Books Are My Medicine

I have always been a bookworm. At primary school I went through the reading scheme at 8 years old so could have 'library time' while everyone else was reading with the teacher. This meant snuggling into an old bean bag and having half an hour to pick any book I wanted to read. My first was Little Women and Jo was (and still is) my first literary heroine. From there it was Pippi Longstocking, Little My, Katy Carr, Pollyanna and Anne of Green Gables. By the age of ten I was discovering the gothic delights of Jane Eyre and Miss Havisham. Reading was a delightful escape from the world and nothing would have pleased me more than to have a big window seat to curl up in on a rainy day where no one could find me. Many childhood visits to stately homes consisted of me running from one space to another thinking ‘Here! Yes, this is where I would come to read undisturbed’. The grotto at Chatsworth House was a particular favourite. As I grew older that escape became more important and therapeutic.

In my final term of primary school, instead of jumping the high jump bar, I decided to somersault over it. I landed awkwardly and knew something was wrong immediately. I felt a crack and a flash of pain in my back. I broke two vertebrae at T3 and 4 and crushed the disc between the two. I thought, like my heroines Katy Carr and Pollyanna, I was going to be paralysed. In hindsight and with psychological training, I think the change that occurred in me at that time was more about the fear of movement rather than an actual physical inability to move. I became more introspective and if I climbed a tree it was so I could curl up in it and read – usually while my brother fished from the next tree over. By the time I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 21 I had adjusted to a more sedentary way of being and this is where books became more than a pleasure, they were a medicine.

I have days when I am well and they feel like spring; a gentle awakening of my body. Yet I do spend more time living from my bed than I would like. I have the constitution of a sloth some days; simply existing from one period of deep sleep to the next. The noise of the TV or radio can be too much at times and being in quiet is the only option. Lately, aside from the fatigue,  I have been suffering from nerve pain and vertigo. The nerve pain is weird. It feels like a prickling sensation over my leg and if I try to touch it the feeling is so intense I almost expect to see sparks. Then when I move my leg there is a searing, burning sensation all the way down my leg. It makes my foot go numb. The vertigo can be a strange sensation of twisting between my eyes with a little bit of blurring. It can intensify so that my vision is compromised. One of my eyes doesn’t focus and I feel like my brain is sloshing around in my head. Then it feels like the floor moves from under me and I start to feel sick. The only thing that settles it is rest. I have to lie flat for a while until it passes.

The one thing I can do through most of these symptoms is read. I have never lost my love of reading. Nothing beats the joy of finding a new novel I fall in love with such as Lucy Atkins The Night Visitor or Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist. Books that you can’t stop reading but don’t want to end all at the same time. Even better when you’re laid up for a long period is an author new to me but with a great back catalogue I can spend a couple of weeks catching up with. This happened to me with Louise Candlish and Elly Griffiths recently. I like to read real books but do find that I default to a kindle more and more. Although, if I love the book I will still buy a real copy for my book shelves, especially if there is a beautiful cover. For me the kindle is my constant companion. It is light, portable and I can alter the brightness depending on my vision that day. It is easier for me to hold – it’s hard to believe that holding a book can be painful but it does affect my arms, shoulders and back. I can manage a kindle one handed and easily highlight or bookmark my favourite sections. This makes blogging and studying easier.

Whenever I am well I am the first to be up and about, trying to catch up with all the things I’ve wanted to do. When I’m not, books bring the world to me. I read books set in my favourite places like Venice and Cornwall. I read books set in new places I haven’t had the chance to see yet. It opens up fantasy worlds to me, when I truly need a complete escape from the real one. If I’m feeling very vulnerable and need comfort I can re-read an old favourite like a Jilly Cooper romp, novels like Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus or Joanne Harris’s Chocolat series that sprinkle magic into my life. I can read about people I identify with or whose experiences I have shared. Reading Jojo Moyes’s novel Me Before You, and it’s sequels let me into the world of Lou Clarke who is my literary soul sister. I too met a man with a severe disability and fell in love, only to lose him. Each new instalment of her story uplifts and brings me joy, but also makes me realise I can carry on and I’m not alone. Caitlin Moran’s books make me laugh and take me back to my teenage years in the 1990s. There is a book out there for every prescription and that is honestly how I see my reading. Each book is therapy in its way, even if it is simply helping the time pass. Even in hospital, I will have a pile of books on my bedside table and start diving in as soon as I am able. Now ,to convince the GP to put a monthly book token on my repeat prescription.

City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

A joyous, exhilarating, riot of a book

When one of my favourite authors writes a new book I always experience a confusing mix of emotions. Excitement and anticipation mix with fear; will I love it as much as I love their last book? I don’t want to be disappointed. This is how I approached Liz Gilbert’s new book City of Girls. Like a lot of readers my first encounter with Gilbert’s writing was Eat, Pray, Love; a book that was nothing short of a cultural phenomenon, not to mention the following hit film. For me, it was her novel The Signature of All Things that caught the imagination. The combination of a sparky and intelligent heroine, the feminist theme and the historical detail came together in a beautifully woven story. So as the publication date approached for her new novel I desperately wanted it to live up to her first.

I shouldn’t have worried. City of Girls is a joyous, exhilarating riot of a book. Our narrator, Vivian, plunges us into 1940s Manhattan where she is sent by her parents after expulsion from Vassar. There she is placed in the care of her Aunt Peg who runs the, slightly ramshackle, Lily Theatre. I was suddenly immersed in the bohemian world of theatre people where Vivian soon finds her niche. At Vassar she made friends by creating outfits for the other girls on her trusty sewing machine. So, in her new rooms above the theatre she is soon surrounded by showgirls wanting costumes. I have an interest in fashion and sewing, so I really enjoyed the descriptions of Vivian’s creations, made on a shoestring with a lot of help from Lowtsky’s vintage clothing store downtown. Yet not everything is as it seems on the surface. Is her friendship with showgirl Celia as mutual as it appears? What influence does the matronly and doom laden Olive have over Aunt Peg? Where is Uncle Billy, whose rooms Vivian has been using since her arrival?

 Some of these questions are answered during the production of the brand new play City of Girls. Aunt Peg’s friend Edna Parker Watson comes to stay after losing her London home during the Blitz. Edna is a talented theatre actress who is petite, beautiful and impeccably dressed. She arrives at the Lily with her huge wardrobe and her very famous and much younger husband, Arthur. Every member of the theatre company does their very best to get this musical off the ground and make it a success. Vivian works hard on her costume designs, but also finds herself becoming an unofficial PA and friend to Edna. Determined to put on the best show they can to turn the Lily Theatre’s fortunes around, Aunt Peg agrees to audition for new actors. When Vivian meets Anthony, the new leading man, she falls in love for the very first time. But alongside the awakening of first love, Vivian will also have her eyes opened to how cruel showbiz and the wider world can be. Several revelations teach her that not everyone can be trusted, the most unexpected people can come to your aid, and Vivian realises she has been walking around with her eyes closed. As the Second World War moves ever closer to their shores Vivian is left with a reckoning of her own. Does she want the respectable, quiet life her family expects or does she want to make her own way in a city and a career that is anything but quiet?  

You will fall in love with Vivian as she takes you into her past and candidly shares her exploits in 1940s NYC. She takes you from theatre, to nightclub to a dingy apartment in Hell’s Kitchen where she conducts her first love affair. She holds nothing back and I felt her delight at encountering the bohemian characters of the theatre, her passion and ingenuity for costume work and her discovery of a city laid out before her like a playground. She allows us to experience her growing up with every triumph and mistake she makes along the way. Such an engaging central character is well matched with other beautifully drawn female characters from the dowdy killjoy Olive who has surprising depths, the enigmatic Edna Parker Watson, the brisk and sometimes foolhardy Aunt Peg to the glamorous showgirl Celia who leads our narrator into a world of nightclubs, make-up and disposable men. The women in this novel are strong, surprising and all teach Vivian something about the kind of woman she wants to be. The novel emphasises the importance of strong female role models or mentors in both our personal and working life. I found myself torn between bingeing on this book or savouring it slowly: I wanted to know what happened next but I didn’t want my adventures with Vivian to come to an end.