Kathy (kac522) Finds a Quiet Corner to Read in 2022

“A Pleasant Corner”, 1865, John Callcott Horsley (1817-1903)

Welcome to my corner of reading in 2022. It is a mostly pleasant and quiet corner, where I hope to record the books I read this year as I drink lots of tea.

The painting above is on the cover of The Perpetual Curate by Margaret Oliphant which I am hoping to read this year with the Virago Chronological Read Project, and it does look like a pleasant corner indeed. The artist, John Callcott Horsley, was an English painter and the designer of the first Christmas card in 1843.

In addition to making my way toward 75 books, I really need to read those books that have been hanging around here forever. I’m keeping track of the books I’ve owned before 2022 and that I read this year (my “Roots") with this ticker:



Again this year I'm embarking on a number of personal "projects", which include reading books of favorite authors and series. Some of my personal projects include reading all the novels of Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Elizabeth von Arnim, Agatha Christie and Miss Read, to name a few. I hope to participate here and there in various LT groups and challenges, including the 75ers American Authors Challenge (AAC), 75ers British Authors Challenge (BAC), Reading Through Time Challenge (RTT), 75ers Nonfiction Challenge, RandomKIT Category Challenge, Roots Challenge and the 2022 Virago Reading Plan. And of course, lots of re-reads.

I’ll be tracking my progress for these challenges on my Category Challenge thread, which is here:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/337383#

So a warm, but hushed, Welcome to 2022....and a quick look back at the best of 2021....

Favorite reads of 2021:

Fiction (in order read):

Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood, 2016
The Other Bennet Sister, Janice Hadlow, 2020
Miss Mackenzie, Anthony Trollope, 1865
William, E. H. Young, 1925
The Solitary Summer, Elizabeth von Arnim, 1899
The Claverings, Anthony Trollope, 1867
Cousin Phillis, 1864 and Mr Harrison’s Confession, 1861, Elizabeth Gaskell, short stories
Now in November, Josephine Johnson, 1934

Re-reading fiction is my greatest comfort; I re-read 27 novels this year, most by audiobook. Books that were even more wonderful on re-reading were (in order read):

Little Dorrit, Dickens
Our Mutual Friend, Dickens
Jane Eyre, Bronte
84, Charing Cross Road, Hanff
Passing, Larsen
Diary of a Provincial Lady, Delafield
Rachel Ray, Trollope

Nonfiction (in order read):

Look Back With Love, Dodie Smith, 1974; memoir
His Excellency: George Washington, Joseph Ellis, 2004; biography
My Own Words, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 2016; essays, speeches, judicial decisions
Letter from England, Mollie Panter-Downes, 1939-40; magazine articles during WWII
Jane Austen: The World of her Novels, Deirdre Le Faye, 2002; Austen and her times
The Artful Dickens, John Mullan, 2020; literary styles and themes in his novels
The Pioneers, David McCullough, 2019; history of the settlers of the Ohio Territory

2022 Reading: January through June (♥ = Loved it!)

January

1. Battles at Thrush Green, Miss Read; (1975); Root from 2017
2. Going into Town, Roz Chast; (2017); graphic non-fiction
3. Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance, Sholem Aleichem (1888); translated from the Yiddish by Hannah Berman; Root from 2020
♥ 4. Miss Mole, E. H. Young (1930); Root from 2020
5. Meditations, Marcus Aurelius (2nd century CE)
6. Crooked Adam, D. E. Stevenson (1942)
7. Dinner with Edward, Isabel Vincent (2016)
♥ 8. Kidnapped, R. L. Stevenson (1886); Root from 2021
9. Floating in My Mother's Palm, Ursula Hegi (1990); Root from before 2009

February

10. Lyubka the Cossack, Isaac Babel; short stories translated from Russian by Andrew R. MacAndrew; 1921-1924; Root from before 2009
11. The Other Side of the Dale, Gervase Phinn (1998); Root from 2021
♥ 12. The Sleeping Beauty, Elizabeth Taylor (1953)
13. On Tyranny Graphic Edition, Timothy Snyder (text) and Nora Krug (illustrator) (2021)
14. "Betrothed" from Two Tales, S. Y. Agnon (1943); translated from the Hebrew by Walter Lever; Root from before 2009
♥ 15. A Lost Lady, Willa Cather (1923); Root from 2015
16. Linda Tressel, Anthony Trollope (1868); Root from 2019
♥ 17. Miss Buncle's Book, D. E. Stevenson (1934); re-read; Root from 2017
18. Burmese Days, George Orwell (1934)
19. At Home: A Short History of Private Life, Bill Bryson (2010)

March

20. The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins (1868); Root from 2016
♥ 21. Crossriggs, Jane & Mary Findlater (1908)
22. Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie (1937); Root from 2014
23. The Perpetual Curate, Margaret Oliphant (1864); Root from 2021
♥ 24. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens (1850); re-read; audiobook read by Simon Vance; Root from 2019
25. Rumour of Heaven, Beatrix Lehmann (1934); Root from 2017
26. Return to Thrush Green, Miss Read (1978); Root from 2018
27. My Husband Simon, Mollie Panter-Downes (1931); Root from 2017
28. A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf (1929); Root from 2021
29. The Natural, Bernard Malamud (1952)

April

30. Gossip from Thrush Green, Miss Read (1981); Root from 2018
♥ 31. Jenny Wren. E. H. Young (1932); Root from 2019
32. Emma: An annotated edition, Jane Austen (1816); edited with annotations by Bharat Tandon; read in tandem with Emma, audiobook re-read, read by Juliet Stevenson; Root from 2016
33. Old Filth, Jane Gardam (2004); Root from 2016
♥ 34. Under the Greenwood Tree, Thomas Hardy (1872); re-read from 1990
♥ 35. A Few Green Leaves, Barbara Pym (1980); re-read from 2013; Root from 2011
♥ 36. A Far Cry from Kensington, Muriel Spark (1988); Root from 2017
37. The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim (1922); Root from 2018; re-read from 2019

May

38. Mrs England, Stacey Halls (2022)
♥ 39. The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories, Sarah Orne Jewett (1896)
40. The Order of the Day, Eric Vuillard (2017); translated from the French by Mark Polizotti; Root from 2019
41. The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things. Paula Byrne (2012)
♥ 42. The Curate's Wife, E. H. Young (1934); Root from 2020
43. Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell (2020); Root from 2021
44. Twelfth Night, or What You Will, Shakespeare (1601)
45. The Buddha in the Attic, Julie Otsuka (2011); Root from 2015
♥ 46. Dangerous Work: Diary of an Arctic Adventure, Arthur Conan Doyle (2012)
47. Poor Caroline, Winifred Holtby (1931); Root from 2019
48. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (1859); re-read; audiobook read by Simon Vance; Root from 2013
49. Winston Churchill, John Keegan (2002); Root from 2019

June

50. Affairs at Thrush Green, Miss Read (1983); Root from 2018
♥ 51. Miss Mackenzie, Anthony Trollope (1865); Root from 2017; re-read
52. Tea is so Intoxicating, Mary Essex (1950); Root from 2021
53. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie (1926); re-read
♥ 54. North & South, Elizabeth Gaskell (1855); re-read; audiobook read by Juliet Stevenson; Root from 2009
♥ 55. The Feast, Margaret Kennedy (1950)
56. Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End, Jennifer Worth (2009); Root from 2014

2022 Reading: July through December

July

♥ 57. Lady Susan, Jane Austen (publ. 1871); audiobook re-read; Root from 2016
♥ 58. Persuasion (Collector's Library edition), Jane Austen (1817); re-read; Root from 2012
59. The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot (1860); re-read from 2001; Root from 1970s?
♥ 60. The Warden, Anthony Trollope (1855); audiobook read by Simon Vance; re-read; Root from 2014
61. Typical American, Gish Jen (1991); Root from 2009
62. Jeeves: Joy in the Morning, P. G. Wodehouse (1947); audiobook--BBC radio drama
♥ 63. Pride and Prejudice (Norton Critical Editions), Jane Austen (1813); re-read, Root from 2005
♥ 64. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989); Root from 2017
65. Murakami T: The T-Shirts I Love, Haruki Murakami (2021)
66. The Absentee, Maria Edgeworth (1812); Root from 2018

August

67. What Matters in Jane Austen?, John Mullan (2012); library re-read
♥ 68. Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope (1857); audiobook read by Simon Vance; re-read; Root from 2014
69. At Home in Thrush Green, Miss Read (1985); Root from 2018
♥ 70. Truman, David McCullough (1992); abridged audiobook read by McCullough; re-read; Root from 2014
71. Hester, Margaret Oliphant (1883); Root from 2021
72. The Caravaners, Elizabeth von Arnim (1909)
♥ 73. Epitaph for a Peach, David Mas Masumoto (1995)
74. The Perfect Peach, David Mas Masumoto (2013)
75. The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reader, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (2012), Root from 2012
♥ 76. Father, Elizabeth von Arnim (1931), Root from 2021

September

♥ 77. Doctor Thorne, Anthony Trollope (1858); audiobook re-read by Simon Vance; Root from 2014
♥ 78. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan (2021)
79. The Lark, E. Nesbit (1922)
80. Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit (2015)
♥ 81. The Sweet Remnants of Summer, Alexander McCall Smith (2022)
♥ 82. Lady Anna, Anthony Trollope (1874); Root from 2014; re-read from 2015
83. Appointment with Death, Agatha Christie (1938); Root from 2017
♥ 84. Early Days, Miss Read (1982 and 1986, 1995, rev 2007)
♥ 85. The Fortnight in September, R. C. Sherriff (1931)
86. The London Scene: Six Essays on London Life, Virginia Woolf (1932)
87. The Optimist's Daughter, Eudora Welty (1972); Root from 2015

October

♥ 88. A Chelsea Concerto, Frances Faviell (1959); Root from 2021
89. Miss Marjoribanks, Margaret Oliphant (1866); Root from 2021
90. Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens (1839); audiobook read by Simon Vance; Root from 2016; re-read from 2008 & 2018
♥ 91. The Vicar of Bullhampton, Anthony Trollope (1870); Root from 2014
♥ 92. The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde (1895); re-read from 2015
93. The John McPhee Reader, John McPhee (1976); essays
94. Cousin Phillis and Other Tales, Elizabeth Gaskell (1865); short stories; Root from 2017
♥ 95. The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy (1886); audiobook re-read narrated by Tony Britton; Root from 2016
96. Eminent Victorians: The Illustrated Edition, Lytton Strachey (orig 1918; this edition 1988); biography
97. A Pair of Blue Eyes, Thomas Hardy (1873); Root from 1989; re-read from 1989

November

98. Easy to Kill, Agatha Christie (1938)
99. Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, Daniel Kahneman (2021)
♥ 100. Fresh from the Country, Miss Read (1955)
101. The Man Made of Words: Essays, Stories, Passages, N. Scott Momaday (1997)
102. The Devil's Highway: A True Story, Luis Alberto Urrea (2005); Root from 2007
103. Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite, Anthony Trollope (1870); re-read from 2015

December

104. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert (1857), translated from the French by Lydia Davis; re-read from 1987; Root from 2014 (this translation)
105. Hercule Poirot's Christmas, Agatha Christie (1938)
♥ 106. The World of Thrush Green, Miss Read (1988)
107. The Getting of Wisdom, H. H. Richardson (1910)
♥ 108. Our America: A Photographic History, Ken Burns (2022)
109. Kids at Work: Lewis Hine, Russell Freedman with photos by Lewis Hine (1995)
110. Kate Hardy, D. E. Stevenson (1947)
♥ 111. Middlemarch, George Eliot (1872); audiobook read by Juliet Stevenson; re-read from 2015; Root
112. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (1843); audiobook read by Jim Dale; re-read; Root
113. An Irish Country Christmas, Patrick Taylor (2009); Root

Welcome back! I hope 2022 is a great reading year for you.

Hi Kathy my dear, i have dropped my star here.

Happy new thread and new year, Kathy!

This group always helps me to read; welcome back to the group, Kathy.

>5 drneutron: Thanks, I hope so, too.

>6 johnsimpson: Lovely to see you, John; thanks for stopping by.

>7 jessibud2: You found me! Shelley, you are more tech-savvy than you give yourself credit! Glad you be coming along.

>8 PaulCranswick: Yes, this group helps put reading as a major part of my life, too.

Happy reading in 2022, Kathy!

Happy New Year, Kathy!

Nice to see Diary of a Provincial Lady up there in your re-reads. Debbi and I love that one.

Hope you have a great year of reading!

>11 jnwelch: Welcome, Joe--And did you recognize the Academy Chicago edition in the picture? It's kind of falling apart, but I still have it. I re-read it for a "booktube" discussion video, which was fun.

>12 thornton37814: Thanks. The end of 2021 was a bit slow, but hoping to get my mojo back for January.

January Reading Plans:

Woman in the Wall by Julia O'Faolin, for the 2022 Virago Reads
Crooked Adam, D. E. Stevenson
Linda Tressel, Anthony Trollope
At Home, Bill Bryson, for Random KIT and 75ers NF Prizewinner
Kidnapped, RL Stevenson or A Traveller in Time, Uttley for BAC January (children's classics)
Still Life, Sarah Winman
The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams

This year I'm consciously reading books off my oldest TBR bookcase; some of these are decades old. I'm going alphabetically by author, picking at least one book from 2 letters each month

Arnow, H. The Dollmaker
Birmingham, S. Our Crowd

And for my RL book club: Meditations, Marcus Aurelius

I have a few more library books if I finish these.

Happy New Year, Kathy. I hope you had a great holiday with the family. It looks like we dodged the worst of the snow. I was prepared for 6-8 but I think we got 3 or so.

So glad to see Still Life on your list. It is one of my favorites from last year.

Hi, Kathy. Happy 2022! You have set yourself an impressive list of challenges! Happy reading.

>15 msf59: Thanks, Mark. Our holiday gave us a Christmas gift--Covid. Actually my husband tested positive, but I'm negative--go figure! So we are inside, whether or no there's snow outside. He isn't too bad, but does have a cough. So we're wearing masks indoors in our apartment.

I'm looking forward to Still Life because of your warbling. And I'll need to get to it ASAP because it's a library book with a long, long list of holds after me, so no renewals for me.

>16 ffortsa: Welcome! The list of challenges is long, but I'll probably only do challenges where I have a book on the shelves that matches the challenge. It's the only way to get some of these books outta here....

Hmm, the reading year is not starting exactly as planned.

I finished the next Miss Read book: so far, so good. But then I tried two other books which had glowing reviews, but I couldn't finish them and returned both to the library. They just weren't for me.

I only read 10 pages of Still Life by Sarah Winman to realize no quotations marks was going to be too much of a headache--I spent more figuring out who was speaking than time reading the text. Plus, the first scene in the book had too many references to cigarettes in the first 10 pages and it starts out with 2 women who are passive-aggressive and exceedingly nasty to each other. My understanding is that the story does get better, so I may try the audiobook sometime. But I am not going to read 450+ pages in print of mostly dialogue without quotation marks.

The other book was A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley. This is a children's classic about a girl in the 1930s who lives on a Derbyshire farm and travels back to the 16th century and the time of Mary Queen of Scots. I generally don't go for fantasy/time travel, but I was hoping that a child's version would resonate for me. Nope; read about 150 pages and it was a slog for me. I just can't suspend my disbelief in these types of stories. I tried, I really did, but I wasn't enjoying it. I would have loved a historical fiction novel about a girl in the 16th century OR a girl in the 1930s who listens to stories about the plot to kidnap Queen Mary. But constantly moving back and forth from 1930s to 1500s? Didn't work for me. Oh well.

I did read the introduction to Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and am looking forward to starting the text. I also started At Home by Bill Bryson last night, and am enjoying it a lot. Not sure what fiction I'll pick up next; maybe I'll hold off for awhile.

<13. Ha! Good for you, Kathy. Did I tell you that I worked at academy Chicago one sumner? Anita and Jordan Miller were special people with great taste in books.

I’m sure I have my old copy of Diary of a Provincial Lady tucked away somewhere.

>19 jnwelch: Yes, you did, and maybe you remember that I told you that my brother & my sister-in-law worked there, too, but on the Newspaper side (Newsclip? or something like that). I think they were there a few years before you, and they both left to work at Britannica.

>14 kac522: That is a good plan Kathy and I hope it helps you evenly reduce your TBR mountain. x

Have a splendid weekend.

>21 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul, but as is typical with me I've already changed the books. My A author book is done: Sholem Aleichem's Stempenyu (1888), about a charismatic fiddler (not the one on the roof). Very interesting characters and portrayal of 19th c. shtetl life. And my B author will probably be either Isaac Babel (stories) or Elizabeth Bowen's The Hotel.

I'm also doing the monthly AlphaKit and going strictly by author last name (H and R this month), and already read a Miss Read title and hope to get to Ursula Hegi's Floating in my mother's Palm.

>22 kac522: Ach I do that all the time too, Kathy. Part of the fun in planning is to change the plan!

>23 PaulCranswick: And with no shortage of books, it's too easy, isn't it!

>24 kac522: Well I do suppose I have a few advantages in that regard, yes. :D

>25 PaulCranswick: I'm not at your level, but I too have over 650 unread books around here....

Happy Sunday, Kathy! Sorry Still Life didn't work for you. I hope you give it another chance, sometime down the road. I hope your next book was much more successful.

>27 msf59: Hey, thanks for stopping by, Mark! I'm sorry it didn't work out either, and I had a couple more misfires, but the book I'm reading now, Miss Mole by E. H. Young is just my cuppa.

Although I don't post, I stop by your thread every day, just to get my Jackson fix! Just love the pictures of him; he sounds like he is a delight and I'm so happy for you and Sue.

By the way, my husband & I had a similar Covid experience the week after Christmas--he tested positive and I have remained negative. Don't know why; we were with the same people. He got a lot of congestion and is still on the mend. We tested last week again, and he is still positive; I've read that people can continue to test positive for up to 3 months.

>20 kac522: That’s right! Small world. That newsclipping service was the real moneymaker. The clipping was eclipsed by technology, wasn’t it. Ore small world: I represented Britannica as their IP lawyer for a lot of years.

In January I finished (mostly) 9 books and I DNF'ed 3 books, which I'll mention at the end of these reviews. I had two books I loved, a couple that were good and the rest were OK.

January Reading


1. Battles at Thrush Green, Miss Read, 1975
Type: fiction; off my shelves

The trials and troubles of the residents of Thrush Green. By the end, many are resolved, but we know new ones will crop up in the next book. I'm not as attached to these characters as I was in the Fairacre series, but I find that Miss Read has more complex characterizations in these books, so they are still enjoyable. A good way to start the year.


2. Going into Town: A Love Letter to New York, Roz Chast, 2017
Type: graphic non-fiction--a guide to New York; Read for Jan AAC; library book

A guide to New York like no other--in her very funny way, Chast combines cartoons, hand-written text, maps, photos and how-tos to help anyone who plans on "Going into Town." A lot of fun and informative, too, with a little history, memoir and city-fied "bewares" and you can't miss the love for NY.


3. Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance, Sholem Aleichem, translated from the Yiddish by Hannah Berman; 1888
Type: fiction; from my shelves

Stempenyu tells the story of a famed Yiddish violinist who travels from place to place winning fans, fortune and acclaim- and leaving a trail of broken hearts. Then one day he meets Rochalle, a beautiful married woman, and falls in love. “Stempenyu” was based on a real figure, a violinist, from Berdichev. I enjoyed this shtetl tale of love by the author of "Tevye the Dairyman" (better known as the basis for Fiddler on the Roof). The story feels like a fairy or moral tale, but the characters feel real: they are lovable but are not faultless. Somewhere around here I have a full volume of Sholem Aleichem stories, so I am looking forward to it.


4. Miss Mole, E. H. Young, 1930
Type: fiction; Virago Classic from my shelves; Read for January Virago 2022 Challenge

Miss Mole has spent her life in various households as a governess and lady's companion, and at the opening of this book at age 40, she is about to be sacked once again. Miss Mole, it seems, is an accomplished inventor of fibs--generally harmless--but sometimes get her into trouble. A cousin finds Hannah new employment as a housekeeper for a widowed minister and his 2 daughters. Slowly, with forward and backward steps, we learn Miss Mole's history, but she does keep us guessing her true story until the end. This was very funny and at times very dense, but a most enjoyable read. It was the highlight of my reading this month.


5. Meditations, Marcus Aurelius, 2nd century C.E.; translated from the Greek by Martin Hammond
Type: philosophy/memoir/diary; library book; read for my RL Book Club

It is supposed that these writings by Marcus were to himself as reminders to improve his character. He focuses on kindness, tolerance and being a just leader. Surprisingly relevant to today. The main flaw as a book is that it was repetitious reading in one or two sittings; it would have worked better to have read a few lines or pages each day over the month.


6. Crooked Adam, D. E. Stevenson, 1942
Type: fiction; library book

I have mixed feelings about this book. It was a hokey, unbelievable WWII spy plot interspersed with Stevenson's wonderful portrayal of Scotland and its people. A disappointment.


7. Dinner with Edward, Isabel Vincent, 2016
Type: memoir; library book

Vincent recalls her special friendship with Edward, the 90-something father of a friend. The two share special meals and grieving recent losses. Each chapter begins with a menu of a meal cooked by Edward. Also interspersed is some New York City history. This didn't engage me as I am not much of a foodie, and food is a major part of the connection between these two friends. Not a bad memoir, just didn't pull me in.


8. Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886
Type: fiction; from my shelves

I was a little hesitant to read this, as I was only so-so about Treasure Island. To my surprise, I very much enjoyed this young person's classic which I had never read. The story is engaging, fast-paced and the language is remarkable. Here's just one quote, spoken by Alan Breck, the Jacobite, to our hero, David Balfour:

"I wish ye were a wee thing paler; but apart from that ye'll do fine for my purpose--ye have a fine, hang-dog, rag-and-tatter, clappermaclaw* kind of a look to ye, as if ye had stolen the coat from a potato-bogle.**"

My Modern Library Classics edition was very helpful, with many notes and an extensive glossary of words from the Scots language.

*clappermaclaw: scolded
**potato-bogle: scarecrow


9. Floating in My Mother's Palm, Ursula Hegi, 1990
Type: fiction; from my shelves

This was written before Hegi's more famous novel Stones from the River, but is set post-WWII in the same German town, with some of the same characters. It is called a novel, but it is more a series of memories by a woman of her girlhood, circa the mid-late 1950s. There is a real sense of life and attitudes in postwar small town Germany. The stories are dark and the characters seem to feel great burdens. In fact, they are so dark that I skipped some of the chapters toward the end. The writing was very good, and the stories (that I could handle) were memorable.

I am finding that it is harder and harder for me to tolerate books that are dark, violent, or even just angry. Even small bits can get me to close the book and not re-open.

Besides Floating in My Mother's Palm, in which I skipped some parts as I mentioned above, I also didn't finished 3 other books this month. Two of them I mention in >18 kac522:; I also read about half-way through Women in the Wall by Julia O'Faolain, which just seemed brutal and pointless. It was written in the 1970s and I think I could have tolerated it back then, but not today.

What I can say about all of the books I DNFed is that they are all well-written books, so I hesitate to pan them. They may be wonderful reads for someone else; they're just not for me.

I have a really long, long list of books I want to read in February, and I doubt I'll get to all of them, but here goes:

Finished (sort of--skipped a lot--see above about difficult books):
Lyubka the Cossack and other stories, Isaac Babel (1921-1924)

Currently reading:
--David Copperfield on audiobook, read by Simon Vance; about half-way through this re-read and loving it.
✔ At Home, Bill Bryson; about half-way through
✔ The Other Side of the Dale, Gervase Phinn; just started

Other plans:
--The Children, Edith Wharton, for the February Virago reading challeng
--The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins, re-read for Monthly Author Read
--The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, Dan Egan, for Feb 75ers Non-Fiction
--Eva Luna, Isabel Allende; for Feb CATwoman--Women in translation
✔ Burmese Days, George Orwell, for my RL Book Club
✔ Miss Buncle's Book, D. E. Stevenson; re-read
✔ A Lost Lady, Willa Cather
✔ Linda Tressel, Anthony Trollope

and on the "if there's time" list:
*--The Real Jane Austen, Paula Byrne
*--The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams
✔ On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder--graphic edition
✔ The Sleeping Beauty, Elizabeth Taylor
--The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen
--The Needle's Eye, Margaret Drabble

*library books, so they may get pushed to the top if somebody else requests them.

>32 kac522:

Your lists make me feel better about *my* lists! :D

>33 lyzard: I know. I'm nuts. And I'm lucky (unlucky?!) in that our libraries are still open.

>32 kac522: Some great stuff on there, Kathy. I bought The Dictionary of Lost Words yesterday and probably won't wait too long before reading it.

I hope that your husband has fully recovered and is no longer testing positive. x

>35 PaulCranswick: I've been looking forward to The Dictionary of Lost Words for awhile, but other books keep getting in the way! I'm determined to get it in this month, if at all possible.

Not on this list are some possibilities--depending how my reading goes--for your Feb Asian challenge--it's either going to be Two Tales by S. Y. Agnon or Meir Shalev's A Pigeon and a Boy, both of which I've had on my shelves for a bit.

Thanks for asking about my husband, Paul. He's a lot better (even shoveled snow today). He first tested positive on New Year's Eve, and we went back for tests again on January 11. I was still negative and he was still positive. We haven't gone back again, as we've been told that some people can test positive for 2-3 months.

>36 kac522: You will both stay in my thoughts and prayers, Kathy. I am sure he will be fine. x

>36 kac522: Any update Kathy? xx

>38 PaulCranswick: Thanks for asking, Paul. As to my book choices, I'm still not sure whether I'll get to them, but the Agnon has been on my shelf a lot longer. My used copy is from 1966 and the previous owner slipped in a page from a 1966 Time magazine with a review of the book! Agnon won the Nobel the following year.

As to my husband, he is all mended. We haven't bothered with getting tested since he is retired and doesn't need a negative test to return to work or anything like that. I've ordered our free 4 home tests from the government, so when those come in we may use that to be sure he's in the clear.

February Reading


10. Lyubka the Cossack, Isaac Babel, translated from the Russian by Andrew R. McAndrew; stories from 1921-1924
Type: fiction; off my shelves

These stories are selections from 3 different collections; I read the first section of stories selected from his Odessa Stories. These are set in Babel's Odessa, around the turn of the 20th century, and are told in the first person from Babel's childhood and teens. They are bleak, with a numbness and little or no kindness or joy, let alone any compassion for others. The writing is compelling, but dispiriting and depressing. After the first section (about 100 pages) I could not go on. 'Nuf said.


11. The Other Side of the Dale, Gervase Phinn, 1998
Type: memoir, off my shelves; for Reading through Time February: “set in the country”

This memoir of a new school inspector takes place in the Dales of North Yorkshire. The settings are lovely and the characters Phinn portrays are varied and believable. I especially loved all the children; Phinn has a knack for including children in the book, in humorous and loving ways. You can feel his respect for children. This was a lovely, funny read and a good respite from some other things I've read lately.


12. The Sleeping Beauty, Elizabeth Taylor; 1953
Type: fiction; library book; my Elizabeth Taylor project

A middle-age man observes a woman walking on a beach and is intrigued. He discovers that she was in a car accident, hospitalized for many months and has become withdrawn and reclusive. The "Sleeping Beauty" story follows from there, but in the mean time we meet older women dealing with adult sons (and vice-versa); two older women who are long-time friends; women made widows by tragedies; a romantic relationship crossing class boundaries; sisters with a fragile relationship. I was completely drawn into this story, and never looked back. The ending is open and ambivalent, but not hopeless.


13. On Tyranny Graphic Edition, Timothy Snyder (text) and Nora Krug (illustrator), 2021
Type: graphic non-fiction; library book

Snyder’s classic 2017 text with images, collages and artwork by Nora Krug. I read the original text version in 2018. The graphic edition had more impact for me because I read the text slower and closer, and took time to reflect on the meaning while looking at the images. It also included updated text by Snyder to reflect relevant events from 2019 and 2020.


14. "Betrothed" from Two Tales, S. Y. Agnon (1943); translated from the Hebrew by Walter Lever
Type: fiction; from my shelves; read for the February Asian Author Challenge

This volume contained two novellas; I only read “Betrothed.” Set in turn of the century pre-WWI Palestine, this is the tale of Jacob who has come from Central Europe to teach high school Latin and German in the seaside town of Jaffa. Jacob's real passion, however, is collecting species of seaweed from the sea and classifying them, for which he becomes famous. Jacob's childhood sweetheart Susan, who he has not seen in many years, comes to Jaffa on holiday with her father.

This dream-like fable is an intertwining of longing for the past with the present. I'm not sure I got all of the symbolism, besides the obvious one that Jacob is followed by two of his students, Rachel and Leah. Lovely writing, with an interesting use of narrator, but I'm sure much of its meaning went way over my head. I didn't even understand the 1966 review from Time magazine tucked into my used copy by the previous owner.


15. A Lost Lady, Willa Cather, 1923
Type: fiction; from my shelves; for my Willa Cather project

This slim volume (150 pages) felt like a fable or parable to me. The story is set in a railroad town between Omaha and Denver circa the 1890s. Living in a large home at the top of a hill are the young and beautiful Marian Forrester and her husband, the elderly and congenial Captain Forrester. Mrs Forrester is alluring to young man for miles around, and this tale is told through the eyes of young Niel Herbert. But as times get hard on the prairie, Mrs. Forrester's charms, like the town, the railroad and even her stately home, begin to fade as the unscrupulous speculators and financial panics of that era ruin lives and livelihoods.

Cather writes in simple, yet beautiful, prose, that is filled with color. Although nostalgic in tone, Cather seems to be painting the allure of the American West for young men, and how that glow fades as the reality of its harsh life sets in. To me Mrs Forrester represents that promising call of the West, always beckoning, but ever elusive.


16. Linda Tressel, Anthony Trollope, 1868
Type: fiction; my Trollope Project

Set in Nuremberg this is the story of Linda Tressel, a 20 year old orphan who has been raised by her widowed aunt Madame Staubach. Madame Staubach is a loving aunt, but is stern and conservative in her faith. When Madame Staubach decides that Linda should be married to their 50-something lodger, the ugly and boring Mr Steinmarc. Linda has been courted by the young rebel and unreliable Lukovic. Linda refuses to marry the old man and has fallen in love with the younger one, and the struggles between aunt and niece begins.

This is one of Trollope's saddest stories with no good ending in sight for anyone. People of hard and unbending religious beliefs do not fare well in Trollope's world. The companion story in my volume, Nina Balatka, I read last year and had more descriptions and feel for Prague than Linda Tressel had of Nuremberg. This will not be among my favorite Trollopes.


17. Miss Buncle's Book, D. E. Stevenson (1934); re-read
Type: fiction; from my shelves

It’s the 1930s and Miss Buncle’s small investments are slowly declining. To make ends meet, she decides to write about the thing she knows best: her village. As the book by “John Smith” makes the rounds in the village, various residents begin to recognize themselves in the pages, causing an uproar.

This was a re-read for me and even more delightful the second time around.


18. Burmese Days, George Orwell, 1934
Type: fiction; library book

Orwell’s first published novel is a thinly-veiled memoir of his time in Burma during the 1920s. Although well-written, I found the book relentlessly depressing and the racism got overwhelming.


19. At Home: a Short History of Private Life, Bill Bryson, 2010
Type: nonfiction, house history, social history; library book

Bryson uses his 1851 home in a small village in Norfolk, England as a starting point for this book. Each room leads to various digressions about social history, architecture, building and general improvements in infrastructure. Much of the book is focused on the technological advances made in the 19th century, before and after his home was built. This was always entertaining, but I sometimes felt that the roads (literally, and sewers and salt mines and cement-making, etc.) Bryson takes in his ramblings are not necessarily what I was expecting. I often felt that I wanted more about "private life" , especially day-to-day customs. Interesting, but not the paths I would have explored.

March plans:

I'm currently reading:

✔--David Copperfield on audiobook, read by Simon Vance; about 3/4 done with this re-read
✔--The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins; about 1/4 through this re-read from 1988 and I don't remember anything, except that it's about a stolen diamond! So it's like a new book to me...

Plans for March:
✔--Bernard Malamud, The Natural for March AAC
✔--Margaret Oliphant, The Perpetual Curate for Liz's Virago group read
--Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward for March Reading Through Time
✔--Jane & Mary Findlater, Crossriggs for March Virago Planned reading
✔--Miss Read, Return to Thrush Green for March AuthorKIT -- 40&over
--Leif Enger, Peace Like a River
--Frances Faviell, A Chelsea Concerto
--Muriel Spark, A Far Cry from Kensington

and then for the March BAC (books published 1919-1939), I hope to get to as many of these as I can:
1919 William -- An Englishman, Cicely Hamilton
1921 Vera, Elizabeth von Arnim
✔ 1929 A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf
1930 High Wages, Dorothy Whipple
1931 The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen
✔ 1931 My Husband Simon, Mollie Panter-Downes
1932 Thank Heaven Fasting, E. M. Delafield
1932 Jenny Wren, E. H. Young
✔ 1934 Rumour of Heaven, Beatrix Lehmann
1936 Jamaica Inn, Daphne du Maurier
✔ 1937 Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie

>40 kac522: & >41 kac522:. You are reading some great stuff, Kathy. The March BAC for the inter war years will suit you down to the ground!

>42 PaulCranswick: Yes, Paul, I could make this month's theme last the entire year, as I have many more on the shelf that fit. Between the Victorians and the inter-war years, I have a life-time of reading on my shelves!

>43 kac522: Me too, actually. I will probably settle just for Lolly Willowes though given all my other reading commitments.

>44 PaulCranswick: I've heard good things about that book; I may need to track down a copy.

March Reading


20. The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins, 1868
Type: fiction; off my shelves; re-read originally read in 1988

I read this back in 1988, and did not remember much at all, so it was like a new book to me. Overall I enjoyed it, although some parts seemed overly long and dragged out. Collins has a wry sense of humor, and I even laughed out loud at some lines. And the book has left me with a strange need to read Robinson Crusoe, the "bible" of faithful old servant Gabriel Betteredge.

Complaint about this OUP edition: John Sutherland has many, many spoilers in the explanatory notes. This irks me to no end; explanatory notes should be a place for the editor to explain archaic terms, literary references, points of history, etc. that the modern reader may not know. It should NOT contain spoilers!


21. Crossriggs, Jane & Mary Findlater (1908)
Type: fiction; ILL from the library; for the Virago March challenge (only 1 Virago published by this author)

I very much enjoyed this book written by a pair of sisters from Scotland, now long forgotten, but in their time appreciated by Henry James and other contemporary authors.

The plot was a roller-coaster of sorts: funny, sad, hopeful, despairing, all within the struggles of everyday people facing their small and not-so-small challenges that life puts in your way. We follow Alexandra Hope, about 30, who is living with her elderly father, "Old Hopeful", a "fruitarian" and all-round radical thinker. At the outset Alexandra's widowed sister and 5 young children join the family in their small house in the village of Crossriggs. It is Alex who must find ways to make ends meet, and in these struggles we follow her good days and bad days, and her admirers and her secret loves. Through difficult situations Alex learns to follow her own path and it is a hopeful ending.

As the introduction points out, there are a lot of elements similar to Emma here (a father obsessed with food, an older sister with children, Knightley and Frank Churchill-type characters). I also found elements similar to The Doctor's Family by Margaret Oliphant: a younger sister supporting and worrying about an older sister with children, a very poor family, a Dr Rider figure (Maitland) in which the heroine must hold back feelings, a drowning. The ending is somewhat similar--the older sister gets married to a stable and wealthy man; but in Crossriggs the younger sister ends up content, but not married.

A lovely read which would never have been on my radar except for the Virago group on LT.


22. Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie, (1937)
Type: mystery, from my shelves for my Agatha Christie project and for March BAC: the interwar years

I enjoyed this one; I felt Christie had some good characterizations and an interesting set-up. We are introduced to a disparate group of characters several chapters before the murder takes place--so many characters that I had to keep a list. This is probably the first Christie in which my early hunch of the murderers turned out correct, and I never wavered from my guess, so maybe that's why I liked it so much!


23. The Perpetual Curate, Margaret Oliphantr; (1864)
Type: fiction; from my shelves

This was the next installment of Oliphant's Carlingford series, led by Liz (lyzard). Frank Wentworth, a young but established curate in Carlingford faces challenges with a new Rector in town, unfounded small town gossip, and his love-life threatened. Oliphant brings a wonderful perspective to the ins and outs of village life, with humor and grace. Two strong women characters, Mrs Morgan and Lenora Wentworth, added to my enjoyment of the book, and much more enjoyable than its predecessor in the series Salem Chapel. Thanks to Liz for leading us through the maze that is clerical life in Victorian England.


24. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens (1850); audiobook read by Simon Vance
Type: fiction; re-read via audiobook

I've finished David Copperfield on audiobook; it was my third reading. What I've been reflecting on this time are the characters who, although flawed and human, do courageous things to help someone else--sometimes big and sometimes small. I'm thinking of (SPOILERS ahead):

--Pegotty doing her best to shelter young David and his mother from the Murdstones;
--Young Tom Traddles speaking up in defense of Mr Mell at school (and getting hammered for it) and older Tom near the end standing by Mr Micawber against Uriah Heep;
--Aunt Betsey's staunch defense of Mr Dick and her willingness to take in a ragged young boy who shows up at her door, despite her own troubles;
--Mr Pegotty's relentless search for his niece (compared to Mrs Steerforth's cold and distant treatment of her son);
--Mr Micawber's explosion, pushed to the brink not by what Heep has done to Mr Micawber, but by what he sees happening to Agnes and Mr Wickfield;
--Mrs Gummidge, who amazingly puts aside her own cares to support Mr Pegotty;
--Martha providing shelter for Emily and tracking down Mr Pegotty and David;
--and of course, Ham's brave rescue attempt.

There are more, but these are the ones that I remember most. Except for Ham, none of these are particularly "heroic" deeds, but they are all small but brave actions done by every day people living in limited circumstances. None of them are rich or powerful. And they aren't done by our narrator--Dickens could have made David the source of all these heroics, but he didn't--they are all actions that David observes and presents to us. So that perhaps we the readers will be moved to step in when someone is being bullied or to take in a lost soul or to support a friend in need or to just do some kind action for someone else, whatever our lot in life.

After I was done with the book, I watched the brilliant 1999 TV series with a pre-Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe, Bob Hoskins, Ian McKellen and an outstanding performance by Maggie Smith (above) as Aunt Betsey Trotwood.


25. Rumour of Heaven, Beatrix Lehmann, 1934
Type: fiction; from my shelves; for Virago March challenge--only Virago published by this author and for March BAC: the interwar years

This novel was a bit like a fairy tale and a bit strange. As a wife slowly slips into madness, the husband moves his family to a remote farm in southern England. Eventually the wife dies; her husband goes into seclusion; and her 3 children have free reign over Prince's Acre, their property.

The main story begins about 1920, when the 3 children (2 are disabled, but in different ways) are teenagers who have not dealt with people from the outside world. Three strangers come into their lives, their worlds collide, and the story goes on from there. In part it is about a post-WWI world, trying to make sense (or escape) from that horror. I didn't love it, but didn't hate it.


26. Return to Thrush Green, Miss Read, 1978
Type: fiction; my Miss Read project

Reading Miss Read is a comfortable home-coming; I find this series not as humorous as the Fairacre series, but more heartfelt and the characters more varied and fleshed out. A death, several returns, a marriage, and new homes concern the residents of Thrush Green.


27. My Husband Simon, Mollie Panter-Downs (1931)
Type: fiction; from my shelves for March BAC: the interwar years

The first novel for Mollie Panter-Downes, who would later become best known for her short pieces for the New Yorker. A well-written novel about a writer examining her marriage through the lens of class and compatibility. The characters were not always endearing, and the narrator seemed like she was holding back her real feelings.


28. A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf, 1929
Type: essays on woman and fiction; March BAC--the interwar years.

These essays are based on lectures Woolf gave on "Women and Fiction". I underlined something on almost every page and it is definitely a book to read and read again. I'll just quote from one passage (p. 43-44 in my edition)--emphasis is mine--about the "woman in fiction":

A very queer, composite being thus emerges. Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry form cover to cover; she is all but absent from history. She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact, she was the slave of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words, some of the most profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life, she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband .

29. The Natural, Bernard Malamud, 1952
Type: fiction, from my shelves, for the March AAC Malamud challenge

Great baseball writing which had a good pace and kept me reading. But the characters are universally unlikeable. Roy Hobbs feels like Terry Malloy from the movie "On the Waterfront", without Terry's human sides (Terry's rooftop pigeons; his pursuit to find out who killed his brother, his final "redemption").

Our "hero" Roy has none of these humanizing traits. He, like the rest of the main characters, all seem to be interested only in themselves and their own gratification. The exception is Iris, who is an unbelievable muse/mythic apparition. I enjoyed the scenes in Chicago, though.

April Reading Plans:

I'm going to use April to do some catch-up reading.

I have only 3 planned books for April:
✔ Emma: an annotated Edition by Jane Austen, along with listening to the audiobook, read by Juliet Stevenson.
✔ Jenny Wren by E. H. Young for the April Virago monthly challenge
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, a re-read for my RL book club
The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne, a library book that is due soon

I hope to read 6 or 7 of these books from my piles--please help me choose!:

fiction:
Looking Backward, Edward Bellamy
The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen
The Doctor's Wife, Mary Elizabeth Braddon (library book)
Appointment with Death, Agatha Christie
Thank Heaven Fasting, E. M. Delafield
Jamaica Inn, Daphne DuMaurier
Peace Like a River, Leif Enger
✔ Old Filth, Jane Gardam
Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell
William--An Englishman, Cicely Hamilton
✔ Under the Greenwood Tree, Thomas Hardy
The House of Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Poor Caroline, Winifred Holtby
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, P. D. James
✔ Gossip from Thrush Green, Miss Read
✔ A Far Cry from Kensington, Muriel Spark
The Vicar of Bullhampton, Anthony Trollope
✔ The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim (re-read)
Vera, Elizabeth von Arnim
High Wages, Dorothy Whipple

nonfiction:
Pictures from Italy, Charles Dickens
A Chelsea Concerto, Frances Faviell -- a memoir about the Blitz in London
My Scottish Youth, Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart (memoir)
Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Have you loved any of these? Please help me choose what to read next! Thanks!

>47 kac522:

Thank you for joining in. :)

It feels like people want to go on with Carlingford, so we will probably try to fit Miss Marjoribanks in later this year.

Complaint about this OUP edition: John Sutherland has many, many spoilers in the explanatory notes.

And that is why I always tell our group-readers to ask questions, not read the notes!

I hate these modern editions that assume that everyone has read the book before. And particularly with a book like The Moonstone where, as you note, there is so much to spoil!

>49 lyzard: I've learned to avoid introductions (from you!), but it irks me to no end when explanatory notes have spoilers. Why do they do that?!! Put those in the intro or an afterword, but keep the notes for explanations, not revelations. Phew! Done.

Looks like you had a great month of reading.

>51 thornton37814: Thanks, I really did enjoy most of the books I read. However, my April plans are starting out slowly, as I've spent the last 2 days down the dark hole that is the 1950 census....

>52 kac522: A lot of us have gone down that hole!

>53 thornton37814: I don't know enough addresses to get too far, especially since most of mine lived in Chicago. Steve Morse's site is great if you know the address, though. But I'm also discovering people that I failed to get the 1940 census, so I'm remedying that.

>54 kac522: I'm fortunate that mine were not that difficult to find. I found my parents in a small-town and my grandparents right in the EDs they should have been. Then I found my uncle in Dayton, Ohio. I wasn't 100% sure he lived in Dayton then, but it was my best guess, and the imprecise index worked on his surname. Then I found my aunt in Iowa, but I knew the town because my cousin had been born the prior year, and I had his birth location. The only person I haven't found is my paternal uncle, but I think he was in Korea so he was not enumerated. They used military rolls which weren't kept among the census rolls--at least according to the FAQ.

What a great reading update in >47 kac522: Kathy

>48 kac522: You ask me and I will usually plump for Muriel Spark but Jamaica Inn is an atmospheric read too.

>55 thornton37814: I've sort of given up on the index; I used Steve Morse's site so far. I might go back and make sure the ones I've found are indexed correctly. I found my parents and grandparents (they lived across the street from one another), and my husband's parents. There was one of my dad's brothers not at home, and I recalled that he had entered the Christian Brothers in 1947 (in Glencoe, Missouri) and graduated from St Mary's in Winona, MN in 1953. Took some doing to find the right ED for these places (Glencoe is unincorporated), as I'm not familiar with them at all, but I eventually found him at St. Mary's, so I felt proud of myself for that.

>56 PaulCranswick: Paul, thanks for the recs! I have never read Muriel Spark and I only have a couple of her books, so I hope I picked a good one to start with. Du Maurier is always sure to be decent, so I hope to get to both, if not this month, then soon.

I started with a Miss Read (an easy one to get me rolling) and then tonight I'll start Jenny Wren by E. H. Young. Young lived in the Bristol/Clifton area for many years, and I love her books for those descriptions. The first book I read of hers, The Misses Malletts, has the Clifton Suspension Bridge as an important "dividing" symbol in the book, and I remember crossing that bridge one of the times that we were in Bristol.

>59 PaulCranswick: Her early stuff is the best, Kathy, but that one is seen as something of a return to form.

>59 PaulCranswick: Good to know, Paul.

April Reading


30. Gossip from Thrush Green, Miss Read (1981)
Type: fiction; paperback off my shelves

Another in the series, although the "gossip" portion not as well done as Oliphant's The Perpetual Curate, but still entertaining, as we move into life in the 1980s.


31. Jenny Wren, E. H. Young (1932)
Type: fiction; April Virago themed read challenge

This is a story of two sisters, Jenny and Dahlia, of marriageable age, who struggle with the effects of their parents' unhappy and unequal marriage. E. H. Young weaves a complicated but sympathetic story, and each sentence is lovely, while conveying so much. I'm still wondering if there's a significance about the "name" of the main character "Jenny Wren" (Our Mutual Friend? the nursery rhyme?), and look forward to the companion sequel featuring Dahlia in The Curate's Wife.


32. Emma: An annotated edition, Jane Austen (1816); edited with annotations by Bharat Tandon; read in tandem with Emma, audiobook re-read, read by Juliet Stevenson
Type: fiction; completing the Austen annotated editions

I read the notes in this annotated edition while (re)-listening to the audiobook. I found the annotations OK, but sometimes way off-topic. I'm reminded why Emma is my least favorite of Austen's major novels. Long stretches of Miss Bates and Mrs Elton that are funny, but just too long. A long letter from Frank Churchill at the end that was also just too long. Maybe that's the point of them. I'm most troubled on this reading by the way Emma treats Harriet throughout the book, but especially at the end. Her class consciousness is almost as bad as Mrs Elton's. It's in all of Austen's novels, but I think I feel it more in this novel than the others. I doubt if I will re-read this one again.


33. Old Filth, Jane Gardam (2004)
Type: fiction; from my shelves

This first book in a trilogy tells the story of Old Filth, a "Raj Orphan", from his post WWI birth in Malay to his death in the early 21st century. To outsiders Eddie Feathers ("Old Filth" = "Failed In London Try Hong Kong") seems to have led a charmed life as a colonial judge in Hong Kong, but the real story underneath is much more complicated. Told in many fits and starts, flashbacks and forwards, it took me at least 2/3 of the way through before I started enjoying the book. I had trouble placing the characters, because we don't get to know them very well in each short glimpse. About 2/3-3/4 through the book, the bits and pieces started to come together, the narrative became more compelling and at least I felt rewarded for my perseverance, especially the Queen Mary bits. I found the language spare yet precise, with nothing superfluous. That being said, there's a lot left unsaid that has to be put together to form a whole picture.

This book took work on the reader's part, which is not a bad thing, but perhaps I just wasn't in the mood for doing all that figuring out. I would have appreciated a straight story, or at least a minimum of jumping about. I am uncertain whether I will attack the other 2 books in the trilogy, although I understand that at least the next book, The Man in the Wooden Hat, is about Eddie's wife Betty and is more straight-forward. Perhaps later, but not now.

(Side note: This book (like Jenny Wren) seems to reference Our Mutual Friend, with an elusive minor character Veneering and the reference to "Filth", since Dickens's novel is driven by the will of the deceased Old Man Harmon, a dealer in "dust": i.e., garbage/filth.)


34. Under the Greenwood Tree, Thomas Hardy (1872); re-read from 1990

From the sparse prose of Gardam to the overflowing Thomas Hardy--this was a book much more to my taste--perhaps I was born in the wrong century. I did not remember any of it, although I did remember that I enjoyed it on my first reading. The story involves two main plots: the disbanding of the "quire"--village church musicians who have played together for many years--who are replaced (modernized in the eyes of the vicar) by a single organ played by the beautiful Fancy Day. The second plot involves the suitors of Fancy Day, of which Dick Dewey, one of the musicians, is the prime contender.

I enjoyed the rural settings, the villagers dialogue and folk wisdoms. The first plot thread appealed to me more; the second plot was sweet but not powerful. It's mostly a book that evokes a certain time and place (1840s Dorset, like all Hardy's novels, without the dark overtones) and it does it with much humor and a little tinge of melancholy for the loss of the old ways.


35. A Few Green Leaves, Barbara Pym (1980); re-read from 2013
Type: fiction; paperback from my shelves

I've been meaning to re-read some of Barbara Pym's novels, and decided to start with this one, her last. It opens on the Sunday after Easter as Emma, a thirty-something anthropologist, surveys the small village where she has just moved. Not much happens in this story; it is a set piece for Pym's wry but gentle look at a village adapting to life in the the late 1970s. Characters from prior Pym books make brief appearances, as Pym reflects on growing older but not always wiser. A delightful, gentle read.


36. A Far Cry from Kensington, Muriel Spark (1988)
Type: fiction; hardcover from my shelves

Mrs Hawkins tells a chatty, friendly and funny narrative, looking back from the 1980s, to her life in the mid-1950s, when she lived in a large rooming house in Kensington. But all is not as it seems...Spark takes us on a strange tour, with some odd characters and events bordering on the absurd. Yet underneath the portrayal of the cut-throat business of publishing (Mrs Hawkins' profession), all of this is not just a light story. For me it felt like a chilling look back at the 1950s, a time of fear and paranoia; the world of Joseph McCarthy and communism; where good and evil are not exactly what they seem. And of noise: the word "noise" appears many times through-out the text--trying to hear what's really being said, what's really true, beyond the noise.

I need to read this book again to better understand Spark's themes, but there's more here than just a pleasant funny/absurd story--there is a far, muffled cry from 1950s Kensington to the present day that we might well take a listen.


37. The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim (1922); re-read from 2019
Type: fiction; paperback from my shelves

Just as enchanting and funny as the first read; decided to re-read now just because it's April and needed a book with flowers and sun, as it's cold and wet and overcast here. Lovely way to end the month.

>59 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul, for the Spark recommendation. It's one of those books that seem like one thing on the surface, but when you close the book, you realize it's about something else entirely. I got that same feeling reading A Lost Lady by Willa Cather earlier this year.

May's reading possibilities:

Got a few things lined up, so here goes:

Currently reading:
✔ The Real Jane Austen, Paula Byrne; non-fiction
✔ Dangerous Work, Arthur Conan Doyle; non-fiction--Conan Doyle's diaries from his trip to the Arctic in 1880; for the May Reading through Time challenge ("beginnings"): Sir Arthur & I share a birthday.

Slated for May:
✔ Poor Caroline by Winifred Holtby OR Mary Olivier: A Life by May Sinclair--for the May Virago themed read.
✔ The Curate's Wife by E. H. Young, the sequel/companion to Jenny Wren, which I read in April
✔ Twelfth Night, Shakespeare, for my RL book club

And then a list of possibilities for the Historical Fiction challenge, run by Katie of Books and Things on booktube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPgpXd-9cBI). I hope to read at least 3 or 4 of these historical fiction novels in May:

✔ Dickens, Charles: A Tale of Two Cities (a re-read); French Revolution
✔ Halls, Stacey: Mrs England; (2022); set in Yorkshire during the Edwardian era
✔ O'Farrell, Maggie: Hamnet; (2020) Shakespeare's family
✔ Otsuka, Julie: The Buddha in the Attic; Japanese internment camps in America in WWII
Saunders, George: Lincoln in the Bardo; Abraham Lincoln
Scott, Sir Walter: Waverley or The Heart of Midlothian; the "Father" of historical fiction
Sullivan, Faith: The Cape Ann; 1930s America
Williams, Pip: The Dictionary of Lost Words; the making of the Oxford English Dictionary in turn of the 20th century England
✔ Vuillard: The Order of the Day

What a lovely selection for your April reading! I read (and re-read) Miss Read and can't decide if Fairacre or Thrush Green is my favourite. Jenny Wren is one of the few E. H. Young's I have left to read and I think I'm putting it off for that reason. I recently re-read The Enchanted April for the same reasons you gave but was a bit disappointed by the selfishness of the two 'guests', which seemed nastier than I remembered but of course all ends well!

I have read the others too but I won't go on! I shall be able to comment on most of your May reading too.

>64 CDVicarage: Ah, thanks for your kind words. Yes, I go back and forth with Miss Read. I read through the Fairacre series first, and I have a few favorites that I thought were especially well done. I loved the first book Village School, just because of all the children. And personally I loved Emily Davis because it was a little different--a book dedicated to one person's entire life--and just at the time I was reading it I also lost a good friend, so it had an emotional appeal to me at that time.

I find the Thrush Green books overall have characters that are a little more rounded and interesting, but I miss the first person narration of Miss Read herself. Her wry comments and observations made the series for me.

I am determined to read The Curate's Wife this month as a follow-up up to Jenny Wren before I forget too much of it! And I am generally not a big reader of historical fiction, but I think I have some good choices lined up that fit what I'll enjoy. The exception here is A Tale of Two Cities, which I did not like the first time I read it many years ago, but I normally enjoy Dickens, so I hope a re-reading will change my opinion.

>64 CDVicarage: I don't know if you watch youtube at all, but there's a lovely booktuber who lives in Yorkshire, Miranda Mills, who posted a video yesterday with her mum about The Enchanted April:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZG-YUKYXRw

>66 kac522: Thanks for this, Kathy, I watched and enjoyed it. I was mesmerised by the bookshelves behind the speakers and picked out many shared books! I discovered another link with Miranda in that she runs an Instagram page for Girls Gone By Publishers, who are republishing many 'Girlsown' titles - I already have a large collection - and am pleased that she is helping to publicise them further.

>67 CDVicarage: Yes, aren't her shelves lovely, and actually the whole atmosphere is so comforting. If you watch some of her back videos, she collects the Chalet School books and was interested in them because she actually went to a school in Switzerland for a time. I'm not sure where she was born, but she has lived in Canada, New York, Switzerland, Paris (I think) and London; her mother's from Dorset, I think. They moved from London to Yorkshire soon after the pandemic started.

Hi Kathy my dear, your reading is going along very well from what you have posted. Hope all is well with you and your family and we send love and hugs to you dear friend.

>69 johnsimpson: Thanks for stopping by, John. I am making progress with my reading, but I went out and bought 2 books today: Twelfth Night for my book club and The Enchanted April to replace the copy I just finished--it sort of fell apart in my hands while I was reading it.

We are all pretty well, and I think the grandchildren are doing well in Sheffield. My son is to start teaching French this month at King Ecgbert School where 2 of his kids attend. He was certified to teach secondary school languages in December and will be filling in for another teacher going on maternity leave (not sure what you call it).

You had a nice selection of books for April.

Happy May, Kathy. I hope you are doing well. I am sure tired of this Chicago weather, although it doesn't seem to have slowed down bird migration. It looks like we finally begin to warm up next week. I cannot wait!!

>71 thornton37814: It was pretty good, even if it stalled a bit in the middle. I'm off to a good start with Mrs England by Stacey Halls, which is quite the page-turner.

>72 msf59: A little sun today, Mark! I read that in the past 40-something days, we've had cloudy weather every day except 1 or 2. No wonder I was so happy to read The Enchanted April, which is just full of flowers. Can't wait for warmer weather next week.

>73 kac522: It looked interesting. I don't remember if it is one we ended up ordering for the library or not, but if we did not, we can always order it a month when there are less interesting options.

>74 thornton37814: I heard about Mrs England from Katie, the booktuber who is running the May Historical Fiction challenge (see >63 kac522:). Katie was an editor on the book, and she loved it (a teensy bit biased!). Our library's copy just came in, and I was on the Waitlist while it was on order, so it was nice to have a pristine copy (unlike the library copy of Emma last month that was full of cat (or dog?) hairs).

>75 kac522: I adored Mrs England which I read last month and was my favourite April read by a country mile.

Just started re-reading A Tale of Two Cities but I liked it much more than you did first time around.

>77 kac522: Well, you liked Mrs England more than I did, too. It was well-paced and tense and interesting, but I found the actual writing could have been better. One too many people with "honey-colored hair." I did find the information about Norland Nurses very interesting, and they are still in existence today as Norland College and are located in Bath.

Funny you should mention ATOTC--I'm just about to start the audiobook today. I hope I like it better. I think I will.

Just a quick update--I'm making good progress this month (for me):

COMPLETED:
✔ The Real Jane Austen, Paula Byrne; non-fiction
✔ The Curate's Wife by E. H. Young, the sequel to Jenny Wren
✔ Twelfth Night, Shakespeare, for my RL book club; BAC book & a movie; watched the 1988 TV production, directed by Kenneth Branagh
✔ The Country of Pointed Firs, Sarah Orne Jewett; for the AAC

COMPLETED Historical Fiction (HF) challenge:
✔ Mrs England, Stacey Halls; (2022); set in Yorkshire during the Edwardian era
✔ Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell; (2020) Shakespeare's family
✔ The Order of the Day, Eric Vuillard; lead up to WWII
✔ A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens; (a re-read on audiobook); French Revolution (HF)
✔ Dangerous Work, Arthur Conan Doyle; non-fiction--Conan Doyle's diaries from his trip to the Arctic in 1880;
✔ The Buddha in the Attic, Julie Otsuka; Japanese internment camps in America in WWII (HF)
✔ Poor Caroline, Winifred Holtby; (Virago monthly challenge)

Also this historical fiction on the "New Books" shelf caught my eye at the library:


The Great Passion by James Runcie (of Grantchester fame); about the composing of the St Matthew Passion by J. S. Bach. Not sure if I can fit it into this month's HF challenge, though.

I had a very good reading month--12 books finished. And surprisingly, 7 of these were first published after 1999, which is quite unusual for me.

For the Historical Fiction challenge, I read:
Mrs England, Stacey Halls (2022), set in Edwardian England
The Order of the Day, Eric Vuillard (2017), centered around the Anschluss, 1938 Austria
Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell (2020); Shakespeare's family
The Buddha in the Attic, Julie Otsuka (2011); Japanese brides, circa 1919-1941
A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens (1859); French Revolution

And some interesting pairings of books, that helped me reflect:

Hamnet helped me appreciate Twelfth Night, which I read for my RL book club.

And four books focusing on the 1930s:
Order of the Day (historical fiction) was tempered by Winston Churchill's biography.
Poor Caroline (1931) and The Curate's Wife (1934) were novels by women, exploring the roles of women as they contemplate and begin marriages in the 1930s.

Not included in my completed books, but which I skimmed for background on the situation in Ukraine was:
The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 by Timothy Snyder (2003).
I read just the sections about Ukraine. For those interested in a very detailed picture of this area, this is the book for you, although it ends in 1999. Since I only read parts, I won't give any sort of review, but there is a good review of the book by rebeccanyc here:
https://www.librarything.com/work/315992/reviews/216263865

I was drawn to this book because I loved Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny Graphic Edition, which I read in February. A must-read for our times, IMHO.

Short reviews of my completed books follow in the next posts.

May Reading


38. Mrs England, Stacey Halls (2022)
Type: historical fiction; for Katie's HF challenge; library book

This historical novel follows Ruby May, a nurse trained at the Norland Institute, London, who has been assigned to a rural West Yorkshire family around 1904. From the onset this is a well-paced page-turner in the style of Daphne DuMaurier, with clues given and suspicions hinted to us like Hansel & Gretel's bread crumbs, right up to the final page. The dialogue felt fairly true to the period; I was less impressed by the narrative writing. More interesting for me are the details about the Norland Institute (now called Norland College and thriving today in Bath) which was an early trainer for women specializing in the care of young children.

For me it was an entertaining and suspenseful page-turner, but not particularly wonderful. In some ways I felt manipulated by the author, but then I suppose that's what a suspense book is supposed to do. I've heard many who love this book, so I know I'm not in the norm. I would be interested to know if any of the plot elements (besides Norland) were based on true events, but there is no indication of that in my copy of the book.


39. The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories, Sarah Orne Jewett (1896)
Type: fiction; short stories; read for the May American Authors Challenge

After the edgy Mrs England, this series of sketches felt like a well-deserved vacation by the sea. Our unnamed narrator, a woman writer of a certain age, spends a summer in a small fishing village on the Maine coast. She introduces us to wonderful and varied characters in the town, mostly through the eyes of her landlady Mrs Todd. This serene and lovely little collection of pieces was exactly the right book at the right time for me. It also reminded me in a way of Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford, where women seem to play a larger role in daily life. So glad to have found this quiet American classic gem, full of simple truths and wisdom.


40. The Order of the Day, Eric Vuillard (2017); translated from the French by Mark Polizzotti
Type: fiction (I think??); from my shelves

This is an odd little book that comes across as nonfiction, or essay, or the framework for a play, but from what I have read, Vuillard (a journalist) has added fictional dialogue, events and his own character assessment of the players. Centering around Hitler's invasion of Austria (the Anschluss) in 1938, the basic events and players are from history, but facts and perspectives are twisted and manipulated to fit the dramatist's objective, so it is hard to tell fact from fiction. Vuillard's disdain for various players in the events are clear, so this is not an objective re-telling. Not that I would disagree with what he has done, but one must keep in mind this is from his point of view. Gives one a lot to think about--how it all might have turned out differently.


41. The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things, Paula Byrne (2012)
Type: nonfiction about Jane Austen; library book

I love books about Jane Austen, but I found this book overly detailed and just a slog to read. Taking various objects in Austen's life, Byrne builds and expands details that are tangentially related. The chapter about Jane and children was interesting, but the rest of the book was tedious to me. It felt about 100 pages too long and just not readable--I skipped long sections that repeated plots from the novels. Perhaps I've read one too many Jane books?? Hard for me to admit I didn't love a book about JA, but there you are.


42. The Curate's Wife, E. H. Young (1934)
Type: fiction; paperback from my shelves

This book is a sequel to Jenny Wren (which I read in April), with the focus on marriage: specifically Dahlia's new marriage to curate Cecil Sproat and the decades-long marriage of Vicar Doubleday and his wife. E. H. Young shows us how simple turns of phrase and off-hand remarks between partners can be hurtful and misunderstood. Dahlia doesn't understand her husband's calling, although she admires him. He doesn't understand her silly, off-hand jokes, and fails to see their humor. For the elder Doubledays, the return of their 20-something son from Africa brings the tension in their marriage to a head. When Dahlia's sister Jenny returns to Upper Radstowe, she gets the best scene near the end of the book--a nod to Jane Austen at her finest!

I loved every minute of this book, although some of the passages of interior thought processes seemed to be a bit over-long, but no matter--the dialogue always saves the book from taking itself too seriously. Although it could be read as a stand-alone novel, the full nuances of sisters Jenny and Dahlia are best understood by reading Jenny Wren first.


43. Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell (2020)
Type: fiction; paperback from my shelves

Although the basic plot is about Shakespeare's son, Hamnet, the story actually follows Shakespeare's wife, Agnes (known to us as Anne Hathaway). O'Farrell lets us know up front that only a few basic facts are known about Hamnet, one of which is that the names "Hamnet" and "Hamlet" were interchangeable. The story starts with Hamnet attempting to find help for his very ill twin sister Judith, and is interspersed with flashbacks of the life of Agnes up to that point. This takes up the first 2/3 of the book, at which point Hamnet dies of plague. The last third of the book shows Agnes processing this event, bringing all that has happened before to an emotional climax.

It's clear O'Farrell has done loads of research on Shakespeare and his time. I have to admit that the first two-thirds of the book didn't grab me as I expected they would, although the writing is impeccable. The last section is outstanding, and makes up for any wandering my mind did earlier. There is also an interesting flashback chapter imagining how the plague reached Stratford, which I found fascinating.

May Reading, Part 2


44. Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare (1601)
Type: play; for my real-life book club

I was unfamiliar with this play. It involves changes of identity, revenge, lots of puns and anything else you would expect in a comedy by Shakespeare. After reading the play, I particularly enjoyed the performance I watched directed by Kenneth Branagh, which brought out all the comic elements. It had a bit more meaning for me after reading Hamnet: it's believed he wrote this play after the death of his son Hamnet. Twelfth Night's main characters are a set of twins--a brother and sister--like his own twins Hamnet and Judith.


45. The Buddha in the Attic, Julie Otsuka (2011)
Type: historical fiction; paperback from my shelves for HF challenge

Set in California this historical fiction novel is told in first person plural and is a moving account of Japanese "mail-order" (for lack of a better term) brides brought to California from Japan around the 1920s and their experiences in the U.S. up until 1942, when Japanese families were sent to internment camps. The first few sentences of the book sets the tone for the entire book:

On the boat we were mostly virgins. We had long black hair and flat wide feet and we were not very tall. Some of us had eaten nothing but rice gruel as young girls and had slightly bowed legs, and some of us were only fourteen years old and were still young girls ourselves. Some of us came from the city, and wore stylish city clothes but many more of us came from the country and on the boat we wore the same old kimonos we'd been wearing for years--faded hand-me-downs from our sisters that had been patched and redyed many times. Some of us came from the mountains, and had never before seen the sea, except for in pictures, and some of us were the daughters of fishermen who had been around the sea all our lives. Perhaps we had lost a brother or father to the sea, or a fiancé, or perhaps someone we loved had jumped into the water one unhappy morning and simply swum away, and now it was time for us, too, to move on.

I actually thought the first person plural narrative worked remarkably well. It effectively tells many stories while telling one over-arching history, just as history is made up of many, many individual stories.



Cover shows Arthur Conan Doyle's sketch of the S. S. Hope, 1880

46. Dangerous Work: Diary of an Arctic Adventure, Arthur Conan Doyle (2017 publication from the facsimile of his diary: March through August, 1880)
Type: nonfiction, memoir, whaling

In 1880 during his 3rd year of medical school, Arthur Conan Doyle had the opportunity to join an arctic whaling expedition as the ship's medical officer. His diary of this experience on the S. S. Hope has been held privately by the Conan Doyle family. This 2012 oversize hardcover book provides a facsimile of the diary, a printed transcription, an introduction, afterword and four selections of Conan Doyle's later works showing the influence of his whaling experience. I found this a fascinating book, which I read slowly over the month of May. Included are Conan Doyle's numerous sketches that he made during the trip. As medical officer, he was able to treat some patients, but was unable to save others, given the limitations on a whaling ship. He eagerly participated in the whaling work, and was affectionately dubbed the "northern diver" by his fellow seamen, for his several falls into the icy waters. The writing selections include 2 articles about his whaling experience and 2 short stories that involve whalers.


47. Poor Caroline, Winifred Holtby (1931)
Type: fiction; Virago Group monthly themed reads for May; paperback from my shelves

It's 1928 and Caroline has a Cause: she wants to make new talking movies with a Christian moral AND make them profitable. So she starts a movie company, and engages various people in her Cause, of which she assures them they'll all make thousands of pounds. She is sincere, but, of course, she is deluded. And as we meet each of the various characters involved in her plan, we find each has their own motive, usually selfish, for investing in the company.

The book begins and ends with Caroline's funeral, and the plot moves along with the introduction of each character. Holtby herself was well-known in socialist/activist circles of the 1920s and 1930s, and this book is a satirical look at the kinds of people attracted to "Causes." Along the way she examines whether profit and good-deeds can survive together. Another sub-plot involves Caroline's young cousin Eleanor, a budding scientist, and Eleanor's relationship with Roger, a young curate. They are attracted to each other, but feel that by becoming attached they may have to give up something of themselves. Eleanor won't give up her independence, and Roger must examine his religious dedication; I really enjoyed Holtby's examination of this struggle. Won't be a favorite, but a very satirical and yet thoughtful look at 1930s society. It made me reflect back to The Curate's Wife, which I read earlier in the month, which also examined a woman's expected role in marriage in the 1930s.


48. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (1859); audiobook read by Simon Vance
Type: historical fiction; re-read via audiobook for the HF challenge

My remembrance of this book (from my first reading in 2013) was that it was highly sentimental, over-emotional, and difficult. I decided to give the novel another chance, and to listen on audiobook to my favorite reader, Simon Vance. I still agree with all of those original assessments, but I must admit that the plot, and particularly the ending, is one of Dickens' very best. Vance's narration worked well with the dramatic events, but the French Revolution always leaves me confused. It will never be a favorite Dickens for me, but I recognize his ability to weave such an intricate story into an abbreviated version of the real events--Dickens' knowledge, research and writing skills are all on display here.


49. Winston Churchill, John Keegan (2002)
Type: nonfiction, biography; for the 75ers Nonfiction May theme: War and Peace

In under 200 pages Keegan, a military historian, manages to give a fairly good picture of the one man who was involved in almost every major instance of war and peace in the first half of the twentieth century. He does not shy away from Churchill's grave faults, but does celebrate his amazing oratorical skills, which Keegan feels was his major strength in maintaining British morale during harrowing times. I'm not a history, politics or military buff, so this short biography gave me just the right amount of information and insight into Churchill's personality that I could want in a biography of a political and military leader. This book also made me reflect on Vuillard's book The Order of the Day about the Anschluss, which I read earlier this month, and how Keegan's nonfiction straight format appeals to me more than Vuillard's fictional one.

>81 kac522: I struggled with reading Dickens for years - put off by school, I think - but found audiobooks the ideal way. My favourite reader is Anton Lesser or Martin Jarvis.

>82 CDVicarage: Yes, Dickens works so well on audio--I think he's meant to be read aloud. My favorite is Simon Vance. In fact, I started to listen to Martin Jarvis for A Tale of Two Cities. I loved the way he did voices, but I found my mind wandering when he was reading the narrative passages (and there's a LOT of narrative in this one). So I switched to Vance.

I like Anton Lesser, too, but I couldn't find a recording of him reading this one. But in the Twelfth Night video I watched (directed by Kenneth Branagh), Anton Lesser played The Fool! He was excellent. I believe it was a production done for British television in 1988 or 1989.

June's List of Possibilities:

From the library--renewed too many times and need to read or return:

A Beleaguered City and Other Stories, Margaret Oliphant
Harp in the South, Ruth Park
The Go-Between, L P Hartley

For my RL Book Club:
✔ The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie (a re-read)

LT Challenges:
✔ Miss Mackenzie, Anthony Trollope, a re-read, for Liz's Trollope June Group Read--link to be posted later this week
✔ Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End, Jennifer Worth; a "Hat Trick" for June: AuthorCAT (nonfiction); CATWomen (set in cities) and 75ers NonFiction (Science and Medicine)
✔ Tea is So Intoxicating, Mary Essex, for June RandomCAT (food)
The Doctor's Wife, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, for June Monthly Author read: https://www.librarything.com/topic/340528

June's Audiobook:
✔ North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell, read by Juliet Stevenson, for Club Read Victorian Tavern (a re-read): https://www.librarything.com/topic/340739

Old-timers from my shelves:
An Atomic Romance, Bobby Ann Mason
✔ Affairs at Thrush Green, Miss Read; my next Miss Read book in the series

Seems like a lot here, but I feel that I should read at least one of the historical fiction books I didn't get to last month, maybe The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams or The Great Passion by James Runcie (also a library book).

And the Great Plunge: I'm going to attempt to read The Count of Monte Cristo over the summer. I figure if I commit to about 2 chapters a day, I should be able to finish it by the end of August.

Happy June, Kathy! I hope you are doing well. Finally getting some decent weather. I also loved Hamnet. I would also like to get to Monty Cristo sometime this year but I don't think it will happen this summer.

For those interested in Trollope:

Liz (lyzard) is leading a group read of Anthony Trollope's Miss Mackenzie here:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/342134

The group read will last the month of June. Liz usually leads us chapter by chapter, so there is time to comment and reflect as we go along.

Miss Mackenzie is one of Trollope's shorter novels and tells the story of a quiet middle-aged spinster who suddenly finds herself an heiress and the object of 3 suitors, all equally unsuitable. This very funny and sweet novel is a re-read for me

All welcome!

June Reading

Only 7 books this month--I feel like I've been reading all along. Oh well.


50. Affairs at Thrush Green, Miss Read (1983)
Type: fiction; paperback off my shelves; Root from 2018

Another in the Thrush Green series, this next installment always circled back to Charles (the rector) and his wife Dimity. What I like about this series is that we're moving along in everyone's lives, but the focus in each book is a little different. I also like the fact that the love interests are usually older adults, so different from most novels. Miss Read has no qualms about showing us marriages that don't always work, second marriages, late in life romances, etc. And people die in Thrush Green or are living with illness. Real life sadness, but never without hope and change.


51. Miss Mackenzie, Anthony Trollope (1865)
Type: fiction; paperback off my shelves; Root from 2017; re-read

Miss Margaret Mackenzie is a middle-aged spinster who has spent her life caring for her elderly father and an invalid brother. At age 35 she becomes an heiress and suddenly becomes the object of 3 different suitors. While re-reading, I focused on the interactions between Margaret and others. Trollope realistically portrayed older reserved people who can't quite speak their feelings, and this inevitably leads to misunderstandings. Overall I enjoyed this book, with some funny moments and some poignant ones as well.


52. Tea is So Intoxicating, Mary Essex (1950)
Type: fiction; paperback off my shelves; Root from 2021

This book was irritating and not at all intoxicating. David, a dreamer, wants to set up a tea garden but Germayne doesn't see how it's ever going to work. It is a farce with a cast of annoying characters, all similarly named: David, Digby, Ducks; Germayne, George, Gertrude, Geoffrey. It might have worked as a screwball comedy movie, but it failed as a book for me.


53. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie (1926)
Type: fiction; library book; re-read for RL book club

More interesting on re-reading, since I knew the ending and was able to spot the clues along the way. Does have a startling ending for those new to the book. One of her earliest mysteries, it's considered one of Christie's best.


54. North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell (1855); audiobook read by Juliet Stevenson; re-read; Root from 2009

The first time I read N&S in 2009, it was so-so, partly because of the sections of masters v. workers and partly due to the dialect. Then I saw the 2004 series and it all fell into place: the politics and ethics and class divides and the love story became brilliantly intertwined for me. This is the story of Margaret Hale, 19, raised in London and the quiet rural south of England, who moves with her parents to the industrial North. She's exposed to mills and factories and workers ("hands") one specific mill owner ("master"), John Thornton. Sparks fly, cultures clash, and misunderstandings abound.

This was my 3rd re-read since 2009. Juliet Stevenson's performance on audiobook helped me a lot, especially with dialect. Several things noticed on this re-read: 1) the focus on hands: shaking hands, Margaret's hands serving tea, hands around Thornton's neck, the final scene with her hands covering her face, to name a few; 2) how many deaths happen (6?) in a span of (I think) 2 years in this book. 3) Change. This novel is about change: how we adapt (or fail to adapt) to change. Now I'm obsessed with this story: I think it is now my favorite novel, replacing my childhood favorites of Jane Eyre and Pride & Prejudice. Immediately after finishing this re-read, I re-watched the 2004 mini-series and noticed the many subtle changes the screenplay made to the plot. Most of them I think worked well and added to the energy of the film. And the music is wonderful, and all the main characters are brilliantly played. I think I need to watch it AGAIN. SOON.


55. The Feast, Margaret Kennedy (1950)
Type: fiction; paperback off my shelves; read for Virago June themed read

This book took a bit to get into, but once going it is a fantastic read. We are told in the first chapter that an old boardinghouse/hotel, on the Cornwall coast and built on ground over an old mine, has collapsed into the sea. There are deaths and there are survivors. The book then goes back to one week before the collapse, and each day we are introduced to the characters: the vacationers, the owners, the workers. At first it's a bit hard to keep track of everybody, but once we get to know each one we learn their personalities. The mystery is: who shall live and who shall die? Really, really good, with all kinds of underlying themes.


56. Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End, Jennifer Worth (2009)
Type: nonfiction; memoir; paperback from my shelves; Root from 2014

The last of Jennifer Worth's trilogy. Between warm and gentle reflections on the nurses and nuns, are sections on the brief history of midwifery in London, combating venereal disease, a family devastated by tuberculosis, illegal abortions, living conditions in poverty-stricken Poplar and difficult birth situations. Worth shows much love and respect for all her fellow midwives, patients and families. I found this compelling reading, with many medical terms, conditions and comparisons of 1950s standard practice vs. early 21st century standards.

In addition to the completed books above, I also started The Count of Monte Cristo, reading a few chapters a day. But that just doesn't work for me, so I have put it aside until I can dedicate myself completely to the book.

I also read bits from the biographies of Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot, both by Jenny Uglow.

And right now I'm almost halfway through a re-read of The Mill on the Floss. It started slowly, but it's picking up.

Hi Kathy my dear, your reading is going along very well with your latest write-ups of your recent reads. My reading is going along slowly at the moment but will pick up soon.

Hope all is well with you and the family and we both send love and hugs to you all dear friend.

July Reading Possibilities

It's Jane Austen July in Booktube-land. The prompts and my choices are:

1. Read one of the 6 main novels: Persuasion
✔ 2. Read a shorter work: Lady Susan, on audiobook
3. Read a nonfiction work about Austen or her time: Jane Austen's Names by Margaret Doody OR The Time Traveler's Guide to Regency Britain by Ian Mortimer
4. Read an Austen re-telling or Historical Fiction set in the Regency period: Jamaica Inn by Daphne DuMaurier OR Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier OR The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy
5. Read a book by an Austen contemporary: The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth OR The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott OR Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
6. Watch a direct film adaptation: 1995 Persuasion; Love and Friendship; 1995 Pride and Prejudice
7. Watch a modern retelling--skipping this one to watch the 3 direct adaptations.

Besides these, I've got these possibilities:

--finish The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot -- about half-way through
--Typical American, Gish Jen --for the July AAC
--That Lady, Kate O'Brien OR Mary O'Grady, Mary Lavin--for the Virago July themed read
--The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro--for my RL book club

We'll see...let's start with finishing The Mill on the Floss first....

>87 kac522: - Kathy, did you ever watch the tv series of Call the Midwife? I got hooked late in the series but borrowed all previous seasons from the library and binged them. It is so well done.

Jennifer Worth also wrote a stand-alone book called In the Midst of Life, which was the very first of hers I ever read.

>89 johnsimpson: Thanks for visiting, John. Yes, my reading seems to be going slowly, too, but I think Jane Austen should help pick it up in July.

It's hot here (about 35C), so am taking it easy today. Wishing the best for you and your family!

>91 jessibud2: Oh, yes, Shelley, we've been watching it from the first season. The most recent season just finished up here last month--have you seen the last 2 episodes with the train wreck?

I read the first two books about 8 years ago, and this one had been sitting on the shelf, so it was time to get to it. I've not read her stand-alone book.

Some Mid-Year Stats:

Total books read: 56
Type:
--Fiction: 44
--Nonfiction: 11
--Drama: 1
Authors: Female: 36; Male: 20
Re-reads: 11
Roots: 38
Bought & read in 2022: 4
Library books: 14
Audiobooks: 4
Published:
--before 20th century: 14
--20th century: 29
--21st century: 13

>87 kac522:, >91 jessibud2:, Hi Kathy and Shelley, following Jennifer Worth's death in 2011, her daughter Suzannah discovered amongst her manuscripts a folder simply labelled 'Fifth Book'. Imagine her excitement when she sat down to read and her mother's distinctive voice came flooding back. The result is Toffee Apples and Quail Feathers: New Stories from Call the Midwife. It has been compiled and with a foreword by Suzannah Worth, thought it might interest you both.

>92 kac522: - Yes I did, and wow! For some odd reason, I missed a few episodes of last season so I just got it from the library, too. I am so happy to have that opportunity.

I had not heard of that, John! thanks. I did buy (but have not yet read, admittedly), a book by Jennifer Worth's sister, called The Midwife's Sister by Christine Lee.

>94 johnsimpson: Thanks, John--did not know about this one! I will need to see if my library system has it.

>95 jessibud2: Yeah, we had to wait a WHOLE WEEK from the train wreck episode to the last episode. It was torture!

>97 kac522: - You know, one of the things I love best on this show was watching Max Macmillan (Timothy) grow from the small boy in the first season to the young man he is now. You don't often see such change in recurring characters except when they are children.

Great to see you posting Kathy.
I think reading more than two books per month published originally before the 20th Century is impressive

>98 jessibud2: Yes, isn't that great? So many of the characters have changed, but that is exactly like a high-stress workplace, I think.

>99 PaulCranswick: Thanks for stopping by, Paul. I hope I can get to at least 4 pre-20th century titles in July--Austen will help me with that :) I have SO many 19th century books I haven't read, that I really want to make them a priority.

I mentioned that I watched North and South--on the DVD there are extra features, and one was added commentary by the director and screenwriter. Some of the scenes were shot in Edinburgh and some scenes in Keighley. When we visited in 2017 we changed trains at Keighley to go to visit the Bronte parsonage in Haworth. It felt so cool to actually have been there, even if ever so briefly!

They also said that the interior cotton-mill scenes were shot in a real cotton-mill that is now a museum. Would you know where that is? I didn't catch the town name.

>100 kac522: Well, I should always consult Wikipedia first:
from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_%26_South_(TV_serial):

Keighley in West Yorkshire became one of the main locations, the cotton mill's exteriors were filmed at Dalton Mill. The scenes inside the mill were shot at Helmshore Textile Museum in Rossendale and Queen Street Mill on the outskirts of Burnley, Lancashire.

>96 kac522:, Hi Kathy my dear, i don't think it comes out until September.

>102 johnsimpson: OK, good to know, John. My library doesn't order books until they've been out 6 months, so I have a bit of a wait.

Mid-month check-in:

Jane Austen July TBR

✔ 1. Read one of the 6 main novels: Persuasion
and currently reading Pride and Prejudice
✔ 2. Read a shorter work: Lady Susan, on audiobook
3. Read a nonfiction work about Austen or her time: had to DNF Jane Austen's Names by Margaret Doody--just too crammed with facts, making it unreadable.
Instead, started re-reading What Matters in Jane Austen? by John Mullan, and loving it.
4. Read an Austen re-telling or Historical Fiction set in the Regency period: Jamaica Inn by Daphne DuMaurier
✔ 5. Read a book by an Austen contemporary: The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth
✔ 6. Watch a direct film adaptation: 1995 Persuasion; 1971 Persuasion; 1995 Pride and Prejudice; 1980 P&P
Also plan to watch Love and Friendship.

Other reading:

✔ The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot --mixed feelings about this one
✔ Typical American, Gish Jen --mixed feelings about this one, too

Coming up:
--That Lady, Kate O'Brien OR Mary O'Grady, Mary Lavin--for the Virago July themed read
✔ The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro--for my RL book club

July reading:

July was a decent reading month--lots of re-reads and movie adaptations. I accomplished most of my Jane Austen July goals, except I'm still reading my non-fiction selection and I will not get to the retelling/historical fiction prompt. So let's get to it.


57. Lady Susan, Jane Austen (publ 1871); audiobook
58. Persuasion (Collector's Library edition), Jane Austen (1817)
63. Pride and Prejudice (Norton Critical Editions), Jane Austen (1813)

All for Jane Austen July, these were all re-reads: Lady Susan via audiobook, while both Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice I re-read the text for the zillionth time. As always, delightful and witty. Right now, I think these are my favorite Austen works.

I also watched the 1995 and 1980 adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, the 1995 and 1971 adaptations of Persuasion, and Love and Friendship, which is the adaptation of Lady Susan. All added to my JA enjoyment this month.


59. The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot (1860)
Type: fiction; paperback from my shelves; re-read; Root from 2001

This is the story of Maggie Tulliver and her brother Tom, who care deeply about one another, but whose temperaments are quite different. Their father, who owns a mill on the River Floss, struggles to keep it running. As Maggie and Tom grow into adulthood, they grow apart and are finally challenged by circumstances beyond their control.

I have mixed feelings about this book, which was a re-read for me from 2001. The beginning chapters about Maggie and Tom's childhood was very real and engaging. Tom is often mean and unforgiving towards the impetuous Maggie. But the latter part of the book of their young adulthood was less effective for me and felt over-dramatic. It did not pull me in the same way as the earlier parts of the book. There are many references to water throughout the book; one cannot escape the river or its consequences. Perhaps I need another re-read to appreciate it, but this will not be a favorite Eliot for me.


60. The Warden, Anthony Trollope (1855); audiobook read by Simon Vance
Type: fiction; re-read; Root from 2014

This was the first work of Trollope I read (back in 2014) and it is also the first of his Barchester Chronicles. Mr Harding, an elderly clergyman, is faced with an ethical dilemma, and Trollope takes us through his process of determining what he should do. There are some wonderful asides by Trollope about Dickens ("Mr Popular Sentiment") and the power of newspapers ("The Jupiter"). This was my first re-read via audiobook, and I plan to continue re-reading the entire Barchester books this way.


61. Typical American, Gish Jen (1991)
Type: fiction; from my shelves; Root from 2009; read for July AAC

This is the story of Ralph Chang, who leaves China in 1947 to become an engineering student in America. After the Communists take over, Ralph cannot return to his parents, reunites with his older sister Theresa in New York, and marries her friend Helen. We follow their triumphs and tribulations to become Americans, sometimes "typical", sometimes not.

I enjoyed the first half of this book, but the Chang family's spiraling out of control in the last half dragged and lost my interest. Having just finished The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot, the sparse, choppy writing here was a bit of a shock, but by the end of the book the sentences and thoughts expanded. The writing was always good, sharp and perceptive. I had previously enjoyed Jen's short stories Who's Irish?, and I think for me her writing works better in the shorter format.


62. Jeeves: Joy in the Morning, P. G. Wodehouse (1947)
Type: fiction; audiobook from BBC Radio

A fun romp with Jeeves and Bertie Wooster, as they avoid catastrophe after catastrophe. Of course, only Jeeves can save the day. This audiobook was a BBC Radio play production adapted from the original book, and was hilarious. Wodehouse can toss off some thoroughly entertaining sentences, wordplay and dialogue.


64. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro; (1989)
Type: fiction; from my shelves; Root from 2017

An English butler looks back on his life and service in Britain between the wars. Ishiguro explores the idea of the unreliable narrator and unreliable memory in various ways, as well as the concept of loyalty. I felt that every page--every sentence, really--was expertly crafted to achieve the atmosphere and aura of this book. This was outstanding, and I'm not sure what took me so long to read it. I have Never Let Me Go and When We Were Orphans on my TBR shelf, and hope to get to them soon.

I also watched the movie (with Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant and Christopher Reeve) and it was also very good. I have to say, however, the most enjoyable part of the DVD for me was the Special Features which included comments by Ishiguro on the concepts he was trying to explore in the book. Fascinating.


65. Murakami T: The T-Shirts I love, Haruki Murakami (2021)
Type: nonfiction about collections

Saw this on my library's new book shelf and grabbed it on a lark. Known for his vast record collection and devotion to running, this is a fun little book featuring some examples of Haruki Murakami's T-shirt collection. Most of them he picks up in thrift shops and most he doesn't even wear. The book is grouped into themes of T-shirts. Probably his most famous T-shirt, "Tony Takitani", inspired Murakami to write a short story on who he imagined Tony to be. I'd say my favorites were the book-themed shirts.


66. The Absentee, Maria Edgeworth (1812)
Type: fiction; for JA July; Root from 2018

Maria Edgeworth was an Anglo-Irish writer and contemporary of Jane Austen. The Absentee explores the issues with absentee Irish landlords who lived in London, and neglected the terrible conditions of their Irish tenants. Unlike Austen's domestic novels, Edgeworth pulls in contemporary society, both good and bad, and looks at the wider picture of the fate of the Irish people. Also unlike Austen, she uses Irish dialect, portrays lower classes and peasants, middle classes, as well as Lords and Ladies.

However, I found Edgeworth's writing style more 18th century than 19th century, and not as smooth or witty as Austen's. Edgeworth's characters are often one-dimensional (either very good or very bad), whereas Austen's characterizations of her heroines and heroes are more well-rounded and believable. Edgeworth's plots take many twists and turns, almost to the point of exhaustion, and this book ends with an unrealistic ending.

What I enjoyed about The Absentee is that Edgeworth fills the book with Irish folktales and folklore--the heroine, for example, is named Grace Nugent, reminiscent of the woman made famous in Irish song. Here's a performance on pipes and harp of "Grace Nugent" by the legendary Irish harp composer Turlough Carolan (1670-1738):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79r1Pfvc2wo

Looking at August:

Right now I'm currently reading:

✔--The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reader for the AAC--plan to dip in & out of this 600+ page book

Sure things for August:
✔--What Matters in Jane Austen by John Mullan--this is my nonfiction selection for JA July. It's a re-read, but it's been a while, and Mullan always has so many interesting observations.
✔--Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope--a re-read on audiobook. Ah Mr Slope! And Mrs Proudie! And Signora Neroni! and those old friends Mr Harding and Eleanor Bold. Loving it.
✔--At Home in Thrush Green, Miss Read
✔--Truman, David McCullough, audiobook
✔--Hester, Margaret Oliphant
✔--Epitaph for a Peach, by David Masumoto, nonfiction selection for my RL book club. I've also picked up ✔ The Perfect Peach: Recipes and Stories from the Masumoto Family Farm.

After that, everything's up in the air. Some possibilities:

--The Time Traveler's Guide to Regency Britain, Ian Mortimer (left over JA book)
Classics:
✔--The Caravaners and
✔--Father, by Elizabeth von Arnim
--Lady Anna and The Vicar of Bulhampton Anthony Trollope
--Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell
--Shadows on the Rock, Willa Cather
--Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert (re-read), which would be in preparation for:
--The Doctor's Wife, Mary Elizabeth Braddon (supposedly a response to Flaubert's book)
--Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte (re-read)

My challenges and other books off the TBR:
--The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen
--Angel, Elizabeth Taylor
--The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams, historical fiction about the Oxford English Dictionary

Library books I really need to read:
--The Go-Between, L. P. Hartley (fiction)
--The Lighthouse Stevensons, Bella Bathurst, nonfiction about the Stevenson family
--Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, Daniel Kahneman (nonfiction: psychology and human judgment)

Hopefully I'll get a few of these read, and not get side-tracked by something else (ha!).

Thinking about September reading....

I have one book left to finish for August, and I'm currently listening to Doctor Thorne, which I won't finish by tomorrow.

But that doesn't stop me from thinking about next month....or about October. October is Victober (Victorian October) and I know I'll be reading a pile of very long books.

So I thought I'd pick up some short ones for September, mostly under 200 pages. Here are my possibilities, although always changing:

Long book:
✔ Doctor Thorne, Anthony Trollope (audiobook read by Simon Vance)
✔ Lady Anna, Anthony Trollope (re-read)

250-300 pages:
✔ The Lark, E Nesbit
The Fortnight in September, R. C. Sherriff

200-250 pages:
✔ The Sweet Remnants of Summer, Alexander McCall Smith
✔ Appointment with Death, Agatha Christie
A Chelsea Concerto, Frances Faviell (memoir of WWII)
Good Daughters, Mary Hocking
Love and Youth: Essential Stories, Ivan Turgenev

Under 200 pages:
Fiction:
The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen
My Mortal Enemy, Willa Cather
✔ Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan, 2022 Booker Prize Longlist
When the Emperor Was Divine, Julie Otsuka
A Month in the Country, Ivan Turgenev
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain--amazingly, have never read this
The Optimist's Daughter, Eudora Welty

Non-fiction:
✔ Early Days, Miss Read (2007)
The Land of Little Rain, Mary Austin; essays from 1903 about the American Southwest
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, memoir, re-read
✔ Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit, essays

Love to hear what you'd put at the top of the list...

>107 kac522: I only have read Small Things Like These and Men Explain Things to Me, Kathy, and loved them both.

>108 FAMeulstee: Thank you! Good to know...and I've already started Men Explain Things To Me...that first essay is so powerful. Once I'm done with my current book (Father by Elizabeth von Arnim, which is so far wonderful), Small Things Like These will be up next, as it is a library book.

I'm currently finishing up Father by Elizabeth von Arnim--and loving it--and noticed that she was born today 31 August in 1866. The book is set in August, too.

It's almost that time of year--Victober! Here's the booktube announcement for the Victorian October reading challenge on Kate Howe's channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGWgG8DKcus

In addition to the 5 challenges and 1 Group Read, hosts Kate Howe and Katie Lumsden will be posting Victorian-themed content videos throughout the month.

The five challenges this year are:

1. Read a Victorian work with chronic illness or disability representation
2. Read a Victorian Bildungsroman/coming of age story
3. Read a Victorian short story
4. Read a Victorian book and watch a screen adaptation of it
5. Read a work of Victorian poetry, long or short

Group Read: The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy, 2 chapters a day 1st to 23rd October

My tentative plans are:

1. & 2. Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens, a re-read via audiobook (coming of age & disability)
3. I have several collections of Elizabeth Gaskell's stories, so I will choose from those
4. Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy, a re-read and movie TBA
5. I have several collections of poetry, so will choose a poem or two.

I read The Mayor of Casterbridge within the last few years, so I won't be doing the Group Read. Instead, I will be following the LT Virago group read with lyzard of Margaret Oliphant's Miss Marjoribanks.

I've also set myself 2 additional challenges:
--Nonfiction: either about or written in the Victorian period. I have several biographies (Trollope, Disraeli, Charlotte Bronte) which are my likely choices.
--New to me author: I have never read George Gissing, so I might read The Odd Women.

And who knows? Maybe I'll be able to sneak in The Vicar of Bulhampton by Trollope and/or Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell.

Of course, all subject to last-minute changes.

Happy Labor Day, Kathy. I hope you are doing well. Our weather has been great, right? Good luck with your September reading.

Thanks for stopping by, Mark. Yes, the weather has been good; we're doing some indoor cleaning today since it's cool and not much else happening. Also some reading, of course.

August Reading--Part 1:


67. What Matters in Jane Austen, John Mullan (2012)
Type: nonfiction; literary criticism; re-read from 2013; for JA July

Mullan answers 20 different questions about Austen, and does so in detail. What's most interesting is how Mullan shows how Austen in subtle ways influences our point of view and how we perceive the characters. He shows us Austen's "art", and how seamlessly she does it. On this re-read I particularly liked the sections on "Which characters never speak" and "which characters die." The most interesting question was the last one, which gives numerous examples of Austen free indirect discourse--Austen's subtle way of getting into the character's head, without making it obvious. For Austen fans, this book is a must.


68. Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope (1857); audiobook re-read by Simon Vance
Type: fiction; re-read from 2011

Just as wonderful as I remember it, and made even better by Simon Vance's "Good heavens!" from Archdeacon Grantly. Mr Slope is just as slimy and Mr Harding just as lovable.


69. At Home in Thrush Green, Miss Read (1985);
Type: fiction

Various residents of Thrush Green settle into new living situations. This book seemed to feature most people in Thrush Green, although perhaps Nelly Piggott seemed to provide the "touchstone" for the rest, as she settled into a new job and thrived. The book ends on a hopeful note of Spring.


70. Truman, David McCullough (1992); abridged audiobook re-read by McCullough
Type: nonfiction; biography; re-read from 2015

I re-visited this biography after hearing of David McCullough's death. I had forgotten a lot, but I did remember McCullough's emphasis on Truman's character. Well worth the re-read and to hear McCullough's voice this week.


71. Hester, Margaret Oliphant (1883);
Type: fiction

Hester Vernon and her poor widowed mother are brought back to the town of Redborough by their wealthy elderly spinster relation Catherine Vernon, owner of Vernon Bank, the major bank in town. Catherine, proud, strong and cynical, has provided lodging and support for a group of her struggling relations, who mostly resent her help, but not to her face. Years ago, Catherine was joint owner of the bank with her cousin John Vernon, Hester's father, who brought ruin to the bank. John & his wife fled abroad; Hester and her mother have no knowledge of John's failure. Hester eventually has 3 suitors in the town, all distantly related, and one, Edward, is Catherine's favorite and the current working manager of the bank.

The characters are not likeable; Oliphant spends a lot of time in the minds and thoughts of these main characters, especially Catherine and Hester. The story does move along, although the book could have easily been 100 pages shorter. What's interesting is that Oliphant sets Catherine, Edward and Hester as the "clever" Vernons--the ones that others look up to be successful. But these three have tragic flaws: Edward is a risk-taker; Catherine is blind to people's true character, especially Edward's; and Hester's flaws are her lineage--her father's failures and her mother's weaknesses. Like the Carlingford books, there is an element of the sensation novel here and Oliphant leaves us with an open-ended conclusion--we don't know what will eventually happen to the bank or to Hester. Unlike the lighter Carlingford books, this novel is serious and almost bitter. This was an interesting read, but I doubt that I will visit it again.

August Reading--Part 2:


72. The Caravaners, Elizabeth von Arnim (1909)
Type: fiction

This novel is the written journal of Baron Otto von Otringel, a German army officer, of his caravan holiday with his wife and a handful of friends in southern England. Baron Otto considers himself the last word in all that is aristocratic, upright, gentlemanly and moral, but who increasingly finds fault with every aspect of this camping holiday and how he is treated. His gentle wife tries to appease his displeasure as the Baron slowly but surely alienates his fellow travelers. Without servants, everyone is expected to help, and to his horror, the Baron is expected to help with the washing-up, which of course, is a woman's sphere. In fact much of the Baron's discourse here is defining exactly what a woman's "duty" is to her husband.

Much of this is funny, as well as infuriating, as apparently it is not far from the truth that von Arnim experienced herself with her German husband at the turn of the 20th century. Written in 1909, von Arnim has the Baron express (several times) how it is only natural that at some point the superior Germans will one day come and straighten out this barbaric nation of England--a scary foreshadowing of events to come.

This was clever and full of biting humor, but it did carry on a bit too long for me--the Baron just became too insufferable. On the whole I love von Arnim's books, but this is one that was hard to endure and I will not re-visit.


73. Epitaph for a Peach, David Mas Masumoto (1995)
Type: nonfiction; memoir; family farming

Beautifully written; philosophical; so many aspects of life touched upon. Masumoto runs his family's California farm, which includes peach orchards and grape vines for raisins. Masumoto describes farm life and methods; family farm traditions; and his Japanese American heritage in farming--he is a third generation farm worker. Masumoto describes grappling with the elements: floods and droughts, good pests and bad. And then there is the entire business aspect of the farm: attempting to grow in the most natural, organic and sustainable way possible, while still making a profit. And who knew that peaches needed to be de-fuzzed before going to market?

To be honest, I can hardly say that I would normally find much of this at all interesting, but Masumoto writes in such an elegant style, with just enough humor and wit to be wholly endearing. A wonderful August read, which made me go right out and buy peaches.


74. The Perfect Peach, Marcy, Nikiko and David Mas Masumoto (2013)
Type: nonfiction; cookbook

In conjunction with Epitaph for a Peach, I picked up this book of recipes and reflections by the Masumoto family. I'm not a big cookbook buyer or reader, but the description of peaches in Masumoto's book made me want more. There's a basic primer on peaches: identifying, choosing, eating, storing, varieties and flavors. The recipes range from beverages, appetizers, savory dishes, desserts, and canning and preserving. Along the way are short essays by the authors about all different aspects of working on a farm as a family. This is more than just a recipe book; it's a description of a way of life. I borrowed this from the library, but I plan to purchase my own copy.


75. The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reader, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (2012),
Type: nonfiction; essays

This is a 620 page anthology of selections of Gates's essays from 1985 through 2011. I read about 75% of the selections, and feel that I'm done. The essays I didn't read (or skimmed) were of less interest to me.

The anthology is divided into 8 sections, like "Genealogies", "Canons", "Reading People", "Reading Places", etc. I think my favorite sections were "Genealogies" (about his family, with several selections from Colored People); "Reading People" (profiles and family history of individuals, including John Hope Franklin and Oprah); and "Interviews" (with the likes of James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, Wole Solinka and Isabel Wilkerson).

My two favorite pieces were "Canon Confidential: A Sam Slade Caper", from the NY Times Book Review, March 25, 1990, which is a clever detective take-off on the literary canon; and an interview with Condoleezza Rice in 2009. I was never a big fan of Ms Rice, but this interview is funny and interesting and down-to-earth.

I kept putting off reading this tome, but am glad I finally took the plunge. I just wish it had been shorter--perhaps divided into 2 or 3 separate books, in which the essays were grouped by topic (maybe family histories/culture/personal profiles and interviews). Because the essays were organized by topic and not by date, I didn't feel the impact over time. I think several different books, focusing on an area/topic and organized by date, would give a better idea of Gates' development as a thinker and writer over his career.


76. Father, Elizabeth von Arnim (1931)
Type: fiction

This novel touches on the same themes as The Caravaners (1909) which I read earlier this month, but resolves with a much happier and more hopeful conclusion.

Jennifer, 33, has been her father's secretary and household manager in London since her mother's death 12 years earlier. She loves her father but feels trapped in this role. One day her father waltzes in with a new bride, many years younger than Jennifer. Feeling that "three's a crowd", Jennifer jumps at the opportunity to take her mother's small legacy and strike out on her own. She finds a small country cottage to let from a young vicar, James, and his bossy elder sister, Alice. Jennifer and James begin to understand each other, as they both are attempting to free themselves from over-bearing relations, and the story moves on from there.

Funny, touching, with lovely descriptions of the cottage and surrounding gardens, this book looks at unequal family relationships. But it also touches on the lives of the "surplus" women between the wars who must depend on the support and good graces of a man, whether by marriage or family connection. This is von Arnim at her best.

>115 kac522: Congratulations on reaching 75, Kathy!

Congrats!

>116 FAMeulstee:, >117 drneutron: Thank you, thank you! It hadn't quite dawned on me that I had hit 75 until I did this monthly round-up. So it's smooth sailing for me for the rest of the year!

Hi Kathy my dear, congrats on reaching 75 books read for the year so far. Sending love and hugs to you and the family from both of us dear friend.

>119 johnsimpson: Hello John, thank you for stopping by. Condolences on the loss of the Queen. My mother was also born in April 1926, so she was always interested in the Elizabeth's progress, since they were the same age. Somewhere around here I have an over-sized Coronation souvenir book from 1953--I think it was my grandparents'.

Hope that Liz Truss & Co. get your energy situation sorted, so that regular people and businesses can afford to stay warm for the winter. At least we have our books, even by candlelight!

So in September I'm reading shorter books, generally 250 pages or less. I figure this gives me an excuse to make short reviews, too. Here's what I've read in the first 10 days of September:


77. Doctor Thorne, by Anthony Trollope (1858),re-read via audiobook narrated by Simon Vance. Fiction. Started this in August and finished in September. This is probably my favorite Trollope novel, and it was Trollope's most successful in his lifetime. I had forgotten the long passages of politics and alcoholism, but still a wonderful comfort read.


78. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan (2021). Fiction. An exquisitely written novella, with an open ending that is life-affirming yet possibly perilous. Set in a small Irish town in 1985, while delivering coal, Bill Furlong makes a discovery, which will change the way he looks at his own life and his past.


79. The Lark, E. Nesbit (1922). Fiction. Two young women, having lost their inheritance, set off to live on their own in the country. Felt like a tedious YA novel, although Nesbit wrote it for adults. I like The Railway Children much better--even as a children's book, it had more character development.


80. Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit (2015). Nonfiction, essays. The title essay was the best, but all the essays deal with women's issues. Clear, precise thinking, that never hides the anger and rage, but never gets over-dramatic. This is an updated edition, with 2 new essays.

And currently reading:

Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens, audiobook re-read, which should go into Victober.
The Sweet Remnants of Summer, Alexander McCall Smith (2022), the latest Isabel Dalhousie novel

Up next:

My one long book for the month: Trollope's Lady Anna.

And then not sure from there....

Continuing my September reading (Sep 11-21):


81. The Sweet Remnants of Summer, by Alexander McCall Smith (2022) Fiction. This latest installment in the Isabel Dalhousie series is set in early September as summer in Edinburgh is slowly fading. Isabel & Jamie's children are going back to school; Jamie is concerned about an issue in his orchestra; and Isabel is asked to intervene in a dispute between a father and his grown son. All along we are treated to McCall Smith's usual musings on life, love, art, music, food and the right thing to do. What is the line between helping and interfering? Amazingly, McCall Smith does touch on current issues and political/social divides, but in such a way that one feels that these problems may yet get a little closer to resolution if we each strive for kindness, gentleness and mutual understanding.


82. Lady Anna, Anthony Trollope (1874). Fiction; re-read from 2015. I only remembered that I had enjoyed this book back in 2015, but remembered next to nothing about the plot.

Trollope sets up a somewhat complicated premise right at the beginning. Set in the 1830s, it is a story of class, rank, wealth and love. The heart of the novel (and our true main character), however, is focused on Lady Anna's mother, the Countess Lovel, who is determined her daughter will not marry the lowly tailor and will marry her cousin, the Earl. Trollope brilliantly portrays how this mother's obsession turns slowly into madness, and the final terrible result of that madness.

One of the things I love about Trollope, and on display here, is how he can provide multiple sides to a question or problem. It is like he is turning these problems over and over in our minds: the good, the bad, the reasonable, the unacceptable, the possible, the probable outcomes. When portraying women in society, he shows how both Countess Lovel and Lady Anna were severely restricted in their choices. They must marry, and they must strive to marry as well as can be expected for their rank, or they suffer consequences.


83. Appointment with Death, Agatha Christie (1938). Fiction. Set in Jerusalem and Jordan, a controlling mother is murdered, and everyone is suspect. There's a lot of psychological analysis in the first half of the book before the murder happens and Poirot is called in. There is a surprise murderer that would be almost impossible to predict, so the story felt unsatisfying to me. However, re-reading this quote, describing the control the mother has over her children, I see how this book reflects the rapidly progressing events of 1938: :"We see it all round us to-day - in political creeds, in the conduct of nations. A reaction from humanitarianism - from pity - from brotherly good-will. The creeds sound well sometimes - a wise régime - a beneficent government - but imposed by FORCE - resting on a basis of cruelty and fear. They are opening the door, these apostles of violence, they are letting up the old savagery, the old delight in cruelty FOR ITS OWN SAKE!"


84. Early Days, Miss Read (2007). Nonfiction, memoir. Dora Shafe Saint--aka Miss Read--is the author of many books, primarily contained in two series set in small English villages. One series, the Fairacre books, are told in the first person by Miss Read, who is the Fairacre village primary school teacher. The other series is set in the village of Thrush Green.

I've loved both series, and was so happy to find this memoir, which is a combination of 2 shorter memoirs: A Fortunate Grandchild (1982) and Time Remembered (1986), published together in one volume as Early Days in 1995 and revised in 2007. The first book is a profile of Miss Read's grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles; and her early life in London until age 7. She hated London and her primary school--the noise, the crowds, the many children, and the strict school discipline were unhappy memories for her. Despite being an early reader, she did not thrive in school.

The second book begins with the Shafe family moving to the village of Chelsfield in rural Kent for her mother's health, and this memoir mostly covers her school experiences and country life from ages 8 until 11. As soon as she arrives in Kent, she feels immediately at home, and considers these years the happiest of her life. From this part of the memoir, you can easily see how Miss Read's life in Kent influenced her love of the country village and school that are so wonderfully portrayed in her many books. I enjoyed these memoirs; this small volume will be a "keeper" to re-visit again and again.

Currently reading:

Nicholas Nickleby on audio; about half-way through
The Fortnight in September, R. C. Sherriff
The London Scene, Virginia Woolff (6 essays)

and hope to get to some of these to finish off the month:

The Optimist's Daughter, Eudora Welty (AAC - Pulitzer winner)
Good Daughters, Mary Hocking (Virago challenge--Family)
A Chelsea Concerto, Frances Faviell (memoir of London Blitz)
Leonardo da Vinci, Sherwin Nuland (biography)

Rounding up my September reading:


85. The Fortnight in September, R. C. Sherriff (1931); Fiction.

This is a simple story about the Stevens family (Mr, Mrs, Mary, Dick and Ernie) on their annual September trip to the English seaside circa 1930. It is a pleasant re-telling without any real plot, but for some unexplainable reason, Sherriff's style and good humor kept me reading. We can tell he enjoyed the characters he created. It reminded me of times when friends would sit you down to watch the slides of their latest vacation, as they tell you the details of all the places they went.

The book begins the day before the trip and ends a fortnight (and a day) later on the afternoon they leave. There is delightful detail of the packing, train ride, arrival, and boarding house, with its worn furniture and lumpy beds. Each member of the family has a tiny "moment" of discovery. The only detraction for me was that I felt the main female characters, Mrs Stevens and Mary, did not feel true, or at least did not feel completely flushed out. Mr Stevens, Dick and Ernie all seem to be more rounded characters, with more back story and detail. Overall it is a gentle, heart-warming story of an average, mostly happy family in a bygone era.


86. The London Scene: Six Essays on London Life, Virginia Woolf (1932); Essays.

I've come to the conclusion that I just don't get on with Virginia Woolf's writing. I thought it would be different with these 6 little essays about London life, originally commissioned in 1931 by the British edition of Good Housekeeping (this edition collected in 2006, with an introduction by Francine Prose). But I often found my mind wandering while reading--not sure if that's me or what, but her language does not engage me as a reader. I don't remember many of the images, whereas so many of the images of the much simpler The Fortnight in September by R. C. Sherriff, which I read just before this, are still clear in my mind. Anyway, the best of these for me was the essay about visiting the homes of the Carlyles and Keats, and how they reflect the authors.


87. The Optimist's Daughter, Eudora Welty (1972); Fiction; Pulitzer Prize winner, 1973.

Optimist Judge McKelva dies and his widowed daughter Laurel comes home to Mississippi to deal with the funeral and her father's 2nd wife, Fay, who is much younger and very different from Laurel. Friends and relatives arrive at the home, and we see a slice of Southern life in the 1960s. This is a slow-moving book, with reflections on class, how to deal with the past and the meaning of memory. There are birds mentioned throughout the novel which seemed to allude to freedom.

I could almost have enjoyed this book except for the 2nd wife Fay, who was so cruel, petty and selfish that she was unbelievably evil. This portrayal ruined the book for me, because there wasn't an ounce of kindness, goodness or decency in this character (or any real way to understand her), and I don't know why Welty made her that way. Beyond Fay, I did enjoy the banter in the home among the neighbors, friends and relatives; and Laurel's own musings on the past and going through her childhood home, room by room.

I'm pleased with my September reading; on the whole I enjoyed the books I read, and not sorry I read the ones that didn't turn out so well.

I have two books that I'm currently reading and are carry-overs from September:

✔ Nicholas Nickleby, Dickens, on audio; about 2/3 through--will continue as a Victober (Victorian October) read.
✔ A Chelsea Concerto, Frances Faviell; memoir of the London Blitz

October plans are very ambitious.
Victober reads, fine-tuned:

✔ Miss Marjoribanks, Margaret Oliphant; a group read with Liz
✔ A Pair of Blue Eyes, Thomas Hardy, re-read from 1989
✔ The Vicar of Bullhampton, Anthony Trollope
✔ Cousin Phillis and Other Tales selected short stories of Elizabeth Gaskell
✔ The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde play, re-read from 2015
--The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde, re-read from high school/1960s
✔ Eminent Victorians, Lytton Strachey, nonfiction group biography

Other Victober possibilities include:
✔ audiobook: The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy, if I finish Nickleby early in the month
--Mary Barton (re-read from 2013) or Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell

Other reads:
✔ "The Birds", Daphne DuMaurier, a short story which inspired the legendary Hitchcock movie; for my RL book club
--Maimonides or Leonardo da Vinci, biographies by Sherwin Nuland

Hi, Kathy - congratulations on your 75!

That's a lovely list of reading and re-reading (averting my eyes from some of it, though, as you've hit on a few I haven't read yet).

I was blown away by Father when I read it some years back, what a quietly devastating book! It deserves to be better known than it is.

>125 lyzard: Yes, von Arnim can be brilliant, and Father is one of those. The Caravaners was a bit too tedious/repetitive for me. Another brilliant one is Mr Skeffington, which was written in 1940, and you can feel the build-up to war hovering in the background. I have so many of hers yet to read (a good thing to look forward to).

If you haven't read it yet, I think you would enjoy The Feast by Margaret Kennedy, written soon after the war. All kinds of themes running through the novel, with fantastic characterizations and a tense build-up to the end.

I was less impressed with Hester, so I'm curious to see how Miss Marjoribanks plays out.

October reading:

My Victorian October reading was a success--I feel like I read just about everything that I set out to read, and enjoyed almost all of my selections, plus a couple of non-Victober selections.


88. A Chelsea Concerto, Frances Faviell (1959)
Type: nonfiction, memoir

This was not a Victober selection and NOT a bit about music! This is Faviell's memoir (published in 1959) of her time living in Chelsea as a Red Cross volunteer in London, approximately Sep 1939 through Sep 1941. This was riveting, especially the intense months of the Blitz: Sep 1940 through May 1941, with an unforgettable ending. Would have been 5 stars, but I took off a 1/2 star only because it has no glossary or reference to all the acronyms she uses; eighty years on not all of these organizations are within our memories.


89. Miss Marjoribanks, Margaret Oliphant (1866)
Type: fiction; for the Virago Chronological Read project and group read with Liz (lyzard); for Victober

This continues Oliphant's Carlingford series, and is perhaps her best known work. To me it felt like Austen's Emma, but more cynical and, frankly, more realistic. Miss Lucilla Marjoribanks is a young woman with a project: to care for her widowed "dear papa" and to improve society in Carlingford with her Thursday night gatherings. Lucilla gets her way much of the first half of the book; she runs Carlingford society; and she is courted by suitors when she has no intention of marriage. Things slowly deteriorate for Lucilla over the course of the novel. I won't spoil the ending, but Oliphant does give Lucilla the possibility of a life of "projects." This novel felt a bit like farce, but also bitter at times. Some find Lucilla delightful; I just had no sympathy for her at all.


90. Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens (1839); audiobook read by Simon Vance; re-read from 2008 & 2018
Type: fiction; for Victober

Enjoyed revisiting this classic. Fit the bildungsroman (Nicholas) and disability (Smike) prompts for Victober2022. Although it does drag some in the middle, the exciting ending as Dickens brings all the various plots together is always so entertaining. It is not so much the "hero" Nicholas himself, but the wonderful cast of thousands around him that makes it such a great story.


91. The Vicar of Bullhampton, Anthony Trollope (1870)
Type: fiction; paperback from my shelves; for Victober

Although a man is in the title, this novel is really about two young women of Bullhampton, Mary Lowther and Carry Brattle, from different strands of society with very different issues. Their two threads intertwine with a third story line concerning the Vicar, Fred Fenwick (interestingly, the two women never encounter each other in the novel). Trollope is exploring the latter 19th century debate of "the Woman Question" and places his characters somewhere between the traditional young female heroine and the new struggles for women's independence. As usual, Trollope takes the traditional view that marriage is the most desirable outcome for women, but acknowledges that they must do so on their own terms. A step in the right direction, although certainly a baby step. But it's Trollope, so I loved it, despite its flaws.


92. The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde (1895)
Type: drama; for Victober read & watch adaptation prompt

I read the play and watched two adaptations. The play is so delightful; there are so many good lines. A few of my favorites:
Mr Worthing tells Lady Bracknell that he has "lost his parents"--
Lady Bracknell: To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
*****
Later, in the garden with Cecily, Miss Prism states she wrote a three-volume novel:
Cecily: I hope it did not end happily? I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.
Miss Prism: The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.
*****
Cecily and Gwendolen, having just met, are in the garden; Gwendolen produces her diary:
Gwendolen: I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.


93. The John McPhee Reader, John McPhee (1976)
Type: nonfiction; essays; for AAC

Read for the October AAC, these are 13 excerpts from his first 12 books (1965-1976). I read 7 selections and
my favorite was a 1965 piece "A Sense of Where You Are" profiling a then-current Senior on the Princeton University basketball team, one William Warren Bradley. Really good piece, lots of techie b-ball talk, and profile of one determined young man. Best quote: when McPhee asked Bill Bradley's coach what Bradley would be doing when he's 40, Coach answered, "I don't know, I guess he'll be the governor of Missouri." Close, but no cigar, Coach--try U. S. Senator from New Jersey.


94. Cousin Phillis and Other Tales, Elizabeth Gaskell (1865)
Type: fiction; short stories; for Victober short story prompt

Of this collection, I had read most of the stories before. This time I read "Lizzie Leigh" and "Half a Lifetime Ago", both of which were good, but the real pleasure was re-reading "Cousin Phillis", probably more a novella (95 pages) than a short story.

"Cousin Phillis" is a bittersweet tale, set in pastoral 1840s. Paul Manning, the narrator, begins his first job away from home building new railroads and visits his farming relations, the Holmans, who live in the area. Daughter Phillis, 16, and Paul become good friends. Paul brings his world-savvy engineering co-worker Mr Holdsworth to visit the family and Phillis is smitten. The story is a coming of age for Paul, for Phillis and for her parents. It is about a simple life that will be forever changed--by railroads, by technology and by relationships. This is the last full work Gaskell wrote before her final novel Wives and Daughters. A lot packed into 95 pages.


95. The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy; (1886); audiobook read by Tony Britton; re-read from 1980s and 2016
Type: fiction; from my shelves; for Victober Group Read

One of Hardy's best novels, this tells the story of Michael Henchard, a farm laborer who, in a drunken rage, sells his wife and daughter to a stranger. Nearly twenty years later, after working his way up to be a successful businessman and mayor, his wife and child return to him, and thus begins Henchard's slow, painful descent.

This was the first Hardy novel I ever read some 40+ years ago, and it has remained with me all these years. The audiobook brought the intensity of Michael's story to the forefront. Tony Britton's voice for Michael Henchard was exactly as I imagined it. I think this time I was most struck by how Henchard makes mistakes over and over again, and yet regrets or tries to amend those mistakes, over and over again. Hardy's portrayal of this man with complicated intentions and emotions is brilliant; the other characters pale in comparison, although I have some sympathy with his daughter, Elizabeth Jane.


96. Eminent Victorians: The Illustrated Edition, Lytton Strachey (orig 1918; this edition 1988)
Type: nonfiction; biographies

Published in 1918, Strachey profiles 4 "heroes" of the Victorian era, and in a break from past reverential-type biographies, presents each of them with both their strengths and weaknesses. Along with his biography of Queen Victoria, Eminent Victorians ushered in a new era of examining the psychology of his biographical subjects.

Cardinal Henry Edward Manning converted to Catholicism and rose quickly in the ranks to positions of leadership and influence. Strachey emphasizes his political maneuvering in order to get his priorities accomplished.

Strachey shatters the image of Florence Nightingale as saintly and self-sacrificing, and portrays a savvy and often bullying administrator who uses political influence to achieve great changes in the practice of nursing.

Dr Thomas Arnold (father of poet Matthew Arnold) is credited with reforming education in England, but Strachey maintains he only brought about a "system which hands over the life of a school to an oligarchy of a dozen youths of seventeen."

Finally, General Charles George Gordon was considered a war martyr at the fall of Khartoum in 1884, but Strachey shows how Gordon's irrational behavior, refusal to follow orders and religious fanaticism led not only to his own death, but to thousands and thousands of innocent victims.

I had only heard of Florence Nightingale prior to this book. This particular edition includes many photographs and illustrations which enhanced my reading experience.


97. A Pair of Blue Eyes, Thomas Hardy (1873); re-read from 1989
Type: fiction; for Victober

Hardy's third published novel set in rural Cornwall concerns a widowed parson's daughter, Elfride Swancourt. When a young architect and lowly mason's son, Stephen Smith, comes to town to work on the church, they swiftly fall in love and secretly pledge to marry. Stephen goes to India to make his fortune to win her hand, but in the mean time her father re-marries and Elfride is introduced to the 32 year old famous literary man, Harry Knight. The love triangle story goes on from there, exploring class, sexuality and secrets. Hardy based the story of Stephen and Elfride on his own experience with his first wife, Emma. With the two lovers, architect and literary man, Hardy portrays the two "sides" of himself--the practical, young trained architect and the imagined literary genius he wished to become. This is a masterful character study of these two men, although Elfride's portrayal felt superficial, albeit sympathetic. Sad, powerful, but not quite as tragic as Hardy's later novels.

The Birds, Daphne DuMaurier (1952)--short story

Finally, for my RL Book Club we read The Birds which was WAY scarier than the Hitchcock movie. DuMaurier's original story is set in a remote part of Cornwall and is terrifying. Hitchcock changed the setting and really most of the plot, and DuMaurier did not approve. I hope some day someone DOES make a film on the original short story, which calls into question what happens when Nature decides to behave out of control.

November plans are pretty loose at this point.

The only for-sure read will be a re-read of A Lost Lady by Willa Cather, as I will be hosting this read for my RL Book club selection this month.

After that I have some library books that I really need to read and get back, and I'll be picking up things as they appeal to me. Right now I'm reading Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Daniel Kahneman, about the decision-making process and off-setting that with Agatha Christie's Easy to Kill, (aka Murder is Easy).

I have a few other things on the shelf, but not committing to anything else right now.

Thank you as always for books, thank you for this group and thanks for you. Have a lovely day, Kathy.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, Kathy.

>129 PaulCranswick: Thank you, Paul. Yes, books and this place and people like you are part of what keeps me going.

>130 jessibud2: Thank you, Shelley. It will be just my husband and me and our son. I'm not much of a cook, but our son is a pastry chef. He's making an apple and almond tart, so the dessert will be excellent at least!

Hi Kathy my dear, Happy Thanksgiving Day.

>132 johnsimpson: Thank you, John. It will be quiet but good. My son in Sheffield has picked up his turkey and they will celebrate on Saturday.

Happy Friday, Kathy. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with the family. Ooh, I never did read The Birds. Of Course, I love the film as well, but you got me stoked to try the original source. I have been enjoying our recent stretch of late fall weather. May it continue...

>134 msf59: Thanks for stopping by, Mark. Hope your Turkey Day was good; we had a nice meal and an excellent dessert. It is a lovely day today; have some chores but hope to get out later.

The Birds is included in several collections of du Maurier's short stories, and well worth reading: very scary and very different from the movie.

November Reading

November was a bit slow for me; I managed to complete only 6 books. Part of the reason was all the wonderful reading I did in September and October--I think I just needed to space out a bit.

The other reason was that I re-read A Lost Lady by Willa Cather for my RL book club. Our book club meets monthly, and each month one person recommends and "leads" the discussion by providing background to the author and book, and then asks the discussion questions. I was the leader for our A Lost Lady discussion, so I re-read the book, and read some additional literary analysis material about Cather, her works and "prairie literature" in general. That reading and preparation took some time away from other reading. Since I read this earlier this year, I'm not counting it again as a "read" book this month, and it just seems too soon to consider it a "re-read."

Here's what I did finish:


98. Easy To Kill, Agatha Christie, 1938; alternative title: Murder is Easy
Type: mystery; for my Christie project

Young man meets old lady on train on her way to Scotland Yard; she dies; he investigates. So-so--I did figure out the murderer was most probably female, but not the correct female. Love "interest" is kind of dopey. Superintendent Battle shows up at the end.


99. Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, Cass R Sunstein (2021)
Type: non-fiction; psychology; decision-making

This book started out well. The authors present the problem of "noise" in decision-making. "Noise" are those factors that can affect a professional's judgment. The authors cite the variability of decisions by judges, doctors, managers, hiring agents, to name a few. One of the most interesting parts of the book was the detailed description of a study of judges and their sentencing. How apparently similar cases can be judged differently based on how the judge is feeling that day; whether it's before lunch or after lunch; whether the home-town team won the prior weekend, etc. Noise is differentiated from bias, which are prejudicial factors in decision-making.

However, once the basic premise and case studies were presented, the authors then provide highly technical statistical analysis to help managers and others eliminate or reduce noise in their decisions. This went way over my head, and I skimmed the last 2/3 of the book. It is a fascinating topic, however, and I would certainly be interested in a "dumbed-down" summary of the authors' recommendations.


100. Fresh from the Country, Miss Read (1955)
Type: fiction; for my Miss Read project

An early stand-alone by Miss Read, this novel tells the story of country-born Anna Lacey, a newly trained teacher beginning her first position in a new London suburban school in post-WWII. The school is large, crowded and in the midst of suburban sprawl, with highways, factories and houses sprouting up over the remains of a small village. Anna starts out completely overwhelmed by her classroom of 48 rambunctious 9 year olds, her fellow staff members, her miserly land-lady and missing her rural roots. We follow her through the school year, as she starts to gain confidence in managing her classroom and appreciating her colleagues. A rare city-setting for Miss Read, I found this book enjoyable and very readable.


101. The Man Made of Words: Essays, Stories, Passages, N. Scott Momaday, with 4 illustrations by the author (1997)
Type: nonfiction; essays, stories; for the November AAC

These essays are not dated; in the preface, the author indicates the pieces were written over a span of 30 years. The book is divided into three sections. The first section, The Man Made of Words, was the least accessible for me. Some of the topics in these pieces are native languages vs. English, oral vs. written traditions; words and the land. I think the most enlightening piece for me was "The American West and the Burden of Belief", which explores the white man's view of "the Old West." Here is an extended excerpt from that piece:

For the European who came from a community of congestion and confinement, the West was beyond dreaming; it must have inspired him to formulate an idea of the infinite. There he could walk through geologic time; he could see into eternity....The landscape was anomalously beautiful and hostile. It was desolate and unforgiving, and yet it was a world of paradisal possibility. Above all, it was wild, definitively wild. And it was inhabited by people who were to him altogether alien and inscrutable, who were essentially dangerous and deceptive, often invisible, who were savage and unholy--and who were perfectly at home.

This is a crucial point, then: the West was occupied. It was the home of people who had come upon the North American continent many thousands of years before...Those Europeans who ventured into the West must have seen themselves in some way as latecomers and intruders...By virtue of their culture and history--a culture of acquisition and a history of conquest--they were peculiarly prepared to commit sacrilege, the theft of the sacred.

(emphasis mine)

The second section, Essays in Place, contains various travel pieces. Momaday has traveled extensively around the world, and these pieces include trips to Bavaria, Russia, Granada, places sacred to native peoples and a return to his grandparent's homestead. Momaday is drawn to sacred places, like cathedrals. The last section, The Storyteller and his Art, has about 20 short (2-3 pages each) sketches and memories of various people and events in his life. These were mixed for me, but all were accessible.

Overall, I think it gave me a good introduction to his work, especially his thought process and language.


102. The Devil's Highway: A True Story, Luis Alberto Urrea (2005); Root from 2007
Type: nonfiction; immigration; read for Monthly Author challenge

Urrea's telling of 26 Mexican men crossing the border into the Arizona desert in 2001 is fascinating, while at the same time unimaginably terrible--indeed it is the highway of Death--14 of the men lost their lives. Urrea did much research and interviews for this book, but it is clear that the conversations and thoughts in the men's minds are as Urrea imagined them.

I found it confusing at times, and did many flips back to the map at the beginning of the book. Urrea also uses language that is not always easy to follow--many colloquialisms, Spanish phrases and references to pop culture of the time were not always easy to interpret. It is an important book, though, and it would be interesting for him to provide an update of sorts, that looks at the border situation today--in what ways is it better and/or worse.

The copy I read was my husband's. He purchased the book from Urrea at a reading by the author here in Chicago around 2007, and he left a fascinating signature, which I hope you can see:




103. Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite, Anthony Trollope (1870); re-read from 2015
Type: fiction; from my shelves; re-read from 2015; my Trollope project

This was a re-read for me. Sir Harry Hotspur is the father of a daughter who will have a vast inheritance; however she has fallen in love and determined to marry her gambling and ne'er-do-well cousin George. This is one of the few Trollope novels that does not end happily, and is worth the read just for that change of tone. It wasn't as engaging as I remember it. But it is still Trollope, and makes an interesting contrast to Lady Anna, which I read recently. In that novel, a mother nearly goes mad by trying to force her daughter into a marriage she does not want. Trollope excels in showing all sides of the trials of parents and their children in both of these novels.

Looking ahead:

Currently reading:
✔ Middlemarch, George Eliot, on audiobook, read by Juliet Stevenson--I'm about half-way finished. Slow but wonderful
--Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich; historian Ulrich examines this phrase which she coined many years ago in a scholarly article, which somehow went viral.
✔ Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert, translated by Lydia Davis; this translation was highly praised when it first came out and has been sitting on my shelf for some years now.

My book club will be reading Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan, which made the Booker shortlist and which I read earlier this year. I'm having a hard time getting a copy from the library, so not sure if I will get to re-read before our discussion.

The only other book I hope to read is The Doctor's Wife, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, which was written about 10 years after Madame Bovary, and is supposedly a sort of response to it. We shall see--this might be a book for January.

I've got some miscellaneous books I've piled up as possibilities for December, but no firm commitments--I certainly will NOT get to all of these, but here goes:

Nonfiction:
The Lighthouse Stevensons, Bella Bathhurst
✔ The World of Thrush Green, Miss Read, in which Miss Read talks about why she started this series, what it was based upon, etc.

Fiction:
Virago titles--been meaning to get to more of these from my shelves:
Good Daughters, Mary Hocking
Mandoa, Mandoa!, Winifred Holtby
The Constant Nymph, Margaret Kennedy
✔ The Getting of Wisdom, H. H. Richardson
Angel, Elizabeth Taylor
Celia, E. H. Young

misc. titles:
The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen
✔ Hercule Poirot's Christmas, Agatha Christie
✔ Kate Hardy, D. E. Stevenson
The Death of Ivan Illych, Tolstoy (a re-read)

Malaysia's branch of the 75er's wishes you and yours a happy holiday season, Kathy.

Thanks, Paul--all the best to your family as well. And looking forward to a Happy New Reading Year!

Happy holidays, Kathy. And an early happy new year!

Happy New Year

I'm a bit behind getting "out with the old and in with the new" threads, so here's a quick wrap-up of December reading:


104. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert (1857), translated from the French by Lydia Davis. This was a re-read from 1987. I didn't like it much the first time, and it really didn't improve on re-reading, despite the expert translation by Davis. I don't think Flaubert liked any of his characters; I certainly didn't. Supposedly he was trying to create a realist novel as told by an "objective" narrator. To me that seems impossible--even if the narrator doesn't make judgments in the text, an author makes judgments by everything the characters do and say.

One of the first books I plan to read in 2023 is The Doctor's Wife (1864) by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, which is supposedly her "response" to Madame Bovary. It will be interesting to compare the two.


105. Hercule Poirot's Christmas, Agatha Christie (1938). Not particularly festive, but an interesting case.


106. The World of Thrush Green, Miss Read (1988). In this nonfiction book, Miss Read gives the background to the Thrush Green series, including the basis for the place, people and her motivation for writing the series. Included are excerpts from the books as well as beautiful full color illustrations by Miss Read's long-time illustrator, John S. Goodall. I've been reading all of Miss Read's books. I generally don't hang on to them, but this one's a keeper.


107. The Getting of Wisdom, H. H. Richardson (1910); 1993 edition with illustrations by Frederick McCubbin. This is a classic Australian coming of age story. I read this for the Virago challenge and many readers love this book. It didn't resonate with me. I found the young heroine to be selfish and tiresome, and was glad to be done with her.

The best part of this 1993 edition was that it included illustrations by Australian painter Frederick McCubbin, who was a contemporary of Richardson and lived in the Melbourne area where the novel is set. These paintings of local scenes were lovely and softened the pettiness of the book.


108. Our America: A Photographic History, Ken Burns (2022) An absolutely stunning book of American photographs selected by Burns, ranging from 1839 to 2021. Each image is on one page, with a caption of place and year. At the back of the book is a more detailed description and history (a few paragraphs) of each plate with a thumbnail photo, photographer (if known) and source. The photos are all black & white; a few are in sepia tone.

I think there are about 250 photographs; I recognized a handful that I'd seen before or in Burns' films, but most were new to me, as were many of the photographers. Even some of the American history that it chronicles was new to me. I've written down names of new-to-me photographers that I want to explore some more.


109. Kids at Work: Lewis Hine, Russell Freedman with photos by Lewis Hine (1995) The Ken Burns book led me to discover more about photographer Lewis Hine, so I picked up this YA biography of Hine with some of his photographs. Hine photographed working children at the beginning of the 20th century. His pictures are of children in factories, on farms, in homes, on the street and many other places where young children were working. His photographs helped to bring about major reforms in child labor laws.


110. Kate Hardy, D. E. Stevenson (1947) Post WWII novel by a favorite author. OK, not her best, but not her worst.


111. Middlemarch, George Eliot (1872); re-read on audiobook read by Juliet Stevenson. This was my fourth reading of this classic and I didn't want it to end, even after listening to it slowly over 2 months. There's not much one can say, except that I loved it and enjoy new things each time I read it. Caleb Garth is still my favorite character. Eliot's observations on marriage were particularly poignant on this reading.

I also read a short piece that proposed a theory that Middlemarch may have been influenced by Mary Elizabeth Braddon's The Doctor's Wife, which in turn was influenced by Madame Bovary. All three novels focus on a woman married to a doctor, and an exploration of their marriage. I read Bovary earlier this month, and plan to read The Doctor's Wife in January. It will be interesting to compare the 3 marital portraits.


112. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (1843); audiobook read by Jim Dale. Always enjoyable and meaningful.


113. An Irish Country Christmas, Patrick Taylor (2009). This is the third installment in the tales of Doctors Laverty and O'Reilly in the Northern Ireland village of Ballybucklebo, circa 1960s. This was OK, but it seemed to go on way too long; at 480 pages, it could have been 200 pages shorter. There were some interesting medical bits, especially the description of a breech birth, but otherwise I felt it dragged. I am debating whether to continue on with the series.

I am a big fan of Patrick Taylor's books though (I may have mentioned this before), so far I have only listened to them on audio since the reader is magnificent with the accents. I do own a few of the books in paper, as well. I wish my library would get all of them on audio.

Some end-of-year stats for 2022:

Total books read: 113 (last year's total = 117, so comparable)

"Roots" read: 67 -- far short of my goal of 75--must improve here!
Library books: 32
Re-reads: 29
Translated: 7 -- more books in translation than last year (only 2 last year), so an improvement to read books other than BritLit!

Male authors: 50 (44%) -- a bit higher for men than last year
Female authors: 63 (56%)

Fiction: 83
Non-fiction: 28 -- more nonfiction this year than last
Other: 2 plays

Breakdown by years published:

before 1800: 2
19th century: 33
20th century: 54
21st century: 24

That's it!

2023 thread TBA!

>143 jessibud2: Thanks, Shelley--I never thought of that--audio might be the way to go with these. I have 3 left on my shelf and right now they're not calling to me.

You know, I think it would make a wonderful TV series (a la All Creatures Great and Small), and all the little scenes and landscapes would work well on TV.

>145 kac522: - I agree that it would be great tv. The narrator (John Keating) does ALL the characters and he is so excellent at not only the accents, but the different nuances of dialects and characters. So much so that you know exactly who is speaking just by his voice. I"ve listened to enough of them that I can truly hear those voices in my head but I still don't want to read the physical books if I can find the audios. See what your library can get hold of. You won't be sorry.

>146 jessibud2: Hmmm, just checked...my library only has the next book (An Irish Country Girl) read by Terry Donnelly. I'll keep checking--I have access to a couple suburban libraries, so I might be able to find the Keating version.

I don't know Terry Donnelly but definitely look for Keating.

I'm live in 2023:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/347268#