A brief break in the Big Smoke

“London has the trick of making its past, its long indelible past, always a part of its present. And for that reason it will always have meaning for the future, because of all it can teach about disaster, survival, and redemption. It is all there in the streets. It is all there in the books.”
– Anna Quindlen
(Imagined London: A Tour of the World’s Greatest Fictional City)

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With all the excitement of Moomin Day and Tove Jansson’s birthday celebrations last Saturday, I neglected to mention I will be spending a few days scuttering about London this week and therefore won’t be able to post my next WUTW until 23^rd August.

A squillion apologies for my forgetfulness. By way of making amends, I would like to share a poignant piece of writing with you (albeit by someone leaving the city), which seemed fitting under the circumstances:

The Common Reader: Sweet Thames run softly while I sing my song – Henry Oliver discusses the London he loves, from following in the footsteps of famous historical inhabitants such as Virginia Woolf, Thomas De Quincey and Samuel Johnson to visiting the gardens where Shakespeare began the quarrel of the Wars of the Roses, via a brief snifter-lifter in the Carpenter’s Arms.

Here are a few things happening over the weekend:

On Saturday, we commemorate the births of English novelist and short-story writer, Georgette Heyer (1902), German American poet, novelist and short story writer, Charles Bukowski (1920), Nigerian poet, teacher and librarian, Christopher Okigbo (1932) and British novelist, poet, academic, literary critic and short story writer, Diana Wynne Jones (1934). Then, on Sunday, we do likewise with English poet, Ted Hughes (1930), Trinidadian-born British writer of fiction and non-fiction, V. S. Naipaul (1932), Romanian German novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature, Herta Müller (1953) and American novelist and essayist, Jonathan Franzen (1959).

Finally, since there are ailurophiles aplenty in our book loving community, I feel sure the majority of you will be delighted to know it is National Black Cat Appreciation Day on Sunday 17^th August – an occasion when we are encouraged to pay a heartfelt tribute to our mysterious, elegant and often misunderstood feline reading buddies.

Cheerio everybody! See you next week. 🌻

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“Every year, the bright Scandinavian summer nights fade away without anyone’s noticing. One evening in August you have an errand outdoors, and all of a sudden it’s pitch-black. A great warm, dark silence surrounds the hours. It is still summer, but the summer is no longer alive. It has come to a standstill; nothing withers, and fall is not ready to begin.”
– Tove Jansson (The Summer Book)

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Categories: Winding Up the Week

Tags: Anna Quindlen, Henry Oliver, Literary London, London, Moomin, Moomin Day, National Black Cat Appreciation Day, Tove Jansson