A Work in Progress

February 18: Reading Notes

My reading has been all over the place this month, in part because I have a little stack of books I really need to read by the end of the month.  However, I'm really not doing at all well.  Last month I read fewer books than I did in January of 2009 and it looks like the same is going to happen this month, so I had better stop counting and comparing or I'll just make myself feel bad (which I realize is really pretty silly).  I'm not sure why I look, but I am always a little curious from one year to the next.  So maybe this year I'll be reading fewer than last, but that's okay as long as I enjoy what I'm reading.  Still, that doesn't help when I know I need to get a few 'obligation' books read by a certain time and I seem to be reading at the pace of a really, really slow snail. 

That said, it's the books I shouldn't necessarily be paying so much attention to that I really am in the mood to spend time with.  Does that happen to you?  The moment you know you need to read something, it seems to lose all attraction (well, not all attraction, but all of a sudden there's this pressure on you and you're looking at the calendar, suddenly wishing February wasn't such a short month even though you're sick of winter...but I digress).  So here I am reading away (albeit slowly) the books I should be reading, but picking up here and there a few other books, which happen to be mysteries.

I usually have one mystery on the go most of the time, but since I finished reading The Mapping of Love and Death, which I enjoyed so much, I've not been able to settle on a new mystery.  In a way that was okay, as I have not one but two crime novels started.  I've already mentioned Petra Hammesfahr's The Lie, which is about a woman who's likeness is so disturbingly similar to another's that they switch places to what will be deadly results.  The Lie is another Bitter Lemon Press (my first being Thursday Night Widows) title.  

I need to read one more book for my library's winter reading program, so I decided on Dutch author Saskia Noort's Back to the Coast, which is a thriller about a woman who's being stalked.  It's a fairly short read and is turning to be a real page turner.  It's yet another Bitter Lemon Press book.  I really like that they have such a great array of international authors.  I like reading contemporary fiction set in other places, so I can get a taste of their culture and crime novels seem to be quite popular in terms of what's being translated these days.  

When I was book browsing I came across an author I had seen at the library, but never bothered to really take a look at, Amy Patricia Meade.  I've got Million Dollar Baby on hand and have dipped into it just a little bit.  Her mysteries are set in a small Connecticut town and feature a woman writer (of detective fiction!) who gets mixed up in murder  The books are set in the Depression era, and after a little taste I'm not quite sure what to think.  Has anyone read her before?  A blurb from Kirkus Reviews calls this a "vintage-style" mystery-- to me it feels sort of campy.  I'm not sure if it's meant to be sort of light-hearted or not.  It could be a lot of fun, if it's really meant to be sort of tongue-in-cheek and playful.  I'll have to read a bit more to see how it goes.  

And the last one is by Dorothy Sayers, her first Lord Wimsey mystery, Whose Body?.  I've heard this is not her best, but I like to start at the beginning when it comes to mysteries.  I have read Gaudy Night, which I think probably is her best, so I know how good her writing can be and will be willing to stick with Lord Peter (and Harriet Vane) even if this isn't a terribly strong story.  I've not yet started reading in earnest, but I think Dorothy Sayers it is (with so many good writers from the Golden Age, I want to read them all!). 

It's no wonder I'm not making progress with my other books...so many (good) distractions!

A Few New and Forthcoming Mysteries

I'm really in a mystery/crime mood at the moment.  I'm being really bad as I have two crime novels on the go at the moment (one a review copy and the other a library book--my last choice for the winter reading program) and I'm contemplating which mystery to read (am thinking a good cozy by Dorothy Sayers).  Being in a mystery mood I've been doing a little online browsing and have come up with quite a list to check out.  Here are a few highlights.

Dangerous to Know, Tasha Alexander - Unfortunately I have no information on this one other than a title (which I found on the Euro Crime Blog.  It's good to know there is a new Lady Emily Ashton novel in the works, though.

Changeless, Gail Carrigar - I'm not at all familiar with this author, but she caught my eye as this seems to be a "steampunk" mystery (a genre I'm curious about and am looking forward to trying).

False Mermaid, Erin Hart - I read the first couple of books by Hart about an American pathologist working in Ireland, but then she seemed to disappear from the mystery scene.  I'm so happy to see a new book coming out by her and hopefully will continue the story.

Blood Harvest, S.J. Bolton - I read her first book, Sacrifice, a thriller-ish sort of story set in the Shetland Islands.  Her second book, Awakening, is due out in paper this spring.  And her newest is set in Dorset.  Her stories tend to be very creepy.     

Last Nocturne, Marjorie Eccles - "Beautifully written and highly evocative of the bustling streets of London and Vienna in the early twentieth century, Last Nocturne is an intriguingly complex mystery of passion and the devastating repercussions of a single action."

The Bohemian Girl, Kenneth Cameron - This is set in Bohemian London. 

31 Bond Street, Ellen Horan - "Set in 1857 New York, this gripping mystery is also a richly detailed excavation of a lost age. Horan vividly re-creates a tumultuous era characterized by a sensationalist press, aggressive new wealth, a booming real-estate market, corruption, racial conflict, economic inequality between men and women, and the erosion of the old codes of behavior. A tale of murder, sex, greed, and politics, this spellbinding narrative transports readers to a time that eerily echoes our own."  I'm already in line for this one at the library.

Shame, Karen Alvetegen - I've wanted to try this Swedish author for a while now.  She writes psychological thrillers.

Close-Up, Esther Verhoef - I'm totally unfamiliar with this Dutch author, but as she's been compared to Ruth Rendell, I'm willing to give her a try.

The Poisoned Chocolates Case, Anthony Berkeley - "Reissue of one of the great puzzle mystery classics of England's Golden Age of crime fiction; plot involves a group of upper-crust amateur sleuths who set out to solve a murder that has baffled Scotland Yard; catnip for fans of Agatha Christie and Margery Allingham."  This sounds like fun and I'll be adding it to my next order most likely.

A House to Die For, Vicki Doudera

The Saltmarsh Murders, Gladys Mitchell - She is another new to me author.  I believe she was writing abotu the same time as Agatha Christie and is anotehr Golden Age Mystery writer who I am looking forward to trying.

Tigerlily's Orchids, Ruth Rendell - Yay, a new Ruth Rendell novel.  I like her so much I will pretty much just buy whatever she publishes.  I need to pick up one of her unread books I have on hand very soon.  

The Poison Tree, Erin Hart - "It is the sweltering summer of 1997, and Karen is a strait-laced, straight-A university student. When she meets the impossibly glamorous Biba, a bohemian orphan who lives in a crumbling old mansion in Highgate with her enigmatic brother Rex, she is soon drawn into their world -- but something terrible is about to happen, and someone's going to end up dead."  This is another must-have for me.  Another author who is being compared to not only Barbara Vine but Tana French! 

Dying of the Light, Gillian Galbraith - This is a police procedural set in Edinburgh.

Perhaps tomorrow I'll share a little about the mysteries I've got going at the moment.  I should probably not do so much browsing, should I.

Teaser Tuesday: The Girl with Glass Feet

I've just started reading Ali Shaw's The Girl with Glass Feet.  I already had it on my TBR pile, but when I saw I could read along with a group I thought it was time to pull the book out.  I probably won't finish in time for this weekend's discussion, but hopefully I won't follow too far behind.  It's a curious story so far and I'm trying to orient myself.  Set on the fictional (at least I can't find reference to it anywhere) St. Hauda's Land, which I imagine to be somewhere far up north where it's cold and snowy, it has a very fairy tale-ish feel to it.  According to the description the story is meant to be a love story of sorts, so here's a picture of our two lovers.

Ida Maclaird, who has come to St Hauda's searching for an islander who might be able to help her with a little problem.  Her feet seem to be turning to glass.

"A girl sat neatly on a flat rock.  Somehow he's not seen her.  She looked like she'd stepped through a screen of a 1950s movie.  Her skin and blond hair were such pale shades they looked monochrome.  Her long coat was tied at the waist by a fabric belt.  She was probably a few years younger than him, in her early twenties, wearing a while hat with matching gloves."

"Her irises were titanium gray, her most striking feature.  Her lips were an afterthought and her cheekbones flat.  But her eyes...  He realized he was staring into them and quickly looked away."

And Midas Crook, an islander who comes across Ida one day and surreptitiously photographs her.

"He'd been an odd one, that boy with the camera.  Such a distinctive physique: pale skin so taut on his skeleton, holding himself with a shy hunch, no ugly as such but certainly not handsome, with a demeanor eager to cause no trouble, to attract no attention."

"Made sense.  She reckoned photographers wanted you to behave as normal, as if they and their cameras weren't there."

"She liked him."

I like the idea that this novel will have fantastical elements.  I don't often read fairy tales, but they seem so important in the literary/storytelling tradition.  I expect modern writers draw on them often, so I'm interested to see what Ali Shaw does with this girl with glass feet and if she can find a cure, and what will happen if not. 

A Few (more) New Books

A couple of these books came as nice surprises, but the others are more purchases with my gift cards.  I have a birthday coming up so my gift card stock (such as it is) will be replenished.  If I just spend a little at a time I can almost work it so I get a package every other week or so.  Why is it so pleasant to come home from work and see an Amazon or Barnes & Noble box sitting on the porch?  Oh, that's a silly question, isn't it?  Because I love books and can't help but buy new ones.  Part of  my problem is making blog rounds and seeing what everyone else is reading and recommending and sometimes I just have to have the book myself.  You know how that goes, I bet. 

I decided I needed to just own Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog.  Since I am reading Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat first, I can read the Willis at leisure afterwords.

The Unlikely Spy by Daniel Silva was a gift from a reader (thanks again Edd).  I can't remember who recommended this to me, but I had added it to my wishlist and it happens to be a favorite, too, of Edd's.  It sounds like a great suspense novel.

Garry Disher's The Dragon Man is another book I have in mind for a little reading project, which I'll have to share sometime this week.  Disher is an Australian author and this is set in a small coastal town near Melbourne.

When I saw a white parcel on Saturday I assumed it was something I had ordered from The Book Depository (they also use white mailers), and when I pulled the book out, I was completely surprised--this is not what I ordered--flip over mailer and see who sent it?  Fouth Estate (Harper Collins).  I've not heard of Darren Craske before, but The Eleventh Plague is compared with the Flashman series of books, which I've always wanted to read but never got around to buying.  Unfortunately it's the second book in a series, but I'm looking forward to giving it a try anyway--maybe it won't matter that I've not read the first book.

And lastly Alan Glynn's Winterland (my library isn't getting this one, so I splurged on a hardcover--luckily I had a coupon to apply to the order, though).  It's an Irish crime novel, and I've heard really good things about it. 

And now this week I hopefully will get that book from The Book Depository that I was expecting...Something to look forward to.

Read at Whim!

When Kathleen mentioned a collection of essays by Michael Dirda,  Classics for Pleasure, I immediately added it to my wishlist.  I've never read Dirda, but I've heard many good things about his essays, so went in search of an older collection, Readings: Essays and Other Literary Entertainments, that I knew was somewhere on my shelves.  Dirda won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for his criticism and is a writer and editor for The Washington Post Book World.  After a casual glance through the table of contents "Read at Whim!" caught my eye--something I enjoy doing whenever I can, though in this essay his thoughts are directed more towards high school students.

In 1995 Dirda's attention was caught by a news story about a local high school requiring students to read over the summer vacation from a list of suggested titles.

"Now, anyone who loves much, of necessity, feel ambivalent about 'required reading'.  By and large, if you force a kid to open a particular book, he or she will do so grudgingly.  Occasionally a good novel can win over even the recalcitrant, but most of the time an unwilling reader will merely slump down before the required text with a kind of deep-space weariness: Another book!"

Dirda writes that books should always be read with a passion or they're not worth reading at all.  Some students will approach the book belligerently, others as though the book is a foreign object.  Instead of required reading, Dirda feels a student should be encouraged to visit libraries or favorite bookstores. 

"Let Hillary or Owen pick out some appealing titles.  Then leave the kids alone.  In general, summer oughtn't be an extension of school: It should be a time for idleness and part-time jobs and hanging out, for mowing grass or souping up cars, for rainy-day Monopoly games and Dr. Moreau-like experiments on hapless insects ("The House of Pain!"), for getting bored and exploring what used to be called one's inner resources.  And for reading purely, solely, entirely for the fun of it."

Now I'm not sure I entirely agree with the whole hapless insect experiments (surely that's meant tongue in cheek?), but I do think kids should be able to spend their free time reading for pleasure and whatever book they choose.  When I was in high school we never had required reading over the summer and I contentedly chose books on my own.  For Dirda it wasn't just the idea of required reading, but the books the school had chosen for the students to select from (by authors like Russell Baker, William Styron, Lorene Cary, Mark Mathabane, Shakespeare, James Michener, Barbara Kingsolver, Beryl Markham, Michael Dorris, and Amy Tan. 

"I also felt uneasy about the titles chosen.  Except for the Shakespeare and Markham, all the books were published during the past twenty-five years.  They also represent a transparently multicultural smorgasbord: If you are Asian, African, or Native American, Southern or Jewish or Anglo-Saxon, there is at least one title Just for You."

It's not that he doesn't feel these are worthy books to read, in general he considers them very good books.  "Yet aren't such contemporary, not to say trendy, novels and autobiographies just the ones that young people ought to be reading on their own?"  When it comes to books taught in schools Dirda prefers that "established masterpieces, the older the better" be part of the curriculum.  It's not that these books necessarily are "the best or offer uplifting moral lessons". 

"They are the wells to which later writers for examples and allusions, for inspiration, for deeper textures of their own lesser books."

These "lesser books" he notes may very well be impressive in their own rights.  I think I agree with him by and large, though I do have a few reservations since the Canon is by and large European-centered and made up largely of male authors. Students should be reading some of these more multicultural, contemporary authors, but are they doing so on their own?  Especially if they happen to be reluctant readers to begin with.  My own reading in school was all Canon authors and it wasn't until college that I was exposed to more contemporary choices, but I love to read. 

What I love about this essay, though, is he goes on to write about uncanonical but influential modern works that he could easily see a high school or college course being built around.  He calls them early "'masterworks' that helped establish conventions, if not the archetypal patterns of current popular fiction."  To narrow the field he only uses British authors/works as examples and I was happy to see that under romance he firmly placed Georgette Heyer and lists several titles as some of her best books (two of which I've read and one I consider a favorite--A Civil Contract).  He also gives Dorothy Sayers as a good example for the msytery genre (though gives a nod towards Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, PD James, Patricia Highsmith, and Ruth Rendell!).

After reading this essay I think I'd like to flip back to the beginning and read all the rest.  The essays seem very short and interesting.  I suspect they may well have appeared in The Washington Post Book World.  I'll be on the look out for his newer book as well.

A Little Needlework Update

I had hoped to finish this little project in time for Valentine's Day, but I still have a bit time left.  This is a Quaker Heart that I plan on making into a pin cushion, and if I can remember how--with beads attached to the edges.  I have two more motifs to stitch on the backside (the linen on the right) and then lots of backstitching after that.  Then the two sides will be whipstitched together.  Hopefully I will share my finish soon.

 

I've been working on this "Sampler Farm" for a while now and making nice, if slow progress.  All the stitching that I'm doing within those little frames are over one stitching, which I am very slow at, but thankfully there isn't much of it.  I almost set this project aside, but I'm glad I didn't as now I am finding that it's really enjoyable to work on.

 

Here's a little close-up of the over-one stitching.  This means one ply of floss stitched over one linen thread.  The thing with over-one stitching is if you don't do it right the floss might slide under the weave and you lose your stitch, or if you do something wrong it's really hard to pick out over-one stitches!  Still, they look very delicate when you finish, so they're worth the extra effort.  I plan on finishing this as a cushion/pillow and have the fabric I want to use in mind (just need to dig through my fabric bins and hope it matches!).

 

And here's a little peek at a project I hope to start this weekend.  The designer is Blackbird Designs and it's a "Mystery Sampler".  Each section is stitched on a different color linen and at the end the linens are sewn together to create a uniform design.  It sounds a little challenging, but it'll be gorgeous when finished. 

My posts might be a little on the light side for the next couple of weeks.  I'm not really very into sports, but I love watching the Olympics.  It doesn't matter what's on or who's competing, I'll happily watch it and get caught up in the excitement.  Normally I would just have the TV on and work on the computer at the same time, but the computer is not in the same room with the TV.  I'm also not much of a TV watcher, so this is my big splurge of the year!  And the nice thing is--I can stitch and watch at the same time (more or less--though sometimes it's more watching than stitching), so I might just zip through these projects.   

Library Loot, part 2: I want this book!

I found the coolest book in my library before Christmas, The English Country House: From the Archives of Country Life edited by Mary Miers.  When I realized we had just gotten it in, I went in search of it only to find it in the hands of a patron (he had just pulled it off the display rack).  For a split second I contemplated asking if I could have it when he finished, but figured instead I would just check back in a few minutes.  When I did, he was gone and so was the book!  So I had to wait until it was returned after the holidays. Then I had to wait further until the weather was nice enough that I could lug it home on the bus!  It's quite a hefty book, and really well worth the $85.00 sales tag.  I want it, but I can't really afford to pay so much (even with Amazon's discount) so I am hoping the price falls a bit more.  It's a gorgeous book if you're into architecture, particularly English country houses.  Shall I give you a peek?  Of course, come with me.

By the way, this is Daneway in Gloucestershire.  Isn't it a pretty little "manor" (as described in the photo caption). 

 

How about a look inside?  Any room with stacks of books is a happy space in my opinion.  Lots of history books from what I can tell.  And those shelves with books laying across the tops of other books is awfully familiar.

 

I was really hoping that one of the houses might have been the locale for a costume drama.  Maybe the Darcy home in Pride and Prejudice, but on a quick glimpse I don't recognize any (must read the fine print still, though). This is Nether Lypiatt again in Gloucestershire (the "ideal miniature Queen Anne house").  Miniature, indeed.

 

This is a pretty spiffy drawing room, don't you think?  It's a little too elegant for me, I would be afraid of tracking dirt in or something.  The house is Wrotham Park in Hertfordshire (not far from London).  It was used for the filming of Gosford Park (I think I may have to watch it again this weekend and compare photos!).  See what you can learn by reading the fine print? 

 

More photos of the interior of Wrotham Park.  I had to laugh--you see that dog laying there in that beautiful room?  All I can think is his digs are much nicer than mine!

What do you think of this one?  It's Newby Hall in Yorkshire.  I could see myself taking a daily walk out in the garden, nipping down to the River Ure for a little peace and quiet.  Quite nice, indeed!

 

After my exertions I would dash up to my bedroom for a quick lie down to refresh myself.

 

Now this one is very nice.  The house is The Chantry in Somerset.  Doesn't this look like a cozy room?  I could happily stretch out on the sofa with my feet towards the fire and a book in hand.  By the way, this was the home of author Anthony Powell from 1952 until he died in 2000.  I wonder if those are his books?

 

One more.  I couldn't pass up this library.  It's in The Chanter's House in Devon. I think I might just fit all  my books in a space like this.  If I ever build on to my own house...No wait, this room is probably already bigger than my house.  Well,  one can dream.

All joking aside, this is a truly elegant coffee table book.  I've just shared a very small smattering of what's inside the covers.  Many of the "country houses" are really castles.  I'm not sure I could imagine living in anything so beautiful, but it's nice to have an image in mind as I'm reading.  Maybe a little cozy mystery set in a country house?  I wonder if this is what someone like Ngaio Marsh or Dorothy Sayers had in mind? 

This is a Rizzoli book by the way--they have some of the most beautiful art books, truly dazzling.  And this one is filled with eye candy, so to speak.  I'll be drooling over perusing it more this weekend.

A Little Library Loot

I know I have no right to be cranky about the weather when the east coast has just been slammed with a foot or more of snow, but I am  sincerely tired of winter.  I'm tired of the frigid cold, of the incremental amounts of snow we've been getting (on top of the two feet we received before and on Christmas) that pretty much is assured to hang around into spring (since it's so cold).  I'm tired of icy sidewalks and of finding alternative routes to walk home (because some people have failed to clean their sidewalks a single time this season meaning there is a lot of snow still in some places).  I'm tired of fog and grey days and especially of the freezing drizzle we seem to get about once a week.  It's been a really crappy winter and all I can think of, fantasize about, is sandy beaches and sunny blue skies.  I fantasize about these things as I put on my snow boots, wrap my heavy wool scarf around me so it covers most of my face and then force myself out the door to stand on a cold, dark, depressing bus stop.  So even though I might not have a reason to be cranky, apparently I still am. 

Now that I've got that off my chest, let me tell you about the books I came away with from the library this week!  (A much happier note, don't you think). 

Venetia, Georgette Heyer - I told myself that when I finished with my current Heyer read, Beauvallet, I was going to take a little break from her books.  Why is it so easy to pick them up and just start reading?  Beauvallet is an earlier novel, so very different really than her usual sort of story, but I've been in the mood to read about one of her older heroines, which Venetia is.  It seems that Georgette Heyer's novels are sometimes like potato chips--it's very hard to stop at just one.

Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome - After mentioning Connie Willis's novels (particularly To Say Nothing of the Dog) and reading everyone's comments I decided it might be worthwhile to read the Jerome book first. It's turning out to be yet another humorous novel, which I really need as you can see (...refer to first two paragraphs please...).    

The Kingdom of Ohio, Matthew Flaming -  I seem to be in the mood for fantasy-ish sorts of stories (no doubt a desire for lots of escapism).  "Flaming's debut mixes time travel, historical grit and an alternate history of the American frontier in a romance with a fantastic bent."  This reminds me that I need to catch up with Jodie's Steampunk posts.  (I read that this book has steampunk elements in it).  I have only recently heard this term, but I'm sort of fascinated and interested by this genre and I'll be catching up on what she has to say about it all.

As a matter of fact I have lots of catching up to do this weekend on blog reading.  And email answering.  If I've not dropped by lately I no doubt have multiple posts marked in Google Reader that I have every intention of getting to.  And I've had some new visitors here (thanks very much for your comments--they are always appreciated), and I plan on reciprocating those visits.  And thanks to everyone who visits regularly, it makes these dreary winter days much much more bearable.       

In a Good Light by Clare Chambers

I absolutely adore Clare Chambers's books.   I've mentioned before that they are the type I never tire of rereading.  They are my perfect comfort reads.  I'm a little reluctant sometimes to use the phrase 'comfort read' as it has a way of sounding the tiniest bit dismissive.  It almost implies that the book isn't as good as something else I might choose, and in order not to be embarrassed by my choice I'll just call it a comfort read and all of a sudden it becomes acceptable reading.  I don't think that's the case at all with Clare Chambers's books.  Her prose is smart, stylish and witty, she's an excellent storyteller and at times I literally laugh out loud as I read.  Maybe I like her books so much because I can relate to them so well, her worlds are usually ones that I understand.  That's definitely not a requirement in my reading (sometimes it's a completely unknown world I want to immerse myself in), but maybe that's why her stories are so 'comforting' to me.  She hasn't forgotten what it's like to view the world through the eyes of a child, and as we're contemporaries, that childhood world is the same one I grew up in, though don't worry, the stories are in no way dated.  And her characterizations are always spot on.  

I've just finished rereading In a Good Light and loved every moment of it.  Although I had read it before most of the plot had faded away and as I was going there was just a vague familiarity to the story, so it was almost like I was experiencing it all for the first time.  I'd be hard pressed to say whether I like this book more than Learning to Swim, which I read again a couple of summers back.  The stories have similar structures--both are told by female narrators looking back on their childhoods to a life altering event in their pasts moving seamlessly from present to past and back again.  Both involve quirky characters and unusual family relations as well as humorous entanglements that sometimes end on a tragic note.

In the case of In a Good Light Esther Fairchild's family is on the unconventional side, much like the Radley household in Learning to Swim.  They live in a converted schoolhouse that is closer to squalid than of the 'genteel poverty' persuasion.  Mr. Fairchild is a prison chaplain at a young offenders' institution and Mrs. Fairchild's work with a mission and The Less Fortunate means her attentions tend to be elsewhere, though both parents are well meaning.

"Our parents were different from other people's, and they had different rules.  They didn't mind if we were noisy or boisterous, or if we traipsed mud through the house, or slid down the compost heap, or caught nits.  They didn't rant and fume when we came home from school with indelible ink on our uniforms, or pockets torn loose, or our shoes scuffed grey.  When we left our pens all over the kitchen floor, Mum and Dad stepped over them, and when we trampolined on the beds and crippled the springs, and left footprints on the wall from sliding down the banisters, they just shrugged."

Esther adores her brother Christian who is older by five years.  The two are almost inseparable growing up.  No doubt it's their eccentric upbringing that makes them such amiable companions--no one else is quite like them.  It's not so much that the family is poor than the Fairchilds are generous with their time, money and belongings--giving to those who need them more.  And it's not unusual for 'guests' that the Fairchilds come across in their charitable undertakings to come stay at the schoolhouse, some being more welcome than others.  A regular visitor is Donovan, younger than Christian but older than Esther, whose mother is a bit of a basket case.  Aunty Barbara, an out of work actress, recently divorced, has good intentions but her life is just too much of a mess to be any real help to her son.  He fits in perfectly at the schoolhouse.

So this is the whirlwind in which Esther, Christian as well as Donovan (at least part of the time) grow up.  When Christian begins asserting himself as an adult, which means bringing home girlfriends, a whole new world opens up to Esther.  You would expect there to be some measure of jealousy, but beautiful and wealthy Penny takes Esther under her wing as her "project" and Esther idolizes her. 

"Before we left she pressed a copy of I Capture the Castle into my hands.  'You must read this,' she instructed.  'It's my favorite book.  I'll draw up a list of others'."

"'I didn't realize I was going to have to do homework,' I grumbled, as we got in the Mini.  Suddenly being Penny's protégée wasn't looking so attractive.  I hadn't read much fiction since graduating from children's books.  In fact the only grown-up book I'd read all the way through was The Lord of the Rings because it was Christian's favorite, but I hadn't enjoyed the experience.  I found I couldn't work up much enthusiasm for non-human predicaments, however well described."

Penny is a natural addition to the family, but it's Penny's young daughter that Esther bumps into some seventeen years later who brings all these fond memories back to mind.  So much so that she contrives a meeting with Penny.  I mentioned a life altering event earlier?  I won't tell you what it is, but it's this chance meeting that sets the ball rolling and the story going.  At the beginning of the novel Esther is thirty-four and in a bit of a rut.  Christian was always the ambitious one.  Esther is contented working as an illustrator by day and a waitress by night meaning she makes next to no money.  She has a fortnightly rendezvous with a married man and her life has become pretty safe and staid.  Somehow a meeting Penny might just shake things up again.

Did I already say I loved this book?  I loved Learning to Swim, too.  Clare Chambers has such a knack for dealing with serious issues in a sympathetic way yet with just the right amount of humor.  You're laughing on the outside but cringing just a bit on the inside as well.  Once again she writes very convincingly about families and growing up, about love and how easily life can change in just a split second, and about second chances.  I didn't want the story to end (as I helplessly raced through it), and I have finally decided to give The Editor's Wife a try.  I have wanted to read more of her work but I've been afraid it won't live up to these two previous reading experiences.  So far so good, though.  I'm trying not to compare or have too many expectations.  The good sign is I don't want to put this one down either.  And I've ordered the rest of her books and have every intention of reading them all as soon as I can!  How's that for a recommendation?  Yes, I absolutely adore Clare Chambers's books.

Teaser Tuesday: The Anthologist

Yesterday I started reading Nicholson Baker's The Anthologist, and I think I'm going to enjoy it for its sheer quirkiness.  I'm not sure I would have picked it up had it not been for Dorothy's enthusiastic post, though Nicholson Baker is one of those authors I always "mean to read".  I'm glad I did as I love the narrator's voice.  Paul Chowder is a little on the idiosyncratic side, though since we are treated to a running monologue inside his head it's no wonder.  I expect that if someone could follow my own meandering thoughts I would sound pretty idiosyncratic as well.  Though I bet my thoughts wouldn't be half as funny as Paul Chowder's.

This is the perfect sort of book for my mood at the moment.  I love laugh out loud funny books and I don't read them as often as I like.  I thought I'd share a passage that made me crack up a little.  I'm not sure if it's going to be as funny taking it out of context, and maybe just being in the flow of the book and being in Paul's mind sets the tone of scene.  But let's try it anyway.

Just for a little background, Paul Chowder is a poet and is supposed to be writing an introduction to a poetry anthology, but he just can't seem to do it.

"But every time I actually tried to start writing the introduction, as opposed to just writing notes, I felt straightjacketed.  So I went and bought a big presentation easel, and a big pad of presentation paper, and green Sharpie pen, and a red Sharpie pen, and a blue Sharpie pen.  What I thought  was that I could practice talking through the introduction as if I were teaching a class."

"And in order to be relaxed at the easel, I drank a Newcastle.  Also coffee, so that I'd be sharp.  And still I wasn't sufficiently relaxed, so I drank some Yukon Gold that I found in the liquor cabinet.  No, not Yukon Gold, that's a potato.  Yukon Jack, a kind of Canadian liqueur.  It was delicious.  It added a slight Gaussian blur.  And then some more coffee, so I'd still be sharp.  Blurred, smeared, but sharp." 

Maybe I'm just in the mood to laugh and be entertained, but I love this.  I've not really read and certainly not studied poetry since I was in high school, so this has a certain charm in that area as well, as Paul Chowder may not be able to write this introduction, but it's obvious he has a passion for poetry.  If all his books are like this, I may have to do more exploring.