A Work in Progress

Half the Reading Year: Part 2 Underway

Here we are officially past the midyear mark.  I don't know about you but I sort of enjoy looking back over my reading year, or even more so my previous reading year and see where I started and where I have ended up.  Last January I shared a photo of my 'current reading pile' and I am happy to say that of the eleven books I had to begin the year with, I finished reading six of them.  Three were either set aside or I decided it was the wrong book at the wrong moment and so went back to the shelves (only the poor Deakin was started and then, nonfiction being a challenge for me this year for some reason, put on hold after a promising start).  I jettisoned two (one went back to the library and one went into the 'give this one away' bin).  Other than the Deakin, I am not carrying the others over (I have a little 'languising, but I'm not entirely finished with you yet pile--which I should have shared here, too, but maybe another day).  All in all not so terrible really. 

Here is my current reading pile.   Ah, yes, it has grown by four.  Being at that mid-point maybe I need to think about whittling down soon (something I tend to do a bit later in the year).  Technically I am only rotating between about four at the moment (with the idea of finishing one and then picking up another from the pile . . . or as seems to be the case of late . . . starting yet another new book).   The top two books in that front pile I am thinking (optimistically) that I will finish in the next few days to go in with the July list of books read.  And I am missing a library book (I think I have finally made a choice as a matter of fact).

So, this brings me to where I am going the rest of the year with my reading.  Here are some of the books I am very keen on reading still this year.  I am already underway in three of them (the Hollinghurst, Cleave and Simonson).  A few were on my original wishlist of reads from January, and I am happy to say that of the baker's dozen that I came up with, I have made some sort of progress (even if I haven't quite managed to line it off the list quite yet) of seven books/themes.  I am not doing well with classics this year (or nonfiction), but there is still time.  I have not yet picked a book to reread but I am still leaning towards Rosamund Pilcher's Coming Home) and I am not sure Chekhov will get the attention he deserves or that I intended).  I have no problem with veering off on other reading paths, as a matter of fact I welcome it as plans are only reading prompts to get started.  I do, however, still have high hopes of getting back to my poor NYRBs (see those three in my current reading pile . . .).

And I have my upcoming vacation (which will include long car rides back and forth across Nebraska and into Colorado), which is a good eight hours or so of enforced sitting (which I hate, but I can fill lots of those hours with reading, I hope).

So, here we are with half a year to look forward to.  Where will your reading take you?

Battle of the Library Books: Teaser Tuesday

My own little personal 'tournament of books' today.  I am limiting the choices to just two.  These are the two books on my pile that not only have other readers waiting for them but that have due dates not so far off into the distance.  Now I could happily pick up both and just dive in and read, but realistically that won't work since I know I cannot drag two hardcovers around with me.  I am trying to make a concerted effort when it comes to not attempting to read (and carry about more importantly) more than three books at once.  Well, not literally at once, but three books over the course of a day.  I am at the point of no return (yes, must keep avidly reading to find out who our culprit it) of Lisa Jewell's The Girls in the Garden and should finish in just a day or so.  Time to think about what is next in line.

Technically Delia Ephron's Siracusa is next up if I am going by check out/due dates.  But I have another contender that is also beckoning.  Do I stick with Delia since she was here first?  Or do I just let Maggie O'Farrell cut in line.  I want to read both of them.  Can I squeeze in both in the next two or three weeks?  It sounds like lots of time, but there is that whole work thing that gets in the way Monday through Friday.

So, in Delia's favor: I listened to a very interesting podcast that sold me immediately.  It is set in Italy on the coast of the Ionian Sea and has the "pacing of a psychological thriller".  It's told from alternating perspectives of the four people involved.  How about a teaser to compare:

"I have a snapshot of me standing on Finn's shoulders when I was twenty-nine, a trick we'd perfected.  I would sprint toward him and work up enough steam to climb his back to his shoulders.  I look triumphant and not a little surprised to have done this--it was unlikely I would ever stand on a man's shoulders, having been neither a cheerleader nor a gymnast, and I am not physically daring (a deficiency).  I was unhappy that day on a Maine beach fifteen years ago, but you would never know it from the four-by-six glossy.  Finn and  broke up that afternoon."

It's less than 300 pages, which means it will hopefully not take me longer than any other average size book to read.

In the opposite corner is Maggie O'Farrell's This Must Be the Place, which has garnered some very good reviews.  I have read and enjoyed O'Farrell's work before.  She won the Costa Award.  It is set in part in Ireland, which is another place I love.  It is a "novel about family, identity and true love", and the dust jacket promises me it is "a sophisticated, spellbinding summer read".  It does have nearly 400 pages but flipping through the book it has not only photographs but descriptions from an auction catalogue which intrigues me to no end.  And like Delia's book this seems to be written also from more than one perspective and moves back and forth in time.

Okay, your turn Maggie.  Time for a teaser from you now:

"There is a man."

"He's standing on the back step, rolling a cigarette.  The day is typically unstable, the garden lush and shining, the branches weighty with still-falling rain."

"There is a man and the man is me."

Hmm.  Could go either way.  I fear there is nothing for it but that I will have to read them both.  Maybe a day off from work ensconced in some quiet corner of a coffee shop?  When you check books out from the library (or buy them) I think each book should come with a little bonus free time in which to read it.  And hey, due dates are really more like guidelines.  Surely there must be a ceiling on how much a person can accrue in overdue fines. 

(She hastily remarks . . . Not that I would ever do that of course).

Has anyone read either (or maybe even both?!) of these books yet?  Input is always welcome.

In Search of a New Path . . .

More about these guys in a minute.  Aren't they cute?

As much as I love reading short stories, and I read several over the weekend, I have to tell you . . . lately I have been dragging my feet when it comes to writing about them.  Maybe it's just Sylvia Townsend Warner's writing.  Inviting and whimsical as it is, I struggle with it, though I love it, too.  That said, but I was happy to finish the collection I was reading.  Maybe it is just a general ennui.  I've been tired lately.  Tired of the heat and of the sameyness of my daily routine.  Life feels a little lackluster (but that's life, right).  I have not been very inspired when it comes to blogging.  Part of me wants to pull out and go offline for a while, but part of me really loves this way of being bookish and interacting with others who feel the same.  

I am not ready to give up book blogging entirely, but I think I need to change the things I am not enjoying very much about it.  How often do I say this, but maybe I need to be less rigid about posting daily.  (I think it is in part that dratted calendar that is on my sidebar which notes just when I am around and when I am not.  I think it needs to go away).  Maybe I need to stop doing short story posts.  A monthly round up?  In a way the weekly short story post keeps me motivated to read at least one a week.  But the weekly post has slipped from Sunday to Monday and then last night I couldn't even muster the energy and did yardwork instead.  (So, the yard DID need attention after all that heat and humidity--those weeds luxuriate in the heat in ways I do not). 

Maybe I need to feel less guilty about not writing "proper" posts about all the books I read.  But I do want to continue writing about them in some way.  Some will call for something more "proper" and others maybe just a mention, a teaser, something really brief.   More in progress posts?  More reading notes and lists (which I love)?  Maybe just more photos?  More excerpts?  Though am not fond of this (this here post) navel-gazing sorts of posts, so less of this!  Maybe something more along the lines of a diary format blog about books with the occasional "review" type post interspersed. 

So, yes, I need a new path to follow.  The book blogging world is full to the brim of readers--so many and so many others who are much better at writing about books in a more review-type manner than I am, and I think that is a good thing!  So I need to find a new inspiration.  Maybe a little change in style/appearance.  I've felt very disconnected this summer, in part due to my lack of motivation, as well as the weather and the fact that my computer is showing its age and not pleasant to work on any longer.  I've also been doing more things outside of my home and enjoying them which makes it hard to sit down in front of a computer.  I've been restless here and in many other aspects of my life and you may or may not have noticed that I am looking for a way to re-invent myself.  So, it continues.  And things may look different here soon.  I need to look around and see what other longtime book bloggers are doing these days.  I've been inhabiting this space since 2005 (!) and think a little change of course is in order.

Now, about those animals above.  My Picturetrail account is coming up for renewal and I no longer want to pay to use their site, so I need to move my photos to somewhere I can store them safely and perhaps find a free place to display them again.  This is from one of the folders that I have deleted that was filled with photos of "UFOs" or unfinished objects/projects.  I started this one when I first started stitching.  It is riddled with mistakes, but I think it is entirely salvageable.  It calls out to be finished.  It does, however, require the entire background be filled in with black floss, which sounds pretty tedious and likely was what made me set it aside in the first case. 

See, this poor, old sampler needs a little revamping as well!

It's Too Hot to Think Reading Notes

You know it's really hot when I don't even have the energy to complain about how disgusting the weather is at the moment.  I can't even concentrate on writing a proper post, so just a few reading notes to kick off the weekend and then the computer can rest and so can I!

I've been spending most of my reading time with a very few books (can you believe it, neither can I!).  In part I really want to finish a few more books before the end of the month and make a few inroads into that towering in progress pile, in part because I have other books at the ready to start when I finish them, and in great part because it is too hot to schlep a heavy bookbag home from work these days.

First up and I hope to finish before the end of July, Jane Smiley's Some Luck, which I have been greatly enjoying.  In case you aren't familiar with it, it is the first of three books covering a century in the lives of one Iowa farm family.  I am just starting 1942.  It's the sort of read where not a lot happens but a lot happens.  Maybe it is like looking through a macro photo lens rather than a micro lens since not much detail can be shared when each chapter is one full year.  This first book stops at 1953 so I've only about a decade left.  I am liking the story more and more the further into it I get.

Then moving on to the mid-1970s is Judith Rossner's Looking for Mr. Goodbar, which is a really interesting story.  It certainly has that 70s feel yet it is the portrait of this young woman that I am most intrigued with.  She is a very complex character.  In many ways I don't necessarily like her or understand her, yet I am still very sympathetic towards her, too.  It makes for very compelling reading.  

And then there is Lisa Jewell's The Girls in the Garden which is easy and I am finding that I am flying through it.  There is a feeling of menace to the story.  The reader is presented with a crime and now the possible suspects are coming out of the woodwork.  So many devious characters with potentially so much to hide.  It has a Rear Window-ish feel to it since it is set in a small community of houses overlooking a common green space where the young people mingle.  I'm just not sure if the presentation of so many possible suspects isn't a little too obvious. However, it is certainly not stopping me turning the pages quickly.  Really you couldn't ask for a better story to read on a sultry summer night.   

I've finished the last stories in my Sylvia Townsend Warner collection but fear those last few weren't just a little rushed.  As much as I enjoyed the stories I was just ready to be done.  I have a few collections in mind and something new on the way in the mail, but I think for this weekend it will be a story from the Alice Hoffman collection and a couple of random stories I found in an anthology in the library, which I will share more about next Monday.  A little palate cleansing before embarking on the next volume of stories.  

And a few books on my radar this weekend (and hopefully to be explored more next week when it will hopefully at least be less suffocating weather-wise), a book by Zen Cho, the new one by Ruth Ware and some excitement involving Richmal Crompton.  Oh, and I've been thinking about vacation reading--both in preparation for Estes Park, Colorado and what might be going with me for that long drive there and back (and maybe a little time spent reading by a nice, Cool, rushing river.  So, a few teasers of good bookishness to come.  I hope you have a cool and breezy (and book-filled) weekend!

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

File this one under sweeping epic multi-generational historical sagas.  It is a chunky book with nearly 1000 jam-packed pages of mostly unputdownable drama and excitement.  Characters to love and loathe and become so involved with that when you surface for air you forget just where you are and what you should be doing (because when you get to that point of no return you will likely ignore all your other tasks at hand).  Fall of Giants by Ken Follett is the first of three books known as The Century Trilogy.  It opens in 1911 and ends in 1924, and this is a story where you truly feel you have been places and done things.   I will admit that I did start this one some time ago and then hit a snag on the WWI battlefields (thanks to a particularly annoying character), but once I pushed past that it was all serious coasting to the end.  One thing you can say about Ken Follett, he knows how to tell a "thumping good story".

So much is packed into these pages that it would be impossible to try and give you a plot summation, but I can at least tell you about some of the various characters and their families.  There is a helpful cast of characters listing at the front of the book which is five pages long, but don't let that worry you.  I had little problem keeping everyone straight once the story started rolling.  There is a lot of interaction between the groups of people even though the story moves from Wales to London to the French battlefields to Germany and German battlefields, all the way to Russia and then across the Atlantic to America.  Whoosh.  Yes, with such a varied cast Follett manages to squeeze in most of the major early 20th century wars and revolutions.   And no one is ignored from peasants to Lords and ladies.

It begins in Wales with the working class family of the Williams family.  They are miners who work essentially for the Fitzherbert clan whose family seat is in Aberowen, South Wales.  The daughter of the Williams family is a maid at the Great house and it won't be giving anything away to say she has an affair with the young Earl Fitzherbert.  He is a pompous ass and is the man who annoyed me into letting the story languish for longer than it should have.  I can let you imagine what comes of their affair and I will add that he, as an aristocrat, has married into a royal Russian family.  So a link between Wales and Russia. 

We might as well head over to Russia where we meet two brothers who are from a peasant family.  The Peshkov brothers are orphaned young, the elder is intelligent and responsible and the younger handsome but corrupt and self serving.  It's thanks to the Earl's wife's family that their own mother is killed during a demonstration.  When the younger brother gets into trouble and must make a hasty getaway, it's thanks to his brother that he can emigrate to America.  Unfortunately the peasants are dumped on the coast of Britain and guess where he ends up--Wales.

Eventually he does make his way to America where he gets involved in what is essentially a family of Russian mobsters.  More paths cross and this time with a young American man rising through the political ranks working for the Wilson administration.  Gus Dewar happened to be traveling in England and Wales on business where he meet the Earl and by extension the Williams family and has a run in with our Russian friend.  Later in America they vie over the same woman.

Before the war the Fitzherbert family is on happy terms with the German Von Ulrich family and Lady Maud even has a love affair with Otto von Ulrich who is part of that same young crowd.  Their love deepens and then war comes and they are wrenched apart.  So, that is most of our main set of characters, though there are many others who fill up and add color to the background. 

The story moves from place to place following the tides of war and revolution but with lots of extra detail thrown in--miner's strikes, women's suffrage, affairs, affairs with the enemies, affairs between classes, unplanned pregnancies, births, deaths, war wounds, executions of traitors, bloody revolutions, corruption and even at the end a little bootlegging, marriages, more strikes, political jockeying, Parliament runs and the promise for yet more exciting adventures with not only this generation but the next of the four or so families met in Fall of Giants.

I've already dipped into the second book of the trilogy, Winter of the World which picks up in 1933 with yet another war on the horizon.  My favorite characters are Ethel Williams and her brother Billy, but I rather like Lady Maud who chooses love over respectability and money.  I still find her brother Earl Fitzherbert particularly odious, and the Russian brother who ends up in America far too self-serving to be likable in a bad-boy sort of way.  Their children will now come to the fore and I have met a few already.  The second book promises to be just as good as the first and maybe even better.  The third book, Edge of Eternity which takes the story all the way into the Cold War and beyond comes out in a mass market size edition in September, so it will be something good to look forward to this fall.

Pure, unadulterated fun and the perfect sort of story to completely immerse yourself in, particularly if you are in need of a little well-written and well-plotted escapism.

I've Missed You So: Library Loot

Gosh, it's been literally ages since I have shared a pile of library finds here.  I have been trying hard to concentrate on reading from my own shelves and so have been very selective on which books I borrow from the library to the point of hardly borrowing at all.  I can resist no longer as you can see.  It makes me feel all happy inside to bring home a stack of library books and share them here.  Realistically I know I won't read them all, but I will do my best and at least dip into them to see which will be keepers in one way or another--either will get back in line for them or will watch for a paperback edition later.  Let's see what I've been tempted by of late:

While the Gods Were Sleeping by Erwin Mortier -- "a novel about the magnitude and impact of the First World War, the recollections of which are recorded in the notebooks of the elderly Helena. The young Helena is sent to her uncle’s country house before the war, and from here she witnesses scenes of indescribable horror. But it is also where she meets Matthew again, a British Army photographer who she goes on to marry. This is a story not about spectacular events; rather, Mortier is concerned with writing about war, history and the past with great empathy and engagement, and with a mixture of melancholy, qualification and resignation."  This is translated from Dutch and must have been on some prize longlist somewhere.  He has been compared to Proust if that gives you a sense of his prose style.  It absolutely demands to be read slowly and some passages reread!

The 6:41 to Paris by Jean-Philippe Blondel -- "Cécile, a stylish forty-seven-year-old, has spent the weekend visiting her parents in a provincial town southeast of Paris. By early Monday morning, she's exhausted. These trips back home are always stressful and she settles into a train compartment with an empty seat beside her. But it's soon occupied by a man she instantly recognizes: Philippe Leduc, with whom she had a passionate affair that ended in her brutal humiliation thirty years ago. In the fraught hour and a half that ensues, their express train hurtles towards the French capital. Cécile and Philippe undertake their own face to face journey—In silence? What could they possibly say to one another?—with the reader gaining entrée to the most private of thoughts. This is a psychological thriller about past romance, with all its pain and promise."  I thought this sounded very clever and hopefully will be amusing in a wry sort of way.

Mrs. Churchill's Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal -- "In this daring debut, Susan Elia MacNeal blends meticulous research on the era, psychological insight into Winston Churchill, and the creation of a riveting main character,  Maggie Hope, into a spectacularly crafted novel."  I am sure I will like this series.  It has been recommended to me by friends and I have forever been meaning to try it.

Absalom's Daughters by Suzanne Feldman -- "Self-educated and brown-skinned, Cassie works full time in her grandmother’s laundry in rural Mississippi. Illiterate and white, Judith falls for “colored music” and dreams of life as a big city radio star. These teenaged girls are half-sisters. And when they catch wind of their wayward father’s inheritance coming down in Virginia, they hitch their hopes to a road trip together to claim what’s rightly theirs."  This sounds like such an unusual set up--had to give it a go.

A Few Right Thinking Men by Sulari Gentill -- "Meet Rowland Sinclair, gentleman and artist living in 1931 Sydney. Friend of the Left, son of the Right, he paints in a superbly tailored, three-piece suit and houses friends who include a poet, a painter, and a feminist sculptress whom he has painted nude and hung it in the drawing room. Is he perhaps in love with Edna? If so, she isn’t having any."  I need to read more Australian literature and I love a good 1930s mystery!

Siracusa by Delia Ephron -- "With her inimitable psychological astute­ness and uncanny understanding of the human heart, Ephron delivers a powerful meditation on marriage, friendship, and the meaning of travel. Set on the sun-drenched coast of the Ionian Sea, Siracusa unfolds with the pacing of a psychological thriller and delivers an unexpected final act that none will see coming."  I have read about this and listened to a podcast interview with the author--it keeps popping up and how can I resist anything "Italy"!

Eve of a Hundred Midnights by Bill Lascher -- "The unforgettable true story of two married journalists on an island-hopping run for their lives across the Pacific after the Fall of Manila during World War II—a saga of love, adventure, and danger."  I am a slow nonfiction reader and I doubt I will manage a library copy when there are other people waiting for it.  But I will dip in and see if it is something I really want and likely will just order a copy for myself.

The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell (not in the stack as it is my gym book so it is sleeping in my locker overnight) -- "On a midsummer night, as a festive neighborhood party is taking place, preteen Pip discovers her thirteen-year-old sister Grace lying unconscious and bloody in a hidden corner of a lush rose garden. What really happened to her? And who is responsible?"  I will tell you about this one soon--it seems to be a quick sort of read.

I have the books sorted by most-want-to-read, further sorted by due dates and lastly by how long the line is for them.  Such a fine balance library books must call for.  Which can be renewed or have short waiting lines and which beckon to me most strongly.  So, the Jewell is first up (and soonest due) with Siracusa very close behind.  I have started the Mortier novel but it will need to be read slowly and with attention.  It was an ILL request through the library where I work and happily I can renew it.  The MacNeal will easily be renewed and most likely more than once since it is the oldest (and the first in the series).  And I am leaning heavily towards the Feldman as the story simply really appeals at the moment. 

The library game.  Flexing my fingers now to get back into things.  Oh, library books.  I have missed you . . .

A Dining Room Girl & Other Colorado Stories

In just a little over a month I will be traveling to Estes Park, Colorado for a short vacation.  I spent a few days there last year at almost the very same time and it seems to be my family's yearly mini-vacation destination.  It is close enough for it to be a reasonably comfortable and quick drive yet enough of a change of scenery to feel like we are actually somewhere entirely different than Nebraska.  I am particularly looking forward to this year's visit as it might offer a little relief from the heat.  It may also be very warm there, but being so high up in the mountains means less humidity and cooler evenings.

One of my favorite places last year was this wonderful local history museum which has a great little bookstore/gift shop.  It is where I found this little gem of a book that I just read to get into the mood (as if I wasn't already) for my upcoming travels.  I am not sure if I ever mentioned Rocky Mountain National Park Dining Room Girl: The Summer of 1926 at the Horseshoe Inn by Kay Turnbaugh and Lee Tillotson.  It is perhaps geared towards a YA audience but certainly anyone interested in the 1920s, Estes Park, women's diaries, the Rockies or hotel work from that era would find it of great interest.  Check all of the above for me, which makes this a most interesting example of the kind of social history I love the most.

This is a nonfiction work made up of mostly diary entries and letters home by Eleanor Parker who had just graduated from college in Fayette, Iowa and spent the summer of 1926 working as a dining room girl at the Horseshoe Inn just at the foot of the Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes.  This was the heyday of such rustic lodges, which were peppered all over the area.  Eleanor was one of many young people to work in the lodge but she spent her free time exploring, hiking, riding horses (she was an accomplished and avid horseback rider) going to casinos (which were not as we know them today rather they were places where socializing took place and dances were held).  The book is made up of Eleanor's own words as well as photographs, postcards and other ephemera collected from the area.

It is an absolutely fascinating look at a place long since gone.  There is something very romantic about the idea of her summer there.  A description from a brochure reads: "Meals are the best quality and served in a tasty manner.  Wholesome things come from our own garden.  We have our own cows, chickens, and our private ranch supplies many of the choice foods."  To stay at the inn as a vacationer in 1926 the rates ran $25 to $45 per week, American Plan (meaning that the cost of the room and three meals were included--all served by the young people who came to work over the summer months). 

I love reading her diary entries and letters home as you get a real taste of her life there.  She wrote home nearly every day and her mother transcribed her letters into a notebook, happily for us her experiences have been long preserved.  A few teasers:

"Ruth has sent for a one-act play that we're going to work up and put on one of these nights.  Later on we will be having a program a week.  This morning the boys had a grapefruit tournament.  They stand in the kitchen door and throw grapefruit rinds at the garbage pails.  The one who gets the most in out of 5 gets a Hershey Bar.  It pays quite well to keep out of the way or you're apt to get socked in the head with a grapefruit."

***

"Friday night I got my first real tip.  Five dollars from 15 people for one meal.  Everyone was quite amazed, and I most of all.  They said no one had every had such a large tip before.  The queer part of it all was that I made all sorts of dumb mistakes, gave them salad with dressing salad with dressing when they asked not to have any and green tea instead of orange pekoe.  I told them I wasn't really a professional hasher and sometimes made mistakes.  They laughed and said I was all right."

***

"The trail from Odessa to Bear Lake is no tenderfoot trail.  Part of the way is nothing but rocks and sheer drop of 500 feet.  The horses seemed to know their business, and we got up all right.  The view unobstructed by trees was wonderful.  We could see off down the valley for miles.  The rocky wall opposite quite reminded me of the battlements of an old castle."

I think even today there are a lot of students from all over the world who spend their summers working in Estes Park and the Rocky Mountain National Park, which celebrated its centennial anniversary last year (this year is the centennial for the National Parks all over the US).  This is a beautifully produced book, both interesting and informative.  I only wish there was even more of it.  Eleanor went on to marry and teach and she and her husband (a childhood friend) traveled widely.  She passed away in 1988 when she was 84.  It sounds as though she had a rich and happy (certainly she seems quite happy in the photographs!) life.

An absolute treat of a book!  I have two more books at the ready to read before my vacation: Adventures in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Bird, which is part of Penguin's Great Journeys series.  And Colorado author Sandra Dallas has been a favorite of mine for a long time.  I read a number of her books in my pre-blogging days and have collected nearly all her novels.  I have The Bride's House to read soon which is set in 1880 Colorado and follows three generations of women "who have lived in the same Victorian home called the Bride's House".  Another book I am tempted to start right now, but I will in any case soon be slipping it into my reading pile.

Short Story Monday: The Listening Woman

I am winding down in the Sylvia Townsend Warner story collection.  Only forty pages left to read, but five stories.  I am hoping to finish the book in the next few days.  I like to spread out my short story reading and not take them in a big gulp, but as much as I have enjoyed her writing, I think I am ready to move on to something different.  I have been thinking of returning to Elizabeth Jane Howard or maybe something entirely different.  Or perhaps an anthology of stories collected by theme.  As much as I am 'into' a book I am currently reading the promise of something new very soon is always a temptation I cannot resist.

I read two STW stories this weekend.  The last two Mr. Edom/Abbey Antique Gallery stories were published in the late 1960s/early 1970s.  "The Listening Woman", which I will tell you mostly about was written in 1965 but not published until 1972.  Apparently the then editor of The New Yorker had wearied of the series.  I've enjoyed them and quite like those interlinked sort of stories, but perhaps for a literary magazine it was just too samey?  Her stories can be very quiet sorts of stories but sometimes they are quietly sly, if you know what I mean.  A little jab at the end a satirical twist.

I think what I like most about these stories set in the world of antiques is the character of Mr. Edom who tends to take a person by surprise.  He can come off rather curmudgeonly sometimes, but then a customer comes along and he'll treat her with such deference you wonder what it is about her that softens his heart.

"It is common experience how the possessions of one's childhood vanish . . ."

The narrator is thinking along the lines of a white mug with the letter D on it and whimsical pictures that illustrate it, or a marionette or a high chair.  These little trinkets are long forgotten from "your ungrateful memory" until some small thing, like a thimble case in an antique store brings the memories flooding back.  Miss Mainwaring, now an old woman, is highly regarded by Mr. Edom (high praise indeed his assistant Mr. Collins thinks).  Miss Mainwaring is what we might term low maintenance.  She is happy to browse without having to handle all the items and will usually buy something if only for manners' sake.

And then she spots "the candlelit woman"--a painting that was once owned by her parents and hanging on the walls of her childhood home.  "So here you are" she says.  Her father called it "Lucy's painting" as Miss Mainwaring liked to look at it as she grew up.  The more she looked the more it seemed there was to see and think about.  Her father died, the books went to her great aunt along withe books and she lost track of it.  And here it is hanging in an antique shop, sadly in need of a good cleaning.  And worse, a married couple are looking at it, too, contemplating purchasing it if only for the frame.  They can always remove the painting since it is so dirty . . .  Miss Mainwaring stands patiently waiting yet her desire for it is almost palpable.  When she mentioned to the shop assistant that it was once her family's painting, you can tell he is thinking "poor mad woman".

***

I am very much enjoying the Alice Hoffman collection of interlinked stories, The Red Garden.  I'm up to 1848 in "Owl and Mouse".  There are common themes, aside from the stories' setting of Blackwell, Massachusetts over the centuries.  Hoffman tends to write about women, women who tend towards the unconventional, often solitary and independent and always smart.  There is a nod towards nature and the natural world.  Blackwell is still so new as to be rugged yet the same families carry on and have established themselves.  Some of the original homes are there and recognized. 

Emily is one of my favorite characters so far.  A student at Mount Holyoke Seminary, she is being removed by her family as she's not been happy there.  "Her views were her own, and educators did not always appreciate free thought."  On her last day before returning home she decides to go for a walk as she "often would go rambling as a child", and she had been known to collect flowers.  Over time she had as many as six hundred different species. 

"She liked to disappear, even when she was in the same room as other people.  It was a talent, as it was a curse.  There was something that came between Emily and other people, a white linen curtain, hazy.  It made the world quieter and farther away, although occasionally she could see through to the other side."

I understand her restless feeling.  She fears if she goes home she will never get away again.  "There was something inside her, beating against her ribs, urging her to do things she might not otherwise attempt."  And consider this is 1848!  Her ramble is a serious ramble that lasts more than ten hours before she stops--just outside the town of Blackwell.  I won't give away all the best bits of this story, which I think is a really lovely read and perhaps my favorite so far, but it involves a man who is blind, yet sees and understands her (a man who is also drawn towards to the horizon and discovering new worlds) and it involves the making of a fragrant garden. 

Next week hopefully will see the end of the Sylvia Townsend Warner collection and I am now up to 1863 with "The River at Home" in the Alice Hoffman collection.

A Quiet Drink, Deborah Moggach

A comedy of errors.  Social comedy worthy of Barbara Pym is Deborah Moggach's wonderful A Quiet Drink.  This is the sort of story where you know two people are going to come together, only it takes most of the book to happen, and then when it does it is a quick delight, a disaster and then an unexpected though perfect ending that almost really couldn't conclude any other way.  And Deborah Moggach pulls it all off spectacularly. 

"It is a sly stroke of chance which brings Claudia and Steve together.  Yet neither could know how far the consequences of a quiet drink would reach . . ."

Claudia was married to Adrian, but he's left her for Beth.  It was a reasonably amicable split, though she'll feel bad when she finds out that Beth is pregnant.  Now she lives in a flat where if she drops a pencil no one else will pick it up off the floor unless she does so.  It could sit there for weeks unattended.  Claudia works for Yours magazine.

Steve is lately married to June.  He's a cosmetics salesman who will face something of a moral crisis when he meets a woman who works for a nonprofit trying to stop cruelty to animals (including stopping cosmetics firms from experimenting on animals).  But that's a bit of an aside.  He's fallen hard for June because she's so beautiful, but once they are married she stops working and becomes a rather stodgy housewife and not the wild pussycat he had expected (or at any rate, she's not one any longer).

June worked for a store selling cosmetics and would cross paths with Steve every time he came in to sell new items and tweak the store's displays.  June is charming and pretty and the two are immediately attracted.  However she knows she is not terribly ambitious and not in really the smartest cookie in the package, though she does try and educate herself in a way that will make her more interesting to Steve.  She likes improving their home and looks forward to new carpeting.

The new carpeting is bypassed when Steven uses the money to donate to the firm trying to save the animals.  All for nothing as the woman he's trying to impress is mostly indifferent.  June has no idea.

Claudia decides to take in a lodger and after a number of interviews with prospective roommates she settles on Alistair who works as a librarian.  A nice fellow, a little odd.  He has a mum somewhere out in the boonies.  He keeps diaries which Claudia begins reading, both repelled by her behavior and unable to stop herself.  She feels she must invite him to eat with her at mealtimes.  It's very awkward as you might imagine.

June begins going to the library when Steve is off on his business calls and crosses paths with Alistair but they are only interested in the exchange of ideas and information. 

Claudia's best friend Verity is married to Wil.  They have several children.  She grows their food and is all natural in her outlook on life and raising a family.  They live in the outer suburbs.  Maybe even further than that.  Wil commutes into London for work.  Wil makes a pass at Claudia.  She almost regrets not taking him up on it fully since there is not so much as a look from an eligible man otherwise. 

Claudia and Steve meet when his cosmetics firm has business with her magazine, Yours.  They cross paths.  They go for a quiet drink.

And this is where it all gets really good.

Characters meeting up, crossing paths, circling each other's orbits.  Until one cut finger and a lack of sticking plasters threatens to unravel it all . . .

Social comedy extraordinaire. 

I can see this as a movie!

It was published in 1980.  It doesn't in any way feel dated to me, yet it oozes that period. 

I could pick it up again Right Now and start reading it once more. 

Deborah Moggach is a delight, but I think I mentioned that to you already.

I have almost all her books.

Yes, I am going to read more. 

Very likely one of my best reads of the year. 

Brighton Belle, Sara Sheridan

"A nice bottle of Islay malt was all Mirabelle Bevan really wanted--though Glenlivet was fine at a push."  I like a woman who knows her own mind.  Now, don't get the wrong idea in reference to the whiskey.  Mirabelle is a woman to admire, but it's 1951 and she had a difficult war.  Rather, a difficult ending to a war that offered her opportunities.  How sad that the man she loved made it through the war only to die of a heart attack after.  And now Mirabelle is left to pick up the pieces of her life and copes as well as she can.  A life she spends in the employ of a debt collection agency located in Brighton.  She likes to take her lunch on the beach when she can (a woman truly after my own heart), and she knows how to time the comings and goings of the deck chair attendant so she can avoid paying for use of a proper place to sit.

"By selecting the right chair she could have an average of twenty-five undisturbed minutes, which was perfect.  Mirabelle's life these days revolved around small victories, little markers in her day that got her through until it was time for bed."

I understand those little markers.  For Mirabelle a little nip of the Islay to wash down her sandwich makes facing the emptiness that is her life just a little bit easier. 

Brighton Belle is the first Mirabelle Bevan mystery and she's proved to be an intelligent and inviting character to get to know.  She works in the office of McGuigan & McGuigan, though there's only "Big Ben" (who thought the dual name sounded more professional) and herself.  Their clients are mostly people trying to pay off debts with the occasional person in the pursuit of loaned money long outstanding.  Ben is as no-nonsense as Mirabelle and the two get on well, so he's more than happy to leave the office in her capable hands when he comes down with a case of the flu. 

When a client comes in trying to collect a loan from a woman "in the family way" who's done a "blighter" down to Brighton, he's ready to retain the services of McGuigan and company.  It should be straight forward until Mirabelle discovers that the woman is a Hungarian refugee and has just died in childbirth.  It's not an unusual occurrence, but things don't quite add up, especially after meeting her sister and her social-climbing cohort.  There is something more going on, though Mirabelle can't quite yet put her finger on it.

Mirabelle brings to her work a little added knowledge and experience.  She served the war effort working for the Secret Service in London, and while she didn't do any field work she's learned enough to fake it.  She can easily size up a situation and read the problem and know the questions she needs to ask and how to find the answers.  It was through her war work that she met Jack, an unhappily married man who was on the verge of leaving his wife when he died.  Mirabelle is a stylish woman and obviously from a wealthy background as Vesta, her neighboring office worker, notes. 

Vesta is friendly to the point of nosiness and gets drawn into the mystery willingly.  She makes an interesting juxtaposition character-wise, as a black woman in a mostly white town who speaks her mind (she's used to the discrimination even while it makes the reader shudder).  To Mirabelle's svelte sophistication, Vesta likes a bit of sweet along with her tea (another woman after my own heart).  She's a little apprehensive about doing the things Mirabelle wants to do (breaking and entering?), but once she gets a taste of the life, there is no turning back.  The two women make a perfect partnership and without giving too much detail away I think they will be working together more in the future. 

For a first novel I was suitably impressed since Sheridan not only presents interesting and nicely developed characters with lots of room to grow, but she sets the scene of post-WWII Austerity Britain nicely with just the right amount of period detail to make it convincing without feeling artificial.  And to top it off the mystery was surprising in a twisty turny way just when I thought I had figured it out.  I look forward to more of Mirabelle and Vesta's adventures and now my only problem is trying to decide whether to wait for the next installment to be published here in the US or just order the next book (there are five available with a sixth forthcoming next year) from the UK.  I'm pleased to see more female characters in roles like these--a combination sleuth/espionage story so very often only inhabited by men.