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Tag Archives: Books

The Clara Box

15 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by la Clarina in Books, Theatre

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alan ayckbourn, Books, brian friel, jules renard, ROH, Shakespeare's Globe, theatre

So they’ve been tidying up the Company’s extensive collection of books, plays and whatnots over the summer – and, as has become the case these past few years, everything and anything that isn’t in Italian has been set aside for me.

And I really mean anything: I once ended up with a book of plays in Serbian. Nobody had an inkling of when, how or, more relevantly, why on earth it had landed in the Company’s library – but, quite regardless, it went in the “Clara” box. That I don’t know a single word of Serbian didn’t seem to matter much. For the record, the book is still somewhere in my shelves – obviously unread but there… Continue reading →

Ten books I’d like to reread

08 Thursday Apr 2021

Posted by la Clarina in Books

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Anthony Burgess, Books, Bryher, Connie Willies, Dickens, Golding, Marguerite Yourcenar, Rereading, Robert Graves, Ronald Blythe, Selma Lagerloff

This began as part of one of those catching-up phone calls you do around the holidays: we started with the Plague, of course (who doesn’t, these days?) and at some point, mercifully enough, we found ourselves discussing To Read Lists instead.

And the sad fact that there is never enough time to read new things – never mind reread. And yet, the yearning is there – and, before we knew it, we were sharing two very different lists of rereading wishes.

And I thought, well, why not? So here is a very short version of my list: the books I’d love to read again, had I but world enough, and time… Continue reading →

Book Club? No, thanks

22 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by la Clarina in Books

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book-club, Books, Reading

Book clubs, now…

I know that they’re all the rage, I know that no library worth its salt can go without one, I know that they are enough of a phenomenon to have made it to women’s fiction and movies, and I know, more to the point, that lots of people enjoy them immensely. Continue reading →

The Tale of the Lost Book

18 Thursday Jun 2020

Posted by la Clarina in Books, Stories

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Books, Poetry, serendipity

This story was told to me years ago, one summer afternoon, in a centuries-old library in Mantua. It was whispered by an elderly scholar, as we took a short break after hours of patient, careful philological work…

It begins with a boy of eighteen, the shy, bookish sort, with the kind of passion for Ancient Greece that makes one court girls by lending them books of Greek poetry. Continue reading →

The Saga’s Little Saga

29 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by la Clarina in Books

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Books, Gösta Berling's Saga, Pavia, second-hand books, Selma Lagerloff

How my father happened to lose his own old copy of Gösta Berling’s Saga, I have no idea. When it came to books, the Colonel was an odd  mix of jealous worship and carelessness… But somehow or other the book was lost.

What I know for sure is that, many years later, I found an old copy of the Saga in a second-hand bookshop in Pavia – an old, tiny and delightful place named Il Parnaso, the kind of place where one can while away a rainy afternoon making discovery after wonderful discovery… oh, you know what I mean. Now, my found Saga was not the same edition my father had lost – but it was old, a little worse for wear, and bore an ex-libris explaining how it had been saved during some flooding or other of the Ticino, Pavia’s river. Continue reading →

The Re-Reading Itch

21 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by la Clarina in Books

≈ 3 Comments

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Books, re-reading, Reading

RereadingLast night, over dinner, we discussed reading and re-reading. At one point I said that re-reading is the proof of how Knowing What Comes Next is not the key to the pleasure of reading. It sounded nice, and it worked well in the discussion, but the matter is less straightforward, I think – so here are a few thoughts.

First of all, we don’t all re-read. My father was one compulsive re-reader, and the books that were his show it with much wear and broken spines. My friend Clementina, on the other hand, never re-read a book in her life, because “once read, it’s read. What’s worth remembering I’ll remember, what I won’t remember isn’t worth it.” And they say that in his (admittedly brief) life, Vendean general Henri de la Rochejaquelein only read again and again the memoirs of I don’t remember what 17th century strategist. Perhaps he didn’t know Thomas Aquinas, who found the Man of One Book so unnerving…

Then, not all books are of the re-reading sort. This, again, varies hugely from person to person, but some books become members of the family, to which one returns again and again for comfort or guidance. Of the beauty of some other books, one never tires – each re-reading like that visit at the National Gallery whenever one is in London. Other books are tied to a moment, a memory, an atmosphere – and that’s what one seeks re-reading. Then there are those plots, or characters so perfect, one goes back to study how on earth the writer did it, and there are seasonal books that grow into yearly rituals, and favourite chapters, scenes and descriptions, and those books one read too early to truly appreciate them…

On the other hand, there are all the ugly, annoying, disappointing books, the ones we had to read or study, the ones that gave us nightmares, the ones too intense for comfort, the ones that came to highly recommended – or just the forgettable ones. The ones we’ll never want to re-read. ReRead1

Whatever the reason, though, my theory is that reading and re-reading are to hugely different activities. A first reading is an exploration, a matter of thrills and surprises – a combination of the wish to know What Comes Next and the enjoyment of the way there. It’s a matter of discoveries, very much like meeting a person or visiting a place for the first time. It’s the kind of experience that, at its best, keeps on up at all hours of the night. It’s like a first love – and, once gone, it’s gone.

Re-reading, now… Ah, re-reading is another kettle of fish. One re-reads more analytically. One goes deeper. One savours, sifts, observes, peels layers and enjoys nuances and complexities. One knows the general lay of the land, and revisits leisurely, enjoying the familiarity and digging for new beauties. Much like renewing an acquaintance, or returning to a place. It has joys of its own – its own set of pleasures.

The snag is, of course, that reading-time is finite, and one either reads or re-reads… Which is, in the end, why I don’t re-read as much as I’d like. Still, my Reading Week is approaching (perhaps), and I have half a mind to make it a Re-Reading Week instead. Just this year…

We’ll see. But what about you, O Readers? Are you Re-Readers?

Salva

The First Book

17 Thursday Mar 2016

Posted by la Clarina in Books

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Books, Gyro Gearloose, Jack London, The Call of The Wild, young readers

ReaderClaraI’ve been asked about the first book I ever read…

I’d love to name something especially significant, that marked me with an enduring love for books – but frankly, I don’t remember for sure. I was very, very young – all of three – when my family, craving relief from my constant badgering for stories, stories and more stories, thought it would be nice to make me at least a little autonomous on the matter, and taught me to read. I think I hazily remember some picture book with an adventure of Gyro Gearloose, of all things, but really, it’s been more decades ago than I care to count. Continue reading →

On Entering Books (or Hesitating on the Threshold)

28 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by la Clarina in Books, Eccentricities

≈ 2 Comments

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Anthony Burgess, Books, Games, Gerald Durrell, J. K. Jerome, Ros Barber, Steven Runciman

Enteringbooks“Imagine you can spend a day inside a book,” was the prompt – one of those things going around on Facebook, you know, that a friend passed on to me. “What would you choose?”

My first reaction was one of eager glee – entering books having always been one of my fondest imaginings, together with, or even a little ahead of, time-travel. So this was a game I was most happy to play… or so I thought, until it came to really choosing. Continue reading →

A Reading Meme

23 Thursday Jul 2015

Posted by la Clarina in Books

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Ben Jonson, Books, Dino Buzzati, Jack Shalom, Johannes Brahms, Patrick Rambaud, Ralph Vaughan Williams, reading habits, reading meme, Umberto Eco, Victor Hugo

reader1There’s a reading meme abroad – and Jack Shalom, over at Jack Shalom – Music, Memories, and Magic, nominated me to answer ten questions about… well, basically about reading habits. And since there are very few reading-related things I can resist,  thank you, Jack – and let us begin.

1) Do you have a certain place at home for reading? Continue reading →

Treasure Hunt

05 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by la Clarina in Books

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Amazon, Books, bookshops, Internet, Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg, second-hand books

bookshopDo you remember a time before the Internet, when looking for a book could entail a good deal of leg-work, physically visiting bookshops, bookstalls and suchlike places?

I am old enough to have spent my adolescence doing just that: always wanting something that was, hard to find at best, but more often not available or no longer in print – and forever scouring bookshops and bookstalls… Continue reading →

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