written and posted by members of Lancashire Dead Good Poets' Society

Saturday 10 August 2019

A Sense Of Shelf

22:45:00 Posted by Steve Rowland , , , , 22 comments
Shelf has proved a flat and uninspiring subject matter for our Dead Good blogging collective this week. Not even the person who nominated the topic has managed to write about it ;-(

You know by now that I am not one to baulk at a challenge, but I do feel the pressure is on to make this post as novel and diverting as possible, so it's going to take the form of a sleuthing quiz. How exciting is that, Cluedo fans? (I sense the buzz...) Everyone into the library immediately!

Have you ever, when you've walked into someone's house for the first time, taken a discreet (or even more blatant) look through that person's record collection or bookshelves and wittingly or not used the information to help form your opinion of them? It's tempting, isn't it? I know I've done it many times. (As an aside, would it surprise you to learn that Boris Johnson's new right-hand maniac - sorry, senior advisor - one Dominic Cummings, has a soft spot for the writings of Otto von Bismark? We should all be very worried.)

Okay, here's how the sleuthing quiz works. I've chosen six well-known household names, and I've made a series of informed assumptions about the books, specifically novels, one might expect to find on their bookshelves. (I was going to select the individuals using the Acton Impulse random decision maker, naturally, only it appears to have broken down.) Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to read those six lists of books and then use your skill and judgement (and such clues as you might have picked up into how your Saturday Blogger's mind works) to identify correctly the individuals by sense of shelf.

A Sense Of Shelf
To give you a sporting chance, for it is Saturday after all, I'll tell you upfront those six well-known characters are:      (a) Reverend Green, (b) Colonel Mustard, (c) Mrs Peacock, (d) Professor Plum, (e) Miss Scarlet and (f) Mrs White. They should all be names you are familiar with, I think. The rest is up to you - just match the individual to the shelf. Happy sleuthing (but watch out for red herrings). The shelves (numbered 1 to 6 obviously) include, among other titles, the following:

1: Cider With Rosie (Laurie Lee)/ My Family And Other Animals (Gerald Durrell)/ Birdsong (Sebastian Faulks)

2: Whip Hand (Dick Francis)/ Greenmantle (John Buchan)/ The Murder At The Vicarage (Agatha Christie)

3: Appassionata (Jilly Cooper)/ Mapp and Lucia (E.F. Benson)/ Random Harvest (James Hilton)

4: Where Eagles Dare (Alistair MacLean)/ Mr. Weston's Good Wine (T.F. Powys)/ The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

5: Harnessing Peacocks (Mary Wesley)/ Doctor Zhivago (Boris Pasternak)/ Snowdrops (A.D. Miller)

6: Vanity Fair (William Thackeray)/ The Trumpet-Major (Thomas Hardy)/ The Vicar of Wakefield (Oliver Goldsmith)

That's it. Once you've got them all paired up to your satisfaction you can check on the answers below, after today's new work, a 'found' poem of sorts, constructed around phrases beloved of the sellers of second-hand books when describing their wares.

Shelf(ish)
Pre-loved and therefore
as one might expect,
a little spotting and tanning
commensurate with age,
some creasing of the spine
and other signs of wear
as slightly scuffed edges,
light soiling in places,
occasional wine-glass stain,
dirty remarks in the margins -
though otherwise tightly bound
and contents reasonably sound.
Still, eminently serviceable copy
in fact, with all intact,
just probably not suitable
as present material.
P.S. jacket missing and note -
stock image may not
match the actuality...

...in other words:
has done the rounds, been surplus
to requirements for years
and is growing old and fusty
in a second-hand bookstore
with his name in gold antiqua
above the rarely opened door.

Finally, the answers to the literary cluedo are as follows:
1=e, 2=b, 3=c, 4=a, 5=f, 6=d How did you do?

Thanks for putting up with my outpourings, S ;-)

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

You, sir, are messing with our minds (LOL)!

Rochelle said...

Yay, a poem. Thank you Steve.

Boz said...

Well done la! 👍

Deke Hughes said...

That was certainly different. I hope the bookstore poem wasn't about yours truly???

Steve Rowland said...

Gosh Deke, no. Fusty old? I don't think so. The poem is about no one that I know - I put this disclaimer out there for the benefit of any of my other friends/acquaintances who happen to own, run or work in bookshops...you're in the clear :-D

Anonymous said...

Brilliant. I loved this. Clever poem too.

K. Worth said...

Very good, Steve.

CI66Y said...

That was an entertaining blog and a fun exercise. How come I only got 1 out of 6 right though? Terrible. I think you should show your workings (as they used to advise on maths papers)! I never realised you'd even heard of Jilly Cooper. The poem made me smile.

Anonymous said...

What a great idea for a different take on your blog.

Carey Jones said...

3/6 for me. Too many red herrings (as you warned). The new poem is amusing and a trifle caustic with it.

The Existentialist? said...

Does Dr Black not get a shelf too?

Anonymous said...

I loved the idea of this and the poem you created to go with. Excellent.

Celia M said...

Well done Steve. As a librarian, this pleased me immensely. All six shelves have got some great reading matter on them, even Mrs Peacock's. I love Mapp and Lucia. I enjoyed your new poem too.

Tyger Barnett said...

Yes, this was a neat idea. I too guessed 3 out of 6 right and I've not read many of the books listed.Just out of interest have you read the lot of them?

GV (Vance) said...

Well Steve, that was both entertaining and devious! I have to say I only got one out of six, so I concur with the comment above that suggested you show your workings out :@

And naturally I enjoyed your coralling of 2nd hand bookseller-speak into a wry poem. Keep the blogs coming, I look forward to them.

Anonymous said...

"Pre-loved"... brilliant phrase. Very funny blog too 😊

Steve Rowland said...

Okay, some of you asked for the workings out - i.e. I ought to account for the thought processes by which I assigned the books to the individuals in the way I did - so here goes:
Shelf 1 belongs to Miss Scarlet because they are all school GCSE texts that she had to read (and probably enjoyed) and she's not really bought, let alone read, a book since leaving school. Reading's not her thing.
Shelf 2 is the Colonel's. He likes light entertainment thrillers, so it's the world of horses and soldiering for him plus a bit of good old Agatha.
Shelf 3 is Mrs Peacock's racy and romantic selection.
Shelf 4 belongs to Reverend Green, a mix of escapist adventure and morality tales.
Shelf 5 shows Mrs White's more literary an exotic taste. Harnessing Peacocks was an obvious red herring. I suspect she is an exile from beyond the Iron Curtain as both Doctor Zhivago and Snowdrops are set in mother Russia.
Shelf 6 must then be the Professor's (though it is loaded with red herrings). He probably teaches or has taught all these classic English novels at university.

Matt West said...

Most enjoyable, pal.👍

Anonymous said...

How about the Tibetan Book of the Dead for Dr Black?

Anonymous said...

Very funny, very clever, love the poem :)

Ross Madden said...

Great blog Steve. Highly original, amusing and with a 'reader competition'. What's not to like? I loved the bookish poem too. Sadly I scored a mere 2 out of 6 but I see the devious logic of your shelving.

Ben Templeton said...

Nice idea for a blog. It's years since I played Cluedo. I hear they've updated the personnel and the rules? As for your clever little poem, harsh..... but entirely fair :D