Grace:

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (India) – Had to read and talk about the first page in an interview, which caught me and made me want to read the whole novel.

The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster (US, various) – Read this when I was having a bad day, helped me to get through the day and the night.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russia)

The Diary of Anne Frank (Amsterdam)

Zlata’s Diary by Zlata Filipovic (Sarajevo, Bosnia) – One of my favourites of the books I read as a child.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Georgia, US)

Eleanor:

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)

White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (India)

The Bookseller of Khabul by Asne Seierstad (Afghanistan)

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (India/America)

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (India)

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Siberia)

Holes by Louis Sachar (America)

Three Score and Ten is an intriguing take on a literary blog, charting quite literally a life through literature. The idea is simple enough; for every year of a near average lifespan (if you were wondering where the name originated from), quotes from two fictional characters – one male, one female – are picked out to illustrate a particular age, the physical markings or psychological whirrings that accompany a stage in the journey of an individual. Even those events we could hardly know or remember anything about – conception and birth – are covered, as well as that unchartered territory, the final destination – death itself.

The man on this literary mission is Wayne Gooderham, whose ideas for Three Score and Ten and general fascination with the relationship between ages and literature can be perused in this article for The Guardian. As well as being a fun project and the product of what some might call a slight obsession, the aims of Three Score and Ten are more far-reaching – in his pursuit, Wayne is reading every book he selects quotes from in their entirety, stretching his own literary comfort zone in the process. Readers of the blog are also encouraged to read something they perhaps wouldn’t usually choose; if they’ve just turned a certain age and want to chart their own year with that of a character, or simply just like a particular quote, then the information is all there to allow them to do so.

What I like about Three Score and Ten, aside from its interactive potential, is that it taps into the notion that we can use literature to identify with ourselves and others. In my opinion, books are a great tool for doing this. And to match yourself with a fictional character can be informative, even if you find your own trials and tribulations don’t quite measure up with that of the literary figure you share your age with. Also, it’s quite interesting to discover whether certain characters that stand as timeless representations of a particular period in life really are just that, or whether they change with time and new perspectives as we do ourselves.

As my 24^th birthday is approaching, I think I will definitely have to make an appointment to read The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford – one of the latest additions to the anthology – in the next twelve months. Three Score and Ten is updated with quotes for a new age on a weekly basis.

After a restless night Baines woke and spotted Eames’ diary, which he felt brought somehow a slight shimmer of life like Miss Havisham’s wedding cake. This remark brought a few chuckles as our group has not long finished Great Expectations and quite often Dickens seems to be following us like a distant shadow!

He picked up the diary and like a trip in Dr Who’s Tardis we were transported back to 1864. Eames was now married with a child on the way, is living in a nice area and thirdly his building Janus House has opened although the press do not speak kindly of it. Although people’s reviews perhaps should not be taken too seriously as it is just one person’s feelings and thoughts – just like with The Rescue Man – you can read it and think something completely different from someone else in the group but thankfully we live in a free country and as the saying says, ‘Everyone is entitled to their opinion.’

There was one admirer though, so one star was shining to provide a touch of light as Eames noticed a young man taking sketches, who introduces himself and pays Eames the compliment of being a ‘Poet of Architecture’. A beautiful building could be compared to a poem by Milton. Art comes in many forms – paintings, words, music. The passages led to a discussion – about how people having different interests is what makes the human race interesting. All my life I have only really been interested in words and anything other than words is frankly incomprehensible to me!

All this praise however luckily did not enlarge Eames’ head as he realised his building only represented ‘a sonnet’ and not a ‘full-blown epic like Paradise Lost.’

On to Chapter 6 and the exhibition finally opened and we all started laughing when the comment was made – ‘It is virtually impossible to hold a party in Liverpool without gatecrashers.’ I remember the crush at my brother’s 21st, and afterwards when asked who some of the people were he was clueless, like asking me a maths question and I failed maths miserably!

Arriving at the exhibition Baines got a glimpse of a face he thought he recognised and we had a discussion about how you can see a face and think you know them and give them a whack on the back and say ‘Hiya’, only to realise you have thumped a stranger! Tom’s eyesight had put him in good stead and the person he recognised was Duncan Heathcote from Architectural School. Heathcote showed no signs of recognition but flinched with Baine’s mention of the name Alice, but was still dismissive of Tom. This was the red flag to a bull and suddenly fists were flying. I know from experience someone will say something which makes you explode into a rage of fire and the fists begin to roam. The two were soon surrounded by the other party goers shouting ‘Fight, Fight!’

Afterwards Tom was beginning to wonder why he blew his fuse and shame began to grow inside him and we talked about how when we explode it is not long after that feelings of guilt begin to fester. Tom could not face seeing the crowds again but Bella encouraged him to go for a drink and explain the reasons for his outburst! The two walked in silence and Bella encouraged Tom to talk and Tom knew an explanation of his behaviour was needed. Often I explode, and it is always easier to try and explain my behaviour although it does nothing to erode the guilt away! So Tom began his story.

This still goes on today – the media love to come to Liverpool and concentrate on social deprivation which does exist but they ignore the other side of the coin – the majority of people here are ‘sound’ and you would have to go a long way to beat the architecture. Saying that, 2008 and the year of Capital of Culture tried to give a much more positive view.

David, Bella’s brother, came up with the idea of calling the exhibition ‘city by the sea’, which was reluctantly decided on, by Bella. I look out of my flat window and can see Liverpool cathedrals and the river – whenever I am in a landlocked part of the country, it’s as if I suddenly develop asthma, as I appear to lose the breath of life when I am not by water!

Anyway, the two men considered Bella’s strong views about what should be shown in the photography exhibition. Richard revealed some of Bella’s family history and the fact that her mum was part of the suffrage movement and had actually been to prison for her views.

A person can often have a personality transplant when something they feel strongly about it being discussed and a lighted match is put to their emotions and they erupt.

Falling 1940-41

This section of the book opens with a quote apparently called ‘Fear of Death’ by William Hazlitt,

A lift of action and danger moderates the dread of death

This is certainly true of Baines who in the second half springs into life in more ways than one. The war obviously has a very big effect on his personality – in the reading group we have talked about why he changes so much – as the saying goes live for today because you really don’t know whether you’ll be alive in 20 minutes never mind the next day, so as they say live for the moment.

At first reading the few paragraphs of Chapter 5, you would think they were clearing up from the Blitz, but it became clearer, a bit like fog lifting, that this was only a practice. Baines could not wait for this so called ‘phoney war’ to stop and felt a lot of the time he was just play acting in a theatre – Tom used to watch with jealousy his friend Richard jump about the rubble with no fear like a superhero.

We had a discussion about why people may be more cautious, while others seem to have no fear and why some people seem to have no fear and others perhaps are just very good at hiding it. I used to adore ‘Peter Pan’ and jump off various items of furniture, my friend was perhaps more cautious but I truly believed what Jim Barrie says ‘ All you need to fly is to believe.’ I did believe but still ended on the floor with a thud! Perhaps I just needed a bit more belief in myself.

Tom has become more confident as the threat of actual war inches ever so closer to Britain so when his new work colleague Richard invites him round to his house he quite happily agrees to come and party! He has also become more enthusiastic about taking photographs for his book – perhaps because somewhere deep inside he realised that he had to move quickly before the Germans came, brining not only destruction of human life but also irreplaceable buildings, so it tugged at the heart-strings when funding for the book was halted – all projects not considered essential to the war effort were to be stopped. I could actually feel Tom’s disappointment or maybe I’m just very sentimental.

We talked for a while in the group about the sudden craze people can have about building flats on every available spot, reminding me of the song ‘Little boxes made of Ticky Tacky and they all turn out the same.’ We came to a conclusion that people often do not realise the beauty or importance of buildings till the bulldozers come and demolish it, but by then it’s far too late!

Alan McKernan’s photographs are really quite stunning, and it was a real pleasure to work alongside him in selecting images that reflected both the exhilarating change and ongoing inertia in a unique place. It’s been published for slightly over a year, but as the 2008 launch at Tate Liverpool consisted of little more than an incoherent, sweaty-palmed speech from me followed by a rapid retreat to the comfort of the breadsticks and an impressive range of dips, I thought a fresh marketing push was more than justified. Tis the season to buy quite pricey, but beautifully glossy, books for those you love and admire the most.

We’d like to help Matthew in his new marketing push, and can tell you that the book is available from all the usual online outlets, and also in the real world: you can find it in both branches of Waterstones in Liverpool and the Deansgate branch in Manchester.

In an article written in today’s Guardian, Dasgupta has confessed that he found his victory “very depressing”:

“I had loads of people emailing me, asking ‘Can I post this to the discussion?’,” he says. “A lot of people were immensely irate about the whole thing – I was amazed by the passion it raised. I was mostly saying ‘Please don’t post anything’.” A user with the postername John Self posted an invitation Dasgupta had sent via Facebook for friends to come and vote on the Not the Booker thread, and at that point “anything that was said about my book was a conspiracy,” Dasgupta continues, “and people were saying that I was behind it all.” It reached a point where Dasgupta felt there was “no way of arguing with any of this”, and posted on the thread himself to withdraw from the competition.

Baines being a fellow architect took a great interest in Eames’s thoughts which he obtained from William Brown Street in the form of his diaries – wanting to know more, what a better place to look than a diary which hopefully holds a person’s innermost thoughts? I think you should never judge a person by his outer shell but his inner being (sorry becoming a philosopher now!) The group started thinking about diaries and how personal they can be, and how peculiar it can be to look back at an event from years ago and how it seemed a big upheaval when originally written but now totally insignificant

Eames appeared to have lots of forward thinking about architecture which did not come to fruition – maybe because of lack of money or people who made the final discussions were backward thinking instead of forward. Over the last few years Liverpool has represented a building site – especially running up to the year of culture 08 – at times it seemed like a marathon to get things ready rather than a sprint. It was quite amusing though to realise that things were just as chaotic here in Liverpool in 1861 – Peter Eames also describing the city as a construction site!

In the book the other day Baines met up with a photographer called Tanquerary who he felt an instant bond with – funny in life how we sometimes instantly bond with someone or maybe have an instant dislike for no apparent reason. Strangely, very strangely I was in Slater Street the other day and a shiver went down my spine as there was a photography van there!!! Sleep Well!

DONATE YOUR UNWANTED BOOKS AT ONE OF THE FOLLOWING DROP OFF POINTS:

• THE BASE, LIVERPOOL GUILD OF STUDENTS – University of Liverpool

• LJMU UNION (THE HAIGH BUILDING)

• SYDNEY JONES LIBRARY (Tues 20th Oct – Sun 25th Oct) – University of Liverpool

• HAROLD COHEN LIBRARY (Mon 26th Oct – Sun 31st Oct) – University of Liverpool

• THE LAW BUILDING – University of Liverpool

• ELEANOR RATHBONE BUILDING – University of Liverpool

• CYPRESS BUILDING – University of Liverpool

CDs, DVDs etc. also welcome!

You can also donate at our weekly meetings – every Monday at 5pm in the International Lounge, in the Guild (and if you want to become a volunteer, please feel free to come along!).

Do you already know about READ’s great work?

Find us on Facebook: ‘Read International Book Project Liverpool 2009/10’. Check us out at: www.readinternational.org.uk

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Here is some information about our project and other ways you can help:

Profit driven book companies in the UK produce 6th, 7th and 8th editions of textbooks every year, which schools are forced to buy in order to maintain an image of being up to date. This results in an abundance of disused, high-quality textbooks gathering dust in UK secondary school cupboards. The aim of Read International Book Projects is to collect these books and send them to secondary schools in Tanzania, where the syllabus is almost identical and is taught in English.

In Tanzania, the government gives each child 30p per year to spend on textbooks, which, if they buy new, will cost them £11 per textbook. We can ship the books to Tanzania for no more than 50p each. Of course, we only take the most useful and up to date books, and any books that are not appropriate, such as politics or religion, are sold online or recycled to generate funding.

We have some huge targets to meet and this is why we need your help! So far, READ has shipped over half a million textbooks to Tanzanian schools. This year, out Liverpool Book Project aims to send another 25,000 books, and will need to raise £7500 by June 2010 in order to fund this target. Whether you want to get involved in contacting schools, picking up books and sorting through them, raising awareness and funds or simply supporting by coming to our weekly meetings, READ is open to everyone and is a great opportunity.

Some of the benefits the READ offers YOU include training in delivering Think Global workshops to Key Stage 3 students focusing on active global citizenship, the opportunity to earn your V50 certificate if you volunteer more than 50 hours of your time, which looks great on your C.V., the chance to actually go to Tanzania yourself in the summer of 2010 and redistribute the books we collect this year, and, of course, a lot of fun!

This is one of the most effective ways to alleviate poverty in Africa.

Hon Margaret Sitta MP, Minister for Education (Tz)

Any questions do not hesitate to contact us at liverpool@bookproject.org.uk