Every weekend should be a three day weekend, don't you think? I didn't catch up on everything I wanted to, but I'm quite satisfied at having spent a mostly lazy weekend reading.
I finished Sarah Bower's Needle in the Blood and am working on a post about it. I wish I could see the real Bayeaux Tapestry, but I'll simply have to content myself with reading more about it. And yes, I loved the book, by the way. Of course from what I had already read about it from other discerning book bloggers, I wasn't at all surprised.
Next up? I want another book exactly like Sarah Bower's, but I know I won't find it. Better to look for something completely different. I had a little stack of books to choose from, but in the end I opted for Stef Penney's The Tenderness of Wolves. I hadn't even been contemplating reading this but pulled it out to consider with the rest on a whim. After reading the first couple of pages it caught my attention sufficiently to want to give it a go. It's set in the icy cold wilderness of the Northern Territory in 1867. Icy cold is good on a really hot Summer day. It also had been nominated for the Orange Prize and won the Costa (Whitbread), though that's really not all that important to me. It's the story that appeals--a historical mystery of sorts.
I watched the entire BBC production of Sense and Sensibility straight through and enjoyed it immensely. I think I may even have to buy it. I thought they stayed pretty true to the story, though I don't recall a duel between Colonel Brandon and Willoughby in the book. Did I miss that? Elinor also seemed much more forgiving towards Willoughby in the book when he came to plead his case than she was in the film, but I can't say I blame her. Next weekend I plan on watching the Emma Thompson version. I'm sorely tempted to start reading Pride and Prejudice now (next up in my Jane Austen project), as watching the films puts me into a very Jane Austen mood. For the moment, though, I'll try and just keep it close at hand while I finish something else first.
And I got a couple of books in the mail yesterday, too. I've heard very good things about Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows' The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society. I had been planning on borrowing it from the library (though I was far down on the list), but as B&N was offering such a good price on it I broke down and ordered it. I'll set it next to Pride and Prejudice, though I'm tempted to start it as well. And to get free shipping I also ordered Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South. The description reads:
"When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the north of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of the local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. This is intensified by her tempestuous relationship with the mill-owner and self-made man, John Thornton, as their fierce opposition over his treatment of his employees masks a deeper attraction. In North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell skillfully fused individual feeling with social concern, and in Margaret Hale created one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature."
This sounds an awful lot like Charlotte Bronte's Shirley to me.
"Shirley is Charlotte Bronte's only historical novel and her most topical one. Written at a time of social unrest, it is set during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, when economic hardship led to riots in the woollen district of Yorkshire. A mill-owner, Robert Moore, is determined to introduce new machinery despite fierce opposition from his workers; he ignores their suffering, and puts his own life at risk. Robert sees marriage to the wealthy Shirley Keeldar as the solution to his difficulties, but he loves his cousin Caroline. She suffers misery and frustration, and Shirley has her own ideas about the man she will choose to marry. The friendship between the two women, and the contrast between their situations, is at the heart of this compelling novel, which is suffused with Bronte's deep yearning for an earlier time."
Mill-owners abound it would seem. I think they were both writing at about the same time. I'll have to compare and contrast the two! More books for the bedside.