From slothful September to nonstop November

This is a place for me to hold forth on matters both serious and silly. You are invited to participate. 

With winter bearing down on us, I thought it time to release one of my wildly erratic catch-ups into the blogosphere, because as you must know by now, in order to accommodate my present unpredictable ways, not to mention my snail-powered reading engine, Book Jotter is strictly free of rigid schedules or precise timetables.

The year has rattled along at a fair old rate, but I did at least achieve some of what I set out to do in January, mostly in respect of my Tove Trove project, but also in other parts of my reading (and researching) life.

Inevitably, my Tovian explorations led me hither and thither along a myriad of Jansson-adjacent alleyways, some of which lured me away temporarily from my original path (it takes very little to send me scampering off zig-zag fashion across the literary landscape) – though, thankfully, not too far. I shall divulge more about this shortly, in my customarily brisk fashion.

As for 2026, I am hoping for lots more of the same with perhaps a few exhilarating twists and turns in my personal narrative – but strictly in a cosy cat mystery sort of way. No psychological thrillers for me, thank you very much.

Moving on:

Reading, Watching and Doing: An Amalgamation

“We came to the island […] in the small grey caique Angellico, belting in around Point Cali with a sirocco screaming in from the south-west, a black patched triangle of sail thrumming over our heads, and a cargo of turkeys, tangerines, earthenware water jars, market baskets, and the inevitable old black-shawled women who form part of the furnishings of all Aegean caiques.”
– Charmian Clift

As September got underway, I found myself gazing out at the Atlantic Ocean rather than the Aegean, but nevertheless, I realised almost immediately that Mermaid Singing was the ideal companion on my early morning visits to a sizzling hot sandy beach in Monte Gordo.

Reading Charmian Clift’s 1956 memoir – which is described in the introduction by English author Polly Samson as the writer’s recollections of a “stony and rough” piece of land, “almost entirely dependent on its sponge fishing fleets” – transported me directly to the isolated Greek island of Kalymnos in the Dodecanese chain. Now a relatively affluent part of the world, in the mid-1950s, when Clift and her husband first arrived there with their children and typewriters to “live by their wits”, it was a primitive (nay, “medieval”) home to an impoverished community of deep-sea divers and their families.

Published in Australia only after Clift’s tragic death in 1969, it is a poignant and humorous retelling of their time lived among its local inhabitants, after which they relocated to Hydra for almost a decade. Her memories of the warmth of friendships formed across language barriers and the harsh realities of poverty and tradition stand as a vivid record of a now extinct way of life on “an island under sentence, an island in suspense.”

Born in Kiama in 1923, a coastal town in New South Wales, Clift was a gifted writer whose life and work embodied bohemian nonconformity. She is remembered now for her evocative travelogues, finely formed novels and influential newspaper essays, the latter giving voice to a generation of Australians grappling with the challenges of modernity, though, as with so many independent women of her era, she struggled with the pressures of marriage, motherhood, money and eventually, the difficulties of returning to her conservative homeland.

With a fabulous turn of phrase (I could have shared any number of quotations with you), Clift fashioned Mermaid Singing into a uniquely styled travel narrative borne on a wave of wonderfully lyrical, expressive openness. This remarkable work is without a doubt going to finish the year in the upper half of my Favourite Reads of 2025 list.

Naturally, I have acquired the follow-up volume, Peel Me a Lotus, and it is simmering gently as I write, on standby until next summer.

“Was there really somewhere a hot, high rock where no trees grew, where children were hungry, where men were forced to pluck a bitter living from the bottom of the sea? Or was it only in my head, the shape of it, the barren stones that the sea circled, the fear and desolation.”
– Charmian Clift

I’ve never once had difficulty uttering the phrase, ‘I don’t know’. In fact, I sometimes say it several times a day (bizarrely, the words simply slip off my tongue), so I took little persuading to follow Ann Morgan’s advice in her latest book, Relearning to Read: Adventures in Not-Knowing (published by Renard Press) – an insightful examination of personal reading practices, including strategies for navigating uncertainty, questioning assumptions and expanding reading habits.

After completing her bold mission, A Year of Reading the World, which involved reading one book from every country in a single year (a project that culminated in the publication of The World Between Two Covers: Reading the Globe), Ann continued to investigate how literature opens minds and questions societal conventions. The result is this deeply fascinating book which builds on her earlier work and further explores how literature can challenge cultural biases. She suggests that if when reading we attempt to be more “clearsighted about our partiality, limitations and inclinations”, it may be “possible to engage […] more subtly and respectfully with other people’s stories.” Thus, “[enlivening and extending] us, rather than entrenching us in our own assumptions.”

Should you be courageous enough to embrace confusion, ambiguity and occasional astonishment – furthermore, be willing to open your minds to texts that are unsettling because unfamiliar – then Ann Morgan is your woman. She will direct you to the right aisle in the library and encourage you (with typical insight, enthusiasm and humour) to seek out the shelf marked ‘My Daring Reading Adventure’.

A definite must for those seeking a risky read.

“When you think about it, the business of reading is preposterous. Someone in another time and place made marks on a page and these marks […] activate a story in our minds.”
– Relearning to Read
Ann Morgan

In recent months I’ve developed a liking for those little red and white Penguin Archive books – you know, the commemorative series marking 90 years of Penguin publishing. Their portability appeals to me as I can slip one in my bag when I head out for the day. They are relatively short works of self-contained, punchy texts (a mosaic of short forms, if you will), so I easily finish reading one while, for instance, awaiting an appointment or downing tools (i.e. keyboard and mouse) for an ever-so-slightly extended mid-morning cuppa and crumbly.

One of my favourites, thus far, which I finished reading today, is Carson McCullers’ Southern Gothic novel, Reflections in a Golden Eye. I was struck by the sheer intensity and claustrophobia pervading the narrative. She immerses one in the oppressive atmosphere of an American army base in the 1930s, saturating her story with repressed desire, voyeurism and violence. Its impact is quite overwhelming.

The story centres on the complex relationships between Captain Weldon Penderton, who struggles with repressed feelings for Private Williams, who, in turn, spies on Penderton’s wife Leonora, herself involved with Major Langdon. Langdon’s fragile wife Alison, supported by Anacleto her devoted servant, grows increasingly despondent as betrayals mount. All of them are isolated and driven by hidden urges, which ultimately collide, leading to murder.

It is easy to imagine the shocked gasps this story must have induced in some readers when it was first serialised in Harper’s Bazaar in 1940, given its bold exploration of unsettling themes and its unflinching portrayal of human complexity. McCullers’ writing is spellbinding, drawing the reader into a world that is both disturbing and deeply compelling. What a remarkable writer.

“Leonora Penderton feared neither man, beast, nor the devil; God she had never known.”
– Carson McCullers
(Reflections in a Golden Eye)
A Penguin since ’61

September in the Algarve is always a delight, which is why I travelled there with Mrs Jotter and friends for eight days to make the most of the unseasonally hot days and refreshingly cool evenings. With the high-season hullaballoo having subsided, there were noticeably fewer holidaymakers about and this change in tempo enabled local families (from avó to bebé) to amble through the narrow back streets of Monte Gordo in the evenings, reclaiming the tranquil charm of their surroundings.

All was idyllic for the first couple of days but, regretfully, we had failed to do our pre-holiday homework, so in complete contrast to the usual peaceful atmosphere, the resort’s official end of summer celebrations abruptly turned the town into a hub for a five-day party, incorporating the annual festival honouring Our Lady of Sorrows. Without warning one morning, enormous booms issued from the beach and deafening dance music blasted from a makeshift stage set up in the town centre, creating a cacophony that persisted day and night.

Suffice it to say, this racket was far from conducive to a tolerable night’s sleep, either for us or the local sparrow population, as the poor panic-stricken creatures were repeatedly driven from their branches by the firing of maroons every half hour. Still, it was an experience, as we like to say, and this is considered a positive thing in certain quarters. Nonetheless, should we ever return, it will be a week or two earlier in the season.

Finally, before I sign off on another Three Things, which incidentally seems to be appearing more-or-less seasonally at present (though not due to any forward planning on my part) – some of you may have noticed I now have a Substack account where I publish monthly updates (or newsletters, as they apparently should be called). This is the imaginatively titled Book Jotter Journal, which, I should point out, exists purely to compliment ye olde faithful Book Jotter by drawing attention to our thriving bookish community.

I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this platform in the future, beyond what I’m already doing, but it certainly won’t replace the blog. Substackers are a notoriously cliquey bunch, preferring to keep things in-house – so I will be knocking on a few doors, wearing my big multicoloured analogue rosette, with the intention of gently persuading people we can amicably co-exist and perhaps even work alongside each other. After all, we share a love of literature and that alone should bring us together.

Why not let me know what you’ve been doing with your days, or better still, compile your own Three Things-type post.

Categories: Three Things

Tags: #ThreeThings., #ToveTrove, Algarve, Ann Morgan, Book Jotter Journal, Carson McCullers, Charmian Clift, Memoir, Monte Gordo, Polly Samson, Portugal, Reading, Substack, Three Things, Tove Trove