A Work in Progress

My Summer 'Wintering' Down Under

My summer 'bookcation' reveal was meant to happen on Friday, but time just got away from me and here we are starting a new week (and yikes mid-May already, why is time going so quickly?).  That's okay, my summer literary travels are meant to be leisurely and enjoyable.  I bet you can guess now where I plan on spending much of my reading time . . .  I am off to Australia.  Actually a few current reads already have taken me there, so it seems very fitting to make it my summer destination.  Besides we are gearing up for the heat of summer (already too warm here), while in Australia they are looking forward to fall and winter, so it sounds especially appealing to me at the moment. 

First a few additions to my reading pile that (in one case was just pure serendipity) have taken me Down Under.  Since Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden is my May prompt book and is set in part in Brisbane that is where my inspiration came from.  I have loads of books by Australian authors and I always mean to read more of them, so maybe I can get through a few of these this summer. 

When I decided it was going to be Australia as my destination I picked up a book that just came in the mail that I ordered by chance, Mary-Rose MacColl's Swimming Home set in 1920s London and New York but with Australian characters and by an Australian author.  I am hoping that there will be bits set in Australia, too.  The story is about a young woman who sets out to be the first woman to swim the English Channel.

And I am counting this as a modern classic, a novel I have owned for a very long time but been a little afraid to read . . . Nevil Shute's A Town Like Alice.  It is the blurb, which describes the story as a young woman who survives the Japanese "death march" in WWII that has always made me hesitant to read it.  I have to get over this 'fear' of reading about difficult moments in history as I think I am missing out on some very good reads.  I have a mass market paperback of the novel but my library also has it for loan as an ebook, so I loaded it on my tablet, too, for something to read on the go or at the gym.  I have to say I started it last week out of curiosity and I am finding it totally gripping, so that was also a reason I had to pick Australia. 

I have one or two other books by Shute that might be potential reads if I can find them in my piles of books . . . though as you see in the photo I have far more books at the ready than I know I will manage to read.  And a few other books that didn't make the photo, yet have since been added to the reading pile.  In no particular order:

Monkey Grip, Helen Garner -- "Inner-suburban Melbourne in the 1970s- a world of communal living, drugs, music and love. In this acclaimed first novel, Helen Garner captures the fluid relationships of a community of friends who are living and loving in new ways."

Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay -- "It was a cloudless summer day in the year 1900. Everyone at Appleyard College for Young Ladies agreed it was just right for a picnic at Hanging Rock. After lunch, a group of three girls climbed into the blaze of the afternoon sun, pressing on through the scrub into the shadows of the secluded volcanic outcropping. Farther, higher, until at last they disappeared. They never returned. . . ."

A Few Days in the Country & Other Stories, Joan Harrower -- "These finely turned pieces range from caustic  satires to gentler explorations of friendship."

Desert Places, Robyn Davis -- Hmm.  Didn't realize this is about her travels in India, so may have to replace this with Tracks!  "Robyn Davidson's opens the memoir of her perilous journey across 1,700 miles of hostile Australian desert to the sea with only four camels and a dog for company."

The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Richard Flanagan -- Booker Prize winner in 2014 -- "Moving deftly from a Japanese POW camp to present-day Australia, from the experiences of Dorrigo Evans and his fellow prisoners to that of the Japanese guards, this savagely beautiful novel tells a story of the many forms of love and death, of war and truth, as one man comes of age, prospers, only to discover all that he has lost."

The Secret River, Kate Grenville -- Orange Prize winner in 2006.  "In 1806 William Thornhill, an illiterate English bargeman and a man of quick temper but deep compassion, steals a load of wood and, as a part of his lenient sentence, is deported, along with his beloved wife, Sal, to the New South Wales colony in what would become Australia. The Secret River is the tale of William and Sal’s deep love for their small, exotic corner of the new world, and William’s gradual realization that if he wants to make a home for his family, he must forcibly take the land from the people who came before him."

The Natural Way of Things, Charlotte Wood -- Stella Prize winner in 2016.  "Wood’s dystopian tale about a group of young women held prisoner in the Australian desert is a prescient feminist fable for our times."

The Golden Age, Joan London -- Prime Minister's Literary Award winner in 2015.  "Frank Gold’s family, Hungarian jews, flee the perils of World War II for the safety of Australia, but not long after their arrival, thirteen-year-old Frank is diagnosed with polio. He is sent to a sprawling children’s hospital called The Golden Age, where he meets Elsa, the most beautiful girl he has ever seen, a girl who radiates pure light. Frank and Elsa fall in love, fueling one another’s rehabilitation, facing the perils of illness and adolescence hand in hand, and scandalizing the prudish staff of The Golden Age."

My Brilliant Career (omnibus edition) & My Career Goes Bung, Miles Franklin -- "Miles Franklin began the candid, passionate, and contrary My Brilliant Career when she was only sixteen, intending it to be the Australian answer to Jane Eyre. But the book she produced-a thinly veiled autobiographical novel about a young girl hungering for life and love in the outback-so scandalized her country upon its appearance in 1901 that she insisted it not be published again until ten years after her death."

Lantana Lane, Eleanor Dark (VMC) -- "From Aunt Isabelle, part-pioneer, part-Parisienne, to Nelson the one-eyed kookaburra bird, each of the Lane's inhabitants makes their own inimitable contribution to this engaging and witty portrait of community life."

The Little Company, Eleanor Dark (VMC) -- "It is 1941 and the storm clouds of war gather over Australia. In the mountains outside Sydney the Massey family are reunited by their father's death. Gilbert is a successful novelist, struggling with writer's block in middle age. A socialist and intellectual, he shares his political understanding - and fears - with his sister Marty and brother Nick. But he is locked in an unhappy marriage with a woman of little imagination and obsessive respectability, and their daughters, Prue and Virginia, are as incompatible as their parents. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor, war becomes a reality. As Gilbert and his family are overtaken by the forces of history, they must come to terms with their personal and public failures, and watch as the new generation inevitably mirrors the contradictions and turmoil of the old."

A Hank of Hair: An Exquisite Danse Macabre, Charlotte Jay -- "For I prefer beauty always a little soured. When it comes to me as a spoonful of syrup, I spit it out. Gilbert Hand hasn't been the same since his wife died. He's moved to a dull but respectable hotel where silence seems to brood in the hall and stairway. In a secret drawer he discovers a long, thick hank of human hair, and his world narrows down to two people-himself and the murderer."

Who Are You, Linda Condrick, Patricia Carlon -- "The contentious relatives living on the remote Forst sheep station are united against an interloper from Sydney who was hired to nurse old Mrs. Forst in her last illness. Now the heir, Gregory Forst, has become engaged to marry her and the others fear that they will be turned out of the valley. A bushfire rages, threatening all of their homesteads. And then, the charred body of a swagman is found. How did he die? Could he have been murdered? By the outsider, the nurse? Who, really, is Linda Condrick?"

Flying Too High: A Phyrne Fisher Mystery, Kerry Greenwood -- "Walking the wings of a Tiger Moth plane in full flight would be more than enough excitement for most people, but not for Phryne―amateur detective and woman of mystery, as delectable as the finest chocolate and as sharp as razor blades."

Of course I have to ask--are there books that I really shouldn't miss that are not in my pile?  I have a variety, but it is mostly fiction with a couple of nonfiction title thrown in and a very few mysteries/crime novels.   I am very much in a mood to read about WWII and am sure there must be other books (I know the Flanagan as well as the Shute are books I want to read set in that period) that give a view of the war from an Australian perspective.

And anyone who would like to join me on my travels--either a different suggestion or one from my pile that you are also interested to read, do leave me a note below and maybe we can read in tandem.  I am hoping that I can post weekly in some way about my bookish travels--a teaser or review or something else bookish about Australian lit.  I think I have plenty of choices to keep me busy over the summer until fall classes start late in August, though I do plan on continuing with my monthly prompts and hopefully reading the last three books from the Baileys Longlist that I have not yet gotten to.

So, what do you say?  A little surfing in Sydney?  Maybe a visit to the Opera House?  A little foray into the Outback.  I've never tried vegemite.  I'm ready to make some new discoveries!

Planning My Summer Bookcation . . .

Any guesses where my bookcation is taking me this summer?  It will have to be only a "book"cation as I am otherwise going nowhere at all anytime soon.

Details to follow this weekend . . .

Is Fate Trying to Tell Me Something?

You might be wondering what the connection between these two images and the usual bookish chatter you find here is?  I'm glad you asked.  The images are postcards that came in the mail just a day or so ago.  I have picked up with my Postcrossing postcard sending once again after quite a long hiatus.  I only keep about four or five postcards "traveling" at once, but it means when one arrives I get a surprise card back in my own mailbox.  What a bounty that not just one card, but two came.  The top one came all the way from Hong Kong and the bottom from Germany.  My Postcrossing profile mentions that I work in a library and enjoy reading and if the sender likes to read, too, to share a favorite book or author or tell me what book they have sitting on their night stand at the moment. 

Now here is where the moment of serendipity comes in.  Both Postcrossers have told me they like reading, too.  The Hong Kong sender happens to be reading Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens right now.  And the German Postcrosser?  Dickens is the author of choice these days it would seem.  She is reading Great Expectations.

Is this fate I wonder?  I have been contemplating (if not actually doing anything about it) reading another classic.  I have done an abysmal job so far when it comes to picking up any classics this year.  Maybe it is a sign?  I have read very little of Dickens' work and neither of these books, so I pulled both from my shelves.  Is it just me, however, or does Dickens just 'feel' like a cold weather/winter sort of author to read?

Alternatively, I get a newsletter from the Penguin Classics Book Club and they are reading Passing by Nella Larsen, a book I started eons ago but never finished.  Maybe that is a sign I should pick it up and read it in earnest now?  Or maybe I should just call Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy my classic (modern classic, right?).

Sometimes just the act of thinking about reading something is enough for me and then I merrily continue on with my pile of in progress books.  Maybe just thinking about it right now is enough.  Or I could live vicariously through you.  What classic are you reading or have recently read (or plan to read?)!

Teaser Tuesday: A Likeness in Stone

Generally I love novels of suspense.  Thrillers, mysteries, crime novels.  Cozies and the more gritty sort of story as well.  I'd like to think I am an 'equal opportunity' sort of reader, but I have to say I have grown weary of most contemporary novels of suspense.  I guess we could call it the "Girl Syndrome".  Any book that hearkens to Gone Girl (which I admit I did not read, though I own) or Girl on the Train (which I did read but didn't find it a really spectacular story I'm sorry to say) has just lost all appeal. 

It's not just those two but any book that offers up the comparison on the cover.  Anymore I don't even bother to pick them up.  Now, this is sort of weird for me as I don't necessarily mind that sort of comparison.  Sometimes if I have loved a particular type of story I am happy to find another one similar or written in the same vein.  I do feel a little bit bad about that.  But it's like all those books with covers that are the same (you know them--books with women on the cover that has her body or part of her head, but mostly with her head cropped off; or books showing just the woman's back--she is walking away against a dark and atmospheric background).  But these things just grate on me lately and I avoid them.  I wish a book could be touted for its originality--something different and unexpected and that doesn't compare with every other contemporary thriller or novel of suspense.   

So I have not been reading much at all from this genre and I miss it.  I want a really good page turner.  Something that will keep me on the edge of my seat wondering.  When nothing new will do, there is always a really good solution.  Look for something old and dependable, and I mean that in the best sort of way. 

I don't know much about Julia Wallis Martin and it looks as though it has been a few years since she has published anything new.  She has not written a lot, but somewhere along the way I bought a copy of her first novel A Likeness in Stone from 1997.  I know what likely drew me to this book--the crime!  A body is found in a house that was sunk when a reservoir was created.  What is it about sunken cities like that?  The idea that a house or village was not demolished and cleared away before it was submerged in water fascinates me.  Houses left just as is and flooded never to see the light of day ever again.  Surely a pretty good place to hide a body, right?  I did not set out to look for this book on my shelves but as so often happens with books I read, I just came across it looking for something else and read the description.  It was, in this case, the comparison to Minette Walters and Ruth Rendell that sold me.  Both authors are, in my opinion, masters of the genre and their books are classics.  They have stood the test of time and have done something that is unique or really really masterful. 

So, we'll see if the comparison is deserved.  I have only read a few chapters so far, but the story does seem quite promising.  It is well written (and there is not a headless woman or a woman at all on the cover, thank you very much).  The story seems to be told from various perspectives--from characters who might well have committed the murder, so we get into their heads.  I love psychological suspense.  So, just a teaser from the opening chapter, of the diver who finds the corpse rather than those 'saleable items' making the dive worthwhile.  He is feeling a little skittish, that something is not quite right and he should know since he is a seasoned diver.

"An instructor had once told him to let an absence of fish serve as a warning.  It was unnatural, and could usually be attributed to pollution or a predator.  Consequently, when he had once been diving for pleasure off the coast of Mozambique, the realization that, quite suddenly, the fish had disappeared had frozen him to immobility.  He had tried to sense from the feel of the water what it was that had frightened them, and when a Bull shark had loomed towards him everything he had ever heard about them flashed instantly to mind."

The diver had just noticed that there was an eerie silence under water.  Not just an absence but but a weird palpabble presence of something that should not be there!

Because I can't Help Myself (Library Loot)

Oooh, such a pretty stack of books, don't you think?  My most recent Persephone Biannually just came in the mail in the last week or so and it was a nice reminder that I really need to pick up a Persephone Book soon.  Maybe sooner rather than later now, as you can see. 

It's been a while since I've read one of their books and every year I say I am going to read more.  I had a good look at the book blurbs which are included in the Biannually and realized how many new books have come out since my last purchase.  I had forgotten that my public library ordered in the whole backlist a few years back and wondered if they were continuing to order in each new seasons releases and was so pleased to discover that indeed they are.   So, yes, I went a little crazy requesting the newer titles (and I still have a few more that are in transit to my branch that should be arriving in the next day or so).  I know I will not read them all (not all right now that is), but I thought how nice it would be so take a really good look at them before choosing one to read (and it is time really for me to order one, too, so I stay on their mailing list).

A few other books came home with me as well.  So, from top to bottom here are the library books that have my attention at the moment.

Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong -- I came across this book on one of Book Riot's abundant book lists, in particular a list about mystery novels from around the world.  It piqued my curiosity, a detective novel set in 1990 Shanghai, and as luck would have it it was on the library's shelves.  NPR said "it does what detective fiction can do best: It captures the details, the grit of everyday life . . . a matchless pearl."  Sold!

The Godwits Fly by Robin Hyde -- "A semi-autobiographical novel spanning the years 1910–28, The Godwits Fly is in some senses a bildungsroman: the story of Eliza Hannay growing up in a suburb of Wellington."

Long Live Great Bardfield: The Autobiography of Tirzah Garwood -- "Time and the honesty of Tirzah’s words have made this an immensely important document and it is a valuable primary record of a woman who was at the centre of an important group of artists, and who was herself a very good artist in her own right."

Every Good Deed and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple -- Ten stories--this is the companion book to a previous story collection published by Persephone Books.  Maybe this will help jump start my short story reading.

The Happy Tree by Rosalind Murray -- "This 1926 novel begins with the death of a young man during the war, flashes back to his happy childhood shared with the young woman who is the narrator, and then describes how the war – inevitably – took them unawares, destroyed their happiness and has left her, the young woman, emotionally maimed."  Sounds a bit dire, doesn't it, but apparently it doesn't read that way. 

In This Grave Hour by Jacqueline Winspear -- I had an egalley copy of this which I didn't finish before it expired.  I have been in line for a library copy for so long I think I might have to just start from the beginning again. It's 1939 so we're just at the start of WWII.  Maisie's newest case (and we're getting back to Maisie as an investigator rather than a spy for which I am actually rather grateful) is "to find the killer of a man who escaped occupied Belgium as a boy, some twenty-three years earlier during the Great War."  I recall that I was enjoying this one very much before I was interrupted.

Cairo: A Graphic Novel by G. Willow Wilson -- I don't recall where I came across this one, but I like the sound of it: "a stolen hookah, a spiritual underworld, and a genie on the run change the lives of five strangers forever on the streets of the Middle East's largest metropolis."  I have also gotten away from my graphic novel reading and hope this will also start (re-start anyway) the reading trend.  It is all illustrated in B&W and sepia tones, so I am very curious if it will really grab me. 

And as always I have a healthy stack of in progress reads that I will tell you about soon and am thinking about my "summer reading" (because you know I love a good plan and a good book lists to go along with it), especially since today it is topping out at 90F.  I knew we would go straight from winter to summer. 

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

If I close a book and have a feeling of satisfaction, I know it was a good reading experience.  And if I am lucky most books come with that contented sigh at the end.  Every so often, however, I close a book, am 'wowed' and think, 'now this is why I love to read'.  That is the experience I had with Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing.  There was that contented sigh, but this is a story (rather--stories) that is going to stay with me and that happy sigh will linger.  Gyasi was named one of the five Under 35 honorees by the National Book Foundation in 2016 ("whose work promises to leave a lasting impression on the literary landscape"), and her debut novel also won a National Book Critics Circle Award as well as the PEN/Hemingway Award for a first book of fiction.  All richly deserved and I only wish the book had also been included on the Baileys Women's Prize list. 

Yaa Gyasi was born in Ghana but was raised in Alabama.  Her novel is mainly set in both places.  It is quite an odyssey from start to finish and is essentially made up of interlinked stories.  I am hesitant to mention this as I know short stories tend to put people off, but trust me this flows like a novel and you will enjoy the storytelling journey even as you shudder at some of the events that take place, as this is a story of two half sisters born in 18th century Ghana but whose life trajectories cross and will then take them in very different directions. 

The Cape Coast Castle in Ghana will figure throughout the novel but especially in both the beginning and last story and is the place the two girls become separated unbeknownst to each other.  Effia will live in the castle as the mistress/wife of the British governor and it is from the dungeons below the castle that Esi begins her journey into slavery.  She passes through a door through which no one returns--the door that leads to a slave ship.  Each consecutive chapter relates the stories of their descendants and their lives in Ghana and America. 

This is an ambitious story chronicling some three hundred years of the lives of these families set against the backdrop of a changing world.  It is not so much major world events that she writes about but the intimate and social.  Gyasi shows what life was and is like for people of color.  She shows the human face of our Colonial heritage and the racist laws and attitudes that are sadly still with us even now.  This is a story that is hard to turn away from even when it feels like you just can't take anymore of the painful (both physically and psychologically) way that the characters are treated. 

To be honest I tend to avoid stories where race and racial injustices feature prominently as it is so difficult to think this is how people have been treated for centuries, but it's important too not to turn a blind eye away from these things.  Reading is a major way we learn empathy for others, others who live lives often very differently than our own.  Maybe if more of us read more books like this there would be more compassion and equality.  We never seem to learn these lessons, however, but it's writers like Yaa Gyasi that show us what the world is like--in all its beauty and its ugliness.  And despite the often heavy and difficult subject matter this is ultimately a very hopeful book.

It would be too much to try and tell you about all the stories.  I found them all very good, some more difficult going than others, some quite surprising.  She took the characters in directions I was not really expecting.  It is an ambitious book, but she pulls it off impressively.  I will happily press this book into your hands, I liked it so much (and it is now out in paperback, too).  She is definitely one of my great finds this year when it comes to new-to-me authors and I expect this will very likely be one of my top reads of the year later on.  I'm very curious to see where she goes from here in her next book.

Such an excellent read that twines the stories together with a beautiful ending (no spoilers given away, but just so you know).  Yes, definitely a contented and lingering sigh on finishing Homegoing.

Almost Mid-Year Reading Failure

It's probably too early be to thinking of this since it is just the start of May (she said optimistically).  I have been thinking about my reading piles and my reading plans for this year.  I know not everyone makes plans and I do try and keep mine on the very light side and open to change as the year passes, but there are books and stories I was/am very keen on pursuing and a few types of books that I really wanted to make a good attempt at. 

So another question for you.  At least for those who do plan a little. . .  Have you also been thinking of your reading thus far this year?  Have you felt like you've done very astray or are on track or have taken a new direction and are generally pleased with the books you've read so far?  I have two (well three really) reading plans that seem to just be sitting there and not taking off as I had hoped. Maybe it's just not the year for these things . . .

I love short stories, but have been vastly horribly neglectful of them despite having a whole stack of potentially wonderful story collections.  And I won't even comment on the state of my New Yorker pile.

Non fiction?  I love nonfiction, but you would never know it by what I have read (and finished!) this year. 

And sort of hit or miss are my lovely, wonderful NYRB Classics books that I am getting and reading oh so very very slowly this year. 

Should I be concerned?  Well, probably not.  But I do want to bring those books forward a bit.  Do I just find something new in the case of nonfiction and short stories (rather than try and reconnect with the in-progress-but-neglected books)?  Or find something new and exciting that will really inspire me.  Have you read any unputdownable nonfiction or story collections this year?

I know.  I know.  I think about these things far too much.  What can I say?  I can't help myself.

Ten New Books for Summer

Can you believe it's May already?  The spring semester at the university is quickly winding down and this weekend we will begin our summer hours.  Friends have been telling me about their summer holiday plans (nothing in the works for me as yet so my traveling will be via the pages of some hopefully very good books), the weather is slowly improving.  My lawn is greening up (am enjoying it while it lasts--the prettiness that is as soon the weeds will take over) and someday soon I hope I can open my windows and let in some warm breezes and sunshine.  And you know what a new season means . . . new book releases, too.  I have been adding to my wishlist and requesting new titles here and there.  I think it is time to share a few forthcoming books I am very much looking forward to.

Kiss Carlo: A Novel by Adriana Trigiani -- "Told against the backdrop of some of Shakespeare’s greatest comedies, this novel brims with romance as long buried secrets are revealed, mistaken identities are unmasked, scores are settled, broken hearts are mended and true love reigns. Trigiani’s consummate storytelling skill and her trademark wit, along with a dazzling cast of characters will enthrall readers. Once again, the author has returned to her own family garden to create an unforgettable feast. Kiss Carlo is a jubilee, resplendent with hope, love, and the abiding power of la famiglia."  This sounds utterly delightful and it puts me in mind to read my most recent Trigiani bookstore find (sooner than later).

Things That Happened Before the Earthquake by Chiara Barzini -- "Welcome to LA? Nineties' Hollywood gets an Italian makeover in this poignant and ruefully funny coming-of-age novel featuring a teenage girl who's on shaky ground—in more ways than one."

Refuge: A Novel by Dina Nayeri -- "Refuge charts the deeply moving lifetime relationship between a father and a daughter, seen through the prism of global immigration. Beautifully written, full of insight, charm, and humor, the novel subtly exposes the parts of ourselves that get left behind in the wake of diaspora and ultimately asks: Must home always be a physical place, or can we find it in another person?"

Footsteps: From Ferrante's Naples to Hammett's San Francisco, Literary Pilgrimages Around the World, The New York Times -- "Based on the popular New York Times travel column, Footsteps is an anthology of literary pilgrimages, exploring the geographic muses behind some of history's greatest writers. From the "dangerous, dirty and seductive" streets of Naples, the setting for Elena Ferrante's famous Neapolitan novels, to the "stone arches, creaky oaken doors, and riverside paths" of Oxford, the backdrop for Alice's adventures in Wonderland, Footsteps takes a fresh approach to literary tourism, appealing to readers and travel enthusiasts alike."  (This is one way to travel!).

Cocoa Beach: A Novel by Beatriz Williams -- "The New York Times bestselling author of A Certain Age transports readers to sunny Florida in this lush and enthralling historical novel—an enchanting blend of love, suspense, betrayal, and redemption set among the rumrunners and scoundrels of Prohibition-era Cocoa Beach."  I'm reading The Secret Life of Violet Grant at the moment and totally digging Williams's stories, so I am sure I will get her newest, too.

A Fortune Foretold: A Novel by Agneta Pleijel -- "The story takes place in the 1950s in the suburbs of Stockholm, in the university town of Lund, and in the United States. Neta’s childhood is in disarray. She reads—words give form to the vagueness of existence—and is busy thinking about the female sex, family, and the stupendous diversity of people in the world. Her father, a mathematician, and her mother, a musician, are in constant conflict, but she loves them both. Gradually Neta realizes that she’s grown up in a lie and that she must step carefully through the war zone of her parents’ marriage."

The Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami -- "Objects for sale at the Nakano Thrift Shop appear as commonplace as the staff and customers that handle them. But like those same customers and staff, they hold many secrets. If examined carefully, they show the signs of innumerable extravagancies, of immeasurable pleasure and pain, and of the deep mysteries of the human heart." I am eagerly awaiting the release of this one next month!

A Girl Walks into a Book: What the Brontes Taught Me about Life, Love, and Women's Work by Miranda Pennington -- "A Girl Walks Into a Book is a candid and emotional love affair that braids criticism, biography and literature into a quest that helps us understand the place of literature in our lives; how it affects and inspires us."

This Side of Murder by Anna Lee Huber -- "England, 1919. Verity Kent’s grief over the loss of her husband pierces anew when she receives a cryptic letter, suggesting her beloved Sidney may have committed treason before his untimely death. Determined to dull her pain with revelry, Verity’s first impulse is to dismiss the derogatory claim. But the mystery sender knows too much—including the fact that during the war, Verity worked for the Secret Service, something not even Sidney knew."  The first in a new mystery series that sounds right up my alley! 

Mrs. Fletcher: A Novel by Tom Perrotta -- "From one of the most popular and bestselling authors of our time, a penetrating and hilarious new novel about sex, love, and identity on the frontlines of America’s culture wars.  Sharp, witty, and provocative, Mrs. Fletcher is a timeless examination of sexuality, identity, parenthood, and the big clarifying mistakes people can make when they’re no longer sure of who they are or where they belong.

So, what are you looking forward to reading this summer?

The Confidant by Hélène Grémillon

"The truth lies waiting in the past . . . " is the tag line on the cover of my copy of Hélène Grémillon's The Confidant (Le Confidant translated from the French by Alison Anderson).  But the truth is, apparently, a very elastic concept depending on who is telling you the story (and maybe why), what their association with you is and how you receive it.   Beware of first person narrators.  There is an intimacy in their storytelling, but the funny thing is . . . you just can't always believe their version of the truth.  You feel like you are getting the insider's view.  They were there.  They saw it and they lived it, right?

"I got a letter one day, a long letter that wasn't signed.  This was quite an event, because I've  never received much mail in my life.  My letter box has never done anything more than inform me that the sea-was-warm or that the snow-was-good, so I didn't open it very often.  Once a week, maybe twice in a gloomy week, when I hoped that a letter would chance my life completely and utterly, like a telephone call can, or a trip on the métro, or closing my eyes and counting to ten before opening them again."

"And then my mother died.  And that was plenty, as far as changing my life went: your mother's death, you can't get much better than that."

Paris in the mid-70s.  In amongst all the letters of condolence Camille finds one that is thick, handwritten, running several pages long and unsigned.  It's the first of many.  Not a letter of condolence but it is or will shed light on Camille's childhood.  She just doesn't know it yet.  They are curious letters.  They tell a story about a young woman named Annie who was an artist living in rural France between the wars-closer to the Second than the First.  The letters arrive almost like clockwork.  Every Tuesday like a serial story you read in a newspaper.  A story with a little more information each week.  It hooks you and carries you along giving you more plot, more red herrings, more cliffhangers.  Camille thinks surely this must be some clever ploy by an out of work writer, as she is an editor and gets manuscripts in the mail often. 

Little by little things are revealed.  The letter writer is a mysterious 'Louis' who tells of his friendship with Annie and what happened in those interwar years when she meets the beautiful and sophisticated Madame M.  Madame encourages her art and takes her under her wing.  Madame is married but unhappy despite her loving husband and easy living situation.  She has everything but the one thing she wants most.  A child.

Do you sense what direction we are moving here?  Camille is like a modern day detective as she tries to piece together who this Louis is, and why is he sending her these letters.  Why is he telling her this story.  Can it possibly be true and why her?  She tries to discover just where Louis is mailing these letters.  Surely the stamp cancellation telling which arrondissement in Paris he mailed them will help her find him.  Or the places in the letters to which he refers will inform her just who Annie and Madame M. are and what, if any, their association with her is. 

Camille's short narrations are interspersed with the longer storytelling that take the form of Louis's letters.  Louis was in love with Annie and she with him until Madame M. entered the picture and turned Annie's head.  Annie offers to do the unthinkable.  To carry Madame M.s baby for her.  And then war breaks out to muddy the already dark waters some more.  Infer what you will from these letters.  Just when you think you have it all figured out, and Camille too, Louis sends a parcel with a notebook filled with tiny print telling a story, the 'real' story as dictated to him by Madame. M.

Nearly the second half of the story is narrated by Madame M.  And what a tale she tells.  Is it indeed a 'tale' or is it truthful and factual.  Which story is the correct, true story.  Even now I wonder.  Maybe shades of each are true.  This is a story steeped in tragedy and sadness. 

"Everything was crystal clear, filthy, but crystal clear."

The Confidant is at the heart a mystery.  I think it is up to the reader to glean from the facts just where the truths lie.  It is a story of revenge, desire, love, lust, deceit, madness.  It plays out against the backdrop of WWII France, but the war really only serves as a backdrop rather than much of an actual 'player'. 

I wanted to really love this story, but I have to be honest I have very mixed feelings about it.  I like that the narrators are unreliable, and we'll discount the fact that none of the characters are particularly likeable.  There was just something about the story that didn't quite work for me.  Maybe it was the jarring manner in which the second story was introduced that felt so very unlike the first part.  There are a lot of time shifts that make the reader really work to keep track of where we are.  There are a lot of details, which help both clarify but also seemed to add a little confusion.  It had all the right ingredients but maybe just in the wrong amounts?  Maybe I wanted more from Camille.  She was perhaps too much of an observer.  I'm not sure but somewhere along the way I lost the thread and it never got it back.  In the end I was a little disappointed that my April spent in Paris ended up being 'filthy, but crystal clear'.  I wish I had managed to spend some time with M. Simenon or got to go to 13, rue Thérèse, but the month just flew by.  Hopefully my month spent in the garden will be sunnier.

By the way, the top right illustration is the cover of the UK edition and the lower left the US edition.  I much prefer the UK cover.  I think the US illustration really misses the mark when it comes to conveying the right feel of the story.  There is no Eiffel Tower and Paris is not really evoked, much like the War that plays out in the background. 

May Prompt: How Does Your Garden Grow

Four months into the year and I have actually read one book (and on one occasion two) for each monthly prompt.  Finally a reading plan/goal I have actually managed to stick to and in the actual month (rather than starting the books and not finishing them for months).  I'll be writing about last month's book this week sometime.  My stack was a bit larger but I had to whittle it down a little.  I just want to read one book, but if I manage two or more that's even better.  I was surprised by how many gardening books I have on my shelves and left a number of nonfiction books in their places, or the pile would definitely get out of hand.  Always good to browse a little and see what I have for later, right?

Now to choose one to start with.  The prompt is "how does your garden grow" since May flowers is what we should be looking forward to (or the start of veggies maybe).  It has not felt at all like spring here.  I had to wear my winter coat against the lashing rain this weekend, and there were snowflakes in the air this morning.  We'll be optimistic and if nothing else I can at least read about warmth for the time being.  So from top to bottom, my choices this month:

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton -- I believe this is a reimagining of sorts of The Secret Garden.  This story begins in pre-WWI Australia and follows several generations of a family with a mystery at the heart of the story.  It opens in 1913, moves on to 1975 and then ends in 2005.  I have had this book on my pile since it came out in paperback.  I have read and enjoyed Kate Morton, so this one is very tempting indeed.

When I first read about The Forbidden Garden by Ellen Herrick it was the book I had in mind to pick up this month.  I hadn't really planned on shelf browsing, but I couldn't help myself in the end.I believe this is a contemporary story with overtones of magical realism to it.  Sorrel Sparrow is hired to restore the walled "Shakespeare Garden" at a great hall--a task others have tried to accomplish but failed at.  One of the blurbs reads "a romantic, bighearted novel that celebrates femininity in all its nurturing, resilient, and fearless power."  Doesn't that sound like a perfect combination?

Katherine S. White's Onward and Upward in the Garden is one of my NYRB subscription books from back in 2015!  It is a collection of New Yorker essays from the 1950s.  It is a little hefty (with somewhat smallish print) book though there are only fourteen essays in the volume.  I wonder if I could manage one essay a week and carry it over into summer?  Maybe I will try at least one and see how it goes.

Stephanie Barron writes a cozy mystery series featuring Jane Austen, but The White Garden: A Novel of Virginia Woolf is a standalone story.  This is another modern-ish day story about a woman who comes to Sissinghurst Castle (home of Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West) to study the famous White Garden.  It's a bit of a mystery as an unknown diary is found that sheds light onto Woolf's suicide. 

Deborah Lawrenson is another author who I have read and enjoyed, so I am sure I would like The Sea Garden.  This is another (obviously a theme writers like to work with) story set in both the present and past as a woman is hired to restore an abandoned garden on an island off the French coast in the Mediterranean.  A parallel story runs during WWII about the French Resistance.  A lush Mediterranean island sounds very, very inviting at the moment.

Last is another novel with parallel stories, but this is set in 1998 and all the way back in 912, Into the Heart of the Garden!  The contemporary story concerns a woman trying to decide whether to sell her cottage and ancient garden.  I'm not sure how the two stories connect, but there must be something to twines the two together.  "The rich and varied history of England is seen through the eyes of generations of women who have found sorrow and joy, inspiration and courage 'down the garden path'."

There is nothing for it but to dip in and see which story catches my interest first.  I'll let you know which one ends up in my reading pile!