Skip to main content

The Sunday Salon


It’s the last day of May, so of course I should probably talk about my reading for this month. I got a lot read—I finished thirteen books and I’m working on a fourteenth (The Chevalier, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles).

This past week, in addition, I read an ARC of Emily’s Ghost, by Denise Giardina, a novel about the Bronte sisters—strangely fitting, since the 160th anniversary of Anne’s death was this past week. Actually, the book is more about Emily Bronte and her relationship with her father’s curate—I’m assuming fictional, or I would have read something about him in the research I did later. The author takes a lot of liberty with the Brontes’ biographies, but it’s an interesting story nonetheless. Also read this past week was Laurie Notaro’s Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death (humorous memoir/ short essays).

Next up—who knows? I’ve got a few novels by Susanna Kearsley that arrived in the mail from Amazon recently, so I’m eager to get to them. I ordered a number of Elizabeth Chadwick’s novels, too, as well as a copy of Barbara Erskine’s The Warrior’s Princess (timeslip novel about a Celtic princess and one that I’ve heard is very good).

Comments

PD said…
Sounds like a lot of good reading! I look forward to trying out Emily's Ghost when I can finally get a hold of it. I'm always amazed by how many ARC books you get!

Paige
(from http://paigeofthebook.blogspot.com)
Jennifer Taylor said…
I wish I had more time to read, but then I'd never have time to write, so I squeeze it in when I can.
Ceri said…
Ooh, Emily's Ghost sounds interesting. I really love the Brontes so I might check that out too :)

Popular posts from this blog

Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars...

Review: The Piano Teacher, by Janice Y.K. Lee

The Piano Teacher is a complicated novel. On the surface, it’s about a love affair between two British ex-patriots in Hong Kong in 1952-3. Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong with her husband Martin at a time when the world is still recovering from WWII; Claire takes up work as a piano teacher for the daughter of a wealthy Chinese family, where she meets Will Truesdale, the Chens’ enigmatic chauffeur. The book jumps back in time between the 1950s and the beginning of WWII, when Will is interned in Stanley, a Hong Kong camp for enemies of Japan. On “the outside” is Tudy Liang, Will’s beautiful Eurasian lover. There’s no doubt that Lee’s writing is beautiful. But there’s something lacking in this short, terse novel that I can’t quite put my finger on. First, I think it’s the tenses she uses when taking about each story: that which is set in the 1950s is in the past tense, while the war scenes are talked about in the present tense (confusing, no?) The interpersonal relationships of the m...