Tag: fun

After The Bloodwood Staff, by Laura E Goodin: A fun riff on adventure books

‘If you’re thinking that I’m just a middle-aged woman who should stay at home with her cats and her book club for a couple of decades until its time to go into a hospice and die, then you can think again.’ (Sybil in Chapter One.)

So, its been another dreary week of blah work and same-old, same-old, has it? You deserve something for yourself. So you head to a book shop (of course) seeking an old time adventure, a ripping yarn, a tale of deering do and plucky heroes, a tale that involves absolutely no commuter trains and no grey-walled offices. Oh look, here’s one with a cover of a faded mustard colour and the title, After The Bloodwood Staff by Laura E. Goodwin, printed in enticing Art Nouveau font. Oh, this looks perfect.

‘Why would you want me along? Fat, unemployed, out of shape.. how would I stand up to pirates or savages or wild beasts or even leeches? …. The thought of trudging through a jungle picking leeches off his private’s and drinking blood from a cut on the neck of his pack horse .. ‘ ( Chapter One In Which Hoyle Meets An Adventurer.)

You start to read. The main character, Hoyle, enters a bookshop (good man; already you like him) after his pretty dreadful week. He selects an obscure vintage 19th Century adventure novel called After The Bloodwood Staff which has a cover of faded mustard colour and a title printed in enticing Art Nouveau font .. (Umm, what?) .. But a woman snatches it from his hands. This is Sybil who has convinced herself that it contains a Vital Clue to a mysterious artefact.

Next thing Hoyle knows, he is travelling to a far flung land (Australia) to trudge through gum-tree-jungles alive with creepy birds (kookaburras) in search of the artefact described in the vintage novel, the ‘Bloodwood Staff’. It’s a bizarre journey for a soft middle-aged city dweller to set out on with someone he barely knows. But then again, why not?

‘What is this, Lord of the Rings? he thought irritably. Be careful what you wish for. You wanted an adventure? You wanted to do something meaningful? Well, here you go.‘ (Hoyle in Chapter 21).

In this twist on the classic vintage yarn, with chapter headings like ‘In Which Things Go Badly Wrong’ and ‘In Which The Anarchists Descend Into Anarchy’, the redoubtable Sybil leads Hoyle and Ada, a foul mouthed ‘urchin’ from Sydney, into one predicament after another. We get kidnappings, hideouts, bad-guys, murders, daring rescues, mad evil villains, mysterious ancient powers, and even romance! It’s all here, the adventure that is going to take you away from that working day dreariness, at least for an afternoon. You might even close the book wondering, as I did, whether to just leave your present existence behind and charge off on a crazy adventure yourself. I mean, apart from the leeches, why not?

After The Bloodwood Staff is published by Odyssey Books.

Also from Laura E Goodwin is the fun romp, Mud and Glass, packed with conspiracies and mayhem on a university campus. I loved this madcap book. Just a couple of of the lessons I took from it are – do not underestimate librarians, and never order a cup of macadamia-chilli ice-cream, even if you do want to ‘feel more alive’. See more about it in my review.

Mark is guardian and blundering typist for Mawson, one of this bright world’s few published bears. Mawson is the writer-bear of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In and She Ran Away From Love. 

‘A magical little grand tour into the meaning of happiness’. Review about She Ran Away by Sharie Williams, Author of The Maybelline Story.

The Adventurous Princess and other Feminist Fairy Tales, by Erin-Claire Barrow

‘What if Beauty stood up to the Beast, the Princess never tried to sleep on the pea .. and the Swan Maiden took revenge on the hunter who kidnapped her?‘ (From the Back Cover.)

The nine tales retold here include ‘Beauty and The Beast’, ‘The Frog Prince’ and ‘The ‘Swan Maiden’, but now you see them with new eyes. Our Teddettes Jane Austen And Other Books Too Club certainly did.

Our Professor Caddy got her paws on this beautifully illustrated retelling of fairy tales. On the cover, a young woman, head held high and wearing sturdy boots, looks ready to protect herself (spear) and to find her own way about (map). The back cover suggests she is less concerned about the dragon than the dragon might be about her. There is not a tiara or movement-restricting dress in sight. ‘I must bring this to our Tedettes Jane Austen Bookclub’, said Caddy. ‘These princesses look so different and bold’.

Tedette Samantha loved the first tale, ‘The Princess and The Pea’. This is the exactly kind of princess Sam wants to be! She dashed off to put on her ‘exploring bag’, inspired to go adventuring herself right away.

Wise old Hilda-Bear read ‘Cinderella.’ ‘Marvellous’, muttered Hilda, ‘ Marvellous. Why should we bears of ‘a certain age’ miss out when it comes to fairy tales. Marvellous, just marvellous’.

Tedette Lizbeth is always conscious of her lovely fur. She went straight to the tale of ‘Snow White’ which features the magic talking mirror. Well, it was not quite how she remembered it. “Mirror, mirror on the wall’, asks the Queen, ‘who is the fairest of them all?’ Lizbeth was delighted at how this story turns out. She will never look at mirrors or her fur the same way again.



I think we will all want to see more tales in this light! Oh, and there are ‘morals’ in these tales for princes too, for instance, that wearing glasses and loving books is perfectly fine, and that waiting about on a lily pad in a murky pond hoping a princess will come to you is perhaps not the best way to go forth in life.

‘The charm, whimsy and magic of traditional fairytales remain, but the diverse characters challenge stereotypes about who they should be or how the y should act, stand up for themselves, and shape their own futures. ‘(From Back Cover).

The Adventurous Princess is both written and illustrated by Erin-Claire Barrow. Her full-page colour drawings are respectful of the original tales but visually turn us to appreciate them differently. Erin hopes such stories ‘inspire young people, and young women in particular, to see themselves as the strong, clever and adventurous heroes of their own stories.’ (Foreword.) You can see more of Erin’s work at her website. Take a look, for instance, at her collection called ‘Dangerous creatures from Celtic folklore.’

The Adventurous Princess and Other Feminist Fairy Tales is published by Publisher Obscura, an imprint of Shooting Star Press You can also find it on Amazon where it is also currently FREE on Kindle unlimited, although with illustrations of this quality you will want to hold the real thing in your hands.

Mark, your host here at Baffled Bear Books, is also guardian and blundering typist for Mawson, one of this bright world’s few published bears. Mawson is the writer-bear of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In and She Ran Away From Love. 

‘Eyes of a Hunting Cat’: Jane Austen’s short novel, Lady Susan

 Lady Susan, a short novel in letter form, remains unknown to many Austen fans even though a movie version, Love and Friendship, was made recently.

The Tedettes Jane Austen Bookclub with their discoveries about Jane Austen
The Tedettes Jane Austen Bookclub with their discoveries about Jane Austen

The novel is packed with exquisitely written barbs and eyebrow-raising cynicisms, the best delivered by Lady Susan herself as she confides her schemes to her ally, Mrs Johnson. Here is Lady Susan speaking of the wickedly expensive schooling of her 16 year old daughter, Frederica.

Not one lover to her list

“To be mistress of French, Italian, German, Music, Singing, Drawing etc. will gain a woman some applause but will not add one lover to her list.”

Austen is thought to have written Lady Susan before Northanger Abbey, but exactly when is not known.  The Austen-philes quoted below guess at 1803, 1805 and 1808, which puts Austen in her mid to late twenties. She wrote the first version of Pride and Prejudice, of course, when younger still.

A Lion In The Path

“Lady Susan … (is) a lion in the path of those persons who would call Jane Austen charming, soothing, refreshing etc.  G. H Lewes, when he recommended Charlotte Bronte to “follow the counsel which shines out of Miss Austen’s mild eyes” was unaware of Lady Susan, where Miss Austen’s eyes are those of a hunting cat. … In controlled grimness it looks forward to a masterpiece never written.”

Sylvia Townsend Warner, novelist, wrote the assessment above in a 1951 essay published by The British Council.  (The essay, sadly, is probably no longer available, even if you do have one shilling and sixpence net*).

Before Becky Sharp there was Lady Susan

But David Cecil, author of  A Portrait of Jane Austen , is among many Austen-philes determined to keep Miss Jane’s eyes as mild as possible.

“Lady Susan Vernon is a sort of blue-blooded Becky Sharp, an unscrupulous adventuress, far more sensational in her evil doing than any character in Jane Austen’s later books.”

The Tedettes Jane Austen Book Club knit and read
The Tedettes Jane Austen Bookclub (and Knitters). Their main bother is to find the bonnets.

Cecil thinks of the novel as a youthful experiment, even a mistake.

“It is lively and readable … All the same, Lady Susan is not a success. Jane Austen had no acquaintance with smart society and has to describe it from hearsay: with the result that her picture lacks the intimate reality with with she portrays the country gentry … We may suppose she realised this for she made no effort to have the book published in her lifetime … She was gradually learning her art.”

The Perils of Gout

Mawson’s Guardian thinks that if a reader’s frisson of guilty delight is a desirable part of entertainment then young Austen had thoroughly learnt her art.  Even the brutal lines in Lady Susan  that make Cecil wince are delivered superbly. Here is Lady Susan commiserating with Mrs Johnson about her husband’s gout.

“My dear Alicia, of what mistake were you guilty in marrying a man of his age!  just old enough to be formal, ungovernable, and to have the gout – too old to be agreeable, and too young to die”.

Mr Johnson (Stephen Fry in the movie) has forbidden Alicia from seeing Lady Susan on pain of her being despatched to his properties in America if she persists, for he believes Lady Susan to be a Bad Influence.  If you’ve never seen Fry play a ruthless role, watch on as he delivers the line, “I hear the Atlantic crossing is very cold this time of year”.

Subtle, Terrifying

The Teddettes Jane Austen Book Club with their editions of Jane Austen novels
The Tedettes with their prized Folio editions of Jane Austen’s work

 Richard Church, in the Foreword to the Folio edition of Austen’s shorter works, is perplexed that Austen even penned such a work as Lady Susan.

“This is a masterpiece, powerful, subtle and terrifying. It is as cruel as Les Liaisons Dangerous by de Lachol. This Lady Susan may well be compared to  ..  Madame de Merteuil for coldness of soul, amoral cruely and icy lust. What was this feature of Jane Austens’s personality? so primitive, unladylike and deadly? Here was no chronicler of the drawing room and the country house tea party.”

 Bright Eyes

“In her person she was very attractive. Her figure was rather tall and slender, her step light and firm, and her whole appearance one of health and animation. In complexion she was a clear brunette with a rich colour, she had full round cheeks  with a mouth and nose rather small but well-formed, bright hazel eyes and brown hair forming natural curls around her face.”

What kind of eyes did Jane Austen really have?   Here is a word-portrait penned by her nephew. (Jane and Cassandra loved the role of Aunts.)

Hmm, so hazel eyes, greenish eyes, and bright. The green of a hunting cat’s eyes, perhaps?

Take your own look at Lady Susan who herself certainly seems to deserve that description. And then enjoy Kate Beckinsale’s excellent portrayal in the inexplicably renamed, but otherwise guiltily-delightful film, Love and Friendship.

Where to find Lady Susan, in various editions: On Amazon and at Booktopia.

 

Mud and Glass, by Laura E Goodin: satire of the academic world

‘Everything is Geography.’ Ty Kornotz, Professor of, yes, geography.

Mud and Glass by Laura E Goodin is an affectionate satire of the academic world,  Unwittingly, Dr Celeste Carlucci becomes the target of everyone who thinks she can help them find the missing Littoral Codex and thus the key to power and glory. Especially power. Their power.

‘Everything is dramatic arts’. Russ Garrick, Professor of, unsurprisingly, dramatic arts.

In this zany romp we have media billionaires (ruthless), The Littoral League (weird), librarians (never underestimate librarians), newly minted ninjas, and a resistance movement of geriatric academics. 

Mud and Glass by Laura E Goodwin. A satire of campus life and academic politics

Tenureless and struggling to survive until payday, our heroine Celeste is as keen to defend her precious cache of cookies as she is on dodging her multiplying enemies. She gets shot at, assaulted and dragged along secret tunnels. Will anyone even explain to her what all this is about? With intellect and altruism their only strengths, street theatre their only weapon, and a library to die for their only equipment, can our motley band strike back at the forces of greed and evil?

More books from Laura E Goodwin: After The Bloodwood Staff (follow link to see my review).

PS. After reading Mud And Glass, I feel in a strong position to advise you to never order a cup of macadamia-chilli icecream. Even if you do want to ‘feel more alive’.

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Before the Barbie Movie we had: The Adventurous Princess and other Feminist Fairy Tales, by Erin-Claire Barrow

‘What if Beauty stood up to the Beast, the Princess never tried to sleep on the pea .. and the Swan Maiden took revenge on the hunter who kidnapped her?‘ (From the Back Cover.)

Professor Caddy got her paws on this beautifully illustrated retelling of fairy tales. On the cover, a young woman, head held high and wearing sturdy boots, looks ready to protect herself (spear) and to find her own way about (map). The back cover suggests she is less concerned about the dragon than the dragon might be about her. There is not a tiara or movement-restricting dress in sight. ‘I must bring this to our Tedettes Jane Austen Bookclub’, said Caddy. ‘These princesses look so different and bold’.

Tedette Samantha loved the first tale, ‘The Princess and The Pea’. This is the exactly kind of princess Sam wants to be! She dashed off to put on her ‘exploring bag’, inspired to go adventuring herself right away.

Wise old Hilda-Bear read ‘Cinderella.’ ‘Marvellous’, muttered Hilda, ‘ Marvellous. Why should we bears of ‘a certain age’ miss out when it comes to fairy tales. Marvellous, just marvellous’.

Tedette Lizbeth is always conscious of her lovely fur. She went straight to the tale of ‘Snow White’ which features the magic talking mirror. Well, it was not quite how she remembered it. “Mirror, mirror on the wall’, asks the Queen, ‘who is the fairest of them all?’ Lizbeth was delighted at how this story turns out. She will never look at mirrors or her fur the same way again.



The nine tales retold here include ‘Beauty and The Beast’, ‘The Frog Prince’ and ‘The ‘Swan Maiden’, but now you see them with new eyes. I think we will all want to see more tales in this light! Oh, and there are ‘morals’ in these tales for princes too, for instance, that wearing glasses and loving books is perfectly fine, and that waiting about on a lily pad in a murky pond hoping a princess will come to you is perhaps not the best way to go forth in life.

‘The charm, whimsy and magic of traditional fairytales remain, but the diverse characters challenge stereotypes about who they should be or how the y should act, stand up for themselves, and shape their own futures. ‘(From Back Cover).

The Adventurous Princess is both written and illustrated by Erin-Claire Barrow. Her full-page colour drawings are respectful of the original tales but visually turn us to appreciate them differently. Erin hopes such stories ‘inspire young people, and young women in particular, to see themselves as the strong, clever and adventurous heroes of their own stories.’ (Foreword.) You can see more of Erin’s work at her website. Take a look, for instance, at her collection called ‘Dangerous creatures from Celtic folklore.’

The Adventurous Princess and Other Feminist Fairy Tales is published by Publisher Obscura, an imprint of Odyssey Books . You can also find it on Book Depository. On Amazon it is currently FREE on Kindle unlimited, although with illustrations of this quality you will want to hold the real thing in your hands. See also Barnes and Noble.

Mark, your host here at Baffled Bear Books, is also guardian and blundering typist for Mawson, one of this bright world’s few published bears. Mawson is the writer-bear of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In and She Ran Away From Love. 

Stories to Read by Candlelight, by Jean Lorrain, translated from French by Patricia Worth

‘She was a marvellous story teller because she fascinated her listeners; she believed in what she was telling and that is the secret.’‘ ( Page 9.)

These eight stories by Jean Lorrain were published in France 150 years ago. He loosely based them on tales he had heard forty years before that. Now they’re brought into the candle-light again by translator Patricia Worth, and Odyssey Books.

Just think, from out of the nineteenth century France it is now available to you anywhere in the world with the click of a button. Isn’t the modern world wonderful! Doubtless you love stories; and this little book contains superbly told stories by a skilled storyteller.

Even the introduction has the feel of a ‘once-upon-a- time’ fairy tale about it.

‘One fine morning the lover grew tired of waiting, and Norine grew old alone in her little cottage with the memory of her old parents who had died .. and regret for the lover who had left. ‘ ( Page 3.)

Stories to Read by Candlelight with illustrations by Erin-Claire Barrow is published by Ensorcella, an imprint of Odyssey Books. It is available from Bookshop Org (supporting local bookshops). Of course you can get it on digital versions: Amazon on Kindle. But I recommend the little soft cover version. It’s the size of your phone – or of your smallest bear- and perfect for carrying about in your pockets – along with a handy candle .

Mark, your host here at Baffled Bear Books, is also guardian and blundering typist for Mawson, one of this bright world’s few published bears. Mawson is the writer-bear of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In and She Ran Away From Love.