Sunday War Poet....

Eva Dobell

1876 - 1963

Night Duty

The pain and laughter of the day are done

So strangely hushed and still the long ward seems,

Only the Sister’s candle softly beams.

Clear from the church near by the clock strikes ’one’;

And all are wrapt away in secret sleep and dreams.

Here one cries sudden on a sobbing breath,

Gripped in the clutch of some incarnate fear:

What terror through the darkness draweth near?

What memory of carnage and of death?

What vanished scenes of dread to his closed eyes appear?

And one laughs out with an exultant joy.

An athlete he — Maybe his young limbs strain

In some remembered game, and not in vain

To win his side the goal — Poor crippled boy,

Who in the waking world will never run again.

One murmurs soft and low a woman’s name;

And here a vet’ran soldier calm and still

As sculptured marble sleeps, and roams at will

Through eastern lands where sunbeams scorch like flame,

By rich bazaar and town, and wood-wrapt snow-crowned hill.

Through the wide open window on great star,

Swinging her lamp above the pear-tree high,

Looks in upon these dreaming forms that lie

So near in body, yet in soul so far

As those bright worlds thick strewn on that vast depth of sky.

***

Eva Dobell was a British nurse, poet and editor. Deeply troubled by the pain and suffering she witnessed she served in hospitals during WW1 and wrote poetry about her patients and her experiences. She also took part in the morale boosting work of corresponding with prisoners of war.

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Lost Lake by Sarah Addison Allen

St Martins Press
2014

There is always something truly magical about a Sarah Addison Allen story. There is no doubt that she has captured a perfect corner of the magical realism genre and has truly made it her own. From the beginning of her books, I am always captivated by her command of the story and by her ability to transport me into a magical and very different world.

In Lost Lake, we are introduced to newly widowed, Kate and her eight year old daughter, Devin, who hope to make a new start after the tragic loss of a husband and father. Returning to Lost Lake, Kate hopes that the surroundings and time will ease her pain, but somehow the magic she remembers from her childhoods spent at Lost Lake, seems to have disappeared and when her aunt Eby who runs Lake Cottages, decides it’s time to sell up, Kate discovers that you can make time standstill, and sometimes you never realise things are lost, until they are found.

I enjoy these pretty little stories purely for the chance to get away from reality. And for just a few hours escape into a world of small town friendships, of love affairs lost and won, and of gentle kindnesses amongst friends.

Lovely.

 My Thanks to NetGalley and St Martins Press for my ecopy of this book.

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About the Author

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The Quick - Lauren Owen

Random House UK
Vintage Publishing
2014

The magic and menace of Victorian London is brought to life in this ambitious debut novel which takes the hazards and dangers of living in the underbelly of society and converts them into a story which abounds with trickery and mystery.

James Norbury, and his sister Charlotte are separated in their early childhood, when James, like all well brought up young men, is sent to complete his education away from home. Recently down from Oxford, James finds lodgings in London with a young aristocrat. James explores the Victorian world of love through poetry but when he unexpectedly disappears, Charlotte sets off to find out just what has happened to James. What then follows is a dark and sinister look at Victorian society where all is often not as it seems.

To say more about the story would give away far too much and this is one of those books which should to be read in its entirety without any prior knowledge. On the whole, for a debut novel, I thought it was a job well done. I wasn’t riveted throughout the whole of the story – some parts of the epistolary exchange, which occurs later in the story, I found to be rather tedious, but as a venture into the dark and sinister world of Victorian melodrama, it earns its place as a reasonable, if slightly underwhelming story.

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My thanks to NetGalley and Random House, UK Vintage Publishing for my ecopy of this book

About the Author

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Song of the Flower ~ Khalil Gibran

©picksipics

I am a kind word uttered and repeated 

By the voice of Nature; 

I am a star fallen from the 

Blue tent upon the green carpet. 

I am the daughter of the elements 

With whom Winter conceived; 

To whom Spring gave birth; I was 

Reared in the lap of Summer and I 

Slept in the bed of Autumn. 

At dawn I unite with the breeze 

To announce the coming of light; 

At eventide I join the birds 

In bidding the light farewell. 

©picksipics

The plains are decorated with 

My beautiful colors, and the air 

Is scented with my fragrance. 

As I embrace Slumber the eyes of 

Night watch over me, and as I 

Awaken I stare at the sun, which is 

The only eye of the day. 

I drink dew for wine, and hearken to 

The voices of the birds, and dance 

To the rhythmic swaying of the grass. 

I am the lover's gift; I am the wedding wreath; 

I am the memory of a moment of happiness; 

I am the last gift of the living to the dead; 

I am a part of joy and a part of sorrow. 

©picksipics

But I look up high to see only the light, 

And never look down to see my shadow. 

This is wisdom which man must learn

One from the Book Shelf ~ Kingdom of Shadows by Barbara Erskine

My new feature of 'One from the Book Shelf' takes an old friend, a book that I have had for years and  gives me the chance to re-read and review  it.

My July ~ One from the Book Shelf 

is

Harper Collins

Last week saw commemorations in Scotland for the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn which witnessed the defeat of the forces of the English King Edward II, by the army of the Scottish King Robert the Bruce in 1314. This battle for Scottish independence was the culmination of a long fight which had started during the reign of Edward I, who is better known by the sobriquet the ‘Hammer of the Scots’, and who became infamous for his brutal execution of the noble warrior, William Wallace.

Kingdom of Shadows takes the story of the tragic Isobel of Buchan whose support of Robert the Bruce put her in defiance of both her husband and the English King. The disaster of her life is well documented, although perhaps the reason behind her actions is less known. What Barbara Erskine has done is to add flesh to the story and has produced an unforgettable heroine and a tragedy of epic proportions.

The time slip story, which uses as its focus the 20C story of Claire Royland and her fiercely ambitious husband, mirrors that of Isobel, who trapped in the 13C uses Claire as the medium through which her story is told. The transition between time frames is seamless and whilst for me the 13C story became more compelling, there is no doubt that the situation which develops between Claire and her husband, is no less forceful as the conflict between Isobel and her husband.

The novel was originally published in 1988, and I remember reading Kingdom of Shadows for the first time in the early 1990s. The story is beautifully told, rich in historic detail and alive with mystery and intrigue. Isobel’s final punishment by a malicious and ill favoured King is stark and brutal, and yet in the hands of this talented writer, Isobel’s human fragility, combined with her strength of spirit truly comes alive.

And as the final tragedy of the story is revealed, the mists of time shimmer and the hairs on the back of your neck stand up as Isobel's ghostly figure tells you that for her the story is never finished and that as long as Kingdom of Shadows remains in print she will be heard time and time again.

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About the Author

Barbara Erskine's latest novel

The Darkest Hour

Published by Harper Collins

Is due on July 3rd 2014



***

Sunday War Poet....

John William Streets

1886-1916

A Soldier's Cemetery

Behind that long and lonely trenched line

To which men come and go, where brave men die,

There is a yet unmarked and unknown shrine,

A broken plot, a soldier’s cemetery.

There lie the flower of youth, the men who scorn’d

To live (so died) when languished Liberty:

Across their graves flowerless and unadorned

Still scream the shells of each artillery.

When war shall cease this lonely unknown spot

Of many a pilgrimage will be the end,

And flowers will shine in this now barren plot

And fame upon it through the years descend:

But many a heart upon each simple cross

Will hang the grief, the memory of its loss.

***

John William Streets, known as Will, was an English soldier and poet of World War One. On July 1^st 1916, after the Battle of the Somme, he went missing after going to the aid of a wounded soldier. His body was recovered in No-Mans Land some10 months later.

Before his death he wrote this poignant letter about the inspiration for his poems to the poetry publisher, Galloway Kyle:

“They were inspired while I was in the trenches, where I have been so busy I have had little time to polish them. I have tried to picture some thoughts that pass through a man’s brain when he dies. I may not see the end of the poems, but I hope to live to do so. We soldiers have our views of life to express, though the boom of death is in our ears. We try to convey something of what we feel in this great conflict to those who think of us, and sometimes, alas! Mourn our loss.”

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Independent Booksellers Week 2014

Independent Booksellers Week is part of the Books Are My Bag campaign, and seeks to celebrate independent bookshops in the UK and Ireland. 

Go on - get involved and find an indie bookshop near you.

Here I am outside my favourite Indie Bookseller



Ebb and Flo Bookshop in Chorley, Lancashire

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