A Work in Progress

Favorite Reads of 2014 & Misc.

It just goes to show you that quantity is not always reflective of quality.  I may have read fewer books this year than previous years, but I didn't have a problem coming up with a promising-looking pool of 'favorites' candidates.  As a matter of fact I had to leave a few off that I think were memorable and exceptional reads, but my list would otherwise have become a little too unwieldy had I shared all of them.  I'm linking back to my original posts so you can read more about the books if you see something that catches your eye.

My standout reads for 2014:

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki -- Sorry I didn't get around to writing about this one properly!  "It's an amazing read--multi-layered, well written, thoughtful, and filled with thought.  It's a story within stories, told from varying perspectives in parallel times.  And she pulls it all off perfectly and beautifully."

The Dead by James Joyce -- "I thought this was a pretty amazing story and the more I think about it, the more I like it.  How impressive that in so few pages an author can pack such a wallop and I know that another reading of it would help in peeling back the many layers of it."

* * * * *

My favorite reads of 2014 (in the order I read them):

In the Dark by Deborah Moggach -- "Every so often you come across a book where when you turn that last page it isn't just with a contented sigh of of satisfaction.  There's that, too, but you think--wow, now that's really brilliant."

Black Lake by Johanna Lane -- "Johanna Lane’s debut novel, Black Lake, is the sort of story that creeps up on you. You don’t realize just how good it is until halfway through the book when you begin seeing all the layers of meaning, so immersed have you been in the telling of the story. If I could press a copy of this slender novel, so understated yet so elegantly constructed, into your hands right now, I would."

During the Reign of the Queen of Persia by Joan Chase -- "Quite often the best reading experiences I have, or at least the most memorable ones, are stories that are in some way challenging or difficult.  This doesn’t necessarily mean difficult in terms of style, as easy reads can be deceptively so, cloaking a story of great complexity or depth in straightforward and unembellished prose."

Eline Vere: A Novel of the Hague by Louis Couperus -- "Here is a heroine who feels so very alive to me--flesh and blood.  She is someone I can sympathize with even at those moments when she is at her weakest.  She's not perfect, quite flawed in many ways.  A reader might often shake her head at Eline's behavior, but she is someone who grows into something more, has deeper feelings and understanding about herself by novel's end."

Founding Gardeners: The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation by Andrea Wulf -- "This is a big breath of a book with so very much to take in and admire.  Wulf organizes it so well that it all just flows from one topic to another, one man to another, one story to another."

Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley -- " . . . is just as charming and delightful as I was expecting it to be.  Definitely one of those why did I wait so long to read books!  I absolutely adore Helen McGill and she elicited more than one chuckle and the odd guffaw out of me.  If I had a brother like her, though, I think I would have 'run away' a little sooner."

My Michael by Amos Oz -- I've not yet written about this one yet, but it is most definitely one of those 'wow' sorts of books.  Everything I read in my Israeli War Literature class was really exceptional (if there is one bright spot in my otherwise not-so-good reading year it is most certainly the class I took, the books we read, and the discussions we had!).  Oz is probably the best (and best known) modern Israeli writer and if you try him you'll understand why.  This story is a little heavy and a little dark but truly amazing, too.  

Every Eye by Isobel English -- "Every Eye is such a beautifully crafted story and written with real elegance.  Tone, description and style all play off each other nicely making this one of my great finds of the year."

The Lover by A.B. Yehoshua -- " . . . in the space of some 350 pages and through the voices of six (often disparate) characters you get a view into this world.  Each voice mostly moves the story forward, though, sometimes the narrations overlap or tell the same scene from varying perspectives shedding light on how people think and feel, what they believe (for good or bad), how they see each other and themselves.  It felt to very authentic.  And this is what floored me."

My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young -- "This is such a surprising novel.  I had heard it was good, but it was good in ways I didn't expect.  So much going on under the surface."

* * * * *

And a few honorable mentions:

Two exceptional books showing me a part of the world I would never have known otherwise: Almost Dead by Assaf Gavron and Beaufort by Ron Leshem.  The former has a nicely balanced quirkiness and humor that plays off perfectly with what is a much more sobering subject matter and the latter reminded me of one of my favorite reads, Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried.

Best book with a most interesting story behind the story: Ruth & Gisela by Elizabeth Wix.  Here's the story behind the story!

Best audio book to lose yourself in: The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood.

Best Christmas scenes: Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Best comfort read: Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart (I definitely need more of these next year--that is comfort reads and books by Mary Stewart).

Best historical fiction that I've read in a long time (with the added bonus of being a seafaring tale) : The Ghost of the Mary Celeste by Valerie Martin.  (I need more historical fiction next year, too).

Onwards to 2015 and more good reading.

Books by the Numbers: 2014 Edition

I think I am going to be happy to put 2014 behind me when it comes to reading.  I shouldn't be critical of my reading, especially as I have read lots of good books, but I still feel as though this has been a disappointing reading year.  I read far fewer books this year than almost any other since I began blogging back in 2005.  Eleven fewer than last year.  Last year I said my reading was 'off', so I am not sure what that says about this year's.  I am not sure what I was doing during that time I wasn't reading those eleven books, but how can you quantify it anyway?  It's better not to worry about it and just look forward to a new year with new books and new reading possibilities, right?  Here's a little break down of this year's reading:

• Books read: 74 (so greedy am I to want more . . . imagine those people who only read one or two books, or unfathomably . . . none)
• Audio books: 2
• 18th century: 0
• 19th century: 7
• 20th century: 29
• 21st century:  38
• eBooks: One!  I'm really not all that fond of ebooks, can you tell?
• Fiction (not mysteries, short stories or fairy tales and I'm counting classics separately, too):
• Nonfiction: 4
• Diaries: 0 (I want to get back to diary reading next year)
• Nature: 2 (both on gardening!)
• Classics: 7
• Fairy Tales/Mythology: 1
• Mysteries/Crime/Suspense:17 (one area I actually increased my reading)
• Science fiction: 0 (next year there will have to be at least one)
• Espionage: 0 (how sad, not a single spy story unless you count the audio book Her Royal Spyness I listened to--must rectify that next year)
• YA novels: 6 (mostly Little House books)
• Books written by women: 46
• Books written by men: 28 (poor showing this year gentlemen)
• Books written by more than one author: 0
• Books written under a pen name: 1 (J.K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith)
• American authors: 23 (the Americans are gaining on the British)
• British authors: 29
• Canadian authors: 4
• Australian/Irish authors: 3 (Irish)
• Subscription Books: 8 (Melville House and NYRB Classics)
• Books in translation: 15 (original languages include: 1 Russian, 2 French, 4 Dutch, 2 Spanish, 1 Greek, 5 Hebrew, 1 German)
• Short story collections: 3
• Novellas: 8
• Graphic Novels: 2
• Plays: 0
• Virago Modern Classics: 3 (oops)
• Persephone Books: 1 (oops)
• Books read that were checked out from the library: 10
• Books read from my own shelves: 56
• Rereads: 3 (so few, and all three are the Little House books which I read as a child--and even then I never did read Farmer Boy)
• Book club books (Literature and War Readalong): 6 (such a sad number, but it seems I am becoming more and more a lone reader?)
• Multiple books by the same author: 4 by Laura Ingalls Wilder, 2 by Antonia White, 2 by Simone St. James and 2 by Art Spiegelman
• Books by Nebraska authors: 1 Bess Streeter Aldrich
• Approximate number of pages read: approximately 21,100 (strangely close to what I read last year even though I read more books last year--can that be right?)

So, there you have it.  The year in review.  I continue to follow a pattern it seems--here are previous years.  I'm ready for another fresh start!  Tomorrow I'll share my favorites.

Books Read in 2014: The Catch-Up Post

One of the things I really wanted to do this year (which I did sort of do pretty well actually) is write about all the books I finished reading in some manner or another.  I never feel like I've quite finished with a book until I have written about it.  There were a number of really good reads, as a matter of fact, I wanted to write about this year but didn't get around to.  Now so much time has passed that I think I won't be able to manage a proper post (though I have a few books still set aside that I am going to try and tackle in the coming week), but maybe just to feel like I am starting with a mostly clean slate let me tell you about a few reads that are worth mentioning. 

First up are two NYRB Classics that I received from my year long subscription.  The first goes all the way back to the last days of 2013!  Alfred Hayes's My Face for the World to See was the freebie book I got for renewing my subscription.  Thinking I was going to kick things off the right way, I read it before the old year was even out.  (Too bad I wasn't as ambitious with the rest of the books I received on subscription--but no worries--thankfully books in my own personal collection have neither expiration dates nor due dates!).  This is a Hollywood novel of the 1950s written from an insider's view.  It's the story of an affair between two unnamed (perhaps morally bankrupt) characters.  Slight in length but not in quality.  Maybe I should reread this one and write about it as it deserves.

On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry by William H. Gass is another slight book, but one filled with lots of depth and meaning.  I think Gass is a formidable writer.  It was with lots of interest and happy anticipation that I approached a book on the color blue, but this was so much more than about a color.  It's all the variations and permutations on the word and what it stands for.  And so eloquently told.

"In a way I've used the words, yet I've quite ignored their content, and in that sense I've not employed them at all, they've only appeared.  I haven't even exercised the form."

But don't worry, exercise he does.  This is a book I did really want to write about but it was a little too challenging for me--I couldn't quite wrap my head around it all and in the end it defeated me.  I have another chance to read him, however, since my subscription included a book of his short stories as well.  I hold that book in reserve.  (Mostly because it scares me in the way James Joyce scares me, if you know what I mean).

Although I am impatiently awaiting my first NYRB of 2015 (I renewed my subscription and am now waiting for my next freebie book as well as January's selection which won't be here for another week or so, I think), I decided to cancel my Art of the Novella subscription.  It pained me to do so, as I love those cool Melville House novellas, but I am supposed to be on a budget and I have fallen far behind in reading all my novellas.  I wrote about most of them (in the case of a couple, it was only teasers but close enough). 

I think Henry James falls into that William H. Gass category of being formidable.  I read The Lesson of the Master this year, which is a story of a young writer being befriended by a famous writer he has for long held in high esteem.  I don't think I'll be giving anything away by saying the two will fall for the same woman and the twist at the end is quite illuminating.  There is indeed a "lesson" here, but I wonder if it is the one the "Master" really meant to teach.

Antonia White's The Lost Traveller is the second in a quartet of books about Nanda Grey.  I wrote about Frost in May here, and I plan on reading the next two books in 2015.  It's obvious that White drew on her own life experiences to write the books, but after a seventeen year gap between the first and second she decided to fictionalize and invent more and so Nanda became Clara Batchelor.  The story continues Clara's coming of age--her deep friendships much frowned upon in the convent, her difficulties with her parents--especially her father on whom rests so much of her feeling of identity and desire for love and approval.  Perhaps so much so that she leaves school and home to work as a nanny and thinks she falls in love.  What better way to please your parents, well, mostly your father, than make a proper Catholic marriage?  This is the sort of searching Clara does--

"How do people become real?  Does one just change as they get older?  Or did something definite happen to you?"  (She's asking her mother).

I thought I knew the trajectory Clara was bound for, but when I picked up the next book, The Sugar House, I think things are going to move in a different direction after all.  Hopefully I'll find out sooner than later.

I had this idea of reading all of Molly Keane's (M.J. Farrell's) books in the order she wrote them.  I don't seem to be making the best of progress, however.  For so long Mad Puppetstown sat on my night stand that I think I must have started reading it at least three separate times.  The third time was the charm, but it's a pity I didn't write about it right away.  This novel, while not her best, is very much Molly Keane territory in that it is about a great house, and the Anglo-Irish family living there.  In this case, Easter Chevington and her two cousins Basil and Evelyn.  It's a house much loved but this is the period of the Great War and the Easter Uprising and life is tumultuous in Ireland, and so the three cousins flee to England leaving behind an old aunt who's not about to be put out of her beloved home under any circumstances.  Things do come full circle, not without some drama and upheaval.  Next up is Conversation Piece, which I hope to get to sooner than I did with poor Mad Puppetstown.

I can tell you right now that Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being is going to be on my favorites (forthcoming) list.  It was longlisted for last year's Man Booker Prize.  I can see why.  It's an amazing read--multi-layered, well written, thoughtful, and filled with thought.  It's a story within stories, told from varying perspectives in parallel times.  And she pulls it all off perfectly and beautifully.  I'm still undecided whether Ozeki means by the title--a tale for the time being, or a tale for the Time Being--as in a measure of time or someone who has almost magical mystical qualities.  That play on words is just one example of how intricately this novel is structured.  It's the story of a diary written by a Japanese schoolgirl who is being bullied and she sends her diary out into the world--it's found by a woman, a writer living on the Pacific coast of Canada.  Just thinking about it makes me all tingly for what Ozeki did in this book--did I already say it is So Interesting?  There is just so much to it, that even thinking about it months later leaves me with such a feeling of satisfaction and satiation.  When I think of how I really need to read more Good Books, this is exactly what I have in mind. 

So, this is it.  Save for a very few books that I'll talk about soon, this has been my reading year, to be expanded upon in the next couple of days as I make everything all tidy for 2015!

Short Story Sunday: The Ghost's Touch

No Christmas is complete without a ghost story, right?  Conveniently there is a section in The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries titled "An Uncanny Little Christmas" so I had my pick of stories.  Have you ever heard of Fergus Hume?  No, me neither.  Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins are known for their "sensational" stories and stories of mystery and hauntings, but at the time they were writing, their work was not categorized in that manner.  Hume, however, had that honor.  His novel, The Mystery of the Hansom Cab (1886) was hugely successful when it was (self) published.  He went on to write more than one hundred and thirty novels--all now forgotten.  "The Ghost's Touch" was published in 1906 and gives just the right amount of Victorian ghost story flavor to be entertaining, with a little twist at the end, and I can even overlook the characters' somewhat insulting attitudes towards the female sex (especially considering how things play out at story's end).

In proper Victorian manner this is a story narrated by a young doctor in first person about his experiences staying in a haunted house.  He doesn't believe in ghosts, but only because he's never seen one and isn't too hasty to dismiss the possibility that they might just exist.  He's telling us this story--I guess it is a story within a story in a sense about what he saw on Christmas Eve.  It's holidaytime and he has met up with an old friend in London by chance.  This friend is Australian--sleek and slight, fair as a Dresden China image and rather sickly.  But he's wealthy.  He's visiting a relative in England.  Percy has the money and his cousin Frank has the estate and title and the two decide each will be the beneficiary of the other and so both men write wills giving everything to the other so if one dies at least the survivor can have the complete package (money, estate and title).  This should have been the give-away.

So Frank tells the story of the ghost that haunts the family home.  In the time of Queen Anne, an ancestor was thought to have been having an affair--you know how women are (ahem).  Ah, the treachery of women!  A man was caught climbing from her bedroom window.  The husband caught him, challenged him to a duel, killed him and left him bloody and dead.  The wife vehemently denies it all--any misbehavior--the man leaving the window was her brother.  He was plotting to help James II return to his throne and was not meant to be in England so had to sneak away from the house.  Impossible.  To teach the wife a lesson the husband severs her right hand, because the stranger had kissed her hand before scarpering out of the window.  A week later the wife follows the purported brother to the grave and is said now to haunt the room--anyone "doomed to an early death" will die by the hands of the ghost (ghastly red marks to the throat!) if they sleep in that bedroom.

I won't give away the twist but will only say tragedy will befall someone by the end of the story--do you think you know who?  Treachery is indeed involved but perhaps not from who you might expect.  Since he's telling the story, you know the doctor witnesses all.  I will only say that his curiosity over ghosts will be well and truly sated and he decides to give up an future ghost story activities in the future!

Another entertaining story from this collection, but I do think last week's story is my favorite by far of the group I read!  It's time to tuck this book back away on its shelf until next December and think about what form my short story reading is going to take in 2015.  I thought I had a plan, but now I am not so sure . . . Choosing is always a fun dilemma to have, don't you agree?

* * *

I really liked the (Dec. 8 issue) New Yorker story I read this weekend, "Reverend" by Tim Parks.  I have a confession to make--I had put off reading this one for the same reason I have put off reading Marilynne Robinsons's Gilead.  Not even knowing exactly the content of either story, I have this perception that the theme is religious and religious themes don't hold much appeal to me (though that's changing somewhat--am more interested in spirituality than overt religion--if that makes any sense at all--but all best discussed in some other post some other day).  So I dragged my feet and finally sat down with the story and began reading and discovered that the story actually held quite a lot of appeal. 

"Reverend" a multi-layered story about a man coming to terms with his father's life (an Anglican clergyman) as much as his own.  Upon the death of his mother he begins reflecting back on his father's life and how it impacted his own life growing up.  Parks's is an excellent writer and I have a number of his books about Italy (he lives in Verona), but I have never read any of his fiction before.  You can read the Q&A with the author here.  Just a couple more stories to catch up with and then I'll be ready for a new year of New Yorker stories--ah, the anticipation of a new year of stories!

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

I wonder if I had not known that Robert Galbraith was in reality J.K. Rowling, if I would have caught on that The Cuckoo's Calling was by her?  I suspect not.  I'm not always the most observant when it comes to writing style, since I tend to get caught up first and foremost in the story.  If a writer can engage my interest in the plot and the storytelling, so much else will simply fall away.  Of course really good writing and styling, and the development of characters will catch my attention, too.  How do you critique someone so famous?  I know other readers can do it, and likely she attracts strong opinions.  Her reputation precedes her and somehow I think it would be hard for her to get a fair shake, so I won't even try.  For me, and this is the case almost all the time in my reading, my guide is how much I enjoy a story, how much it takes me away from life's daily irritations. 

The Cuckoo's Calling was for me an enjoyable read, one I wanted to come back to again and again.  For a mystery it is a fairly long book, over 500 pages, which I think can become a little unwieldy at times if a writer isn't careful.  It's Cormoran Strike  and his temporary secretary, Robin, who make the story.  The mystery becomes a little complicated in the unravelling, and she takes her time getting there with a full cast of characters and lots of little details, but Strike and Robin only grew on me as the story progressed.

Cormoran Strike is an interesting and very quirky character.  If the plotting of this novel is somewhat complicated, Strike's life is even more so.  Let's see . . . where to begin.  He's not what you would consider a swoonworthy leading man.  To say, like the book blurb does, that his life is in a state of disarray is an understatement.  He's a former military man who lost his lower leg in an accident in Afghanistan.  Whatever military physique he must once have claimed has gone to fat, and he's a large man anyway.  He's also lost his significant other, his beautiful girlfriend, and at the beginning of the story is sleeping on a cot in his office.  Now he's a struggling private investigator barely making ends meet and is being hounded to pay back a debt he can't even begin to cover.

And the other curiosity about Cormoran Strike?  He has a famous set of parents, though he doesn't ride their coattails.  Messed up, perhaps, but famous nonetheless.  His father is a musician known far and wide, and his mother was a supergroupie.  She's part of that era that started it all, that sad, messed up phenomenon of those who live off the fame of others.  A sort of shooting star--she shot to fame and then burnt out and 'offed' herself in the process.  Strike doesn't talk about it much, but it's there hovering in the background.

It all comes in handy when he's hired by the brother of a long-dead schoolfriend to investigate the strange circumstances surrounding the death of a supermodel.  Lula Landry was beautiful.  She was famous and wealthy and had everything to live for.  But she fell?  Or, more likely, jumped to her death one cold London night.  But her brother doesn't believe it.  Not when she was on the cusp of something really big.  He hires Strike to investigate and so begins the mystery of if and why she jumped, or why someone would want to push this lovely young woman out of a window.

Lula is everywhere in this story, she inhabits the minds and memories of those who loved her, or those who were enamored by her or just hung on to her fame, but she's never a real physical presence.  She can never speak for herself but Strike forms a picture of her through his investigation.  This is very much a detective story even if Strike isn't a proper detective.  He knows how to handle himself and he knows the questions to ask, how to, or if he needs to lean on a suspect. 

Robin, Strike's secretary sent over from a temping agency, provides the perfect counterbalance to Strike and his methods.  She's calm and efficient and takes the lead where Strike leaves off.  She's savvy enough to pick up the process Strike follows in his investigation.  Recently engaged, her fiancé is less than pleased with her interest in working for a private detective.  And then there's the beautiful Charlotte, the ex, just off center stage. 

This is a story filled with complications.  The sort of complications that make for good reading as you try and piece everything together--see how characters play off each other, how they tell the story, their own stories and that of others all the while trying to figure out the mystery of Lula Landry.  Up until that last climactic scene.  It's the sort of story that is complicated in just the right way making the mystery and the characters interesting and three-dimensional. 

Interesting enough for me to have added the second Cormoran Strike mystery, The Silkworm to my wishlist.

A Pillow for the Garden

Here's my last proper needlework finish for the year.  It has a new home now and as it since it arrived safely at its destination I thought it was time to share here.  It is cold and grey outside, but it's never too early to think about a sunny garden, right?  The other little needlework pieces you see in the background are either projects I finished and kept or that were sent to me as gifts--they sit on a shelf in my bedroom and I often shift them about in order to have a new view or to match the season.

This was quite an enjoyable project to work on as it is stitched on a larger count fabric using mostly pearl cotton.  The design is called "Sow Kind Seeds" and it is by Bent Creek.  It's part of a series of little projects called "zippers" (the kits come in these cool little bags that can be reused that have a zip top).

The little heart in hand motif is quite common (you even see it on book jackets, right?) in needlework and elsewhere.  I loved the little heart button.

I decided to use a contrasting color for the back of the pillow.  Initially I had about four different colors picked out that I was going to use as borders on the front, but with each additional strip of fabric--although I liked the color combinations--the pillow was getting to be rather large and unwieldy, so I removed them and was much happier with the finished pillow as it looks now.

I'm working now on one small little project with a winter theme for myself but am in no rush to complete it.  It will carry over to the new year most likely.  I do have one other finish to share, but it is still travelling to its new home.  As soon as it arrives I'll share it with you--something a little different than you normally see!

I haven't given the new year much thought in terms of my stitching, but I do think I would like to pick out one 'work in progress' and 'resurrect' it and maybe pick one new design to begin in 2015.  As I have been spending time with family I haven't had much time to catch up with planning or chatting online, but I think I'll get to do so in the coming days. 

Lots of bookishness to follow--including a look back at my reading year and a look forward, too!

Happy Holiday Wishes to You!

Happy Holidays everyone!  I took this photo at the local botanical gardens last month, which I like to visit around the holidays.  I hope everyone has an equally festive next few days filled with warmth and happiness however you might be celebrating.  I'll be back on Friday with  more bookishness in the hopes of catching up a bit and getting ready for a new reading year.  Until then, happy reading and I hope you find a book-shaped present in your stocking or under the tree!

Teaser Tuesday: Letters from a Lost Generation

The last book of Caroline's Literature and War Readalong for 2014 is a nonfiction book of correspondence.  When she first posted her list of selections I was quite pleased to see it on the list and ordered it without a second thought to have it safely tucked away until the end of the year.  Then life got busy and I've done poorly when it comes to reading along in general, so I considered just letting it go like so many other books I have let go of of late.  But when we chatted a bit about it and I heard how good it was and how accessible--easy to pick up and set down since it is a collection of letters I decided maybe it was worth attempting to squeeze it in after all, even if I don't finish it in time to add to this year's list of books (or in time for the forthcoming discussion).

While I'm unsure whether I will indeed finish it this year (am trying to keep my plans and expectations for my winter work break low--I never manage half of what I hope to do during breaks), I am so glad I picked it up and decided to read it after all.  I'm only a fourth of the way in and I know what's coming so am reading it with a heavy heart, but it is an amazing book.  Letters from a Lost Generation, edited by Alan Bishop and Mark Bostridge is a collection of letters (only a selection of them have been included) between Vera Brittain, her fiancé, brother and two other school friends written just before and during WWI. 

I'll be playing catch up for the remaining days of the year, trying to get in a few last posts about books I read and didn't write about, so today seemed a perfect day to share a few teasers of what I have been reading.  I have always meant to read Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth (as well, I have a biography of Brittain, one of her novels and a biography she wrote about her friend Winifred Holtby) and am very tempted to begin a little reading project about her life and times.  Something to carry over into 2015 and a reading path I am quite happy to follow now.

I suspect you are already quite familiar with Vera Brittain's story--she lost all four men she corresponded with in this book in World War I.  If you want an honest and accurate picture of what the world was like then, I think you couldn't do much better than to read a book like this.  Roland Leighton, a school friend of her younger brother, was her fiancé.  Edward Brittain was her brother, and Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow were close friends of the young men.  The letters contained in this volume give an interesting view of the war and of Britain at the time.  The letters give a varied look at things--from both male and female perspectives  as well as from the battlefield, military hospitals, as well as the homefront as the introduction notes.

Reading these letters, what strikes me is the honor of the men fighting.  It's a common theme in the war literature I have read, that young men chose, they wanted to go off and fight for the honor of their country and themselves.  I think it has become quite a cliché to say that the best and the brightest of young men were lost in this war (though the editors do note that that isn't entirely true--certainly the letters show that it was the case to some extent).  But you do get a sense in reading these letters that it was understood the chances the young men were taking, but time and again the feeling was there that no matter what they couldn't let their country down.

The book is broken into eight sections, and I am in the midst of the third.  The letters begin in 1913 just when Vera meets Roland.  He and her brother were friends--Roland had won a place at Oxford already, Edward was hoping to go, and Vera decided to make a try for it as well.  She did earn a place as well, and just as the group were set to go, thinking they would be students at the same time, war breaks out and the young men almost immediately want to volunteer.

These first sections show primarily Vera and Roland's growing friendship and blossoming romance.  The other thing that strikes me in reading these letters is the quality of the writing.  Letter writing truly was an art, though the editors note that Roland's letters "are the most self-consciously literary of the collection."  Truly they are almost like little work's of art--how he will be sitting in the middle of a war zone and reflecting on nature.  The letters are both beautiful and horrible, as I know what's coming.  The latter half of the book concentrates on Vera's correspondence with her brother, Victor and Geoffrey.

My teaser's are a few excerpts from the letters themselves to give you a flavor of the correspondence and the quality of the writing and sentiments (though there is nothing sentimental about the letters either).

Vera to Roland (8-23-14)--"You are constantly apologising for your letters being egotistical.  Please do not.  Any letters worth having are always so; one does not trouble to correspond with people unless one is interested in them personally ". 

"I do hope you will be able to go to Oxford just the same.  But it seems impossible to expect anything from the future just now; life is so indefinite & one has to wait each day to know what to do next.  That is a great source of depression to a person life me, who am always working in the present for what I hope from the future."

* * *

Roland to Vera (9-29-14)--"In fact if I do not get to Oxford at all, as seems possible, I shall not much regret it,--except perhaps in that I shall miss the incidental pleasure of seeing you there.  Of course, all being well, I could go up after everything is over.  I feel, however, that I am meant to take some active part in this war.  It is to me a very fascinating thing--something, if often horrible, yet very ennobling and very beautiful, something whose elemental reality raises it above the reach of all cold theorising.  You will call me a militarist.  You may be right."

* * *

Roland to Vera (2/15/15)--"I am writing this in front of an open casement window overlooking the sea.  The sky is cloudless, and the russet sails of the fishing smacks flame in the sun.  It is summer--but it is not war; and I dare not look at it.  It only makes me angry, angry with myself for being here, and with the others for being content to be here [he was at home in Britain--at a hotel in Lowestoft].  When men whom I have once despised for being effeminate are sent back wounded from the front, when nearly everyone I know is either going or has gone, can I think of this with anything but rage and shame?"

* * *

Vera to Roland (4/17/15)--"Kingsley's idea that 'Men must work & women must weep', however untrue it ought to be, seems in one sense fairly correct just at present.  I certainly try to do as much as possible of the former, & very rarely have an inclination towards the latter--but I do feel like it as little when you tell me you have been kissing my photograph; it is more fortunate than its original.  She never seems quite to have got past your reserve or been able to know you properly.  I suppose it is the nearness of death which breaks down the reserves & conventions which in the midst of elemental things are sen to matter so little after all."

"I never thought I should ever say to anyone the sort of things I write to you.  At ordinary times one little knows how deeply one can be moved."

These letters are utterly compelling to read and hard to put down even knowing what is going to happen.  If I manage to finish reading the book this year it will surely end up on my best reads list.  And indeed, I think I will be reading more in the same vein.  Certainly more by and about Vera Brittain.

A Little Short Story Housekeeping

Seeing as I have short stories on the mind, I thought a little organizing might be a good idea.  This might be more for me than you, but I have been wanting to begin putting things in order here in anticipation for the end of the year and my "clean slate" plans for 2015.  We're getting down to the nitty gritty for December--and 2014 in general.  Since there's not much time left and I should really give a little thought to which direction 2015 will be taking me. 

So, first up is my short story reading.  I've made my own version of an index of stories from the 2014 issues.  I think I have managed to read nearly all the New Yorker stories from 2014 (save for a few here and there and the last few issues of this year which I am working on now).  So a little look back to kick things off.

January 6: Antonya Nelson "First Husband"

January 13: Dinaw Mingetsu "The Paper Revolution"

January 20: Akhil Sharma "A Mistake"

January 27: Robert Coover "The Frog Prince"

February 3: Donald Antrim "The Emerald Light in the Air"

February 10: Zadie Smith "Moonlit Landscape with Bridge"

**February 17/24: Karl Ove Knausgaard "Come Together

March 3: Denis Johnson "The Largesse of the Sea Maiden"

March 10: Yiyun Li "A Sheltered Woman"

March 17: T. Coraghessan Boyle "The Relive Box"

March 24: Tessa Hadley "Under the Sign of the Moon"

March 31: Louise Erdrich "The Big Cat"

April 7: Jonathan Lethem "Pending Vegan"

April 14: Roddy Doyle "Box Sets"

April 21: Thomas McGuane "Hubcaps"

April 28: Shirley Jackson "The Man in the Woods"

May 5: Sam Lipsyte "The Naturals"

May 12: Lyudmila Ulitaskaya "The Fugitive"

May 19: Robert Coover "The Waitress"

**May 26: Alejandro Zambra "Camilo"

June 2: Thomas Pierce "Ba Baboon"

June 9/16: Summer Fiction Issue--"Love Stories" -- Meant to go back to this issue as I didn't read any of the stories, so perhaps there will be time over break? 

**June 23: Maile Meloy "Madame Lazarus"

June 30: Rebecca Curtis "The Pink House"

July 7/14: Allegra Goodman "Apple Cake"

July 21: Greg Jackson "Wagner in the Desert"

July 28: Said Sayrafiezadeh "Last Meal at Whole Foods"

**August 4: Paul Theroux "Action"

**August 11/18: Cesar Aira "Picasso"

**August 25: Tessa Hadley "One Saturday Morning"

September 1: Joseph O'Neill "The Referees"

September 8: Thomas McGaune "The Motherlode"

**September 15: Danielle McLaughlin "The Dinosaurs on Other Planets"

September 22: Victor Lodato "Jack July"

September 29: Paul La Farge "Rosendale"

October 6: Kevin Canty "Story, With Bird"

**October 13: Haruki Murakami "Scheherazade"

October 20: Kirsten Valdez Quade "Ordinary Sins"

October 27: Tom Hanks "Alan Bean Plus Four"

November 3: Jess Row "The Empties"

November 10: Antonya Nelson "Primum Non Nocere"

November 17: Dave Eggers "The Alaska of Giants and Gods"

November 24: Brad Watson "Eykelboom"

December 1: Etgar Keret "One Gram Short"

December 8: Tim Parks "The Reverand"

December 15: Elizabeth McKenzie "The Savage Breast"

December 22/29: Nuruddin Farah "The Start of the Affair"

I've linked to the posts where I either wrote about the stories or mentioned them.  Asterisks are next to the stories that I liked best.  It's been interesting looking back over the stories and seeing which I remember best and which have faded from memory, even if I did enjoy them at the time.  There are a few cases where I couldn't find the mention of a story in any of my posts, though I believe I read them, and a few cases where I didn't read the stories which  I do still hope to get to.

Maybe not so curiously, I remember most vividly Thomas Pierce's "Ba Baboon" which had some striking imagery and a most unusual set up.  It involved an illicit videotape, a broken affair, and a brother and sister who managed to get stuck in the food pantry of a home guarded by two rather large and vicious dogs!  Needless to say it was one of the more creative stories I read this year.  I think my least favorites were "The Frog Prince" and Tom Hanks's story, though it is just a matter of personal preference and nothing to do with style or technique.  And my favorite of the group?  A tie between Danielle McLaughlin and Haruki Murakami's stories.  Both authors I had never read before but now look forward to exploring more in the coming year.

I am thinking now of next year's short story reading.  I'm hoping to be inspired by something--one collection perhaps or one author to begin the year.  I think I have accumulated enough story collections to easily read from my own stacks.  And there should be a ghost story or two in the Big Book of Christmas Mysteries to end the year with (Christmas always needs a good ghost story, right?)!

Short Story Sunday: The Chinese Apple

This weekend's story from The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries, "The Chinese Apple" by Joseph Shearing totally fulfills its promise!  It had me completely engaged from the first paragraph on and elicited an appreciative guffaw at the end.  Yes, I liked this one very much.  Joseph Shearing is a new to me author, though like last week's story, the author was well known and read in his day.  Rather her day, since Joseph Shearing is one of several pen names of Gabrielle Margaret Vere Long.  Apparently she mostly wrote historical novels (based on real-life crime cases) under the name of Shearing.  One of her stories of psychological suspense was made into a movie in 1947.  "The Chinese Apple" was published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1949.

"Isabelle Crosland felt very depressed when the boat train drew into the vast London station.  The gas lamps set at intervals down the platform did little more than reveal filth, fog, and figured huddled in wraps and shawls.  It was a mistake to arrive on Christmas Eve, a matter of missed trains, of indecision and reluctance about the entire journey.  The truth was she had not wanted to come to London at all."

Isabelle Crosland is not a very likable woman to be honest.  She's a snob and not a very happy one.  She had an unhappy childhood and couldn't wait to get out of her parent's house as soon as she could, which was not soon enough.  Her 'savior' came in the form of a dull, retired, half-pay officer who was unsuited for her but had the foresight to die of malaria early on in their marriage leaving her comfortably off, living in Italy with a musically-inclined lifestyle.

All-in-all she ended up with a reasonably good life filled with friends and admirers in Florence, so it is with a sense of resentment that she returns home to London when her widowed sister dies leaving a daughter behind.  Isabelle feels a sense of responsibility to go and bring the young woman back with her.  But it is a dreary London evening she comes home to, to the house that caused her so much unhappiness when she was a young girl.  A home which she refers to as hateful.  She feels as though she has been "lured back by some malign power".  So that sets the tone.

Isabelle arrives in Roscoe Square, to that hateful home where she grew up and now regrets having made arrangements to meet her niece there.  She'll take her back to Florence as soon as she can and put it all well behind her for good.  But nothing is quite right, or up to standards, from the moment Isabelle arrives.  It begins with a crowd in the square, standing before a house just opposite.  Perhaps carolers on this Christmas Eve making cheer, though they seem awfully subdued.  And then her niece isn't at the door to greet Isabelle and she begins wishing she had never left Florence.  When she does finally meet the girl, she is nothing like she expected and she hopes that perhaps she can leave her here in London and can return home alone--niece or not. 

And then a detective shows up on her doorstep asking questions about the neighbor across the way.  The elderly woman has been brutally murdered and the police are now looking for the woman who had been her helper and companion.

This is a story that is nicely plotted and controlled in the telling conplete with a few red herrings.  Just what is at work here?  Is there something strange about the house.  Her curmudgeonly feelings surely are being magnified by the house, which as a young girl made her feel as though she had no existence.  But Shearing brings it all together in a way I had not expected. 

Another good find.  I might have to look for that novel of suspense, So Evil My love, too.

Can you believe there is just one more weekend left in the year?  Unbelievably I have not thought yet in which direction I want to take my short story reading next year.  Something to think about between now and then, though I will certainly be dipping into this collection again this coming week and see what new surprises I find.

* * *

This weekend's New Yorker story (actually the November 24 issue--I will catch up by the end of the year . . .), "Eykelboom" by Brad Watson is about a boy growing up in a dysfunctional and conservative family who goes missing.  He's a boy who doesn't quite fit in with either friends or family.  His father is strict to the point of belting the boy at any infraction and his 'friends' are only too helpful at getting him into awkward and unhappy situations.  A dark vision of boyhood.  You can read the author's Q&A here.

I'll definitely be continuing with my New Yorker reading in the coming year and hope to get into a variety of new collections, too.  I am, as you know, always on the look out for good short stories.  Maybe alongside the new from the New Yorker, I'll see what I can come up with the tried and true classics, too.  Hmm.  May have to compile a list (need at least 52 . . .).  Do you have a favorite ('classic') short story?