The Books That Changed Me by Catherine Yardley

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Is there anything more powerful than a book? I don’t think so. Life-changing, knowledge-giving, and entertainment. Though sometimes not all at once. They have the power to change the world and make us feel every emotion under the sun. With that in mind, here are the books that changed me and made me the women I am today.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

This book follows Raskolnikov, an poor student wrought out by his own nihilism, and thoughts of the struggle between good and evil. He brutally murders an old woman who is a pawnbroker as he beliefs he is above the law. He justifies his actions, but later is overwhelmed with guilt and terror. Raskolnikov confesses to the crime and goes to prison. He realises that happiness and redemption is only achieved through suffering.

This is an intense psychological thriller from the most famous Russian novelist. Dostoyevsky was in a bad way when he wrote it, his wife and brother had both died and he was living in poverty. Crime and Punishment will awaken your brain and make you rethink your opinions on crime and punishment. This is the perfect book on redemption and how our actions in life matter. The very last page has some of my favourite lines in literature, including the fact that a new life is not given for nothing. I will not spoiler you by sharing anymore but it is a hard, yet fascinating read. It opens your brain right up and makes you more intelligent by the end. Do not just read books that are easy to read, that is not how you end up smarter.

Life if Pi by Yann Martel .

A ship sinks and a boy ends up on a raft with a tiger he calls Richard Parker. This is a book about survival and wisdom. It is outrageous with its plot but is never not believable. This spiritual novel changed my entire way of thinking. This book will feed your imagination like nothing on earth. It is so cleverly done I will be forever be jealous that I will never be as good a writer as Yann Martel . It was made into a film that is a good enough watch, but the book is untouchable. This book left me with a spiritualness that has stayed with me until this day. Read it with a highlighter pen and go back to it often.

Catherine Balavage with Margaret Graham at the Words For The Wounded Literary Festival

Catherine Yardley with Margaret Graham at the Words For The Wounded Literary Festival

Becoming by Michelle Obama.

Before reading this searingly honest memoir from the former First Lady of the United States I felt like a failure as I had never become who I was supposed to be. I was forever changing and no one ever told me that was a good, and normal, thing. There are so many stunning quotes in this book and it is filled with wisdom. Michelle Obama leaves no part of her life untold: she discusses miscarriages, IVF, politics, race and her marriage. Michelle is from a working class background and her father was disabled. She has triumphed through hard work and intelligence. I cannot think of anyone I find more inspirational than Michelle Obama. Well, other than the next novelist….

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.

Maya Angelou. What a woman. What a life. What a writer. I am full of admiration and awe. I am obsessed with Maya Angelou. I read I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings when I was about thirteen. I already wanted to be a writer and I was already writing. I knew I was nowhere near as good a writer as Maya Angelou, I doubt I ever will be. What  I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings did for me was crack me open like a nut. I learned a lot about racism and I became even more political, I also learned a lot about life and wisdom. I learnt that everyone has a hard life and we should be kinder to each other. It is more than a good book, it is a book that teaches you that strength of character, and a love of reading, can overcome trauma and create a beautiful life.

The Wives By Lauren Weisberger.

This book makes me appear much more fun than my other selections, I am aware. Lol. I think Lauren Weisberger is underrated. She has such a keen eye for detail and the satire of everyday life. Yes, there is The Devil Wears Prada which was a runaway (ahem) success. Lauren holds a mirror up to sections of society and captures them with absolute perfection. Her characters are honest, flawed and real. She makes me laugh and nod, and cry all at once. The Wives is a sassy and entertaining sequel to The Devil Wears Prada. It features Emily, you know, the one who looked great in her dress because anytime she was about to faint she ‘ate a tiny bit of cheese.’ Her books are a joy to read because she makes writing them look easy. There are anything but and Lauren Weisberger is a fearless writer.

The Writer’s and Artist’s Yearbook.

Now, this book really did change my life. I have written my entire life. I wrote poems when I was in single figures and I tried to write my first novel when I was ten. It was terrible and I only got to fourteen pages. They were all written longhand. I decided to send some of my poems off but, how and where? Enter this book. It had so much advice and numerous agents and publishers to send my stuff too. I still use it to this day. The 2021 version has pride of place on my desk. This is an essential and life-changing book for all writers.

Guests of The Emperor By Janice Young-Brooks.

My parents have always had a house full of books. We had so many bookcases and books our home was more like a library. One of the books on my parents shelf was Guests of The Emperor By Janice Young-Brooks. It is a World War II novel about a group of women who are ‘guests’ in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. The characters were so vivid and the story so well told it has always stayed with me. It is a good history lesson too.

What books changed you? Send us your selection to frostmagaziine@gmail.com.

My debut novel, Ember, is available here and here.

 

Fancy bringing a musical to life …?

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Here’s your chance…

 

Why not  stage one in your own home is the call from Rebecca Atkinson-Lord whose Cautionary Tale is an exciting new musical which was in development when Covid-19 came calling. Doom and gloom, the workshop performances had to be cancelled.

Nothing daunted the writers want Cautionary Tale’s incredible journey to go on,  so are giving people the opportunity to stage it in their own homes and share their recordings online.

For five weeks, they will release sheet music and backing tracks, Tik Tok choreography, character sketches and script extracts. In week six, the best of these recordings will be used to create a live Zoom version. Record the weekly section by yourself or with your friends and family, share it online using #CautionaryTaleMusical and help make this a reality.

This new musical is about growing up and growing glum with book and lyrics by Rebecca Atkinson-Lord (Founder of Arch468; Director of Theatre at Ovalhouse, 2010 – 2016), music by Rebecca Applin (Cameron Mackintosh Resident Composer Award holder at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, and Mercury Theatre, Colchester), and choreography and additional material by Mark Iles (The Brook Under Siege for Medway Council and as performer: Elf the Musical, Dominion Theatre; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Theatre Royal Drury Lane) could be a story about many different things.

Cautionary Tale could be a West-End style musical about learning to live authentically. It could be a modern parable about liberal values triumphing over authoritarianism. It could be a mash up of Roald Dahl, Tim Burton and Hilaire Belloc about overcoming grief set in the landscape of a painting by LS Lowry. At its heart it’s a story about finding hope when all seems lost.

OK< so what’s the plot?

Cautionary Tale is the story of Gloaming, a town filled with perfectly ordinary, yet perfectly remarkable people. The inhabitants of Gloaming all have special talents and interests; the Hamingtons, for example, know the answer to any question you can think of, the Bittingworth 2 sisters are so strong they can lift an elephant and the Trockles can make pretty much anything you like out of knotted string. Some talents can be pretty dangerous and it can be tricky to manage a town filled with such interesting people. One day, in the mists of time, the town elders decided that the best way to keep the town safe was to forbid anything that might be a bit too dangerous. The adults of the town have to suppress their talents and conform but it’s hard to live a life of stifled potential. There is one place where they can go to remember what it’s like to feel human – The Black Dog, an ordinary pub where it’s OK to be extraordinary.

But there are consequences to breaking the rules and there are consequences to living lives without fun. One day, the children of Gloaming wake up to discover that all the adults have turned to dust and blown away overnight; there just wasn’t enough joy left in them to hold them together. The children set off on a quest to find all the joy and talent and curiosity that was forbidden for so long so that they can rebuild their town with joy at its heart.

Rebecca Atkinson-Lord comments, ‘I wrote Cautionary Tale at a time when I was really unhappy because I felt trapped in a life that didn’t feel authentic. It’s a show about finding joy in the darkest of circumstances and right now it feels like we all need a bit of help to be happy, so it seemed like the right thing to do to share it with people. The Covid-19 pandemic has meant that we can’t finish making and staging the show as we’d planned and to see years of work come to nothing has been incredibly sad for the whole team. I hope that people will help us make it happen anyway by staging bits of it in their own homes and sharing them online – and maybe we can all remember how to find a bit more joy.’

With the help of ordinary people taking to the stage at home, the team are hoping to bring their new British musical, Cautionary Tale, to life during lockdown.

They will be releasing a weekly downloadable learning pack including sheet music and backing tracks, Tik Tok choreography, character sketches and script extracts for people to get involved, record and share their musical staging. In week six, the best of the recordings will be collated to create a live Zoom version of the performance. It’s a chance for musical theatre lovers to come together, be creative, and keep the light on in these dark times. Download from www.cautionarytalemusical.com

Twitter #CautionaryTaleMusical, @Arch468 @BexAtkinsonLord, @beckyapplin, @jturnerdesign Instagram #CautionaryTaleMusical, @arch468theatrestudio @rebeccaatkinsonlord, @beckyapplin, @jamesturnerdesign, @markchalkiles

Download from www.cautionarytalemusical.com

 

 

SISTER SCRIBES: JANE CABLE ON HOW WINNING A FACEBOOK COMPETITION INSPIRED A BOOK

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As an author, the most frequently asked questions are without a doubt about what inspires you. Sometimes it’s the very smallest thing, but wherever an idea starts it needs to become a snowball, slowly gathering size and pace, to create the perfect storm – if you’ll excuse my rather poorly mixed weather metaphors.

My lastest book Endless Skies had the strangest of starts. My husband Jim and I are huge fans of The Great British Menu, and when one of the then finalists, Colin McGurran, organised a Facebook competition to win a stay at his restaurant with rooms in Lincolnshire, Winteringham Fields, we decided to enter. It was a simple ‘yes or no’ question followed by a draw, so Jim decided to take ‘yes’ and I would take ‘no’. Unfortunately I never did complete my half of the bargain as my mother was rushed into hospital. Fortunately the answer was ‘yes’ and even more fortunately, Jim’s name was drawn out of the hat.

One of Colin’s signature dishes

We arrived at the village of Winteringham on the banks of the Humber on a glorious summer day and once we had checked in went for a walk. The skies above us were blue and quite immense – on a different scale to anything we had seen elsewhere – but half way back across a field of stubble we heard what sounded like thousands of running footsteps behind us. We turned, only to see a curtain of rain approaching. It was a scene so incredible it had to find its way into a book and a tiny seed was planted.

For a while it rattled around in my head as I was working on Another You. Eventually I did some research about the area and discovered it was where Ermine Street ended and the Romans probably tried to cross the Humber. What a great place for an archaeologist to find herself. Alone, under that vast, empty sky.

We returned to Winteringham Fields the next year to celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary and explored the area further, including the wonderful museum and library at Scunthorpe, where I was able to find out more about archaeological digs in the area. By this time I was writing; Rachel was alive in my head and we were having such fun disappearing down Roman rabbit holes together.

The settings; gorgeous Winteringham with its spectral remoteness and the bustling city of Lincoln were firmly established and the characters were coming along nicely too. Not just Rachel, but her octogenarian friend Esther (based more than a little on my mother, who had died between our first and second visits), and then men in Rachel’s life; Ben, Jem and Jonathan. I had an intricate plot as well, but something just wasn’t working.

The war memorial at Hemswell

It took another visit to Lincolnshire to fathom it out. Jim is a keen cook and for his fiftieth birthday I arranged for him to spend a day in the kitchen at Winteringham Fields with Colin and his team. While he was up to his elbows in fish preparation I decided to visit the vast antiques centre at the old RAF base at Hemswell in search of a wooden towel rail for our spare room.

I found so much more. Standing in a quiet room at the back of the centre, with the sounds of schoolchildren in the playground next door drifting through the open window, it came to me. World War Two. I was in an old barrack block used by Polish airmen during the conflict and I could almost hear their feet on the lino as they ran down the stairs. The last piece of the jigsaw was in place and I could finish Endless Skies.

 

During our first visit to Winteringham Fields I reviewed it for Frost and you can read that review here. But not if you’re hungry.

Winteringham Fields Review

 

 

Jan, another Thirsk hero by Annie Clarke

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Meet Jan: who  turned 79 on 2nd May and is raising funds for The Salvation Army in Thirsk.
Every penny raised will be used to provide £15 meal boxes for those in need.
The sensible  Covid 19  measures put in place have meant that the Salvation Army shop in Market Square, Thirsk,  along with so many others, has had to close. This has led to a shortfall in funds. Funds which   provide  essential supplies such as  £15 meal boxes for those in need.
Jan, a volunteer in the shop, is not one to take things lying down. Oh, indeed not. With her  beautiful rescue dog, Willow (13) she is walking 10,000 steps each day throughout May always within the social distancing rules, of course.Each day, and  each step will add to the target.
Jan, who ‘retired’ last year is a gorgeous, charismatic chatterbox, and   an absolute draw for people who want to feel good about donating and supporting The Salvation Army. Full of vitality and vigour her relationship with The Salvation Army began as far back as  1968 when she gave birth to her daughter, Claire in the S.A Hospital in Leeds assisted by a  Major and Colonel in full Army uniform. She did wonder if she should salute.
On retirement, Jan and her husband Philip moved back to North Yorkshire from Shropshire  heading for The Good Life on their small holding.  Did this mean the end of her relationship with the S A? Certainly not,  because every week, Jan puts s down her spade and wellies to head for the Salvation Army shop. There she raises a smile from the customers, not to mention  money.
But… That’s not all:  in her spare time … yes, spare time, (there seem to be 36 hours in Jan’s days), she assists the children at Sessay Primary School with their reading.
Jan  really epitomises the saying: ‘Ask a busy person to do something and she delivers in spades’; all with a smile and cheery greeting before she whizzes off in a whirlwind to the next task.
79 years of age? Poppycock she has more energy than all the teenagers I know.  Oops there she goes again, with Willow, one step at a time.

Because of you I am by Sandy Hogarth: reviewed by Annie Clarke

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Because of You I Am is not only Alice’s story, but a fabulous title.

Now, a title is tricky. It has to identify the genre, and spark the browser’s curiosity – all in tandem with the jacket. 

So, look at the title again. Complex, surely a thriller, but a straight forward Jason Statham type, or psychological? With the help of the jacket  would you say psychological? Then you’d be correct.

Alice grows up with her mother, Eileen, and her part-time father, Tom, who she adores. Tom has another family and a wartime secret. When we first meet Alice she is a eleven year old hunting rabbits with  Tom, and is already different – she is the only kid in The Street to go to the Grammar.

Then calamity, because at the age of 14 Alice,and her mother, are abandoned by Tom. Two years later Alice, driven by the need to find him, and the Beatles,  leaves her northern hamlet for London. 

Lost and alone she embraces 60s London: the drugs, the squats and a boyfriend. Twenty one years later, she meets Jake Oldfield, the man who makes her real. She finds love, at last, with him and and their son, Adam, born in 1985. Alice is 37.

Adam is an odd boy, brilliant in some areas, backward in others and obsessed with the stars.

He is accidentally killed outside the school. Rosamund Beresford, a successful barrister, is the driver of the car. It is something that ruins Alice’s relationship with Jake because Alice blames herself, but why?

This accident is  pivotal,  in Alice’s relationship, and her fragile psyche.  What path will she take now? How can she ever find her way back to peace? 

A compelling drama about guilt, revenge and  perhaps redemption? So yes, definitely a pyschological thriller and one that lives up to its title. Bravo …

eBook. Troubador. £3.99.  And Amazon.

Recommended PB price £8,99. Pre-orders on Amazon £7.91. It is also available from the Book Depository. It’s available US and other countries.

Heroes at large … by Margaret Graham

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As you know, Frost Magazine has been on the hunt for local heroes and have struck gold  near Northallerton, which is close to Thirsk:  the Rounton Coffee Roasters.

Rounton Coffee Roasters is an independent coffee roastery based in Yorkshire, providing coffees, equipment and training to customers across the UK

Recently, at Chez Graham, we seemed to be devouring far too much coffee, and were almost swinging from the lights with the ‘hit’ of it all. So ordered decaff beans, chemical free, from a nearby  small coffee roasters, Rounton Coffee. The beans arrived quickly, and have an  extraordinarily good flavour. We now mix the beans with our existing full frontal beans and grind them up together. Calm has descended.

I was intrigued to see that the sparkling water decaf beans, with a hint of chocolate, nuts and toffee, were made the clean way, with no chemicals. It made me want to know more about Rounton Coffee, and to thank them for their delivery service.

I found more than I bargained for when poking and prying to find out more for Frost Magazine. Not only is Rounton Coffee an ethical and forward thinking  Roastery, the two guys who created the firm, found a practical way to show their appreciation  of the NHS at this fraught time, above and beyond clapping.

With my mind very much on VE Day and all that our parents and grand-parents did all those  years ago we are witnessing the herculean effort  of our  beloved and heroic NHS as they strive to save lives, 24/7.  Conscious of this Dave Beattie and David Burton, the two doyens who run the business gave thought to how they could help. Well, for goodness sake, CAFFEINE of course. What better way to restore some well being.

Dave and David therefore pledged back in March, before lock down to give free coffee to NHS staff from their two shops in Middlesbrough.

They set to work, with the support of Drew Rowley of React Nutrition, providing free coffee to NHS staff, from their shops. But then, lock down was upon us all. So a re-think was required. But what ..?

Ah ha: got it. What about giving the NHS  staff at Middlesbrough’s James Cook University Hospital a bit of a perk up. So the guys donated a grinder, a brewer and a selection of coffees which would help to provide  a brew.

The next step was to decide what else they could do. Before long another care package made its way to the Friary Community Hospital in Richmond.

Now on a roll, Rounton  Coffee reached out to Falcon Coffees, who are responsible for the sourcing and importing of the majority of the coffees that  Rounton Coffee roasts. Falcon’s Mike Riley, a long-time friend of Rounton Coffee, suggested that they could put together a blend for the NHS, comprised of green coffee donated by Falcon.

The components of the blend were familiar to Rounton: 2 bags from Pedro Gabarra Teixiera (the man behind their Brazilian coffees and who has, with his family gone on to win the title of Brazil’s most sustainable farm, awarded as part of the ‘Fazenda Sustentável’ awards.

 

And 2 bags from Mustefa Abakeno (whose Ethiopian beans Rounton Coffee think the best they have experienced from that region). Falcon’s generous donation meant that they could  now roast enough to make around 20,000 cups of coffee, right on the NHS front line. There was only one choice for the name – Nightingale Coffee.

Now the guys are busy roasting, grinding and distributing as much Nightingale Coffee out as they possibly can.  They’ll be sending it out to local NHS sites like Northallerton’s Friarage Hospital, as well as places like Harrogate’s Nightingale Hospital.

They are currently deciding how to tackle the logistics of their mission. If you can think of any NHS sites that would appreciate some Nightingale Coffee, they’d love to hear from you. Likewise, if you think you might be able to help provide some insight or help in further supporting the NHS, let them know.

As David and Dave said, ‘We are a relatively small team, who will always try to do more than we can physically manage, but that won’t stop us from trying.’  I bet it won’t.

Frost Magazine will be returning to Rounton Coffee in a week or so to explore just how they came to set up in the first place,  and  taking a look at their products, which include some interesting teas.

All in all Rounton Coffee is a place of delights, run and supported by heroes.

Contact them at: info@rountoncoffee.co.uk

Or learn more here.   Details of: React Nutrition   Details of Falcon Coffees

Images courtesy of Rounton Coffee

 

A Ration Book Wedding: review by Natalie Jayne Peeke – West Country Correspondent

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Love, strength, family, friends, grit and determination. All are vital components which will ensure that Great Britain  will not be defeated in the darkest days of the Blitz.

Beautiful Francesca Fabriono is doing her bit for the war in a factory in East London as is Charlie Brogan, who has recently married a woman of questionable reputation before being shipped out to North Africa with the Eighth Army.

When Francesca starts a new job she meets a handsome Count …

I thoroughly enjoyed the fact that the remarkable story is told from several different larger than life characters rather than one point of view. Fullerton gives nothing away and you can not read this amazing book and claim that it is predictable.

A Ration Book Wedding has clearly been well researched and this is reflected. It is so well written that it could be either read as a sequel to the other Ration book stories or as a stand alone book.

World War two books are an absolute favourite of mine as no two are ever the same and are so fascinating, each offering their own little insight into the worst war this country has ever known.

Perfect for fans of Annie Clarke, Milly  Adams and Kristina Hannah.

If you only read one book this year, make sure this is it.

Available in pb, and  eBook

Bird Summons: Light, Lyrical Lockdown Reading

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I’m almost ashamed to say that I had never heard of the multi-award-winning author Leila Aboulela. Bird Summons – her fifth novel – can be described as both Scottish and Muslim fiction; and yet, as a Scottish Muslim who loves to read, she had not been on my radar at all.

What a treat I had in store.

Bird Summons hinges upon a simple enough premise. Three beautifully, realistically flawed Arab-Scottish women embark upon a journey – a pilgrimage, of sorts – to the remote Highlands, ostensibly to visit the grave of Lady Evelyn Cobbold: “the first British woman to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, to educate themselves about the history of Islam in Britain, to integrate better by following the example of those who were of this soil and of their faith”.

Ostensibly is a good word. Bird Summons is so much than first presents itself. What begins as a nuanced bildungsroman of three immigrant women spanning their forties, thirties and twenties – Salma, Moni and Iman – soon becomes something much more. Into this blend Aboulela seamlessly incorporates ancient folklore stemming from the storytelling traditions of Scotland, India and the Arab world, creating something altogether more enchanting and thoroughly unique. As the threads of the three friends’ lives began to unravel, it was this new thread of allegory and parable that heightened the intrigue for me.

Be prepared: what starts as a story pleasantly grounded in realism, becomes increasingly, thoroughly and enjoyably weird. And yet it never jars. Aboulela makes it easy to embrace the fantastical.

Bird Summons also reads as a sort of love letter to Scotland, and the Highlands in particular. Aboulela’s sympathetic descriptions of the physical landscape her characters traverse certainly evoked a nostalgic, somewhat patriotic twinge for my homeland.

Special thanks to my childhood best friend for gifting me this novel and introducing me to this ‘new’ canon of work. You always promised you’d take me to Stonehaven, and I consider this a promise fulfilled. When they all converged on Dunnottar castle, I thought of you.

Bird Summons, by Leila Aboulela, was published in 2019 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. It was a Guardian Best Book of 2019; shortlisted for the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year 2019; and longlisted for the Highland Book prize 2019.

Reviewed by Nadia Tariq