This Saturday: Jackanory at Mocca Moocho

You may be interested in an event which I'm appearing at this Saturday (25th April) in Wakefield.

Several writers will be reading their work at Mocca Moocho from 3:00pm to 5:00pm. My slot's expected to be about 3:40, but why not come for the whole thing? That cafe does some of the best hot chocolate I've ever tasted, even if it is almost summer now. Full details of the event can be found on Facebook here.

What I'm reading is still up for debate. I was hoping to read something new, but with my viva the day before I may be pushing my luck. Anyway, I'm looking forward to it and I hope to see some of you there on Saturday.

The Hannah Directory

Last week, by picking up a booklet at Wakefield Jelly (a monthly co-working event for those of you looking baffled right now), I became aware of the Hannah Directory. It's a print and online publication that aims to address three questions according to the website:

• What great stuff is happening in places in England's north now?
• Who is doing it?
• How can more of it happen?

Those are pretty brilliant things to be asking, especially at the moment. There's plenty going on, but sometimes discovering it all is the hardest thing. 

As well as the website they have a Twitter and Facebook presence so, please, take a look and see what's coming up that you might be interested in. I'll certainly be keeping an eye out. 

Hannah Festival on Facebook.

Hannah Festival on Twitter.

Book Review: The Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger

The Newlyweds is a truly modern romance. It tells the story of Amina, a Bangladeshi who has met an American online and moved abroad to marry him. George is a decent man, everything she and her parents have been hoping for and Amina's intention is for her parents to finally come and live with them after she has passed her citizenship test. However, she finds it difficult to acclimatise herself to America and she discovers that George has been keeping something fairly important from her. However, she hasn't been entirely honest with him, as she realises when she returns to Bangladesh.

On one level, this book is difficult to read because of all the time it spends meandering back and forth between Amina's life now in America and her youth in Bangladesh. However, because the two locations are so different, it's easy to follow. Amina's recollections usually have a basis in what she's going through at the time so, in that sense, it's a perfectly logical book.

The descriptions of Bangladesh are one of the most outstanding aspects of the book. The humidity and the community seep from the page, making it both interesting and oddly stifling, even for the reader. Amina's location in-between cultures means that she is able to note the bizarre in both Bangladesh and America, understanding the differences and criticising them both fairly equally.

The Newlyweds certainly contains humour but I found that after reading it was the more serious scenes that lingered with me, including one - ridiculously - that we find was made up by another character. Freudenberger deals with the issues facing couples the world over including the recession, family divisions and the complexity of married life. Amina's ethnicity is thrown into this mix, creating new obstacles that aren't immediately discernible but eventually make their presence known. One of the events which make up the finale is beautifully foreshadowed throughout the novel and it is the scenes stemming from this horrible event which impacted me most forcefully.

Amina is an excellent character to follow, particularly during her return to Bangladesh. In addition, Freudenberger throws in some clever red herrings throughout meaning that the actual progression of the plot remained a mystery to me. It was a pleasure to read a book that surprised me but still made sense in terms of characterisation. If I had one criticism it was that I wanted more from these characters. I feel like she stopped as one story was ending, yes, but as a whole other one was beginning. I suppose that's the mark of a good book - one that leaves you wishing there was more.

A Life In Museum Leaflets

As part of my ongoing quest to preserve anything I may want from my grandmother's home as she prepares to move, I spent two afternoons in the last week going through her hoard of leaflets and brochures gathered over the years. When I say it constituted a mountain, I'm not exaggerating. The ones I threw away half-filled the paper recycling bin. I haven't even started properly on the theatre programmes, spanning forty years, which I'm going to have more difficulty being discerning with.

However, the leaflets were my first port of call. My grandparents were very active in their retirement, travelling all over the country and dropping into every museum, gallery and castle along the way, usually several times. As a consequence, I had to sift through everything from those flimsy A4 folded things up to glossy colour magazines on some of the most beautiful castles and pieces of artwork in Britain. Most of the little ones had to go. I came to the conclusion that none of those could be useful to me, and even though I half-wanted to keep them, we couldn't afford the space. My 'office' is already looking like a book depot; I can't actually get to my PhD bookcase without moving a box, putting it next to my desk, then moving it back again afterwards. This isn't mentioning the fact that we're expected to take a bureau, a bookcase and a flipping piano into our cramped abode. Oh, well, who hasn't wanted to edge sideways around a tiny house on a daily basis?

Still, I found it difficult to part with some of the glossier items. I had to come up with some rules. If a book was damaged in any way, it had to go. If it was black and white, it had to be carefully considered. If there were smiling eighties families on the inside cover... well, it was a toss-a-coin moment. As a result, I've ended up with half a huge box of magazines to bring home, along with whatever number of theatre programmes I feel I can't part with.

It's quite sad really. All those memories that my grandparents made, cleared away in one fell swoop. All that money they spent on brochures they barely looked at again. The multiple visits, marked by half a dozen different styles of leaflet, struck me especially. I wonder how many people these days hoard these kinds of things. I keep my theatre programmes and any glossy magazines I buy. That, however, is as likely due to the price as much as anything else. It's only when you consider pamphlets sold for 10p which would likely be several pounds these days, that you realise how expensive exploring our cultural heritage is getting these days.

The last thing I drew from this experience? That I want to visit as widely as my grandparents did. They already gave me a good grounding in British history: the number of National Trust and English Heritage properties I visited in my youth isn't worth counting. I remember my first visit to Skipton Castle and going to an extremely odd little museum on cats which baffled the three of us. I remember visiting The Royal Armouries before I went with school and I can easily recall my numerous trips to the National Media Museum, as it's called now.

I owe my grandparents for the starting push. But I have to do the rest of it on my own I think.