Rediscovering old friends on my book shelves during lockdown: Ian McMillan

Eventually, and with my wife’s help, I decided that there were far too many books in the room and, at a cause of some great personal anguish to myself but to the relief of the floorboards, we let quite a lot of the books go to good homes and that freed up space and it turned out there was a rug on the floor. Well, who knew? Now all the books (well, nearly all: a tiny mini-pile is starting to accumulate on the floor) are on shelves which means I can look fondly at all the spines of all the books. They’re not in any kind of order of course but I like it like that because serendipity happens and I come across book I thought I’d lost and, more importantly, books that have been very important to me as a reader and a writer but which I’ve not reread for a while.

So for the next few weeks in this column I’ll be talking about the old friends I’ve rediscovered on my shelves. I’m going to start with a prose writer who bowled me over the first time I borrowed a book of his from Darfield Library: Ernest Hemingway. The book was called The First Forty Nine Stories. The stories are spare; the language is bald and to the point. At the time I first read Hemingway I was obsessed with the poems of Dylan Thomas whose language is never bald and absolutely not to the point. To start with I was nonplussed but once you plug into Hemingway’s power his writing becomes really addictive. Here’s the opening to his classic story Up In Michigan: ‘‘Jim Gilmour came to Horton’s Bay from Canada. He bought the blacksmith’s shop from Old Man Horton.’’

Later in the paragraph Hemingway writes: ‘‘He lived above the blacksmith’s shop and took his meals at DJ Smiths’’ and there, in a few short sentences, we have Jim.

The writing is rhythmic and somehow muscular. There is no padding. There are few adjectives and adverbs. See: I’m writing like Hemingway now.

Hunt out his work if you’ve not read it before: he won’t let you down. Now, what’s next on the shelf…?

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor