Persephone Biannually

I am relieved that the Royal Mail strikes in the UK did not prevent me from receiving the Persephone 2009 Autumn/Winter Biannually as it allowed me to spend a pleasant hour yesterday perusing it whilst drinking a Chai latte in Starbucks (no cake, alas). I read the Biannually from cover to cover, flicked through the up-to-date catalogue (most of which I know by heart) and admired my pretty new bookmark; the bookmark matches the lapis printed cotton circa 1808-15 (from the Victorian & Albert museum) endpaper of one of the new titles, A New System of Domestic Cookery by Mrs Rundell.

The Biannually contains tempting information about the three new titles: the others being High Wages by Dorothy Whipple and To Bed With Grand Music by Marghanita Laski; I am most attracted to the latter (although I will undoubtedly also purchase the new Whipple novel). The Laski novel is primarily "about sex in wartime"; Deborah, the wife of a man posted overseas, takes lover after lover and provides a different view of life on the home-front. Apparently very funny as well as shocking, this is probably a realist work and one that intrigues me. The first scene of To Bed With Grand Music is described as a compelling one and is likened to "the five conception scenes at the beginning of Manja". Manja by Anna Gmeyer (mother of author Eva Ibbotson) was a Persephone title that had not stood out to me before but now the story of five children -all conceived on the same night in 1920- growing up in Weimar Republic Germany until the Nazis came to power, is at the top of my Persephone wishlist.

Within the pages of the Biannually is a short story "A Lovely Time" by Dorothy Whipple. In the vein of the two Whipple novels I have so far read -Someone at a Distance and They Were Sisters- the story possesses a rawness of emotion that is inexplicable in its effectiveness (what makes Whipple so readable and unbearably poignant?) A simple night out for innocent Alice Barnes, her first night out in London since moving there for work from a small town four months previously, evokes a sad loneliness; moreover there is a social embarrassment that we have no doubt all experienced at some point in our lives, where we don't fit in despite our best efforts. Dorothy Whipple doesn't do cheerful; she writes of the cruelty of life and we are left with pity for Alice.

The most exciting part of reading the latest Biannually, however, was skipping to the Bloggers Review section and finding myself quoted! It was a definite narcissistic highlight of the reading experience for me. If you click on the photograph below to enlarge it you can not only read the excerpt but you will notice that I am in very good company and surrounded by some of my favourite fellow bloggers; on the next page (not photographed) Rachel of Book Snob, Lynne of dovegreyreader, Claire of kiss a cloud and Naomi of Bloomsbury Bell are all quoted from and I was happy to see so many familiar bloggers! A good few of these quotes were taken from Persephone Reading Week posts and I am so pleased that we were able to provide them with so much material to choose from, albeit too much to use all. A big thank you to Persephone for recognising our efforts.