I Only Want You To Love Me – Miles Aldridge

I have a real love of photography exhibitions, and in particular those that focus on fashion photography. Horst: Photographer of Style at the V&A Museum was a recent highlight. One exhibition that really stood out for me was Miles Aldridge I Only Want You To Love Me at Somerset House in 2013. Aldridge is a world-renowned photographer whose work has featured in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar amongst many others. I really love his photography, particularly his use of bright, contrasting colours to create shocking and vivid images. This collection places female models against a backdrop of domesticity and conveys a sense of being trapped in this world, of being bored but unable to escape. Their faces appear blank but you can sense desperation and unhappiness behind this mask. These pictures are both beautiful and unsettling, and leave the viewer with much to think about.

The book which accompanied this exhibition features all of the photographs from this extensive collection as well as Aldridge’s sketches and workings. It is really interesting to see the process by which Aldridge works and the way in which his initial thoughts and concepts are transformed into the final images. This is a coffee table book that I would definitely recommend.

Christmas!

Christmas time means (hopefully) lots of books! Here is what is at the top of my Christmas wish list:

Not That Kind of Girl Lena Dunham Fourth Estate

Not That Kind of Girl is a collection of essays that bring together everything that Lena Dunham has ‘learnt’, both as a woman in the 21st Century and as a prominent actor and writer in Hollywood. There has been a lot of press surrounding this book, including some very serious allegations of sexual abuse, and I’m intrigued to say the least. Dunham seems to be a divisive character but I like the way that she writes and I’m interested to see what she has to say regarding her experiences as a female screenwriter. I’m looking forward to making up my own mind about her.

Moranthology Caitlin Moran Ebury Press

This is Caitlin Moran’s first collection of writing, and she not only tackles feminist issues but also global concerns such as poverty and the welfare state, as well as some more lighthearted topics including Twitter, Downton Abbey and pandas. In a previous bog post I wrote about how much I loved How to be a Woman, and I’m really interested to read her take on a wider range of subjects.

The Fault in our Stars

The Fault in our Stars is fantastic! Hazel Lancaster is a terminal cancer patient, and although her condition is stable her fate has already been determined. However, when she meets Augustus Waters at the Cancer Kids Support Group her life takes a surprising and interesting turn. Despite the cancer’s ever-looming shadow, Hazel and Augustus fall deeply in love and try to make the most of the time that they have together.

I loved this novel. On the face of it, a story about two teenagers with cancer should be quite a depressing read. And yes, I cried. A lot! But I also laughed a lot too. The book gets the tone between the seriousness of the character’s situation and their position as two teenagers falling in love just right, and I never felt manipulated into emotion. Indeed, this book left me with an overwhelming sense of positivity. Hazel, Augustus, Issac and their parents are all touched by cancer and all have to find ways to cope, and I felt that their reactions were believable, their characters well-drawn.

I think that the book effectively shows the different ways in which people deal with death. Peter Van Houten is devastated by loss and his descent into alcoholism shows the impact that death can have upon the living. Hazel actively encourages her parents to develop a life outside of her illness to prepare for the inevitable, and feels the burden of their suffering lifting off her shoulders as they begin to do so. The honesty of friends is juxtaposed nicely with the awkward, false platitudes of strangers, and this highlights how often people distance themselves from the sick and dying because of their inability to cope.

Beyond the looming spectre of cancer, The Fault in our Stars is a love story. Both characters are consumed by an obsession, and together they find the strength to overcome them. For Hazel, this obsession is the fear of what will happen to those that she will leave behind when she dies, and Augustus worries that he won’t have left his mark on the world, that he will not be remembered. Through their relationship they learn to live their lives to the full, and Hazel is able to love despite fearing the grenade-like impact of her impending death. The impact that they make upon each other is far greater in worth than leaving a superficial mark on the world. An emotional but hugely uplifting read.

The Fault in our Stars Penguin Books 2013

Ding Dong!

My favourite type of delivery! Received Valérie Trierweiler’s Thank You for this Moment from Biteback Publishing today and I’m really excited to read it. Biteback Publishing is a leading publisher of political and current affairs books which give a real insight into the back-stabbing, double-crossing world of politics. It also runs it’s own online bookshop, politicos.co.uk, which stocks an array of titles with a political slant, ranging from the evolution of the EU to the politics of World War 1. Definitely check both sites out if you’re on the look out for some great non-fiction.

Does anyone else …

Read the end of a book about halfway through? I hate not knowing how things are going to turn out! For me it doesn’t spoil the narrative and I feel that I can relax knowing where the story is going. I’ve decided that Gone Girl is my next book to read, but I’ve already looked up the ending and therefore know the plot twist before I’ve even started! I feel that this might be a bit odd.

Does anyone else have any unusual reading behaviour?

Fine, Thanks – Kate Tempest

To really see the state of things is lethal.
It’s safer just to see what we can bear.
Exhausting being fear-struck; howling, weak-willed.
Much nicer to be bathing in the glare

of all that we have built to shine and soothe us
what use are eyes at all in times like this?
Please don’t bother raising arms to shoot us,
we’ll shoot ourselves. No really, we insist.

No guns. Just give us brands and bills and wages,
and rent that takes our dignity away.
Don’t trouble yourselves with handcuffs and with cages.
There’s cleaner ways than that to make us pay.

What good can come from listening to our instincts?
You think it’s easy putting up like this?
Don’t make a fuss, you know us, we’re the English,
and peace on Earth won’t help us feed our kids.

Our eyes are trained on pinpricks in the blackness.
The telly helps to end a dismal day.
The visions come when we are at our weakest.
But they don’t last that long, so it’s ok.

I think that Kate Tempest is a really interesting lyrical voice. Through both her music and her poetry, she takes classical characters and stories and brings them into the present, making these mythical tales relatable and fresh for a contemporary audience. The collection from which Fine, Thanks comes from, Hold Your Own, is based upon the mythical character of Tiresias, who was blinded and gifted with inner sight. Fine, Thanks not only tackles Tiresias’ blindness, but also invokes the numbness of modern society, and the struggle to survive. I first came across Fine, Thanks in a London magazine, and I am really excited to read the rest of the collection. Another book to add to the Christmas list!

Hold Your Own Picador 2014

Warning!

Do not read The Fault in our Stars on public transport! I’m about half way through and have almost cried multiple times all ready. I had a couple of long train journeys on Saturday which provided the perfect opportunity to get stuck in, although I arrived at my destination an emotional wreck! Really enjoying it though, full review when I have finished.

The Bell Jar

The Bell Jar was the subject of my post-graduate thesis, which looked at the influence that both internal and external forces play in the construction of the self. I love this book and, as you can see, my copy is completely falling apart! I think that it perfectly sums up the confusion, fear and isolation of trying to be an individual in a society which seeks to confine you.

The Bell Jar chronicles the teenage years of Esther Greenwood as she begins to experience some troubling emotions. Returning from the opportunity of a lifetime at Ladies’ Day magazine in New York, she is overcome with darkness and despair as she grapples with not knowing how to escape from the destiny that has been mapped out for her. She becomes overwhelmed by life and consumed with plans that will enable her to escape. This internal deterioration lands Esther in a mental institution, where she must learn to recover and rebuild her sense of self.

Lest We Forget

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

In Flanders Fields John McCrae May 1915

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month we remember those that sacrificed their lives so that we ourselves could live.

Society of Young Publishers Annual Conference 2014 – The Perfect Publisher

On Saturday I attended the Society of Young Publishers Annual Conference for the first time. Having become disheartened by too many job rejections to count, I was ready to be inspired and rejuvenated in my job search! After a somewhat flustered start, (NB. if you are planning to travel with Abellio Greater Anglia be aware that you need to leave 3 hours early to make sure you get there on time!) I settled down to tea and pastries while looking over the event schedule.

The event was organised into 4 streams and I decided to broadly follow the marketing, sales and data stream. After an insightful keynote speech by Little, Brown CEO Ursula Mackenzie about why publishers still matter and how publishing has changed, I attended the first seminar of the day, which focused upon marketing campaigns in publishing. This was a really interesting seminar, in which Laura Di Guseppe, (HarperCollins) Bethan Ferguson, (Quercus Books) and Mark Rusher (Orion Books) took us through the process of marketing 3 hugely successful books – The Monogram Murders, Look Who’s Back and Gone Girl respectively. This seminar really demonstrated how creative marketing can be, and the differing ways in which teams work with their budget to promote new books. Creating and maintaining a conversation with audiences seemed to be key in generating interest in a title.