Sawtooth – a compound adjective which doesn’t tell the whole story. For a saw to work the alternate teeth must be splayed left and right. But nobody had told me when - aged seven? eight? - I received a Kiddie’s Carpenter Set. Grinding away with an inadequately jagged piece of metal, hands blistered, I fashioned two bits of wood, nailed them together, called it a fighter plane and gave it to my grandmother to show my grandfather who in his surly way constantly urged me towards woodmanship.
The pieces became detached in my grandmother’s handbag and were unidentifiable when handed over, leaving my grandfather characteristically irritated. At least he didn’t beat me. His cane, which had a silver ferrule at one end, lay along the picture rail of his living room, a minatory presence.
TOP, ER, TEN Julia asked about Mrs BB’s top ten books from the 200-plus titles she read in 2009. Here they are:
Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson
Disobedience, by Naomi Alderman
The Other Hand, by Chris Cleve
A Month in the Country, by J. L. Carr
The Siege of Krishnapur, by J. G. Farrell
The Cellist of Sarajevo, by Steven Galloway
Alfred and Emily, by Doris Lessing
The Redundancy of Courage, by Timothy Mo
The Third Policeman, by Flann O’Brian
Home, by Marilynne Robinson
Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson.
The Cutting Room, by Louise Welsh
Sharp-eyed readers will notice this list includes twelve books, those that Mrs BB scored 7, 8 and 9 out of 10. I am told no book has ever scored the full 10. To my astonishment I find I have read one of these books, albeit thirty years ago.
The pieces became detached in my grandmother’s handbag and were unidentifiable when handed over, leaving my grandfather characteristically irritated. At least he didn’t beat me. His cane, which had a silver ferrule at one end, lay along the picture rail of his living room, a minatory presence.
TOP, ER, TEN Julia asked about Mrs BB’s top ten books from the 200-plus titles she read in 2009. Here they are:
Case Histories, by Kate Atkinson
Disobedience, by Naomi Alderman
The Other Hand, by Chris Cleve
A Month in the Country, by J. L. Carr
The Siege of Krishnapur, by J. G. Farrell
The Cellist of Sarajevo, by Steven Galloway
Alfred and Emily, by Doris Lessing
The Redundancy of Courage, by Timothy Mo
The Third Policeman, by Flann O’Brian
Home, by Marilynne Robinson
Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson.
The Cutting Room, by Louise Welsh
Sharp-eyed readers will notice this list includes twelve books, those that Mrs BB scored 7, 8 and 9 out of 10. I am told no book has ever scored the full 10. To my astonishment I find I have read one of these books, albeit thirty years ago.
Novel progress 10/1/10. Ch. 11: 1756 words. Chs. 1 - 10: 44,765 words. Comments: Hatch jogs.
