QuickLit June 2021

 Linking up with Modern Mrs Darcy as usual for quick reviews. Someone seems to have flipped the switch from spring to summer here on the Slovenian coast. Sun cream (sunscreen to US readers - don't ask why the British still use an old-fashioned word!), sea bathing and gelato is the order of the day, plus hiding indoors to read when it's too hot. Here's my reading from last month:

Taylor Jenkins Reid - Daisy Jones and the Six

This is going to be one of my best reads of the year. I love rock music and the whole rock scene from the late 60s/early 70s, and Reid brought it to life so vividly for me, I felt I was reading nonfiction. Told in interview-style as an investigative journalism piece, it explores how Daisy Jones and the group The Six got together, rocketed to fame - and broke up just as they reached stardom. Part of the hook is figuring out whose version you are going to believe, and to what extent. I've been recommending it to anyone I know who shares my love of that music genre.

Ruth Saberton - The Locket

A dual timeline story that revisits characters from The Letter (review here), which I really enjoyed. I thought this was okay, nothing amazing, perhaps because it is very similar to the first.  Looking for something to occupy her mind while her son serves in Afghanistan, Alison finally begins sorting through her mother's belongings, and brings to light a hidden WWI love story between her upper class great grandmother and a photographer.

One of Martin's whimsical illustrations for The Art of Repair

Molly Martin - The Art of Repair

The title is a play on words - this is a little book both about how to repair clothes, and a paean to it as an act of love, peppered with stories of rescuing beloved clothes (or toys). I devoured it in an evening, but am still returning to it over and over again. If you are looking for a comprehensive manual, you'll be disappointed, as Martin uses a very simple approach with just 6 basic stitches, but if you want something more philosophical and whimsical, you might check it out.

Charlotte Bronte - The Professor

This was unpublished in Charlotte's lifetime, and she largely rewrote this early novel into Villette. She made a wise choice - this first novel quite clearly works out the homesickness and cultural shock she (and Emily) endured during their years abroad as teachers/pupils more than it is crafted as a great novel. Rejecting, and rejected by, his family, William Crimsworth takes a position as a professor in Brussels, where his English Protestant sensibilities suffer amid Catholic culture, until he meets the (Protestant) woman who proves a fit companion. Honestly, it was hard to sympathise with someone who, from a modern viewpoint, is a misogynist and bigot. But now I only have Villette to go and I have (re)read all of Charlotte's novels this year.

Maggi Andersen - Never Dance with a Marquess

This is the latest in Maggi's 'Never' romance series. Nicholas is determined to abide by the wishes of his late mentor and friend, Max, to become the guardian of his two younger children, and see the elder daughter, Carrie, safely through her London Season and into the arms of a suitable husband. But Carrie does not care for the marriage mart when she has discovered the right man under her nose. Can she break through the defenses Nicholas has erected after a youthful tragedy, and, together, can they protect her siblings from Max's ruthless brother? Maggi (a member of my critique group) has perfected the art of the romantic novella, so if you want a perfectly-sized romantic treat, I recommend this and any of her Regency books. Maggi also kindly reviewed my novel on her blog recently.

I'm hoping that I won't be around for next month because PM Boris will finally have let me get into the UK without quarantine. We shall see...

QuickLit January 2021: Reading round up for 2020

 First link up of the year with Modern Mrs Darcy. I thought I'd share reading stats and my starred reads for last year, since I enjoy others' round ups as well. (Reviews edited from my original posts.)

It doesn't look like all those Pinterest photos, but I had a stab at a book tree this year!

I read 54 books in 2020, for a total of 17, 597 pages, deliberately fewer than in 2019. By the end of the year, I felt that I was beginning to make reading a competition with myself, and I decided to slow down. So my goal for 2021 is even fewer books, read with more attention.

Of those, 46 were fiction and 8 non-fiction. I think that is a by-product of my job dealing with copy-editing non-fiction, because when I first gave up my job teaching literature, I was desperate to catch up with non-fiction. 32 were e-books (since I don't have access to many books in English here in Koper) and sixteen were print, mostly bought second hand on trips to the UK. Only six were audio books. I pivoted to podcasts over audiobooks at some point, but I'll try to get in a few more next year. 

I rarely buy new books unless I know the author personally, because I prefer reads that have stood the test of time. (I know I should do better in supporting authors.) So, it's not surprising to me that two of my favourites were new publications (and non-fiction) that I couldn't resist: Square Haunting and The Salt Path. 

The women of Bloomsbury. Credit: NYT

Square Haunting: Five Women, Freedom, and London Between the Wars is a non-fiction debut by Francesca Wade.  In five linked biographies, she explores the time spent in the same Bloomsbury square by five notable British women: novelists Virginia Woolf and Dorothy L. Sayers, academics Jane Harrison (with Hope Mirrlees) and Eileen Powers, and modernist poet H.D. I especially recommend it for young adult girls, who should know about these women who paved the way for us, who dared to live, work and love outside the bounds of society's dictates, not afraid to re-imagine their lives, even, as with Harrison, when in their 70s.

I only reviewed The Salt Path by Raynor Winn last month, but here's the shortened version: In mid-life, Winn and her husband, Moth, lose everything, and in the same week, Moth receives a diagnosis of a fatal degenerative disease. With no home, little money, and nowhere to go, they decide to walk the 600-mile South West coast path of Britain, wild camping on the way. Beautiful nature writing, and some sobering insights into homelessness.

Raynor and Moth. Credit: Guardian

My three starred fiction books also unsurprisingly included two classic authors, Dorothy L. Sayers and Daphne Du Maurier, and one not-quite-new novel by Madeline Miller.

The Nine Tailors, a Lord Peter Wimsey novel by Sayers is quite simply, a truly grown-up detective novel. It's the best Wimsey one I have read, though I hear lots of people vote for Gaudy Night on that count. After crashing their car on a treacherous New Year's Eve in the Fens, Lord Peter Wimsey and Bunter are taken in by the local vicar, and Lord Peter helps the bellringers ring in the new year. But when a strange and mutilated body is later discovered buried in another's grave, the vicar calls him back to investigate. Hearing the local cathedral bells has now taken on a whole new meaning...

Du Maurier. Credit: Guardian/Hans Wild

The Parasites is a lesser-known Du Maurier novel, but I think it's one of her most accomplished. The Delany children - step siblings Maria and Niall, linked by Celia, half-sister to each - are the children of famous artistes. When Maria's husband bitterly announces one afternoon that they are nothing but parasites, they delve into their past to put themselves on trial. To call it a psychological drama might sound boring, yet it is anything but. Even the narrative voices are parasitic, feeding off one another and merging in and out of one unidentifiable 'we'. Absolutely read it if you have enjoyed her other books.

I loved Miller's retelling of the Achilles and Patroclus story in The Song of Achilles. It was right up my alley: classical, with spare but lyrical prose, and sensual (but not explicit). The story of the greatest Greek warrior unfolds through the eyes of Patroclus, an unloved, exiled child prince who becomes first Achilles' companion and then lover. Beautiful final chapters that I kept returning to.

What were your favourite reads of 2020? How do you track your reading? Here's a few other MMD reader round-ups for your inspiration:

Anne Bogel at Modern Mrs Darcy on her favourite books and audiobooks.

Linda Stoll at LindaStoll.net

Kendra Nicolle at Kendra Nicolle: My World in Reviews

Laura Thomas at Laura Thomas Author

Lisa at Lisa Notes 

Katie Gilley at The Cozy Burrow

  

Quick Lit August 2020

Linking up with Modern Mrs Darcy as usual for QuickLit.

Ah, the dog days of summer. We're sweltering here on the edge of the Mediterranean, so thank goodness we live only a five-minute walk from the sea. I feel like I'm not really into my reading at the moment, so it's nice to keep this record and remind myself that I've managed to squeeze in some good books.

Melon and very little clothing - that's how it's going at our house nowadays

Katherine Reay - The Bronte Plot [audio]

This was free via the InSnyc teen summer reading programme. I liked the premise of the novel: a dying woman, Helen, determines to settle past regrets, and travels to England, choosing as her companion Lucy, the granddaughter of her first love. Lucy is also grappling with her past, wondering if she can ever break free from the dubious influence of her family - and has also just broken up with Helen's grandson over this. However, the setting was the lives of the super rich, which does not interest me, so I felt somewhat detached from the characters.

Daphne Du Maurier - The Parasites

Not so with this novel, that is still haunting me. Several avid Du Maurier readers told me they had not heard of this one, so I suppose it must be a hidden classic. The Delany children - step siblings Maria and Niall, linked by Celia, half-sister to each - are the children of famous artistes. When Maria's husband bitterly announces one afternoon that they are nothing but parasites, they delve into their past to put themselves on trial. To call it a psychological drama might sound boring, but it is anything but. Even the narrative voices are parasitic, feeding off one another and merging in and out of one unidentifiable 'we'. If I could make a wish to write like only one novelist, I think it would have to be Du Maurier (Barbara Pym would be second). Absolutely read it if you have enjoyed her other books.

Dorothy L. Sayers - Five Red Herrings

There seems to have been a run on sales for the Lord Peter Wimsey novels. I have to say, I wish I had read this one in a physical copy so that I could flick back and forth. There are six suspects, many of whom Sayers gave standard Scottish names, and much of the mystery involves railway timetables. Many times, I felt like I should go back to the beginning and start a whodunnit spreadsheet. But, to the plot: a belligerent artist is found dead with his half-finished painting, and all his acquaintances are suspects. A good story, excellent red herrings, but an abrupt ending, I thought.

And now, onto confession time...

Katherine Hayton - Marjorie's Cozy Kitten Cafe [audiobooks]

I was getting the 'second wave' of Covid-19 anxiety, and this trio of audio mystery novellas beckoned for only 99 cents. Actually what sold me was the reviewer who complained 'Not enough cats.' Easy listening while I make dinner, and better for the hips than chocolate therapy.

I hope you are enjoying summer reading. With any luck, I won't be posting next month, because I have a holiday booked to see family in the UK. Fingers crossed for the flight!

Quick Lit March 2020

Linking up with Modern Mrs Darcy as usual for QuickLit. Quite a lot happened this month: carnival, school closures, spousal travel, coronavirus arriving next door in Italy, but I still squeezed in four books. And a craft! I decided months ago that what our alcove needed was a book wreath - and I finally forgot chores one weekend and pulled it together. The hardest part was tearing that first page out of the book (The Du Mauriers by Daphne Du Maurier, if you are wondering).

B.B. The Little Grey Men
I picked this up in a second-hand bookshop because I remembered enjoying works by B.B. as a child, though I couldn't remember anything specific about the stories. It been sitting on my shelf waiting for my son to be old enough to have it read to him... but then I was on sick leave and looking for something to read, and I thought, why am I holding off?
And I am so glad I opened it. I was entranced from the beginning. This is the story of the last gnomes in England, who decide to go on an expedition upriver to seek their brother who left the year before to look for its source and never returned. The story is riveting and the nature writing exquisite. If you loved The Wind in the Willows, or Tolkien's Middle Earth, you will probably love this too. B.B.(real name Denys Watkins-Pitchford) describes it as a book for all ages, and I agree. (One small warning if you have sensitive children - this is a story of the natural world, so death is part of life here, including a sadistic human who comes to a bad end.) If you didn't believe in gnomes before you read it (why?), you will by the end.
Now to start scouring bookshops for more B.B. ...


Rosemary Morris - Friday's Child
Rosemary Morris is a member of my online critique group, and I always think of her as an example of not giving up on your dreams - because that was what she was about to do when, at retirement age, her first romance was finally published. This is the penultimate in a series of loosely linked Regency romances - light reading, and all with firmly closed bedroom doors. It is Lady Elizabeth's coming out, but she has already fallen for Mr Yates. However, a chance accident links her to her eldest brother's older friend, who finds himself attracted to her - and both men have a connection with India that one of them at least is keen to hide... If you like this, you've got five more to binge, with the last one in progress!


Dorothy L. Sayers - The Nine Tailors
After crashing their car on a treacherous New Year's Eve in the Fens, Lord Peter Wimsey and Bunter are taken in by the local vicar, and Lord Peter helps the bellringers ring in the new year. But when a strange and mutilated body is later discovered buried in another's grave, the vicar calls him back to investigate. I'd call this a mystery for grown-ups - complex and satisfying, and kept me guessing as to the exact details of the crime. However, hearing the local cathedral bells has now taken on a whole new meaning...

Alan Bradley - I am Half-Sick of Shadows (Flavia de Luce mysteries Book 4)
A film crew arrives at the crumbling de Luce mansion just before Christmas, but soon the leading lady is dead and half the village is snowed in with the body. Many readers seem to love this series featuring a precocious 11 year-old chemist, but, although it was entertaining, it didn't really draw me in. Perhaps that was because I read it on the heels of Sayers's adult mystery, or that I started mid-series (I also didn't get into the Lord Peter mysteries until the second).  So, to be fair, I would give another one a go.

At the moment of publishing, I'm with family in the UK, wondering if my flight back to Slovenia tomorrow will be cancelled, and I'll be stuck here at the seaside surrounded by tearooms and second hand bookshops :)

Quick Lit Februrary 2020

Linking up as usual with Modern Mrs Darcy for QuickLit. Having told myself that this year I was going to wait for the right books and not fixate on numbers, I seem to have read quite a lot in January. This was helped by the doctor telling me to rest for a few days (I had three viruses in succession this winter - nothing life threatening, but a great excuse for a reading vacation!). We shall see how this progresses.

Source: Wikimedia commons

Barbara Pym - Some Tame Gazelle
A solid start to the year with a favourite author. The overarching theme of Pym's novels is women waking up to find that life has become rather ordinary - but her exploration of that theme is anything but ordinary, and full of wry humour. In this novel, Harriet and Belinda Bede are two spinster sisters in their fifties, living in a small parish. Belinda is sustained by her faithful love for the archdeacon who spurned her thirty years ago (and lives practically next door with his waspish wife), while the voluptuous Harriet lavishes her affections on each new curate who passes through the parish. Delicious (literally, since food as a social weapon is also a feature of this novel).

Muriel Barbary - The Elegance of the Hedgehog
My elder daughter has been raving about this for several years. It focuses on two people living mentally isolated lives in an upscale French apartment block: the autodidact concierge and a teenage girl carefully planning for her suicide in a year's time. When a new, unconventional owner moves in, the three of them are brought together in ways that illumine all their lives. This book ranks along with Ishiguro's The Buried Giant as one that made me really angry - it drew me in with its beautiful writing and plot, and then just as I was in love with it, hit me with an unfair ending that made me want to throw the book across the room (except it was an ebook, so I couldn't break my device.). You have been warned.

Source: Alyssa Cole, Twitter

Alyssa Cole - Radio Silence
I'm not a contemporary romance reader, but a while back, I came across the controversy splitting the Romance Writers of America, and decided to widen my horizons just a tad with this interracial romance. In this first in a trilogy, the lights have gone out across America, and Arden and her room mate, John, escape urban chaos for the safety of his parents' cabin in the woods. However, despite the lack of electricity, sparks are soon flying between Arden and John's older brother. It was okay, but it confirmed that contemporary romance is still not my thing. Still, I'm glad it made me think about the issues of representation in the genre.

Anne Bogel - I'd Rather Be Reading
I listened to the audio of this a year ago, but felt it might be better savoured in print, and I was correct (apologies to Anne, who narrated). This way I could ponder her thoughts on the reading life, flick back and forth to passages I wanted to re-read, and absorb the whimsical artwork. I'm looking forward to her next book, Don't Overthink It.

Ruth Hogan - The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes [audiobook]
I enjoyed The Keeper of Lost Things, and I'd been in a audiobook slump, so I thought I'd give this a go (thanks to a Chirp deal - readers who are in the US or can fake it digitally should check them out!). It's a book infused with the joy of living - or, how to find the joy in living - inspired by Hogan's own decisions following both a disabling car crash and brush with cancer. Masha has put her life on hold since the drowning death of her little boy twelve years ago, but two eccentric older women, who have lived through tragedies of their own, help her to find her way back. In a secondary plot line, Alice, a single mother who has devoted her life to her son, faces third-stage cancer. I can't say too much more, or I'll give away the story (what I've written here does not tell all!), but let's just say that if this had been a printed book, I would not have been able to stop myself flipping to the end to see what happened! Although the topics are dark - child bereavement, cancer, and dementia - and often starkly portrayed, the book is infused with wry, British, self-deprecating humour. The narrator was pitch perfect, with a great range of accents.

I usually think of Welty as an old lady, so I liked this photo of her in her youth. Credit: www.mdah.ms.gov/welty/eudora-welty/biography.php

Eudora Welty - Morgana
This is a notorious book from our shelf. Notorious because my husband got drunk at our church Oktoberfest/fundraiser back in the US and paid at least twice what it was worth (what can I say  - it was the Episcopal church, and I'm sure God credited him all that extra money). It's a limited edition copy of two stories from the collection "The Golden Apples", signed by Welty and the illustrator. The stories, set around 1910-20 in a little Southern Mississippi town, focus on moments of transition in the lives of adolescents. Welty's great strength is her evocative writing, whether it is descriptions of the Mississippi summers (almost too much for me, who suffered through them for years) or her unflinchingly accurate portrayal of racial attitudes in her beloved home state.

And a new footnote: Out This Month
I have some pretty prolific friends in my historical fiction online writing group, so I decided to start listing their new publications each month. All these are available via Amazon or your favourite ebook store. These are usually the sort of books you want to curl up on the sofa with and enjoy (as opposed to throw across the room).

Rosemary Morris - Friday's Child. Closed door Regency romance. Review to follow next month.
Diane Scott Lewis - Her Vanquished Land. Only one open door ;)

Hope you enjoyed the longer round-up. I know that doctors here can prescribe a rest at a spa, too, so I'll be plotting for that next :)

Quick Lit January 2020

Srečno novo leto! Happy New Year! Linking up with Modern Mrs Darcy as usual for QuickLit.

I know this is heresy to those of you whose TBR piles exceed the holdings of a small town library, but I have found myself somewhat agreeing with Marie Kondo's assertion that a book comes into your life at the right time to read it. Witness the free or on-sale unread books clogging up my Kindle. So, my New Year's resolution was to ruthlessly remove the books I had not got around to reading (for physical books, that happened with the Great Move - well, except for fine editions). For some people, an abundance of books is exciting, but for someone who does guilt really well, it was just an accusation of something else not completed. So, this year, I am going to try not to accumulate too many reads, and trust that the right book finds me at the right time - I'll report back on how it goes.

 On to last month's reading...

Syrie James - The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen
A chance discovery of a manuscript reveals the story of Jane's one great love. Maybe this would appeal to some Austen fans, but for me it relied too much on scenes in Austen's own novels.

Jane Austen - Persuasion
...But at least it sent me back to the great author herself. I have her works on Kindle, because I got rid of my paperbacks when I moved. I intend to treat our bookshelf to  a hardback collection of her novels, probably from the Folio Society. The original "second chances" novel.

H.Y. Hanna - The Mousse Wonderful Time of the Year
In a fit of the Christmas spirit, I broke my usual rule and paid full price for this new cosy mystery. Tenth in the Oxford tearoom series, Gemma finds herself snowed in at a Manor house with her cat, a body and a bevy of relatives with grievances. It was just the relaxation I needed.

Kenneth Grahame - Dream Days
Something checked off from my bookshelf! Better known as the author of The Wind in the Willows, this work of Grahame's is a series of fictional childhood memoirs, perhaps most notable for the fact they break free from the Victorian mould to see things truly from the child's point of view. It also contains his fairy tale, "The Reluctant Dragon".

Source: NYPL, as below

Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol [audio]
Did you know that the New York Public Library has a free audio of Neil Gaiman reading Dickens' own performance edition of his most beloved work? A lovely treat for the end of the year.

Here's wishing you a wonderful reading year, whatever your book-choosing style!

Quick Lit July 2019

 Linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy as usual. I didn't read too much in June. For one, I was in the US attending my daughter's graduation - and getting in a little literary pilgrimage to Salem, home of Nathaniel Hawthorne. For two, we are in the throes of purchasing a house. And three, I was a beta reader for an upcoming historical novel, which I loved but can't reveal!

Picnicking in front of the House of the Seven Gables in Salem!

Robin Sloan - Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
I picked this out of the library in my daughter's dorm house in Cambridge, MA, while staying there for her graduation (from MIT, excuse the proud parent moment). It's a tale of ancient literary mystery meets Google (quite literally). Out-of-work Clay stumbles into a job as a night clerk at Mr Penumbra's bookstore, and soon discovers that the mysterious night-time customers are novices and initiates into a centuries-old secret society. With the aid of his tech-savvy friends, he sets about finding the final solution to the coded secret left by its founders. I especially enjoyed how this novel wove friendships across generations and celebrates the craftsmanship of both the past and the future.

Barbara Pym - Less Than Angels
I was feeling in a slump, and Pym is always the perfect pick-me-up. Her books are light and witty, but never shallow. In this 1950s comedy of manners, she draws on her experiences working at the International African Institute in London to pen a tale of love and petty rivalries among anthropologists, dissecting the lives of those who consider themselves experts at dissecting the lives of others. This novel has a larger cast of characters than other Pym novels I have read, and it was hard to keep everyone straight at first (you know, all those kinship ties), but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Where The Scarlet Letter began: the Custom House, Salem

Katherine Pym - The Barbers
Surnames a coincidence! This roistering Restoration tale is from a member of my online critique group, one in a series (not particularly interlinked) of London novels leading up to the Great Fire. Celia illegally practises surgery in her father's barber shop, a career not generally allowed to women, and then only outside the City of London. She is naturally skilled, with psychic powers that match her scientific curiosity. However, Celia's greatest threat is not her status but her ne'er-do-well family, who continually threaten to come between her, success and love. Katherine Pym's unusual style seeks to immerse you into a 17th-century experience - this is for you if you want a fun read with a difference.

And, Make Way for Ducklings in Boston Public Garden! (Mrs Mallard's and my own)

Ruth Hogan - The Keeper of Lost Things
Author Anthony Peardew has been collecting lost things since the tragic day forty years ago he lost not one but two precious things in his life. Now, he leaves his legacy to housekeeper and assistant, Laura, herself a 'lost thing' he rescued after a confidence-shattering divorce. Laura's mission is to reunite objects and owners - but she has to deal with lost souls as well as lost objects who need happy endings (including her own). A sweet, magical story.

Any plans to make your own literary pilgrimage this summer? Happy reading!

Quick Lit March 2019

Linking up with Modern Mrs Darcy for Quick Lit again. I envy the people who go on holiday and rack up a book a day - my reading is almost non-existent when we are travelling because I lose my usual slots of alone/ free time. But I did pick up loads of books for my son in the UK thanks to his auntie, plus a few for me (see a couple of literary photos of the trip below). Some were ones I had passed on to my nephew several years ago  - I was very glad to get some favourites back!

That might not look like many books - but my luggage limit was two cabin bags :)

Susan Wittig Albert - A Wilder Rose
I loved the Little House on the Prairie books, but I was never invested in Laura the author, so I am not bothered by the now generally-accepted idea that Laura's daughter, the professional author Rose Wilder Lane, extensively edited her mother's novels. This is the story of the mother-daughter relationship during the depression years, when the collaboration developed - to make a terrible pun, it was definitely not a bed of roses. It was very interesting to learn so much about Rose and the era, but the book read more like a fictionalised biography than a novel.

Elizabeth Gaskill - The Life of Charlotte Brontë

Another minor classic, to go with last month's Siddartha. It's notable for being the first serious biography of a female novelist by a fellow female novelist, and for helping start the Brontë legend. Don't expect a modern biography. The first part goes off on lots of tangents as Gaskill gathers the material that influenced all the Brontës' writing; I could not really get into it until about half way through when she settled into a more focused narrative, but then I really enjoyed it. But I'll be honest: this is probably more for hardcore Brontë fans or people with backgrounds in literature.

Literary-related photo: Tintern Abbey on my recent trip to the UK. Go - it's beautiful!

William Goldman - The Princess Bride
I was a little dubious about reading a novel with lots of authorial interjections, but I loved it. This swift-moving fairy tale of derring-do was a good antidote to the slower, serious biography of Charlotte Brontë. It's best described by the author: "Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes, Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles." I saw the movie (also scripted by Goldman) thirty years ago, so I can't remember enough to make a comparison. Like its premise, I agree it would be a wonderful read-aloud for a not too sensitive  - see list above - child of ten or so (without the authorial interjections).


Another vaguely literary-related photo to finish: my son eating a Bath bun on a day trip to Jane Austen territory. May spring bring you good reading!

Quick Lit April 2018

A month in which I apparently read so much that the cats must have starved and my children gone around in dirty clothes. And I think I had a husband, but I probably mislaid him somewhere.

I read very little translated literature. It's because I've studied languages and, while I'm fluent in none of them, I'm aware of all I'm losing when I can't read something in the original language. My only exception (with no rationale whatsoever) is ancient literature. So this month's reading surprised me rather...

Yana Toboso - Black Butler Vol I
I decided one way to engage our teen might be to ask her about a book recommendation. She said I should try reading manga. This wasn't the one she recommended (Death Note), but I've seen the anime version of that and Black Butler, and liked the latter better, so I gave it a go. It took a little while to get used to reading back to front and right to left, but I suppose that was a bonus brain exercise. Ciel is head of a noble household, CEO of an international business, and trusted aide to Queen Victoria - all at twelve years old. He accomplishes all this with the help of his butler, Sebastian, whose abilities are unbelievable - for a human, that is... It was entertaining, but I think I'd have to read more manga before I can decide whether I'm into it. At least I got to tick off my "book in a day" for the MMD reading challenge. And the tiny print finally prompted me to buy my first pair of reading glasses.

Sigrid Undset - The Axe
This is the first volume in the Master of Hestviken tetralogy by the Norwegian Nobel-prize-winning author - and, tantalizingly, I found the first three volumes in my library's 50 cent sale room. Kristin Lavransdottir is the Undset you find most people discussing, but this is in similar vein, reminiscent of Viking sagas, and with a slow, brooding sense of fate lingering over the story. Ovar and Ingunn were bethrothed as children, and Ovar was fostered by her family. In their teens, they consummate the betrothal (considered legal in Viking law), but Ingunn's father dies before they can be officially married, and his relatives want to dissolve the agreement. Ovar kills Ingunn's kinsman in a dispute, is outlawed, and so begins years of a cat and mouse waiting game. You have to like slow literature (which I do) to get into Undset's books, and while, on the whole, the writing is to be savoured, it did stall in places for me.

Jhumpa Lahiri - In Other Words
I picked this because my job is editing English language documents for a Slovenian university, and we're about to move there, but it turned out to fit nicely with my translated picks for the month. Pulitzer prize-winning writer Lahiri chose to follow her passion for Italian by taking her family to live in Rome. She begins with a resolution only to read in Italian, but ends up writing only in Italian as well. This is her series of reflections on living in the language rather than the country. It's dual language (so a short read if you're not fluent in Italian!), and Lahiri had someone else translate it into English so that it better reflects her Italian style. It captivated me, but then I am about to be immersed in another language, and am contemplating what life will be like for my toddler, growing up speaking one language in the home but surrounded by another totally unlike it.

Izaak Walton - The Compleat Angler. Read by Nelson Runger
No real link to the above books, except in the sense that, to take a quote from another book, "The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there." This is the seventeenth century English classic that I expect most Americans have never heard of (and most British people don't read nowadays, either). A virtuous how-to manual on angling and cooking your catch, with a good portion of poetry thrown in - and don't forget the very dubious, but entertaining, biology. Probably for readers who are classiphiles (if that's not a word I'm trademarking it now) or enthusiastic about the history of angling.

Yep, David Tennant and Michael Sheen as the demon-angel duo!

Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett - Good Omens
I didn't read this because of the upcoming TV series but because a good friend pressed it into my hands. And then I didn't open it for several months because I rarely read comic novels. Just the idea of someone trying to be funny on every page wears me out. But actually, it turned out this is funny. Really funny (especially if you're British and my age and therefore get all the references). The Powers Below (or is it really the Powers Above?) have decided it's time to launch Armageddon, but Aziraphale and Crowley, the angel and demon who've been in charge of earth since the Beginning, are rather attached to it and would like to hold off on the End. Their plan starts with the Antichrist - but it turns out that Sister Mary Loquacious of the Chattering Order messed up the baby-swapping plan. I never thought I'd giggle all through the Apocalypse. (It also has the distinction of being the first book I needed the above-mentioned reading glasses for because it's full of footnotes in tiny print.)

Jerome K. Jerome - Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)
A comic classic, beloved since its publication in 1889... but it just didn't appeal to me. Perhaps I was read out at the end of the month, or perhaps choosing it after Good Omens meant I didn't appreciate the 19th century humour as much. It's a short novel, recounting Jerome's expedition on the Thames with two friends and his dog, with many (many) asides, a classic British mode of telling a funny story. Usually I enjoy quirky novels with odd diversions, but when rain sent them scuttling back to London and abruptly ending the story, I was relieved. Maybe I'll give it another go in the future.

Erica Silverman - The Day the Chickens Went on Strike
This was a little beyond my toddler's comprehension level, but he pulled it out of the cupboard and insisted I read it. But it fits this month's theme of the supernatural/ foreign literature nicely with its retelling of a Yiddish Rosh Hashana tale. In some Jewish cultures, people make Kapores, that is, get rid of their sins by whirling a chicken round their head while praying. Well, the chickens in this Russian-Jewish village have had enough of that. A funny tale about the power of customs and self-responsibility.

You rang, M'Lady?

Linking up with Modern Mrs Darcy - and the first month I don't even feel embarrassed at the length of my reading list.

Book Review: The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell

This is a standard book for those of us with English literature degrees, so I can't believe - or even remember - why I avoided it for so long. Maybe it began as a slight aversion to the eighteenth century, which was never my favourite period of history or English literature. That's certainly changed over the years as I've come to have a deeper appreciation of how innovative - and modern-sounding - many of the prose writers are.

One maxim Dr. Johnson pronounced concerning the writing of lives was to tell all, and his devoted younger friend, James Boswell, (almost) dutifully complies in this monumental biography: the serious, the trivial, the flattering, the negative, the beneficent, the petty - all is here in a just-about-chronological miscellany of history, exposition, letters, quotations, and analysis that reads like a Who's Who of eighteenth Century England.

It's tempting to call Boswell the first fan boy, but his love and admiration for Johnson, though blinkered, isn't entirely blind. Johnson protests continually against seeing men as cardboard cutouts of saints or sinners, and the man that bursts from these pages is fully three-dimensional. We see the Johnson who rails against granting any sort of liberties for American colonists but who (to Boswell's rare disapprobation) supports the complete abolition of slavery; the Johnson who will capriciously argue with his literary club on whichever side he thinks will be most contentious, but who gives an honest answer to a little girl who dares to ask about his famous tics; the Johnson who will insult the rich and famous merely to be witty but who buys his own cat food lest his servant feel demeaned by the task.

Dr. Johnson and Hodge, "A very fine cat indeed."

The edition I got from my local library - the 1946 "Collector's Library" edition from Doubleday - turned out to be abridged. At 631 pages! I felt a little like I was cheating, but I have to say that the professed reason for the abridgment, to include numerous pen and ink sketches and portraits by Gordon Ross, made the read more pleasurable. I'd consider the Life accessible to any serious reader. The shortish chapters, divided by chunks of letters and exposition, make the biography easy to digest in smaller portions. I started slowly, but I was engrossed by the end, and had tears in my eyes at Johnson's death. (The only other biographer who has managed to do that to me was Peter Ackroyd in his life of Sir Thomas More.)

And the little pleasures and surprises were innumerable. I smiled almost every time I read of Johnson repairing to his friends' country villa in Streatham (anyone who knows the modern town will understand). And, though I'd get skinned if I gave exact details, I have to confess I was blown away with just how much a physical and mental colossus of the eighteenth century could resemble - and offer insights on - a twenty-first century teenage girl. I'd finish by saying don't wait thirty years to read it, like I did, but I've a feeling that three decades more of experiencing life's vicissitudes enhanced the pleasure. So, read it now, but be sure to read it again later in life. I intend to.

Quick Lit: October 2017

Modern Mrs Darcy seems to have skipped October's Quick Lit, but I'd already written the linkup post, so here it is:

This year, having given up my job teaching literature, and thus not having to spend all my reading time on what I was teaching, I decided to put more serious effort into rebooting my personal reading life. I was really chuffed when I reviewed my list about mid year and realised I'm averaging two books a month. Some Modern Mrs Darcy Readers may get through 200 books a year, but I'll be celebrating if I make it to a dozen!

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susannah Clarke
It's the early nineteenth century, and no practical magic has been performed in England for several centuries. A pair of enthusiastic theoretical magicians uncover a practical magician, Mr Norrell, living in seclusion and persuade him into the public eye. Eventually, he takes on a pupil, Jonathan Strange, whose talents quickly match his own. But while Norrell's mission is to re-envision magic for the Age of Reason, devoid of dangerous faery influences, Strange becomes obsessed with England's magical past and the father of English magic, the Raven King, whose realm once included the north of England. If you like fantasy, magic, historical fiction, alternative history, Jane Austen, and/or regency novels - all wrapped up in a long read (this is over 750 pages), then this may be for you. I finished it in two weeks - my husband said he felt like a widower.

Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
What? By whom? That was my reaction too. My husband bought this Edwardian tragicomic novel for our collection of Folio Society books as the heroine has his family name. But he's never read it, so I thought I should give it a go, for my "off my shelf" reads. Zuleika Dobson has risen from penury to riches by dint of a mediocre conjuring talent and an bewitching beauty that literally has men swooning three deep at her feet. When she arrives at that bastion of male bastions, Oxford University, to visit her grandfather, Warden of Judas College, the doom is set for all the young men who live under the shadow of the dreaming spires. I pretty much smiled all through the novel. This novel is in the vein of the better-known Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, so if you liked that, or enjoy Victorian/Edwardian novels, or were a Downton Abbey fan, you might appreciate this send-up of the British upper class. But keep a dictionary at hand - this is a vocabulary workout too :)

A bonus book this month - I found a copy of Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rys on the freebie table at our library. It's been on my mental to-read list for decades. I only wish I'd got to it sooner. Set in Rys's native Carribbean,Wide Sargasso Sea tells the story of Bertha Mason, Mr Rochester's mad wife, mainly from her point of view. It's a fast, intense read, having the emotional force of Jane Eyre without aping it. Definitely recommended for fans of Charlotte Bronte's novel.





A Flower Fairy Treasury by Cecily Mary Barker
We pulled my daughters' Flower Fairy books off the shelf for my toddler son. Cecily Mary Barker  lived in Croydon, where I went to school (it had an, ahem, more genteel reputation in her day). You could pretend you're teaching your toddler fine art, botany, folk lore, poetry, and vocabulary building all in one. Or you could just admit you read them 'to your child' so you can look at the pretty fairy pictures.

How do Dinosaurs Say I Love You by Jane Yolen
Dinosaurs and fairies - why not? Most "I love you" books are a little too cutesy for me, but this is truly funny - dinosaurs who act just like toddlers, and have human parents. You and your little velociraptor will appreciate it!

Still almost hitting 90 degrees here, but I hope it's actually autumnal where you are - happy October reading!

7 Quick Takes 55: My Family and Other Animals

Yes, I totally stole the title from Gerald Durrell - apologetic book review below. A bestiary of takes from our beast-ful house.

1. Look at this picture. A flying squirrel. Small, cute, cuddly, right?

Not when you're lying in bed at 5:30 am and IT JUMPS ON YOUR HEAD.

Because, yes, that is the sort of life I lead with cats who have a catch and release hunting program. (The jury is out on whether this is better than their "Partially eat it and leave guts on the rug" program.) FYI, flying squirrels are experts at scaling almost any surface to try to escape. And that includes you. The above-mentioned culprit ran up and over me about three times while I was chasing it around the bedroom.

2. My husband happened to make a joke about a recipe calling for lizard tongues. I pointed out that we have lizard tongues - we just have to catch the two enormous lizards living under our fridge, courtesy of Odie, our male cat. And I'd like to take the opportunity to point out again that throwing out a wriggling lizard tail is still gross. I did eventually catch one of the pair, but it took a little courage to grab it because it was really big. I mean, not komodo dragon big, but big enough that I thought it could bite me pretty badly - and it tried. That thing felt like a living muscle.

3. And what says Easter like a bunny - or two? Maundy Thursday, Hecate brought in a baby bunny that we eventually cornered in a closet. And another one a week later. At least bunnies don't jump on my head or want to eat me. I'm not sure how she gets them through the cat door.

4. To get away from cats (which is what half the fauna in our yard wish they could do), let's turn to this:

My teenage daughter found this baby mouse in the yard. And yes, I know she should have left it there to see if the mother came for it, but it was too late once she'd brought it in - and I expect it was dropped there by a cat anyway. We spent several days feeding it formula with a dropper; my daughter even set her alarm for 3am every night for a feeding. But, just as it seemed like the little mouse was going to make it, it passed away. A mix of sadness and relief there.

5. I've had Ameraucana hens for eight years, and I thought they were all blue/green egg layers, until I caught one in the act last week - laying a pink egg. I'd thought those belonged to one of my Buff Orpingtons. It's never too late to learn something about your chickens.

6. Talking of poultry, I was out in the yard with the toddler this week, watching a duck bounce comically across the grass after a butterfly. "Look at that silly duck!" I said. Then she caught it.
From the look on Alcuin's face, that's one more item he'll be discussing with his therapist in twenty years' time.

7. But if you REALLY want hilarious insanity that features all creatures great and small, I recommend My Family and Other Animals by British naturalist Gerald Durrell (published 1956). It's a memoir of the years his widowed mother took the family to live in Corfu in the 1930s (apparently cheaper than staying in England). I first read it in school - and have read it more than once since. It's one of a handful of books that make me laugh out loud. You will especially like it if you're an Anglophile and fan of eccentric British folk.

Fun fact: my brother auditioned for the part of the young Gerald Durrell in the BBC TV series when he was about 10. My parents said it was because he loved animals, but I think it was because my mother wanted a holiday in Corfu. Maybe if he'd got the part, my middle-aged friends would now be posting photos of him on FB instead of that Poldark guy.

For other links, hop or fly on over to Kelly's at This Ain't the Lyceum.

Off My Shelf: Orlando by Virginia Woolf

An occasional series where I share a review of a book I've had sitting on my shelf for a while and finally get around to reading/ rereading. I'm blackmailing myself to get through some of the backlog by posting about them!

Orlando is a re-read for me. I picked up a library copy several years ago, then bought a Folio Society edition last year. I should have started on one of my many unread books (Folio subscription addiction), but this one called to me, partly because it's short and my long reads keep getting interrupted at this time in life, but partly because the prose was playing in my head every time I glanced at the spine.

Vita Sackville-West

Orlando is Virginia Woolf's attempt to turn biography on its head. It's fiction, but is presented as non fiction, even including an index. Orlando's life itself refuses to conform to the template for all standard biographies. His story begins as a sixteen year-old nobleman in the Elizabethan age, and when it ends, she is thirty-six, and the year is 1928 (Woolf's present day). No, that wasn't a typo - Orlando wakes up part way through the book to discover he has become a woman.

Perhaps the only convention that Woolf aims for - and she even achieves that unconventionally - is to evoke the spirit of each age Orlando lives through. She explores the question of  how much we are an individual, and how much we are shaped by the world around us. Only in the Victorian period does Orlando feel out of sync with her life, which she remedies by taking a few minutes to find a husband and embrace the conventionality of the age.

Like Orlando, Woolf and her circle, the Bloomsbury Group, tended to bend and transgress societal boundaries. Although she and her husband had a deep love for one another, her life was coloured by an intense Sapphic affair with Vita Sackville-West, whose family owned the Knole estate in Kent. Orlando, of course, is Vita, not even thinly disguised - several photographs of 'Orlando' included in the book are of Vita.

Orlando is described as Woolf's love letter to Vita Sackville-West. While this is indisputably true, I also read it as a love letter to England. The anchor in Orlando's life is the great oak tree on his estate, whose roots, he feels, are the ribs that help anchor it - and him - to the earth. Although a prevailing theme of the novel is literature, its symbol is Orlando's poem "The Oak Tree", four hundred years in the making. The Spirit of the Age is found not only in the literary lights, but in the very atmosphere of the country, from the bold weather of Elizabeth's reign to the fertile, damp miasma of the Victorian age. Poetry, literature, life, love - Orlando never finds the answers to these questions, that bend and twist with each new century. Only the land remains a constant one can trust.

Admittedly, Woolf is not for the casual reader. But if you are serious about literature, enjoy quirky novels, and a good dose of poetry - or you're an Anglophile or bibliophile - Orlando is worth a read.

                  

7QT9: The Waiting Game

What does one do while pretending not to wait for a birth?

 1. Read something BIG
After coming across happy readers of Kristin Lavransdatter for maybe two years, I got a copy of the Norwegian trilogy, which won the Nobel prize for literature in 1928. One thousand pages of a historical (medieval) novel in the tradition of a Norse saga. I always thought that the concept of Ragnarok could only come from a people who spent half the year in the dark - I think the same goes for the reams of introspection and general sense of fate in this story. I have to say that some of Krtistin's interminable mental self-flagellation did get to me - by half way through I was beginning to sympathize with her feckless husband. On the whole, though, a read to satisfy grown-ups, as Virginia Woolf would say. It will take you to the heart of medieval Norway, and into the hearts of two people passionately in love and completely ill suited.

2. Tackle the almost-final frontier of decluttering
... in the shape of our wine closet aka living room cupboard. I forgot to take a before picture, but to give you some idea of the overall clutter, here is a picture of the living room after I recently rescued a flying squirrel from the cats:

I did not buy the boxed wine.

And here is the Konmari-ed cupboard: Not a squirrel in sight.

The final frontier, by the way, is photographs, but I don't have a spare six months for that yet.


 3. Become an independent trader
Our area has several great swap/sell Facebook groups, one exclusively for all things children. I've managed to sell my daughter's American Girl doll plus paraphernalia for a couple of hundred dollars (after she Konmari-ed her room) plus pick up some cheap baby items. We're giving her a cut on the principle that she should learn early that her unwanted stuff is worth money.

Lovely jubbly!

4. Spend too much time online looking up signs of labour, even though I know the only real sign is the appearance of a baby at the end of it. Start to hate Braxton Hicks.

5. Revisit my television youth
We were sporadically watching All Creatures Great and Small, but now we're getting in an episode a night. My younger daughter wants to be a vet so I thought she'd appreciate the series - and she loves it. Being an accurate portrayal of the British professional classes in the 30s, there is almost perpetual drinking. But boy... are some of those episodes really almost 40 years old? Something apart from the MCMLXXVII at the end of the credits that tells me I'm older: I would have had a thing for young Tristan Farnon (Peter Davison) first time around - now older brother Siegfried (Robert Hardy) is looking pretty handsome.

6. Wait, just wait...
Sometimes feel hopeful, sometimes cry a little...

7. And be rewarded
Alcuin Edward St John, who, at three days past his due date, is obligingly our earliest child ever!

For more Seven Quick Takes, join Kelly at This Ain't the Lyceum

Seven Quick Takes, Vol. 3

1. Recently, I've been feeling stuck for reading choices. I'm too tired at night to tackle anything really highbrow, so a second effort to get through St. Augustine's City of God is off the table. But I also don't want my brain to turn to mush, so no catching up with Fifty Shades of Grey (besides, it's Lent). Pulling out an Edwardian mystery I began to work on a year or two ago prompted me to think of Edwardian literature to catch up on (mysteries in particular).

2. What's positive about Edwardian fiction: the era is more than the image we have of the cigar-smoking playboy Edward VII (it's those King Edward cigar boxes - remember how we all used to have an empty one in the house, regardless of whether anyone actually smoked cigars?!). If we take "Edwardian" to mean the period up until World War I, it's a period when many had visions of social change: socialism, women's suffrage, workers' rights and sexual freedom, to name but a few.  Detective fiction, which of course hangs on the details, and often deals with the 'hot topics' of its day, is a great source of historical information on the period.

What's negative? The style can be stilted, often Victorian (though sometimes surprisingly modern). Detective stories don't let us into the detective's head in the way we're used to, so we often don't have the chance to make the connections or even 'see' the vital piece of evidence. That aside, here's a brief pick of authors I've tried:

3. G.K. Chesterton
Chesterton stands between the Victorians and Edwardians in terms of style, but his critique of contemporary society is fascinating because the benefit of hindsight shows us just how accurate he was - and how relevant he still is - when describing the malaises of modern life. Yet, despite that, he still has a real joy in the fact of living. I've enjoyed his Father Brown detective stories, and his novels, such as The Man Who was Thursday, are on my to-read list.

4. Victor L. Whitechurch
I've just begun Whitechurch's railway mysteries, featuring a vegetarian exercise fanatic and "gentleman of independent means". The writing is a little stilted, but I'm enjoying its quirkiness. Plus, I found out what a "plasmon biscuit" was! Kindle has some cheap editions of his work.

5. Baroness Orczy
Orczy created one of the first female detectives in Lady Molly of Scotland Yard. Lady Molly's talent is her intuition, the ability to see the connections and motives that mere facts don't always make clear. Her appeal is that she had turned detective to gather the experience and information to free her unjustly imprisoned love.

6. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Really, how many people actually read the original Sherlock Holmes stories instead of watching or reading the spinoffs? Doyle's Sherlock is a fascinating anti-hero: smart, bored, with a general antipathy towards women and an addiction to cocaine.

7. For more, almost forgotten mysteries, and an analysis of the genre, read The Edwardian Detective, 1901-1915, by Joseph Kestner.  For more Seven Quick Takes, hop on over to This Ain't the Lyceum.

More than red flannel petticoats: Edith Nesbit Part 2

Edith Nesbit’s most popular children’s novels are still available; several, such as The Railway Children, have never gone out of print since their publication over a hundred years ago.  On the other hand few, if any, have heard of her adult novels.  It’s more than just an irony of fate, however, that this unconventional author, who longed for recognition of her serious, adult novels, should be remembered for works that celebrate the conventional Victorian family.  Through her young characters, she speaks for the new middle classes spreading out of London into the garden cities, and which would become the backbone of England after the First World War destroyed the ‘gentleman’ class that had previously dominated life and culture.  That is, she speaks for us.

I’m an ardent fan of Edith’s children’s books.  My favourites, in roughly descending order, are: Five Children and It; The Enchanted Castle; The Railway Children; The Treasure Seekers; and The Phoenix and the Carpet (sequel to Five Children and It).  Others, for instance the sequels to The Treasure Seekers, are more hack work.  Here’s a taste of why I find them so delightful:

The ‘It’ of Five Children and It is a Psammead, a sand fairy the children accidentally unearth in a quarry.  The Psammead (a squat, furry creature with eyes on stalks) must grant the children one wish a day, that lasts until sunset – and of course, the disgruntled fairy takes their words very literally.  The children get to discover the truth of the proverb “be careful what you wish for.”  What, for instance, is the point of being “as beautiful as the day” if your own friends and family can’t recognize you, or having a pile of gold coins if they aren’t actually legal tender?

The Enchanted Castle is another fantasy with roots in real life.  Imaginary games of enchantment take on new life when a group of siblings and their friend discover that their ‘magic’ ring really is magical – and that real magic can be both delightful and dangerous.  Apparently, Noel Coward had a copy of it by his bedside when he died.

In The Treasure Seekers, the five Bastables, eager to help their widowed father ‘restore the fortune of the House of Bastable,’ look for ways to get rich, from digging for treasure to selling sherry to trying their hand at being highwaymen on Blackheath.  This novel earns the distinction of being one of only a few books that make me laugh out loud.

There’s no need to introduce The Railway Children to most English readers.  To those who haven’t had the chance to fall under its charms:  this is the story of three children living in relative luxury in London, whose father suddenly has to ‘go away.’  Their mother is forced to move the family to a shabby home in the country.  They begin to make friends with the railway workers and commuters, leading to a series of coincidences that change the family’s fate.  Though a children’s book, it highlights the real plight of dissidents and those caught up in the spy fever of the early twentieth century.

What I love about Edith Nesbit’s work is her feel for the sibling dynamics of her large families that might bicker and quarrel, but know that family sticks together.  As I mentioned in the previous post, I also love the way she explores the consequences of magic colliding with everyday modern life.  It’s interesting, I think, that the children are most often thrown on their own resources due to an absent or deceased parent and reduced family circumstances.  Edith certainly understood the latter, but tended to be the child sent away to school while her mother concentrated on her other, invalid daughter.  Perhaps even the realism of her stories, then, is part the fantasy of a childhood she herself rarely got to enjoy, and perhaps why her heart shines through the distance of a century to make these stories real for us today.