A Work in Progress

An Experiment in Love, Hilary Mantel

Have you ever read a book which you were vastly enjoying and raced towards the end yet when you got there were left wanting just a little bit more?  I finally have gotten around to reading one of Hilary Mantel's novels, an earlier work, An Experiment in Love (1995).  Must start slowly with her and work my way up to Cromwell, I think.  Don't get me wrong, I did love the book and I suspect there is lots there to mine if I give it some thought.  It is one of her middle of her career (thus far) books, so I am sure it is quite thoughtful and intentional and she is not someone I take/read lightly.  

So, when in doubt look for other opinions and who better, but I have come across a review written by Margaret Atwood.  I feel better that she also says at the end of her review that the one complaint might be the desire to know more.  So I am not alone.  But the light she sheds on the novel does make it quite worthy and solid and yes, full of good things to mine.

The story is set in the 1970s and begins in the industrial northern England where two young protagonists will be pitted against each other, friends yet not.  I am sure the juxtaposition is quite intentional and the two (and their mothers) play off each other over the course of the story.  Carmel is the narrator, the only daughter of middle-class, Irish-Catholic ancestry parents.  And Karina of the hard to pronounce name is the daughter of immigrant parents who are survivors of some awful event in history.  Karina is sturdy and eminently capable.  Carmel's mother has high expectations for her yet never believes she has the abilities--at least beyond being studious.  However Karina even at twelve can shop and cook and prepare tea.  She can be trusted to handle money.  Karina is forever being held up as the bar by which Carmel will never match.  

Their mothers pair them despite neither being especially interested in befriending the other.  They have this rivalry.  It's almost more a rivalry of Karina and Carmel's mother.  Carmel's mother wants to better well, Carmel's betters and her lessers.  As Atwood notes, she both admires and despises the establishment and anyone who might be in competition with her daughter.  So the two trail alongside each other through school, then to the Holy Redeemer were they must pass a test to enter.  After the nuns it is off to the University of London (mostly because other young women, who are being compared to Carmel are going there) where they end up in the same women's residence hall, though not rooming together.  As Carmel gets smaller and thinner and denies herself (is that the Catholic thing coming into play?) Karina gets sturdier and bigger and just 'more'.  You know that something has got to give and there has to be a meltdown.    

The story is both timeless and of its 1970s era.  I think what I like most about it is the fact that it is a coming of age story, and I can ever get enough of those to be honest.  Yet there is more to the story.  The experiment in love is not exactly what you expect of a coming of age story--certainly not one with this trajectory of girls growing up and going away to school where they are likely to be looking for or will end up with spouses.  I suppose there is something of that, too, but Mantel tips that on its head a bit.  A story of love of mothers and daughters?  Between friends and acquaintances and romantic love? 

Things do come full circle, but in a way you won't expect and that will leave you with more questions than answers.  There is that climactic moment and a twist that gives a shock of surprise.  Although I dog eared lots of pages in the novel, I will just share a little summary of sorts from Atwood's review as she gets down to the essence.

"The playing field is England, with its bafflingly complex and minutely calibrated systems of class and status, of region and religion; the players are little girls, larger girls, young women and, looming huge over all, mothers. The weapons are clothing, schools, intelligence, friendships, insults, accents, trophy boyfriends, material possessions and food. The battle cry is 'Sauve qui peut'!

This was a good read and I am happy to have it so early in the year as it helps set the tone I want to keep on with.  I'll return to her work.  And maybe someday I'll give this story another read, too.  It is both a keeper and one worth revisiting.

American Mystery Classics Reissued!

Have you seen these new reissues of American mystery classics?  Otto Penzler Publishers has a new imprint and will be reissuing Golden Age mysteries that have been long out of print.  I want them all, of course, but I have limited myself to just a couple to begin with.  It looks like there are half a dozen already released and a half dozen more coming this spring.  I'm a sucker for reissues it would seem.  

The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan by Stuart Palmer -- "At once a pleasantly complex locked room mystery and a hilarious look at the foibles of Hollywood, The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan finds Palmer, a screenwriter himself, at his most perceptive. Reprinted for the first time in over thirty years, this riotously funny novel shows why Hildegarde Withers was among the most beloved detectives of Golden Age American mystery novel."

The So Blue Marble by Dorothy B. Hughes -- "Drenched in the glamour and luxury of the New York elite, The So Blue Marble is a perfectly Art Deco suspense novel in which nothing is quite as it seems. While different in style from her later books, Hughes’s debut highlights her greatest strengths as an author, rendered with both the poetic language and the psychology of fear for which she is known today."

I think I will have to do a little sampling tonight and see which one to start with.  I have been contemplating which mystery to pick up (alongside my ongoing reading of the Kinsey Millhone mysteries, of course).

Library Holds, Epistolary Novels and Links

Haul #1 of library holds.  I had to leave a couple of books behind as I walking home and can only carry so many at once.  I have to say this is a really good haul and I want to start all of them right now and how will I decide which comes first (considering I already have one library book on the go and another new book that needs to be read soon for book club!).

Where should I start?

Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson -- "In Denmark, Professor Anders Larsen, an urbane man of facts, has lost his wife and his hopes for the future. On an isolated English farm, Tina Hopgood is trapped in a life she doesn’t remember choosing. Both believe their love stories are over. Brought together by a shared fascination with the Tollund Man, subject of Seamus Heaney’s famous poem, they begin writing letters to one another. And from their vastly different worlds, they find they have more in common than they could have imagined. As they open up to one another about their lives, an unexpected friendship blooms. But then Tina’s letters stop coming, and Anders is thrown into despair. How far are they willing to go to write a new story for themselves?"

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss -- Why does this make me think of Shirley Jackson?  "A taut, gripping tale of a young woman and an Iron Age reenactment trip that unearths frightening behavior."

The Red Address Book by Sofia Lundberg -- "When Doris was a girl, she was given an address book by her father, and ever since she has carefully documented everyone she met and loved throughout the years. Looking through the little book now, Doris sees the many crossed-out names of people long gone and is struck by the urge to put pen to paper. In writing down the stories of her colorful past—working as a maid in Sweden, modelling in Paris during the 30s, fleeing to Manhattan at the dawn of the Second World War—can she help Jenny, haunted by a difficult childhood, unlock the secrets of their family and finally look to the future? And whatever became of Allan, the love of Doris’s life?"

The Light Over London by Julia Kelly -- "It’s always been easier for Cara Hargraves to bury herself in the past than confront the present, which is why working with a gruff but brilliant antiques dealer is perfect. While clearing out an estate, she pries open an old tin that holds the relics of a lost relationship: among the treasures, a World War II-era diary and a photograph of a young woman in uniform. Eager to find the author of the hauntingly beautiful, unfinished diary, Cara digs into this soldier’s life, but soon realizes she may not have been ready for the stark reality of wartime London she finds within the pages."

I mention epistolary in my blog title as I think that is going to be the next task I tackle on the Read Harder list.  I have been thinking of possible reads for a while now and it dawned on me, purely by chance I am reading a book right now that would work nicely already.  I have been reading Jami Attenberg's Saint Mazie and it is made up of diary entries and clippings and anecdotal bits by people who knew Maizie.  I know the book is based on an actual person and I plan on reading about her in due time as well.  

Now, not only is Maizie working as an epistolary novel choice, but of the four library books I brought home, three of them also include diaries or letters.  So, I think that is one task I will be able to line of very quickly.  I am trying (very loosely) to cross of two tasks a month, which should complete the challenge by the end of the year very easily.

*****

I have to pass on some links since it is the end of the week.  There is always so much that ends up in my inbox.  I skim a lot and mean to go back to lots but some are lists or quick reads.  Here are a few of those that caught my attention in particular.

I think this is the first book to screen list of adaptations I have seen this year and I feel just sort of tepid about them.  I do want to read Where'd You Go Bernadette, and if The Woman in the Window ever comes out in paperback I want to read that as well (only hoping it is not another Girl on the Train sort of story?).  I go back and forth about reading Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, but as I do have it in a smaller mass market size book (it is a chunky one) I should really give it a go.  Another version of Little Women?  Then again, it is Greta Gerwig directing so I'll likely see it (so far off on the horizon, though, as it is not coming out until next December!).

The Edgar Award nominations have been announced.  I am not familiar with quite a few titles on the list so there is lots to explore.  I think I have heard of the Leftys (Left Coast Crime Convention), and they have also announced their nominees.  Yet more to explore.  

I'm excited to see this new imprint--American Mystery Classics published by Otto Penzler Publisher (W.W. Norton).  They are reissuing classic American mysteries-vintage titles.  I have already ordered two of the books!

As you can see with the Edgars and the Leftys we are approaching the start of book prize season! The 2019 Pen Award finalists have been announced.  I'm excited for the Stella Longlist, however.  The Stella Prize is the Australian women's literary prize, and there are always some really interesting books on the list that I find I want to read.  It is a little harder to get my hands on some of those books, but often they are just the thing to get me out of my reading comfort zone.  The list is not just fiction but also includes nonfiction and short stories.  And there are always #ownvoices (indigenous) authors included.  The list will come out February 7 and about a month later we'll get the Women's Prize Longlist, too.  Ahh, the anticipation!

So, I leave you with two easy questions.  Have you read any of the books in my library pile?  Any that are absolutely not to be missed?  And I have been avoiding reading thrillers for a while now.  There is a sense of samey-ness to some of them and I have been feeling really jaded by that.  I've been binging on traditional detective stories (and shall keep on with Kinsey Millhone), but I am feeling ready to get back to a good thriller.  Have you read one lately that is especially good?  Recommendations always welcome!

Trying to Read Harder (& Journal)

Since I am working on the Read Harder Challenge, I decided to splurge and buy a copy of the Read Harder Journal.  It's a nicely organized and handy little journal, which you can easily use whether you are taking part in the challenge or not.  You can log about fifty books, and there is space for a brief review as well as a page for notes and quotes for each title.  Interspersed throughout are twelve reading challenges along with a short list of book recommendations. 

The only downside is the journal must have been designed last year with the previous challenge in mind as the tasks for 2019 are different.  I think I can easily adapt it and I am always a fan of book lists.  It is just a matter now of jumping in and starting to log books.  There are technically twenty-four tasks, so there is more space than needed for logging books, but I hope to read more than fifty books this year.  Which books do I make note of and which do I leave out is the dilemma.  I've been jotting down bits in my little journal that I started earlier in the month.  I'm hoping my journaling will evolve over the course of the year and look forward to going back over my reading year through those pages.  So far it is all just flotsam and jetsam, but it will tell a story all its own, too.

My current Read Harder book is Kate Winkler Dawson's Death in the Air for a book by or about a journalist.  I should be finishing the book in the next few days and moving on to an epistolary novel (or collection of letters).  I've already mentioned how much I am enjoying the Dawson book--it is quite riveting.  I'm hoping all the tasks turn out to be equally enjoyable.

H is for Homicide, Sue Grafton

After Kinsey's last couple of adventures (misadventures?), I really thought H is for Homicide was going to be comparatively quiet and lowkey.  She does deserve a little downtime.  Just an ordinary run of the mill case, a straightforward California Fidelity insurance claim investigation.  I mean fraud is sort of banal, right?  After the last couple of rounds--practically being blown up by a bomb, losing her garage apartment to an explosion and then having a hit man after her, even a homicide shouldn't put her in too much danger.

To be honest I was thinking that this installment actually sounded a little boring in comparison to her life thus far.  At the opening of the story two things help set the tone.  First, one Gordon Titus has been transferred to the Santa Teresa office of California Fidelity.  He's an efficiency expert and you can probably guess what that means.  He's not going to like how Kinsey, just a contracted agent essentially, operates.  The other morale buster is the recent death, a murder, of one of CF's agents--Parnell Perkins.

This is where the story begins, but it quickly veers off track and it never quite returns until the final pages.  Somehow despite it all Grafton manages to weave it all together seamlessly, and while not everything is quite resolved, she is about to pick up one of the threads in I is for Innocent. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Put the  murder out of your mind.  Accident insurance fraud is not what you would call a very sexy crime.  You know, people who cause an accident and then claim whiplash to get a big payout.  Pretty smarmy really, but also kind of mundane.  And this is what Kinsey is working on at the start of the book  Following quick on the heels of her not at all auspicious meeting with Gordon Titus, Kinsey begins looking into a claim that was flagged as being suspicious. 

Pounding the pavement.  Asking questions, fact checking, going to the library to do research (one of the things I love about these books is the time period where technology is really limited) are things Kinsey is really good at.  She is trying to track down the whereabouts of a woman who has filed an accident claim--Bibianna Diaz.  Bibianna is a force to be reckoned with.  When Kinsey does find her she knows she has to gain her trust to milk her for information and get evidence.

Kinsey has no idea what she is about to get into.  Is it when Bibianna is taken at gunpoint or when both women are booked into jail that the two click?  if I thought this was going to be a boring case for Kinsey, I was wrong.  She spends the bulk of the story holed up with Bibianna in the company of LA gang members who are part of a larger group of criminals working a fraudulent accident claim ring.  They are making thousands of dollars staging fake accidents.  To ensure her cover Kinsey must taker part in the crimes,  and leave it to Kinsey to find she is actually good at it.

Another excellent installment in Sue Grafton's Alphabet Mysteries series.  She never ceases to amaze me.  Kinsey is a hoot.  She cracks me up with the things she does and says.  She is not infallible and she has her shortcomings, but she is such an interesting and likable character.  She has moxie and brains and I think she has become my favorite sleuth.  Onwards to letter "I".

Read Notes: Long Weekend Reading

Not only is it going to be a three-day weekend but a bad weather weekend as well.  That will put a little damper on some of my plans, which means being stuck in the house.  The only upside is I have plenty to read to keep me busy and entertained.  These are my priority reads this weekend (along with Death in the Air).  I am hoping to keep up with my New Yorker short story reading this year.  The last issue has a story by Amos Oz, who just recently passed away, that was written in 1963.

I have to share just a very few links that I came across that caught my eye.

My library cards is nowhere near as nice as any of these!

And this little free library is the coolest I have ever come across!

I leave you with something (quite literally) warm and fuzzy--bookstore cats.  

Stay warm and have a great weekend!

January 17: Notes-Letters and Diaries

I've been thinking about the Read Harder Challenge.  It's not as though I am not already immersed in a number of really, really good reads.  I am as a matter of fact.  But if I am not actually in the act of reading I like to think about what I am going to read next.  We all do that, right?  (Or am I just more OCD than everyone else, which is entirely possible).  

My first task completed was to read a Manga comic, which I did.  It's not my usual genre, but I enjoyed it.  I was contemplating continuing on with the series, but there are so many other books pressing for me to read them now, that I want to move on to those instead.  I am in the middle of Death in the Air by Kate Winkler Dawson, which I mentioned before, am thoroughly enjoying and will work for the book by or about a journalist.  

So, what next?  There is so much to choose from at this point I can easily pick up any number of books, but I am in the mood for something of an epistolary format.  So do I choose a novel written in letter form?  A book of actual letters?  Can I fudge a little and chose a book that uses diary entries instead, or an actual diary (I have loads of those).  Is an epistolary novel only made of letters?

I've been doing a little browsing and thinking about what I already have on my shelves (and I had really wanted to try and only read from my shelves, but if a library book would fit better I am not averse from choosing that instead).  

Some books that have come to mind--Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar about Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell has long been on my TBR (so long as a matter of fact that I had to have it when it came out and so have a cloth copy).

I could pick a classic and one that is not in my usual comfort zone period-wise and read Murasaki Shikibu's Diary of Lady Murasaki.  It's less than 150 pages, but slight does not always correspond with easy reading.

If I wanted to opt for more letters in a more formal format there is In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deobrah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor, though it is rather chunky.  Or a book I have long wanted to read, Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Bring Me a Unicorn: Diaries and Letters 1922-1928, which is the first of a number of collections by her.  I wonder how What There is We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell reads?

I have the first of The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield: 1903-1917, but you know I would then have to read some of her stories, too.  And also long on my shelves Song of Love: The Letters of Rupert Brooke and Noel Olivier, 1919-1915.  

I know I have a book of letters between Abigail and John Adams and I am almost sure I have one or two collections of letters from World War I.  

The more I think about what might be on my shelves the more expansive my choice seems to become.  And there is this list that I can easily dip into (and I have a  number of the books unread on my shelves, too).

The appeal of choosing a book of letters is knowing I could keep the book on my bedside pile and read a few every night and just work my way slowly through.

Such is the dilemma now of choosing.  Have you read any of these books of letters?  Or is there some other you read and found riveting?  Ah, the pleasure of thinking about a new book to add to the reading pile.

New Library Finds for the New Year

Technically these are not the very first books I have checked out from the library for 2019, but they are probably the first 2019 books (or new books lately published anyway).  I was almost going to let the holds go as the weather has been tetchy and it is hard to find the energy at the end of the work day to trudge home from the library in the cold and dark and snow.  But when Lyndsay Faye's The Paragon Hotel turned up in my list I had to go.

I had been reading about the book and read an interview with the author.  It just sounds so good that I brought it home last night and started to read this morning and she hooked me.  "Nobody" Alice James has such a compelling voice.  She is funny and irreverent and sassy and I like her already.  She has been traveling by train from Harlem in NYC to Portland--with a gunshot wound--or an almost septic graze on her torso from a bullet.  If that sets the tone....

This weekend will be a long weekend with Monday as a day off from work for me in celebration o MLK Jr Day, and the weather is promising to be even colder and more snowy, so I may be stuck indoors whether I like it or not.  Alice likely will be my main companion!

I have only barely glanced at the other books, but they all look like they will be fun to peruse.  The book on the bottom is a juvenile book about President Washington's slaves which he "inherited" as a mere boy.  Apparently Mount Vernon has been excavating the graves there and so this should be quite illuminating.  A very different side of the President's life, which will be good to learn about.  

I suspect I shall be sharing a teaser from the Faye novel.  Good books to keep my mind off the dreariness of January!

Teaser Tuesday: The Kindness of Strangers

The year, specifically my NYRB Classics subscription, is off to a good start.  I've got my January book, which is very much of interest to me as it is not only in part set in Vienna, but also about the earlier part of the 20th century and about the early-ish days of filmmaking.  Score on several fronts.  The Kindness of Strangers by Salka Viertel is an autobiography just over 300 pages, somewhat densely written but so far very chatty and interesting going.  She knew knew writers and artists and actors and filmmakers and has lots of stories to share.  I'm hoping it will be a fly-on-the-wall get a peek into a long gone world.  Better than any historical fiction really, right?

Salka was born in 1889 in Galicia, the part of Poland that belonged to Austria and now is called Carpatho-Ukraine part of the Soviet Union.  It sounds as though the book is broken into roughly three sections--her early life in the Austro-Hungarian Empire--Berlin, Prague and Vienna, then the war years and particularly her experiences on the homefront, and then her life in America and Hollywood.

She was a stage actress initially, I believe, but then went on to work in film.  She was a close friend and confidante of Greta Garbo.  I think many actors who started out in silent films (I'm not sure exactly if this is the case for her) had a hard time switching over to talkies, but I know she did eventually become a screenwriter.  Like much of Hollywood in that era she was blackballed in the 40s.  Eventually she emigrated to Switzerland where one of her sons lived.  

I've just barely started reading, so let me share how the book begins and set the scene for further adventures to come.  

"Long, long ago, when I was very young, a gypsy woman said to me that I would escape heartbreak and misfortune as long as I lived close to water.  I know that it is rather trite to being a story with prophecies, especially when they are made by gypsies, but luckily this prediction did not come true.  It was utterly irrelevant as far as the happiness or misery in my life was concerned, how near or distant I might be to a body of water.  But I cannot deny that some of my inner storms would subside when I looked at the crested waves of the Pacific or listened to the murmur of an Alpine brook.  And so I could never forget the prophecy of the gypsy which also evoked the landscape of my childhood and the house near the river, where I grew up.  The name of the river was the Dnjester.  It was young and wild where we lived, flowing only a short distance from its source in the Carpathian mountains in a pebble-lined bed, shallow in some parts, then suddenly deep and turbulent in others, following an irregular and unregulated course to the black sea."

That has set my imagination racing and I have high hopes the rest of the book will be as lush and descriptive and I will find Salka as fascinating as I expect her to be.  

Usually NYRB sends a freebie book as part of the subscription, though last year I never received mine and this year seems to be following the same course.  I am hoping still, it will show up.  Not to be greedy or anything.  But when the writing is as good as this, and their books are almost always keepers, of course I won't ever say no to a freebie.

I suspect I will have more to share or say about this as I read.  Curiously for me, I have three nonfiction books in progress at the moment.  And a three day weekend to look forward to.  Bring on the reading time, please.

January in Stillmeadow

Over the weekend I finally got around to reading the first of my twelve serial reads installments of Gladys Taber's Stillmeadow Calendar.  As the book is divided into monthly chapters covering the months of the year it is a perfect book to dip into each month.  I want to read each chapter in one sitting and 'January' was read sipping a hot tea in cafe--a cozy afternoon spent in the presence of a charming and cozy book, and I had to stop myself from reading on.

The book was published in 1967 and I suspect that the chapters were loosely written to reflect her experiences over the course of the year or maybe even over many Januaries as experienced at Stillmeadow.  Taber was first and foremost a writer so while she writes in diary format I think she is simply evoking time and place.  You definitely get the sense of the rhythms of the year and the seasons as they occurred, so I wonder if it is also more a composite of her life at Stillmeadow.  Although Taber had been married and writes about her children and grandchildren she and a good friend (called Jill in this book) bought Stillmeadow together and I hope to learn more about their friendship.  Jill is briefly mentioned as having spent the new year together with Gladys, but it was to be their last before Jill passed away.

I'm sure each chapter will offer inspiration to write about it in some particular way each month, but I think this time out I will just share a few quotes that I jotted down in my own journal--a few sentiments that are especially pleasing and noteworthy to me and will set the tone for the rest of the book and maybe for the rest of 2019.

"There is, I have found, at least one good or lovely thing in every single day.  Everyone has sorrow, endures difficult times, but loveliness abides if we look for it."

***

"When I go out with the cockers and Holly (her dogs--a couple of which were Cocker Spaniels), I sometimes look to see how many branches came down in the last ice storm.  Winter does her own pruning.  And I think that, as the new year begins, I might well do some pruning in my own life, keeping essentials, the real values, and letting go the part of my life that is no longer contributing to the growing time of my spirit."

***

"Life is  not, for most of us, a pageant of splendor buy is made up of many small things, rather like an old-fashioned piecework quilt.  No two people have the same, but we all have our own, whether it is listening to Beethoven's Fifth with a beloved friend or seeing a neighbor at the back door with a basket of white dahlias.  Or after a long, hard day having the family say, 'That was a good supper'."

Reading her writing is truly a delight.  Stillmeadow sounds pretty amazing and I think it will be lovely to hear about the seasons in New England.  January is a time of beginnings and this was a perfect little mini read.  So many wise things to think about at the start of each new year--I am already looking forward to February.