of her work. However I like her quirky narrative, randomness and humour and its these elements which I have enjoyed in the two novels I have read.

Posted by Jess

In where I attempt to catch up on everything

I am way way behind on reviews at the moment, life seems to be ticking along quite nicely so perhaps I’m just being lazy but I have also been up to all sorts.

Instead of writing any sort of review I thought I would inject some personality into this blog and talk about what we’ve been up to over the past couple of months. Believe it or not we do have other interests and we don’t just spend all our time just sitting around reading (although that does sound like bliss)

Alas however I have just realised how bad I am at taking pictures, I mean I take my camera everywhere but I don’t seem to take pictures of anything. We went into London a couple of weeks ago and visited the British Library and the Charles Dickens House before it closed for refurbishment. I took one photo the entire day and it was a picture of this Umbrella and walking stick shop.

Admittedly it does look like somewhere a Charles Dickens character would shop but still.

Then my sister came down  from Bristol to visit the family and we took her to Hampton Court. Hampton Court is somewhere we go quite often as our son loves it, the staff are friendly and they have really good facilities for children. Cue lots of photos of my son dressed in a tunic and jester hat but none of the building or beautiful grounds itself.

But we did before all that go to Wales which was a holiday funded entirely by our sold ebay items. We decided we wanted a small holiday in the UK but we had but money due to various expenses so we decluttered and sold everything on ebay to see how much we could get. Over fifty posted items later (which included empty perfume bottles and an empty phone box (!) we were off to Wales. I hadn’t been to Wales since I was a kid and Chris has never been unless you count a brief visit to Hay-on-Wye. I did take a fair number of pictures and we loved the place. It was less rural that the parts of Wales I visited as a kid but we were really impressed with how they developed Cardiff. There was loads of stuff to do for both adults and children so we will most definitely be going back.

                         Thats a statue of Dylan Thomas in case you were wondering

In other news I will be a ‘Surrey ambassador’ for the Olympics. We are not in London but the road cycling will be taking place just down the road from us and the torch will also be passing through our town. I’m not 100% sure what a Surrey ambassador actually has to do but I do have to attend a training day in a couple of months so I guess everything will become clear then. Whatever I have to do though I am sure it involves wearing a bright yellow jacket.

Next month we will be heading up to Edinburgh for the running festival they are organising. We will be mostly supporting my brother who will be completing his first Marathon but I am also taking part in the 10k. I have done zero training for this so I really REALLY need to kick myself in the butt so training will take up a fair amount of my time before then.

So there we go, tomorrow I’ll pop up a quick post on my reading at the moment and reply to comments (sorry I have been really bad there)

Posted by Jess

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

In an unnamed South American country, a world-renowned soprano sings at a birthday party in honour of a visiting Japanese businessman. In the opening sequence a group of 18 terrorists enters the vice-presidential mansion, they are after the president who has stayed home to watch a favourite soap opera and thus things go awry.

The hostages are made up of an assortment of Russian, Italian and French diplomats as well as the Opera singer and the Japanese business man and as the days stretch into months a couple of surprising love stories blossom within the house.

Bel Canto has quite an unrealistic, far-fetched plot but Pratchet does somehow make it work, the unnatural and pressured situation the characters find themselves in does make their decisions and their love stories believable. The story shifts constantly from the hostages to the terrorists and after a while the line between them becomes more and more blurred. What is happening outside the house is not mentioned and their only contact with the outside world is a great character in the more and more wary and exhausted red cross man.

The novel is very well written and is told in an elegant, unhurried and easy manor. Reviewers do quibble about the ending but I was ready to accept whatever ending the author was prepared to give me.

Overall I didn’t love Bel Canto but I did enjoy reading it and I cared what happened to the main characters (on both sides)

Posted by Jess