A Work in Progress

Deception's Daughter

Mysteries introducing new sleuths can be tricky business.  There is a lot to accomplish right off the bat, and some authors are more successful than others at creating a convincing crime, a convincing sleuth, a believable resolution, and then if it happens to be a historical mystery there are all the period details to get right as well.  Last year I read Cordelia Frances Biddle's, The Conjurer, a mystery featuring Martha Beale as a somewhat unlikely heroine.  Although I had high expectations for it, I thought it didn't quite live up to them.  My main quibbles had to do with the very complex storyline replete with a full cast of characters (perhaps too complex for a short mystery), and a heroine/sleuth who had very little to do with solving the crime.  What I was impressed with, however, was Biddle's attention to detail.  It was enough to pique my curiosity to see if matters improved on a second venture out.  And they have.

Deception's Daughter returns to mid-1800s Philadelphia.  Martha Beale is a wealthy heiress, now in control of her life and her fortune after the disappearance and death of her financier father in The Conjurer.  Philadelphia must have been a growing city at the time, but there was no organized police force, only a local constabulary.  When a crime of some importance is committed Thomas Kelman, appointed by the mayor to investigate murders, is brought in.  Although Martha is part of the wealthy upper class, and Thomas's background is far more modest, a romance blooms between them and is further pursued in Deception's Daughter, which takes place about a year after the events in The Conjurer. 

The set up for the series is reminiscent to me of Anne Perry's sleuthing couple, Charlotte and Thomas Pitt, whose mysteries are set in slightly later years, but still in Victorian England (with similar mores and social problems) when a policeman was seen as not only lower class, but it was an embarrassment for the upper classes to interact with them.  Martha gives Thomas entree into society's drawing rooms, creating a bridge between the two classes and also giving her reason to dip into such unsavory activities as murder, something no respectable lady of the times would do.  Martha took a much more active role in solving the crime this time around.  There's a fine line for an author writing historical mysteries to walk.  Oftentimes a 19th-century heroine will end up with 20th century sensibilities, which can be a stretch to the reader's imagination as well.  Martha seemed to stay within her proper confines, which can be eyebrow raising for the modern reader (women really weren't allowed to attend funerals of their loved ones for fear of expressing too much emotion?!), yet still seemed believable and true to the period.      

The daughter of one of the more distinguished Philadelphia families has gone missing from her home.  Thomas Kelman is called in to investigate, but it's Martha Beale who is able to relate to the aristocratic family as they move in the same social circle.  I was happy to see that the story was far less complicated than The Conjurer, though there were still a couple of interesting plots.  There was just enough to keep the story interesting yet it also flowed nicely.  Although it took me until nearly the end to figure out who culprit was, I also wasn't terribly surprised.  What I really enjoyed about the story, though, was not only the developing relationship between Martha and Thomas (still far from resolved), but the historical aspect as well.  The story is steeped in the sights and sounds of 1842 Philadelphia with all it's race and class issues, which is what I love about historical fiction.  So I guess I will continue to follow Martha and Thomas's adventures.  You can check out Cordelia Frances Biddle's website here.   

An Interesting List

I belong to several discussion groups in Library Thing, and this morning as I was catching up on reading new posts, I came across an interesting book that one of the groups has been discussing, Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers Before Jane Austen by Dale Spender.  I have a feeling I've heard of this book before, but I was prompted today to actually go and look for it.  My library has a copy on the shelves (and very obviously it's been well used, which is nice to see, though I do wish so many people didn't feel the urge to do so much underlining), so I've brought it home with me to take a peek at this weekend. 

It looks like a survey of women authors who were writing before Jane Austen picked up pen and ink.  Interestingly the author had not even set out to write this particular book.

"This is not a book I started to write.  Half-way through my research, I changed my mind.  When I began my work on early women novelists--in the attempt to explore the relationship between women and fiction--I had assumed that women novelists had not really 'come into their own' until the entry of Jane Austen, and that the starting point for my work would be somewhere about the beginning of the nineteenth century.  At that stage, I had no idea that for more than one hundred and fifty years before Jane Austen, women had been writing novels, and that to return to the early days of women's relationship to fiction meant to go back to the seventeenth, and not the nineteenth century."

"But having embarked on my research, I soon 'discovered' more and more women writers, and more women's novels, in the eighteenth century, and the seventieth century, and I began to realize that far from standing at the beginning of women's entry to fiction writing, Jane Austen was the inheritor of a long and well-established tradition of 'women's novels'."

Spender goes on to talk about how wonderful her many discoveries of unknown women authors from this period was and being able to read their works, yet also being frustrated that such a rich heritage of women's writings has been lost in the first place.  I won't be able to read the book straight through at the moment, though I'd like to skim some of the chapters.  The book is broken into two parts--Literary Origins and Literary Standards.  It looks like she talks about some authors in detail (probably the better known from the list).  Here is the list of authors (a few more than 100 actually--I snagged the list from the Wikipedia).

• Penelope Aubin
• Jane Barker
• Aphra Behn
• Anna Maria Bennett (whom Spender called Agnes Maria Bennett)
• Elizabeth Bonhôte
• Elizabeth Boyd
• Sophie Briscoe
• Eliza Bromley
• Frances Brooke
• Indiana Brooks
• Mary Brunton
• Mrs Burke
• Frances Burney
• Sarah Harriet Burney
• Lady Charlotte Bury
• Mary Butt, Mrs Sherwood
• Elizabeth Byron (Strutt)
• Mrs. Carver
• Lady Mary Champion de Crespigny
• Charlotte Charke
• Mary Charlton
• Harriet Cheney
• Harriet Chilcot
• Emily Clark
• Jane Collier
• Mary Collyer
• Maria Susanna Cooper
• Helen Craik
• Charlotte Dacre
• Anne Seymour Damer
• Mary Davys
• Anne Dawe
• Anne Eden
• Maria Edgeworth
• Elisa Fenwick
• Susan Ferrier
• Sarah Fielding
• E. M. Foster
• Hannah Webster Foster
• Anne Fuller
• Phoebe Gibbes
• Mrs A. Gomershall
• Sarah Green
• Elizabeth Griffith
• Susannah Minifie Gunning
• Elizabeth Hamilton
• Lady Mary Hamilton
• Mary Ann Hanway
• Jane Harvey
• Laetitia Matilda Hawkins
• Mary Hays
• Eliza Haywood
• Mary Hearne
• Elizabeth Helme
• Elizabeth Hervey
• Mrs Howell
• Anne Hughes
• M. (Harley) Hugill
• Maria Hunter
• Rachel Hunter
• Elizabeth Inchbald
• Frances Jacson
• Mrs. Johnson
• Susanna Keir
• Isabella Kelly
• Anne Kerr
• Sophia King
• Ellis Cornelia Knight
• Caroline Lamb
• Sarah Lansdell
• Mary Latter
• Harriet Lee
• Sophia Lee
• Charlotte Lennox
• Alethea Lewis
• Charlotte MacCarthy
• Anna Maria Mackenzie
• Delarivier Manley
• Jean Marishall (whom Spender called Jean Marshall)
• Mrs Martin
• Eliza Matthews
• Anna Meades
• Mary Meeke
• Margaret Minifie
• Hannah More
• Lady Morgan (Sydney Owenson)
• Elizabeth Norman
• Amelia Opie
• Charlotte Palmer
• Mary Elizabeth Parker
• Catherine Parry
• Eliza Phelp Parsons
• Susanna Pearson
• M. Peddle
• Laetitia Pilkington
• Mary Pilkington
• Mary Pix
• Arabella Plantin
• Anne Plumptre
• Elizabeth Plunkett
• Jane Porter
• Elizabeth Purbeck
• Jane Purbeck
• Ann Radcliffe
• Mary Anne Radcliffe
• Clara Reeve
• Mary Darby Robinson
• Regina Maria Dalton Roche
• Elizabeth Singer Rowe
• Susanna Rowson
• Elizabeth Ryves (or Elizabeth Reeves)
• Charlotte Sanders (or Charlotte Saunders)
• Sarah Robinson Scott
• Catherine Selden
• Frances Sheridan
• Ann Emelinda Skinn
• Eleanor Sleath
• Catherine Smith
• Charlotte Smith
• Elizabeth Isabella Spence
• Sarah Emma Spencer
• Augusta Amelia Stuart
• Miss Taylor
• Elizabeth Thomas
• Jane Timbury
• Elizabeth Tomlins
• Jane Warton
• Jane West
• Helena Wells
• Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson
• Helen Maria Williams
• Mary Wollstonecraft
• Mrs A. Woodfin
• Ann Yearsley
• Mary Julia Young

The only author I've read from the list is Ann Radcliffe, though I've heard of a good handful of them.  I even have a few of their novels on my shelves, though I wonder how readily available most of their works are.  In any case it is a list I would like to explore more.  I usually am a lurker in the LT discusion groups, but I may have to join in and see what experiences other readers have had with these authors.

A Few Book Notes

Now that I am getting serious about catching up on my reading pile, I've been thinking about how I want to tackle the books.  I'm thinking it would be best to choose one and concentrate on it until I finish and then move on to the next making my way through the pile, but I always have such a hard time choosing which one to read first.  So I am still juggling a bit, but I'm close to finishing a third book from the list. 

My biggest challenge is finishing Les Misérables.  I feel like it is a huge impediment in the road.  Summer is quickly coming to an end and I told myself I would be done with the Hugo by the end of summer.  I have about 400 pages left to read, and every page feels like it goes slower than the last.  I feel bad as I am getting a little resentful.  If he digresses on one more matter I might scream.  Well, actually I won't, but I feel like it sometimes.  This is the book I should work on finishing before any of the others.  It would be such a sigh of relief to get through it, but I just can't quite bring myself to read only it.  Maybe when I have less than 300 pages?  I'm sure when I finish I will be happy to have read it, but it's a struggle at the moment.  I whipped through 1,300 page of Dumas in no time, but the Hugo has just worn me down, I'm sorry to say.

I'm also working very. very. slowly. on Laura Claridge's Emily Post biography.  It's very interesting, but it is so chock full of information I can't seem to read it very fast, and it is quite a long book.  Claridge has spent a lot of time on Emily's family, filling in all the details, but I suppose it's necessary to learn about the milieu she grew up in to understand who she later became.  So far the book has only discussed Emily peripherally, but now that I've finished the first section, and Emily has just gotten married, I'm hoping the book will center more on her.  Still, reading about Gilded Age New York is fascinating stuff.  Even only a fourth of the way in I can say Claridge is an excellent writer and has definitely done her homework.

I'm really enjoying Cordelia Frances Biddle's Deception's Daughter.  I read the first Martha Beale mystery last year and had mixed feelings about it, but so far this has been a very satisfying read.  It is set in mid-19th century Philadelphia, and Biddles very convincingly writes about the time, place and people.  The pages are turning pretty fast on this one.  I can usually count on whatever mystery I am reading to capture my attention, and I say this not to reflect badly on M. Hugo, but then I think each author is trying to accomplish something different!  Hmm.  Does this mean I'm a lazy reader only looking for momentary gratification?  Maybe sometimes.

Since I'm thinking mysteries, why didn't anyone tell me that the last two Inspector Lynley mysteries (season VII) just aired?  I missed all of them--they repeated season VI as well.  I've added them to the top of my Netflix queue.  I'm still very disappointed that the show was canceled, as this is it now--no more Lynley.  I've come to enjoy the TV adaptation almost more than the books, if you can believe that?!  And I see that the DVDs have been released, but they are tacked on to season VI, which I already own. Am I going to have to buy the whole set over again? I guess I'll have to go back to the beginning now and watch them in order from the first to last.

I discovered that the next Maisie Dobbs mystery, Among the Mad, is already listed on Amazon.  It's not due out until February 2009.  I don't want to wish the year away, but I am looking forward to the next Maisie installment.  And a new book by Anne Perry caught my eye too, Execution Dock.  I can't tell if it is another book in one of her series or a stand alone mystery.  That one isn't due out until March.  Just as well, though, I need to keep my attention focused on the list for the time being.

By the way, my postal reading group book came in the mail.  I'll be reading this book by this author.  It was made into an award winning film, too.  I'm not at all familiar with it, but it sounds good.  An excuse to start a new book in the near future. 

The Ivy Tree

I find the concept of "doppelganger" intriguing, particularly the idea of "glimpsing yourself in peripheral vision" and that being the harbinger of bad luck.  I had no idea doppelganger carried with it that meaning, but it sort of gives me the chills.  At the center of Mary Stewart's The Ivy Tree is a doppelganger, or look alike.  It's a thriller-ish sort of story, though the "twin" doesn't carry with it that same chilling meaning.  This is not the first time I've read about a lookalike taking the place of the original.  Josephine Tey used this plot device in Brat Farrar, and if I remember correctly French author Sebastien Japrisot uses it effectively as well in one of his noir crime novels (he wrote several, all of which I gulped down as soon as they were published in the US, but I'm digressing).

The Ivy Tree begins with a twenty-something young woman called Mary Grey sitting and enjoying the lovely Northumberland landscape.  She's accosted by a handsome but surly stranger accusing her of being someone she's not.  It turns out that she's on Winslow property, and she happens to be the spitting image of Annabel Winslow, the runaway heiress to the the family's fortunes thought to be long dead.  Conor, a distant Irish relation, is certain she's Annabel come home to have her share of Whitescar, the family home.  Conor is none too pleased as he's labored hard on the land with little recognition from his grandfather.  It takes some convincing, but eventually Mary persuades him that she is indeed from Canada and far back in her family tree her ancestors may have come from this part of the world, which is what drew her to the country.  Annabel she is not.

It's all a matter of chance, but Conor sees his opportunity to take advantage of the situation.  He proposes that Mary take on the identity of the dead Annabel and return to Whitescar--the prodigal granddaughter.  She was much loved by her grandfather and he's sure that the will still names Annabel as the heir.  The catch is if Annabel weren't to return the property would revert to his younger cousin, Julie, not Conor, leaving him out in the cold.  His only chance is to convince everyone Annabel has returned to take her rightful place as heir.  When the grandfather passes away, and the poor man is in a fragile state, Mary can hand over the goods but keep a tidy sum for herself.  Being nearly penniless, Mary accepts and the deception begins.

The story isn't as complicated as it sounds, but Mary's impersonation ends up being riddled with obstacles.  Can she convince everyone she is Annabel?  What about Annabel's secrets?  Will they trip her up.  The deception turns out to be more dangerous than Mary ever expected.  This is a story that promises twists and turns, suspense and perhaps even some romance.  It had all the right elements, but to be honest, the story didn't really grab me.  It was a little slower going than I like for a novel of suspense.  I enjoyed it on one level--it was well written and reasonably well plotted with interesting characters.  But somehow I still failed to engage with the story.  I think I can blame it on reading this at the same time I was reading Rebecca, which is absolutely masterfully done.  It seems unfair to compare the two, but I couldn't help myself.  I have, however, really enjoyed Mary Stewart's Arthurian novels and still plan on reading some of her other Gothic novels.  I think it was just a matter of timing as the premise is a good one.

This was my first R.I.P. book.  I decided to be a glutton for punishment and have moved on to Joyce Carol Oates's Beasts.  It's a slender little novel and so far has started out innocuously enough.  I'm not far, though, so I don't expect that to last!  I know she'll throw me for a loop eventually.      

New Book Haul

So, if you were curious about what was in these boxes, here they are.  From top to bottom:

1939: The Last Season, Anne de Courcy - A look at late 1930s British "Society".

The Last Curtsey: The End of the Debutantes, Fiona McCarthy - McCarthy traces the lives of the young girls who were amongst the last to formally curtsey to the queen.  I had no idea women did this--it should be an interesting read.

In the Dark, Deborah Moggach - A Novel set in London during the Great War.

Lock 14, Georges Simenon - I've been wanting to read more of Simenon.  This is one of his earlier novels.  I won't necessarily read them all, but I would like to read them in some sort of orderly fashion.

Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories, M.R. James - This and the book below is an annotated collection of James's ghost stories.  He's supposed to be the master of the genre.

The Haunted Dolls' House and Other Ghost Stories, M.R. James - I hope to be reading a few of these in the upcoming weeks.

The Night Villa, Carol Goodman - I still haven't read her last book, The Sonnet Lover, but I generally enjoy her work so I had to get this one.  Her books usually have some sort of academic setting.  This one has two storylines set centuries apart in Texas and Italy.

Growing Up, Angela Thirkell - I'm being optimistic with this one.  It is a later Barsetshire novel.  I'm trying to collect the nicer Moyer Bell editions that are in print as they seem to be hard to come by.

The Blackstone Key, Rose Melikan - I read about this first via Bookgirl's Nightstand.  It's set in 1795 and includes "ruthless smugglers, secret codes, and a dangerous network of spies and traitors."

The Second Ruth Rendell Omnibus (contains: To Fear a Painted Devil, Vanity Dies Hard, and The Secret House of Death) - I probably don't need to explain about this one.  These are three of Rendell's earliest works.

By the way, I finally ordered my new computer this afternoon.  Hopefully I will have it by next Monday.  Although I have been budgeting for this for a while, it was a little more than I anticipated spending (I swear that always happens--I never stay under budget), so I may not have any nice new book piles to share for a while as I pay it off.  It should be quite slick, however, compared to what I am working on now.  Anything has to be better than what I have now, and I am hoping that it will be so fast and efficient I will spend half the time doing twice the work, therefore allowing me more reading time.

Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca

If Margaret Forster's biography of Daphne du Maurier is anything to go by, du Maurier was an extremely complex individual.  A second go round of Rebecca makes it easy to see how her personality and experiences come through in her writing.  Reading the novel was better the second time around, and I think I can appreciate what she was doing more now than I could the first time I read the book.

Sally Beauman writes an excellent afterword to the novel throwing light on her motivations and meanings, which certainly made it a richer read this time through.  Interestingly Beauman writes that Rebecca can be read on two levels, as a conventional romance (probably, Beauman notes, how the reading public approached it when it was first published and became an instant bestseller), which is no doubt how I read it when I was younger.  The other approach is to see the "imaginative links" to earlier novelists such as Charlotte Bronte.  Du Maurier herself described the novel to her publisher as "a sinister tale about a woman who marries a a widower...psychological rather than macabre."  I saw it less as a romance this time around and felt the darker, brooding overtones much more.

Rebecca was written in 1938 while she was living with her military husband in Alexandria, Egypt, which she came to loathe.  She was extremely unhappy at this time, her beloved father having passed away only a few years earlier.  She was also pregnant with her second child and no doubt the sweltering heat of the desert did nothing to lighten her mood.  She chucked the first version (wouldn't it be interesting to get your hands on that?) and later finished it when she returned to England.  This was her fifth novel, and it would become her most famous, remaining in print since it's first publication.

The story begins in Monte Carlo and is narrated by a young, unnamed woman who is acting as a companion to an unpleasant and annoying American woman.  Mrs. Van Hopper is one of those types of women always hoping to curry favor with the elite crowd, and she does everything she can to insinuate herself into the company of handsome widower, Maxim de Winter, who also happens to be staying at the same hotel.  When she falls ill, Maxim and the young woman take to spending time together.  It's all a bit whirlwind, but they quickly decide to marry and return to England.  To Manderley.

The novel is bookended by two dreams the new Mrs. de Winter has.  Both are vivid and nightmarish in quality.  I shared the opening scenes of the novel here.  Beauman writes that the novel is about a man, two women, and a house.  Manderley certainly does take on almost human qualities becoming a towering character in itself.  The new Mrs. de Winter is not only young, but unstylish and inexperienced as well.  She soon finds she's incapable of managing a household that the first Mrs de Winter, Rebecca, succeeded at so flawlessly.  Physically and socially she compares unfavorably with her as well.  Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, does everything she can to undermine the new Mrs. de Winter and make her feel what a failure she is in every way to Rebecca.

For a character who is dead and buried long before the action of the story begins, it's hard to get away from her.  Manderley exudes Rebecca's presence, and everyone on the estate compares the new Mrs. de Winter to the former, or at least that's what the new Mrs. de Winter thinks.  Perhaps as a coping method, she creates a rich fantasy life, but it simply immures her to a feeling of failure.  Since the reader is inside the new Mrs. de Winter's head we not only sense her pain, but feel her fears (real and imagined) as she loses control over her life (though did she ever have it?).  She believes Maxim looks at her but sees and wants only Rebecca.         

I think the story is brilliant at what it sets out to do and how well it's achieved.  Daphne du Maurier always wanted to be taken more seriously as a writer than she was during her lifetime.  I think critics often wrote her off as someone (a woman) writing popular (and therefore not serious) fiction, which is a pity.  I don't think her work can just be read, consumed and forgotten.  At least it's stayed with me.  Happily Virago Press continues to publish the bulk of her work.  I'm very slowly making my way through her oeuvre, and reread this as a run up to reading Justine Picardie's Daphne.  I still plan on reading more of the Brontes as well, whose lives and works seem so integral to so much of what I've read this year.  And I think now I need to pull out The "Rebecca" Notebook.  I will, of course, be reading more of her work (not sure what to follow Rebecca up with).  If you've not yet read this, I highly recommend it!  

Joyce Carol Oates' Haunted

There's something a little unnerving about Joyce Carol Oates's work.  I felt it when I read her story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been earlier this year, and I felt it particularly in her story, "Haunted", which I came across in The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories edited by Peter Haining.  According to the Wikipedia (yes, I know, not the best place for research, but still a starting place for orienting myself),

"...Oates built up a literary corpus that mixes Gothic estrangement with high social observation. Her works contain the typical elements of this type of tale: unconscious forces, seduction, incest, violence, and rape, sometimes to the point of sensationalism."

Right from the beginning of the story you know something bad is going to happen to someone.  Oates may or not be explicit about it, but there is darkness lurking just below the surface of the story.  "Haunted" takes place in 1987 in a small, rural town, which could be Anywhere, USA (though perhaps it's upstate New York where she was raised?).  The story is narrated by a woman who's life is mostly behind her, but she looks back on one summer when she was thirteen that remains vivid in her memory.  Uncertain of why, she decides to write down the events.  Perhaps to make sense of them?  Though to be honest, I'm not sure either she or the reader comes to any concrete conclusions when she finishes.  The story seems more like a fairy tale.

"Once upon a time the fairy tales begin.  But then they end and often you don't really know what has happened, what was meant to happen, you only know what you've been told, what the words suggest."

Oates teases the reader with suggestions of things to come in the story, but when they do, it isn't exactly how you expected them, though they might be worse than you thought.  Melissa and Mary Lou are the daughters of farmers, becoming close friends as they live outside the small town unlike the rest of their classmates.  Almost like sisters, Mary Lou is the pretty one and Melissa, while not ugly, is the plain one.  Mary Lou is a shade wilder, though Melissa usually follows along in whatever trouble Mary Lou goes looking for.  Mary Lou would like nothing more than the dump the town and get away, but Melissa is seemingly content to keep the status quo.  This isn't a ghost story exactly, but haunted houses can be occupied by more than one type of ghost.    

The haunted house in this story is the old Minton Farm.  No one knows why, but Mr. Minton killed his wife and then killed himself.  The land had been sold off ages ago, but the house and other buildings remained, empty and dilapidated, falling down from lack of care.  Boarding up the windows and doors and a plethora of no trespassing signs isn't enough to keep curiosity-seekers away, and of course Melissa and Mary Lou are often drawn to it.  Sometimes it's best not to ignore warnings, as the price that's paid might be horrific.  The introduction called this a story of "crime, punishment and the inexplicable that lures the narrator--and with her, the reader--into a situation of almost unbearable terror."

I won't tell you what happens to Mary Lou and Melissa.  It's creepy and creepier.  I read this for the chill factor, and chilling it actually was, but I know there is more to what Oates was doing than I've mentioned here (I know she writes often of young women and being a victim among other things).  For a while I thought what happened in the Minton house was a dream or fantasy gone awry, but what's so very creepy about it, is I think it (fictionally speaking) actually happened.  I'm not sure I want to, but it's a story I think I could read again and get more out of it.  Is all Joyce Carol Oates's work like this?  I saw that another reader wrote that Oates writes with a "disquieting intensity" and she was spot on in her characterization.  I want to read more, but I'm almost afraid to.      

Weekend Mishmash

I've made some progress on a few needlework projects.  I was actually going to take new photos (sorry, this is on the blurry side), but after spending a good half hour last night loading a mere three photos on my computer (it should and has taken far less time!!), I decided to just share a few older ones.  I've almost finished the first row of motifs on this one.  I have one motif left to stitch on the right and then will be ready to start on row two.  This is slower going as I don't take this to work.  Lately I've been using one of my breaks for stitching (rather than reading).  Even though it isn't much time, a little bit each day does add up.

This is a new design I've started (see, I am as bad with needlework projects as I am with books!).  I've stitched more than you see here, and I really wanted to share this one, but I am too lazy to go through the process of taking and loading a photo.  It is a chart that my mom brought back for me from her vacation.  She visited my sister in Fredericksburg, Virginia  and there is a wonderful little needlework shop there crammed with cool stuff.  I wish there was a shop locally, but it's probably just as well there isn't or I would spend too much money.  I'm fond of the designer, Little House Needleworks, and my mom brought home a pile of her new charts as well as a few others.  So you see I had to start one of them!  I've been working on it a little every afternoon.  Maybe I will actually finish something soon?

This weekend there is a needlework market in Missouri.  Many designers will unveil new designs and it's generally a costly affair as I want more than I now I can stitch.  Hopefully not too many things will tempt me.  I am tempted by this Halloween concoction.  How clever, and I love clever needlework projects.  It's not only very clever, but it's also very expensive, so I am trying hard to resist.  You can see more photos here, if you scroll down the page a bit.

While I am not a very good cook, I can bake reasonably well.  Now that the weather has turned cooler, I've started to bake a little.  Last weekend I made a batch of pecan sandies.  I'm always generous with the pecans, so I am sure they are not very good for you, but they are very tasty.  Don't these look like yummy chocolate chip cookies?  I've yet to find a decent recipe--or else I'm not doing something right.  I may have to give these a try this weekend.

I have to share one bookish thing.  You know I am a fan of historical fiction, so I was curious about this question, which was answered by several authors here.  It always amazes me when I read a book set in some exotic locale to discover that the author had never traveled there.  How do they manage to convey that sense of place without seeing it?  I think I would want that inside knowledge, but it's obviously possible to do it without it. Besides it's not possible to travel back to Victorian England, yet authors manage to write about it pretty convincingly.

I'll leave you with a little teaser. What do you think these packages contain?  Just because I haven't been to a bookstore lately, doesn't mean I don't still have the ability to be bad in other ways...      

Library Sale!

Thursday night was my library's fall book sale.  Things were much more pleasant this time around than at the last sale.  There were still lots of people there, and the same lady with her trusty bar code reader was scanning the shelves, but it didn't feel quite as rushed this time around.  Maybe it helped that we were allowed in fifteen minutes earlier.  It is much nicer to be on the relaxed side even if it was crowded.  I certainly can't complain as I filled my book bag to the brim.  While most paperbacks were still only fifty cents, I noticed that many of the popular titles had special pricing, but even at $3 or $4 the books were still a bargain and I only spent a tad over $20.  I even found two Viragos!  If you're curious for details, here's what I came away with:

I Capture the Castle (Virago--a very lucky find!), Dodie Smith - I love this book!

A Lost Lady (a newer Virago), Willa Cather - She's a Nebraska author and I really should read much more of her work.

The Inn at the End of the World, Alice Thomas Ellis - I wasn't sure about this as it sounds a little on the heavy side, but I decided to give it a go.

Tropic Moon, Georges Simenon - This is a non-Maigret mystery published by NYRB Classics.  I was happy to find it and it's in pristine condition.  And only 50 cents!

The Sisters Mortland, Sally Beauman - I read this before, but it was a library copy and I wouldn't mind owning my own and reading it again.

The Woman of the House, Alice Taylor - She's an Irish author--has anyone read her work?

Gunnar's Daughter, Sigrid Undset

Jenny, Sigrid Undset - These were great finds as I have wanted to read more of Undset's work.  Both of these novels sound good!

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, Brian Moore - I wasn't sure about this one either, but the blurb said the character of Judith Hearne was part of "the gallery of literature's unforgettable women."

Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces, Angela Carter - I'd never heard of this one.  I like her work, but I find I have to be in the right frame of mind for it.

Clouds of Witness, Dorothy L. Sayers

Strong Poison, Dorothy L. Sayers - A Lord Wimsey and Harriet Vane mystery.  She's on trial for murder in this one.

An American Childhood, Annie Dillard

Disturbances in the Field, Lynne Sharon Schwartz - "A quiet masterwork of 20-century American realism."

84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff - This was a frivolous purchase as I already own it, but it has the coolest cover.  The price was so cheap I figured why not.  I need to reread her work soon!

A History of Reading, Alberto Manguel - I thought this would be a pricier book, but it was only 50 cents.  Now, that's quite a find.

Acid Row, Minette Walters

Listen to the Shadows, Danuta Reah - "A psychological thriller in the style of Minette Walters."  She's compared also to P.D. James, and Barbara Vine.  Those are pretty hard acts to follow!

The Old Jest, Jennifer Johnston - Published in 1979, it won the Whitbread and Yorkshire Post Awards.

Northbridge Rectory, Angela Thirkell - A Barsetshire Chronicle novel.  It's not one of the nice Moyer Bell editions, only an old paperback, but as they are hard to come by I guess I can't be too particular.

The Grave Tattoo, Val McDermid - I've been curious about this author.  I know she has more than one series she writes, but this is a stand alone mystery.

Old Wounds: A Gillian Adams Mystery, Nora Kelly - This has an academic setting.

Crime Through Time II, edited by Miriam Grace Manfredo - I have the first collection.  Perhaps I'll read one of these short stories this weekend.

Hamlet, Shakespeare

English Music, Peter Ackroyd

A Finer End, Deborah Crombie

The Tulip: The Story of a Flower That Has Made Men Mad, Anna Pavord - I love books like these--an interesting social history.

I say this every time there is a library sale, but if I wanted to be really economical, I could just go to my library's quarterly book sales, and then use the library for all the newly released books.  If I didn't buy any other new books during the year, I might spend less than $100 on books a year and still have plenty to read!  But I know I would feel restricted and want to read something I didn't find at the sale or in the library!  Still, it's nice to know there are good, inexpensive books out there!

Reading Notes

I was going to post a Thursday Thirteen list today of novels that touch upon or deal with 9/11, but then I decided against it as I would feel a little bit of a fraud.  I can't think of one book I've read--fiction or nonfiction that deals with what happened on September 11, 2001.  I don't read as much contemporary fiction as I would like, but I especially avoid (usually unconsciously, but maybe not always) books that deal with issues that are in the news every day (or should be in the news anyway). 

I love historical fiction, even all the tragic stories that might be horrific in subject matter.  The thing is I didn't live these stories and they may have occurred literally hundreds of years ago in a world completely unlike my own, so I can distance myself from what happened while still feeling sympathetic and interested.  I can't distance myself from a story that I might easily see on the evening news, and if a book is well done I tend to get wrapped up in the characters lives and can visualize (in vivid color) whatever horrible event that happens to be the heart of the story, which just makes matters worse.  I see this as a bit of a failing on my part.  In a way isn't the whole point of stories being able to identify with the characters in them no matter the situation or at least feel empathy?  So I guess this is an area I need to work on. 

One book that I was going to add to my list (had I made one) is fellow blogger Will Entrekin's collection of stories, poems and essays, Entrekin, which was just reviewed by Sam at Book Chase.  Will was living in NYC at the time of the terrorist attacks and this collection includes essays on his experiences at that time.  I should give it a try.  No doubt there are lots of other good books on 9/11 that I am missing out on by not reading them?  Maybe I would do better to seek out some other form of writing when it comes to contemporary events?  Litlove just posted on essay writing, where she wrote:

"The essay is the only place where the language of exploration resists such easy, crowd-pleasing tactics. Essays are little splinters in the soft, massy flesh of general thinking, they don't have to be completely coherent, they don't have to take up a position and stick to it no matter what, the way that journalism does. Instead they make a virtue of their unfinished business, their slow contemplative revolution around an issue, their sly opening up of a question rather than its triumphant closing down."

Perhaps this format would be a different avenue to explore more current issues.  I like the idea of a "slow contemplative revolution around an issue".  I don't have a lot of experience with the essay form (another area I wouldn't mind working on), but perhaps there would be less of an emotional investment, which is what messes me up with some fiction.  In any case, reading suggestions about 9/11 (or other contemporary events) are welcome in any format.