Books Coming Out of My Ears

I've been re-visiting The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James over the past few days and had forgotten how unsettling it was. Not least because as soon as you start to identify with the main character then she says or does something that makes you think she's cuckoo. It's the whole is she or isn't she mad thing. I suppose it's also quite sad because although this was fictional there was a history of Governesses in Victorian times who did go a bit insane because of their situations. Or of course this could all just be me as a reader putting my slant on it and James could have actually written as a ghost story. I guess that's the beauty of it.

I've also received as a gift a wonderful cookbook by Marguerite Patten called Feeding The Nation. It's basically a collection of World War II recipes but fascinating stuff just to see how people coped with so few ingredients. I promised myself that I would make at least one thing from it a month but it was a bit of an empty promise because nothing sounds that great. For example, Whale Burgers - apparently in 1947 it made it's appearance on British Shores and wasn't rationed. Marguerite describes the meat as having a "strong and very unpleasant smell of fish and stale oil", sounds appetising doesn't it?!