A Work in Progress

Only the Lonely: A Thursday Thirteen

I've been very interested lately in the subject of loneliness.  As someone who covets a fair amount of solitude in general, happens to be an introvert and very much introspective, it is a blurry line sometimes between choice and situation.  Sometimes the solitariness is welcome and other times feels thrust upon, but to say the word "lonely" tends to color a person's perspective and attitude as the word lonely often has a very negative connotation.  So I am going to begin from Olivia Laing's list of Ten Books About Loneliness (borrowing a few titles, but then branching out into my own) and let her speak since she does it so well.

"I'm fascinated by loneliness – what it looks like, how it feels, what it does to people – and it seems I'm not the only one. There is a substantial literature of loneliness; unsurprising considering that separation and connection are among the abiding preoccupations of the novel."

"The strange, almost magical thing about these books is that in examining loneliness they also serve as an antidote to it. Loneliness is by its nature a profoundly isolating experience. But if a novel or memoir succeeds in mapping its icy regions, then it can alleviate something of the acute, pain of feeling islanded, cut off from the world at large."

Here is my own hodgepodge list of books about solitude and loneliness.

Good Morning, Midnight, by Jean Rhys -- "Sasha Jensen has returned to Paris, the city of both her happiest moments and her most desperate. Her past lies in wait for her in cafes, bars, and dress shops, blurring all distinctions between nightmare and reality. When she is picked up by a young man, she begins to feel that she is still capable of desires and emotions. Few encounters in fiction have been so brilliantly conceived, and few have come to a more unforgettable end."

Towards Another Summer by Janet Frame -- (I am borrowing the description from Olivia's list as it struck me as something I want to read and so am waiting for a library copy to arrive). "The New Zealand novelist Janet Frame is best known for her three-volume memoir, later filmed as An Angel at My Table by Jane Campion. As a young woman, she spent years in a mental hospital after a breakdown was misdiagnosed as schizophrenia. There she was given 200 rounds of electro-shock therapy, and only released when her first collection of short stories won a national award. She wrote this spare, poetic, immensely distressing novel a few years later, while living in London. It was based closely on real events, and at her request not published in her lifetime. It deals with a single weekend in the life of Grace: like the author a cripplingly shy New Zealand novelist abroad in chilly 1960s England. Grace is mortified by her own sense of ugliness and absolutely incapable of ordinary social demands. I don't think I've ever read anything that deals so beautifully with extreme self-consciousness and the isolation it produces."

Lonely: Learning to Live with Solitude by Emily White -- "In a boldly honest and elegantly written memoir—the first on this topic—Emily White reveals the painful and sometimes debilitating experience of living with chronic loneliness."

Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton -- I love Mary Sarton.  I read this a few years back and wrote about it here, and it is one I am happy to revisit.

An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel -- ". . . a coming-of-age tale set in Seventies London.It is London, 1970. Carmel McBain, in her first term at university, has cut free of her childhood roots in the north. Among the gossiping, flirtatious girls of Tonbridge Hall, she begins her experiments in life and love. But the year turns. The mini-skirt falls out of style and an era of concealment begins. Carmel's world darkens, and tragedy waits in the wings."

The Eight Mountains by Paolo Cognetti -- "For fans of Elena Ferrante and Paulo Coelho comes the international sensation about the friendship between two young Italian boys from different backgrounds and how their connection evolves and challenges them throughout their lives.  Pietro is a lonely boy living in Milan. With his parents becoming more distant each day, the only thing the family shares is their love for the mountains that surround Italy.  While on vacation at the foot of the Aosta Valley, Pietro meets Bruno, an adventurous, spirited local boy. Together they spend many summers exploring the mountains’ meadows and peaks and discover the similarities and differences in their lives, their backgrounds, and their futures. The two boys come to find the true meaning of friendship and camaraderie, even as their divergent paths in life—Bruno’s in the mountains, Pietro’s across the world—test the strength and meaning of their connection."

Migrations to Solitude: The Quest for Privacy in a Crowded World by Sue Halpern -- "Why do we often long for solitude but dread loneliness? What happens when the walls we build around ourselves are suddenly removed—or made impenetrable? If privacy is something we can count as a basic right, why are our laws, technology, and lifestyles increasingly chipping it away? "

Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym -- "This is the story of four people in late middle-age - Edwin, Norman, Letty and Marcia - whose chief point of contact is that they work in the same office and they suffer the same problem - loneliness. Lovingly, poignantly, satirically and with much humour, Pym conducts us through their small lives and the facade they erect to defend themselves against the outside world."  I loved this book when I read it last year!

A Time to Keep Silence by Patrick Leigh Fermor -- "More than a history or travel journal, however, this beautiful short book is a meditation on the meaning of silence and solitude for modern life. Leigh Fermor writes, “In the seclusion of a cell—an existence whose quietness is only varied by the silent meals, the solemnity of ritual, and long solitary walks in the woods—the troubled waters of the mind grow still and clear, and much that is hidden away and all that clouds it floats to the surface and can be skimmed away; and after a time one reaches a state of peace that is unthought of in the ordinary world."  I loved this one, too, and it is time for a reread!

A Start in Life by Anita Brookner -- "Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.' Ruth Weiss, an academic, is beautiful, intelligent and lonely. Studying the heroines of Balzac in order to discover where her own childhood and adult life has gone awry, she seeks not salvation but enlightenment. Yet in revisiting her London upbringing, her friendships and doomed Parisian love affairs, she wonders if perhaps there might not be a chance for a new start in life . . .

Eggshells by Catriona Lally -- "Vivian doesn't feel like she fits in - and never has. As a child, she was so whimsical that her parents told her she was 'left by fairies.' Now, living alone in Dublin, the neighbors treat her like she's crazy, her older sister condescends to her, social workers seem to have registered her as troubled, and she hasn't a friend in the world."

Stations of Still Creek by Barbara Scott -- " . . . the tale of a woman's personal journey and the healing inspiration she finds in the natural settings surrounding her. In a quest for personal and creative truth, Barbara Scot moves to her country cabin at Still Creek, in a National Forest preserve in the shadow of Mount Hood, to be still and thoughtful, in spite of the turmoil of a strained marriage.
Scot takes us on a spiritual journey incorporating seven inspiring natural formations - the Stations of Still Creek: The Old Growth Sculpture; The Burned-Out Cedar Snag; The Towering Maples; The Red Roots Station; The Four Alders with Perfect Posture; Maiden-Hair Fern Point; and The Green Cathedral."  I am hoping to go to Colorado in May and plan on taking this with me to read while there!

Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa -- " . . . quietly devastating novel about the burden of the past and the redemptive power of friendship."  A lovely, gentle read!

As always, if you have a good book you can suggest on the themes of loneliness and solitude do please share.  I have a few others I could have listed and may tack them on later!

Sight: (After) Tuesday Teaser

I've been very neglectful of late of keeping up on my reading here.  I have hit the busy time at work and most days I come home and am ready to just drop into bed after I eat and get my things ready for the next day.  Last night I pulled out my laptop and turned it on in preparation for a proper Tuesday Teaser, but it just didn't happen.  So, I will share a teaser today (teasers are good any day of the week, right?) of a book that has become a surprise hit for me.

When I was looking about the web for bloggers who were giving their predictions for the longlist before the announcement one book seemed to keep popping up all over the place, Jessie Greengrass's Sight.  I tend to be a pretty predictable reader.  I like certain types of books, certain types of stories and certain settings.  I know I have a comfort zone I mostly stay inside of.  And it always helps when a story is one I can relate to.  Not being a mother I don't often immediately reach for books about  motherhood.  I know it's silly, since reading is about expanding horizons and reading about the not known.  So, when this book kept popping up I thought if it gets on the list I will save it for later rather than sooner.  However, it was one of the books the library had sooner rather than later, so I took it home and dipped in and found I did not want to put it down.  (Lesson to me to never assume I will not like something or be able to relate to it!).

So Sight is an interesting story.  It's about a young woman who is trying to decide whether or not to have a child.  She has just come out of dealing with the illness and subsequent death of her mother.  Interlaced with these storylines are some historical bits about the discovery of the X-ray and Freud's work with psychoanalysis.  While I am not sure how it will all come together in the end, her writing is so lyrical I am moved by it.  More, however, is the story of the death of the character's mother.  Having just dealt with the passing of my father last fall those scenes are particularly poignant and she has had me near tears on more than one occasion.  What I most love about books and reading are these moments where I feel like the author has gotten inside my head and so eloquently tells what I am thinking and feeling and experiencing. 

So I am slowly reading and appreciating Jessie Greengrass's lovely prose and her amazing storytelling abilities.  If she does not make the shortlist I will hugely disappointed.  I'm only reading one other book from the list at the moment (which I am also greatly enjoying), but this is a book that deserves accolades in my opinion.

Yesterday I was reading this bit, which comes just after the death of her mother when she is sort of drifting along trying to find her way once again. 

"All morning in the library I would sit at my desk, flicking through contents pages and indexes, appendices, photo captions, chapter headings, following this lead or that little way until I became distracted or until it was time for lunch, a slice of quiche or tart and a salad in the library cafe, and then often in the afternoons I would give up even that pretense of activity, setting a book to lie open in front of me, the pages rustling softly in the breeze from the open window, and allow myself to drift through the brackish backwaters of the afternoon, the roar of traffic from the road outside a lulling constancy.  I stayed each day until the library was almost closed, until the assistant librarians came round with their trolleys to pick up that day's cast-off texts and until the sound of a hoover started up in a distant corridor; and then at the last possible moment, dragging my feet, I would dawdle back out into the street--and although at the time the sound of pages turning seemed to grind against me until I worried that I might be worn away by it to nothing, now I recall that long summer as though it had been spent within a papery cocoon.  I had been reduced to nothing, and now I sought amongst so many books a new way to understand myself by analogy, a pattern recognized in other lives which might be drawn across my own to give it shape and, given shape, to give it impetus, direction.  The things which I learned without noticing all through that year recur to me still, those images from medical textbooks, the bodies dissected or described, the case notes and the cabinets and all the many ways there are to see inside ourselves, and still I feel that, correctly understood, they might constitute a key--."

Wow.  See, I understand that searching and that drifting as that is what I feel like I am going through now, too.  Even if our choices and situations and trajectories are vastly different, that underlying emotion is exactly the same.  I have a library copy of the book, but I think this is one I am going to buy to keep on my shelves.

State of the Nightstand: March 25

A bit of reshuffling went on this weekend.  A couple of books shifted out only because I had not properly started them, so it is better to wait now when I have others I really need to finish and which I am so close to finishing.  Okay, a couple of new additions, too.  I'll tell you about them soon.  And a stop at the bookstore this weekend and I brought a very few new ones home.  Some serious reading needs to be going on in my house now (as if it never does . . .).

A Very Rainy Weekend Reading Notes

This is what I hope to be doing this weekend as it is going to be a very wet weekend--so best stay indoors and dry, right?  And I have plenty of in progress/almost finished as well as new/I can't wait to start reading books.  Curiously, however, I read better when I am not at home.  And more curiously I think I read mostly at the gym while walking on the treadmill.   But I am always happy to go in search of a coffee somewhere quiet where I can sit by a window with a book in hand.  Think I'll do that this weekend, too.

If you are looking for some online bookish distractions, I've come across (as always) lots of interesting things to look at and read to send your way:

I really think this idea is cool.  I know these short story dispensers can be found in Paris.  I'm not sure how they would do in Omaha, but I know I would try it!

I didn't even know there was a British Book Award!  For once I have read one of the books and have another on my TBR pile, which I hope to get to very soon.

On my mental to do list for this year I really think I need to read Elena Ferrante's quartet of books.  I have the first two sitting and waiting.  I feel like the last person on the planet (who is a reader) who has not yet read at least the first book.  And now there is news of the forthcoming adaptation.

I like Australia's version, Street Libraries, of our own Free Little Libraries!

Kind of late, but I like the NYT's Overlooked project.

It's testament to how much I love reading crime and mystery novels.  Of this list of The 7 Creepiest Manor Houses in Mystery I have read ALL but one.  That never happens!  And I know exactly where that Victoria Holt novel sits in my TBR pile.

However I've only gotten to two of the books on this list.  (Shamefully?) I have ordered two of the books--cheap used copies, because I can never say no to Italian crime fiction.

Apparently two 'lost' manuscripts by Charlotte Bronte are going to be published by the Bronte Society.  It's been ages since I've read anything by the Brontes.

With more and more libraries focusing on their digital collections, I see this happening more and more.  I think it is not just a trend or threat in fine arts libraries, too.

I love postcards.  I wonder if these are as cool in person as they appear online?  Something to tuck away on my wishlist anyway.

Another work week draws to a close.  I love Fridays, because there is still the whole weekend ahead to look forward to.  However you spend it, have a good one!

Public Image by Muriel Spark

I think Muriel Spark is best read and then reread.  First for story and then for all the stuff that happens underneath, because the surface story tends to be deceptively simple.  If you blink, then you'll miss it, and I suspect it is easy to miss the point in her work.  Spark's 1968 novel The Public Image was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.  It's a slip of a thing, much like the central character Annabel Christopher.  Written in the glamorous era of La Dolce Vita and the dawn of the paparazzi, this is a story that could easily to applied to the here and now of today's all-consuming celebrity culture.  Maybe it is even more applicable considering the public persona that is built up around a very average actress like Annabel, who may have little talent but a really good media team to cultivate her public image.  And cultivate it they do. 

Annabel begins with small roles and increasingly becomes in demand since she perfectly fits a certain type.  Her husband, a would-be actor, has little of the same success so Annabel's earnings support them both.  She sees it as proof he does not want to work and indeed he stays at home more and more in their Kensington flat living on her money and reading all the books he had not the leisure before to do so. 

"Perhaps he was never happier in his life than in those long mornings at home while reading various literature on the theme of The Dance of Death, and annotating Strindberg, while Annabel was at the studios, or was working out of the country for a few weeks, with her meager skill and many opportunities to exercise it."

While Frederick is watching from the sidelines, in turmoil of Annabel's seemingly effortless success getting angrier and angrier, she is blithely going along becoming famous.  His idea of acting, or creating is far different than that of Annabel.  While she agrees with him, she doesn't actually understand what he means.  It's something she learned or heard in acting school, but with experience she manages to circumvent her ignorance.

"In practice her own instinctive method of acting consisted in playing herself in a series of poses for the camera, just as if she were getting her photograph taken for private purposes.  She became skilled at this; she became extremely expert.  Ten years later, with the good assistance of Luigi Leopardi, she was recognized as a very good actress on the strength of this skill."

With the aid of Leopardi she becomes known as the English Tiger-Lady, famous and in demand, so the couple moves to Italy to pursue her career.  All the while Frederick is seething as Annabel is posing.  The pair are anything but happy, but she continues putting off separating in fear it might ruin her reputation.  No success at acting he writes scripts for films, all this putting into motion this wonderful dark story of image and identity and facade--the lack thereof and the careful creation of one that is all scaffolding but little that is solid and real.

In one of the nastiest and most vicious take downs that I have ever read, what Frederick does to sabotage Annabel and her public image, which he loathes for its vapidity (but maybe he is just jealous?), is truly taken to extremes.  The hints I'll give to this very dark deed are only to say, keep in mind his reading material and his abilities to write a script, imagine a situation, which he devilishly puts into motion.  All through it, Annabel considers her image and how to uphold it even in the most dire of situations.  You might call it damage control.  It does make one wonder if she is not perhaps a much better actress than everyone assumes. 

This is indeed quite a drama, both literally and figuratively.  I'm not sure this is Muriel Spark's best and probably not her most famous, but I do like how she skewers her characters, and it makes me wonder if I am reading them and her story quite right (hence the need to read a second time at least).  Along with Frederick and Annabel, there is the slimy best friend of Frederick, a most effective publicist and a preciously annoying small child who would love to blow Annabel's cover.  This is a slender novel that is darkly humorous, which if it has not been filmed really should be.  This year marks her centenary birthdate (February 1, 1918) and it is a good time to revisit her exquisite writing.

Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa

I seem to have an affinity for books tinged in melancholy, but Durian Sukegawa's lovely story, Sweet Bean Paste (originally published in Japanese as An, translated into English by Alison Watts), is ultimately a redemptive story.  It's about friendship and understanding, second chances and lost chances, about the weight of history and loneliness.  Three disparate characters will come together, perhaps clashing at first but then finding how their crossed paths can soften the edges and even sometimes change lives.  The book's cover illustration is perfect for what is sandwiched inside--muted pastel shades--evocative of sweet smelling cherry blossoms and the aroma of dorayaki. 

It's a breeze that blows along Cherry Blossom Street, and sweet scent that ushers the reader into the store of Sentaro.  Doraharu is the dorayaki shop Sentaro is left to manage after the death of the owner, a man who helped get him out of trouble.  Sentaro has had a difficult life, but Doraharu is his second chance, or at least the road to a second chance, if he can make a go of it.  After the owner passed away, his wife asked Sentaro to stay on and run the confectionary.  Once his debt has been cleared Sentaro wants only to move on to something better.

Doraharu is a sad little shop, however.  And Sentaro does the very minimum to keep it going.  The owner's wife only keeps an eye on things from afar, as long as he can keep the shop running and some profits coming in.  He sells only the sweet buns filled with red bean paste and then he uses pre-made paste to fill his confections.  He's not really a true baker, at least he doesn't try very hard to be one.  To stretch the mixture out as long as he can he mixes the leftover with the new from the can.  It's adequate but nothing spectacular.  It's mundane rather than artistry.  For the local schoolgirls who like to come each day to chatter and have a sweet it's good enough.

Tokue, however, has been watching the shop from a distance, and she knows her dorayaki.  And she knows when she tries one of Sentaro's that it is . . . lacking.  She comes to his window one day to tell him that while the pancake was not too bad, the bean paste, well . . . "I couldn't tell anything about the feelings of the person who made it."  She tells him that bean paste is all about feeling and his had none.  Not surprising since it comes from a can.  What Tokue wants is to work for Sentaro, help him make proper bean paste, a true dorayaki that people can savor.  Sentaro only sees an elderly lady who moves slowly and whose hands are gnarled and unsightly.  Of course she could never be hired to work with the customers, making the paste and worse serving them.

One day she brings him a sample of her homemade bean paste to try, but once she left the shop he pitched the container into the trash.  Something niggles at him and in his mind he feels the guilt of having been so dismissive of the old lady, so he pulls the container out and tries the bean paste and knows he is in the presence of a true confectioner.  He reasons that if he hires her on the low wages she is willing to accept and keeps her in the kitchen only making the bean paste, he can pay off his debt faster and so get on with his life.  A life, he feels is out somewhere on the horizon, but not quite in his grasp.

Once her bean paste is used on his pancakes the dorayaki are magic and the customers begin coming.  Things don't quite work out as he expected.  Despite the difficulties of her hands, she is personable and pleasant and likes nothing better than to chat with the customers, even taking some of the schoolgirls under her wings.  But the owner's wife gets wind of this new employee and is unhappy with Sentaro's decisions concerning the shop.  Sentaro wonders about Tokue's hands and what caused them to look as they do.  She is amiable but secretive about her past and he does not like to pry. 

Some secrets can be devastating.  Just when the shop is beginning to take off, bits of Tokue's history are revealed and just as a happy rhythm has been achieved it is broken, but just maybe lessons have been learned.  This is such a lovely, gentle read.  Despite the heavy tone, as Sukegawa reaches into Japan's sad past, it is muted in the beauty of his storytelling.  This is a true gem of a read and an unexpected yet happy find.  Sweet Bean Paste has been made into a movie (this was my March prompt selection for book into movie), and I hope to watch it this weekend.  It would be perfect to pair it with a dorayaki or two, if I can get my hands on them, though I think I would prefer the real thing--just as Tokue might have made them.  Sweet Bean Paste is warmly recommended!

Weekend Bookstore Indulgences!

I did a little bookstore hopping this weekend.  What else does one do on a chilly, gloomy almost-but-not-quite spring weekend, right?  (Okay, so I probably make that excuse for just about any weather type, but it had been a while since I visited my favorite used bookstore).  I was just going to browse, I hadn't even planned to make a special trip there, but by chance I had some time to kill and was in the neighborhood, which of course means I was going to find all kinds of things.  And I did.  Top to bottom:

Blood Upon the Snow by Hilda Lawrence -- I thought this a great find and was thinking it seemed just the gem that would be nice to reissue and it seems it will be later this year.  Originally it was published in the 1940s.  "Private detective Mark East arrives at Crestwood, an elegant estate, to serve as a private secretary to archaeologist Joseph Stoneman. At least, East is supposed to be a secretary. Mr. Stoneman's nervous manner suggests that he's actually in need of a bodyguard. The estate's other residents—including a troubled hostess who confines herself to her room and a strangely solemn child — contribute to the fearful atmosphere. After a snowstorm completely isolates the estate from outside contact and the occupants start dying under mysterious circumstances, East must identify the murderer before it's too late for the entire household."

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender -- I know this has been out for ages and I have seen it all over the place, but apparently I never picked it up and looked at the description, which appealed immensely this weekend.  "On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein bites into her mother's homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother’s emotions in the slice. To her horror, she finds that her cheerful mother tastes of despair. Soon, she’s privy to the secret knowledge that most families keep hidden: her father’s detachment, her mother’s transgression, her brother’s increasing retreat from the world. But there are some family secrets that even her cursed taste buds can’t discern."

Not one but two Virago Modern Classics:

The Wind Changes by Olivia Manning -- Manning's first novel set in Dublin post-Easter Uprising.

The Beth Book by Sarah Grand -- "Grand’s extraordinary recall of childhood emotions, avoiding Victorian sentimentality, makes The Beth Book a convincing and captivating chronicle of female adolescence. The coming of age and sexual awakening of Beth broadens into a consideration of wider social issues, such as marital violence, vivisection, and the sexual double standard. The Beth Book deserves to be seen as a classic of the Victorian age."

Staring at the Sun by Julian Barnes -- "Jean Serjeant, the heroine of Julian Barnes’s wonderfully provocative novel, seems ordinary, but has an extraordinary disdain for wisdom. And as Barnes—winner of the Man Booker Prize for The Sense of an Ending—follows her from her childhood in the 1920s to her flight into the sun in the year 2021, he confronts readers with the fruits of her relentless curiosity: pilgrimages to China and the Grand Canyon; a catalogue of 1940s sexual euphemisms; and a glimpse of technology in the twenty-first century (when The Absolute Truth can be universally accessed)."  This ones sounds interesting but curious.

Two by Georges Simenon:

Maigret and the Old Lady -- "The inexplicable murder of the wealthy Valentine Besson’s maid leads the older woman to believe that she herself was the intended target. Inspector Maigret undertakes the investigation, meeting Mrs. Besson’s dysfunctional family and a cavalcade of suspects. As he delves into the case, Maigret must unravel a tangled web of family politics—and confront Valentine’s stepsons, who may be harboring dark secrets of their own."

Cécile is Dead -- "Poor Cécile! And yet she was still young. Maigret had seen her papers: barely twenty-eight years old. But it would be difficult to look more like an old maid, to move less gracefully, in spite of the care she took to be friendly and pleasant. Those black dresses that she must make for herself from bad paper patterns, that ridiculous green hat! In the dreary suburbs of Paris, the merciless greed of a seemingly respectable woman is unearthed by her long suffering niece, and Maigret discovers the far-reaching consequences of their actions."

Indigo: In Search of the Color That Seduced the World by Catherine E. McKinley -- I love books about color!  "This is the story of a precious dye - indigo and its ancient heritage: its relationship to slavery, slave trade and its profound influence on fashion and its spiritual significance that is little recognized today."

And if that isn't more than enough, I followed up with a visit to B&N as I have a couple of gift cards I am trying hard to make last.  I was looking in the science and nature sections and came across two really interesting sounding books.  I rarely browse these sections--not sure why since there were all sorts of really good books.  I decided on:

Wonderland:How Play Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson -- "This lushly illustrated history of popular entertainment takes a long-zoom approach, contending that the pursuit of novelty and wonder is a powerful driver of world-shaping technological change. Steven Johnson argues that, throughout history, the cutting edge of innovation lies wherever people are working the hardest to keep themselves and others amused."  It is indeed lushly illustrated and that was part of the selling point to be honest.

Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World by Richard Rhodes -- "Beginning at a Hollywood dinner table, Hedy's Folly tells a wild story of innovation that culminates in U.S. patent number 2,292,387 for a "secret communication system." Along the way Rhodes weaves together Hollywood’s golden era, the history of Vienna, 1920s Paris, weapons design, music, a tutorial on patent law and a brief treatise on transmission technology. Narrated with the rigor and charisma we've come to expect of Rhodes, it is a remarkable narrative adventure about spread-spectrum radio's genesis and unlikely amateur inventors collaborating to change the world."  I had no idea Hedy was more than just an actress.  She is also mentioned in the Johnson book.  I have started reading and I think it's going to be a great read.

I have to say I am pretty pleased with my weekend book-haul!

State of the Nightstand: March 18

Not a lot of movement going on with the nighttable piles (and one book is staying in my gym locker at the moment--the Kemposwki), so I am feeling like doing bit of reshuffling (but am trying to resist).  This is in part thanks to a weekend that included two visits tio bookstores from which I came home with a small stack of books (and of course I want to start reading one or two? of them).  Trying hard to focus.

Weekend Reading Notes: March 16

Just a little bookish chitchat for this rainy weekend.  I don't mind the rain, especially rain is much nicer than the alternative of sleet and icy stuff, so it seems a step in the right direction of Spring!

Thanks to the Stella Prize I have come across an Australian magazine called Seizure, which I am pretty sure I won't be able to find here locally, but they have a novella prize called Viva la Novella.  One of their previous winners happens to be on the Stella shortlist and happened to come across my desk at work so I nabbed it.  The book/novella is The Fish Girl by Mirandi Riwoe, which won the novella prize last year.  The story "tells of an Indonesian girl whose life is changed irrevocably when she moves from a small fishing village to work in the house of a Dutch merchant. There she finds both hardship and tenderness as her traditional past and colonial present collide." 

I would love to find more of the Stella titles, or any Australian books really, but they can be hard to come by here and expensive to order. Occasionally I can find them on The Book Depository or as ebooks on Amazon.  But if anyone knows of a source that is not terribly expensive (postage!), please do share.

 You know I love a good book list (either of my own making or one I find somewhere else), but sometimes I think they just add pressure on my own reading as those lists always come with the little nudge "the ten best (fill in the blank) books you should be reading right now".  It's that "right now" that gets me into all sorts of trouble, since my own reading pile is already out of control!

That said, here are 15 Irish Crime Writers You Should Be Reading Right Now.  I've added several names to my own wishlist and ordered one of the books.  Oh dear.

Jami Attenberg's most recent novel (that I started and then had to return unfinished to the library) might be adapted to TV.  I think I'd like to watch that.

Maybe it is the voyeur in me, but I always like reading about what the LitHub staffers are doing in their free time (a good way to find ever more book and movie suggestions).

I have not yet tried any of the Serial Box's podcasts (am very absorbed at the moment in Audible's original  true crime series West Cork--it is free until May 9 by the way!), but I am very interested in their forthcoming A Most Dangerous Woman, which is described as "an exciting Victorian-era murder mystery, populated by characters from Wilkie Collins's beloved The Woman in White).  The Collins novel is one of my all-time favorites, so I am a little trepidatious about listening in.  Maybe I will just buy the first episode and see if it hooks me?

Speaking of Classics--I have been totally neglectful of Edith Wharton and all of a sudden I am feeling the desire to return to Undine's world.  Maybe it is the rainy weather, but I want to cozy-back-up to the book (and then thinking of the next one . . . maybe it is time to return to those Forsytes by John Galsworthy).

I need to apply a few of these tips to my nevergoingtofinishASuitableBoy problem!  (I think I have tried and failed at least three times now, but I am still optimistic I may finish someday).

I guess you know what I'll be doing this weekend!  Hope you spend some time with a good book, too.

Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss

It's a sign of a really good author, I think, when so many emotions can be elicited from one story.  And the prose and tone of the storytelling matches the period and place, too.  Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss does so many things at once--it pained me and made me feel revulsion and anger, yet there is a triumph of spirit in the quietest of ways, which offers hope.  Mostly though, I found the story utterly riveting.  Even while I shuddered at the things that Ally had to endure, I never once wanted to put the book aside.

The story opens very hopefully with the engagement and marriage of Elizabeth and Alfred.  She's the daughter of rather conservative and church going parents but is quite different from her sister Mary.  Alfred is an artist who will come into great fame with his paintings and textile designs.  At first introduction she seems open and willing to learn beauty from him.  She thinks--"she is all his".  She wants to begin their life together without clutter, with simplicity.  And he thinks "in time, as she learns his world, she will see beyond her parents' limits."  He believes she will see beauty and open like a flower.  Already there are signs of the pair working at cross purposes.

It begins sometime in the mid-1800s, firmly in the middle of the age of Victoria.  Elizabeth, soon to be Mrs. Moberley, is a firebrand when it comes to social justice.  She is an eager student of her mother's teachings of the possibilities for women--if not of the methods her mother uses to teach control.  When her mother makes her put a stone in her shoe, which she must then lace up tight to remind her how she has caused disappointment and learn self-control, she simply takes it out and pretends it has been there all along.  This is where she differs from her own eldest daughter, Alethea, or Ally as she is known.

Like Elizabeth and her sister Mary, Ally and her younger sister May couldn't be more different.  Lessons learned as a child are not easy to shake off and despite the beauty of their marriage it becomes increasingly obvious that Elizabeth and Alfred are entirely mismatched, and each persues their own passion.  And each has their own idea of how to raise their daughters, sometimes using them as pawns in their own disagreements.  Elizabeth is driven to see her daughters, her daughter Ally in particular, to come into their own as women in this world of oppression.  Her church groups have made so many strides, done so much good in the poor areas of Manchester.  And Ally and May are not once allowed to forget their own bounty when so many around them have so little.  Never once will the girls be allowed to forget. They must never do anything to shame their mother--especially in the eyes of her own mother.  And there is hell to pay if they do. 

Just as Elizabeth and Mary are diametrically opposite in their personalities and outlooks, so too are Ally and May.  Maybe May, being the younger, simply was 'cossetted' more.  Ally, though, takes it all to heart.  She has learned her lessons well, even more so than her mother ever did, or that her mother will ever realize.  Whereas Elizabeth understood the lesson and the punishment, she found ways around it, Ally will not let herself off the hook.  She is terrorized by her mother in such a way that even when she is alone she punishes herself and drives herself and when her accomplishments are lacking.  And never will she forget the riches of her lifestyle (always muted by their mother's passions despite their father's more bohemian lifestyle) when so many have so little.

It sounds pretty dire, doesn't it?  It is a shudder-generating story at times.  It's maddening to see a mother push a daughter to the limits.  It's maddening to see how reason is meant to be so sterile and cold because any show of emotion is hysteria and we all know what happens to hysterical women.  They certainly don't become doctors, which is what Elizabeth wants for her daughter Ally.  Mother-aunt-sisters-daughters . . .this is such an interesting juxtaposition of personalities, of time and environment.  Sarah Moss has created such a remarkable world, one entirely believable and even as what Ally must endure is hard to see at times, you never once give up hope and want to see her story through to the end. 

It's early days yet, but I can already call this a favorite read of the year.  Moss has a sequel to the story, which already sits on my bedside reading pile just waiting for its turn, Signs for Lost Children.  I am eager to see where Ally's life takes her.  I won't give anything away, but I will say that there is a sense of triumph for Ally in Bodies of Light as she makes her way to London to study to become one of England's first women doctors.  And while her early life has so much pain and so little love, she finds a happier place once she becomes more independent.  This was my February prompt, and I hope to write about this month's prompt book soon.  Highly recommended.