WAIT FOR ME! - Deborah Mitford, Duchess of Devonshire
This poignant memoir by the youngest of the famed Mitford sisters (Nancy, Pamela, Unity, Diana, and Jessica) chronicles the 90 years of change and growth in her own life and in England's. For anyone who has enjoyed Nancy Mitford's hilarious novels of growing up Mitford, this memoir provides a point of reference by which to sift out the fantasy from the reality of the strange but utterly intriguing family therein portrayed. However, there is much more here than a different view on the common Mitford childhood. Deborah Mitford married at 21, raised a family, helped establish Chatsworth House as a viable country house open to the public, and mixed with many of the notables of the 20th century, including the Kennedy's. (Her husband's brother married Kathleen Kennedy, Jack's sister.) She tells her story with respect, humor, and honesty - an absorbing blend. Her courage informs the text though she never speaks of herself as courageous, but the way in which she relates the trials she faced is a lesson to those whiners among us. She comments on the books her other sisters, Diana and Jessica, wrote about the family, making me decide to read them as well.
Rockport Library
Sunday, January 30, 2011
SHAKESPEARE IN OHIO
THE WEIRD SISTERS - Eleanor Brown
A novel of three sisters, ages 27-33, who've come home to Ohio to help their mother who is undergoing cancer treatment. Named Rosalind, Bianca, and Cordelia by their Shakespeare professor father, and renamed Rose, Bean and Cordy by themselves, the sisters are each at crossroads in their lives. Two are struggling for redemption, and one for freedom. In the family they often speak to each other by quoting Shakespeare, which certainly enlivens the dialogue and provides a common denominator for these three very different women. In the course of six months, they all manage to make decisions that promise happy beginnings ahead. I'm not sure their good sense and good luck are realistic, but since I had grown to like them, it was good to leave the now not so weird sisters in the glow of Christmas cheer.
Rockport Public Library
A novel of three sisters, ages 27-33, who've come home to Ohio to help their mother who is undergoing cancer treatment. Named Rosalind, Bianca, and Cordelia by their Shakespeare professor father, and renamed Rose, Bean and Cordy by themselves, the sisters are each at crossroads in their lives. Two are struggling for redemption, and one for freedom. In the family they often speak to each other by quoting Shakespeare, which certainly enlivens the dialogue and provides a common denominator for these three very different women. In the course of six months, they all manage to make decisions that promise happy beginnings ahead. I'm not sure their good sense and good luck are realistic, but since I had grown to like them, it was good to leave the now not so weird sisters in the glow of Christmas cheer.
Rockport Public Library
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
WWII IN BUDLEIGH SALTERTON
HENRIETTA SEES IT THROUGH: MORE NEWS FROM THE HOME FRONT 1942-1945
- Joyce Dennys
The second of Dennys' World War II columns from seaside England (not necessarily the safest place to be during World War II). As the columns were meant to raise morale, for the most part Dennys presents a light-hearted view of the home front, but never without the sense o the strain and tears the humor is trying to combat. Her most poignant column is one that abandons humor completely as she reports the death of the younger son of friends who have already lost their elder son.
A professional artist, her sketches enliven the text
Amazon.com or you can borrow from me.
- Joyce Dennys
The second of Dennys' World War II columns from seaside England (not necessarily the safest place to be during World War II). As the columns were meant to raise morale, for the most part Dennys presents a light-hearted view of the home front, but never without the sense o the strain and tears the humor is trying to combat. Her most poignant column is one that abandons humor completely as she reports the death of the younger son of friends who have already lost their elder son.
A professional artist, her sketches enliven the text
Amazon.com or you can borrow from me.
MENNONITE ACADEMIC FACES DIVORCE
(A MEMOIR OF GOING HOME) MENNONITE IN A LITTLE BLACK DRESS - Rhoda Janzen
Yes, you will finally learn the difference between Amish and Mennonite (although not until the end of the book). This is a nonfiction account of the healing Janzen experiences as she spends her sabbatical at home with her Mennonite family after a difficult marriage and divorce. Her humor keeps the book upbeat while still dealing straightforwardly with the trials of living with a bipolar man who when off his meds is corrosively emotionally abusive. Although no longer a Mennonite in religious affiliation, Janzen has no anger toward the Mennonites, nor does her family (at least her parents) toward her. Instead she gives us an interesting glimpse of what life was and is like for practicing Mennonites, and what parts of the tradition still illuminate her life.
A friend lent me this book, but I'm sure it's either in the library of the Virtual Catalog, and certainly available on Amazon..
Yes, you will finally learn the difference between Amish and Mennonite (although not until the end of the book). This is a nonfiction account of the healing Janzen experiences as she spends her sabbatical at home with her Mennonite family after a difficult marriage and divorce. Her humor keeps the book upbeat while still dealing straightforwardly with the trials of living with a bipolar man who when off his meds is corrosively emotionally abusive. Although no longer a Mennonite in religious affiliation, Janzen has no anger toward the Mennonites, nor does her family (at least her parents) toward her. Instead she gives us an interesting glimpse of what life was and is like for practicing Mennonites, and what parts of the tradition still illuminate her life.
A friend lent me this book, but I'm sure it's either in the library of the Virtual Catalog, and certainly available on Amazon..
VILLAGE TALES FROM THE SCOTTISH LOWLANDS
SECRETS IN PRIOR'S FORD, DRAMA COMES TO PRIOR'S FORD, TROUBLE IN PRIOR'S FORD - Eva Houston
Entertaining series set in a fictional village, Prior's Ford, located in Dumfries and Galloway, on the southern border of Scotland. The novels weave together the stories of individual villagers and of the community as a whole. In the first, they confront the possible reopening of a granite quarry, causing rifts not only between villagers but within families. The novels are low key but engaging, and enough questions are left at the end of each to make you reach for the next book. A new book is due out in January 2011.
Amazon or you can borrow from me.
Entertaining series set in a fictional village, Prior's Ford, located in Dumfries and Galloway, on the southern border of Scotland. The novels weave together the stories of individual villagers and of the community as a whole. In the first, they confront the possible reopening of a granite quarry, causing rifts not only between villagers but within families. The novels are low key but engaging, and enough questions are left at the end of each to make you reach for the next book. A new book is due out in January 2011.
Amazon or you can borrow from me.
I REMEMBER MAMA AND AUNTY MAME IN ONE OUTRAGEOUS YORKSHIRE MUM
LOST FOR WORDS - Deric Longden
The book opens with Deric's Mum creating a comic pile up in the local Marks and Spencer's when she spills cherry yogurt and butter on the escalator. He goes on to regale us with Mum's various quirks, her belief in the medicinal efficacy of Buttercup Syrup, her deflection of the anger of an annoyed football fan who tells her the cafe is reserved on Wednesday for Sheffield Supporters, with her remark, "My cat watches Match of the Day, but I prefer the wrestling myself." Mum Longden's eccentric wit and wisdom help Deric heal after his first wife's tragic death and propel him into the arms of his second wife. Then Mum has a stroke that takes away her ability to speak coherently. Deric records his efforts to help her live with some happiness the last difficult years of her life. Near the end frustrated by the nurses' failure to see his mother as a person, he brings in a photo of her as a young, vibrant woman. He writes: "When the shifts changed over the new nurses picked up the photograph and saw for themselves just a glimpse of the real woman behind the twisted tongue and the addled brain and they talked to her as they changed her dressing." This book should be required reading for all who attend the elderly.
The book was made into a television movie starring the wonderful British actress Dame Thora Hurd and Peter Postlethwaite. I remember seeing it and being very moved. I'm hoping it's available through Netflix.
Amazon.com or you can borrow it from me.
The book opens with Deric's Mum creating a comic pile up in the local Marks and Spencer's when she spills cherry yogurt and butter on the escalator. He goes on to regale us with Mum's various quirks, her belief in the medicinal efficacy of Buttercup Syrup, her deflection of the anger of an annoyed football fan who tells her the cafe is reserved on Wednesday for Sheffield Supporters, with her remark, "My cat watches Match of the Day, but I prefer the wrestling myself." Mum Longden's eccentric wit and wisdom help Deric heal after his first wife's tragic death and propel him into the arms of his second wife. Then Mum has a stroke that takes away her ability to speak coherently. Deric records his efforts to help her live with some happiness the last difficult years of her life. Near the end frustrated by the nurses' failure to see his mother as a person, he brings in a photo of her as a young, vibrant woman. He writes: "When the shifts changed over the new nurses picked up the photograph and saw for themselves just a glimpse of the real woman behind the twisted tongue and the addled brain and they talked to her as they changed her dressing." This book should be required reading for all who attend the elderly.
The book was made into a television movie starring the wonderful British actress Dame Thora Hurd and Peter Postlethwaite. I remember seeing it and being very moved. I'm hoping it's available through Netflix.
Amazon.com or you can borrow it from me.
WORLD WAR II ENGLAND FROM PAGES OF THE NEW YORKER
LONDON WAR NOTES - Mollie Panter-Downes
Having read Panter-Downes collection of New Yorker short stories from World War II, I went on to read this book containing her biweekly letters from London to the NYer from 1939-1945. She paints a vivid word picture of Londoners reacting with courage and down-to-earth humor to the terrors and strains of both being bombing and not being bombed (while knowing that the bombs would return).She predicts accurately that England will be changed forever by this war with a final knell being tolled for the supremacy of the aristocracy and an easily available servant class, neither perhaps gone completely, but certainly never again to rule or serve with the rigidity of pre-war England. How are you going to keep the girl back in the kitchen once she's been in the munitions factory and armed forces? The answer is clear, very few will ever go back, and most of us would say, a good thing too!
Virtual cataloge
Having read Panter-Downes collection of New Yorker short stories from World War II, I went on to read this book containing her biweekly letters from London to the NYer from 1939-1945. She paints a vivid word picture of Londoners reacting with courage and down-to-earth humor to the terrors and strains of both being bombing and not being bombed (while knowing that the bombs would return).She predicts accurately that England will be changed forever by this war with a final knell being tolled for the supremacy of the aristocracy and an easily available servant class, neither perhaps gone completely, but certainly never again to rule or serve with the rigidity of pre-war England. How are you going to keep the girl back in the kitchen once she's been in the munitions factory and armed forces? The answer is clear, very few will ever go back, and most of us would say, a good thing too!
Virtual cataloge
Monday, January 17, 2011
ENCHANTING WRY NOVEL FROM AUTHOR OF COLD, COMFORT FARM
NIGHTINGALE WOOD - Stella Gibbons
I loved the book (and movie) COLD, COMFORT FARM, a hilarious story of English eccentrics in 1he 1930s, but didn't realize Gibbons wrote other books. I was delighted then to discover this one, and titles of several others which I'm hoping to find. This novel set in 1936 is both satire and heart-warming fairy tale, albeit with an occasional reference to the world outside the charmed setting of the novel, "a world toppling with monster guns and violent death." The author sees with a straightforward eye the flaws and foibles of her characters making us smile at their pretensions, while still not entirely disliking them, and sometimes becoming quite fond of them.The Withers family live in a house, The Eagles, filled with good-quality furniture bought fifty years before and never scuffed or scratched. Mr. Withers' pleasure is counting his money and requiring his family to be entirely respectable to the point of terminal dullness. Then his son's widow, a young, dreamy twenty-one-year-old comes to live at The Eagles. Within a year the world of the Withers is in bloom.
Gibbons has a wonderfully light and elegant style infused with humor. In the dark days of 1938 when it was published, the book must have provided a welcome escape from the reality of "the monster guns and violent death" confronting her readers. It provides that same escape for us.
Virtual catalogue
o
I loved the book (and movie) COLD, COMFORT FARM, a hilarious story of English eccentrics in 1he 1930s, but didn't realize Gibbons wrote other books. I was delighted then to discover this one, and titles of several others which I'm hoping to find. This novel set in 1936 is both satire and heart-warming fairy tale, albeit with an occasional reference to the world outside the charmed setting of the novel, "a world toppling with monster guns and violent death." The author sees with a straightforward eye the flaws and foibles of her characters making us smile at their pretensions, while still not entirely disliking them, and sometimes becoming quite fond of them.The Withers family live in a house, The Eagles, filled with good-quality furniture bought fifty years before and never scuffed or scratched. Mr. Withers' pleasure is counting his money and requiring his family to be entirely respectable to the point of terminal dullness. Then his son's widow, a young, dreamy twenty-one-year-old comes to live at The Eagles. Within a year the world of the Withers is in bloom.
Gibbons has a wonderfully light and elegant style infused with humor. In the dark days of 1938 when it was published, the book must have provided a welcome escape from the reality of "the monster guns and violent death" confronting her readers. It provides that same escape for us.
Virtual catalogue
o
Saturday, January 15, 2011
FAMILY SAGA IN OHIO
THE EVIDENCE AGAINST HER, THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER, BEING POLITE TO HITLER -
Robb Forman Dew
This trilogy is absorbing reading. I read the three books just managing to stop for the essentials of every day life so eager was I to find out what would happen next in the life of the Scofield clan of Washburn, Ohio. Dew calls Washburn a town about which "people are incurious" and then over the course of her three books makes her readers insatiably curious about these ordinary people in an ordinary town living ordinary lives - which we soon realize are extraordinary in the sense that all lives are extraordinary, even, and to each of us, especially our own.
Along with plot and characterizations that weave a spell, Dew's writing is also quite beautiful, at times elegiac. I haven't been so intrigued with Ohio since I read Winesburg, Ohio years ago. In fact, I'm curious to reread that slender volume (compared to Dew's books) to see how the two diverge or agree.
Dew weaves in the times people are living through and how those times impinge on their lives, for the most part deftly, though in the last book of the trilogy less fluidly. In that book I did find myself wondering how she could know the inner workings of actual people's minds, marriages, and lives (Werner von Braun, for example) and sometimes simply was eager to get back to the more real fictional people she had left in limbo while presenting the context of the times However, that is a minor quibble with three books that created a world of people so tangible that I feel I have shared their lives and almost expect that I could go to Washburn, knock on the door of one of the Scofield's homes, find the latest generationl there and happy to chat with me over coffee, filling me in on the latest Scofield lore about which I will, until that eventuality, remain insatiably curious.
Rockport Public Library
Robb Forman Dew
This trilogy is absorbing reading. I read the three books just managing to stop for the essentials of every day life so eager was I to find out what would happen next in the life of the Scofield clan of Washburn, Ohio. Dew calls Washburn a town about which "people are incurious" and then over the course of her three books makes her readers insatiably curious about these ordinary people in an ordinary town living ordinary lives - which we soon realize are extraordinary in the sense that all lives are extraordinary, even, and to each of us, especially our own.
Along with plot and characterizations that weave a spell, Dew's writing is also quite beautiful, at times elegiac. I haven't been so intrigued with Ohio since I read Winesburg, Ohio years ago. In fact, I'm curious to reread that slender volume (compared to Dew's books) to see how the two diverge or agree.
Dew weaves in the times people are living through and how those times impinge on their lives, for the most part deftly, though in the last book of the trilogy less fluidly. In that book I did find myself wondering how she could know the inner workings of actual people's minds, marriages, and lives (Werner von Braun, for example) and sometimes simply was eager to get back to the more real fictional people she had left in limbo while presenting the context of the times However, that is a minor quibble with three books that created a world of people so tangible that I feel I have shared their lives and almost expect that I could go to Washburn, knock on the door of one of the Scofield's homes, find the latest generationl there and happy to chat with me over coffee, filling me in on the latest Scofield lore about which I will, until that eventuality, remain insatiably curious.
Rockport Public Library
Thursday, January 13, 2011
LIFE AS CLERGY IN 1950S WALES
CHRONICLES OF A VICAR: HELLO, VICAR!, A COMEDY OF CLERICAL ERRORS, THE CROWNING GLORY - Fred Secombe
Funny and poignant, nonfiction narratives of the life of a Church of England vicar in a small parish in Wales right after WWII. It is part of a series that begins with CHRONICLES OF A CURATE. Fred Secombe and his wife, Eleanor, a doctor, are a good team as they minister to the spiritual and physical needs of the town and cope with two troublesome curates: one feckless, the other pretentious, and the helpful and unhelpful among their parishioners. They direct a Gilbert and Sullivan society which provides comic diversion and help their parishioners cope with tragedy in the wake of a cave-in at the coal mine. The last of the trilogy is set in coronation year with the advent not only of a new queen but of televisions into the community.
Virtual catalogue. Other books by Secombe available from Amazon. (I've ordered some so if you read this and are hooked, I'll be happy to lend them to you.)
Funny and poignant, nonfiction narratives of the life of a Church of England vicar in a small parish in Wales right after WWII. It is part of a series that begins with CHRONICLES OF A CURATE. Fred Secombe and his wife, Eleanor, a doctor, are a good team as they minister to the spiritual and physical needs of the town and cope with two troublesome curates: one feckless, the other pretentious, and the helpful and unhelpful among their parishioners. They direct a Gilbert and Sullivan society which provides comic diversion and help their parishioners cope with tragedy in the wake of a cave-in at the coal mine. The last of the trilogy is set in coronation year with the advent not only of a new queen but of televisions into the community.
Virtual catalogue. Other books by Secombe available from Amazon. (I've ordered some so if you read this and are hooked, I'll be happy to lend them to you.)
AUSTRALIAN FINDS TRUE LOVE IN FRANCE
ALMOST FRENCH: LOVE AND A NEW LIFE IN PARIS -- Sarah Turnbull
Entertaining, nonfiction account of a young Australian who falls in love with a Frenchman and France, but not without some major adjustments. Her observations are interesting: French women don't want friendships with other women because they look upon women as rivals; Parisians in particular and the French in general take a long time to warm up to people even as acquaintances (they want to be sure you're here for good before going to the effort of talking to you at a dinner party); in France (or at least Paris) it is obligatory to dress up even when going to the bakery, you owe it others to present a good appearance; and you have to learn how to deal with the French bureaucracy. She loves Paris, however, from the start, and her lover, later husband, helps her through the difficulties of culture shock. She even learns to love the north of France, his home country. Fun reading and helpful if you're planning a trip to France.
Rockport Library
Entertaining, nonfiction account of a young Australian who falls in love with a Frenchman and France, but not without some major adjustments. Her observations are interesting: French women don't want friendships with other women because they look upon women as rivals; Parisians in particular and the French in general take a long time to warm up to people even as acquaintances (they want to be sure you're here for good before going to the effort of talking to you at a dinner party); in France (or at least Paris) it is obligatory to dress up even when going to the bakery, you owe it others to present a good appearance; and you have to learn how to deal with the French bureaucracy. She loves Paris, however, from the start, and her lover, later husband, helps her through the difficulties of culture shock. She even learns to love the north of France, his home country. Fun reading and helpful if you're planning a trip to France.
Rockport Library
Monday, January 10, 2011
POST WAR BARSETSHIRE
NEVER TOO LATE - ANGELA THIRKELL
Thirkell wrote so many books, all highly entertaining, that I won't review them all, but rather suggest if you like the first you read, look at the list in the book's front and order from the virtual catalog at the library or Amazon. In this novel a loving family copes with a father suffering from memory loss and general frailty, a young girl struggles to find a way to leave her very comforting family nest, and an older couple finds love.
This novel is late Thirkell, 1956 (she died in 1961), but her wit is ever lively. Here's some quotes that made me chuckle. From Mrs. Morland, a writer now in her sixties, "Your son's your son till he gets him a wife.But he goes on expecting you to help him to support all his children all your life." Mr. Choyce, the vicar, talking of the Bishop. "He has found a new hymn by a religious Atheist beginning: "O God, although Thou art not there, Men sing to Thee as if Thou were." And this one, not necessarily funny, but so true of my life: "The reason she was not listening was that Mrs. Morland was involved in a discussion about the way one was always losing things because you put them in a safe place and then you don't know where it is." (Ah Yes Moment for Me!)
Gentle comedy of manners by an author who clearly loves her characters and you will too.
Virtual catalog
Thirkell wrote so many books, all highly entertaining, that I won't review them all, but rather suggest if you like the first you read, look at the list in the book's front and order from the virtual catalog at the library or Amazon. In this novel a loving family copes with a father suffering from memory loss and general frailty, a young girl struggles to find a way to leave her very comforting family nest, and an older couple finds love.
This novel is late Thirkell, 1956 (she died in 1961), but her wit is ever lively. Here's some quotes that made me chuckle. From Mrs. Morland, a writer now in her sixties, "Your son's your son till he gets him a wife.But he goes on expecting you to help him to support all his children all your life." Mr. Choyce, the vicar, talking of the Bishop. "He has found a new hymn by a religious Atheist beginning: "O God, although Thou art not there, Men sing to Thee as if Thou were." And this one, not necessarily funny, but so true of my life: "The reason she was not listening was that Mrs. Morland was involved in a discussion about the way one was always losing things because you put them in a safe place and then you don't know where it is." (Ah Yes Moment for Me!)
Gentle comedy of manners by an author who clearly loves her characters and you will too.
Virtual catalog
Thursday, January 6, 2011
TRUE LOVE AND MARRIAGE IN VENICE
A THOUSAND DAYS IN VENICE (AN UNEXPECTED ROMANCE)-Marlena de Blasi
Charming non-fiction account of a middle-aged American divorcee who receives a telephone call from a man at the next table in a Venetian restaurant asking her to coffee. She refuses four days in a row but finally on her last day in Venice agrees to meet him. He tells her he fell in love with her in December when he saw her at a distance on a previous visit of hers to Venice. Unlikely as all this sounds, it is true, and she takes the plunge, not into the canal, but into love. The book records the first year of their falling in love, her leaving St.Louis, Missouri, to live with him in Venice, their wedding, and subsequent new beginnings together. It is romantic but down-to-earth as they face the adjustment from fairy tale romance to actually living together. Venice is a major player in this story - the people, its history, the infuriating bureaucracy of state and church, the different life views of the Italian worker (Work long enough to buy the grappa but not so long as to miss out on drinking the grappa with co-workers during extended lunch hour. What's the rush?). De Blasi is also a professional chef and includes recipes at book's end. Enchanting reading for all of us who have wished to be swept off our feet with good practical lessons as to how to then sustain and cherish love in marriage. She has also written two follow-up books, so if you like this one, you have two more to enjoy.
Non-Fiction. Rockport Public Library
Charming non-fiction account of a middle-aged American divorcee who receives a telephone call from a man at the next table in a Venetian restaurant asking her to coffee. She refuses four days in a row but finally on her last day in Venice agrees to meet him. He tells her he fell in love with her in December when he saw her at a distance on a previous visit of hers to Venice. Unlikely as all this sounds, it is true, and she takes the plunge, not into the canal, but into love. The book records the first year of their falling in love, her leaving St.Louis, Missouri, to live with him in Venice, their wedding, and subsequent new beginnings together. It is romantic but down-to-earth as they face the adjustment from fairy tale romance to actually living together. Venice is a major player in this story - the people, its history, the infuriating bureaucracy of state and church, the different life views of the Italian worker (Work long enough to buy the grappa but not so long as to miss out on drinking the grappa with co-workers during extended lunch hour. What's the rush?). De Blasi is also a professional chef and includes recipes at book's end. Enchanting reading for all of us who have wished to be swept off our feet with good practical lessons as to how to then sustain and cherish love in marriage. She has also written two follow-up books, so if you like this one, you have two more to enjoy.
Non-Fiction. Rockport Public Library
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
NEW YORKER SHORT STORIES FROM ENGLAND, WWII
GOOD EVENING, MRS.CRAVEN: THE WARTIME STORIES OF MOLLIE PANTER-DOWNES
An exquisite book of short stories written from 1939-1944 for The New Yorker by Panter-Downes, who also wrote fortnightly Letters from London from 1939-84. Unlike most NYer stories of today, these are witty, poignant and understandable. (I do like some contemporary NYer stories but many still leave me cold.) The first half are quite funny, even light-hearted, although with the shadow of war and possible invasion ever close. The later stories are more sober, though never without wit. The last set on D Day is extremely touching. The stories chronicle the changes in society, particularly the class structure, that started with the first war and now are being accelerated with the realization that English life will never be the same even after victory. Some welcome this change, and some mourn it (and often the mourners are those from the servant rather than the master class). Her dry humor is a delight, for instance, this from the first story about the meeting of two former lovers: "She felt that age had withered and custom staled Gerald's infinite variety considerably, and she improvised an early appointment at the hairdresser's." I am now interested in finding whatever of her other writings are still in print!
Available from the virtual catalogue
An exquisite book of short stories written from 1939-1944 for The New Yorker by Panter-Downes, who also wrote fortnightly Letters from London from 1939-84. Unlike most NYer stories of today, these are witty, poignant and understandable. (I do like some contemporary NYer stories but many still leave me cold.) The first half are quite funny, even light-hearted, although with the shadow of war and possible invasion ever close. The later stories are more sober, though never without wit. The last set on D Day is extremely touching. The stories chronicle the changes in society, particularly the class structure, that started with the first war and now are being accelerated with the realization that English life will never be the same even after victory. Some welcome this change, and some mourn it (and often the mourners are those from the servant rather than the master class). Her dry humor is a delight, for instance, this from the first story about the meeting of two former lovers: "She felt that age had withered and custom staled Gerald's infinite variety considerably, and she improvised an early appointment at the hairdresser's." I am now interested in finding whatever of her other writings are still in print!
Available from the virtual catalogue
Monday, January 3, 2011
DIVORCEE CONQUERS ALL
EVERY WOMAN FOR HERSELF - Trisha Ashley
Fun, light reading with a quirky cast of characters once more in Yorkshire. The heroine, Charley (for Charlotte) wakes up one morning to the news her husband wants a divorce now. Stunned she agrees to his terms and returns to the family home of her famous writer father The household is run by her sister Em, a great cook and Wiccan poet, who is made furious by father's new mistress. Soon another sister, Anne, a war correspondent now in cancer treatment, returns and brother, Bran, a professor suffering some sort of nervous collapse is brought home to recover. The two small daughters of the mistress complete the menage a whatever. All the children were named after the Brontes in the father's attempt to replicate that family's creativity. There are also two quirky servants and soon a handsome actor-writer with his young daughter move into an adjacent cottage. Romance follows for Charley and Em complicated by love potions from the resident witch (one of the quirky servants). Family secrets are revealed. Although the Prince Charming is over-the-top perfect, the happy ending he precipitates is cheering. I did wonder though what the book would have been like if she had opted for more realistic scenario.
Available Rockport Library
Fun, light reading with a quirky cast of characters once more in Yorkshire. The heroine, Charley (for Charlotte) wakes up one morning to the news her husband wants a divorce now. Stunned she agrees to his terms and returns to the family home of her famous writer father The household is run by her sister Em, a great cook and Wiccan poet, who is made furious by father's new mistress. Soon another sister, Anne, a war correspondent now in cancer treatment, returns and brother, Bran, a professor suffering some sort of nervous collapse is brought home to recover. The two small daughters of the mistress complete the menage a whatever. All the children were named after the Brontes in the father's attempt to replicate that family's creativity. There are also two quirky servants and soon a handsome actor-writer with his young daughter move into an adjacent cottage. Romance follows for Charley and Em complicated by love potions from the resident witch (one of the quirky servants). Family secrets are revealed. Although the Prince Charming is over-the-top perfect, the happy ending he precipitates is cheering. I did wonder though what the book would have been like if she had opted for more realistic scenario.
Available Rockport Library
WITTY VILLAGE NOVEL OF WORLD WAR II
NORTHRIDGE RECTORY - Angela Thirkell
Angela Thirkell wrote about 50 novels, creating the world of Barsetshire where clergy, lords, farmers and most particularly women of all classes keep Britain going through thick and thin. Thirkell has a wry humor that pokes gentle fun at her characters and a way with a plot that keeps the reader engaged even though in some books, such as this one, not too much happens. Written in 1941 the villagers are rallying to beat off an expected invasion while enjoying the presence of all the officers billotted among them, and less so, the evacuees. The book must have raised the morale of its readers during the war and continues to do so now, as one doesn't need to be in a war to suffer from too much Christmas or to enjoy the way a son returning home can turn a room into chaos in a matter of minutes.
Available through virtual catalogue
Angela Thirkell wrote about 50 novels, creating the world of Barsetshire where clergy, lords, farmers and most particularly women of all classes keep Britain going through thick and thin. Thirkell has a wry humor that pokes gentle fun at her characters and a way with a plot that keeps the reader engaged even though in some books, such as this one, not too much happens. Written in 1941 the villagers are rallying to beat off an expected invasion while enjoying the presence of all the officers billotted among them, and less so, the evacuees. The book must have raised the morale of its readers during the war and continues to do so now, as one doesn't need to be in a war to suffer from too much Christmas or to enjoy the way a son returning home can turn a room into chaos in a matter of minutes.
Available through virtual catalogue
VILLAGE NOVEL OF A CHANGING WORLD
A NEST OF MAGPIES - Sybil Marshall
More than a cozy escape this book depicts the changes wrought in an East Anglia village in the 1960s Written in the first person, the heroine, Fran, a middle-aged widow of means, buys back her family home and returns to the village after a long absence. She renews ties with her male step-cousin and engages a childhood friend, and daughter of the original housekeeper, as her housekeeper. She also becomes friend with a newcomer, a glamorous woman who evokes ardor from men and resentment from women. Fran's reflections on class and morals make this book deeper than the usual village romance, and she provides an event-filled plot that keeps you reading to find out what will happen next.
Available Rockport Library
More than a cozy escape this book depicts the changes wrought in an East Anglia village in the 1960s Written in the first person, the heroine, Fran, a middle-aged widow of means, buys back her family home and returns to the village after a long absence. She renews ties with her male step-cousin and engages a childhood friend, and daughter of the original housekeeper, as her housekeeper. She also becomes friend with a newcomer, a glamorous woman who evokes ardor from men and resentment from women. Fran's reflections on class and morals make this book deeper than the usual village romance, and she provides an event-filled plot that keeps you reading to find out what will happen next.
Available Rockport Library
TRAVEL CLASSIC
BETWEEN THE WOODS AND THE WATER - PATRICK LEIGH FERMOR
This is the second book in the account of Fermor's walk from Holland to Constantinople in 1933 at the age of nineteen He wrote the first account A TIME OF GIFTS in 1977 and this one in 1986, the third is still to come. Fermor is now 95 and still writing after living a life full of adventures. Considered a classic of travel writing, the book is dense with descriptions and history making it slow but fascinating reading. Two times -- the time before World War II when he was walking and the post war time when it was written, and in which the reader lives inform the book. I kept wondering what happened especially to the gypsies, the rabbi and rabbinical students,but really to everyone he met along the way. He tells us a few of the afterlives of the people he kept up with, but of the chance acquaintances we can only wonder as to their fates. It is a picture of the world of Hungary, Rumania, and Transylvania, now lost forever.
Available from virtual catalogue. You might want to start with first book A TIME OF GIFTS
This is the second book in the account of Fermor's walk from Holland to Constantinople in 1933 at the age of nineteen He wrote the first account A TIME OF GIFTS in 1977 and this one in 1986, the third is still to come. Fermor is now 95 and still writing after living a life full of adventures. Considered a classic of travel writing, the book is dense with descriptions and history making it slow but fascinating reading. Two times -- the time before World War II when he was walking and the post war time when it was written, and in which the reader lives inform the book. I kept wondering what happened especially to the gypsies, the rabbi and rabbinical students,but really to everyone he met along the way. He tells us a few of the afterlives of the people he kept up with, but of the chance acquaintances we can only wonder as to their fates. It is a picture of the world of Hungary, Rumania, and Transylvania, now lost forever.
Available from virtual catalogue. You might want to start with first book A TIME OF GIFTS
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