A Work in Progress

Top Ten Books . . .

Inspired by Litlove and BooksPlease I thought I would share my own top ten books that I absolutely had to have when they were published but still have not read.  When I first read Litlove's post and thought of my own situation I initially thought, what, only ten?  And since Margaret shared not only her list but a photo as illustration I decided to take a look at my own TBR piles.  It wasn't hard to pull books and think of the situation that spurred me on to buy them. 

There's a certain amount of guilt attached to a few of these as I prefer to buy paperbacks to hardcovers due to space constraints (to say nothing of cost), but since I've got them now I can at least hope this in some small way has supported the authors (though I expect they would have liked me to have read them as soon as I bought them).  I don't mind hardcovers if I read them right away, but when they still sit unread when the paperbacks are released I do get annoyed with myself.  As Margaret mentions, maybe this will spur me on to read a few of them now?  If you notice a few do have little post its peeking out of the pages, as I did start a few but just didn't finish them.

Camilla Lackberg seems to have gotten lots of press and as soon as reviews came out for The Ice Princess I had to have it.  At least I waited for the paperback but it's a UK edition, so there wasn't as much patience involved as you would think.  However, in the interim the US edition has been published, and I still have not read the book.  It still sounds good and I can't wait to read it.

Like Litlove and a previous Booker list of books, last year's Orange Prize longlist was filled with so many potential good reads for me I went a little crazy ordering a number of the books--like Amanda Craig's Hearts and Minds.  I won't admit to how many I've purchased, but I've yet to read a single one (including last year's winner, which I also own.  Ahem.).  This year I've bought only two from the longlist and any other books on it I am dying to read will come from the library. 

A year or two ago a group of book bloggers chose several books to read and discuss and invited others to join in and read along, and Philippe Claudel's Brodeck's Report (in the US is simply called Brodeck) was one of the books chosen (unfortunately I grabbed the wrong Claudel book from my shelf, but I've not yet read By a Slow River either).  It sounded (sounds) so good and I did try very hard to get it from the library.  Only they were so far behind in processing books, even when I asked specifically for it, I was told I would have to wait.  Wait?  Okay, fine, I'll just buy it.   And I did.  And it came in after the discussion and so I decided to wait to read it.  And wait I have.

I loved Deanna Raybourn's first couple of mysteries and was so looking forward to her third, Silent on the Moor, but now her fourth book is out.  I've not read either of the new books, but I keep telling myself I will when I need a nice entertaining comfort sort of read.

When Justice Picardie's Daphne came out and there was so much buzz about it I wanted to read it, too.  I love Daphne du Maurier and was curious about this fictionalized story so I broke down and ordered it (in hardcover) from the UK.  As a matter of fact the next four books all came from The Book Depository (thank heavens for free shipping at least).  So along with Daphne there is Joanne Harris's The Lollipop Shoes (loved Chocolat and count it as one of my all-time favorites), A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book, David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, and Erin Kelly's The Poison Tree.  I started the Byatt but it is a book that requires time and concentration and also happens to be heavy to drag around with me.  I do want to read it, but when I know I can give it the proper attention it deserves.  I heard many, many good things about the Mitchell and the Kelly was compared to Barbara Vine, who I love. 

Kate Morton's The Distant Hours is the most recent addition to the pile of 'must have now even though it is still in hardcover' books.  I had it for a while sitting on my night stand ready to start reading but it got bumped for something else.  There's still hope for it.  I don't think it comes out in paper for a while yet?

What can I say.  So many books, and so little self control.  As long as I keep reminding myself these are part of my personal library and I can read them whenever I like, I can stave off most guilt.  I'm still excited to read each and every one of them, so that's what counts.  

Lost in the Stacks: The Room Upstairs

There's not a whole lot on the outside of this book to recommend it.  I've cropped out the more unattractive spots on the cover and even inside it's not particularly pretty.  No nice endpapers and a very plain title page.  But Monica Dickens?  Have you read her?  She was the great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens.  Apparently she was so resentful of her middle class upbringing that she went off to work as a cook and servant and became a nurse during WWII.  One Pair of Hands and One Pair of Feet are books she wrote about her experiences, but unfortunately my library owns neither.  They do however own a few other books including The Room Upstairs, which I understand is a psychological suspense story.  I did a little searching in the New York Times and that's all I could find by way of a description or review of the work (and that only a mention in the obituary of Monica's father). 

She was quite prolific and wrote books from the late 1930s through the early 1990s.  A number of her works reflect her interest and work in humanitarian interests and social issues.  One reference book I looked at noted that "at the heart of her fiction are human relationships in times of pressure, stress, and conflict".  I wonder how The Room Upstairs compares.  Persephone Books has reissued a couple of her novels but most others are out of print.  I read Mariana several years ago and loved it calling it a 'curl up on the sofa with a warm fuzzy blanket and a hot cup of cocoa sort of book'.  That sounds very appealing at the moment and I will have to keep it in mind for a reread. 

Since my library removes dust jackets from hardcover books (they get too banged up if we leave them on and it's not cost effective to try and cover them with clear mylar wraps), it can be really hard to tell what sort of story a book will contain.  It can be fun just pulling a book off the shelf and starting to read--sometimes the book will be a lovely treat.  It's a sort of mystery waiting to be unraveled.  My favorite thing to do is read the first page or two to get a taste.

"The road from Boston to Cape Cod is long and straight and ruthless.  Two black slashes cutting through the sandy country of pine and scrub oak which never grow to any size before a motorist throws out a cigarette on the dry grass and levels everything neatly down again."

"In winter the cars carry Boston businessmen in harts work straight and true, and women with plastic statues of the Sacred Heart suctioned to the dashboard.  In summer the carts are full of families, and trail boats and little houses behind them." 

Shall I keep reading?  I've been meaning to read more books by Monica Dickens.  Any favorites?

Revamping the Reading Pile

I had a serious look at my pile of books on my night table that I grab from every day, and decided I needed to revamp things a little bit.  A few I hadn't actually started properly and as it seemed as though I wasn't going to be do so anytime soon, I shuffled them back into my TBR piles.  I always feel bad doing this, but I tend to accumulate more books on my bedside table than I can actually manage.  Nothing got jettisoned due to lack of interest or because the story was in any way inadequate only thanks to a lack of reading time.  So now my sidebar sort of resembles more closely what I am reading, or at least what is sitting on my night stand to choose from daily.

One of the books that was relieved of duties was poor Wilkie Collins.  I love Wilkie Collins.  He is actually one of my very favorite authors, but I was stuck in a rut with No Name.  I would enjoy it when I picked it up but I was feeling overwhelmed by the sheer size of the book.  My night table has a slanted shelf under the actual table part and books are often relegated there when I don't want to put them aside, but I know I am not really actively reading them either.  He is joining Charles Dickens.  They were friends in life, right?  So now they join each other on the bookshelf and will hopefully keep each other company until I am ready to finish them both.  By the way, it's Bleak House that is already sitting there. 

Since I have not read a single classic yet this year--three months in and nothing--I decided I needed something short and perhaps just a little more modern to get things moving.  I decided on W. Somerset Maugham's The Painted Veil and I am Loving it.  I've often looked at it but never got around to it.  I admit it was it's size in part that helped me choose it.  I read Up at the Villa a few years ago and had forgotten how much I like his writing style--very clear and succinct, easy, but sophisticated easy (if that makes sense).  So far it is set in Hong Kong in the 20s and begins with an affair, but has already flashed back to show how this unhappily married couple managed to marry in the first place.  It's definitely just what I needed.

I've also started reading Shirley Hazzard's The Transit of Venus in earnest and I am really enjoying it as well.  I had read the first page or two several days ago and something about her writing style made me wonder if it was going to be difficult to get into, but as I had taken it with me to the gym and had nothing else to look at, I just plowed through the first few pages and it started coming together.  It's not quite so pared down or simple as the Maugham and I suspect it will take me longer to read, but I like it. 

Since I have a couple of books out from the library that are Orange longlisters, I was thinking of starting one of those as well (should wait until I finish something else first, but must remember those due dates...).  I have Nicole Krauss's Great House and Julie Orringer's The Invisible Bridge.  Both are authors I have wanted to read and I have already checked out Orringer's books once before.  The Krauss is shorter.  Has anyone read either of them?  Decisions, decisions.

Before I go look over the two books and see which one really grabs me, I thought I would mention that I joined Twitter this week.  Yes, I caved in.  It was a matter of curiosity as I keep seeing links to Tweets showing up on the back end of my blog, but as I don't belong I can't tell what it is people are referring to.  It's actually turned out to be fun, and while I don't think I'll be spending too much time there, I will likely log in in the mornings or evenings.  I am at WorknProgBlog, which is a little clunky, but I couldn't find a better user name that people might recognize (that wasn't already taken).  I'm not quite sure yet how everything works, or what the proper protocol is, but I would of course be flattered if you "followed" me, or better yet let me know if you are on Twitter, too, and I will follow you!

The Orange Prize Longlist!

The Orange Prize longlist has been announced.  I bet you've already seen it, but I'm going to share it again as I always get excited about it and end up buying lots of new books  because of it, but I rarely actually read the books while it's all happening.  For me the fun is discovering new to me authors and books.

Lyrics Alley by Leila Aboulela (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) - Sudanese; 3rd Novel

Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch (Canongate) - British; 10th Novel

Room by Emma Donoghue (Picador) - Irish; 7th Novel

The Pleasure Seekers by Tishani Doshi (Bloomsbury) - Indian; 1st Novel

Whatever You Love by Louise Doughty (Faber and Faber) - British; 6th Novel

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Corsair) - American; 4th Novel

The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna (Bloomsbury) - British/Sierra Leonean; 3rd Novel

The London Train by Tessa Hadley (Jonathan Cape) - British; 4th Novel

Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson (Sceptre) - British; 1st Novel

The Seas by Samantha Hunt (Corsair) - American; 1st Novel

The Birth of Love by Joanna Kavenna (Faber and Faber) - British; 2nd Novel

Great House by Nicole Krauss (Viking) - American; 3rd Novel

The Road to Wanting by Wendy Law-Yone (Chatto & Windus) - American; 3rd Novel

The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht (Weidenfeld & Nicolson) - Serbian/American; 1st Novel

The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer (Viking) - American; 1st Novel

Repeat it Today with Tears by Anne Peile (Serpent's Tail) - British; 1st Novel

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell (Chatto & Windus) - American; 1st Novel

The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin (Serpent's Tail) - British/Nigerian; 1st Novel

The Swimmer by Roma Tearne (Harper Press) - British; 4th Novel

Annabel by Kathleen Winter (Jonathan Cape) - Canadian; 1st Novel

I've not read any of the books, though I did try Emma Donoghue's Room.  I know  many people loved it and I want to like it (maybe even love it), too, but I must confess I've just not been able to get on with it.  I tried the book but decided timing was wrong.  Then someone at Little Brown kindly sent me the audio to try, but that just hasn't quite clicked either.  I'm just not in the right mood for it at the moment or maybe I'm just the wrong audience?  If she makes the shortlist I will be giving it another try.  Maybe I've just not read far enough to give it a real chance.

I do have a couple others on hand to read however.  I have the Krauss and Orringer on my reading pile out from the library and am in line for the Egan.  There are a few others I've heard good things about and might just be tempted to try, though whether it will be sooner or later I'm not quite sure.  It seems like a really interesting list--varied culturally, which is nice.  There are a number of books here I would like not have come across had it not been for their place on the list.

Any titles to tempt you?  And as a side note, I came across this very interesting article in the Guardian about the Orange Prize, which touches once again on the validity of such prizes.  Interesting perspective and one I agree with wholeheartedly.

Teaser Tuesday: The Alibi

Because I can't stand the anticipation of waiting for the new short story collection, The Doll, by Daphne du Maurier I decided that I should read one of the collections I have sitting here unread in the interim.  I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but it's worth repeating--Daphne du Maurier was an excellent short story writer.   Her stories are generally between twenty and forty pages so there is ample time to develop characters and plots.  Often the stories are dark and atmospheric and "The Alibi", the first story from The Breaking Point: Short Stories, is no different. 

You never quite know what you are in for when you start reading a short story.  I'm familiar with du Maurier's more famous stories, but almost all the stories in this collection are unfamiliar to me.  The eight collected here are suspenseful tales where she "explored the boundaries of reality and imagination".  "The Alibi" begins in an unassuming manner, but it takes on a very macabre tone.  A married couple are out on a leisurely Sunday afternoon stroll, but it becomes obvious very quickly that something is not quite right with the husband.  He urges his wife to return home as he'd like to walk at a faster pace to get a little exercise and her high heels put her at a disadvantage. 

And now let me share just exactly what is in his head.

"'They don't know,' he thought, 'those people inside, how one gesture of mine, now, at this minute might alter their world.  A knock on the door, and someone answers--a woman yawning, an old man in carpet slippers, a child sent by its parents in irritation; and according to what I will, what I decide, their whole future will be decided.  Faces smashed in.  Sudden murder.  Theft.  Fire'.  It was as simple as that."

"He looked at his watch.  Half-past three.  He decided to work on a system of numbers.  He would walk down three more streets, and then, depending upon the name of the street in which he found himself, and how many letters it contained, choose the number of his destination."

This is not what I was expecting.  Very creepy.  Remind me again not to open the door to strangers (well, I wouldn't anyway, but still).  I'm only a quarter of the way into the story, but he has already found a possible victim and is hoping to rent a room in her basement flat and need I tell you what he might use it for?  Naw, better not.  I am hoping this is one of those stories that is simply a dark fantasy, but with Daphne du Maurier, nothing is ever completely simple.

A few years ago I made a list of the stories I thought she had written, and now I think I am going to follow up on them.  And it seems with a forthcoming volume of uncollected stories that there will be more out there to discover!

Beside the Sea by Veronique Olmi

Well, after reading the second of Peirene Press's (currently) four published novels I can see they are not unwilling to tackle difficult subjects and dark stories.  I knew before I started that Véronique Olmi's Beside the Sea (Bord de Mer) was going to be a sad tale, but perhaps I wasn't quite as prepared for a story as distressing and disconsolate as it proved to be.  The cover is so bright and cheerful with its sandy beach and colorful buckets that even forewarned (I hadn't actually read any reviews prior to reading it, so didn't know the plot only that it wasn't going to have a happy ending), I was slightly floored by this story that reads almost like a thriller.  Only there is no redeeming sense of security at the end.

I've been putting off writing about it for a few reasons.  It's a book that is hard to discuss without giving too much away and ruining it for any prospective readers (so expect bare bones here in terms of plot description), but I'm also not entirely sure how I feel about it.  There is no denying that it is a beautifully executed story and one where you can feel the intensity of emotion for the mother of two small boys, but I suppose this is another case of it being a book that I can greatly appreciate but maybe not love?  It was simply too devastating for me despite the power of the storytelling.  I should note however, that it has been longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.  The shortlist will be announced next month.

Seaside holidays are meant to be happy affairs and the single mother who brings her two young sons to a tiny coastal town in France wants to give them a happy memory, but almost from the moment they set foot off the bus nothing goes quite as planned.  It's obvious from the start that the mother, who narrates the story, is dealing with her own issues and is perhaps ill-equipped to provide a really stable home life for the boys.  Not a lot about her is revealed yet you get a strong sense that despite having psychological problems her intentions are good.  She just can't quite cope, and medicines she takes (or doesn't as seems to be the case here) and social workers who are in contact with her aren't really helping or providing a safety net.  So she is left to flounder.

It's hard to think of the trio as holidaymakers, but that is what the trip is meant to be.  None of their expectations are met and there is almost a sinister feel to the town when they arrive.  It's raining.  They can't find the hotel and when they do it's little more than a dive.  They're given a room towards the top of the hotel up several flights of stairs and it has only a bed taking up almost the entire space.  The sheets and blanket are threadbare and it seems to take every ounce of energy just to arrive.  Things don't look up the following day when they are confronted with more rain, a beach with no seashells and not enough money to even buy a proper meal, but a funfair in the evening promises to provide just the right kind of entertainment.  This mother does her best, but the world just overwhelms her. 

I'm happy I read this story even if I found it hard going.  It will certainly stay with me for some time I think, and while books like this aren't always uplifting they do have their own rewards.  I've now got Friedrich Christian Delius's Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman, which is the story I've most been looking forward to reading.   I'm really lucky as my library has been ordering in the Peirene titles as they've been published, but I do wish they were more readily available here in the US without having to order abroad for them.  This is Olmi's first novel, which was a bestseller in France and has been published in all the major European languages according to the jacket blurb.  Kudos to Peirene for publishing it in English.

Recently Acquired Books

Since I've accumulated a new pile of books in the last month or so I thought I would share them before I look for homes for them on shelves and in book piles.  Between library books and the books I've been buying lately I've been feeling a little overwhelmed by them all (now there's something I thought I might never say).  Not that that's stopping me from adding new titles to my wishlist that I come across that others are reading.  I often feel inundated by books and there are so many of them I am excited to read that I wish I was not such a slow reader.  I've been thinking lately I might post a little less often here to give me a little more reading time (buying or borrowing fewer books somehow doesn't appeal to me...), but I enjoy posting frequently, too.   So, how does one find a good balance--enough time to read, enough time to write about books and all that in the few hours not taken up with work, getting to and from work, and all the other quotidian details of life?  A time warp to add hours to the day?  A clone to send to work?  If you've any suggestions I'd certainly welcome them.

In the meantime I'll look at these wistfully and perhaps pick one up as soon as I finish something from  my current reading pile.

Maybe if I stopped picking up complete impulse buys like Lisa Jackson's Without Mercy and dropping them in my shopping cart.  Actually that happens rarely as there isn't a very good selection of books at the supermarket.  However this is a thriller set on Oregon's coast that is set during a brutal snowstorm.  I'm going to hold on to this one for the hottest day of July when I need something cold to think about.

Stafanie Pintoff's In the Shadow of Gotham has been compared to Caleb Carr's books and I do love a good historical mystery.  This one is set in 1904 New York.

I've read Erin Hart's other mysteries set in Ireland, so when her most recent (after a hiatus of several years), False Mermaid, came out in paper I had to get it.  The sleuth is an American pathologist who has worked with Ireland's bog bodies, but this time around she returns home to Minnesota to look into the unsolved murder of her own sister.

South Riding by Winifred Holtby has come to me courtesy of Rachel at Book Snob and Carolyn of A Few of My Favourite Books who hosted the Virago Reading Week earlier this year, and which I enjoyed immensely.  I was lucky enough to win a Virago, which I am hoping to read before the film airs on PBS later this spring.

I'm very much a mood reader and will often look for books set in a particular place or time and my latest interest happens to be Argentina.  Know of any good books set in Argentina or by Argentinian authors?  Ernesto Mallo's Needle in a Haystack is a crime novel set in Buenos Aires in the 1970s.

And while I still have Tasha Alexander's previous Lady Emily Hargreaves novel on my pile unread, I found her most recent mystery at such a cheap price that I couldn't not buy it.  Dangerous to Know is another Victorian mystery that is set this time in Normandy France (Lady Emily does move around a bit).

Both F. Tennyson Jesse's A Pin to See a Peepshow and E.M. Delafield's Messalina of the Suburbs are fictionalized accounts of the sensational Thompson/Bywaters murder case in the early 1920s.  I have a book by Jill Dawson called Fred and Edie as well that deals with the pair.  It was Simon at Stuck in a Book that pointed this out to me (not knowing about the first book at all or the subject matter of the Delafield), and I like his idea of reading them together.  I'll be keeping them in the back of my mind and as Simon expressed an interest perhaps others would like to read along--though sometime in the future, perhaps, not right away.   

Now I'm off to try and squeeze in a little reading so I can get to these sooner than later.

Lost in the Stacks: Mrs. Parkington

A very large nod in the direction of Rachel at Book Snob, for had it not been for her very perceptive and enthusiastic post poor Louis Bromfield would certainly remain lost in the stacks.  After an extended hiatus his Mrs. Parkington has been circulated once again and is now sitting at the top of my library book pile.  I'm afraid I can't read them as fast as I'm checking them out, but this is one of my rescued books that I do need to read rather than add to my list of books that are mere possibilities (I have lots and lots of reading possibilities).   As noted by Rachel, this is sadly out of print (though a look at Amazon reveals it was at one time translated into a few other languages), but a number of this Pulitzer Prize-winning author's other works are still in print.

My library has more than seventeen of his books, though I was totally unfamiliar with him until I read Rachel's post. 

"This is an absolutely incredible, absorbing, and fascinating book, that, while set in the 40’s, feels wonderfully current, in all its descriptions of financial dodgy dealings and hedge fund fraud. The family dynamics detailed, the blend of different personalities, many of them infuriating, and the fantastic character of Susie Parkington, all come together to produce a story not of one family, but of a whole society, collapsing in on itself, as those who created it die off and leave offspring who are incapable of carrying the weight of its responsibilities on their shoulders."

As she compares him to a good Dorothy Whipple novel I went directly to my library catalog to see if we had the book and feel fortunate to find him on my library's shelves and could only think he must get back into circulation so he remains there.  The story begins:

"Outside the snow was falling, thickly in great wet flakes, so that the sound of the traffic on Park Avenue coming through the drawn curtains was muted and distant.  Mrs. Parkington, seated before the mirror with a half-pint of champagne by her side, thought how nice it was to have a Christmas this year which seemed like Christmas.  True, tomorrow the snow would be turned to slush, discolored by soot, and those great machines bought by the personable and bumptious mayor would be scooping it up and hauling it off to the North River; but snow--the mere idea of snow--was pleasant.  Just the sight of it drifting down in soft white flakes through the bright auras of the street lights made you feel happy and content.  And summoned memories, very long memories, of the days when snow was not a nuisance in New York but brought out sleds and sleighs and there was racing in the park, and the sound of sleigh bells was heard everywhere in the city."

I came across another interesting book about Louis Bromfield when I was searching the library catalog--a book of letters between Bromfield and Edith Wharton, Yrs, Ever Affly edited by Daniel Bratton.  He's becoming more and more intriguing.  Apparently both lived in France at the same time.  Wharton was in her seventies and he in his thirties.  Both were quite popular authors and both had a love of gardening.   Along with the thirty or so letters included in the book, there are illustrations as well.  The color photos of Le Pavillon Colombe, Wharton's last residence, leave me quite envious.

Everywhere I turn lately I seem to be coming up against authors who love to garden.  So, two more wonderful library finds. 

March 10: Reading Notes

I finished Joseph O'Connor's Ghost Light and it is indeed as exquisite a read as I thought midway through the novel.  Can I go back and elaborate on a few initial perceptions?  It did take me a while to orient myself, but the second person narration wasn't nearly so jarring as I first thought.  As a matter of fact after I gave myself a chance to get caught up in the story I didn't even think about it.  Molly narrates the story, though it moves about in time and the tense shifts about, but Molly has such a unique voice it wasn't a bad place to be at all--inside her head for much of the story.  Why I was confused about Molly and her sister is now beyond me, but I think I sometimes make stories harder than they actually are.  Sometimes it's better not to worry about all the small details up front and just get a grasp of what's going on--the rest will follow. 

I do want to note that O'Connor emphasizes that his story of J.M. Synge and Molly Allgood/Maire O'Neill is highly fictionalized.  He took liberties with the facts in creating his story, but he does give reading suggestions if you want to learn more about the two.  And interestingly he grew up a mile from the house where John Synge and his mother lived their last years.  How's that for inspiration?  Kimbofo at Reading Matters was lucky enough to have recently heard him speak, do go take a peek at her post complete with photo of O' Connor.  I've already set this one aside in my mind as a favorite read of the year.

You'll never guess what I've started reading next.  My niece is a reluctant reader.  I try and press books on her and talk about reading, but she is usually pretty indifferent.  If I spot her reading it's because her mom has told her she needs to spend a little time each night reading a book or her teacher has given her homework, but it never seems to be due to her own initiative.  It's almost always a matter of getting the right book to the right reader, isn't it?  She has apparently found that book.  Chasing Alliecat by Rebecca Fjelland Davis is the book she is reading in class at the moment and she has been totally captivated by it.  She was telling me about it and I told her it did sound good, and maybe I should read it when she finished.  Little did I know that she would go back to her teacher and ask her for another copy for me to read, too.  So she instead pressed a book into my hands!  I'm not a big reader of YA literature, but how can I not read along when she is so excited about the story?  Besides I want to give her all the encouragement I can so she will look for more books. 

I've only just started reading (she has already been grilling me on the story) but it seems like a good adventure story with a dash of mystery.  The story revolves around three teens (they're about sixteen) in a small Minnesota town.  The main protagonist, along with her younger brother, is staying with relatives while their parents are away.  While riding their mountain bikes the three come across what appears to be the body (he's on the verge of death) of a priest.  One of the three disappears and things really begin to get interesting.  The first day my niece brought the book home, she wanted to sit and read together (will miracles never cease?), and then last night she was ready to start talking about the story--barely able to contain her excitement.  I agree, though, this is a story that does grab you from the start.  I think we all know what I'll be reading for the next couple of days!

It's that time of year again.  The Longlist for the Orange Prize will be announced next Wednesday.  I think I only managed to read one book from the Longlist, and that not even the winner.  I bought a number of them, which still sit waiting for me.  Jackie at Farmlane Books has made her predictions of what might appear on this year's list.  I swear I am always reading loads of books but they never seem to coincide with the books that make prize lists.  I'm still always curious about them, if only to find a few more good books to read.         

This is already old news, but I am excited about it anyway.  Did you know Virago is publishing several previously uncollected short stories by Daphne du Maurier?  A bookseller with an interest in du Maurier's work has been searching for stories which appeared in magazines in the UK and US.  The Doll will be published in the UK in May and the US in November.  I'm not sure I'll be able to wait that long and will likely be splurging on a UK edition of the book.  Maybe I should read one of the story collections I already have on hand by her?  I've been a fan of her short stories for a while now as well.

And the books in my photo?  I've not been sharing many of my library finds lately (at least not the newer releases), so I thought I'd show you what I brought home last night.  The Hopkins Manuscript by R.C. Sherriff is a science fiction novel--Sherriff imagines what would happen if the moon crashed into the earth.  I had not thought this was something I might like, but after reading a number of favorable reviews I thought it might make an interesting read after all.  Catherine Aird's Past Tense is a police procedural featuring DCI Sloan and DC Crosby.  Aird has written a number of mysteries, so I am coming in on the story well into the middle of it all.  Maybe it won't matter.  And the book on the bottom of the pile is the one I've just started.  Very serendipitously I had just read a review in NYTBR about Imogen Robertson's Instruments of Darkness and it also happened to be on the hold shelf at my library.  This is a mystery set in late 1700s Sussex.  I'm not making the same mistake twice.  There is a line of readers for this one....I'm starting to read now rather than waiting until the weekend before it's due back at the library. 

Are You as Well Read as Marilyn Monroe?

There is an ineresting book display at my library right now.  'Are you as well read as Marilyn Monroe?'  To be honest I don't really know that much about Marilyn Monroe, but she is such an iconic figure that it's hard not to be aware of some of her life story.  I know odd details, but I didn't know that Monroe had a large personal library, which was auctioned off in 1999.  Last fall her journals and personal writings were published in a book called Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters, which was edited by Bernard Comment.  It throws light on a different side of Monroe--she wasn't just a pretty face, but was an avid reader as well.  I think any book lover can appreciate the need to escape from life's daily problems and turmoils into the pages of a good book.  Monroe had a particularly tumultuous life, so it's touching to discover that she was fond of being photographed reading and held many authors in the highest esteem. 

The display in my library is made up of titles that Marilyn Monroe had in her collection.  The display was inspired by this blog post.  You can see more photos of Marilyn reading there as well.  The complete list of the books in her library is also included.  For a taste I've listed the first hundred or so of the over four hundred that were auctioned off.

1. Let's Make Love by Matthew Andrews (novelization of the movie)
2. How To Travel Incognito by Ludwig Bemelmans
3. To The One I Love Best by Ludwig Bemelmans
4. Thurber Country by James Thurber
5. The Fall by Albert Camus
6. Marilyn Monroe by George Carpozi
7. Camille by Alexander Dumas
8. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
9. The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt-Farmer
10. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
11. From Russia With Love by Ian Fleming
12. The Art Of Loving by Erich Fromm
13. The Prophet by Kahlil Gilbran
14. Ulysses by James Joyce
15. Stoned Like A Statue: A Complete Survey Of Drinking Cliches, Primitive, Classical & Modern by Howard Kandel & Don Safran, with an intro by Dean Martin
16. The Last Temptation Of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis
17. On The Road by Jack Kerouac
18. Selected Poems by DH Lawrence
19. and 20. Sons And Lovers by DH Lawrence (2 editions)
21. The Portable DH Lawrence
22. Etruscan Places (DH Lawrence?)
23. DH Lawrence: A Basic Study Of His Ideas by Mary Freeman
24. The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
25. The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud
26. Death In Venice & Seven Other Stories by Thomas Mann
27. Last Essays by Thomas Mann
28. The Thomas Mann Reader
29. Hawaii by James Michener
30. Red Roses For Me by Sean O'Casey
31. I Knock At The Door by Sean O'Casey
32. Selected Plays by Sean O'Casey
33. The Green Crow by Sean O'Casey
34. Golden Boy by Clifford Odets
35. Clash By Night by Clifford Odets
36. The Country Girl by Clifford Odets
37. 6 Plays Of Clifford Odets
38. The Cat With 2 Faces by Gordon Young
39. Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill
40. Part Of A Long Story: Eugene O'Neill As A Young Man In Love by Agnes Boulton
41. The Little Engine That Could by Piper Watty (with childish pencil scrawls at end, possibly MM's)
42. The New Joy Of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer & Marion Rombauer-Becker (with some cut recipes, page markers, a typed diet sheet and manuscript shopping list, apparently in MM's hand, laid in)
43. Selected Plays Of George Bernard Shaw
44. Ellen Terry And Bernard Shaw - A Correspondence
45. Bernard Shaw & Mrs Patrick Campbell - Their Correspondence
46. The Short Reigh Of Pippin IV by John Steinbeck
47. Once There Was A War by John Steinbeck
48. Set This House On Fire by William Styron
49. Lie Down In Darkness (William Styron?)
50. The Roman Spring Of Mrs Stone by Tennessee Williams
51. Camino Real by Tennessee Williams
52. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (with notes by MM)
53. The Flower In Drama And Glamour by Stark Young (inscribed to MM by Lee Strasberg, Christmas 1955)

American Literature

54. Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
55. The Story Of A Novel by Thomas Wolfe
56. Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe
57. A Stone, A Leaf, A Door (Thomas Wolfe?)
58. Thomas Wolfe's Letters To His Mother, ed. John Skally Terry
59. A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway
60. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
61. Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
62. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
63. Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck
64. The American Claimant & Other Stories & Sketches by Mark Twain
65. In Defense of Harriet Shelley & Other Essays (Mark Twain?)
66. The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
67. Roughing It (Mark Twain?)
68. The Magic Christian by Terry Southern
69. A Death In The Family by James Agee
70. The War Lover by John Hersey
71. Don't Call Me By My Right Name & Other Stories by James Purdy
72. Malcolm by James Purdy

Anthologies

73. The Portable Irish Reader (pub. Viking)
74. The Portable Poe - Edgar Allen Poe
75. The Portable Walt Whitman
76. This Week's Short Stories (New York, 1953)
77. Bedside Book Of Famous Short Stories
78. Short Novels Of Colette
79. Short Story Masterpieces (New York, 1960)
80. The Passionate Playgoer by George Oppenheimer
81. Fancies And Goodnights by John Collier
82. Evergreen Review, Vol 2, No. 6
83. The Medal & Other Stories by Luigi Pirandello

Art

84. Max Weber (art book - inscribed to MM by 'Sam' - Shaw?)
85. Renoir by Albert Skira
86. Max by Giovannetti Pericle
87. The Family Of Man by Carl Sandburg
88.-90. Horizon, A Magazine Of The Arts (Nov 1959, Jan 1960, Mar 1960.)
91. Jean Dubuffet by Daniel Cordier

Biography

92. The Summing Up by W. Somerset Maugham
93. Close To Colette by Maurice Goudeket
94. This Demi-Paradise by Margaret Halsey
95. God Protect Me From My Friends by Gavin Maxwell
96. Minister Of Death: The Adolf Eichmann Story by Quentin Reynolds, Ephraim Katz and Zwy Aldouby
97. Dance To The Piper by Agnes DeMille
98. Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It by Mae West
99. Act One by Moss Hart

Christian Science

100. Science And Health With Key To The Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy
101. Poems, Including Christ And Christmas by Mary Baker Eddy

Classical Works

102. 2 Plays: Peace And Lysistrata by Aristophanes
103. Of The Nature Of Things by Lucretius
104. The Philosophy Of Plato
105. Mythology by Edith Hamilton
106. Theory Of Poetry And Fine Art by Aristotle
107. Metaphysics by Aristotle
108.-111. Plutarch's Lives, Vols 3-6 only (of 6) by William and John Langhorne

I wonder if she read them all?  As someone who also collects books I can only say there are many unread books in my own collection (which I am happily reading my way through...).  I certainly admire her taste.