A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore...

Read in 2017

2017-01-01T17:41:00.000-05:00

January:
1. London: the Novel, by Edward Rutherfurd
2. Notes from a Small Island, by Bill Bryson
3. A Very English Scandal, by John Preston
4. Imagined London, by Anna Quindlen
5. The Black Dahlia, by James Ellroy
6. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

February
1. Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen
2. The Girls of Slender Means, by Muriel Spark
3. Patience, by John Coates
4. Into the Whirlwind, by Eugenia Ginzburg
5. The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James
6. Few Eggs and No Oranges, by Vere Hodgson
7. Vittoria Cottage, by DE Stevenson

March:
1. The Exiles Return, by Elizabeth de Waal
2. Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
3. The Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen
4. The Buccaneers, by Edith Wharton
5. The Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen
6. White Teeth, by Zadie Smith

April:
1. The Heat of the Day, by Elizabeth Bowen
2. The Two Mrs. Abbotts, by DE Stevenson
3. The Road to Little Dribbling, by Bill Bryson

May:
1. London War Notes, by Mollie Panter-Downes
2. Malory Towers Collection 1-3, by Enid Blyton
3. Famous Five, Collection 1-3, by Enid Blyton
4. Heat Lightning, by Helen Hull

June:
1. The Wicked Boy, by Kate Summerscale
2. The Essex Serpent, by Kate Parry
3. All the Missing Girls, by Megan Miranda
4. Gone girl, by Gillian Flynn
5. The Passenger, by Lisa Lutz
6. The Couple Next Door, by Shari LaPena
7. The Woman in Cabin 10, by Ruth Ware
8. The Famous Five Collection 2, by Enid Blyton
9. The Kind Worth Killing, by Peter Swanson

July:
1. Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn
2. The Girls, by Emma Cline

2016 Reading

2016-01-01T12:26:00.000-05:00

January:
1. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
2. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum
3. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
4. Liar: A Memoir, by Rob Roberge

February:
1. The Forsyte Saga, by John Galsworthy
2. Girl in the Woods, by Aspen Matis
3. She Left Me the Gun, by Emma Brockes
4. Because of the Lockwoods, by Dorothy Whipple
5. The Chronology of Water, by Lidia Yuknavitch
6. To Show and to Tell, by Philip Lopate

March:
1. Fierce Attachments, by Vivian Gornick
2. Too Brief a Treat, by Truman Capote
3. On the Move: a Life, by Oliver Sacks
4. The Go-Between, by LP Hartley
5. The Art of Memoir, by Mary Karr
6. Giving Up the Ghost, by Hilary Mantel
7. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
8. The Great American Bus Ride, by Irma Kurtz
9. An Unquiet Mind, by Kay Radfield Jamison
10. A Widow's Story, by Joyce Carol Oates
11. So Sad Today, by Melissa Broder
12. The Liar's Club, by Mary Karr
13. An American Childhood, by Annie Dillard
14. So Sad Today, by Melissa Broder

April:
1. The Disappearing Spoon, by Sam Kean
2. Girl of the Limberlost, by Gene Stratton-Porter
3. The Sense of Style, by Steven Pinker
4. The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston

May:
1. Underfoot in Show Business, by Helene Hanff
2. Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi
3. I Am AspienWoman, by Tania Marshall
4. The Clancys of Queens, by Tara Clancy

June:
1. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
2. The Girl Who Played With Fire, by Stieg Larsson
3. Words on the Move, by John McWhorter
4. The Writing Life, by Annie Dillard
5. Cherry, by Mary Karr
6. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, by Stieg Larsson

July:
1. Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris
2. The Witching Hour, by Anne Rice
3. Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, by Isabella Bird
4. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart
5. Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson

August:
1. We Is Got Him, by Carrie Hagen
2. The Alienist, by Caleb Carr
3. The Cabinet of Curiosities, by Preston & Child
4. The Dragon Scroll, by IJ Parker
5. The Summer Queen, by Elizabeth Chadwick
6. Inheritance: the Story of Knowle, by Robert Sackville-West
7. Bellefleur, by Joyce Carol Oates

September:
1. The Crime at Black Dudley, by Margery Allingham
2. Cathedral of the Sea, by Ildefonso Falcones
3. The Angel of Darkness, by Caleb Carr
4. Death of a Ghost, by Margery Allingham

October:
1. Shogun, by James Clavell
2. Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins
3. People Who Eat Darkness, by by Richard Llloyd Parry
4. The Lake House, by Kate Morton
5. The Asylum, by John Harwood
6. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, by JK Rowling

November:
1. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secret, by JK Rowling
2. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by JK Rowling
3. The Fifth Heart, by Dan Simmons
4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by JK Rowling
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by JK Rowling
6. Please Enjoy Your Happiness, by Paul Brinkley

December:
1. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, by JK Rowling
2. Green Darkness, by Anya Seton
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by JK Rowling

2015 Reading

2015-01-01T13:26:00.000-05:00

January
1. The Vanishing Witch, by Karen Maitland
2. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
3. Texts From Jane Eyre, by Mallory Ortberg
4. Brighton Rock, by Graham Green
5. Brat Farrar, by Josephine Tey
6. Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert
7. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
8. A Movable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway
9. A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf
10. Other Voices, Other Rooms, by Truman Capote
11. Maggie-Now, by Betty Smith

February
1. Middlemarch, by George Eliot
2. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
3. Nerdy, Shy, and Socially Inappropriate, by Cynthia Lee
4. Music For Chameleons, by Truman Capote
5. Peyton Place, by Grace Metalious
6. Unrequited, by Lisa Phillips
7. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
8. A Lost Lady, by Willa Cather

March
1. Persuasion, by Jane Austen
2. Love With a Chance of Drowning, by Torre DeRoche
3. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
4. Miss Buncle's Book, by DE Stevenson
5. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
6. The Ten Thousand Things, by Maria Dermout
7. Finding Kansas, by Aaron Likens

April
1. Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women, by Harriet Reisen
2. The Women of the House, by Jean Zimmerman
3. Asperger's Syndrome Workplace Survival Guide, by Barbara Bissonette
4. Harriet, by Elizabeth Jenkins
5. Hostages to Fortune, by Elizabeth Cambridge
6. The Beth Book, by Sarah Grand
7. I'll Never Be Young Again, by Daphne Du Maurier
8. The Real Thing, by Ellen McCarthy
9. Civil to Strangers and Other Writings, by Barbara Pym
10. How to Be a Heroine: Or, What I've Learned From Reading Too Much, by Samantha Ellis

May
1. Five Guys Who Broke My Heart, by Susan Shapiro
2. Between You &Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, by Mary Norris
3. Bad Feminist, by Roxane Gay
4. A Desperate Fortune, by Susanna Kearsley
5. Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own, by Kate Bolick
6. Roast Beef, Medium, by Edna Ferber
7. Illumination, by Matthew Plampin
8. Still Missing, by Beth Gutcheon
9. Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, by Mary Roach
10. Julian Grenfell, by Nicholas Mosley
11. Velocity, by Kristin McCloy
12. Buttered Side Down, by Edna Ferber
13. The Wheel of Fortune, by Susan Howatch
14. My Life in Middlemarch, by Rebecca Mead
15. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, by Washington Irving
16. Ann Veronica, by HG Wells

June
1. Ivanhoe, by Walter Scott
2. The Runaway, by Elizabeth Anna Hart
3. Only as Good as Your Word, by Susan Shapiro
4. Bartleby the Scrivener, by Herman Melville
5, Vera, by Elizabeth Von Arnim
6. Zuleika Dobson, by Max Beerbohm
7. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce
8. King Solomon's Carpet, by Barbara Vine
9. Breakfast at Tiffany's and Other Stories, by Truman Capote
10. Flappers and Philosophers, by F Scott Fitzgerald
11. The Blue Castle, by LM Montgomery

July:
1. The Touch, by Colleen McCullough
2. The Secret Life of Violet Grant, by Beatrix Williams
3. The Secrets of the Lighthouse, by Santa Montefiore
4. So Big, by Edna Ferber
5. Not that Kind of Girl, by Lena Dunham
6. Bossypants, by Tina Fey
7. Modern Romance, by Aziz Ansari

August:
1. The Art of the Personal Essay, ed. by Phillip Lopate
2. Essays of EB White
3. On Writing Well, by William Zinsser
4. The Situation and the Story, by Vivian Gornick
5. The Lover, by Marguerite Duras
6. Tiny Beautiful Things, by Cheryl Strayed
7. Slouching Towards Bethlehem, by Joan Didion
8. Love Illuminated, by Dan Jones
9. Inconvenient People, by Sarah Wise

September:
1. Not All Wives: Women of Colonial Philadelphia, by Karin Wolf
2. Legs Get Led Astray, by Chloe Caldwell
3. Dear Mr. Essay Writer Guy, by Dinty Moore
4. My Misspent Youth, by Meghan Daum
5. The White Album, by Joan Didion
6. A Garden of Earthly Delights, by Joyce Carol Oates
7. Sister Carrie, by Theodore Dreiser

October:
1. Why Not me? by Mindy Kaling
2. Furiously Happy, by Jenny Lawson
3. The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
4. The Fiery Cross, by Diana Gabaldon
5. The Art of Memoir, by Mary Karr
6. The Best American Essays 2015, ed. by Ariel Levy

November:
1. Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, by Mary McCarthy
2. The House of Stairs, by Barbara Vine
3. Wild, by Cheryl Strayed
4. Unspeakable, by Meghan Daum

December:
1. In Praise of Messy Lives, by Katie Roiphe
2. Intellectual Memoirs, by Mary McCarthy
3. Modern Romance, by Aziz Ansari
4. My Heart Laid Bare, by Joyce Carol Oates
5. Red Ribbon on a White Horse, by Anzia Yezierska

Read in 2014

2014-01-01T16:08:00.003-05:00

January:
1. Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon
2. The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome, by Tony Attwood
3. Mozart and the Whale, by Mary and Jerry Newport
4. Handling the Truth, by Beth Kephart
5. Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen
6. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
7. Them, by Joyce Carol Oates
8. Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys

February:
1. Random Family, by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
2. I Was Told There'd Be Cake, by Sloane Crosley
3. The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath
4. Twilight Sleep, by Edith Wharton
5. Twirling Naked in the Streets, by Jeannie Davide-Rivera
6. Hungry Hill, by Daphne Du Maurier
7. Me, Myself, and Why, by Jennifer Ouilette
8. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by DH Lawrence
9. The Wise Virgins, by Leonard Woolf

March:
1. Out With It, by Katherine Preston
2. Never Have I Ever, by Katie Heaney
3. Look me in the Eye, by John Elder Robison
4. Beyond, the Glass, by Antonia White
5. Atypical, by Jesse Saperstein
6. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, by Maggie O'Farrell
7. Chanel Bonfire, by Wendy Lawless
8. The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls
9. The Situation and the Story, by Vivian Gornick
10. Brain on Fire, by Susannah Cahalan
11. The Sack of Bath, by Adam Ferguson
12. It's Not You by Sara Eckel
13. Swallow the Ocean, by Laura Flynn
14. Let's Pretend This Never Happened, by Jenny Lawson

April:
1. How Did You Get This Number, by Sloane Crosley
2. Three Little Words, by Ashley Rhodes-Courtier
3. A Backward Glance, by Edith Wharton
4. Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo
5. Songs of the Gorilla Nation, by Dawn Prince-Hughes
6. To Bed With Grand Music, by Marghanita Laski
7. Captain Alatriste, by Arturo Perez-Reverte
8. Mrs. Tim Gets a Job, by DE Stevenson
9. The Underpainter, by Jane Urquhart
10. Anne of the Island, by LM Montgomery
11. Farewell Spain, by Kate O'Brien
12. Modern Love, ed. by Daniel Jones
13. Up the Down Volcano, by Sloane Crosley

May:
1. The Shivering Sands, by Victoria Holt
2. The Moorland Cottage, by Elizabeth Gaskell
3. The Rose of Fire, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
4. Raising Cubby, by John Elder Robison
5. Whisper of Jasmine, by Deanna Raybourn
6. Cashelmara, by Susan Howatch
7. Iberia, by James A Michener
8. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, by Alice Munro
9. Fortune's Rocks, by Anita Shreve
10. Silent in the Grave, by Deanna Raybourn
11. The Room-Mating Season, by Rona Jaffe
12. Finding Kansas, by Aaron Likens
13. The Diary of Anne Frank
14. Open Access Publishing, by Peter Suber
15. The Bread Givers, by Anzia Yezierska
16. Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf
17. 16 Perssonality Types, by AJ Drenth
18. Jamaica Inn, by Daphne DuMaurier
19. City of Jasmine, by Deanna Raybourn
20. The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Orczy
21. The Great Silence, by Juliet Nicolson
22. Call the Midwife, by Jennifer Worth

June:
1. Clover Adams, by Natalie Dykstra
2. Wild, by Cheryl Strayed
3. He's Just Not that Into You, by Greg Berendt
4. An Expert in Murder, by Nicola Upson
5. Most Talkative, by Andy Cohen
6. The Sea, The Sea, by Iris Murdoch
7. Cold Sassy Tree, by Olive Ann Burns
8. The Best American Essays, ed. by Robert Atwan
9. A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson
10. Lit, by Mary Karr
11. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
12. The House at Riverton, by Kate Morton
13. The Accursed, by Joyce Carol Oates

July:
1. The Witching Hour, by Anne Rice
2. Bossypants, by Tina Fey
3. Dear Life, by Alice Munro
4. Virginia Woolf: A Writer's Diary
5. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt
6. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2013, ed. by Siddhartha Mukherjee
7. The Liar's Club, by Mary Karr
8. On Writing Well, by William Zinsser
9. The Journal of Best Practices, by David Finch
10. On Writing, by Stephen King
11. Love Illuminated, by Daniel Jones
12. Become Your Perfect Matchmaker, by Patti Stanger
13. The Bitch in the House, ed. by Cathi Hanauer
14. Below Stairs, by Margaret Powell
15. The Sea King's Daughter, by Barbara Michaels
16. The Glass Menagerie, by Tennessee Williams

August:
1. Medical English Usage and Abusage, by Edith Schwager
2. What Every Body is Saying, by Jow Navarro
3. Be Different, by John Elder Robison
4. Getting a Life With Asperger's, by Jesse Saperstein
4. The Murder of the Century, by Paul Collins
5. Elephant Company, by Vicki Constantine Croke
6. Quiet, by Susan Cain
7. Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin, by Marion Meade

September
1. Morgan's Run, by Colleen McCullough
2. The Fame Lunches, by Daphne Merkin
3. Pulped, by John Jeremiah Sullivan
4. Dragonfly in Amber, by Diana Gabaldon
5. Voyager, by Diana Gabaldon

October:
1. The Faith of a Writer, by Joyce Carol Oates
2. Drums of Autumn, by Diana Gabaldon
3. Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande
4. Asperger's Syndrome Workplace Survival Guide, by Barbara Bissonnette
5. The Woman in Black, by Susan Hill
6. Asperger's and Girls, ed. by Tony Attwood

November:
1. The Valley of Decision, by Marcia Davenport
2. Roman Fever and Other Stories, by Edith Wharton
3. Margaret Fuller: A New American Life, by Megan Marshall
4. Anne of Windy Poplars, by LM Montgomery
5. Vanity Fair, by WM Thackeray
6. The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
7. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

December:
1. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
2. Dinners for Beginners, by Margaret and Rachel Ryan
3. My Antonia, by Willa Cather
4. Around the World in Seventy-Two Days and Other Writings, by Nellie Bly
5. The Sense of Style, by Stephen Pinker
6. The House on the Strand, by Daphne Du Maurier
7. All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr

Review: Forever Amber, by Kathleen Winsor

2013-06-05T12:59:00.000-04:00

Pages: 972

Originally published: 1944

My edition: 2000 (Chicago Review Press)

How I acquired my copy: Amazon.com, 2004

Forever Amber takes place in the 1660s, immediately follwing Charles II's ("the Merry Monarch") return of the Stuarts to the English throne. The book features Amber St. Claire, a young woman who starts out as a sixteen-year-old country girl, naieve to the workings of the world. She immediately meets Bruce Carlton, a dashing young Cavalier, with whom she has a passionate love affair in choppy intervals throughout the book. They have two children together, but Bruce won't marry her for the reason he tells his friend Lord Almsbury: that Amber just isn't the kind of woman one marries.

Upon following Bruce to London, he goes to Virginia, leaving her to fend for herself. What follows is a series of affairs and four marriages, with Bruce coming back from America now and then. Amber's marriages are imprudent: her first husband is a gambler, her second is an old dotard, her third locks her up in the house for days and won't let her out; and the last is a fop who allows himself to be cuckolded. Amber starts out in jail for debt, then becomes a thief, then moves on to the theatre, entertaining the college-age fops who attend. Her ambitions only rise from there as she sleeps with some of the most influential men in England.

Eventually Amber follows her ambitions using her two strengths: her personality and beauty, ending up as the mistress to King Charles himself. The last quarter of the book involves itself in the court scandals of the time, not the least of which were sexual. Winsor is a little prudish and shies away from the sex that occurs in the book, but she places most of her focus on the clothes the people in London wore in the 1660s. The details are lavish and gorgeous, and made me wish I'd lived in that time period.

Amber is NOT supposed to be a likeable character. She is probably has the most character flaws of anyone who appears in this book. Her desperate love for Bruce is the cornerstone of the story, and Amber seems almost too desperate. Even though she insists that next time she will act aloof and sitant, she throws herself at him like a puppydog. When she finds out that Bruce has a wife, whom he met in America, Amber becomes hysterical with rage. Eventually she and Lady Carlton will become acquainted at court--and the outcome is not good. Once King Charles finished with one of his mistresses, her never gave up on her. That is, he never turned her out of Whitehall Palace. Amber quickly becomes one of those mistresses, liked by absolutely no one at court. However, she continues to hang on. The plan that Buckingham devises to get rid of her for once and all is clever and leaves the reader hanging on the edge of thier seat in the final pages of the novel.

It was a beautifully written book that I will probably re-read over and over again. It gave a great insight into the lives people led at Charles's court, one that was decadent and sinful in comparison to the Puritans who had preceded him. A must for those who love this period in history or historical fiction in general. I also recommend: the works of Anya Seton, especially Katherine and Green Darkness; Slammerkin; and The Crimson Petal and the White.

Review: Katherine, by Anya Seton

2013-06-02T12:59:00.000-04:00

Pages: 500

Originally published: 1954

My copy: 2004 (Chicago Review Press)

How I acquired my copy: Borders, 2004

This book is more than just a good romance. It is an all-time classic. I am a younger reader, and so I don't have fond memories of the first time this book came out; but I'm glad that they broughtKatherine back into print. It is one of those books that all lovers of historical fiction should read, not simply for the history, but because this is an elegantly crafted novel; unarguably one of the very best I've read in a long time. This novel is a great introduction to the works of Anya Seton.

The story of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt is set against a backdrop of chivalry and heroic adventure during the 14th century. I thoroughly loved this novel; there are parts of it that still stay with me two months after reading it. Whenever I read historical fiction, I always look to see whether the author has done her research- Anya Seton most definitely did hers.

I decided it doesn't matter whether or not you love the heroes of this book- they were real people, and that's what makes this book so much more vibrant. Thats what I loved most- I felt that I actually knew these characters, had actually sat down at a meal with Katherine Swynford or gone hunting with Prince John. The author Geoffrey Chaucer has become mythical in the annals of English literature; however here he becomes humanized, a real person with a wife and children of his own. I was absolutely amazed by it.

Another great thing about this book is that the author never mentions what will happen in the future for these people (even though she, and the reader, obviously know). Anya Seton simply let the story take itself along. For example, at the end of Katherine, Richard III is a little boy, newly crowned king. Even though historians have protrayed him as a tyrant, Seton never lets on that this is what, in fact, he will become. Richard seems like a lost, lonely little boy trying to fill shoes that are too big for him.

Review: Jane Austen's Letters, ed. by Deirdre Le Faye

2013-05-22T15:42:00.000-04:00

Pages: 667

Original date of publication: 2011

My copy: 2011 (Oxford University Press)

Why I decided to read:

How I acquired my copy: Amazon.com, April 2013

This is a compilation of many of Jane Austen’s letters, most of them sent to her sister Cassandra between 1796 and 1817, the year of her death. Although many of Austen’s letters were destroyed by her sister in order to preserve the family reputation, the collection contains over 160 letters in which Austen gives her sister details about her life in Chawton—as well as giving us a tantalizing glimpse of what was going through her mind as she was writing her novels (especially the novel that was to become Pride and Prejudice, First Impressions). There are other letters here, too, giving advice to her niece and professional correspondence to publishers—as well as a couple of letters that were written by Cassandra Austen after Jane’s death.

To the sisters, the letters acted in the way that phone calls do today; Austen’s news is all about people who lived in her neighborhood, the balls she went to, who wore what, etc. So you really get a sense that she was honing her observations skills in order to write her novels. Austen’s wit is sometimes caustic; she doesn’t always have the nicest things to say about people; but she had an eye for detail that would serve her well later on. It’s clear from Austen’s letters that she was nervous about putting her work out in the world, but she tried to cover it up by being self-deprecating. One of the things I like about people is the ability to laugh at themselves, and Austen does it here well.

About half the book is letters; the other half is notes on the letters (including information about postmarks), a glossary of the people mentioned in them and the places that Austen went to, and so on. There’s so much information packed into the back of the book about the letters that I had to keep flipping back to the end of it in order to get context (for that reason, I wish that the notes on the letters had been placed within the letters so that they could have been more easily referenced). Despite my minor problem with the way this collection is laid out, I really enjoyed reading it; it gives the reader, especially the Jane Austen aficionado, a glimpse into the life and mind of one of the English language’s greatest writers.

Review: Midnight in Peking, by Paul French

2013-05-20T15:02:00.000-04:00

Pages: 259

Original date of publication: 2013

My copy: 2013 (Penguin)

Why I decided to read:

How I acquired my copy: Phoenix bookstore, May 2013

In January 1937, the body of a young British girl, Pamela Werner, was found near Peking’s Fox Tower. Although two detectives, one British and the other Chinese, spent months on the case, the case was never solved completely, and the case was forgotten in the wake of the invasion of the Japanese. Frustrated, Pamela’s father, a former diplomat, tried to solve the crime. His investigation took him into the underbelly of Peking society and uncovered a secret that was worse than anything he could have imagined.

At first, I thought that this would be a pretty straightforward retelling of a true crime, but what Paul French (who spent seven years researching the story) reveals in this book is much more than that. Foreign society in Peking in the 1930s was stratified, with the British colonials at the top and the White Russian refugees at the bottom, but somehow everyone was thrown together in a tightly knit group, unified by a fear of what was to come.

The story of the murder itself is incredibly absorbing; what exactly happened on the night of January 8, 1937 that led to a young woman’s murder and mutilation? Pamela Werner comes across an independent, intelligent young woman, and her father was relentless in tracking down her murderer—even though the British government tried to cover it up and the case was never officially solved. Too, Peking had much greater things to think about at the time than the murder of a young British girl. French solves the crime, but I think he uses his imagination a fair amount in describing how the murder played out. French’s technical writing isn’t particularly good, but he tells an interesting story. I especially loved the superstition surrounding the Fox Tower—fox spirits that represent a woman’s ability to seduce and betray. It’s an interesting parallel, but it wasn’t worked into the story very well.

Review: A Spear of Summer Grass, by Deanna Raybourn

2013-05-15T11:40:00.000-04:00

Pages: 384

Original date of publication:

My copy: 2013 (Harlequin MIRA)

Why I decided to read: Copy offered for review

How I acquired my copy: Amazon Vine, April 2013

Set in 1923, the novel focuses on Delilah Drummond, a daringly modern woman who is forced to take a “break” from society when a scandal threatens her reputation. She goes to Kenya and her stepfather’s estate, Fairlight, and quickly becomes acclimatized to the way of life there—meeting, as she does so, Ryder White, a hunter/tracker.

I’ve had a taste of British colonial life in Kenya—Frances Osborne’s The Bolter is about a famous colonist of the period, Idina Sackville, and the five husbands she “bolted” from in order to set up a new life in Kenya (where she continued her adventures, many of them sexual). So there are pretty obvious comparisons to be made between Idina Sackville and Delilah Drummond, as there are between Dennis Finch-Hatton (of Out of Africa fame) and Ryder White. Still, there’s enough about each of these fictional characters to make them interesting, and I was interested to see how Delilah would develop throughout the novel. At first she seems to be a pretty stereotypical fish-out-of-water character, but I was pleased to see how she falls in love not only with Ryder White but Africa, too, and grow as a person in the process—especially since she has her past with which to grapple. So what we are shown is more than just the surface; we are shown the reason for why Delilah behaves (at least in her pre-Africa life) the way she does. So the focus is on reflection—reflection on one’s life, even though it might seem to be small in the grand scheme of things.

What I thought was especially good were Deanna Raybourn’s descriptions of Africa—the love story in the book isn’t really the one between Delilah and Ryder as much as it is about Delilah’s growing love for Africa. So Africa itself becomes a character, with its own flaws and advantages. I’m not usually a fan of Deanna Raybourn’s stand-alone novels that don’t feature Lady Julia Grey, but I thought A Spear of Summer Grass was especially well done. You even get a nod to Walt Whitman; what’s not to love?

Review: Celia's House, by DE Stevenson

2013-05-10T11:16:00.000-04:00

Pages: 367

Original date of publication:

My copy: 1978 (Ace books)

Why I decided to read:

How I acquired my copy: Amazon.com, November 2010

DE Stevenson’s books are quite hard to find, but I was able to buy a copy of Celia’s House a few years ago. The novel takes place over the course of about 40 years and focuses on the lives and fortune of the Dunne family and their family estate, Dinnian, in Scotland. Humphrey Dunne inherits the estate in 1905 from Celia Dunne, with the stipulation that Dunnian will be passed to Humphrey’s daughter, Celia, when she comes of age.

Some of the plot is a little predictable; for example, when the elder Celia states that Dunnian be passed on to the younger Celia, the younger Celia hasn’t even been born yet—so it’s pretty obvious that there will indeed be another Celia to carry on the family name. Because the book takes place over a larger period of time, there were also large gaps between events; for example, Stevenson doesn’t really describe what happens when Celia receives her inheritance or her reaction to it. In fact, the book isn’t so much about Celia as it is about the family in general.

Nonetheless, there are a few strong points to the book, including the romance—Steven describes perfectly the agony (and ecstasy) of young love. Still, I didn’t think this book was quite as strong as some of the other DE Stevenson novels I’ve read.

Review: Busman's Honeymoon, by Dorothy L Sayers

2013-05-06T16:24:00.000-04:00

Pages: 403

Original date of publication: 1937

My copy: 2006 (Harper Mystery)

Why I decided to read:

How I acquired my copy: Barnes and Noble, May 2010

I have slowly been winding my way through the iconic Lord Peter Wimsey series, based on publication date, and I’ve wound down with Busman’s Honeymoon. Lord Peter and Harriet Vane are newlyweds who decide to spend their honeymoon in the countryside at Talboys, a farmhouse in Herfordshire. But their idyll is shattered when the former owner of their house is found dead in the cellar…

The title is a takeoff on the phrase busman’s holiday; the idea being that, while of vacation or holiday, someone does something that’s similar to their line of work. Of course, Lord Peter and Harriet’s wedding is supposed to be a break from crime, but they nonetheless find themselves solving one all the same.

In all, I thought this was a strong ending to the series—Sayers wraps up a few loose ends in the Lord Peter/Harriet/Bunter storyline (and Bunter gets a more significant role in this book, which I was glad to see). Lord peter and Harriet don’t have a typical relationship; he likes that she’s not a typical woman and that she challenges him, but at the same time there’s a lot of tension between them. And it’s interesting to see how they try not to slide into the gender roles that they’re supposed to fill. We also see Peter’s shell shock (alluded to in previous novels) firsthand.

Review: Letters From Egypt, by Lucie Duff Gordon

2013-05-02T15:23:00.000-04:00

Pages: 383

Original date of publication: 1865

My copy: 1986 (Virago)

Why I decided to read:

How I acquired my copy: Ebay, February 2011

A friend to George Meredith, Thackeray, and other notables of that time, Lucie Duff Gordon (1821-1969) was raised in a radical, intellectual family and imbued with a sense of adventure; her imagination roamed father than the usual Grand Tour. In 1862, she took a tour to South Africa, attempting to recover from tuberculosis; when that didn’t succeed, she went to Egypt, where her son-in-law was a banker. Although her daughter and son-in-law lived in Alexandria, Gordon spent much of her time in Luxor, living in a ruined house above a temple. Her letters were alternately written to her husband, Sir Alexander Duff Gordon; her mother; and her daughter.

Gordon’s letters reveal someone with a high amount of inquisitiveness and cultural sensitivity; Gordon frees herself from the usual ways that other Europeans stereotyped Egyptians at the time. She was there just as the Europeans were modernizing Egypt, represented by the construction of the Suez Canal, which opened in 1869, the year Gordon passed away. Her letters reflect the changes to rural Egypt that were occurring, as well as observing social systems that were in place (especially criticizing the corvee, which was a system of forced labor that was used to build the Canal), and she was dismayed by the poverty that she witnessed while in Luxor.

Gordon’s tone is lively; perceptive; she had a keen interest in the Egyptian people and their history, and she interacted with the often, especially as an amateur doctor (Hakeemah). “I am in love with the Arabs’ ways, and I have contrived to see and know more of family life than many Europeans who have lived here for years,” she wrote. So we meet a wide variety of people, including Omar, her faithful servant. In all, a lively, entertaining collection of letters.

Review: The Home-Maker, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

2013-04-27T06:15:00.000-04:00

Pages: 268

Original date of publication: 1924

My copy: 2008 (Persephone)

Why I decided to read:

How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, November 2011

Set in small-town America around the time it was written, this novel explores gender roles and how they affect families, and one family in particular. Lester Knapp is an accountant for a department store; his wife, Evangeline, is a housewife raising their three children. They both perform the roles expected of them by society, yet neither is suited to their role and neither is particularly happy. When Lester is injured in an accident that leaves him home-bound, his wife goes to work—to the benefit of everyone in the family.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher gets her reader deep into the heads of her characters, so we can understand exactly what they’re like and so that we get a three-dimensional view of the situation. Even the children’s point of view is well represented—especially Stephen, aged 5, who fears having his Teddy taken away to be washed. Therefore, we get the truth of a situation without the biases of your traditional narrator and so that the reader can see exactly what’s going on under the surface. While all the characters in the novel are lovable, my favorite is Lester—a dreamy poetry lover who turns out to excel as a homemaker and discovers a new-found appreciation for his children and their talents.

Fisher believed strongly in the strength of one’s internal personal life over external considerations. And the strength of this novel is what it says about American culture in general. Small town life is famous for being busybody-like; everyone knew your business and involved themselves in it, and if you strayed away from that, you’d be ostracized. So this novel serves as a sort of criticism of that way of life and what it represents. None of the Knapp family really has the freedom to do what suits them personally; they’re all at the mercy of what society dictates. In all, an incredible novel, with the wheelchair representing how social expectations can bind us all.

Review: Blood and Beauty, by Sarah Dunant

2013-04-23T16:55:00.000-04:00

Pages: 506

Original date of publication: July, 2013

My copy: 2013 (Random House; ARC)

Why I decided to read: Offered through Amazon Vine program

How I acquired my copy: Amazon Vine program, march 2013

I’ve loved Sarah Dunant’s novels for years, so when I saw that Blood and Beauty was available for review before publication, I jumped at the chance to read it. It tells the story of the Borgia family, specifically Lucrezia, and follows them from Rodrigo Borgia’s ascension to the papacy (and pope Alexander) in 1492 to Lucrezia’s third marriage to Alfonso d’Este in 1502. Rodrigo Borgia’s rise to power was much in keeping with the mores of the time period in which his lived. He even Italianized his name from Borja to Borgia. He and his four children, as well as his mistresses, became symbols of the power, splendor, and decadence of the Papal court in the late 15th century.

It’s really, really hard to write fiction about the Borgia family without completely vilifying or vindicating them, but Dunant does a wonderful job of showing both the strengths and weaknesses of these people. They’re ruthless and cunning, but they don’t seem (at first) as bad as history has made them out to be. There’s this wonderful scene about halfway through the novel, where Cesare Borgia gores a boar; the way the scene is described, it serves as a strong metaphor for not only the dangers of the Papal court, but the savageness of Cesare’s character. That’s the kind of fiction I love; the kind of writing that shows you how something is without explicitly saying so. It makes people, places and events seem so much more real. Dunant’s focus is on stripping away the myths in order to reveal the psychological truths that lie beneath the surface.

According to the author’s note at the end, there will be a second novel that will cover the conclusion of Lucrezia’s story.

Review: The Gods of Heavenly Punishment, by Jennifer Cody Epstein

2013-04-18T18:26:00.000-04:00

Pages: 378

Original date of publication: 2013

My copy: 2013 (Norton)

Why I decided to read:

How I acquired my copy: Amazon Vine program, March 2013

The Gods of Heavenly Punishment is set during WWII, and specifically focuses on the American firebombing of Tokyo in 1942 and 1945. We are introduced to Yoshi Kobayashi, the daughter of an expansionist; Cam, a bomber pilot taken prisoner by the Japanese; and Anton, an American architect, who had helped build some of Tokyo’s modern buildings in the 1920s and ‘30s but is enlisted to build test structures for the American air force to practice.

Epstein has chosen an event that rarely gets written about in fiction, yet caused so much devastation at the same time; in the Operation Meetinghouse attack of 1945, 16 square miles of Tokyo were destroyed, approximately 100,000 people were killed, and over a million lost their homes. It was the deadliest air raid of WWII. So I was very interested to read about this lesser-known period of history and witness it through the eyes of these characters—especially Yoshi, who finds herself directly impacted by the 1945 raid. Jennifer Cody Epstein writes beautifully, and her description of what happens to these characters is riveting.

Review: The Persephone Book of Short Stories

2013-04-15T15:50:00.000-04:00

Pages: 473

Original date of publication: 1909-1986

My copy: 2012 (Persephone)

Why I decided to read:

How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, January 2013

The Persephone Book of Short Stories is a collection of thirty short stories—some that have been previously published in other Persephone books (crowd pleasers such as Minnie Panter-Downes’s “Good Evening, Mrs Craven” and Irene Nemirovsky’s “Dimanche”)—some that have been published in the Persephone Post, and others that appear here for the first time. The earliest story in the collection, Susan Glaspell’s“A to Z,” was published in 1909 and the last, Georgina Hammick’s “A Few Cases in the Day Case Unit,” in 1986.

My favorite story in the collection is the first: Susan Glaspell’s “A to Z,’ in which a young college graduate gets a job as a dictionary copyist at a publisher’s office. She strikes up a friendship with a young man at the office; the irony of the story being that while these characters’ bread and butter revolves around words, they cannot find words that are adequate to describe their feelings for one another (personally, I could also relate to the main character’s situation of having that feeling of jumping off into the unknown after graduation, and of having a vaguely-defined dream to work in publishing). Other Persephone authors that appear here include Katherine Mansfield, Elizabeth Berridge, Dorothy Whipple, Frances Towers, Margaret Bonham, Diana Gardner, Diana Athill, EM Delafield, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Norah Hoult, Betty Miller, and Penelope Mortimer. I was also pleased to discover that stories by two more of my favorite authors, Edith Wharton and Dorothy Parker, were included here.

The stories are arranged chronologically and their subjects vary, but the theme is constant; the stories highlight the types of things that women’s lives are focused on: relationships, family, jobs, etc. The collection is therefore a pretty-well-rounded representation of the kind of fiction that Persephone publishes. I only wish that the collection had included fewer stories that had been previously published by Persephone, and more that were new.

Review: The Wild Rose, by Jennifer Donnelly

2013-04-10T15:18:00.002-04:00

Pages: 640

Original date of publication: 2011

My copy: 2011

Why I decided to read: received a copy from the publisher for review

How I acquired my copy: Amazon Vine program, 2011

Although I wasn’t too keen on the first two books in this trilogy—The Tea Rose and The Winter Rose—I picked this one up hoping my mind had changed. Each book in the story offers a different perspective on one family at the turn of the century; this book begins just before WWI and focuses on Seamie and Willa. I think the story is meant to be fast-paced and give the reader a good overview of early 20th century history, but the story lines were so unrealistic and predictable that I had a hard time finishing the book. There were so many characters and coincidences that the book got pretty convoluted after a while. The characters’ dialogue also didn’t seem era-appropriate. This might be a good book if you’re looking for a period romance, but be prepared to suspend disbelief at the plot and characters.

Review: Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky, by Patrick Hamilton

2013-04-08T10:35:00.000-04:00

Pages: 511

Original date of publication: 1935

My copy: 2008 (NYRB Classics)

Why I decided to read:

How I acquired my copy: Joseph Fox Books, January 2012

Patrick Hamilton covers very similar themes in his books. His plots are comprised of characters from the lowest strata of London society: drunks, prostitutes, etc. Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky is set in and around a central London pub called The Midnight Bell. Bob is a waiter who falls in love with a young prostitute named Jenny and loses all his money in the process; Ella is a barmaid in love with Bob who nonetheless begins a relationship with an older man.

The story consists of three novellas, each of which takes you on a tour of the characters’ stories, offering, as it does so, alternate looks at the same situation within the same time frame. The shape shifting is what makes the plot of the book interesting, and each of these characters is unique in their own right. Hamilton is skilled at depicting the nuances of each character, even if their motives aren’t completely obvious (but that would take the fun out of reading, anyways). “The Midnight Bell” is based on Hamilton’s experience working as a bartender and later falling in love with a prostitute; as such, Bob seems to be the most well rounded of the three. Still, Hamilton clearly understood the characters and had empathy for all of them. You know it won’t end well for any of these characters, but you continue to read anyways because they’re so well rounded. I can see why Hamilton’s style has been called “Dickensian,” but in a way his style is very different from Dickens’s.

As the novel progresses, we get an intimate look at lower-class London life in the 1930s and the milieu of the culture of the era. For example, at the time the novel was published, there were a large number of Jewish immigrants who fled to England from other parts of Europe, and the novel reflects the anti-Semitism of the time period. As such, it harbingers the social consciousness that became so prevalent in his later novels. Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky is an incredibly well written and absorbing collection of stories, one that I enjoyed immensely.

Review: A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

2013-04-03T10:03:00.000-04:00

Pages:

Original date of publication: 1929

My copy: 2000

Why I decided to read: Re-read

How I acquired my copy: Borders, 2000.

A Farewell to Arms has been called one of the best books to come out of WWI. In it, Hemingway loosely fictionalizes his experience working as an ambulance driver on the Italian front, as well as his relationship with Agnes von Kurowsky, a Red Cross nurse he met while recuperating from shrapnel wounds. In A Farewell to Arms, Lieutenant (Tenente) Frederick Henry is a driver in the Italian ambulance corps who develops a relationship with a Scottish VAD nurse, Catherine Barkley.

Hemingway’s themes deal with death, women, war and love, all of which of course are present here. There’s a kind of detached unemotionalism about A Farewell to Arms; even death doesn’t see to faze Henry. Yes, it’s brutal, but the tone of the book reflects the overall themes that play out here. Hemingway’s style is sparse, laconic; he doesn’t use flowery language to describe anything. In all, a fairly stunning novel.

Review: The Montana Stories, by Katherine Mansfield

2013-04-01T17:36:00.000-04:00

Pages: 327

Original date of publication: 1921-1928

My copy: 2007 (Persephone)

Why I decided to read:

How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, October 2012

Katherine Mansfield wrote the 25 stories in this collection during the 9 months she spent at Montana sur Sierre in Switzerland, seriously ill with tuberculosis. The stories are arranged in the order she wrote them, and many were left unfinished. Some characters are recurring; Mansfield also gained inspiration from other writers, including Chekhov, Louisa May Alcott, Virginia Woolf, Henry James, and DH Lawrence.

Mansfield chastised herself for writing “lowbrow” stories and made jokes about them (“the Mercury is bringing out that very long seaweedy story of mine ‘At the Bay.’ I feel inclined to suggest to them to give away a spade an’ bucket with each copy…”); but as the publisher’s note at the end says, “what choice did she have?” Mansfield wrote herself that she did not consider herself a good writer. But what we see in Mansfield’s stories is an interest in human relationships; we also see, in this period leading up to her death, an increasing interest in mortality. What these stories show is an interest in the diversity of life, for Mansfield wrote about all types of people going though all types of situations.

The note at the beginning says that Mansfield would not have approved of having these unedited stories anthologized, and it’s easy to see why. Many of the unfinished stories here are more like ideas for stories rather than fully fleshed out stories. Several of the stories were left unfinished because Mansfield turned her attention to writing magazine articles in order to pay for treatment; still, you get the impression that these stories have a lot of potential. Some of the finished stories were published in Sphere magazine and are here accompanied by (highly stylized) illustrations.

Extracts of Mansfield’s diary from this time are reprinted in the publisher’s note at the end of the book, and give the reader a sense of context. In all, this is an interesting glimpse into the mind of an author who knew she was dying and yet had one of the most creative periods of her life (perhaps fueled by the fact that she knew she was dying?). As Mansfield wrote in her journal, “Stronger than all these desires, is the other, which is to make good before I do anything else. The sooner the books are finished, the sooner I shall be well, the sooner my wishes will be in sight of fulfillment.”

Review: The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton

2013-03-25T17:39:00.000-04:00

Pages: 420

Original date of publication: 1905

My copy: 2000

Why I decided to read:

How I acquired my copy: Borders, 2000

The title for the book famously comes from the Ecclesiastes quote, “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.” Lily Bart is possibly Edith Wharton’s most complicated character, and this novel one of the best portrayals of the glitter and cruelty upper class New York society. When the novel opens, Lily is 29 years old, unmarried, and trying to “keep up with the Joneses,” so to speak. Torn between her desire to fit in with society and a desire for a relationship, Lily fits in nowhere. This novel then is the story of her downfall.

I first read The House of Mirth in high school, but really didn’t appreciate it the way I do now—or even understand the complexity of the themes that Edith Wharton explores. Reading The Age of Innocence a couple of years ago led to a newfound love for Edith Wharton’s works. No one except possibly Henry James can describe upper class New York society the way Edith Wharton does—and she does so so skillfully that you don’t quite understand at first what she’s up to. As such, this novel contains brilliant commentary about the double-faced aspect to the society from which Wharton came.

As for Lily herself, as I’ve said, she’s one of the most complicated of Edith Wharton’s characters and yet a prototype for characters who came after—namely, Undine Spraggs in The Customs of the Country. Lily is vivacious, witty, and knows exactly how to manipulate people… but her greed and desire to live the good life lead hr to reject the marriage proposals of several good men who might have been otherwise suitable. For that reason, Lily has a hard time seeing what’s right in front of her—namely, her friend Lawrence Selden, with whom she has a complicated and sometimes strained relationship throughout the novel. At the end, Lily is rejected by the society of which she so desperately wants to be a part.

Six Degrees of Barbara Pym's Novels

2013-03-22T14:44:00.000-04:00

This year seems to be The Year of Barbara Pym; I know some of you out there are involved in some kind of a readalong in honor of the 100th year of her birth. I’ve read most of her canon, with only The Sweet Dove Died, Civil to Strangers, An Academic Question, and Crampton Hodnet left to go (sadly). Barbara Pym’s novels feature very similar casts of characters: spinsters, clergymen, retirees, clerks, and anthropologists, with which she had direct experience. So it stands to reason that there would be overlaps in characters between the novels. You can trace that though the publication history of her books and therefore see how Pym onionizes her stories and characters. She adds layers onto layers, adding more details as her books progress.

Some Tame Gazelle (1950):

Archdeacon Hoccleve makes his first appearance.

Excellent Women (1952):

Archdeacon Hoccleve gives a sermon that is almost incomprehensible to Mildred Lathbury; Everard Bone understands it, however, and laughs hysterically (ch. 9). The Archdeacon fails to show up later on because he has gone back to Some Tame Gazelle. Mildred holds an annual lunch with William Caldicote, with whom it is hoped that they will "get off."Esther Clovis appears here as well.

Jane and Prudence (1953):

Miss Doggett receives a letter from Mildred Lathbury, informing her of her marriage to Everard Bone. Later, a stranger offers Prudence and Geoffrey advice on the menu; he turns out to be William Caldicote and we find out why his relationship with Mildred Lathbury might never have worked.

Less Than Angels (1955):

Esther Clovis is now the narrator. Mildred (Lathbury) Bone now works in the field in conjunction with her husband. There is a reference to Helen Napier and Miss Jessop from Excellent Women. Catherine Oliphant makes an appearance for the first time. Tom Mallow is a prototype for Rupert Stonebird in An Unsuitable Attachment.

A Glass of Blessings (1958):

A short story by Catherine Oliphant is read by some of the other characters; the story reworks an episode from Less Than Angels. There are references to Rodney, who previously had an affair with Prudence Bates from Jane and Prudence. Archdeacon Hoccleve is mentioned as being a distant cousin of the narrator and Julian Mallory, previously of Excellent Women, comes to preach at Saint Luke’s. Members of the congregation from both Saint Luke’s and that from Excellent Women mingle together.

No Fond Return of Love (1961):

Dulcie’s lodger finds a copy of Some Tame Gazelle in her bathroom (ch. 8). Father Tulliver from Less Than Angels makes an appearance.

Quartet in Autumn (1977):

No allusion to any of her previous novels.

The Sweet Dove Died (1978):

Senhor MacBride-Pereira, the Portuguese gentleman from No Fond Return of Love, makes a brief appearance here.

A Few Green Leaves (1985):

Dr Gellibrand’s brother is Father Gellibrand, who conducted Marcia’s funeral in Quartet in Autumn. The death of Esther Clovis from Less Than Angels, who had once helped Emma get a grant, is announced in a newspaper, and Digby Fox attends her funeral.¹

I can’t take credit for putting the above together; the article below can be found on JSTOR.

What I thought was interesting was that what Pym’s use of crossover characters reveals is that there’s never really any narrative “closure” to these novels and therefore we can hear what happens to many of them without the author really needing to write a sequel to their stories. In her subtle and clever way, Pym shows us the interconnectedness of human life and that we are all connected to one another more than we might think.

1. A Fistful of Pyms: Barbara Pym's Use of Cross-over Characters. Alan W. Bellringer. The Yearbook of English Studies. Vol. 26, Strategies of Reading: Dickens and after Special Number (1996), pp. 199-207.

Review: Quartet in Autumn, by Barbara Pym

2013-03-20T17:17:00.000-04:00

Pages: 218

Original date of publication: 1977

My copy: 1977 (Perennial)

Why I decided to read:

How I acquired my copy: Philly Book Trader, July 2010

Quartet in Autumn centers around four retirement-aged office workers in London: Edwin, Norman, Letty, and Marcia. Edwin, a widower, is a church hopper; Norman, struggles with his anger; Letty’s an eccentric spinster whose childhood friend is set to marry a much younger clergyman; and Marcia, a survivor of a mastectomy. As the story progresses, Letty and Marcia do retire from their jobs (“something vaguely to do with filing”), an occurrence that brings the characters together more than they realize.

You might think it’s a depressing novel, but it’s bittersweet in a way. The characters are stuck in a kind of limbo; stuck in the past and remembering how things used to be, but still faced with the decisions they have to make about the future. So it’s interesting to see how each one copes with change in their lives. Pym’s novels always contain the same types of characters: office workers, churchgoers, spinsters, etc. But she manages at the same time to make her characters unique, describing them with the kinds of details that sum them up perfectly (Marcia is the type of person who allows the dust ball of a dead cat to remain on her bed).

Part of the book is based on personal experience; Barbara Pym wrote this after recovering from a mastectomy herself. So it’s interesting to kind of get in her mind and read her musings about aging and all that it entails. As the women retire, it seems as though their figurative vision improves and that they can see themselves and their situation with just a bit more objectivity than they ever could before. And then men change, too, especially when a major even happens towards the end of the book that changes the whole tone of the novel (and it’s very sudden, too; you get the feeling that Pym was very uncomfortable with the subject). I don’t think I enjoyed this quite as much as I could have (and there were other Pym novels that I’ve enjoyed more, but this one is certainly good.

Review: Bonk: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach

2013-03-13T20:28:00.000-04:00

Pages: 318

Original date of publication: 2008

My copy: 2008 (WW Norton)

Why I decided to read: saw Mary Roach speak at a conference

How I acquired my copy: Denver airport bookstore, October 2012

In Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Roach explored the topic of the human cadaver and how it’s used in science. In Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, she does pretty much the same thing, except with sex and sexuality. Roach wanders out into the fringes of scientific exploration in her books, into the areas that aren’t considered “typical,” and she writes her books with a liberal amount of humor. Roach traveled all over the world to witness—and even participate in—clinical trials involving sex. Every now and then she footnotes her writing with random stuff, including a note about who Millard Filmore’s running mate was (trick question!).

From start to finish, Bonk is an entertaining read—even if I did get a few odd looks as I was reading it in public. Sure, the subject matter can be uncomfortable at times, but even more so is the humor that the author sees in her subjects. She spares no one, from the artificial inseminators in Denmark to clinical trials on prostitutes in Egypt. In her introduction, she even pokes fun of herself and the avenues that her “obsession” sometimes take. “Last summer I was in a medical school library Xeroxing a journal article called ‘Vacuum Cleaner Use in Autoerotic Death’ when the paper jammed. I could not bring myself to ask the copy room attendant to help me, but quietly moved over to the adjacent machine and began again.” In both of the books of hers I’ve read, Roach seems to go off on random tangents, but it’s always an intriguing and entertaining ride.

Review: Moonraker, by F Tennyson Jesse

2013-03-08T19:54:00.000-05:00

Pages: 162

Original date of publication: 1927

My copy: 1981 (Virago Modern Classics)

Why I decided to read:

How I acquired my copy: Library Thing member, July 2011

One day, young Jacky Jacka visits a witch, where he sees a vision of a woman in a bowl of water. The vision leads him to seek passage on a ship to the West Indies, which is then hijacked en route by the pirate Captain Lovel and the crew aboard the Moonraker. The year in 1801, a time when Napoleon had control of the high seas and the days of swashbuckling piracy was—nearly—on its way out. The story takes young Jacky throughout the Caribbean, and along the way he meets a Frenchman named Raoul and a black man Toussaint L’Ouverture, who works to free Haiti from the forces of Napoleon.

On the surface it’s a fun tale; Tennyson drew her inspiration from Robert Louis Stevenson, and obvious comparisons might be made between this book and the Pirates of the Caribbean films. But this novel goes a bit deeper than that. F Tennyson Jesse was a sailor herself; she was also a journalist, so she tended to over-research material for her books. There’s almost too much nautical description in this novel.

Her novels all have similar themes; without wanting to spoil too much about the plot of Moonraker, the author commonly explores themes about women and their place in a typically male environment. Jesse also explores the theme of race, albeit briefly; in that way, I wish that the book had been a bit longer, just so that the author could have explored the Haitian rebellion a little more. According to the introduction at the beginning of my edition, this novel belonged to a dying genre of fiction: the adventure story with an historical setting. I guess some things truly are cyclical.