A Work in Progress

Katherine Mansfield's Journal

You may or may not know I've been struggling along as I read Katherine Mansfield's Journal.  It was published posthumously by her husband John Middleton Murray in 1927 to wide acclaim.  I have been feeling a little bit out of my league as I read it.  I've felt as though I don't have a sufficient frame of reference in terms of her biography and knowledge of her work to adequately appreciate what I have been reading.  Do you ever feel as you are reading that you are in the presence of genius and not quite up to the challenge?   That said, I finished it a couple of days ago, and now I sort of feel bereft for having completed it. 

It is made of literally of fragments of her writing--unposted letters, story ideas, diary entries and scraps of her writings.  Middleton Murray assembled all these various pieces of her work and created a journal.  It covers the years from 1910 (skipping 1911-1913) through 1922 until shortly before her death in January 1923.  What I could and did appreciate was when she was just writing for herself.  She was constantly questioning her abilities as well as how much she was or wasn't writing.  It felt a bit voyeuristic as I was reading it at times.  This was a woman, an artist really, who was grappling with an illness and still trying to create.  At times the writing was so incredibly sad and poignant.  Of course she would have probably hated that characterization!  In October of 1922 she wrote:

"I wonder why it should be so very difficult to be humble.  I do not think I am a good writer; I realize my faults better than anyone else could realize them.  I know exactly where I fail.  And yet, when I have finished a story about before I have begun another, I catch myself preening my feathers.  It is disheartening.  There seems to be some bad old pride in my heart; a root of it that puts out a thick shoot on the slightest provocation...This interferes very much with work.  One can't be calm, clear, good as one must be, while it goes on.  I look at the mountains, I try to pray and I think of something clever.  It's a kind of excitement within, which shouldn't be there.  Calm yourself.  Clear yourself.  And anything that I write in this mood will be no good; it will be full of sediment.  If I were well, I would go off by myself somewhere and sit under a tree.  One must learn, one must practice, to forget oneself.  I can't tell the truth about Aunt Anne unless I am free to look into her life without self-consciousness. Oh God!  I am divided still.  I am bad.  I fail in my personal life.  I lapse into impatience, temper, vanity, and so I fail as thy priest.  Perhaps poetry will help." 

Virginia Woolf wrote a review of the Journal titled "A Terribly Sensitive Mind".  I was under the impression that Woolf and Mansfield had a bit of a love, hate relationship, but Woolf wrote a wonderful review of her Journal.  She sums it up so much more gracefully than I ever could.

"No one felt more seriously the importance of writing than she did. In all the pages of her journal, instinctive, rapid as they are, her attitude toward her work is admirable, sane, caustic, and austere.  There is no literary gossip; no vanity; no jealousy.  Although during her last years she must have been aware of her success she makes no allusion to it.  Her own comments upon her work are always penetrating and disparaging.  Her stories wanted richness and depth; she was only 'skimming the top--and no more'.  But writing, the mere expression of things adequately and sensitively is not enough.  It is founded upon something unexpressed; and this something must be solid and entire.  Under the desperate pressure of increasing illness she began a curious and difficult search, of which we catch glimpses only and those hard to interpret, after the crystal clearness which is needed if one is to write truthfully."

Of course upon closing the Journal I want to immediately pick up the biography by Claire Tomalin or dig into her Collected Letters.  I will certainly be reading some of her short stories!  I think I will leave her Journal by my bedside to pick up and read randomly.  Now that I've gone through it once, I think anything more I read will be more appreciated the next time through.

Books to Movies

I could resist the temptation no longer.  After I watched the movie trailer for the upcoming film adaptation of Winifred Watson's Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day I had to pull it out and start reading (which I did last night).  The film looks so charming and funny, surely the book will be even better.  It has been ages since I have seen a movie in the theater, but I would love to see several new ones that are due to be released soon, including Miss Pettigrew.

The novel is set during one day beginning at 10:15 a.m. when Miss Pettigrew, a penniless gentlewoman, is sent on a job interview for a nursery governess for a one Miss LaFosse and ending somewhere in the wee hours of the next morning.  Miss LaFosse is gorgeously elegant like one of the "beauties of the screen".  Miss Pettigrew seems rather frumpy.  In the preface the book was likened to a Fred Astaire film with its "light-heartedness and enchanting fantasy of an hour-by-hour plot".  I'm in no hurry to get this one read, but as it is a slim novel, I have a feeling it won't take me long to get through it.  It has wonderful illustrations by Mary Thomson by the way.

Another book I want to read and movie I want to see is Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl.  You can see the movie trailer here.  So many people have told me that this novel is immensely readable--a pager turner of a book.  I don't know why I haven't gotten around to reading it, as I've had a copy for ages.  I'm not entirely sure how historically accurate it is, but from the sound of things it is nothing if not entertaining.  The movie looks lush and lavish, too.

A book I have not been quite as compelled to read, though I know I probably should is Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner.  Am I the last person left who has not yet read this novel?  As strange as it sounds I sometimes have a hard time reading about events that are fairly fresh still.  There might be new things to learn about in a novel with a Medieval setting, but more or less you know how things end in terms of historical events.  They are long done and over with.  What Hosseini is writing about is like a new wound, not quite scabbed over.  You just have to watch the news or read the international section of the newspaper to see what's happening in Afghanistan, and usually the news is not happy.  Anyway, you can see the movie trailer here.  Perhaps I read the book first, and wait for the DVD in this instance.

I'd also like to see Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and Stardust, which I will most likely now just wait and watch the DVD.  What other good movies am I missing?  If I read the book, I usually have to see the movie if there is one (though not in every case!).  And, though I have gotten lax about this lately, nearly always I have to read the book first, because the book is almost always better than the movie!

Book Notes

Yesterday I mailed off three bookmooch books to the UK.  Ouch.  Why is the cost of postage so insanely expensive?  I've always opted to mail anywhere when it comes to bookmooch.  And generally I don't mind mailing internationally (providing of course that the requests are spaced out a bit), as you have the added benefit of getting three points rather than one when you mail domestically.  You can rack up the points amazingly fast that way.  I am considering, however, switching to only mailing in the US at least temporarily during the holiday crunch time.  I'll have to think about it.  Whenever I think there is nothing left in my inventory that could be of much interest to anyone, along comes not one but three mooches!

The flip side, however....mooching from someone else.  While I will mail internationally, I am greedy and usually only mooch from US  members--I hold on to those points as long as I can.  I told you I was greedy!  I'm not sure that it is an even trade--mailing abroad and getting packages that were mailed here in the US, but it is pretty close.  Now that I have a small excess of points I, of course, want to spend some of them.  My recent finds have been Crow Lake by Mary Lawson thanks to this review and this review, and Maria Edgeworth's Belinda thanks to Dorothy's recommendations.  Do you see how I seem to make a lot of my book selections these days?  I'm still on the lookout for good books to mooch. 

Since I was in the neighborhood I had to stop in at the library as well.  I'm going into slight withdrawal from not checking out library books, so I thought perhaps a small fix was in order.  Yes, another review caught my eye.  Sally Gardner's I, Coriander is a book that I had come across before, wrote the title down and then promptly forgot about it.  I took the direct route this time looked for a library copy.  It is a YA novel set in 17th-century London.

"This atmospheric blend of historical fiction and original fairy tale spans 15 years in the life of Coriander, daughter of a London merchant and his fairy-princess wife. The protagonist relates the events of her life from early childhood to about age 17, a life shaped by both the politics of Oliver Cromwell's Puritan England and the oddly parallel politics of her mother's fairy kingdom." 

It sounds good and I am looking forward to reading it.  I also saw a recommendation for Janet McNaughton's To Dance at the Palais Royale, another YA novel.  This is set circa 1928.  A young woman leaves her native Scotland for Toronto to join her sister in domestic service.  I have requested this one from the library, as my branch didn't have a copy on hand.  I am also waiting for  Diana Secker Tesdell's Christmas Stories.  It is a collection of stories by various authors and published by Everyman's Library.  Some of the authors included are Elizabeth Bowen, Willa Cather, Truman Capote, Chekhov, John Cheever and Richard Ford.  It should be just the thing to dip into during December.

One more.  A little browsing netted me The Journal of Dora Damage by Belinda Starling.  It sounds right up my alley:

"London, 1860: On the brink of destitution, Dora Damage illicitly takes over her ailing husband's bookbinding business, only to find herself lured into binding expensive volumes of pornography commissioned by aristocratic roués. Dora's charm and indefatigable spirit carry her through this rude awakening as she contends with violent debt collectors, an epileptic daughter, evil doctors, a rheumatic husband, errant workmen, nosy neighbors, and a constant stream of wealthy dilettantes. When she suddenly finds herself forced to offer an internship to a mysterious, fugitive American slave, Dora realizes she has been pulled into in an illegal trade of sex, money, and deceit."

Whenever I bring a new book home I always have to look it over--read all the blurbs, the first few paragraphs, and the author information.  Sadly, author Belinda Starling passed away last year at the young age of 34.  I'm not sure why I feel compelled to mention this, as I had decided to bring the book home with me prior to this knowledge, but it seems so unfortunate that the author may not have even seen her book come into publication.  In any case, I've read reasonably good reviews of it and expect to find it enjoyable.

David Copperfield

David Copperfield.  I finished my first proper Dickens novel finally (I read A Christmas Carol last year, but that's really more of a novella).  I'm a bit embarrassed to say when I started it.  Earlier this year?  Much earlier this year.  It tended to get lost in the shuffle of books, but not because I wasn't enjoying it.  It is one of those wonderful, long, entertaining Victorian novels that you can easily lose yourself in, and I would just read it in chunks here and there.  Per David Gates, "Tolstoy, an impressionable twenty-two when Dickens completed David Copperfield in 1850, considered it the greatest achievement of the greatest novelists".

It deserves its own lengthy post, but I have to admit I am not up to it.  I feel like I would be doing the novel a disservice if I tried to talk about it in any sort of enlightening way.  It's the sort of novel that asks to be read and reread with new insights drawn out each time.  This first time through felt like it was for entertainment purposes only, particularly when I read the introduction, where Gates picked things apart--in some cases it seemed a bit severely.  I was starting to feel a little disappointed.  Did we read the same novel?  Okay, I wasn't reading critically--is there so much to pick apart?  Apparently there are a few things I missed...  But then Gates redeemed himself.  He writes:

"I've dwelt on these problems--critics have pointed them out for years--just in case anybody still feels crazy for noticing them, and because I might as well clear the air before saying that David Copperfield is a staggering piece of work anyway: a novel any writer could still learn from, and should still be intimidated by.  It would be scary enough if he'd put it through years of rewrites; in fact, he wrote it as he did all his novels, by the seat of his pants for serial publication.  Unthinkable.  Was he a martian?  Dickens's contemporaries, of course, recognized just as we do his visionary verisimilitude and his Olympian stick company of characters.  Today its easier to see his psychological acuity: half a century before Freud--whose work would have scandalized him--he knew by observation and imagination that people's irrational behavior made perfect sense.  Of course David would marry a woman just like his mother, right down to her curly hair and the negligent housekeeping.  Of course the fatherless Annie would love the geriatric Dr. Strong.  Of course the stingy, taciturn Barkis would fixate on the explosively affectionate Peggotty.  And of course sexuality will force its way to a hundred nongenital outlets: Uriah's writhing and hand-wringing, Dora's fingering the buttons of David's coat, Miss Murdstone's snapping shut her steel purse.  And Dickens's master of the full range of the English language may now be...inimitable."

I read that this novel was written "smack dab in the middle of his career".  It came after "his shamelessly weird, wildly uneven early work--The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, and Martin Chuzzlewit, and before his "bursting-at-the-seams social novels"--Bleak House (considered his masterpiece), Little Dorrit, and Our Mutual Friend.  I can see I have my work cut out for me when it comes to Dickens.  In any case, next time around, with whichever novel I choose, I have a feeling that it will be an even better experience now that I have David under my belt.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind

Paris in the eighteenth century.  Jean Baptiste Grenouille had a rather inauspicious birth in the slums amidst the stinking fish stalls--left for dead amongst the refuse.  Imagine the fetid, miasma of Paris.  Imagine having such a razor sharp sense of smell that each and every thing, each and every person has a distinct odor and you can peel away layer after layer of smells, and there you have Jean Baptiste Grenouille.  I'm not sure how to characterize this book.  It's a weird sort of fable or a fairy tale gone very, very wrong.

There is nothing to recommend Jean Baptiste.  He is a character without an ounce of humanity.  It's hard to even have pity on him for having such a horrible childhood.  He was unloved and misunderstood by all who knew him.  But even if he hadn't been I can't imagine him being any other way than how he turned out.  Although he himself had no odor, not a trace of anything to distinguish him from anyone else, he could smell everything.  And everyone.  Shall I describe how humans smell?  I think you'd rather me not.  After reading the descriptions I wanted nothing more than to take a long, hot shower.  But let's keep in mind that the 18th-century was a stinky time.

Jean Baptiste had two problems.  The first--Jean Baptiste caught a whiff of something so inexpressively beautiful, so sublime, he had to possess it.  The smell of a young girl.

"The odor came rolling down the rue de Seine like a ribbon, unmistakably clear, and yet as before very delicate and very fine.  Grenouille felt his heart pounding, and he knew that it was not the exertion of running that had set it pounding, but rather his excited helplessness in the presence of this scent.  He tried to recall something comparable, but had to discard all comparisons.  The scent had a freshness, but not the freshness of limes or pomegranates, not the freshness of myrrh or cinnamon bark or curly mint or birch or camphor or pine needles, nor that of a May rain or a frosty wind or of well water...and at the same time it had warmth, but not as bergamot, cypress, or musk has, or jasmine or daffodils, not as rosewood has or iris...This scent was a blend of both, of evanescence and substance, not a blend, but a unity, although slight and frail as well, and yet solid and sustaining, like a piece of thin, shimmering silk...and yet again not like silk, but like pastry soaked in honey-sweet milk--and try as he would he couldn't fit those two together: milk and silk!  The scent was inconceivable, indescribable, could not be categorized in any way--it really ought not to exist at all.  And yet there it was as plain and splendid as day.  Grenouille followed it, his fearful heart pounding, for he suspected that it was not he who followed the scent, but the scent that had captured him and was drawing him irresistibly to it."

He will indeed possess it.  And in so doing, he will become a murderer.  One without the least bit of conscience.  His second problem is one I've already mentioned.  Jean Baptiste himself has no smell.  The convergence of these two problems will bring about his downfall, but not before he wreaks a certain amount of destruction first.  You see he will create a smell, an essence like that of the young girl--a smell of perfection and beauty.  And everyone will love him, at least that's what he thinks he wants.  He wants to be able to walk down the street and not be seen as some sort of oddity, perhaps not be noticed at all--to be accepted as just one like so many others.

I liked this book a lot.  But it is an odd book--very disconcerting to read really.  Although you know what Grenouille wants and what he does to achieve it, I still never felt like I knew him, which might actually be a good thing.  Maybe there was just not much there to know.  There is not much dialogue in the book.  It is nearly all descriptive passages and you do get a very clear sense of time and place.  It is definitely one of the more unique books and certainly one of the most unique characters in literature that I've ever come across. 

I watched the movie over the weekend.  If you've read the book and think it is creepy, the movie is even creepier.  Imagine seeing what I've just described translated onto the big screen!  The adaptation was very faithful to the book by the way. 

All in Together Girls

I'm afraid I didn't get any short stories read this week (I'm trying to read at least one a week).  I do have a couple of collections sitting close by that I intend to dip into soon, but I thought I would mention Kate Sutherland's short story collection, All In Together Girls, which I finished reading recently.  I rationed myself to one story a day, which I could conveniently fit into my break at work, but I always found myself wanting more.  It's very rare that I find myself wanting to pick up a short story collection to read, so I hope this has helped get me into that habit more often.

Kate has a wonderful way of evoking the lives of girls and women.  I think I was especially drawn to these stories as the time period she situated most of them in was about the same time I was growing up and having similar experiences.  Well, perhaps not always similar, but I could certainly appreciate the feelings that the characters were dealing with.  The 14 stories are set mainly in Saskatchewan, Canada.  At the center of each story is a girl or young woman trying to find her place in the world--something we've all gone through and know how painful that can be at times.  First loves, friendships, trying to fit in, dealing with parents, being on your own for the first time--Kate writes about these things realistically in clean, spare prose.

The title story, "All in Together Girls" is from a jump rope rhyme.  The story deals with two friends who are on the outside looking in.  I think that's a common feeling when growing up.  There is always a group of cool kids who never seem to take notice of anyone else, and when they do it is usually in a negative way.  In the story one friend will be accepted, at least for a short while, into that cool inner realm.  The experience won't be a pleasant one, and by the time she figures out what's going on, she'll discover she's alone in the end.  I liked the contrast in "She's a Rocker".  Sometimes it doesn't matter if you don't fit in.  When a girl comes to the city to visit her cool cousin, she stands out like a sore thumb.  She takes the situation in stride however, joining in, but not losing her own sense of identity and happily walks away from the experience in the end.

Another favorite story, "The Necklace", is about learning how to be on your own.  The necklace is a string of faux pearls that was bought on a trip to Paris when the character went off on her own to explore the city unbeknownst to her parents.  In her first independent act she buys the pearls from a peddler in a metro station.  It isn't until she is alone at university in Toronto that she really learns how to make her own decisions.

Two of the best stories in the collection have foreign settings.  In "Notes from a Documentary" a young woman goes to Scotland to do research for a documentary on the Scottish fishing industry, where she also visits her ailing grandmother.  The story is written with such an lovely sense of place.  I think "Outside the Frame" was my very favorite story in the collection.  Two stories run parallel within one.  A woman leaves her husband but finds little sympathy from her mother.  Instead she is given a box with memorabilia in it, including a photograph taken when her mother and father were in Paris.  The photo is of her mother looking in a window and the multiple reflections of her.  While the daughter is getting out of a bad situation, she finds her mother was stuck in hers. 

Although the stories in the collection are independent of each other, the characters do occasionally slip into and out of the various other stories, which I liked.  I don't think there was a single story that I didn't enjoy.  This is an excellent collection to pick up if you are not apt to choose short stories.  You might just find yourself like me--a short story convert!  I am finding that I greatly appreciate the talent it takes to create a whole world within just a few pages and populate it with characters of both complexity and depth.  Kate Sutherland has just such a talent.   

What I'm Reading Now

What I'm reading right now is not as much as I thought I'd be reading on my extended weekend.  But isn't that always the case?  I always have these visions of lolling around on the sofa with a book in hand.  But that never actually seems to happen.  I have these fantasies of finishing two or three books (books that are nearing completion--let me qualify that statement).  In reality I think I tend to read more when I am working (and have time away from home where I am stuck with nothing else to do--like on the bus or before work or on breaks).  When I am home there is always something that needs to be done, which generally doesn't involve reading.  Yesterday we got a new driveway.  Actually yesterday my husband put in a new driveway.  I've never seen this sort of work before--not close up anyway--and it was really interesting to watch.  And since he was working so hard outside, it felt wrong for me to laze about.  I'm terrible with guilt!  I have been reading here and there, however!

David Copperfield.  Poor David.  What a life.  I feel so sad for him right now.  This is a wonderful book and I am almost done.  Will he find happiness?  Dickens called it his "favourite child".  He considered it his best work.  Maybe I shouldn't have started with it?  Will all his other works pale in comparison? 

Katherine Mansfield's Journal.  Why can't I read more than a few pages of this book in one sitting?  I just can't.  Don't get me wrong.  It is really interesting.  It is just snippets of journal entries and bits and pieces of short stories.  Maybe if I had read more of her short stories?  Of course, perhaps the format doesn't call for a straight through reading?  Still, I've had this sitting on my nightstand for far too long.  I need to finish it.  I think that after I read more of her work or biographical material about her it will all come together.

Some time ago I picked up P.D. James's Devices and Desires, and never even added it to my sidebar.  I didn't get very far into it before it was set aside.  I picked it back up a week or so ago.  She's great!  Actually I read Children of Men earlier this year and enjoyed it.  I've heard that is nothing compared to her mysteries, so I knew I was in for a treat when I finally did get around to it.  She reminds me a bit of Ruth Rendell or Elizabeth George, two of my favorite mystery authors.  But she doesn't just reveal things to you.  You sort of have to fish around for the facts and piece it all together like a puzzle.  There are several different storylines, which I am sure in the end will connect up.  The main thread around which everything else I am assuming will revolve is a serial killer murdering young women who find themselves on lonely stretches of road.  I only wish I knew more about Adam Dalgliesh.  I am jumping in on the series probably towards the latter end, so I only know bits and pieces about him.  I may have to go back to the beginning after I finish this one.

I already know which books I am going to read this coming week (as soon as I finish two of these that is)--I am finally going to get to Wilkie Collins's Armadale.  I may have to skim the first part, which is as far as I got when I started this.  Who was it that told me I would have a hard time keeping track of all the Armadales?  You were right.  I think I might have to make a flow chart to keep them straight.  This is definitely a book that deserves close attention and steady and constant reading, which I am finally prepared to give it!  I also feel like getting back to the Daphne du Maurier biography as well.

Eight more books left to read.  Hopefully two more titles will be ticked off soon.  I'm not sure I'll be able to finish the other six in the remaining five weeks left in the year.  It will be a bit of a squeeze, but at least it is an enjoyable sort of challenge. 

A Little Window Shopping

Today is supposedly the busiest shopping day of the year.  I'm afraid I didn't get up at 4:00 a.m. to catch the sales.  I was warmly tucked away in bed!  Crowds tend to stress me out, so I stay away from stores on days like today. I am not averse to a little virtual window shopping however (from the comfort of my own quiet home).  So, here are a few bookish ideas for gifts in honor of the day.

1. Shh, Reading Door Hanger -- I wonder if I had one of these would people refrain from bugging me when I am reading?
2. Bookopoly -- "You buy, sell, and trade classic works of literature. Interesting facts about the books and authors are printed on the back of each property deed. Roll the dice and advance to Read. Collect bookstores and trade them for libraries."
3. Library CD Storage Cabinets -- How fun.  I've always wanted a library card catalog!
4. Poetry on Record: 98 Poets Read Their Work (1888-2006) -- This looks like it could be cool.  I'd love to hear Robert Frost read his own poems.
5. Never Judge a Book by Its Movie T-Shirt -- I hate bad film adaptations from books, so I have to agree with their sentiment.
6. Books to the Ceiling Plaque -- Now if this was a poster, I'd have to get it for my book room.  Not that there's much wall space...
7. Marcel Proust Notecards  -- I think I am going to read at the first volume of In Search of Lost Time next year.  These have quotations from Proust.
8. Literary Genius: 25 Classic Writers Who Define English and American Literature, edited by Joseph Epstein -- Only 25?  How could they choose?
9. Too Many Books Tote Bag -- You can never have enough book bags.
10. Readers Book of Postcards -- I love these little postcard books, but I never want to tear them out and use them. 
11. Authors Bookmark Set -- And you can never have enough bookmarks either.
12. Forgotten English Knowledge Cards -- I love learning about language and where words come from.

Books I wanted to read, but didn't: a Thursday thirteen

I was looking through my notebook where I keep the titles of books that have been recommended to me, and lists of books I have that I want to read and other sundry items, and I noticed all the lists of books that I've made that I planned to read. Not just lists of books for a particular topic, but lists of books that I set out to complete this year (usually in conjunction with challenges...).  I didn't realize I had made quite so many.  So, a little rundown of what I didn't accomplish (will have to limit it to 13 only).  Maybe I'll get to them next year?

1. The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas -- Last year around the holidays I started reading the intro to this in anticipation of reading it in the new year, but it never quite happened.  I love Dumas.  And I bet I will love this book.
2. Marie Antoinette: The Journey, Antonia Fraser -- I am in the mood for something about royalty.  Poor Marie.  I have a fictional book about her I want to read as well.
3. Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brien -- I keep intending to read this, but I always end up picking up a Horatio Hornblower book instead.
4. In Lucia's Eyes, Arthur Japin -- This is a fictional tale of Casanova. I sort of have this thing for Casanova.  Strange, I know.
5. The Game of Kings, Dorothy Dunnett -- I have wanted to read Dorothy Dunnett and her series of books for a long time now.  I have this book right by my bedside, but it seems like the sort of thing you don't read when you have thirteen books started.  So, can you see why I haven't gotten to it?
6. The Secret River, Kate Grenville -- When this was shortlisted for the Booker I had to read it...
7. Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit -- I checked this out from the library at least twice and then finally mooched a copy. 
8. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster -- I had thought to read this in conjunction with a Persephone title also about India called The Far Cry by Emma Smith.
9. The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton -- I've been meaning to read Wharton for at least two years now.
10. Portrait of a Lady, Henry James -- Ditto.
11. Suite Francaise, Irene Nemirovsky -- I did read her recently published book, Fire in the Blood, which I didn't blog about, but enjoyed very much.  Definitely next year.
12. The Road, Cormac McCarthy -- Well, the subject matter has not compelled me to pick this up, but I will get to it.
13. His Dark Materials Trilogy, Philip Pullman --  I think I would enjoy this series very much.  It's just a matter of fitting it in!

Sorry, this is a bit of a pooter-ish post, but as I will be spending time with family a bit later and not be around the computer, it will have to do for today.  If you are celebrating the holiday--have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  And if not, I hope you have a wonderful Thursday, and I will have an extra slice of pumpkin pie for you!

Bits and Pieces

Last week Miss Hargreaves arrived.   Simon at Stuck in a Book kindly offered the book by Frank Baker, and my name was drawn (thanks again Simon).  This is one of Simon's 50 books you must read, but may not have heard about, and I am looking forward to finally reading it.  I love this book design.  It's the first Penguin I've come across like this, but I think they must only have been printed in the UK.  I hear I am in good company reading Miss Hargreaves.  She has criss crossed countries as she's been borrowed and passed around.  I am not very good at parting with books, but I might have to share her when I am done.  It seems a pity to stick her on a shelf when she's such a seasoned traveler.  She may be one of my holiday reads. 

I recently discovered from the folks in my dovegreybooks group that Virago Press is going to reissue eight classics.

"The pioneering women's fiction imprint is marking its 30th birthday by commissioning textile designers to give a new look to modern classics. Orla Kiely is working on Excellent Women by Barbara Pym, Cath Kidston is turning her hand to Diary of a Provincial Lady by EM Delafield, and Biba - aka Barbara Hulanicki - is creating a new cover for Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann. Virago editor Donna Coonan says the idea came when she noticed how many textile designers have a retro aesthetic. 'When I did a little research into textile design it became apparent just how innovative women have been in this field over the last century, so combining their work with books by influential 20th-century women writers seems a great match - a celebration of women artists'." (via The Guardian).

The other titles being reissued are A Far Cry from Kensington by Muriel Sparks, A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor (yay), 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.  Waterstone's is getting exclusive rights to sell the books.  I guess that means they won't be available here in the US?  A pity if that's the case, as I have wanted a copy of EM Delafield's Diary of a Provincial Lady.  Not to be picky, but I sort of don't like the cover of the US edition.  And of course it goes without saying I'd have to get that Elizabeth Taylor title as well. 

Since I am mentioning reissued books, if you are a fan of Persephone Books you already know they are redesigning some of their titles.  They are "Persephone Classics" which will be available in bookstores as well as through Persephone Books.  There was a sneak peek of the first three titles in the last catalogue.  They look quite nice--not the plain grey cover, but art covers.  They'll be publishing Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson, and Good Evening, Mrs. Craven by Mollie Panter-Downes.  Although I already own Miss Pettigrew I hope to get the other two.  Hopefully somewhere local will carry them, so I can avoid the high postage cost.

I had hoped to spend part of today (my first of five wonderful days away from work!) raking leaves, but as it is snowing(!), I guess I'll have to suffer and stay indoors and read instead!