Virago, not just for Christmas.

Due to events of a festive nature my contribution to Virago reading week is a little late in coming, but Virago is defiantly a publisher I want to celebrate (though a week seems like an awfully short time for such a big passion). My relationship with Virago stretches back across half my actual life and all of my adult reading life. I keep them in my bedroom now, partly because that was the only place that I had left to fit a bookcase, but not least because these books have so many memories attached and I like to see them so by way of homage to Virago here are a few of the reasons I sleep with these books...

One of my first forays behind the green covers came through Molly Keane. I found ‘Young Entry’ in Waterstones in Aberdeen and during my university career bought and read all her books. Broadly speaking Keane’s pre-occupations with family and lifestyle were very sympathetic to my state of mind but what sealed the deal was finding that my grandfather knew her. I knew when I started reading the books that he had been familiar with that world, but just before I graduated and when he was already becoming quite frail he and dad took refuge with me for a night waiting for a flight back to Ireland. I was reading a Molly and we had a chat about her. It was the first time I think we ever had a conversation as adults, before then he had told us amazing stories or taught us things, he was always courteous and charming – but my sister and I were always children, and he was very much a grown up. It was also the last conversation I had with him like that, we only met one more time and by then he wasn’t sure who we were, but I still have Molly who’s given me a link to my own history I’ll always prize.

My one big fail with Virago is Ivy Compton-Burnett’s ‘A Heritage and its History’ I’ve tried to read this so many times and given up 20 pages in. I just don’t get her, but I very clearly remember carefully selecting the book in Blackwell’s Oxford from a stand of Virago’s just after leaving university. I was convinced the world was mine for asking (apparently not) ‘A Heritage and its History’ stands as testimony to unmet aspirations (not least to actually read the damn thing) and challenges me when I’m feeling complacent. Truthfully it’s rare for me to keep a book I know I won’t read but this one is so pretty I can’t let go of it, and maybe one day...

Rosamond Lehman was a discovery from when I was working in a clearance bookshop (sadly these don’t seem to really exist anymore), this enthusiasm must have coincided with Little Brown taking Virago on and a lot of the back list being trimmed because all the cheap bookshops were full of virago titles and I bought loads, Lehman stands out because I actually read them straight away. Her complicated love affairs were a revelation to me after a steady diet of Georgette Heyer, what I read in those books without doubt left me better equipped to deal with the first relationship break up that I took seriously which came not so long after.

I have an undoubted crush on Vita Sackville-West, but struggle a bit with her books (though unlike the Ivy Compton-Burnett fiasco I don’t try very hard to read them) it’s a copy of her letters to Virginia Woolf which fuels the fire and bring both women to life for me. (There was also a really good play based on these – I can’t actually remember what it was called, but it’s due a revival.) So far no other publisher has come near to mirroring (or forming) my personal fiction fixations, possibly another reason the books are in the bedroom is because taken together they say more about who I think I am than I’m prepared to share with any casual visitor – because obviously when the man comes to read the meter he’s only really interested in judging the inner most depths of my soul through the books I read and not with getting on with his job. Nope it’s only those who are initiated into the Virago cult who get to have a look at my books.

Which brings me to Andrea Dworkin ‘Life and Death’ is one of those books ‘that changed my life’ or at least helped me sort out where I stand on all manner of fundamental issues relating to feminism. It’s also one of the books over which my friendship with the blonde was forged, I bought books from her, she gave me a job and hasn’t been able to shake me since. Her Virago obsession is equal to mine and we have a book hunt planned for Sunday...

F. M. Mayor is another Virago find which has sort of changed my life in so much as she lead me into blogging. Such is my enthusiasm for Mayor that when I found a copy of ‘The Squire’s Daughter’ second hand I was almost high with excitement. I briefly flirted with the idea of calling my blog The Squire’s Daughter – the plan was that it would be in a sort of Provincial Lady style and then I realised that it would be extremely hard to do well, embarrassing to do badly, and that either way I’d struggle to talk about books. Rather neatly (I think) this brings me round to Book Snob, someone asked me if I was Book Snob after reading her review of ‘The Rector’s Daughter’ which I was also talking about a lot at the time. I had to admit I wasn’t she, went and had a look and thought why am I not doing this myself? It was a stop dithering and get on with it moment.

I could go on but think this is probably enough for now beyond saying Thomas at My Porch has a competition and there are more on the host sights Book Snob and A few of my favourite books – go and win great books.