Letter

        
     I have just come back from New York, where my son-on-law is filming the second series of Flight of the Conchords. Thanks to my heavenly Mac Book Air I was able to write the Persephone Biannually there; it will be sent out on Monday October 20th and should reach UK readers later that week and overseas readers by the beginning of November.  I found it slightly surreal writing about the very English (or rather Scottish) Miss Buncle’s Book and the exceedingly rural The Country Housewife’s Book in the urban atmosphere of Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill. But the authors of both books would very much have approved of the Park Slope Food Co-op; formed thirty-five years ago, it is a not-for-profit small supermarket which has thirteen thousand members. Everybody has to work for three hours a month and in return can buy amazingly fresh, local food for twenty to forty per cent less than in a conventional shop.  And of course it is an incredible way of creating a community.

      While at my desk in Brooklyn I listened to the charismatic Miriam Margolyes on Desert Island Discs on Radio 4.   Unfortunately ‘listen again’ is verboten for DID but there is a repeat this Friday 3 October at 9 am, which I recommend.  Miriam read Cheerful Weather for the Wedding for us in a Story Circle production which we are about to reissue in the same beautiful format as our audiobook of Miss Pettigrew.

     Carla Carlisle, who runs the Leaping Hare Country Store (it has always stocked our books) mentioned us in her Country Life column; this was about cutting back on ‘expensive and useless stocking stuffers’ and ‘concentrating instead on useful, beautiful comfort goods such as soft wool blankets and cashmere socks…along with doubling our orders to Johnstons of Elgin and Persephone Books, wool throws and good books pour le confort de tous.’

      Here is an article by Charles Taylor in the Los Angeles Times. It is about reprints and says that ‘to the people who haunt bookstores searching for the next great read…these reintroduced books are as eagerly awaited as any mainstream house’s seasonal list.’  The piece mentions us and Miss Pettigrew and concludes that ‘it’s tough to think of a contemporary match for its singular sophistication and generosity.’

   Finally, do read this review by Benjamin Schwarz, editor of Atlantic Monthly, of our favourite Austerity Britain by David Kynaston. It begins by quoting GM Young’s remark in Portrait of an Age that ‘the real, central theme of History is not what happened, but what people felt about it when it was happening.’ This is why we believe that it is so essential to read contemporary rather than retrospective reactions to something like WWII and hence prefer Jocelyn Playfair’s A House in the Country to Ian McEwen’s Atonement.  Schwarz comments: ‘With wit and ingenuity, Kynaston mines opinion surveys, radio shows, advertising slogans, parliamentary reports, and above all letters, diaries [Few Eggs and No Oranges] and memoirs to evoke the grey tinge that permeated postwar life – the shabby frocks, the sallow faces, the grubby train compartments, the dreary meals.’

   And what did I read on the aeroplane?  Well, an Anita Shreve of course.

Nicola Beauman
59 Lamb’s Conduit Street
30 September 2008