Nineties Penguins and other book covers

I saw that there was a talk today at the Victoria and Albert Museum for the London Design Festival. It was by David Pearson (who's designed some fantastic covers for new editions of Orwell books) and Jim Stoddart (an art director at Penguin), who were both discussing book covers.

It got me thinking about the books that have leapt off the shelf to me because their covers were so enticing. I have three bookcases full of books, thanks to varied interests (flowers, gardening, films, art, counselling), book splurges in bookshops, and charity book sales at my old publisher (a sister company of Penguin).

Collecting books in the nineties, when I was studying English at college and then university, was a happy time. I remember two of my friends buying Beloved by Toni Morrison because they liked the cover of the book that was sitting on my desk. I'd bought it because it was an option on our reading list and...I liked the cover! None of us enjoyed the book, but oh well - it made us read a book we might never have read otherwise. I also bought several books because they were recommended by the Manic Street Preachers - as their biographer Simon Price said, the Manics probably did more for teenage literacy than the GCSE English Literature syllabus. I bought my own copies of books that I'd taken out of the library dozens of times in my teenage years (Animal Farm, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Tess of the D'Urbervilles). Penguin brought out new covers for their modern classics in the nineties, and I thought they looked beautiful (as well as containing fantastic reads).

When I started working in publishing, I would spend hours in Hatchards or (the old) Foyles or the huge Waterstones at Piccadilly after work. I would add book after book to the pile in my hands, resting them on a shelf while I looked at a new possibility. I often wanted to buy yet another copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Madame Bovary because I'd seen a new, beautiful cover, but I couldn't really justify spending another £5 to £10 on the same book, I did buy second copies of books just for their covers at the charity book sales, but the books were sold for 50p so it didn't seem so indulgent.

I did spend a lot on a third edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four, because of corny reasons (it was in a bookshop in Blackheath - which is where Orwell and his first wife, Eileen, went horse-riding when they were courting) and because I don't suppose I could justify buying a very expensive first edition, even if I found one. A third edition, published by Secker and Warburg, still feels pretty special to me.

I really like my two copies of Cold Comfort Farm, especially the more comic-style one, which suits the tone of the novel. It was a 50p purchase from work - the joys of working for a publisher!

I do like old book covers. Penguin's orange covers are well-known and well-loved - I've even seen intricate nail art inspired by the designs. Here are three of my orange Penguins - two new copies (The Girl from the Fiction Department and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) and one old (Lucky Jim, with cover art by Quentin Blake).

I even developed an author crush based on an author's book covers. I saw a bright pink Faber and Faber book called Kitchen by a woman called Banana, and thought I must try this! Banana Yoshimoto has such a lovely writing style, I went back and bought three more of her books: Asleep, N.P. and Lizard. It's slightly jarring that the last two books are taller and wider, but no matter - the covers are still stunning.

There are plenty more wonderful book covers I could share - graphic novels such as Maus, The Killing Joke, and Tamara Drewe are stunning, and flower books are beautiful - I've shared a couple here before. I'll save the rest for another post!

England vs. Spain

Today I have been enjoying one of my favourite spring flowers - the bluebell.

Here are my English bluebells, which I deliberately bought, next to some Spanish bluebells which have appeared all over people's gardens. I am not entirely sure if they are the Spanish or the English-Spanish hybrid, but they are bigger, upright, with thicker stems and huge leaves. They are more strongly scented than the delicate English ones, but maybe because there are more flowers on the spike. In the language of flowers, bluebell means constancy; if only there was such constancy when identifying bluebells in Britain! The Natural History Museum has helpfully put together some information to help people identify the bluebells they see. The museum is also collecting information from people who have logged their sightings.

I can see why florists prefer to use the stronger Spanish bluebells in their work, but I love the thin stems and drooping heads of English bluebells.

My question is: which bluebells did Winston pick for Julia in Nineteen Eighty-Four?!

Take one bucket…

…and a pair of secateurs and get snipping! This bucket is only half full, but just looking at what’s inside makes me smile.

One of the great things about tree blossom is that it is so abundant, you can cut a few branches, enough to fill a jug with blossom, but it will barely make a dent when you look at the still flower-filled tree afterwards.

Jekka McVicar encourages the use of dandelions for medicinal and culinary purposes, but I’m sorry, I can’t get over their bright obtrusiveness wherever they appear! And also the guilt they evoke – I know they are there because we’ve been too busy or lazy to weed properly. Daisies, however, I have always liked. Indeed, when I started this blog, I was going to call it Daisy Shamini; Daisy being the middle name that I wanted as a young child. On Sarah Raven’s blog, Garlic and Sapphire, there’s a lovely post about writer Emma’s nature hunt with her young daughter, and daisies were first on the list.

Along with the dandelions, we do have a lot of bluebells that the wind has scattered our way – but their presence is more welcome. Partly because of their swaying, slender stems with pretty blue-violet flowers, and partly because of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Unfortunately, we don’t have English bluebells; just the Spanish-English hybrid, Hyacinthoides x massartiana. In my dream garden, I would have an English bluebell patch under blossom trees, and I would sit amongst them, pick them and smell them, as Winston did.

The bucket of flowers, along with a couple of stems of pale pink cherry blossom from the tree at the front of the house, was enough to fill two jugs and four mini milk bottles. I especially like the small jug, with a Mount Tacoma and an Angelique peony tulip, quince and apple blossom, and bluebells. Quince blossom is long lasting in water, so it’s a good shrub for cutting. Apple blossom lasts a few days, but it’s worth cutting for the pink-edged flowers and the delicate scent.

Quince blossom represents temptation…I’m not sure what to make of that, other than it’s tempting to cut it because it looks so pure and white! Apple blossom symbolises better things to come, which feels to me like a glass half full response to cherry blossom’s ‘impermanence’. The first photo below is our quince blossom. The second is next door's apple blossom tree, much bigger than ours, but of course I didn't cut theirs. 'Temptation' is certainly what I felt when I looked at it!

The Golden Country

Since it is also World Book Day today, I thought I’d share a passage from my favourite book, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Whenever I see bluebells, I think of Winston and Julia on their secret first date.

“The bluebells were so thick underfoot that it was impossible not to tread on them. He knelt down and began picking some partly to pass the time away, but also from a vague idea that he would like to have a bunch of flowers to offer to the girl when they met. He had got together a big bunch and was smelling their faint sickly scent when a sound at his back froze him, the unmistakable crackle of a foot on twigs. He went on picking bluebells. It was the best thing to do. It might be the girl, or he might have been followed after all. To look round was to show guilt. He picked another and another. A hand fell lightly on his shoulder.

He looked up. It was the girl.”