A Work in Progress

June 30: Reading Notes

You know the scene in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice where Lizzie Bennet is visiting her newly married friend Charlotte Lucas and they are all invited to the very regal house of the odious Lady Catherine De Bourgh, and Lady Catherine is chattering away and says to Lizzie--you're very dull this evening, Miss Bennet (or something along those lines)...well, that's very much how I've been feeling lately in terms of blogging.  Very dull.  I've not been feeling very inspired and I feel like it shows.

I was doing a little blog surfing earlier this evening and kept thinking to myself--now why couldn't I write something like that?  Isn't that a great topic for conversation.  That's an interesting way of thinking about this or that's new or I didn't realize that was happening in the library or publishing world.  I think my reading is too limited sometimes--only books, which means it narrows what I'm thinking about and generally gets me into trouble (one book leads to another and another until your reading pile is far too big).  Now, I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it--this is more of an observation than anything.  But if you blog, where do you get your inspiration?  And if you just like to read blogs, what do you like to read about?  What makes you click out of a Google Reader or Bloglines to go read a blog post?

While we're all contemplating that, I do have a few of bookish things to share. 

One of the librarians where I work used to teach Irish literature and she is planning on forming a Ulysses reading group.  I've always said I would never read James Joyce's Ulysses.  I am easily intimidated by certain books (Joyce being at the top of the list), and even if I am not, I am a slow reader when it comes to chunky books (even some not so chunky books).  Do I dare join in?  The thing is I doubt I would ever read it on my own.  This would be a chance to read with other people and most importantly get direction as I am reading.  So I am thinking about it.  I don't want to jump into anything without a little thought.  Decisions, decisions.

Today the Slaves are going to be discussing W. Somerset Maugham's Cakes and Ale.  I'm going to be late to the discussion (there is a pattern forming here, I'm afraid).  If you've read it and would like to join in, the forum is here.  I'm hoping to finish tonight or tomorrow.  After a rocky start I am getting on much better with the book.

I have lots of reading lined up for July.  It was meant to be a catch up month, with only a few new books to add to the reading pile--like my postal book and Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (see Litlove's post).  But do you see how easy I give in to books?  James Joyce.  Paris in July.  I have two new Georgette Heyer books to read.  And a couple more ILL books.  And I just brought home from the library S.J. Watson's Before I Go to Sleep that so many people have been raving about. 

If nothing else I guess I won't be at a loss to find something good to read next month.

Paris in July - 2011

I shouldn't but I'm going to.  Karen at Bookbath and Tamara at Thyme for Tea are hosting the Paris in July Readalong beginning July 1, and as I have loads of books with French settings and by French authors I'm going to pull one or two or maybe even three out to read.  My goal is to just read one (better to start small), but it's good to have several backup choices just in case.

I'm starting with Jean-Francois Parot's The Chatelet  Apprentice.  I had not heard of this author before he made the CWA International Dagger Longlist.  Actually this is his first Nicolas Le Floch mystery set in 18th century paris, though his fourth made the longlist.  I like to start from the beginning when it comes to mysteries, however.  One of the blurbs reads "brilliantly evokes the casual brutality of life in eighteenth-century France".  That's an intriguing comment and I am curious about what that they might mean, though I have the impression that life then probably was indeed very brutal.

I loved Catherine Delors' first book Mistress of the Revolution.  For the King sounds even better to me.  It is due to be released in paperback on July 5, so this is perfect timing to read it.  Although it is a novel, there is something of a mystery to the story as it concerns an assassination attempt on Napoléon Bonaparte on Christmas Eve 1800.  The crime is investigated by Chief Inspector Roch Miquel.  You can see the book trailer here.  

And on my Nook (via Project Gutenberg) I have loaded Balzac's The Vendetta.  I've never read any Balzac and am not sure this is the best place to start, but it is a novella and the story is very appealing.  "A foreigner—along with his wife and their young daughter—stands before the Tuileries, waiting for an audience with Napoléon. Only the great leader, he reasons, will understand his wretched plight and the vendetta that has driven him here. When Ginevra Piombo falls in love 15 years later with a young Corsican officer hiding from the authorities in the aftermath of Waterloo, she does not realize that this one moment from her past will force her to make the greatest decision of her life: a choice between two loves, and between life or death." 

To be honest I'm very pleased with my choices and hope I can read all three.  I know July is meant to be a catch up month when it comes to my book stacks (all the more so as two that I meant to have finished by the end of June are going to carry over into July), but I may have to alter my plans somewhat, and that's okay, too.  There's always August (and then RIP for September and October).  But it's the journey, not the destination, right?  And July my journey will take me to Paris--at least for a little while.

Country House Novels Revisited

I had so many great recommendations on my Country House Novels post that I thought I'd share them with you while they are fresh in my mind.  

The American Heiress (My Last Duchess in UK), Daisy Goodwin -- I had to have this one as soon as it came out in paper and it sits on my pile waiting for me.  I think the long Fourth of July weekend that's just around the corner may be the perfect time to read this and perhaps one or two others from the list!

The Buccaneers, Edith Wharton -- This is Wharton's final, unfinished novel about a group of American heiresses in England looking for husbands--wealthy aristocratic husbands, of course.  I read this in  my pre-blogging days.

Cazalet Chronicles: The Light Years, Marking Time, Confusion, and Casting Off, Elizabeth Jane Howard -- Loved these books when I first read them.  I had planned on a reread a few years back but only got as far as the first book.  They are definitely worthy of revisiting again, though.  PBS adapted the first few books into a film in 2001.

The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, Nancy Mitford -- I have the omnibus edition of these novels--two in one.  I've read the first (again pre-blogging days).  "The Pursuit of Love is a classic comedy about growing up and falling in love among the privileged and eccentric".  And "Love in a Cold Climate is a sparkling romantic comedy that vividly evokes the lost glamour of aristocratic life in England between the wars."

Death at Wentwater Court and The Winter Garden, Carola Dunn -- Daisy Dalrymple is one of my favorite cozy-mystery sleuths.  The books are set in post-WWI England as the Honorable Daisy must make her way as a writer.  Always tripping over bodies, she gets entangled with the handsome detective Alec Fletcher.  I'm slowly making my way through these books.

Footsteps in the Dark, Georgette Heyer -- I've yet to read any of Heyer's mysteries but this sounds right up my alley.  "Locals claim it is haunted and refuse to put a single toe past the front door, but to siblings Peter, Celia, and Margaret, the Priory is nothing more than a rundown estate inherited from their late uncle-and the perfect setting for a much-needed holiday. But when a murder victim is discovered in the drafty Priory halls, the once unconcerned trio begins to fear that the ghostly rumors are true and they are not alone after all! With a killer on the loose, will they find themselves the next victims of a supernatural predator, or will they uncover a far more corporeal culprit?"

Justice Hall, Laurie King -- This is the sixth Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes mystery, which I look forward to reading eventually (I think I am only on number three!).  "A lost heir, murder most foul, and the unexpected return of two old friends start Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes--spouses and intellectual equals--on an investigation that takes them from the trenches of World War I France to the heights of English society."

Bellfield Hall, Anna Dean -- "1805. An engagement party is taking place for Mr Richard Montague, son of wealthy landowner Sir Edgar Montague, and his fiancee Catherine. During a dance with his beloved, a strange thing happens: a man appears at Richard's shoulder and appears to communicate something to him without saying a word. Instantly breaking off the engagement, he rushes off to speak to his father, never to be seen again. Distraught with worry, Catherine sends for her spinster aunt, Miss Dido Kent, who has a penchant for solving mysteries."

Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier -- How could I have left off Rebecca?  This is one of  my favorite books and Manderley is almost a character by itself.

Ampersand Papers, Michael Innes -- "While Appleby is strolling along a Cornish beach, he narrowly escapes being struck by a body falling down a cliff. The body is that of Dr Sutch, an archivist, and he has fallen from the North Tower of Treskinnick Castle, home of Lord Ampersand. Two possible motivations present themselves to Appleby - the Ampersand gold, treasure from an Armada galleon; and the Ampersand papers, valuable family documents that have associations with Wordsworth and Shelley."

The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins -- This is a wonderful novel set in Yorkshire in a great country house.  Considered by some to be the first detective story--it's told from the viewpoint of multiple narrators.  Wilkie Collins is one of  my very favorite authors.

Emma, Jane Austen -- I think Jane Austen needs no introduction from me!  But Emma is one of Austen's wealthier heroines and does indeed live in a great country house (as does her Mr. Knightley!).

The Novel in the Viola, Natasha Solomons -- "In the spring of 1938 Elise Landau arrives at Tyneford, the great house on the bay. A bright young thing from Vienna forced to become a parlour-maid, she knows nothing about England, except that she won't like it. As servants polish silver and serve drinks on the lawn, Elise wears her mother's pearls beneath her uniform, and causes outrage by dancing with a boy called Kit. But war is coming and the world is changing. And Elise must change with it. At Tyneford she learns that you can be more than one person. And that you can love more than once."  This is also high on my list of possible reads for the long Fourth of July weekend.

The Chadwick Family Chronicles: Looking Forward, Holding On, Winning Through, and The Prodigal Wife, Marcia Willett -- These four books are set in the Devon countryside following the fortunes of the Chadwick family.

Mansfield Park, Jane Austen -- This and Emma are my two unread Jane Austen novels.  Mansfield Park is the great house where poor Fanny Price comes to live with her wealthier relatives, the Bertrams.

Portrait of a Lady, Henry James -- "When Isabel Archer, a beautiful, spirited American, is brought to Europe by her wealthy Aunt Touchett, it is expected that she will soon marry. But Isabel, resolved to determine her own fate, does not hesitate to turn down two eligible suitors. She then finds herself irresistibly drawn to Gilbert Osmond, who, beneath his veneer of charm and cultivation, is cruelty itself."

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte -- Another book that needs no introduction.  Of course Jane comes to Thornfield Hall to act as governess for Mr. Rochester's ward.

Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte -- I like Lily's description of this as the great un-country house novel!

Angela Thirkell -- She wrote a series of books set in the fictional Barsetshire of Anthony Trollope.  You can see the list here.

Mary Stewart -- Many of her books have exotic settings, but a number of them are also set in England.  I've only read The Ivy Tree, which indeed has a country house setting--very good, suspenseful story by the way.

Whew.  More good books to tempt you!

River of Shadows by Valerio Varesi

It's strange reading a book set in Italy when, save the crime aspect of the novel, something similar is happening where I live.  Our nightly news broadcasts begin with flood reports of how much the Missouri River is rising, spilling over banks and breaching levees.  The situation isn't lessened when we seem to have rainstorms several times a week.  Gavins Point Dam is now releasing so much water that the current rate is enough to fill two Olympic size swimming pools every second.  Imagine.  And it all flows down the Missouri.

In Valerio Varesi's first Commissario Soneri mystery, River of Shadows, days of constant rainfall are threatening to flood the plains of the Po Valley.  The opening chapter is action-filled as what appears to be a runaway barge careens down a swollen Po River.  Is it being navigated by its owner, Anteo Tonna, or did it break free and simply is following its own course?  Worse, did Tonna fall over and lose control of it?  It manages to clear several bridges without mishap and the lights flicker on and off giving the men at the local boathouse cause to believe it is indeed being piloted.  As the barge makes its perilous way down the Po other boatmen call in its progress on this strange journey before running aground some forty kilometers from its original docking place.  No one is found on board. 

It's the death of another Tonna, however, that will concern Commissario Soneri.  Decimo Tonna, Anteo's older brother has apparently committed suicide by throwing himself out of a hospital window.  Well into his 70s Decimo was a strange man.  Something of a loner he liked to spend his days at the hospital chatting with the patients.  Where some men daily visit their favorite bar, Decimo would visit the sick spending all day there, even leaving when the staff left.  There are signs of a scuffle and blood on the broken window, which turns out not to be Decimo's, so Soneri knows this is not a simple suicide but murder.  When he discovers Decimo's brother is also missing and is perhaps dead, he realizes there is likely a connection between the two and not just chance at work.

In a community as small as Torricella old resentments die hard.  In some cases they don't die at all.  During the war there was much rancor between the communists and fascists.  Torricella is still something of a stronghold of communist sentiment, and a clue to the oddities of the Tonna brothers may lie in the fact that they were both fascists and collaborated with Mussolini's Republic of Saló.  Anteo spends almost all his time on the river in his barge leading a solitary life rarely mixing with anyone in the local community.  Decimo fled to Argentina for a number of years after the war before returning home where he spent time in a mental hospital.  And now one brother is dead and the other is missing.

River of Shadows is a thoughtful, atmospheric mystery that moves at a leisurely pace, yet is not without certain rewards thanks to the time Varesi takes to tell his story.  One of which is beautiful writing and descriptive passages that bring the Po Valley and its inhabitants alive.  The Po River is a force to be reckoned with, revealing its secrets or keeping them as it sees fit.  It almost takes on a life of its own. 

Commissario Soneri is an interesting man, whose personality still feels somewhat enigmatic despite the small details I've gleaned from the story.  A policeman for over twenty years he prefers to work alone, though ispettore Juvari, his personal assistant, has a complementary working style.  Soneri couldn't be bothered by modern technology, he leaves it all up to Juvari and laments the way the world is changing.  If he could figure out how to charge the ringtone on his cell phone he'd be happy to be rid of the opening bars of "Aida", which always seems to surprise him--at least when he remembers to charge the battery and it works.  A widower, Soneri doesn't lack female companionship.  His partner, Angela, is a no-nonsense lawyer but with a beguiling manner.  She has a penchant for amorous encounters made risky by their unorthodox locales.  I think there is more to each character than meets the eye.

Not a lot happens in the story really.  Soneri spends much time questioning the closed-lipped locals and piecing together the events of the day of the murder and the disappearance of the bargeman.  Both seem to have met with bad ends within hours of each other.  There's a question of what exactly Anteo was carrying in his barge and a mysterious note that was found in his cabin.  Soneri returns time and again to Torricella asking endless questions (and eating endless meals in the local osterias--spalla cotta and Fortanina wine!), until slowly connections are made.  This is a crime that reaches back into the distant past and a place where events are not forgotten though secrets are submerged and murky much like the little village which was sunk beneath the waters of the Po so many years ago.

River of Shadows has been shortlisted for the CWA International Dagger.  Commissario Soneri is quite popular in his native Italy where the books have been dramatized for TV.  I wasn't quite sure what I thought while reading this as so much of it felt at a distance, but it's grown on me the more I think about it as I write  my post.  I'll definitely be looking for his second Commissario Soneri novel, The Dark Valley, which is not out until next winter.  Excellent translation by Joseph Farrell by the way.

There are a number of excellent reviews of the book online.  Check out Maxine's at Euro Crime,  Nancy's at The Crime Segments, and Glenn's at International Noir Fiction.

Next on my tour of (criminal) Italy I've moved on to Umbria--Assisi to be exact in Grace Brophy's The Last Enemy featuring Commissario Cenni.

Reading Primo Levi . . .

I'm great for making reading plans and awful for carrying them out, but I have been reading the books Caroline chose for her year long Literature and War Readalong.  This month is Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz.  Much like last month's The Sea and Poison by Shusaku Endo, reading Levi has been difficult and uncomfortable.  It's not the style he uses, which is straightforward and somewhat unemotional.  He writes about his experiences matter of factly.  It's just the fact that these things occurred, which are so shocking.  I've read quite a few books about World War II and about survivors of the war, but as I get older it almost seems more difficult to do so, and I'm not sure why.  Maybe it's just disappointing to think we don't learn from our experiences and atrocities keep happening, simply in a different guise than before.  The folly of man will never cease to amaze me.

So I read Primo Levi's words with a heavy heart.  I can only manage a few pages at a time, so I have once again missed Caroline's discussion.  I think it's important to read books like this, to know the facts, though I think I will not ever really understand the 'why'.  I plan on writing about this properly next weekend (if I set a date then I will finish in a timely manner, right?), but until then I wanted to share a short excerpt from the book.

"Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often easily loses himself.  He will be a man whose life or death can be lightly decided with no sense of human affinity, in the most fortunate of cases, on the basis of a pure judgement of utility,  It is in this way that one can understand the double sense of the term 'extermination camp' and it is now clear what we seek to express with the phrase: 'to lie on the bottom'."   

Reading books like these certainly put  normal everyday life in perspective.  All the small problems and annoyances seem so small and unimportant.  It's just a matter of keeping this in mind, though, which isn't always so easy to do.

Lost in the Stacks: Elizabeth Appleton

The only novel by John O'Hara I've read is BUtterfield 8.  This was in my pre-blogging days, or at least in the days when I didn't write much about the books I was reading, which is a shame as I'd love to know now exactly what I was thinking when I read it.  Inspired by the death of a beautiful woman whose body washed up on a Long Island beach, O'Hara created Gloria Wandrous who lives as much on her beauty as on her intellect.  Essentially used and abused her entire life she comes to no good end.  I only recall the briefest of details, and am left instead with an impression of a dark story of a sordid and unhappy life without even a glimmer of hope set in Depression era America.  He's best known for BUtterfield 8 and Appointment in Samarra, but I decided to bring home Elizabeth Appleton instead.

O'Hara was a prolific writer of what seems to be questionable merit (depending on who you're talking to  of course).  Apparently he was something of a social climber, had a knack for self-promotion and wrote politically charged (conservative) magazine columns--none of which endeared him to the critics.  It all seems to have overshadowed his work.  A different view was presented when I was reading about him in Contemporary Literary Criticism.

"There are more elegant stylists, more profound thinkers, more sensitive spirits.  There is no working writer who matches O'Hara's importance as a social historian.  When the next century wants to know how Americans lived between 1920 and 1940, it will find what it wants to know in O'Hara.  It will find the names of things--the right names--but it will also find accurate analyses of the social structure and characters who are both real and representative.  The stories and people may not always fall within the individual reader's experience, but it is difficult to doubt that O'Hara's wide knowledge and deep commitment to the truth would permit him to falsify his material."  (Tough Guy Writers of the Thirties, David Madden).

I have a feeling John O'Hara is one of those authors who is slowly fading into obscurity, with the exception of his two more famous books.  Elizabeth Appleton was a later novel, published in 1963.  Although not as popular it was well received, and the New York Times called it "for the most part a competent, an interesting, an interesting and even an illuminating narrative."  A college setting, conventional and rather stuffy, is where the snobbish Elizabeth Appleton finds herself as the wife of one of the history professors.  Elizabeth schemes to make her husband college president though doesn't help his situation by her own extracurricular activities.  O'Hara tended to push the boundaries with his novels and this one seems no exception. 

I'm very curious about Elizabeth Appleton, but whether it is this one or one of his others, I plan on exploring more of his work.  If for no other reason than to see how people lived in the period he was writing, I think he deserves far more attention than he gets. 

The Country House Novel: A Thursday Thirteen

I'm sorry, I couldn't let the moment pass.  Inspired by the country house novel article I recently mentioned, I had to add a few more books to those discussed.  Lots of big names and famous books have already been mentioned: Atonement by Ian McEwan, Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley, P.G. Wodehouse's books, The Mysteries of Udolpho by Anne Radcliffe and Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (I've read all of the above save the Waugh and any novels by Wodehouse and I'll get to them eventually).   I was thinking of a few more that would fit nicely in the list.  What about these:

1.  The House at Riverton, Kate Morton - This is an upstairs/downstairs sort of story told from the perspective of one of the maids looking back at a family tragedy.

2.  The Crime at the Black Dudley, Margery Allingham - The first Albert Campion mystery that takes place at a house party on a country estate.   At one point the guests are locked in an upstairs room with the threat of the house being set on fire.  Great stuff.

3.  Loving, Living and Party Going, Henry Green - Three novels in one book, Loving is mostly about the downstairs servants in a Great House in Ireland.

4.  The Franchise Affair, Josephine Tey - The Franchise is a crumbling country house where a dastardly crime is said to have occurred.  A classic mystery!

5.  Howards End, E.M. Forster - Howards End is the name of a country house that Mrs. Wilcox wills to Margaret Schlegel on something of a whim to her family's consternation.  The Wilcox family is monied class and the Schlegel sisters are intellectuals.  Wonderful book about class and sex.  It's one of my favorite books.

6.  The Fox's Walk, Annabel Davis-Goff - Alice Moore is left behind on her grandmother's estate when her parents return to London.  The story is set against the backdrop of WWI and the Irish Rebellion and Alice must choose between divided loyalties.

7.  The Edwardians, Vita Sackville-West - "A portrait of fashionable society at the height of an era, The Edwardians reveals, through the lives of its characters, all that was glamorous about the period—and all that was to lead to its downfall. Sebastian and Viola are children of the English aristocracy. Handsome and moody, 19-year-old Sebastian is heir to Chevron, a vast country estate. Tying him to his inheritance is a deep sense of tradition and love of the English countryside, but he loathes the cold, extravagant society of which he is a part."

8.  The Minotaur, Barbara Vine - Lydstep Old Hall is the setting for this suspenseful story.  There's something not quite right with the Cosway family.  I don't think I've read a 'bad' Vine/Rendell novel, and this was one of her more gripping stories.

9.  Skeleton in the Grass, Robert Bernard - "Shortly after Sarah Causeley goes to work for the genteel but outspokenly pacifist Hallams as governess, the Spanish Civil War erupts. The war focuses local antipathies, ugly pranks, and murder on the Hallam's Elizabethan home."

10. The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot solves his first mystery at Styles Court, where the mistress of the manor has been murdered.

11. Fool's Fortune, William Trevor - "In this award-winning novel, an informer’s body is found on the estate of a wealthy Irish family shortly after the First World War, and an appalling cycle of revenge is set in motion."

12. Mad Puppetstown, Molly Keane - Mad Puppetstown is my current Molly Keane book, and the name of a grand estate in Ireland where cousins Easter, Evelyn and Basil pass an idyllic childhood.  The Troubles send them fleeing to England, though their happiness there is not forgotten.

13. The Last September, Elizabeth Bowen - Another Anglo-Irish author and story of a fading way of life where the landed gentry knows their days are numbered.  This is a coming of age story--brilliant.

And one extra thrown in for good measure, The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  The ships that brought the wealthy Americans to Britain were referred to as 'Shuttles'.  The elder Vanderpoel sister marries for a title, her money going towards a crumbling estate to help run it, but its a poor match, as Sir Nigel turns out to be a scoundrel of the worst sort.  It's up to the younger Vanderpoel sister to try and set things right.

What have I missed?  I expect there are loads more books with a country house setting--mysteries seem to be particularly popular in the countryside!  I know I am always looking for books with this setting, so do please share your recommendations.

A Few Needlework Updates

Bookwise I'm not feeling particularly creative this week, so in these moments it's nice to post a few colorful stitching photos instead.  I've not had much time for my needlework lately (I seem to say things like that a lot unfortunately), but I have made some progress on a few projects.  I want to stitch only I seem to run out of time by the end of the evening and even on weekends I'm either too tired or too hot to pick up a needle.  Even a little stitching seems to add up, however.  All of a sudden stitching snow, which I will be doing in this design very shortly is sort of appealing.  This is my Prairie Schooler "February Sampler" nearing the end.  I have more motifs to stitch next to the horse and then it is solid white stitches (white being my most unfavorite color to work with).  The bottom row will have cherries and hearts.  And then I think I'll be ready to move on to something else, and I did splurge on a new chart, so I will share it when it arrives.

I pulled this out of my "unfinished projects" bin since it seemed very timely.  I had two letters stitched and then it has been sitting waiting for some attention, which it finally got last weekend.  I have since added a few more flowers and will hopefully do the finishing this coming weekend--just a few days after the official start of summer.  I even have the little frame for it ready to go.  The designer is Just Nan, whose designs are gorgeous and use the most sumptuous of materials (silk floss!), but anymore they are out of my price range.  Her designs also take time as there are so many colors called for--lots of switching out after only a few stitches, but the result is always worth it.  This is called "Summer Spell".

At the same time I pulled out the Just Nan project I also spotted this design by Ewe & Eye & Friends called "Liberty House".  I am stitching it on a very high count linen--40 threads per inch, so it can be hard to see the weave and I think it was for that reason I set it aside.  Have I mentioned that my eyesight is not as good as it used to be?  So far I can still read fine, but the smaller the print the less I can make out the individual words.  I've never worn glasses, so it's a real drag, but common I guess the older you get (we won't think about that, though).  I'm not sure if I'll manage to work on this one before the Fourth of July, but I might get in a few stitches.

I'm not really a fan of stitching over one linen thread, which is what this design calls for, but I do love the effect if I can stick it out.  The thing is--the strand of floss tends to slide around and under the linen weave and it can be frustrating.  But if you guessed this was a cat (or the beginnings of one), then I am doing something right so far!  The design is actually a Christmas design--there'll be a tree and and other things, but I don't think I'll finish it as an ornament.  We'll see when I get that far.

This is what I do when I'm not reading, though as you can see from the infrequency of these posts I seem to be mostly reading of late.  What do you do when you're not reading?  And by sharing my needlework today (an easy post) I get to go and do a little extra reading tonight!  Back to the books tomorrow though.

Marked as To-Investigate

I haven't been sharing my library finds lately as I have been feeling guilty about them.  It's a constant shift back and forth: library-home-back to library again.  I just can't read them as fast as I borrow them, so I hate to talk about them generically and then not follow through later with a proper post.  However, I've noticed a variety of tags on Goodreads and one of them is "marked as to-investigate" (which I am snagging from Teresa at Shelf Love!).  I like the sound of that.  A book you might check out at the bookstore on your next visit or look at when you go to the library as a possible read.  Whether or not you actually read them is another story.  So I have chosen a selection of recent library books that I am going to "investigate".  I may read them now, I may get in line for them again to read later or just make a note of titles or maybe even send a few back unread knowing they're just not the book for me.  So it seems fair to share my reading possibilities with you, right?  

The top two books are from the library where I work and the rest are from the public library.  Two of them have long lines, so I need to decide quick whether I'm going to attempt to read them or not.  

Cavalleria Rusticana and Other Stories by Giovanni Verga has been on my wishlist for years.  I ran across a reference to his stories recently and decided to look him up in the library catalog--why didn't I do this to begin with?  "Love, adultery and honor are the recurring themes in stories set against the scorched landscapes of the slopes of Mount Etna and the Plain of Catania".

Since I've been reading crime novels and mysteries set in Italy, I guess the setting has spilled over into my other reading.  When I went looking for the short stories by Verga I came across Teresa by Neera.  I had never heard of the author or book before but the spine peeking out from the shelf caught my eye.  The setting of Teresa is the Po Valley near Cremona, which is the exact setting of Valerio Varesi's River of Shadows.  "Through Teresa and other women characters, Neera addressed the social injustice of such societal restrictions in nineteenth-century Italy.  Neera's narratives are noted for their subtle psychoanalytical presentation of feminine states of mind as well as for their unflinching examination of the contemporary social system."

Deceptions by Rebecca Frayn is the story of a child who goes missing and after weeks of a police investigation appears to have vanished in thin air.  Years later a phone call reveals the child's fate, but the mystery of his disappearance has only just begun.

Ryan David Jahn's Good Neighbors won the CWA John Creasey Dagger Award.  It was the comparison to Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window that made me request it, however.  A woman is murdered outside an apartment complex and no one comes to her rescue.  Frayn explores why.

City of Ash by Megan Chance -- "When the great Seattle fire of 1889 leaves them with nothing to lose, two very different women discover a mutual passion for revenge."  This sounds like a fun sort of romp, and I like the idea of reading about historical Seattle.

Another Italian setting by a British author--The Mermaid Garden by Santa Montefiore. "Spanning four decades and sweeping from the Italian countryside to the English coast, this new story by Santa Montefiore is a moving and mysterious tale of love, forgiveness, and the past revealed."   This sounds like very pleasant escapist reading--I'd love to try and squeeze it in.

As I am reading Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz at the moment, and it is as bleak as you would expect, the thought of reading a novel with a WWII setting about Polish refugees didn't appeal to me as much as it did when I got in line for Amanda Hodgkinson's 22 Britannia Road a while back.  Somehow fiction pales when you're reading about the real sufferings of someone who endured what Levi did.  But Fleur Fisher's review makes me think I should at least give it a try.

And last but not least is Jane Bradley's You Believers, which is another story of a missing woman.  I believe the story is told from the different perspectives of each person involved in the crime from the victim to the culprit and everyone in between.  It's been called a gripping and intense read.

Across the Common by Elizabeth Berridge

I am adding Elizabeth Berridge to my list of "authors whose work I want to read all of".  I see why Persephone Books has reissued a book of her short stories and why Faber Finds, well, found her again.  After reading just one novel, Across the Common, I'm happy that I can continue to explore her work as a number of her books are in print and readily available.  When I was browsing the Faber Finds backlist my curiosity was piqued when I saw that a few of her books, although listed as fiction, were also tagged crime and suspense.  Across the Common was further described as 'paranoia', 'secrets', and 'suburbia'.  That pretty well ticked my interests in a novel of suspense, so one short ILL request and a little patience for the book to arrive and the right book found its way into the hands of the right reader. 

While this is not really what you would consider a conventional crime or suspense novel, it has the right elements all wrapped up in wonderful language and a careful eye for detail.  She knows how to tell a story well, and it's not surprising that she won England's Yorkshire Post Award for Best Novel for Across the Common in 1964.  There is an interesting article by Berridge on the Faber Finds website about her inspiration for the story.  She describes the commons of her childhood, those leafy suburbs with wide open green spaces that have since been encroached upon, as the "lungs of London".

"The common haunted me as a child.  I would cycle across it to school, skirting the big houses with their long gardens behind tall, brick walls, scanning the gorse bushes on the right for Men Who Lurked.  I had one such fright, the flapping raincoat had hidden any impropriety.  All I remembered was the man's thin, abstracted face, his eyes sliding away from mine.  Sad."

"But the common made its way into my dreams.  I would wake up with one of those silent screams, struggling to free my ankle from the senile clasp of an old gnarled hand that reached out from a seat as I ran past to reach the safety of a back gate.  What horror lay just within those tall barred gates?"

It's the secrets behind that gate Berridge explores in her novel.  Every family has secrets and the Braithwaite family prefers to keep theirs closely guarded and tucked away.  Louise Yeovil doesn't realize just what bad memories her aunts have tried to forget.  More than ten years married, she leaves her husband one day and returns home to her aunts, who await her at the door as if they had expected her all along.  The Hollies is suffused with their nervous energies.  Louise's own parents died when she was very young, so she was raised by her aunts, being especially close to Seraphina.  Fina and Rosa, along with Gibby their dedicated housemaid, live frugally in that vast, echoing house, where females always seem to hold dominion.  Only three dried up old women are left in what was once a seemingly thriving household.

Old memories are dredged up by way of a letter from Louise's father, which is passed along to her so many years after his death thanks to some old shares finally becoming profitable.  His letter reveals a side to the aunts she had not sensed or didn't understand growing up.

"You are too young to know the atmosphere of this house.  It is like living in a minefield; confined energy in tins buried and waiting for the unwary foot.  Emotions, activities, all narrowed to a small compass, like a hospital ward or a prison camp.  Nothing from the outside seeps in except, of course newspapers, but they disregard these.  The fierce light of self-regard (without the objective sanity of self-analysis) beats down on them all.  I wish I had time to tell you--."

Her father lets slip the fact her grandfather had committed suicide, an act that was hushed up and explained away as an accident, and only one of several incidents that went undiscussed by Louise's aunts who would never have revealed any of it to her.  The Hollies is like a pressure cooker of secrets, unspoken hopes and unfulfilled dreams as well as past transgressions never forgiven or forgotten.  It's only through a series of throwaway comments and Louise's insistence for answers that she finally discovers the disgrace wrought upon the family one night that began with a party celebrating the flowering of a rare Chinese lily that ended in tragedy occurring just outside the garden gate.

Berridge is superlative when it comes to creating interesting characters.  Each woman is eccentric in her own way.  Rosa, the strong sister, who married and went away but returned a widow.  Seraphina has always been passionately interested in her niece.  There's always one daughter who must give up her dreams and maybe even love to remain with the family.  Instead of marrying she is left to tend to her plants, following in her father's footsteps, looking for the most unusual blooms.  Aunt Cissy returns home to be taken care of by her sisters, but she returns home a success of sorts and throws the house into an upheaval. 

It's perhaps the idea of home which causes Louise so much trouble.  She leaves her (she believes) unfaithful husband to return home to her aunts, when she had already been home all along.  She realizes she has been and perhaps will always be a little girl to her aunts, so this understanding of the secrets that are hidden behind the doors of the Hollies is her way of finding her own independence from these women who raised her.  Her husband tells her the aunts represent security to her and believes she returned in order to grow up.  Maybe it isn't the aunts and their secrets she wants to expose but herself.

Elizabeth Berridge is a marvelous writer--there is so much there under the surface to think about.  She seems a real master of domestic fiction (well, maybe better to just say a master of storytelling), delving into he interior lives of her characters.  Harriet Harvey Wood, in Berridge's obituary, says it best:

"Although she was, on the surface, a conventional master of conservative suburban fiction, her work concealed a deep subversiveness. The reader continually finds his expectations railroaded on to a completely different track. She was, par excellence, the celebrator of family life. There is, as she said herself, no substitute for the family: 'It is society's first teething ring, man's proving ground. When repudiated, it still leaves its strengthening mark. When it does the rejecting, the outcast is damaged. Within its confines, devils and angels rage together, emotions creep underfoot like wet rot, or flourish like Russian ivy. It is the world in microcosm, the nursery of tyrants, the no man's land of suffering, a place and a time, a rehearsal for silent parlour murder'."

Doesn't that quote make you curious about her?  I've put in a request that my library order some of her other novels, but in the meantime I'm waiting for Touch and Go, the story of a divorcee--"a beautifully written evocation of a woman’s effort to rebuild her life".