A Work in Progress

A Few Plans for 2011

Where has the year gone?  I'm not going to link back to last year's "plans for 2010" post, because I didn't really accomplish any of them.  I did read a number of essays (and discovered I really like nature essays), but weekly essay reading flizzled out somewhere in the midpoint of this year.  I didn't read all the Galsworthy novels about the Forsyte family, though there is still plenty of time to read more whenever the mood arises.  And my other plans, well...

So the plan for next year is to not have many plans.  At least I'm going to keep my plans very simple.  There are three things I'd like to do: read all the books on this list.  I've already started two of them, and as there are only thirteen books that works out to about a book a month.  I tried to make the list a nice mix of genres, authors and time periods.

Instead of choosing a really long novel, I'm going to try and read Anthony Powell's quartet of books A Dance to the Music of Time.  I might still read a long book here or there, but this is my big project.  Each book, or movement as they are called, consists of three novels and each seems to have less than three hundred pages.  The books were published between 1951 and 1975.  New York Times critic, Elizabeth Janeway, wrote, "A book which created a world and explores it in depth, which creates brilliantly living and diverse characters and then watches them grow and change in their milieu...Powell's world is as large and as complex as Proust's."  The first book begins in the 1920s, but more about this later. 

My last plan is to have a "season of spy novels".  There's nothing formal about this, but I've been collecting spy novels for a while and thought it would be fun to have a little reading binge.  I've already read Stella Rimington's (former head of MI5) first novel and will write about it later next week.  I'm planning on John Buchan's The Thirty Nine Steps being my first book of 2011 (on my list of books!), as it is quite short and will be the perfect book to curl up with later tonight and tomorrow.  And then I can watch the recent movie adaptation of it starring the rather attractive Rupert Penry-Jones.  Much like mysteries I think spy novels are going to prove very addicting.

So there you have it.  That's it.  I'll also be reading along with The Slaves of Golconda and with Caroline's Literature and War Readalong, and be participating in the Virago reading week later in January, so I'll have plenty to keep me busy, but still will have lots of room to read at whim, too.

And how about you?  Any plans or reading challenges?  Or do you prefer to read whatever happens to appeal the most at the moment?

Since this is it for 2010, Best Wishes for the New Year!  Have a safe and fun holiday!

Favorite Reads from 2010

So now comes the hard part--choosing a few favorites from the books I've read over the course of the year.  I've decided on a baker's dozen (so I can squeeze in as many as possible), all of which I thoroughly enjoyed reading (okay, will admit that Anna K. took me a while, but was well worth it in the end--how could I possibly leave it off the list?).  Some may not be without flaws, but for me they were particularly good, and in a few cases really amazing reads.  I've linked back to my original post and have left a little teaser here to give you an idea of my thoughts on each book.  Titles are listed in the order they were read.

Thursday Night Widows, Claudia Pineiro - "This is a crime novel with little attention paid for the greater part of the story, to the actual crime.  It opens with the deaths of three men, but there are no detectives, no investigation and almost no concern with who perpetrated the crime.  Rather this is a dissection of the small, tight-knit community where the deaths took place."

The Crimson Rooms, Katharine McMahon - "Katharine McMahon's writing is sophisticated and her storytelling complex, creating characters who are fully formed yet whose personalities elicit varying responses from the reader as the story unfolds.  It's not just that she tells this interesting story set in an interesting period of history with lots of little bits to make it feel authentic, but you really inhabit the space and are exposed to the not always pleasant attitudes of the era."

A Room with a View, E.M. Forster - "The story is about many things but for me it is at its most basic a young woman's awakening to life and love and learning how to grasp them passionately and wholeheartedly."

Someone at a Distance, Dorothy Whipple - "This is the story of the destruction of what appears to be a happy and successful marriage.  It's a common enough theme in literature, but in the hands of a gifted storyteller, and that's what Dorothy Whipple is, it becomes an engrossing character study and morality tale yet Whipple never preaches at her reader."  A little note--I think I actually like Greenbanks a tad bit more, but she pulled Someone at a Distance off so well that it earned its place on my list.

The Ripening Seed, Colette - "It's a short novel and a simple coming of age story, perhaps deceptively so, about two young friends whose families have vacationed on the coast of Brittany for the better part of their young lives."

The Go-Between, L.P. Hartley - "The novel is filled with nostalgia, a longing for a simpler way of life when things were more certain."

My Antonia, Willa Cather - "This is a really lovely story--subtle in its message yet powerful in its telling."  I dragged my feet on reading this for a very long time, only to discover what a marvelous story it is!  Never say never, I guess.

The Likeness, Tana French - "I thoroughly enjoyed The Likeness.  This is a novel best read with the knowledge going into it that it might require a certain amount of suspension of disbelief.  I'm entirely willing to give an author leeway, if she's a good storyteller.  And Tana French is a good storyteller.  She's not only good at story, but her prose is smooth and elegant and her characters are fully formed, too." 

Crossing to Safety, Wallace Stegner - "I tend to consume books, but this is one that consumed me.  In some ways it was emotionally draining, but ultimately it was a profoundly moving experience.  How often do you come across books like that?  Stegner was truly a master storyteller, someone who gets into the hearts and minds of his characters and portrays them so sympathetically and sensitively, even when they might drive you mad by their actions.  These are people we know, people we recognize in ourselves."

A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor - " It's an amazing book and an amazing reading experience and one that is hard to describe.  I love nonfiction but I can only read it slowly, and this is a book you will want to read slowly in order to savor it, so packed is it of all sorts of knowledge and wonder." 

A Kind of Intimacy, Jenn Ashworth - "Not only does Ashworth write in the same vein as Rendell with her razor sharp psychological insights but her story is really well written and tautly plotted.  She moves around in time seamlessly, and trust me, by the time you've finished reading it's like a 'pop' between the eyes."

How Many Miles to Babylon?, Jennifer Johnston - "I thought it was a beautifully executed and heart-wrenching novel.  It was a hugely sad book, but the friendship between these young men was rendered quite beautifully." 

Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy - "This was truly a panorama of nineteenth century Russian life."  Okay, so not a great teaser but I've yet to write about it properly and may never be up to that, though I still want to read more about it.  This is an amazing story and one I gave a huge sigh for upon finishing.

If I had to pick just one book as the best of the year it would have to be Wallace Stegner's Crossing to Safety.  It absolutely floored me when I read it.  For me it was a story that was almost perfect in every way and has stayed with me since finishing it.   

And just because I can't help myself--a few notable mentions: The Man of Property by John Galsworthy (so much for reading the entire Forsyte family saga, but there's always next year), Angel by Elizabeth Taylor (an intensely difficult character, but Taylor is adept at pulling it off), My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier (no one does Gothic like DdM and always with a really interesting and good subtext--this was better the second time around) and An Air That Kills by Andrew Taylor (wonderful mystery series set post-WWII, very atmospheric and believable--will be reading more!).  Last year's favorites can be found here.  Now, onwards to 2011 and more good books. 

A Few Reading Statistics for 2010

In keeping with my annual tradition of looking back over my year of reads I like to see where my reading has taken me.  I'm sure I can already predict--more women authors than men, not enough nonfiction, and far fewer classics than I'd have liked.  In the end it only matters that I've read some good books (and in some cases--very, very good books) and enjoyed myself.  But for the sake of curiosity:

• Books read: 88 (not counting audio books)
• Audio books: 3
• Fiction (not mysteries or short stories and I'm counting classics separately, too): 41
• Nonfiction: 8
• Classics: 10
• Mysteries/Crime/Suspense: 28
• Science fiction: 1
• Espionage: 2
• YA novels: 0
• Books written by women: 69
• Books written by men: 21
• Books written by more than one author: 1
• American authors: 22
• British authors: 56
• Canadian/Australian/Irish authors: 6
• Books in translation: 7
• Short story collections: 1
• Graphic novels: 1 (actually this was an illustrated novel in diary format)
• Plays: 0
• Virago Modern Classics: 2
• Persephone Books: 2
• Books read that were checked out from the library: 35
• Rereads: 3
• Book club books (Slaves of Golconda, Cornflower's Book Group, and my Postal Reading Group): 8
• Multiple books by the same author: 10 (Clare Chambers, Dorothy Whipple, Agatha Christie, Margaret Irwin, Tana French, Elizabeth Chadwick, Katharine McMahon, Willa Cather, Jennifer Johnston, Patrick Leigh Fermor)
• Books by Nebraska authors: 3

I seem to be holding steady in terms of how many books I can read in a year.  More mysteries than in previous years, but maybe it only seems that way as I counted in crime and suspense novels this time around.  Far more women authors than men (and more than last year), but again that seems to be my norm.  I really do need to level things out a bit more in that area. 

I read three times more library books than last year--a third of my reads were not my own books, which is not a bad thing as I am all for supporting my local library, but my own shelves seem to be expanding, and if I am reading fewer of my own books....the equation is a bit off I think.  Something to work on next year. 

I read a really paltry number of books in translation, and most of those were books I read early in the year.  Fewer Viragos and Persephones--books I actively collect!  But I did read a couple more nonfiction books than last year.  With the exception of four books from the 19th century all were written in the 20th or 21st centuries! 

All in all I'm really pretty predictable it seems even though the numbers vary slightly.  So I know more or less how many books I can manage in a year--it's just in the choosing how to fill those slots.  Most of my books are chosen at whim, but I guess I need to be a little more thoughtful in my selections.  My stats from previous years are here: 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006.

Catching Up on a Few More Books

I've got two more quickies to share.  Again, both are deserving more than I'm going write today but I'm fizzling out a little with these last books of the year. 

When I started reading Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I was a little surprised by how much I was enjoying it, which is not to say I was expecting something poorly done, but I don't read much science fiction so tend to think it's not really my thing.  That said, I think it became the victim of pre-holiday stress.  The first half of the book was a pleasure, but the last half was a bit of a slog (and note, it is a fairly short book).  It became hard to concentrate on Earth ca. 2021 when Christmas 2010 was bearing down and last minute holiday details had to be attended to, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt.  Somehow the story all of a sudden felt slightly thin and the message a little too forceful.  I'm not sure if it was the writing style or the way the characters were developed, but I lost the thread halfway through.  I'm usually good about setting aside books that just aren't quite working, and this is a lesson in not pushing something that feels like its being forced (but I was so close to finishing...).

I have this idea that science fiction is going to be edge of your seat, heart-stopping action but with a scientific twist to it.  Dick's story is much more about ideas than heart-pounding action.  Writing about androids amidst a sea of humans is just the right sort of vehicle where he can explore just what it means to be human.  By 2021 the world is a ramshackle place, nearly uninhabitable thanks to the radioactive fallout after the last world war.  It's not so much the weapons that killed everything but the dust that followed.  First the birds fell from the sky and then slowly all living animals started becoming extinct.  The Earth's populace is advised to emigrate to off-planet colonies or Mars.  As an incentive they're given sophisticated robots, androids, to help serve their needs.  But not everyone wants to leave, and there are those who have limited mental capacities who are not allowed to go.  When the androids turn rogue and begin infiltrating Earth's remaining communities, the unspeakable is not only allowed but necessary.  The androids must be hunted down and killed before they turn killer--in a society that now values human life so much that even an insect is revered.

Rick Deckard is a bounty hunter and it is his job to root out and kill "andys".  The only way to tell the difference between an andy and a human is by administering an empathy test.  The andys are sharp, but their hesitation in their empathic answers marks them as nonhuman.  Deckard finds that in the process of killing these robots he is losing his own humanity.  These androids are so lifelike and seemingly human, is it right to be killing them remorselessly?  Every human now desires to have some sort of animal--a living creature.  But there are too few to go around and those that are for sale are so expensive that "ersatz", fake/electric animals are manufactured, though they're not the same thing as real animals.  Deckard has an electric sheep, but he covets a real animal, and ironically it is the money he receives through his bounty hunting that will enable him to buy one.  Dick raises lots of questions, but doesn't really give you tidy answers and leaves it up to the reader to interpret.  Maybe that was part of the problem--I had too many other things on my mind to contemplate the sorts of questions his book was raising.  Although this felt like an all uphill sort of read, when I got there I wasn't sure what I thought.  Still, I'm glad I read it though perhaps didn't get as much out of it as I could have.  I'd like to try more of his work, and more science fiction in general, but I think I'll wait for the right moment.

I've decided that Patrick Leigh Fermor is a very formidable writer.  What I think I like about him is he is unconsciously so.  He is an extremely learned and erudite man and reading his works isn't always easy, though it is a pleasure to work my way through his writings.  What comes through is his passion for whatever it is he is doing and writing about.  He looks at all aspects of a subject and that's true as well for A Time to Keep Silence, a book about Europe's monasteries--keeping in mind the book was published in 1957.  He initially visited a French monastery in order to find a quiet place to work and write, and this book grew out of descriptions he shared in letters with the woman who would become his wife.  So the book is part travelogue, part history, part meditation but all eloquently descriptive.  How he manages to pack so much into less than one hundred pages amazes me.

Leigh Fermor notes that his monastic sojourns are as an outsider looking in and not as one looking for a religious experience per se, though he was profoundly affected by his experiences.  Both going in and coming out was a complete shock, so completely different were these religious and secular worlds.  The book begins with his stay at The Abbey of St. Wandrille de Fontenelle, a French Benedictine monastery where he was welcomed to stay and write.   He goes into great detail about its history and the work of the then present day monks.

After St. Wandrille, Solesmes proved to be similar in routine, but La Grande Trappe, a Cistercian Order, was something altogether different.  I found this section the most fascinating as this order put a new spin on the idea of just what 'strict' means.  Leigh Fermor had met an Englishman who had once spent a year as a Trappist monk, but gave up the life in favor of the Benedictines who allow more time for study and contemplation.  Trappists take a vow of silence and Leigh Fermor had no interaction with them, so it was through his encounter with the Englishman that he learned so much about the order.  Trappists get little sleep, do hard labor, eat very little and live extremely regimented lives.  The idea being that they are suffering here and now for our sins.  This amazes me and I wonder if there are still many Trappist monks, what their lives are like today and whether many enter their order.    

In the last section Leigh Fermor touches briefly on the long abandoned rock monasteries of Cappadocia in Turkey, which I knew nothing about.  There are a number of them in the region and they contain frescoes and shrines, which are rare and important examples of Byzantine art.  The churches/monasteries are strange protuberances that are cut out of the rocks in cone and honeycomb shapes.  The cover illustration on the book depicts these monasteries.  Very little is known about the monks, how they lived, where they came from or what happened to them, which of course now piques my own curiosity about them. 

My only small quibble with A Time to Keep Silence were the untranslated words and phrases, and there is more than a smattering, which continually caught me up.  I know no Latin and my French is practically nonexistent.  There is the occasional helpful footnote, but rarely to translate foreign words or phrases.  Perhaps when this was written readers were better versed in foreign languages and more esoteric references, but I admit he stumped me more than one.  As I said, Leigh Fermor is formidable, but well worth the work of muddling through the harder parts.  I plan on reading Between the Woods and the Water next year, which is the second instalment in his journey from Holland to Constantinople.  PLF was another of my great finds this year! 

Catching Up on a Few Books

I've finished several books recently that really deserve proper posts but as the year is quickly winding down, and the two I want to mention today were library books that I no longer have (and can't refer back to), I'm going to just mention them briefly.

Jennifer Johnston is one of my good finds this year even though I've been aware of her for a little while now.  I read one of her more recent novels, Truth or Dare, not long ago, and was struck by her simple prose and elegant style that was so pared down as to be deceptively simple.  I liked Truth or Dare, but I loved How Many Miles to Babylon?, which I thought was a beautifully executed and heart-wrenching novel.  Part of the reason I put off writing about it for so long was a fear I wouldn't do the story justice, and now unfortunately it only gets a mention as being a very worthy read (and definitely one I will buy to keep and reread).  Johnston wrote the novel in 1974 and I believe it might be a book that is studied in schools in the UK and Ireland, though sadly I'm not sure how well Johnston is known here in the US. 

The story is about a number of things, but what came to the fore for me were the themes of love, friendship and honor.  To a lesser extent this is also a novel about class and society and the futility of war.  Though it takes place before and during WWI and is set in part in the trenches of Flanders, any actual battle scenes take place off center stage.  The story begins, however, in rural Ireland, where two very different boys on opposite sides of the class divide become close friends.  Alec is the only son of wealthy landowners.  He leads a lonely existence as a child, educated at home and expected to behave according to proper etiquette.  It's painfully obvious his parents are unhappy and ill-suited for each other.  Jerry, small for his age, but treated as an adult and already earning wages works with the horses on Alec's estate. 

The boys forge a probably not so unlikely friendship, but they know better than to let the adults be aware that they're spending time together.  While Jerry is left to his own devices more or less, Alec is kept on a tight reign and when his mother discovers what she considers an inappropriate friendship, she demands that he end it.  When war breaks out Jerry is quick to join up.  He considers it a way of learning how to fight and defend himself, skills that may come in useful later considering his political inclinations.  Alec has no desire to go off to war and fight but is goaded into it by his mother who feels the need to keep up appearances.  Being poor and Irish Jerry is a simple infantryman, but as gentry Alec is made an officer.  The horror of war takes on a different face in the form of a commanding officer who is cruel and unsympathetic.  Unable to deal with the stresses of their situation events escalate into tragedy for the friends.  I shouldn't say this as I don't want to dissuade anyone from reading it (on the contrary I highly recommend it), but it was a hugely sad book, but the friendship between these young men was rendered quite beautifully. 

Kate Pullinger's The Mistress of Nothing won the 2009 Governor General's Literary Award in Canada and is based on real life people and events, though Pullinger embroiders a fictional story around these facts.  The book came recommended by several bloggers and lived up to my high expectations and is happily being published here in the US on January 4.  The Mistress of Nothing is a historical novel that brings to life 1860s London and the exotic world of Egypt, specifically Cairo and Luxor.  It is narrated in first person by a very dedicated lady's maid, so the story is filtered through the keen eyes of a servant with interesting observations and experiences and who sees and understands more than her upperclass employer realizes. 

Lady Lucie Duff Gordon, a writer and intellectual, is well known in British social circles.  As a matter of fact her salons are very popular and attended by London's literati.  Lady Duff Gordon is in her element when taking part in political and literary discussions, however, she suffers from TB and her dinner parties become increasingly stressful on her fragile health.  Her travels to warmer climes in order to effect a cure have been largely unsuccessful, so its decided she must travel to Egypt where its warmer temperatures and dryer climate will be more beneficial. 

Sally Naldrett has been a loyal lady's maid to Lady Duff Gordon since she was orphaned and made to make her own way in the world.  She considers herself a plain speaking woman with no great ambition but to continue to serve her mistress for as long as she is needed.  She has traveled with her and sees these voyages as great adventures.  When the two women travel to Egypt, Sally flourishes and like her mistress takes to the culture so much so that she learns the language and even dresses in the native garb.  Lady Duff Gordon's dragoman, Omar, is a fastidious and amiable man who eases the women's way and unbeknownst to Sally's mistress a romance blooms between the two servants.  I don't want to give away any of the important plot twists but will only say that when the romance is discovered, Lady Duff Gordon feels betrayed.  Lady Lucie Duff Gordon is mistress to a fine home and family and any new found freedoms and happiness are lost.  Sally understands she does not drive her own destiny and is mistress of nothing.  The story is very well done and evocative of the time and place.   

I'm not sure how many more books I'll finish before the end of the week, but I do have a couple more books to share tomorrow!

December 26: Reading Notes

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday for those who celebrate and a lovely weekend for those who don't.  I've been spending time with family, which has included doing a little shopping (of the relxing and browsing sort).  We dropped by my favorite used bookstore where I was hoping to find a few Viragos to add to my collection and in anticipation for the upcoming reading week.  Unfortunately I only spotted one, but I did find a few other books that I couldn't resist buying.

Anita Loos is on my list of authors to read and I found an illustrated copy of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes But Marry Brunettes--two novels in one.  The novels are in diary format of a "gold-digging blonde in the flapper days of 1925, forging a new archetype for the modern world."

I keep collecting Colette novels though am reading them very slowly.  I think I might just have a Colette binge one of these days.  Break of Day has been on my wishlist for ages.  It was written after the breakup of her second marriage.  "The novel's theme -- the renunciation of love and the return to an independent existence supported and enriched by the beauty and peace of nature -- grows out of Colette's own period of self-assessment in the middle of her life. A collection of subtle reflections about love and life, it is among her most thoughtful and stylistically bold works."

I really liked Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret, so John Marchmont's Legacy piqued my curiosity.  This has a "plot charged with drama and mystery, an eerie atmosphere, and above all, a depiction of an extraordinary woman."  Braddon called Wilkie Collins the "master of the 'sensation novel'" and considered him her 'literary father'.  Sounds right up my alley.

I'm a little wary of Radclyffe Hall as I believe she wrote experimental fiction, which I usually struggle with whenever I read something along those lines.  However, if Virago published her I'm willing to give her work a try.  Of The Unlit Lamp the blurb notes "This absorbing and compellingly readable novel is one of the strongest descriptions in English fiction of the love--and hate--that can exist between women, between mother and daughter, lover and beloved."

Another book on my wishlist that I lucked out with is Monika Fagerholm's The American Girl.  Fagerholm is Finnish though belongs to the Swedish-speaking community in Finland.  I believe Tiina has written about her, and I was so excited to get the book, I was prepared to start reading right away.  However, after reading Amazon reviews I'm putting it off a bit.  Although I'm often curious about Amazon reviews I am also somewhat skeptical of them as well, as I am unfamiliar with the reviewer's tastes.  Someone may pan a book I might ultimately love, so I try and avoid them before starting a book.  I think the problems with The American Girl, however, seem to stem from the translation and writing style more than anything else, so I hope to get to this one sooner than later (just not at this particular moment).

I've revamped my reading pile, and my sidebar should reflect which books I am actually reading at the moment.  I culled a few that I had just barely started, through no fault of their own.  As much as I have enjoyed my recent comfort read binge, I am sort of in the mood to vary my reading for the new year and add a few that are perhaps a little more challenging or notable for their literary style.  There are still a few 'escapist' sorts of reads there, but I am trying to move the pile in the direction I hope to take my reading next year.

I've picked up John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps.  It's a very short novel, which I am saving for the end of the week to read.  I thought it would be nice to kick off the new year with a book from my 2011 reading List.  I'm determined to read all the books from my list next year!

I suspect I'm going to be thinking about Anna Karenina for a while, so I thought it would be interesting to read Irina Reyn's What Happened to Anna K., which is a retelling of Tolstoy's novel.  It was chosen for 'best of' lists for The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Entertainment Weekly.  It's set in contemporary New York City, and with less than 300 pages I think I can read it a tad quicker than the original. 

In my reshuffling of books I decided I wasn't as much in the mood for a Victorian saga (well not at this moment, ask me in a day or two and the answer may change) as I thought, so I have picked up Zoe Heller's Notes on a Scandal.  I saw the movie several years ago, so I have a vague recollection of the story, but I'm finding the book hard to set down.  It's about an illicit affair between a teacher and student, but the story is recounted by a strangely obsessive and possibly malicious friend.  It was shortlisted for the Booker in 2003.

Is it bad to say that I don't mind that the Christmas holiday is over?  I do enjoy the day but not the stress that accompanies it, and now I have the next week to rest and relax and hopefully loll about on the sofa reading.  I feel extremely fortunate and very spoiled as I received several very generous gift cards, so I might just do a little online shopping later this afternoon and see which books on this list might be available now (though I'm sure I can find one or two others if none are published yet).  There have been a number of books that I've finished lately that I've not had the opportunity to write about, so I might have to do a few catch up posts, and I'm working my end of the year favorites list, too, which I'll be sharing this week.

Seasons Greetings!

Happy Holidays everyone!  Warmest wishes to you all and your families.  I'll be back next week to wrap things up and share plans for the new year.  We're due for a white Christmas (as a matter of fact it is snowing now), but thankfully it won't be a repeat of last year!  In the meantime I'll be spending time with family and maybe squeezing in a little reading on the side. 

Illustration is a detail from The Spirit of Christmas, 1925 by Richard T. Cooper (English) 1884-1957.  The original is from the London Transport Museum poster archive.  Very celebratory, don't you think!

December 23: Reading Notes Anna K.

A little fanfare please...I've finished Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina!  I feel like there should be fireworks or something as I've been working on this book for ages.  I was sure I could fly through those last two hundred pages and would finish last Saturday, but no, and not even by the end of the weekend.  Monday was out because of work, so I was determined to finish Tuesday night even if I had to stay up all night, which of course didn't happen.  Instead, on my first day of vacation yesterday I got up early and read all through the morning, and then felt thoroughly overwhelmed by it all and then a huge sense of satisfaction for finishing what some say is the greatest novel ever written (though how many other books is that said about?). 

Even though this is much shorter than War and Peace I feel like it took much longer to read.  Anna Karenina is such a dense story--so filled with ideas on art, culture, society, politics and religion and  many philosphical musings on human nature that I feel like my reading only barely scratched the surface.  It definitely requires more than one reading, or a much closer reading than I gave it.  It's really an amazing book, but I have to say I feel somewhat conflicted about it.  Of course this is only a first impression and I need to mull things over and perhaps read a little criticism to work out how I feel beyond this first (no doubt faulty) impression.  

The thing is, this isn't just Anna's story.  As a matter of fact she really only plays a small (albeit very important) role.  It seems as though Levin is the real star of the show.  And perhaps at the root of my uncertain (and unhappy? feelings) is the fact that Anna finds no redemption--only a tragic ending, and one that she regretted the moment it happened and when it was too late, yet Levin finds meaning and contentment.  Both characters were tormented and it was sometimes painful to listen to their thoughts and feelings of unhappiness.  I realize that for Anna the choices she made were unacceptable to society. It's rather hypocritical as more than one character in this book was unfaithful, but the fact that Anna flaunted her unfaithfulness, and more her happiness in her love affair, made her such a wanton and immoral creature.  So she pays the ultimate price and others go on their merry way.  My first thought is that I feel slightly cheated.  I'm happy for Levin as his struggles were almost harrowing, but well, there it is.  I need to think about it all more and reconcile my feelings. 

What I loved about this book were the descriptions.  This was truly a panorama of nineteenth century Russian life.  Much of it was quite vivid and very colorful.  I read the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, and while it did feel like it was a translation of a foreign work, it was very easy to read.  It felt like I was reading a Russian work rather than an anglicized (or very clunky) one.  I don't always like watching movies after reading a particularly good book, but in this case I want to see the clothes and the carriages and sleighs and the houses and the Russian landscape, which I bet translates beautifully into film.  As Anna Karenina is a long book it's a story that I don't expect it to be told fully in a film version, so I have no great expectations in that matter.  So far I have the Masterpiece Theater adaptation lined up and hope to see the version with Sophie Marceau as well. 

Sorry, this isn't a proper post on the book (I hope to write something better later), only my initial impressions upon finishing, which I suspect will change with time.  This is a book that wold be impossible to write about in only a few paragraphs, but I was so excited about finishing I had to mention it while I'm on my 'reading high'!  Another contented sigh, but one entirely different than yesterday's!

Mariana by Susanna Kearlsey

Susanna Kearsley's Mariana is the sort of book you turn the last page of and give a contented sigh.  Well, that's what I did at least.  Much like The Winter Sea, Mariana is a work of historical fiction with two intertwined storylines and a strong romantic theme at its heart.  It won the prestigious Catherine Cookson Literary Prize, and it's not difficult to see why as Kearsley certainly knows how to draw her reader into the story while the real world floats away.  This is another story that not only moves backward and forward in time but so, too, does the main character.  I tend to be skeptical of time travel stories outside the fantastical, and this story is meant to be grounded in reality, but as long as you're willing to suspend belief somewhat (and I am willing to do so for Kearsley), it works.

"I first saw the house in the summer of my fifth birthday."

An adventurous drive home after a holiday in Exeter was when Julia Beckett first spots Greywethers. 

"It was a rather ordinary old farmhouse, large and square and solid, set back some distance from the road with a few unkempt trees dotted around for privacy.  Its darkly glistening slate roof sloped down at an alarming angle to meet the weathered grey stone walls, the drab monotony of colour broken by twin redbrick chimneys and an abundance of large multi-paned windows, their frames painted freshly white."

When she sees it she knows it was her house, but it isn't just the daydreams of a little girl.  Seventeen years later she once again comes upon it by chance and recognizes it immediately and feels the same affinity for it.  But it isn't until after she turns thirty and comes into an unexpected inheritance that she is able to make it her own once again permanently.  The small village welcomes her easily into its community and she quickly becomes friends with the local pub owner, a woman of her own age, a slightly cantankerous (though ultimately very likable) Scotsman who's both a gardener and poet, and the local lord of the manor to whom she's instantly attracted and the interest is reciprocated. 

This sleepy little village seems to be hiding secrets, however.  Julia stumbles across a shadowy figure on a large horse that seems to appear out of the mist, and stranger, she starts having dreamlike episodes where she slips into the past, a past she is entirely familiar with when she is there, but she can't quite understand when she is awake in the present.  Mariana Farr is a young woman who has come to Greywethers from London where the Plague rages and has taken the life of her mother.  Her uncle, a staunch Puritan agrees to take her in, but she feels more a prisoner than a member of the family.  Although Charles has been restored to the throne, it's obvious her uncle has no love or loyalty for him.   As a matter of fact her uncle's generally disagreeable.

Julia's episodes become more intense and frequent and soon she finds she can put herself into a dreamlike state where she willingly goes back in time.  She becomes wrapped up in Mariana's life, and the lives of the few people around her that she cares for, particularly the Lord of Crofton Manor, a handsome man who rides a great grey horse.  Is it reincarnation?  Was Juliana once Mariana?  Are their genes intermixed and their lives twined together and remembered?  Julia's present day life seems to mimic Mariana's in some subtle and not so subtle ways.  She becomes certain that she was once Mariana and feels she remembers this former life, yet with her blossoming romance with Geoff, the present day lord of Crofton Hall, the connection seems broken.  He either hasn't yet remembered his ancestor, with whom he shares a stricking resemblance, or chooses not to, which leaves Julia confused and uncertain and caring more for her former life and her passionate love for 16th century Robert de Mornay.  

Alas, you can't live in the past, no matter how seductive it is, and soon the past will be cut off from Julia.  Not everyone gets a happy ending, and in the tumultuous period Mariana lives in, true happiness and enduring love is elusive.  So, Mariana is a lovely story of love lost and love found and second chances, which are always nice to believe in.  I really enjoyed this story, admittedly it is total escapism, but it's nice sometimes to find happy endings in literature--not just satisfactory endings but really happy ones.  So, do I go looking for more of her books (and she also writes thrillers under a pen name), or do I wait for more of her work to be published here in the US?  Susanna Kearsley is on my list of comfort reads for certain.  

New Books to Look Forward To

I think I mentioned I was mentally making a list of books I might buy if I end up with a gift card or two later this week...(wouldn't it be a cruel trick of fate if I ended up without a single gift card for the holidays?), so I thought I might do a little online browsing and see what's new and exciting and have come up with quite a list.  I'm only sharing a few highlights here, however, as I feel like I constantly bombard you with lists of books rather than just talk about whatever I happen to be reading at the moment (more of those posts to come soon as I am now officially on break until January 3!).  In no particular order here are a few new books I am looking forward to and have gone on my wishlist.

A Lesson in Secrets, Jacqueline Winspear - If you drop by here regularly you will know I am a great fan of Maisie Dobbs and I am always ready for the next book to be released.  As of yet no cover art or book description is available, but that's okay as I already know I'll buy the book as soon as I can get my hands on it.  It's due out March 22.

Sourcebooks is reissuing a new round of books by Georgette Heyer this Spring and Summer.  I'll be curious to see which books come out.  Sylvester will be one of them.

I already had Elaine Showalter's Vintage Book of American Women Writers on my list, but the publishing date is finally getting nearer--January 11.  Something to look forward to when I'm depressed by the weather and being back at work.

Dead Line, Stella Rimington - This is her fourth Liz Carlyle spy thriller.  I've still got the first book on my night stand and am excited to get back to it on my break, but I already know I like the character and will be reading more.

I've read a number of Susan Vreeland's novels, which tend to center on artists, a topic I really love, so I was thrilled to see Clara and Mr. Tiffany will be released in January as well.

More feminine goodness with Women in Crime: Forgotten Cops and Private Eyes from the Time of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Michael Sims.  This anthology is due out mid-January.  I'm not sure if it is short stories or also excerpts of novels, but I'll definitely be taking a closer look.

I was just thinking earlier that I need to get back to Frank Tallis's Viennese mysteries, and here is yet another installment with Vienna Twilight.  Hmm.  How many new books can I conceivably start reading over my break (knowing me, quite a few).  I wouldn't mind picking up the second book before I fall too far behind.

I know this sounds a little esoteric, but it might be a page turner and the title certainly appeals to me--Medieval Writings on Secular Women, edited by Patricia Skinner.

I've never read any of Martha Grimes's Richard Jury mysteries, but I have read a few of her novels featuring twelve-year-old Emma Graham (and thoroughly enjoyed!).  I wouldn't mind rereading them in anticipation of a new book, The Fadeaway Girl.

S.J. Bolton has a new thriller coming out this summer, which I am sure I'll read called Now You See Me.  Again, no plot description, but I like her work well enough to know I will give it a try.

Yay, William Nicholson has a new book coming out called I Could Love You.  Boo, it isn't due until early summer.  Doesn't that feel so far away?!

I already mentioned I'll be reading Linda Grant's forthcoming novel (published by Virago in the UK) We Had It So Good.  It isn't out in the US until April.

Two bookish books that are coming out not soon enough are The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs and Second Reading by Jonathan Yardley (both due out in June).

Europa Editions has some new to me authors in their spring lineup; Rondo by Kazimierz and My Berlin Child by Anne Wiazemsky.  I have a stack of Europas to get to--I think I've loved every book that I've read that they've published.  Must make room for new ones.

Isn't this title great--Rodin's Debutante by Ward Just.  I have one of Just's novels in my pile by my bedside.  This is another story set in Chicago in the early twentieth century. 

I'd better stop before I get too carried away!  I have a handy little notebook that I drop in my bookbag to take with me and is filled with little notations and wishlists of books!