We woke this morning to the sound of a man crying, and it was beautiful.
It was the distinctive sound of a man crying, and then another chap, turns out he was an adversary of the first, joined-in the emotional outpouring – both unable to control the pitch and tone of their voices, both sounded inconsolable, something from deep within their hearts had taken hold – Tennis does that to some people.
And that’s the thing about crying, on the face of it there is the assumption that it’s based on sadness, and that is certainly often the case. But the example this morning, once context had been applied, was completely about joy – the joy of a long and successful career; the joy of a long friendship, even with an adversary on the court; the joy which great achievements had brought; the joy with which those achievements were shared with the many fans who’d closely followed each game, set and match; the joy of just knowing that a decent, nice person can do well in life; the joy of knowing that when you get to the top, you still have the presence of mind to send the lift back down so others can follow your rise.
These are the days of the autumnal equinox, the hours of the night closely matching those of the day, mists hang heavy over the fields in the morning, whilst the sluggish sun rises and paints it’s golden, joyful glow.
Autumn by John Clare
The thistledown’s flying, though the winds are all still,
On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill,
The spring from the fountain now boils like a pot;
Through stones past the counting it bubbles red-hot.
The ground parched and cracked is like overbaked bread,
The greensward all wracked is, bents dried up and dead.
The fallow fields glitter like water indeed,
And gossamers twitter, flung from weed unto weed.
Hill-tops like hot iron glitter bright in the sun,
And the rivers we’re eying burn to gold as they run;
Burning hot is the ground, liquid gold is the air;
Whoever looks round sees Eternity there.
Coles Signed Editions – It’s not just the leaves changing colour which displays the coming of Autumn, the other indicator is that ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ starts again! Dame Darcey Bussell, the most delightful of all ‘Strictly’ judges, kindly signed some bookplates for us a while ago and we’ve popped them into her book ‘Evolved’ – a collection of photographs spanning her 30 year career as one of the worlds best know ballet dancers. Gyles Brandreth is back with a whistle-stop tour of Britain’s history; we have a few 1st Editions of Bea Setton’s ‘Berlin’ from Book Club the other evening (an author to keep an eye out for); our other storytellers this week are Orhan Pamuk, Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Johana Gustawsson and local boy Dan Jones; the music is from Miki Berenyi of Lush with her memoir, and ABBA expert Carl Magnus Palm looks back at 50 years of the Swedish quartet; Jamie Oliver is in the kitchen; the poetry lesson this week comes from Rupi Kaur and younger readers are sure to be spellbound be the delightful ‘Something About a Bear’ by Jackie Morris. Our Gary Barlow Signed Editions are now shipping and so too is Annie Leibovitz’s ‘Portraits 2005-2016’.
Coles Signed Editions for Pre-Order include Cars with James May, The Jam with Rick Buckler and the remarkable Alan Moore with an equally remarkable collection of short stories.
The full newsletter with links to books can be found HERE
