A Work in Progress

Once Upon a Time...

It's that time of year again.  Carl has announced his Once Upon a Time II Challenge.  I've been very good this year at not being tempted into joining many challenges (officially anyway), but I am going to officially join this one.  This was the only challenge I managed to complete last year, and this is an area of literature that I just don't read enough of, so it will give me a good excuse to pull out some good novels and read them finally.  I received lots of good suggestions last year.  And I still have a few unread books that I bought as a result.  To keep things simple I plan on reading five books (hopefully I'll get a smattering of each category--fantasy, fairy tale, folk tale and mythology).  Although I have particular titles in mind, I'm giving myself the option of substituting later, if my mood changes.  Hopefully I can manage them all between today and June 20!  My choices in no particular order:

1. Freedom and Necessity, Steven Brust and Emma Bull - This is an epistolary novel set in Victorian England, but there's also an alternate universe aspect to the story making it a fantasy novel as well.
2. Ice Land, Betsy Tobin - "An epic tale of forbidden love.  Set in the year 1000 AD, in the shadow of a smouldering volcano, it portrays a society on the brink of change, where old values of loyalty and kinship are threatened by a new world order."
3. The Winter King, Bernard Cornwell - This is a reinterpretation of the Arthurian myth, but Cornwell concentrates as much on the historical aspect of 5th century Britain as on the legend.
4. The Ladies of Grace Adieu, Susanna Clarke - I'd like to read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, but I don't think I can manage such a chunky book.  I might be able to squeeze in these short stories, though.  They deal with fairies and English magic (similar themes to the novel from what I understand) and have the same Victorian setting.    
5. Annotated Alice, Lewis Carroll - I've never read this, but it was already in my plans anyway!

And just in case, I have a few other books to fall back on: The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye, A.S. Byatt (more short stories--adult fairy tales), The Sagas of the Icelanders, by Robert Kellogg (I wouldn't attempt to read the whole book, but I'd love to start reading some of the sagas), King Elfland's Daughter (classic fantasy novel), Lord Dunsany, His Majesty's Dragons, Naomi Novik, and The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper.

(A side note...Carl V. if you happen to read this, I cannot leave comments on your blog.  I noticed this problem a while back but I didn't get around to emailing you about it.  I've sent you two emails in the last two days and one was bounced back to me and I'm not sure where the other one ended up.  I keep getting "access forbidden 403" messages when I click on your link in my sidebar and when I try and post a comment.  This happens at home and work.  Also none of my links to your blog or posts work anymore and I tried clicking on the register link on your sidebar, but it's been disabled.  Any idea how to fix it?).

Mystery Binging

Lately I've been in the mood to binge on mysteries.  It's not just mysteries, but crime novels and thrillers, too.  I nearly always have a mystery in progress on my nightstand.  In recent years, however, I seem to read fewer and fewer of them.  I might have one started, but I tend not to pick it up as often as other types books.  I think my sudden urge was spurred by a combination of Harry Hole and Mary Russell (two characters as unlike as can be).  I'm not sure really what it is about these sorts of books that fascinate me so much.  Maybe the pure adrenalin rush that comes from a tightly plotted book that you need to turn the pages of so quickly to get to the resolution.  Or maybe the idea of a problem solved by peeling back layer after layer until you get to the truth.  Right now I think I could subsist on a steady reading diet of mysteries alone, though I'll try not to be a glutton.  As you can see from the photo I've been accumulating mysteries for a while and these are some of them (once you start a good series you have to read them all, you know).

I've been wrapped up in a few mysteries lately (more than I should be, my one mystery rule at a time has flown out the window temporarily):

Murphy's Law, Rhys Bowen - I'm feeling very ambivalent about this one, I'm sorry to say.  I love the premise of an Irish woman emigrating to America ca.1901 who gets involved in murder investigations.  I love the descriptions of New York City, where the book is set.  There's a nice feeling of place and a certain atmosphere that she presents well. However, I'm feeling that the plot is a bit too contrived to be really believable.  I'm willing to let a few coincidences go to get a story going (and this is the first in a series), but too many makes me raise my eyebrows.  I'm not at all adverse to unlikely heroines solving mysteries (those can be the most entertaining of all), but sometimes she seems ill-suited to the job.  I'm too close to finishing now, though, to give up.  I do have several other Molly Murphy mysteries, so I think I'll give her another try, but I hope they improve over time.   

Point of Honour, Madeleine Robins - I need to get back to this one (when I finish with Molly).  I've enjoyed what I've read so far.  The mystery concerns the hiring of Sarah Tolerance (definitely an unlikely heroine) to intercede in a delicate matter.  An Italian fan has been given to a lady of questionable repute and now the gentleman wants it back.  Sarah will find its more than just a scandal the gentleman is trying to avoid.

Child 44, Tom Rob Smith - I received this as an advance review copy.  It's due to be published here in the US April 29.  You know the sort of book that grabs you from the first page and doesn't let you go, and you only surface when you turn the last page of the book?  I think this is going to be that sort of book.  I have a long weekend to look forward to and this is going to keep me company.  I started reading a couple of days ago and had to drag myself away.  Smith doesn't hold anything back.  Although I found myself grimacing a little at the opening scenes I also didn't want to set the book aside either.  It's set in 1950s Russia, where the party line is--there is no crime.  Strangely, though, children are being murdered.

Waiting in the wings:

Nemesis, Jo Nesbo - More Harry Hole.  I have the next book waiting for me and the next book after that one as well. 

A Fatal Waltz, Tasha Alexander- Fingers crossed...I might actually be getting a copy of this ahead of publication.  Lady Emily Ashton is becoming one of my favorite Victorian sleuths!  If you like Deanna Raybourn's Lady Julia Grey, give Tasha Alexander a try!

I've also been contemplating reading the next Mary Russell mystery by Laurie King , or maybe give Barbara Cleverly's Joe Sandilands a try, and I've heard good things about Maureen Jennings, and oh, do you see what a dilemma this is?  Maybe I should just dig around in my bins!

Do you like mysteries?  Which author/sleuth keeps you turning those pages?

Our Horses in Egypt

Rosalind Belben's Our Horses in Egypt is a gorgeous novel, if you like a bit of a challenge and are willing to work a little.  My first attempt reading it was not very successful.  I felt disoriented and confused.  It's not a book you can pick up and set down for a while and expect to pick up the thread easily, at least I couldn't.  My second attempt was better, though still challenging.  I did much better reading a little daily.  Somewhere along the way, though, something clicked and I was swept away with the story.  Difficulties aside, it is very worth the effort!

Although it is set during and after World War I (a period I'm particularly interested in at the moment), I'm not sure I would have picked up the book had I not read several excellent reviews of it.  It's an unusual story--about the horses that were requisitioned for the war effort, and in this case transported to Egypt and Palestine.  Many of the animals were killed, but those surviving the war were not returned to England but sold to Egyptians as work horses.  The story is about one woman's quest to find her horse and bring it back to England.  Horse stories have never been my thing, but like Jack London's The Call of the Wild (dog stories aren't my thing either), I was actually quite captivated once I got a momentum going in my reading.

For some reason this was a very visual story for me.  It felt almost cinematic.  Belben doesn't really spell things out for the reader.  I felt like I was watching and hearing these events rather than reading them, if that makes any sense at all.  You are dropped into these conversations and it all happens so quickly, I wasn't always sure who was talking to whom--it's as if the characters are standing before you having them, so pay attention or you'll miss it.  There is a rhythm to it all, though, once you get into the story.  Belben's language is very concise, but you still get an excellent sense of place and character.  Perhaps the elements most lost on me were the descriptions of the British troops and troop movements (sorry, all those abbreviations and names were foreign to me) and particulars dealing with the horses, though it didn't necessarily seem essential to appreciate the story (no doubt it would have been an even richer experience, however).

I loved the way Belben told the story.  There were two separate and distinct plotlines that converged at the end of the story.  After the war, Griselda, widowed and left with two children, discovers there's a chance her beloved horse may still be alive in Egypt.  She's determined to travel there and search for it, despite the displeasure of her family.  Leaving her younger son at home, she and her daughter, along with Nanny travel to Egypt.  They're beset by a series of mishaps, which verge on the humorous.  Running parallel to this story is that of Philomena's, Griselda's horse.  Belben seems to know just how far she can take the reader in her descriptions of what Philomena must endure.  Although the war scenes could terribly sad, it's never too much (though she might take you to the edge, she doesn't push you over!).  It's all presented very matter of factly.  I'll leave it to you to read the book and find out whether Griselda is successful in her search, though I'll share a paragraph from the afterword:

"As for the yeomen...Necessity demanded that their horses were worn out in the service of their country; deprived, sometimes severely, of food and water; that they carried too much, and were worked while lame and even after they'd been wounded.  The cavalrymen and mounted infantrymen cared about their horses, they owed their lives to them and they had been trained to keep welfare uppermost.  Horses respond to kindness; but hardship is hardship."

"In Egypt, the descendants of the war-horses live on."

You can read an interesting interview with Rosalind Belben here.  I'm waiting for a copy of Hound Music to come in the mail (I thought for sure I wouldn't be tempted by it, but when I finished this book, I gave in and ordered it).  It is an earlier novel, where Griselda appears as a child, set in the Edwardian world of fox hunting.  I'm afraid I'm not a hunting fan (least of all fox hunting).  I'm branching out in all sorts of ways this year with my reading.

Orange Prize Longlist

The Longlist for the 2008 Orange Prize was announced today (thanks to Eve's Alexandria for pointing that out).  Okay, so I haven't yet read last year's winner, Half a Yellow Sun, but I have it on hand and am looking forward to it (though I did read some of the other books on the longlist).  I can't help myself, it's interesting watching these prizes unfold and seeing what books they choose and the process they go through to decide the winning book.  I realize there's all sorts of controversies over these prizes (well, maybe this one more than others?).  You can read the latest here and here (not sure I agree with this, though): 

"Mr Lott, who won the rival Whitbread First Novel Award in 2000 for White City Blues, said that if it was ever true, it was no longer possible to say that women were a mistreated minority in the literary world."

Hmm. If it was ever true?  In any case, I'm just interested in the list, not out to provoke any arguments.  Here it is:

• The Blood of Flowers, Anita Amirrezvani
• The Room of Lost Things, Stella Duffy
• The Keep, Jennifer Egan
• The Gathering, Anne Enright
• The Clothes on Their Backs, Linda Grant
• The Master Bedroom, Tessa Hadley
• Fault Lines, Nancy Huston
• Sorry, Gail Jones
• The Outcast, Sadie Jones
• The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam , Lauren Liebenberg
• When We Were Bad, Charlotte Mendelson
• In the Dark, Deborah Moggach
• Mistress, Anita Nair
• Lullabies to Little Criminals, Heather O'Neill
• Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
• Septembers of Shiraz, Dalia Sofer
• End of Mr. Y, Scarlett Thomas
• Monster Love, Carol Topolski
• The Road Home, Rose Tremain
• The Lottery, Patricia Wood

I've not read a single one.  I'm only familiar with five.  Politics and controversy aside, I see this as a way of hopefully discovering some very good books. 

Monday Miscellanea

You'll never guess what I have in my desk at work...a Kindle!  Apparently the library where I work has five of them.  They will be used for interlibrary loan primarily.  I'm not sure when they will actually be put to use, as the faculty librarians and administration are working out the policies and procedures concerning the device.  Woe the student who loses or damages one of those.  It will be interesting to see exactly how much use they get and in what context.  I was chatting with a coworker about them and she loaned one to me, so I could give it a try.  It's locked away until I have a chance to take a good look at it.  What do you think, will I be converted?  I just need to be careful not to download any books, while I'm messing with it...

Since I'm on the subject of books and digital devices, I think I've found another audio book to listen to.  I initially loaded Elizabeth Berg's Dream When You're Feeling Blue onto my player just to get a feel for how it works.  I wasn't particularly excited about the book, but I started listening to it over the weekend, and I am finding it pretty enjoyable.  It's about an Irish family, specifically three sisters, living in Chicago during WWII.  It's nothing terribly deep, but I found myself listening without cringing and then being drawn into the story.  Elizabeth Berg reads the book, and she does a fairly good job, though I'm not always entirely convinced by the mother's Irish accent (thankfully the sisters don't have accents!).  Still, I was wondering if I would ever find another audio book that would be enjoyable to listen to (since I'm so picky about voices), so I'll keep on with it.  I also loaded Zoe Heller's What Was She Thinking? Notes on a Scandal, though I've not started listening yet.

I didn't read any short stories over the weekend.  I'm not sure what I'm in the mood for.  I've been trying to alternate between male and female authors.  Last week was Saki, so now something by a woman.  I was thinking maybe Colette, though I don't think I have any of her collected stories on hand.  Something else by another French author?  Something funny?  Surely there must be funny short stories?  I think I do much better reading a story each week on a whim rather than an entire collection (though I knew that already).  I've not picked up my Edith Wharton collection at all, since I read "Roman Fever", which I enjoyed so much.  Any story suggestions?  Maybe it's time to look through my anthologies again.

Although I love my public library, lately I've been irritated whenever I visit.  It's located downtown, so it is in a very urban area, and it draws all sorts of people.  Don't get me wrong, I like that a variety of people use the facilities (that's what a public library is all about, right?), and maybe even some of them are there to borrow books.  I think, however, a lot of people are there only for the free internet and who can blame them.  The thing is there have been some changes at the library--they've been moving collections around.  New books used to have a corner all their own.  It was a nice, peaceful corner.  Now the new books are squished in by the public computing area--very squished.  I don't get a lot of pleasure browsing anymore, since the people using the computers tend to be a fairly noisy bunch.  It's amazing the personal dramas that are played out in a public library.  Really, it's a bit more than I want to know.  And if I don't already sound cranky enough, the grounds look really trashy.  I mean literally people dump their trash and no one seems to ever clean it up.  I guess I'll give them a chance to finish their reorganizing, since I get the impression they've only started.  Surely it will get better.  In any case it won't stop me from requesting books.  And I've not even started on this list yet!   

Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

I don't have a lot of experience with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.  I have read The Hound of the Baskervilles and found I enjoyed Holmes's  famous deductive reasoning.  I had wondered if a novel's worth of it might wear thin, but I don't recall it doing so.  So I was curious about Laurie King's interpretation of him and finally got around to reading the first in her successful series of mysteries featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes.  Although my reading was a bit on the uneven side (a third of the way through I was ready to give up), I was happy that I continued reading the book, as I found it very enjoyable in the end and already have dug out the next book, A Monstrous Regiment of Women, though I won't start it right away.

The Beekeeper's Apprentice introduces Mary Russell and joins the pair in what will become a very successful partnership--both intellectually and from what I understand romantically as well.  The novel begins in 1915.  Mary is only 15 and living with her aunt in Sussex, both parents and younger brother having been killed in an automobile accident.  I thought it was interesting that Mary is half American as well as Jewish.  She's unhappily living with her aunt, her only living relative.  Upon turning 21 Mary is due to inherit quite a lot of money, but until then her aunt is essentially living off Mary's fortune.  Needless to say their relationship is anything but amicable. 

Mary is a bright and studious young woman, and one day out walking (nose in book--Virgil no less), she literally stumbles upon the famous, but now retired Sherlock Holmes (who happens to be observing bees).  Although initially their meeting is a bit on the tart side--two intellectuals butting heads, it's not long before they become friends and Mary begins a sort of apprenticeship with Holmes.  Eventually she'll be accepted at Oxford where she'll study Theology and will also become entangled in various mysteries assisting Holmes. 

As this is a first novel, there's a fair amount of time spent setting up the relationship between Mary and Holmes and filling out their histories.  King does an excellent job revealing and building upon these details, but what caught me up was the jump into the mystery solving aspect of the story.  Although it was an organic and necessary jump, it felt like individual stories tied together and I found myself getting distracted.  However, the second half of the book does concern itself with only one problem to solve and it caught my attention again until the end.  There were some wonderful little twists and turns, and Mary handles herself wonderfully.  By the end she's no longer a student only, but an equal partner.  Solving the mystery will take them from London all the way to Palestine and back again. All in all this turned out to be a wonderful read.      

In this book Mary and Holmes have a very platonic relationship--first as teacher and student and later as friends and equals intellectually.  I know in future books there will be a romantic element to their relationship, which I have to admit makes me a bit squeamish (he is 39 years her elder).  I guess I'll worry about that when I get to it.  As long as the mystery side of the novels is stressed over the romantic side, it shouldn't bother me too much.  In any case I'm hooked now, so I have to keep going. 

This has made me want to go on a mystery reading binge.  I do have my next book lined up, but I am waiting for it to come in the mail (Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith--though it is more crime/thriller than traditional mystery), so in the interim I'm working on Rhys Bowen's Murphy's Law.  This is another first book in a series of mysteries set in turn-of-the-century New York.  The heroine, Molly Murphy, is a sharp, plucky Irishwoman.  So far it seems like another promising and addictive mystery series.

Epistolary Novels, Part 2

You know I love lists.  The thing with lists is they always generate more book ideas.  I received so many wonderful suggestions for epistolary novels, I thought I would list the suggestions here.  Nearly all of them are entirely new to me and will give me ideas when I want a book in this category (and having them all in a list like this makes it easy for me when I head off to the library).  So without further ado, more epistolary novels:

• Humphry Clinker, Tobias George Smollett - "The Expedition of Humphry Clinker was the last of the picaresque novels of Tobias Smollett, and is considered by many to be his best and funniest work. Published in London on 17 June 1771, it is an epistolary novel, presented in the form of letters written by six different characters: Matthew Bramble, a Welsh Squire; his sister Tabitha; their niece and nephew, Jery and Lydia Melford; Tabitha's maid Winifred Jenkins; and Lydia's suitor, Wilson.
• Christmas Letters, Lee Smith - "Smith writes an epistolary, here in the form of Christmas greetings sent from North Carolina by female members of the Pickett family. In what they say and don't say these articulate, down-to-earth women preserve three generations of American experience."
• Nausea, Jean Paul Sartre - "Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogues his every feeling and sensation."
• The Woman Destroyed, Simone de Beauvoir - "Three long stories that draw the reader into the lives of three women, all past their first youth, all facing unexpected crises."  See also Litlove's wonderful post on this book.
• We Need to Talk About Kevin , Lionel Shriver - "In a series of brutally introspective missives to her husband, Franklin, from whom she is separated, Eva tries to come to grips with the fact that their 17-year-old son, Kevin, has killed seven students and two adults with his crossbow."
• The Color Purple, Alice Walker - "Celie is a poor black woman whose letters tell the story of 20 years of her life, beginning at age 14 when she is being abused and raped by her father and attempting to protect her sister from the same fate, and continuing over the course of her marriage to "Mister," a brutal man who terrorizes her. Celie eventually learns that her abusive husband has been keeping her sister's letters from her and the rage she feels, combined with an example of love and independence provided by her close friend Shug, pushes her finally toward an awakening of her creative and loving self."
• Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding - "In the course of the year recorded in Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget confides her hopes, her dreams, and her monstrously fluctuating poundage, not to mention her consumption of 5277 cigarettes and "Fat units 3457 (approx.) (hideous in every way)."
• These is My Words, Nancy Turner - "Based on the real-life exploits of the author's great-grandmother, this fictionalized diary vividly details one woman's struggles with life and love in frontier Arizona at the end of the last century. When she begins recording her life, Sarah Prine is an intelligent, headstrong 18-year-old capable of holding her own on her family's settlement near Tucson."
• Between Friends, Debbie Macomber - "Prolific Macomber's latest traces the lives and friendship of Jillian Lawton and Lesley Adamski through their letters, diaries, and other correspondence."
• Dear Zoe, Phillip Beard - "When her little sister, Zoe, dies after being struck by a car on September 11, 2001, savvy, self-aware Tess DeNunzio works through her grief by writing letters to Zoe."
• Dearest Stranger, Dearest Friend, Laney K. Becker - "E-mail and the Internet are phenomena not fully integrated into the characters' lives in this earnest, appealing debut novel told in the form of epistolary e-mail. After Lara Cohen, a 38-year-old freelance copywriter in Armonk, N.Y., discovers a lump in her left breast, she posts her fears on a breast cancer Web site's bulletin board. A breast cancer survivor named Susan Peterson from Canton, Ohio, responds with the right mixture of sobriety and jocularity, and an e-mail friendship is born."
• Evelina, Frances Burney - "Frances Burney's first and most enduringly popular novel is a vivid, satirical, and seductive account of the pleasures and dangers of fashionable life in late eighteenth-century London. As she describes her heroine's entry into society, womanhood and, inevitably, love, Burney exposes the vulnerability of female innocence in an image-conscious and often cruel world where social snobbery and sexual aggression are played out in the public arenas of pleasure-gardens, theatre visits, and balls."
• Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte - "In The Tenant of Wildfell Hall a devout young woman named Helen falls in love with a man who is handsome, but whose values are questionable; willing to believe she can alter his character, she marries him. Her marriage becomes a misery she has no power to change until she devises a bold plan to take control. Her story comes through two voices - her own and that of Gilbert Markham, a man who falls in love with Helen later in her life - and is told through journals and letters written over a period of time."
• Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy , Jean Webster - "One of the great novels of American girlhood, Jean Webster’s Daddy-Long- Legs (1912) follows the adventures of an orphan named Judy Abbott, whose letters to her anonymous male benefactor trace her development as an independent thinker and writer. Its sequel, Dear Enemy (1915), also told in letters, follows the progress of Judy’s former orphanage now run by her friend Sallie McBride, who struggles to give her young charges hope and a new life. Full of irrepressible female characters that both recall Alcott’s Jo March and anticipate the popular heroines of contemporary literature, Webster’s novels are witty, heartfelt, and delightfully modern."
• Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot: Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country , Caroline Stevermer - "In 1817 in England, two young cousins, Cecilia living in the country and Kate in London, write letters to keep each other informed of their exploits, which take a sinister turn when they find themselves confronted by evil wizards." Sequels: The Grand tour and The Mislaid Magician or Ten Years After.
• The Ides of March, Thornton Wilder - "The Ides of March, first published in 1948, is a brilliant epistolary novel set in Julius Caesar's Rome. Thornton Wilder called it 'a fantasia on certain events and persons of the last days of the Roman republic.' Through vividly imagined letters and documents, Wilder brings to life a dramatic period of world history and one of history's most magnetic, elusive personalities."
• Fairy Ring, Martine Desjardins - "In 1895, the arctic explorer Captain Ian Ryder has let his house in Blackpool on the Nova Scotia coast to the recently married Clara Weiss, who is about to become the compass of a social circle far too intimate for its own good.  Set in the year Freud published his ground-breaking essay on hysteria, this is a compulsively readable, beautiful and dark novel of personal relations so close they verge on the incestuous, and desires so vast they approach the cold crystalline purity of the archetype."
• More than Love Letters, Rosy Thornton - "When Richard Slater receives a letter of complaint from one of his constituents, a Margaret Hayton, he merely responds with his standard letter of empty promises. Clearly, this woman is insane and must be avoided at all costs. But she will not be dismissed so easily, and when Richard finally sets eyes on the 'twenty-something vision in stone-washed denim,' he risks losing his heart, his head, and quite possibly his political career."
• Dear Exile : The True Story of Two Friends Separated (for a Year) by an Ocean , Hilary Liftin and Kate Montgomery - "College roommates Kate Montgomery and Hilary Liftin went in different directions after they graduated. Kate married and went to Kenya with her husband to teach with the Peace Corps, while Hilary attempted to conquer Manhattan. This book consists of their letters during the year they were separated."

You'll have to forgive me for nabbing descriptions of the books from Amazon.  As most of these are completely new to me I had to look them up and thought  it might be nice to share a line or two about each books' contents.  I'm looking forward to looking for these books.  Many thanks for all the wonderful suggestions!  And for more ideas, check out Melanie's list, too. 

Reading Notes and Other Miscellanea

I'm nearly finished reading Laurie King's The Beekeeper's Apprentice and Rosalind Belben's Our Horses in Egypt. I hope to finish them both this weekend.  I'm so glad I stuck with the King book.  After a lull in the action I was ready to set it aside, but I decided to keep going and things picked up quickly and now I can't seem to put it down.  I'm really enjoying the Belben book as well.  I admit I found it hard going in the beginning, but somewhere along the way something clicked and now I think it's a excellent yet slightly disturbing (war scenes) book.  I'll save my thoughts about both for later.  By the way, it looks like the Belben book is due to be published here in the US in May (go take a look at the many kudos it has garnered and all well deserved).

I've already decided that next up will be Michelle Moran's Nefertiti  and Tom Rob Smith's Child 44--not the least because both are reader's copies.  I'm drawn to the exotic setting of Egypt in Nefertiti (both the King and Belben books are set wholly or partly in either Egypt or Palestine and they have given me a taste for a setting other than Europe.  I've read rave things about Child 44 from both Dovegreyreader and Cornflower (both bloggers whom I admire and find myself constantly writing down their reading suggestions).  I had already queued for it, but when I was offered a review copy I snapped it up (much nicer than waiting for a library copy, which I won't get until May no doubt!), and am now daily watching the mail for it to arrive.

I'm still loving Sarah Bower's Needle in the Blood.  It's funny as the story is different than I expected,not that I actually had any expectations of what would happen (other than what I read generally in the book description) but I'm finding that the story is surprising me.  I always like it when characters do the unexpected.  I especially love the descriptions of the needlework:

"Margaret twists round to reach the wooden stand behind her, from which skeins hang from dowel pegs set in the cross pieces, and unwinds a length of the blue grey wool Gytha is using.  A similar stand is beside each frame, each with eight pegs to carry skeins of each of the eight colours the embroiderers are using: terracotta red, blue woad, a deep blue-black derived from indigo, sea-green and sage-green, ochre yellow, yellow weld and a dark, yew green produced by over-dying.  Gytha finds it curious, remembering the procession of Bishop Odo's soldiers stripping Edith's hall of treasures, that the materials for the hanging should be so plain.  No silk thread or baudekyn, no gold or silver wires to cut and roughen the fingertips, just simple running stitch, wool on white linen, like making tablecloths."

Needless to say I'll be looking for a book on the Bayuex Tapestry.  Whenever I read a book about an artist or that has to do with a painting I like having a corresponding book for the visuals.

I finished listening to Neil Gaiman's Coraline.  What a wonderful story and a great story to listen to.  I had no idea (thanks to Tara, who also just read the book, for pointing it out) that it has been made into a movie.  Check out the trailer here!  Unfortunately I am going to have to give Olen Steinhauer' s The Bridge of Sighs the heave ho.  I am just not getting on well with the reader's voice.  It's nothing personal, but this is supposed to be a relaxing activity--listening to books--and I find myself cringing at times when he does the various voices.  I might have to look for the book and just read it, but I'll be searching for something else to listen to that's easier on my ears.  I'm contemplating listening to Kate Chopin's The Awakening, a book I loved when I read it a few years back.  I think there is the option of listening to an excerpt before downloading, so I'll give it a try.  I thought of buying a book from Audible.com (my player came with a freebie coupon, so I can try a book for free), but I have a fear of buying an audio book only to discover I don't like the reader's voice.  At least library audio books are free!

Epistolary Novels, a Thursday Thirteen

Although I had an uneven reading experience with Margaret Forster's Diary of an Ordinary Woman, I have to say I loved the format.  I might not want every book I read to be made up of diary entries or letters, and epistolary novels may have their drawbacks (it's amazing how a letter writer might be able to remember entire conversations, for example), I think when they're done well, they can be great fun to read (not to mention an entirely different way of getting inside a character's head).  Hopefully I'm using the term 'epistolary novel' correctly as a blanket term for diaries and letters.  When I finished with Forster, I thought I would like to read another novel written in the form of a diary.  I started wondering what else I might have on hand, so I scanned my shelves for possibilities.  I thought I might not find many books at all, but I ended up with a nice list (perfect for a Thursday Thirteen).  For once I've actually read nearly all these books (which shows how much I really do like this sort of novel).  If you can think of other epistolary novels, I'd love to get more reading suggestions.  Here's what I came up with:

1. The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins - I loved this book and it's not even my favorite Wilkie Collins novel, partly told through the use of letters
2. 84, Charing Cross Road, Helen Hanff - Delightful isn't a word I use in my everyday conversation, but it fits this book to a 'T' more than any other book I can think of.  You might already be familiar with it--letters exchanged between Hanff and a gentleman working in a second hand bookstore in London.  It takes place during the 1940s.  It's a very bookish novel and highly recommended (all her books are wonderful actually).
3. A Woman of Independent Means, Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey - Once again this is a novel about one woman's long life, but it's told through her letters.  I read it ages ago, so the details are hazy, but I recall enjoying it very much and giving it to friends.
4. Clarissa, Samuel Richardson - Maybe this is the granddaddy of epistolary novels?  I know this form was quite popular in the 18th century.  I have it, will read it someday.  (Though maybe I'll start with the shorter Pamela, which is also an epistolary novel).
5. Lady Susan, Jane Austen - I read this for the Slaves last year.  I liked it, though it is so different than Austen's other work.  Lady Susan wasn't the easiest person to like, as a matter of fact it's quite a jump to Elizabeth Bennet from Lady Susan!
6. Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B., Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe and The Last Great Dance on Earth, Sandra Gulland - These are wonderful novels about the life of Josephine--from her birth on Martinique through her life with Napoleon and after.  I wouldn't eve mind rereading them.
7. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields - This is a recent purchase for me.  I thought it might be fun to compare Daisy Goodwill's life to Millicent King.  Both the Shields book and the Forster are set in about the same period though Shields is a Canadian author and I think the book is also set in the US.
8. Dracula, Bram Stoker - Another wonderful novel made up of letters and diary entries. 
9. Diary of an Ordinary Woman, Margaret Forster - See link above to read my thoughts on this novel.
10. Freedom and Necessity, Steven Brust and Emma Bull - I've not read this yet, but it's one of those books I keep picking up and planning on reading, but then not getting to it.  It was recommended to me when I was looking for books for Carl's fantasy reading challenge last year.  It has a Victorian setting, but there is also fantasy and adventure thrown in as well.  It sounds so intriguing and I've heard all sorts of good things about it.
11. Primrose Past: The 1848 Journal of Young Lady Primrose, Caroline Rose Hunt - I read this ages and ages ago.  It is written in diary format of a young Victorian lady.  I always thought the author would write a sequel, but I never came across anything, which is a pity.
12. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley - Dorothy's recent posts on this novel make me want to read it again.  Another story told through the use of letters.
13. Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - I was all set to read this a couple of summers ago, but it didn't come to pass.  The story is told entirely through letters if I've read correctly.  I've seen the movie--a story of love, and seduction and betrayal, but I bet the book is better.

What have I missed?  Plenty, I'm sure!

Library Finds

I fibbed a little the other day when I said I was trying to talk myself out of starting yet another new book.  Somewhere in my mind I knew that the hour or so spent flipping through books looking for something new to read could actually be spent more usefully reading something I'm already halfway finished with.  But I ignored that more pragmatic part of myself and started another new book anyway.  I ended up perusing my library pile and started Point of Honour by Madeleine Robins.  I came across this book when I was searching for something else on Amazon. 

I didn't actually mean to really start it in earnest.  I just wanted to get a taste of her writing style, but I found myself not stopping after those first few paragraphs.  Unfortunately the book is out of print and there are only two Sarah Tolerance novels and from what I can tell I don't expect to see any more, which is a pity as I love the premise and so far love the character's 'voice'.  The setting is early 1800s England and Sarah is a Fallen Woman, having run off with her brother's fencing master.  When he dies there's not many alternatives open to her and she doesn't want to become a prostitute.  Instead she she takes on clients in need of discretion and help in certain private matters--what's known as an Inquiry Agent.  It seems a bit unconventional (sounds a bit like another swashbuckling novel I recently read), which I kind of like and there might even be a little swordplay.  I've already requested second Sarah Tolerance novel.

Since I'm on the topic of library finds, these what's waiting for me at home:

Beautiful Blue Death by Charles Finch - A fairly new mystery series set in Victorian England featuring gentlemen sleuth, Charles Lenox, who's aided in his mystery solving by friend and neighbor, Lady Jane Grey.

Lady Macbeth by Susan Fraser King - I've not read Shakespeare's Macbeth, but this is King's take on Lady Macbeth (perhaps an entirely different slant from Shakespeare I take it), and I've read some very positive reviews of this historical novel.

Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes - The inside book flap reads: "Be warned. This book has no literary merit whatsoever. Needless to say, I doubt you'll believe a word of it."  More Victorian melodrama.  Could be good, or could be iffy. 

Secret Life of Mrs. Beeton (DVD) - Masterpiece Theatre production of the life of the famous Mrs. Beeton.  From what I understand she was the Victorian equivalent of Martha Stewart.

And here's what I'm waiting for at the library (a few highlights anyway--my list is pretty long):

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food by Jennifer 8 Lee - I heard an interesting interview with the author (yes, another podcast!).  Normally this wouldn't be something I would pick up, but it sounded quirky and fun--a look at the origins of the fortune cookie and no doubt much more than that.

History of World Literature (8 DVDs) 48 lectures.  Sure.  I wonder if these will entail a guy standing there lecturing about books.  It could be good.  Not sure how I'll ever manage to watch it all. 

Anatomy of Deception by Lawrence Goldstone - I've heard this is a sort of Victorian CSI (and I'm totally addicted to CSI), but set in Philadelphia.

Crossed by Nicole Galland - A novel of the crusades.  I'm not sure about this one, so I'd be interested to hear if anyone has read it. 

Dark Lantern by Gerri Brightwell - I'm really looking forward to this one.  "A hypnotic spell of a novel–The Dark Lantern resurrects a Victorian London with dirt under its nails. Dawning criminology is a hazardous business, but nothing compared to the tangle of secrets in a gentleman’s home, where domestic espionage teems beneath a mask of propriety. Brightwell captures the fraught interdependence of mistress and maid, blackmailer and victim, and winds the tension to devastating effect. An arresting debut." (Per author Laura Dietz).

Resistance by Owen Sheers - Another one I'm looking forward to.  "Poet Sheers takes readers to a small Welsh village during a speculative WWII—featuring a German invasion of Britain—in his auspicious debut novel. It's 1944 and Sarah Lewis and the women in Ochlon valley are left alone after all the local men disappear one night. The women's worlds suddenly shrink to the day-to-day struggles to keep their sheep farms going until the war comes to their doorsteps in the form of Capt. Albrecht Wolfram and his men, who have a murky mission to carry out in the valley. Promising to leave the women alone, the Germans occupy an abandoned house and the two camps keep mostly to themselves until a harsh winter takes hold, and it becomes clear that the locals and the Germans will have to depend on one another to survive. It's also revealed that Albrecht is just as interested as the locals are in staying away from the war for as long as possible, and the two communities begin to merge. But when the weather breaks and the valley reopens to the world—and hence the war—the peculiar idyll threatens to shatter. Sheers's alternate reality is frighteningly convincing and dripping with heartbreak."

I know I get myself into all sorts of trouble with library books, but it's impossible to resist (well, for me anyway) so many interesting new books.