A Work in Progress

Favorite Reads of 2015 & Misc.

Is there still time to share a few favorite books?  Fittingly, since I seem to have been behind all year long, this is a very late post.  Looking back over the year, however, I haven't had a problem making a list of favorites.  I am actually finding more books that I really loved than I was anticipating as I look back over this year's reading.  It was a wonky reading year, but there were still lots of good books. 

My standout reads for 2015:

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel -- I was lucky enough to hear the author speak this fall and she is as amazing in person as she is in the pages of her book!  I put off reading Station Eleven, thinking I wasn't really the right audience for it, but man---wham.  That was what reading this book was like for me.  "This is such a masterfully told story and if you are willing to give yourself over (and I always am) you will feel like you are submerging yourself under water, into a vivid new and very different world and only after turning that last page do you come up for air."

Half the Human Race by Anthony Quinn -- I still remember this story vividly and suspect it will stick with me for a long time coming.  It had all the right elements that I love in a good story and in just the right way.  "[It] is pretty much, in my opinion, pitch perfect.  The right book at the right time that also happens to be well written, well plotted and of admirable substance yet still hugely entertaining.  Ticking all the boxes on this one."  I said I was going to pick up another book by Mr. Quinn and I do have one, and as a matter of fact it happens to be sitting on my 'which book should I start in 2016 pile'.  Which indeed.

Nora Webster by Colm Toibin -- I think Colm Toibin is an amazing writer and have loved everything I have read by him.  I need to read more as a matter of fact.  Nora is such a prickly character but I hugely admire her.  "It was sometimes a little painful to watch her struggles, but it was encouraging to see her find her way.  When she finally begins to live at least as much for herself as for her children, she decides to reinvent her life and I applaud every woman who does so. "

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Other favorite reads from 2015 (in the order I read them):

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami -- "Many of the questions he asks are questions I ask, which is why this is such a perfect read.  How does this Japanese man on the other side of the world, speaking a different language, living a different life understand so well what I'm thinking, too?"

Second Person Singular by Sayed Kashua -- "This isn't just a good story, it's a pretty amazing construction on a variety of levels from the jacket illustration (which suits the story so well) to the complex multilayered story told from two very different perspectives that offers so much to think about."

Gillespie and I by Jane Harris -- "If books were food, Gillespie and I would be a decadent chocolate torte with layers of cake separated by cherry filling and covered with a rich ganache accompanied by a steaming hot cup of coffee.  In other words, absolutely and ridiculously delicious.  "

Death in the Fog by Mignon Eberhart -- "Death in the Fog is a wonderfully atmospheric puzzle.  Not quite your typical detective story, since it is the main suspect you find yourself rooting for and quite put off by Mr. Crafft's smarminess.   Like a good Christie mystery, all the clues are there if you can piece them together, though I tend to just enjoy sitting back and enjoying the ride and let the mystery-solving unroll while the fog closes in around the house."

Dominion by C.J. Sansom -- "This is a 700+ page novel and is many-layered, well researched and heart stopping in its plotting.  He is meticulous in his research and the stories are on the heavy side---both in the plotting and the complexity of the situations the characters find themselves.  But I felt quite rewarded on both counts." 

Chocky by John Wyndham -- "I feel like I ought not say this about a science fiction story, but it's really quite sweet.  It might not be the typical sort of story filled with menace to drive its point, but in this story, the point is well-taken anyway.  I'm virtually sliding this one into your hands.  If you've not read it, I think you should."

Justice Hall by Laurie King -- "I really do like twisty turny mystery novels and Laurie King is quite adept at pulling them off, which is one of the things I like about these books.  I like the characters who feel so flesh and blood, but I like the intellectual aspects (would I expect anything less of a Sherlock Holmes story--keeping in mind this is as much Mary Russell's novel--actually more Mary than Holmes really) of these books, the complexity of the storytelling and the mystery and the solving.  Truly the books have it all, and this story in particular."

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And a few honorable mentions:

Most beautifully told story: Evening Chorus by Helen Humphreys

Best comfort read of the year: Legend in Green Velvet by Elizabeth Peters

Book farthest outside my comfort zone: Dolly City by Orly Castel-Bloom

Fictional world I never want to wake up in: A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Most interesting nonfiction: Book of Ages by Jill Lepore

Best find of the year: Rutu Modan's amazing graphic novels: Exit Wounds and especially The Property.  (Please write more)

So many books!  So this was all pretty self-indulgent, but as it turns out I had a pretty good reading year all in all.

Books by the Number: 2015 Edition

I did a very poor job of tracking my reading this year, so this is going to be rather pell mell, and maybe it doesn't matter all that much in the end.  I do like to see where my reading has taken me over the course of the year, how and where it branched off, but this year (much like last) was pretty wonky in how much and how I read.  So, just a matter of curiosity really, but here's a little break down of this year's reading:

• Books read: 75 (am optimistically adding one that I should be finishing tomorrow--just in time before the year runs out)
• 18th century: 1
• 19th century: 1
• 20th century: 32 (approximately-a few books straddled the decades)
• 21st century: 43 (approximately again for same reason as above)
• Books published in 2015: 13
• eBooks: 1 (just one from start to finish-a review copy--but I have been looking for ebooks that I can 'borrow' to read in conjunction with books from my stacks-it's much easier to read from my tablet at the gym I have discovered)
• Fiction: 28 (about half a dozen or so were historical fiction, a couple romantic suspense and a couple more dystopian/alternative history stories)
• Nonfiction: 7 (these ranged from essays, history, memoirs and nature writing)
• Diaries: Not a single one.  Must rectify this next year.
• Nature: Just one that was mostly nature writing.
• Classics: 4!  (so few!--can I add on one YA graphic novel that was a retelling of a Shakespeare play?)
• Fairy Tales/Mythology: Nothing
• Mysteries/Crime/Suspense: 18
• Science fiction: None really, but one of the classics could be considered science fiction--loosely anyway.
• Espionage: 2
• Juvnile/YA novels: 7 (mostly the Little House books)
• Books written by women: 56
• Books written by men: 19
• Books written by more than one author: 2
• American authors: 24
• British authors: 24
• Canadian authors: 3
• Australian/Irish authors: 4 plus 1 author from South Africa (can't remember the last time I have read a South African author)
• Subscription Books: 1 (how sad is that since I received a new book each and every month)
• Books in translation: 14 (this year I read more books in Hebrew than any other language-9, Japanese-1, Italian-1, French-2, Swedish-1)
• Short story collections: 4 (I feel like there should really be more since I read them weekly . . .)
• Novellas: 1
• Graphic Novels: 5 (this is good--but I want to read more)
• Plays: 0
• Virago Modern Classics: 5
• Persephone Books: 1
• Books read that were checked out from the library: 6
• Books read from my own shelves: 64 (a few library books and a few AREs)
• Rereads: 3 (Elinor Lippman, and two mysteries by Clare Langley-Hawthorne)
• Multiple books by the same author: 6 (Laura Ingalls Wilder, Laurie King, D.A. Mishani, Clare Langley-Hawthorne, Nell Dunn, Rutu Modan)
• Books by Nebraska authors: 1

So, there you have it.  The year in review.  I STILL continue to follow a pattern it seems--here are previous years.  I'm ready for another fresh start!  I think I need to mix things up a bit next year--I seem to be following a pattern, or maybe you could call this a rut.  Apparently I know what I like and I spend my time dedicatedly reading it.  Tomorrow I'll share my favorites.

These Happy Golden Years

If I was feeling a tad bit bereft upon finishing Little Town on the Prairie, I have to say I am feeling downright sad to have finished These Happy Golden Years.  They are happy years and of course the story ends on a most satisfying and happy note, but that is essentially the end of the story of the Ingalls family and their many adventures.  While I am now reading the last book, The First Four Years, it is somewhat different in tone, which I will explain in greater detail when I write about it.  At the end of These Happy Golden Years, Half-Pint is an eighteen-year-old young woman, earning money, betrothed and then married.  This series of books is so immensely endearing and they really do feel like a life lived (and lived well and happily), but so many changes occur in the last two or three books, it is a reminder of how time flies by and how the world changes and what growing up does to a person and a family.  Or maybe as the year winds quickly down, I am just feeling a little maudlin.

Both Mary and Laura left their childhoods, those years of simple work and simple pleasures, behind them several stories ago.  Mary is away at college, and will she ever permanently return?  Perhaps.  It is alluded at, yet she has a new life in Iowa where she is attending college and learning how to be self-sufficient despite being blind.  Laura is both still a schoolgirl and studying and going to school, but she has also earned her teacher's certificate and at the beginning of the book she has been offered her first teaching position.  And oh my, what an eye-opening experience is that. 

The world of these books is mostly idyllic, but every once in a while the reader is shown the harsher side of life on the prairie.  It was an opportunity for so many people to come west.  There was the possibility of starting a new life, a life of adventure and the possibility to build a new place to live and to have many acres of land.  There was a real freedom in coming west, but there was also a cost.  The weather was unreliable.  Winters might be long and harsh and quite deadly, and then there is the chance of losing crops and the livelihood and putting an entire family in danger.  Laura's first teaching position is not a happy one.  She has a small schoolhouse with few students, but she must live in an unhappy situation.  What happens when a husband brings his family west and his wife, so used to Eastern ways, finds the difficulties and the solitude too much?  Laura experiences some harrowing moments in this new environment.

What saves her, no, who saves her, is Almanzo Wilder.  It's a nod to Laura's humility and earnestness that she doesn't quite realize that she is being wooed by the young man.  She wishes more than anything when she is away that Pa will come and bring her home for the weekends, but it is too far to come and too hard for the horses.  But not so for a bachelor and fine horseman like Almanzo.  She never complains or lets on entirely of her unhappiness but they know and each week Almanzo comes for her--horse bells jingling each Friday announcing her reprieve--no matter how cold.  She is both ecstatic to go home but slightly mortified to think she is taking advantage of Almanzo, so one weekend she tells him he needn't come for her--she wouldn't go riding with him otherwise.  And then is mortified that she says so in such a direct way.

Part of the loveliness of this story is the gradual understanding by Laura of what sort of person Almanzo is and that she would indeed like to spend time with him.  And he is really her perfect match.  His passion and abilities are working with horses.  Not so very long ago Laura found herself galloping away on a horse bareback and it was exhilarating for her.  Not just once does Almanzo show up on her doorstep with a new pair of horses that need to be broken and Laura is a willing partner in his work and escapades.  Even while Ma is inwardly cringing and Pa just trustful enough of Almanzo's talents to keep the horses restrained and Laura safe.  She learns just how to carefully jump into his buggy between those wheels without tilting the seat and upsetting the horses.  And on more than one occasion (and with increasing deftness) she even takes the reins.  They are surely a match made in heaven.

So Laura is coming into her own--still learning and teaching and sewing.  She earns enough to keep Mary at school and is even able to help buy an organ for when Mary returns so she can practice her playing.  Carrie and Grace must help pick up the slack and Carrie comments that surely they can and are just old enough--Mary and Laura had already been helping out long before when they were little. 

Some moments of surprise for me--surely this is not the first book (though I think it is) where something akin to a tornado is experienced.  Laura is most decidedly not suffragette material but she balks at the idea of having to say "obey" (and Almanzo agrees) in a marriage ceremony.  The book covers not just one year but three.  Whereas Christmas holidays were always so special, they seem to be less so (maybe because Mary is not there to celebrate with the family?), but the Fourth of July is happily celebrated.  There is still hints of Ma's delicious meals--popcorn balls made with molasses, fresh bread and eggs and new potatoes, and just what exactly is a pieplant pie and what does a two-egg cake taste like anyway?

I don't want to give all the best bits away, though I don't think you need to have read the books to know how the story will end.  I will just end with one thing.  I had to smile when Laura had this conversation with Mary:

"I [Mary] am planning to write a book some day," she confided.  Then she laughed.  "But I planned to teach school, and you are doing that for me, so maybe you will write the book."

"I, write a book?" Laura hooted.  She said blithely, "I'm going to be an old maid schoolteacher, like Miss Wilder.  Write you own book!  What are you going to write about?"

Books Read in 2015: A Catch Up Post

Once again time has completely gotten away from me when it comes to writing about the books I've read, so a catch-up post with a few brief mentions is going to have to suffice.  I have set aside three novels that I really do want to write about and will get to those in the first week or so of the new year.  So there will be more tidying up in 2016 before I am ready for a fresh 'fresh start'.  I never feel completely satisfied when I have finished reading a book until I have in some way written about it or shared my experience. Unfortunately in a few cases too much time has passed for me to do more than give a very very brief mention, but better a mention than nothing at all.

With Jamilti and Other Stories I have now read all of Rutu Modan's graphic novels (published in book format that is--she has some other comics online that I have tagged in my mind to read at some point).  Jamiliti is Modan's first book and her earliest work.  It is a collection of  seven short stories--all interesting, some a little quirky--dealing with family and identity, relationships and love.  The stories seem to be presented chronologically, so it's cool to see how Modan's work and style developed over time.  The first story, the titular "Jamiliti" is quite brief and almost a little bit simplistic in the way it is drawn and presented.  But by the last story,"Your Number One Fan" the comic is recognizably mature Rutu Modan.  It's almost curious to me how very descriptive those latter comics are in the way they are drawn.  You almost forget that this is a comic and those are not real people.  I am eagerly awaiting another book by Modan!  And in case you're wondering--Jamiliti is an Arabic word meaning "beautiful one".

Edna Ferber's So Big was my choice for the 1924 Club, which I enthusiastically picked up even knowing I wouldn't likely finish at the time everyone else was reading and writing about their 1924 books.  I've always wanted to read Ferber and have long had this book on my reading pile.  Not least I wanted to read an early Pulitzer Prize winner.  If I am entirely honest with you--I am glad I read the book, but it was a story I enjoyed reading when I was reading it, yet I was not as enthusiastic about reaching for it as often as I should have.  It is a completely satisfying story (and I put down my reaction mostly to just timing and the wonky reading year I have been having) of one woman and her desire that her son- Sobig, would have a better life than she had.  Selina Peake is the daughter of a gambler who ends up as a farmer.  It's not the life I expected for her.  I thought it would be more elegant or easy perhaps.  But she ends up marrying an immigrant farmer who then dies young and so she continues on, and she manages to make more of a success of it (willing to take more risks) than he ever did.  I'd like to give her books another go.  They were hugely popular and many were adapted to film.  I think I was expecting something light and maybe even a little frivolous, but then there is a reason she won a prestigious award--popular she might have been but she crossed over that line from entertainment to literature.

I wish I had written about Anne Wiazemsky's My Berlin Child right when I finished it.  I think I was conflicted about it and so put it off, though I did share a teaser while reading, which has a brief description.  It's based on a true story of a Frenchwoman (the daughter of Francois Mauriac) who was an ambulance driver during WWII.  It is a fictionalized biography of her experiences during the war and after and about the love affair she had with a Frenchman of Russian birth.  It was another story I struggled with. While I liked the use of letters and diary entries as part of the narrative, I found Claire's 'voice' hard to warm up to.  Maybe someday I will try and tackle it again and a second reading will be more satisfying.

Oh, Winston Graham's Ross Poldark, A Novel of Cornwall 1783-1787 was a delight to read and maybe eve more of a delight to watch on PBS.  Now the two--book and film have become inextricably linked in my mind.  The Adaptation actually tells the story of the first two books in the series of novels, though I only managed to read the first.  This is a historical saga that you can really sink your teeth into (and how nice know to have such attractive visuals).  This is a story that has it all--drama, love, revenge, unrequited love, new love, adventure and sweeping visuals of Cornish countryside (oops--thinking as much of the film as the book on that note).  In case you haven't read the books or seen the adaptation--Captain Poldark returns home from the War in America only to find the love of his life (the one thing that kept him going when he was at war) about to be married to his cousin.  His home is in ruins and now he must start from scratch.  He is a decent and admirable man, or as much so as any 18th century man would be.  He takes in this ragamuffin of a girl, who had been dressed as a boy, and over the years they end up falling in love.  Cut to the next book, which I still look forward to reading (even though I have seen it and know how it ends).  Typically . . . now that I am thinking of the story again I am in mind to pick up the next book.  I wonder if there will be a new season of Poldark next summer?  And how many books were there in this saga?  (Quite a few I think).

I think Giorgio Bassani's The Garden of the Finzi Continis was the first classic I read this year.  I was off to such a good start--not only a classic but a book translated from Italian and one set during WWII.  What happened.  I jinxed myself by not writing about it apparently, because it's been a poor showing this year in terms of classic literature.  This is a book I would like to read again some day.  It is a melancholy story for a number of reasons--a war story told from the perspective of a Jewish young man who falls in love with the daughter of his rich neighbors, a love which is doomed to fail.  Of course you know what's coming but you watch as this way of life comes to an end.  It's one of those perfectly told stories that grasps you around the middle and you can't turn away and don't want to but are left feeling bereft in the end even when you expected it.

I've got three more books to tell you about (and a further two or three more that I am finishing up this week), so there will be a few more loose ends to tidy up and maybe next year I will manage to write about my books in a more timely manner?  Or there is always wishful thinking.

Justice Hall by Laurie King

In Laurie King's O Jerusalem Mary Russell narrates a story, a mystery, from her early days with Sherlock Holmes when she was still his apprentice.  The year is 1919 and the place is Palestine and the pair have been secreted into the country on business for Holmes's brother Mycroft.  There they join a pair of Bedouins on covert business.  It is a messy, dusty and dangerous affair and not helped much by their guides who would prefer not to have this British pair as baggage.  O Jerusalem is a backtrack in the series, the fifth book, a look back on a mystery long resolved.  It makes sense that Mary's editor, Ms. King, would insert the book just there as the sixth installment, which takes place in 1923, in Mary's adventures involves the same Bedouin pair, who, as it turns out, are not Bedouins at all.  Now there's a teaser for you.

I think Justice Hall might well be my favorite book so far in the series, though I have thoroughly enjoyed each and every book and Mary Russell easily rivals Maisie Dobbs as my most favorite sleuth.  They are both very different characters yet both are smart, savvy, independent and likable women.  I think Mary, however, has perhaps a slightly more wry sense of humor.  I could picture myself bantering with her more easily than with Maisie.

There are some very interesting twists and turns in Justice Hall, which is the name of a family seat--a great estate and home to a Duke.  The Duke happens to be one of the above mentioned Bedouins.  You wouldn't have known it in the previous story, though there were a few hints dropped, that the pair were not born and bred in Palestine.  So akin to the country and the way of life, they easily passed for Arabs.  They exuded the culture--the dress, the language, the history and social mores of the place and time.  They may not have been born there but they were at home there--more so than their native England.  The pair are cousins Alistair (Ali) and Marsh/Maurice (Mahmoud) who have been called back to England to take their rightful place as heir (and spare, I suppose--though several spots down the line of succession) of Justice Hall after the death of the next in line to the dukedom.

Marsh's brother has recently died and so he feels a sense of responsibility to the family and the title.  To see the men at home in England is like night and day.  As Arabs they could be ill-tempered and unfriendly.  Men you would not want to encounter in a dark alley at night and less would you want to cross either of them.  They took on Holmes and Mary in Palestine only as necessity required but would give no more, but in the end they earned the respect and brotherly love (keeping in mind that Mary had been dressed as a young Arab boy!) of the two Bedouins.  Ali has come now to Mary and Holmes in Sussex asking for their help in convincing Marsh to let Justice Hall take care of itself and return to the country he loves--Palestine.

This is a tricky case.  On the surface it's not really a case at all, rather friends helping to convince a friend that duty is not everything.  What's tricky is that there is indeed murder involved--a crime done so clandestinely, so insidious in its execution that it takes much peeling away of layers of secrets and lies (and lots of tedious footwork, too) to get at the heart of the matter.  I really do like twisty turny mystery novels and Laurie King is quite adept at pulling them off, which is one of the things I like about these books.  I like the characters who feel so flesh and blood, but I like the intellectual aspects (would I expect anything less of a Sherlock Holmes story--keeping in mind this is as much Mary Russell's novel--actually more Mary than Holmes really) of these books, the complexity of the storytelling and the mystery and the solving.  Truly the books have it all, and this story in particular.

If it isn't enough that Marsh and Alistair lead double lives in a sense, Marsh in particular has a complicated history in England, a complicated personal life.  I won't give it away, as the pleasure is in the revelations, but I can tell you that this mystery hearkens back to WWI, still fairly fresh in the minds of the characters, and will take Mary from Sussex to Justice Hall and as far away as Canada.  And I loved every minute of it. 

I have already pulled out the seventh installment, The Game, which will take Mary and Holmes all the way to India!  I don't tend to read mysteries in one series back to back so I have been reading a Bess Crawford novel (and am quite enjoying it, too), but thinking about Justice Hall makes me eager to dive right in and not wait any longer.  I think 2016 might see me reading my way through as many of the remaining books (nine more--one of which is forthcoming next year) as I can squeeze into twelve months.

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

I've discovered a few things while reading An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir.  I have tagged this as 'dystopian fiction', but I think it is technically not dystopian.  I am not even sure what this genre of books is called--it is reminiscent of The Hunger Games--so, alternate history maybe?  It is a YA novel that has won a number of awards, and I can see why.  What I have discovered about it is--this is not a genre that I am especially drawn to.  That said--and the other thing I have discovered--despite it not being my preferred sort of story, it was still immensely enjoyable and if there is a sequel (and this story really screams for a continuation) I will happily read it.   So, yes, it is a good thing to sometimes read outside one's comfort zone as you might well discover a really good read.

The setting--future?  Past?  I'm not really sure.  The society in this story is modeled on Ancient Rome with soldiers, Legionnaires, Centurions and slaves making up the different echelons. It's not a happy society, and it is a society where the reader will need to suspend disbelief somewhat to accept the things that happen.  There is some magic, but not really of the happy sort.  There are Augurs and efrits and people who can heal simply by singing.  Much like Ancient Rome, this Empire is controlled with an iron fist and it is hugely regimented.  Violence is expected and strength rewarded.

Like all good YA novels, the story is peopled mostly by young people.  They are in situations where they must live independently of their families either by choice or situation.  For Laia and Elias, it is not by choice.  Laia is a slave, or to be more specific, she is of the scholar class, but her parents were in the Resistance and have been murdered.  She and her brother have been raised by their grandparents, who are brutally killed at the start of the story.  Laia's brother is mixed up with the Resistance in some way.  He is caught with a notebook filled with drawings that he should not be making.  The Martials have swept their house and either murdered or taken prisoner everyone but Laia manages to run and escape.  This is something that burdens her throughout the story and drives her on.  She is certain that she should have stayed and fought and perhaps could have saved her brother, or simply died trying.  

Elias is a student, a Senior Skull actually, at Blackcliff, which is a community in and of itself.  It is the place where soldiers are trained.  By the time you are a Senior Skull, you are nearly finished.  You are one of the elite soldiers who will become a leader in the Empire.  Not everyone makes it.  As a matter of fact it is through all sorts of training and hardships that the crowd of students in thinned out, so those remaining are really the cream of the crop.  And Elias is one of the best students, one of the strongest and most talented.   And also one of the most unhappiest.  He also happens to be the son of the Commandant, a leader without an ounce of humanity, a mother who would have left her son to die given the chance.  No one escapes the Empire.  But Elias, at the beginning of the story is planning to make a break from Blackcliff.  He has everything prepared and only must begin his journey through the tunnels beneath the school to make it to a free land.  

But Elias and Laia are going to cross paths.  A soldier and scholar, who is soon to be slave.  This encounter is going to change both of their destinies.  Laia is determined to find her brother and help him break out of prison.  Elias plans on escaping Blackcliff until the Trials are announced and he is chosen one of the competitors.  The winner, chosen from the best students who will compete in a series of nearly impossible trials, will become Emperor.  He decides to stay and compete with the hope that he may still find a way out of Blackcliff.  Elias wants out, and Laia wants in.  She joins the Resistance and infiltrates the Commandant's household as a slave and a spy.  The two are about as different from each other and about as far apart in this brutal Empire but will find each needs the other to survive.   

This was quite an adventure story, an edge of your seat thrill ride, because of course you have to find out whether either succeeds and what the cost to each will be along the way.  Ah, and I see that there is indeed a sequel in the works, A Torch Against the Night, due out next fall.  And so the story will continue.

Little Town on the Prairie

It's a little hard to get used to Laura as a young woman, but here she is in Little Town on the Prairie (how far the Ingalls family has come from the big woods of Wisconsin!)--fourteen years old, nearly finished with school, earning money by sewing in the summer months, becoming the "older" sister, and even catching the eye of a young man.  Still, even as she presses Ma to allow her to cut her hair so she has bangs, she still snaps out at the ever-trying Nellie Oleson!  She may well be becoming a proper young lady, but she still has a streak of the tomboy in her as well.

I'm convinced now that as a child I never read the whole series of Little House books.  I'm not sure that I ever got past Plum Creek, and surely I would have remembered that very long winter.  Laura remains always a school girl in my mind, but now she must take the lead--while Mary had always wished to be a school teacher, it falls to Laura to teach.  It's all the more important as Mary must have the chance to go to school in Iowa, so Laura is driven to help out.  These stories are charming and remain as fresh in the telling as when they were first written (or at least from my own youthful recollections of them) without feeling dated, but that thread of self-sufficiency and propriety flows throughout the stories.  I can see why they are classics and why parents would happily press them into the hands of their children.

"In two more years she would be sixteen, old enough to teach school.  If she studied hard and faithfully, and got a teacher's certificate, and then got a school to teach, she would be a real help to Pa and Ma.  Then she could begin to repay them for all that it had cost to provide for her since she was a baby.  Then surely, they could send Mary to college." 

The family remains in De Smet.  In winter they live in town and in summer they move out to the claim to grow their crops and work the land.  Finally there the family is properly settled and De Smet is growing up around them.  They may have not been as prepared in the last story to survive such a long, hard winter (barely managing), but now life is becoming somewhat easier.  It's not all hardship and difficulties.  As a matter of fact, the Ingalls family is flourishing somewhat.  When Laura takes a job (much to the chagrin of Ma as a proper young lady would wouldn't work in town) she is able to earn money, but more this is an eye opening experience for her in a couple of ways. 

"The more Laura saw of the town, the more she realized how well off her own family was.  That was because Pa had got a whole year's start ahead of the others.  He had broken sod last year.  Now they had the garden, the oatfield, and the second planting of corn was growing quite well in the sod."

She must also turn a 'blind ear' to some of the more colorful language of the men of the town  . . .  ahem.  As the town grows the newcomers must begin from scratch, as the Ingalls family begins to prosper.  Even Nellie Oleson must live out on a claim.  Her pride isn't wounded from having been set back, however, she is as odious as ever, and even though she would never admit it, she has a jealous streak running through her.  And she is always eager to show Laura in a bad light or make her life difficult.  When the new school teacher arrives, Almanzo Wilder's sister as a matter of fact, Nellie becomes her confidante and spins tales about Laura. 

I think the rivalry between the two girls was always more pronounced in the TV show, but Nellie makes herself a nuisance on more than one occasion.  She might be boastful of what she will accomplish, but it's usually--happily for the reader--Laura who takes the day.  What makes Laura such a sympathetic character is her ordinariness and modesty.  Sometimes she surprises herself by her accomplishments.  Though I am with Laura on the question of corsets--

"Her corsets were a sad affliction to her, from the time she put them on in the morning until she took them off at night.  But when girls pinned up their hair and wore skirts sown to their shoetops, they must wear corsets."

You know you are entering new ground when a beloved character, little Half-Pint, is now wearing corsets.  Part of me is shaking my head thinking no-let Laura continue frolicking in the fields barefoot or shimmying down branches over streams or racing on a horse bareback.  But then when Almanzo begins walking Laura home at night from the town's 'Literaries', life takes on a new hue, a new path that might be interesting in other ways.

So much happens in this story.  It is both exciting and bittersweet because there are only two books left to read and life for the Ingalls family and Laura in particular is changing quickly.  The cover shows school girls, but not for much longer.  Spoiler alert--though nothing I will be sharing is likely to be earth-shattering.  Mary does go away from home.  The illustration in the book shows quite a young woman--almost startling in her maturity.  The family is both happy yet a little bereft.  I mentioned the town Literaries--finally a little bit of culture is introduced.  You know the town is growing and prospering when they move from just a Main Street and a few families settling to being able to introduce evenings of music and literature.  The latest trends have even arrived--the Easter 'Thing' is to have calling cards, and then there is the confusion of Almanzo.  Why does Mr. Wilder show Laura so much attention?  She mistakenly thinks he is older--someone who would be part of her father's circle, perhaps, since he has his own claim--so why then does he pay her such attention?

And then the most surprising moment is at the end, which I won't give away now, but I am reading about the next path in Laura's life in These Happy Golden Years.  I should finish the book in the next day or so.  And then Laura's and the Ingalls's family story will be complete.  A happy sigh for me, but a little bit bereft as well I suspect.  And where will my own reading path take me next?

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope you are enjoying a festive and peaceful season however you celebrate!

A couple of 'friends' I visited on my morning walk.  I only wish I would have thought to bring a few ornaments or a wreath or some greenery to leave with them to make their world more cheery!

Lanterns Across the Snow by Susan Hill

So that dusting of snow I was expecting . . .  It looks like we are going to have a white Christmas after all.  I still enjoyed a nice walk this afternoon and managed to squeeze in a few errands and a most delicious lunch despite the heavy snowfall.  And then it was time to read, and how fitting since I read Susan Hill's Lanterns Across the Snow.  It is, I think, going to be a perfect holiday read that I will happily return to again.  The refrain in this novella is "last night, the snow fell.  And then I began to remember.  I remembered all the things I had forgotten.  Or so it had seemed."  Last night the snow fell, and today the snow fell, too.

Lanterns in the Snow is a reminiscence in more than one way.  It is the narrator's remembrance of one magical, perfect Christmas--the sort of Christmas that only happens in those years of childhood that are so full of wonder.  It is also a story that loosely recalls the Nativity.  It is filled with gorgeous descriptions of nature and food and family.  You can easily read it in one sitting (best enjoyed with a hot drink and maybe some gingerbread).  If you plan ahead you might even read it in three short sittings since the story is broken into three chapters--Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and St. Stephan's Day. 

The narrator looks back on the childhood of her ninth year when she lived with her family in the vicarage of a small village.  Her brother is her best friend and also her, at times, biggest annoyance.  She both admires her father who is so important to the community and bemoans the fact that even on the most loved of all childhood holidays he must work.  Death and birth take no holiday and so her father must attend to those most in need.  This underlying message of hope is quite nicely presented and not heavy handed, but I especially appreciated the descriptions of the natural world, which make the story quite vivid.

"She stood at the window, looking out.  Christmas Eve; and the snow fell like goose-down."

That sounds oddly familiar to me today!  I just need a lantern to make it complete.  Lanterns, and perhaps the light or the illumination from them can do double duty both as a feeling of warmth and beauty but also hope.  And lanterns are threaded through the story--from the carolers on Christmas Eve to the lanterns on the ice where Fanny watches her parents happily skate hand in hand. 

Another youthful reminiscence I read recently is Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales, which is another gorgeous story.  Since Thomas is a poet you can imagine how lyrical his prose is.  Another snowy story, which is what I imagine for Wales at this time of year. 

"Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the daft and happy hills bareback, it snowed and it snowed.  But here a small boy says: 'It snowed last year, too.  I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea."

A Child's Christmas in Wales is much shorter and more impressionistic.  It is less a story than another child's observation of Christmas Day and all the treats and wonders that it contains.  

Both books have beautiful illustrations and both will grace my shelves permanently.  I had only read Hill's stories of suspense and the macabre, so this was quite a change, and I have never read Dylan Thomas, but now I will certainly seek out his poetry.  As holiday celebrations are taking place, I'll leave you with a few happy images and hope your holiday is equally as lovely.

"I sit here, beside the window, and watch the snow, and the blackbird who comes and sits under the flowering bush, and after a while hops out further, to find the food that I have thrown.  The yellow flowers of the bush are dusted with snow, and the bare branches of the tall tree are outlined delicately in white.  And I sit here, beside the window, and my lamp throws its light in a pool onto the ground below, but there is no snow so close to the building, the overhang of the roof above deflects it."

"And all last night, and all today, I have sat here quietly and remembered.  Remembered joy and sorrow, nights and days, summer and winter, in that perfect place."

"I remember my room at the very top of the tall old house, and the view out over the churchyard, and the gravestone of my two dead brothers.  Remember the stone church and the fields beyond, remember the wood and the lanes and Ladyman Barrow."

State of the Night Stand, or Holiday Reading

Okay, so this is it.  The small stack in front are the last books of the year for me--if I can actually manage to finish them all.  The two thicker books are already in progress, one is only a novella and two are quite short.  I might be on the optimistic side, but it depends on how much time I can spend reading in the coming eight days.  I am officially on break from work, though I do have one more work-related project that I need to finish (will be working on it diligently tonight) and when I do finish the time between now and January 4 when I return to work is more or less mine. 

The stack in the back are books that are either carry-overs--books that I have been reading but are on the back-burner temporarily, or books that I plan on beginning to read in the New Year.  The Charles Tood-Bess Crawford mystery is actually my current mystery (which I have also checked out from the library as an ebook so it is my gym book!) and I am enjoying very much.  Now that I will soon have a little more free time I might end up with some other new start as well and can properly do a little planning (in the loosest sense of the word) for next year, and finally give my short story reading a little thought as well.

I have a few presents to wrap and will be making some caramel pecan brownies sometime in the next few days.  To be honest I will be happy when the holiday is finished and then I can relax--read, write letters, go to a few movies, hopefully pull out my stitching once again.  Oh, and I have a stack of books I keep threatening to write about, so there may be some marathon book-blogging sessions coming up, too.  I hope you have some fun things planned and some free time in which to do them in the coming week!  I plan on checking back in tomorrow to tell you about my 'Christmas reading'.