Category: Discussion posts

Buchan of the Month: Introducing… Homilies and Recreations #ReadJB2020

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20200205_130743-1My Buchan of the Month for June is Homilies and Recreations, a collection of essays first published by Thomas Nelson & Sons in September 1926. The book was dedicated to Viscount Astor in a return gesture for his naming one of his racehorses after Buchan. A later revised edition was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1939 which omitted six of the essays but included three new ones. The latter is the edition I have so my eventual review will only cover the contents of that version.

The original edition of the book is made up of sixteen essays (see below) on a variety of topics reflecting Buchan’s wide range of interests. It includes portraits of figures such as Sir Walter Scott, Edmund Burke and Arthur Balfour as well as essays on subjects such as literature, history and poetry. Many of the essays had previously been published elsewhere or delivered as speeches to various institutions.

Having reminded myself of the definition of a homily – a public discourse on a moral or religious subject – I’ll admit I’m looking forward more to the ‘recreations’ promised in the title.

Original 1926 edition (* indicates also in 1939 edition)

*Some Notes on Sir Walter Scott – Paper read to the English Association on 26 October 1923
*The Old and the New in Literature – Paper read to the Royal Society of Literature on 26 January 1925
The Great Captains
The Muse of History
A Note on Edmund Burke
*Lord Balfour and English Thought – Revised version of article first published in The Times Literary Supplement on 7 May 1914
*Two Ordeals of Democracy – Address delivered on the Alumni War Memorial Foundation at Milton Academy, Massachusetts on 16th October 1924
*Literature and Topography – Address to the Working Men’s College, London on 20 February 1926
The Judicial Temperament
*Style and Journalism – Address delivered to the School of Journalism in King’s College, London on 19th May 1925
Certain Poets:
– *Scots Vernacular Poetry – Introduction to The Northern Muse: An Anthology of Scots Vernacular Poetry, published by Nelson in 1924
– *Morris and Rossetti
– *Robert Burns – Speech to the Edinburgh Burns Club on 25 January 1924
– Catullus
The Literature of Tweeddale – Included in A History of Peebleshire by Walter Buchan, 1925
*Thoughts on a Distant Prospect of Oxford – First published in Blackwood’s Magazine in October 1923

In 1939 edition only:

The Victorian Chancellors – First appeared in Some Eighteenth Century Byways, 1908
The Novel and the Fairy Tale – Presidential address delivered to the Scottish Branch of the English Association on 22 November 1930
The Interpreter’s House – Chancellor’s Installation Address delivered before the University of Edinburgh on 20 July 1938

Sources:

Janet Adam Smith, John Buchan: A Biography (OUP, 1985 [1965])
Kenneth Hillier and Michael Ross, The First Editions of John Buchan: A Collector’s Illustrated Biography (Avonworld, 2008)
Andrew Lownie, John Buchan: The Presbyterian Cavalier (Constable, 1995)

#6Degrees 6 Degrees of Separation: From Normal People to Chanel’s Riviera

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It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation!

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post.   You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees

9780571334650This month’s starting book is Normal People by Sally Rooney which I’ve not read (I must be the last person in the world not to have done so) but have heard a lot about, not least because of the recent TV adaptation. It’s about two people who meet at Trinity College Dublin.

Shadowplay AudiobookThe mention of Dublin takes me to Shadowplay by Joseph O’Connor, shortlisted for The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2020. The novel is a fictionalized account of the life of Bram Stoker, author of Dracula. Along the way Stoker encounters a number of famous figures, including Oscar Wilde whom he first meets in Dublin.

The Secrets of Primrose SquareAlso set in the Irish capital is The Secrets of Primrose Square by Claudia Carroll. The book takes the reader inside the lives of a number of characters living in a small square in Dublin.

TheseDividingWallsAnother book which focuses on a community living in close proximity is These Dividing Walls by Fran Cooper. The setting this time is a Paris apartment block during a long hot summer of unrest in the capital.

Paris EchoUnsurprisingly, Paris is also the location for Paris Echo by Sebastian Faulks. In the book, one of the main characters has returned to the French capital to research the experiences of women who lived through the Nazi occupation of Paris during World War 2.

CountessA Countess in Limbo: Diaries in War & Revolution by Olga Hendrikoff chronicles her experiences of living in Russia at the outbreak of World War 1 and in occupied Paris during World War 2.

Chanels RivieraFinally, Chanel’s Riviera by Anne de Courcy also depicts the experiences of people in World War 2 but this time those, such as designer Coco Chanel, whose previously privileged and glamorous lives were transformed in an instant following the fall of France.

Paris and Dublin have been our locations this time. Where did your chain take you this month?