Review: The Circular Staircase, by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Pages: 209

Original date of publication: 1908

My edition: 2009 (Barnes and Noble)

Why I decided to read: it was on a list of 100 best mysteries of the 20^th century

How I acquired my copy: Barnes and Noble, May 2010

The plot of The Circular Staircase is, like the staircase of the title, rather roundabout. There are a lot of elements in this novel—murder, embezzlement, robbery, and arson, just t name a few of the crimes perpetrated by the characters in this book. Rachel Innes is a rather prickly middle-aged spinster and the aunt of Gertrude and Halsey. After renting a house in the countryside one summer, in which ghosts are said to live, a man is shot dead at the foot of the house’s circular staircase. The dead man is the son of the owner of the house, and he and Jack Bailey (a friend of Halsey’s who also happens to be engaged to Getrude) may or may not have been involved in a bank scandal.

Rachel, who claims that the detecting gene is in her blood, spends the course of the novel pursuing clues, most of which are red herrings. It turns out that every person involved in this story has a piece of the puzzle; and Rachel spends most of the story saying “if only I had known…” The “Had I But Known” plot is apparently pretty characteristic of Rinehart’s novels, but in this book I kept feeling that Rachel as just moving in circles, never really solving any part of the mystery until the very last minute. Also, I didn’t particularly care for the narrator of the story: Rachel is so sharp-tongued that she’s actually rude to pretty much everybody at one point or another. Mr. Jamieson, the detective, is much more likeable, but he sometimes allows Rachel to walk all over him.

Mary Roberts Rinehart has been credited with coining the phrase “the butler did it”—though the phrase never appeared in any of her mystery novels. Her books were bestsellers in the United States for a long while in the early 20^th century, probably because they were so readable; certainly not “high literature” in an sense of the word. The Circular Staircase is a prime example of this; but nonetheless it works well as a suspense novel.

The Sunday Salon

Happy Sunday! Because of Memorial Day Weekend, it definitely doesn’t feel like the end of the weekend, so we’ve got another day to go! I'm not complaining, since it promises to be 90 degrees out here tomorrow. The month is essentially over, so I figured I might as well do my reading wrap-up for May now. Here’s what I read:

How Did You Get This Number, by Sloane Crosley

Still Missing, by Beth Gutcheon

The Reckoning, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

The Tulip Virus, by Danielle Hermans

A London Child of the 1870s, by Molly Hughes

Legacy, by Susan Kay

Every Last One, by Anna Quindlen

The Circular Staircase, by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Airs Above the Ground, by Mary Stewart

Shadow Princess, by Indu Sundaresan

No Angel, by Penny Vincenzi

They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple

Flapper, by Joshua Zeitz

I read 13 books this month, so basically the same amount as last month. I read more nonfiction this month as well. My favorite books this month were easily They Were Sisters (Dorothy Whipple is always a sure thing with me) and Legacy, by Susan Kay. Sourcebooks is reprinting this next month and I’m glad to see it come back into print. This is easily one of the best fictional histories of Elizabeth I that I’ve ever read.

This weekend has been highly relaxing; I spent most of today sitting outside in this wonderful weather reading Airs Above the Ground. There’s something about warm weather that makes me want to read easy stuff like Mary Stewart’s books!

I’m actually between reads at the present moment! I’m thinking I may dive into one of my new Viragos next (Frost in May, perhaps?). I was looking at the books I have that are unread, and a part of me wants to read them all right now, but of course I have to pick and choose what order I read them in—otherwise I’d be overwhelmed by it all! Ever had indecision in deciding what to read next?

Review: Still Missing, by Beth Gutcheon

Pages: 374

Original date of publication: 1981

My edition: 2010 (Persephone)

Why I decided to read: it’s a Persephone; what else can I say?

How I acquired my copy: Persephone website, April 2010

When I heard that Persephone would be reprinting this one, I was both excited and apprehensive at the same time. On one hand, the plot sounded interesting; on the other, it’s completely different from what Persephone usually publishes.

One day, Susan Selky sends her almost-seven-year-old son Alex off to school. He disappears, seemingly without trace, and the following nine months, while Susan, her ex, the police, and many others conduct a manhunt for Alex. The novel contains a pretty strong statement about a mother’s long-lasting hope and belief that her son is still alive somewhere, and not dead, as many people fear.

There’s also a pretty strong statement here about how well we really know the people around us: our neighbors, and the people we let into our homes. The strength of this book lies not so much in plot (though that in and of itself is very good), but in character development and the emotional impact the subject matter has on its reader. Tension abounds throughout the book, especially in the days following Alex’s disappearance—there’s a great scene where they all sit and wait for hours for the phone to ring. Susan proves herself to be strong and capable, when most people would simply fall apart if put in her position. Even the cynical Detective Memetti is well developed. There’s a fabulous amount of tension between Susan and her ex, Graham: they’re married, but separated; they’ve hurt each other in the past, but they’re clearly still in love with each other (she still refers to him as her husband; he’s dating a girl who looks just like Susan).

Be warned that there’s a fair amount of graphic violence and sex described in this novel, as well as some crude language that seemed a bit overmuch at times. There’s a very strong homophobic undercurrent to the book, too. The situation with Graham seemed to fizzle out at the end, and the ending seemed very rushed and inconclusive. Other than these reservations, however, I thought this was a pretty taut, fast-paced thriller. This book certainly is completely different from some of the other books that Persephone has reprinted; but it’s definitely one of those novels that make you think about it long after you’ve put it down.

This is Persephone no. 88 Endpaper below:

Booking Through Thursday: What's on the bedside table (and other places)

What books do you have next to your bed right now? How about other places in the house? What are you reading?

Literally on my bedside table right now are The Brothers of Gwynedd Quartet (I’m steeling myself to read the second book in it, but I’ll wait to do so after Memorial Day weekend). I also have review copies of Indu Sundaresan’s Shadow Princess and Sloane Crosley’s How Did You Get This Number, both books that I’ve read and written reviews for, and which I need to reshelve at some point when I’m not feeling lazy.

In the bookcase next to my bed, I have about a hundred books to read (a full list can be seen here). A few of these are review copies (including a LTER book that I need to get around to reading and reviewing sometime soon), but this upcoming weekend, with the holiday and all, I really only feel like reading fun stuff. I’m thinking some Mary Stewart, or Elizabeth Chadwick, especially To Defy a King. Currently, though, I’m reading the 15^th book in the Morland Dynasty series, The Reckoning—also, another one of those fun reads. It's really and truly time for summer to start!

Review: The Tulip Virus, by Danielle Hermans

Pages: 278

Original date of publication: 2008 (in Dutch)

My edition: 2010 (Minotaur)

Why I decided to read: a blogger mentioned this a while ago and I decided to try it for myself

How I acquired my copy: from the library, April 2010

The premise of The Tulip Virus centers around the tulip craze of the 1630s. The 1636 murder of a tulip trader in Alkmaar is contrasted with the murder of Dutchman Frank Schoeller in modern-day London. Alec Schoeller, the nephew of the man murdered in the present day, arrives at his uncle’s home to find him dying. His uncle gives him a book—a catalogue of tulips from the last great auction before the tulip bubble burst in 1637. Alec’s search for his uncle’s killer leads him into the dangerous world of tulip trading. The differences between Science and religion are sharply drawn in this story of greed.

The mystery of the novel sort of fizzles out—the motive for murder is clear from the beginnings, even if the jacket copy doesn’t give it away. The author’s grasp of the history behind the story is strong, but really the historical bits take a back seat to the modern-day story, which is much more interesting.

Hermans’s skill lies in character development—Alec is one volatile man! And impatient—how I cringed at the scene where he’s nearly ripping apart the endpaper of the catalogue to get at what’s underneath! There’s a lot of tension between Alec and Damian, all the more so because of a certain event that’s revealed about halfway through. I did feel at times that this book is part of a series of novels; over and over Wainwright (the detective) mentions a previous case of his involving a serial killer. In Alec’s search for his uncle’s killer, there’s a lot of expostulation about the tulip trade, which is interesting; but I found it slightly unrealistic that no mention would be made (until the crucial point in the plot) of the Semper Augustus tulip bulb—the Holy Grail of tulip bulbs. It’s a bulb so rare and beautiful that the ultimate irony is that it is created by a very harmful virus.

Aside from my reservations about the book, I did think the book was well-paced. Since this is only Daneielle Hermans’s (there’s an umlaut over the first “e” in her first name) first book, I look forward to see what comes next from her.

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesday asks you to:

--Grab your current read

--Let the book open to a random page

--Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12

--You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from—that way people can have some great recommendations if hey like the teaser you’re given!

“All the Duke’s close attendants were aware of the change in their master. Alencon, the rake, the cynic, the irrepressible little egotist, was behaving like a schoolboy in love for the first time.”

--From Legacy, by Susan Kay

Review: The Confessions of Catherine de Medici, by CW Gortner

Pages: 397

Original date of publication: 2010

My edition: 210 (Ballantine)

Why I decided to read: I read and loved The Last Queen last year

How I acquired my copy: LTER

I’ve been looking forward to reading The Confessions of Catherine de Medici ever since reading CW Gortner’s other book, The Last Queen, last spring. I think it’s difficult for an author to have a strong second novel follow up on the first, but Gortner rally pulls it off with his novel about Catherine de Medici—a queen who in and of herself was a complicated woman. She’s an intriguing woman however—a member of one of the foremost families in Europe, she was alternately a duchess, dauphine, queen, queen mother, and regent. And yet, she was maligned as a witch, accused of masterminding the Bartholomew’s Day massacre among other things.

Writing from the point of view of someone as famous as Catherine is, is tricky. On one hand, there’s a wealth of information out there on her; on the other, the trick lies in bringing Catherine to life as opposed to merely reciting a string of facts about her. CW Gortner has done a fabulous job of merging fact with fiction. I could use cliché after cliché to describe this novel, but in summary, I enjoyed it very, very much.

I also appreciated the fact that the author toned down the witchcraft bits—in this novel, Catherine is interested in the occult, but not so much that she turns into some crone herself. I do wish, however, that the book had been longer, because it covers roughly sixty years of Catherine’s life—an ambitious undertaking! The beginning of the novel, up until the time that Catherine’s second son becomes king, moves rather quickly, which is understandable, considering that her life as queen mother and regent was far more interesting than her earlier history—at least in my opinion.

The Sunday Salon: BEA and chunksters

I’m rather jealous of those of you that are going to BEA—but I have work, so going is out of the question. I miss the days when BEA was held on the weekend and I lived in New York. I went once a few years ago, before I started blogging and when I did an internship with a literary agent. It was all very overwhelming, but a lot of fun.

I’ve been really into reading chunksters lately, for some reason. This week I finished No Angel, by Penny Vincenzi, the first in a trilogy set in early-2oth century England. The author is rather fond of the “in the nick of time” school of writing (as in, Celia and Oliver are all about to go on the Titanic, but one of the kids gets sick… and nobody tells Celia... but then the son does... just in the nick of time). Still, it was a very easy read. Currently I’m reading some more historical fiction: Legacy, by Susan Kay, a novel about Elizabeth I. It’s excellent. I don’t know what it is about chunskters, but I’ve really been gravitating towards them. There’s something about a really long saga that seems so appealing at this time. Ever had a craving for a certain type of book at a certain time?

Friday Finds

I’ve added much to the TBR list recently! What I’ve listed here is stuff that’s come into my house within the past few weeks—I have no self control! I recently discovered Virago books, so I apent a part of last weekend on ebay, looking to see what I could find. I walked away with:

Frost in May, by Antonia White

Invitation to the Waltz, by Rosamond Lehmann

The Rising Tide, by Molly Keane

And then I added about a dozen more Viragos to my wish list…

Then this week I received a review copy of Great Maria, a reprint of the novel by Cecelia Holland. I enjoyed Jerusalem, so I jumped at the chance to read and review this one.

I also received Juliet, by Anne Fortier, based around the Romeo and Juliet Legend. This is my LTER books from last month, so I need to get to reading it soon.

Other purchases from the past couple of weeks:

Lots of Dorothy Sayers

Some more books in the Morland Dynasty series

Shinju, by Laura Joh Rowland

Nightingale Wood, by Stella Gibbons

Britannia Mews, by Margery Sharp

So, the month is only about 2/3 over, but already I’ve done a bit of damage… bringing the number of books I own but haven’t read up to 100! Yikes.

Review: Every Last One, by Anna Quindlen

Pages: 295

Original date of publication: 2010

My edition: 2010 (Random House)

Why I decided to read: heard about it through a Shelf Awareness ad

How I acquired my copy: review copy from the Amazon Vine Program, March 2010

The first hundred pages or so of this book are devoted to describing how ordinary Mary Beth Latham’s life is. The first few pages or so, she describes a day in her ordinary life. She’s the wife of an eye doctor, mother of three children, living in a pretty ordinary (there’s that word again!) town, vaguely located in New England. Then that major act of violence occurs that we’re promised in the book blurb, and her life changes drastically. For the first half of the book, as Mary Beth describes her life, you start to get comfortable with the characters and Mary Beth’s rather bland life. Then, unexpectedly, things change.

The novel is not so much about what actually happens as what you do afterwards. After something truly horrific happens, how do you cope? Several of the characters have lost something or someone valuable to them, and each chooses to handle it in a different way. The book is also about how talking about a tragedy, or not talking about it, has an impact upon everyone involved. In fact, by not talking about the Event, there’s a great deal of uncertainty and tension between Mary Beth and her son, only alleviated when they actually sit down together in the presence of another (I’m being really vague here, but I don’t want to give anything away if you haven’t read the book).

There are a couple of minor details that don’t quite add up (Mary Beth owns her own business, for example, but she doesn’t seem to have an office or a proper work space). But in the larger scheme of things, all of that is unimportant. The ending seemed to me to be a bit rushed, too inconclusive for me. However, the strength of the book lies in the messages it conveys. This novel’s themes are so powerful and complicated that I’m not sure I can fully express them here. Quindlen’s writing style takes some getting used to: she writes in the present tense, in short, choppy sentences. But be assured that this is a novel that will have you thinking about it long after you’ve put it down. My mom, who loves Anna Quindlen’s books, saw her speak at the Philadelphia Free Library recently, and Quindlen told her that she thought this was her best book. It’s easy to see why.

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesday asks you to:

--Grab your current read

--Let the book open to a random page

--Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12

--You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from—that way people can have some great recommendations if hey like the teaser you’re given!

“There were several raids on the coast in early 1915, but the first air attack on London was not until the early summer. Celia had seen them, had watched, awed as zeppelins hung high over London, their great cigar shapes caught in the searchlights.”

--From No Angel, by Penny Vincenzi

Review: Brothers of Gwynedd Quartet I: Sunrise in the West, by Edith Pargeter

Pages: 186

Original date of publication: 1974

My edition: 2010 (Sourcebooks)

Why I decided to read: it had been recommended to me a long time ago

How I acquired my copy: review copy from the publisher

I’m reading The Brothers of Gwynedd for a sort of book club that the publicist at Sourcebooks is sponsoring—we’re reading one book from the quartet for four months, writing a review, and then discussing the book at various book bloggers’ blogs. I’m very glad that things have been spread out this way, otherwise, I think I’d get burned out over this book very quickly—I’ve only completed the first 200 pages or so, but already I feel as though I’m running a marathon with it!

Sunrise in the West is the first book in the quartet. From what I’ve read so far, it promises to be slow going—the book opens with not a lot of action, just a number of details on the narrator’s (Samson) background, as well as that of the house of Gwynedd. This part of the book takes places from roughly the 1220s up through the ‘60s, when Gwynedd was conquered by the English. There are a lot of descriptive passages in this book, and a lot of historical details; but Pargeter’s prose style is very, very dense and slow going at times—I’d find myself reading a few pages, putting the book down, and picking it up again after I’d gone to read something else. It definitely didn’t grab my attention enough that I wanted to keep on reading.

One of my problems is with the narrator, who’s not actually present while a lot of this novel takes place, so there’s a lot of “he told me this…” and “I heard that…” However, I’m finding the place names fascinating—I live in an area in Pennsylvania where a lot of Welsh people settled, and the place names around here are indicative of that (the township I live in was named after Radnorshire in Wales). I’m really hoping the book gets better than this; but as I’ve been warned, this book so far is sort of like watching paint dry.

Review: Jerusalem, by Cecelia Holland

Pages: 405

Original date of publication: 1996

My edition: 1997 (Forge)

Why I decided to read: heard about it through Historical Fiction Online

How I acquired my copy: Amazon, March 2010

Jerusalem is a story of the Knights Templar in the Holy Land in the 1180s. The story centers around Rannulf Fitzwilliam, a Norman knight who, like many of the Templars, has a Past and has come East to do penance. The story is set in and around Jerusalem and Damascus, as the King of Jerusalem struggles to keep the monarchy intact, even as the Saracens threaten to attack from without.

Rannulf isn’t exactly a likeable character—I didn’t like him much, and he wasn’t much liked by his comrades. He’s stoic, almost to the point of coldness, and so he doesn’t often show emotion—and when he does, it almost seems forced. For example, take Rannulf’s attraction to Sibylla—I’m not sure that he’s in love with her so much as in lust, given his past behavior. I liked Stephen a whole lot better, struggling as he does with temptation. Actually both characters struggle with it, but Stephen’s struggle is much greater, because the waters, so to speak, are much more muddy.

The tone of the book, as other readers have mentioned, is grim. There are some fantastic descriptions of the battles the Templars fight in against the Saracens (that scene at the end is one of the most suspenseful battle scenes I’ve ever read), and I always got the sense that disaster was just around the corner, both for the Templars and Jerusalem. As a reader, you really get a “you are there” feeling when you read this book—from the sweat and blood of the battle to the saddle sores, its all in there. The feelings the Christians and Muslims had towards each other are also well depicted. Although I had reservations about the main character of this book, I’d still recommend this one to anyone who’s looking for a good novel about the Crusades and the Knights Templar.

The Sunday Salon

It’s been a good reading week here: I finished Still Missing, by Beth Gutcheon, last Sunday afternoon, and then I read The Circular Staircase, by Mary Roberts Rinehart. Her mysteries were bestsellers in the United States in the early 20^th century, and she’s been called the American Agatha Christie. Judging from The Circular Staircase, her books are readable, but not high-quality literature—probably why they were bestsellers in the first place! Afterwards I read some nonfiction: Flapper, by Joshua Zeitz (a general social history of the 1920s flapper in the United States) and How Did You Get This Number, by Sloane Crosley. I read and enjoyed her first collection of essays, I Was Told There’d Be Cake, two years ago and loved it, so I was excited to receive a copy of this from the publisher. And it more than lives up to her first book, so I enjoyed it immensely.

I’m sort of vacillating between what I want to read now: I have Bedlam: The Further Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte out from the library, and I’ve tried with no success to get into The Shadow Princess, by Indu Sundaresan, set in early 17^th-century India around the building of the Taj Mahal. It’s an Amazon Vine book, so I’ll have to review it at some point. Not sure what I’ll say about it, though. I've had much better success with No Angel, by Penny Vincenzi, the first in the Spoils of Time series and set in the Edwardian era through the beginning of WWI. I originally bought this in 2001 when I was in England, but couldn't get into it, so returned the book. When I was in England again last fall, I decided to buy it again and try it one one time. So far, so good--it's a trashy yet fun family saga.

A while ago, while participating in Persephone Reading Week, I stumbled across the Virago Modern Classics collection, “a list dedicated to the celebration of women and to the rediscovery and reprinting of their work.” Most of these authors are from the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Mention of Persephone I guess invariably leads to the question, “have you read anything published by Virago?” Virago Modern Classics (there are about 500 of them in all; and Verity, who reads more in a months than I do in a year, is attempting to read them all in her blog called Verity’s Virago Venture) are known for their green covers and spine, and they’ve published everything from authors you’ve heard of (Daphne Du Maurier, Dodie Smith, Stella Gibbons, Barbara Pym) to the more obscure (at least to me)—Celia Fremlin, May Sinclair, or Charlotte Mary Yonge. The cover art of the Virago Modern Classics tends to be pretty fantastic, too. Looking at the full list, I’ve read about fifty of their books, in non-Virago editions, and there are a lot of books on the list that appear interesting. My TBR list has grown exponentially! It’s taking all of my willpower NOT to go online and buy some right now… the cover below is that of the very first VMC published, Frost in May.

Review: Clouds of Witness, by Dorothy Sayers

Pages: 279

Original date of publication: 1926

My edition: 1995 (Harper)

Why I decided to read: had a hankering for more Dorothy Sayers one morning

How I acquired my copy: Amazon.com, April 2010

Clouds of Witness is one of Dorothy Sayers’s earlier Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. It’s definitely not as good as Murder Must Advertise, or The Nine Tailors, but it certainly shows some promise.

Having just spent time abroad in Corsica, Lord Peter Wimsey returns to find that his brother Gerald, the Duke of Denver, has been accused of the murder of one of his houseguests at Riddlesdale Lodge, a house rented for the hunting season. The murdered man was Lord Peter and the Duke’s brother-in-law-to-be—so Lord Peter intervenes in what promises to be a sticky mess. It turns out that a lot of people are guilty of a lot of things, and it’s up to Wimsey to sort things out. What I love about this book is that you know who didn’t do it—the fun is in figuring out who did.

This book (the second Sayers wrote about Lord Peter, actually) isn’t as strong as some of her later books, but it’s pretty good nonetheless. The identification of the murderer isn’t as important here, though, as is a major twist that’s revealed near the end. Lord Peter himself, with his unusual manner of speaking and varied pursuits, is an endearing character, and it’s easy to see why Peter has inspired many other gentleman-detectives in fiction (Inspector Linley from Elizabeth George’s books). I thought that Lady Mary was one of the weaker characters (way too many dramatics for me). Clouds of Witness may be the second book in this series (after Whose Body?), but if you’re new to the series, you may want to start with this one—there’s a lot more character development, as well as the introduction of some characters who make recurring appearances throughout the series.

Review: The Royal Griffin, by Juliet Dymoke

Pages: 278

Original date of publication: 1978

My edition: 1978 (ACE)

Why I decided to read: an interest in the Plantagenets led me to pick this up

How I acquired my copy: Amazon.com, February 2010

The Royal Griffin is the story of Eleanor of England (youngest daughter of King John and sister of Henry III) and her second husband, Simon de Montfort, the baron who helped shape the parliamentarian history of England. The story covers the life of Eleanor from her first marriage in 1224 to William Marshal, eldest son of the famous William Marshal, goes up through Simon de Montfort’s attempt to take the throne, ending nearly at the end of Eleanor’s life, when she became a nun.

It’s a huge period of time to cover, and Dymoke does jump over periods of time in order to cover the major action of Eleanor and Simon’s lives. For example, at one moment Eleanor is giving birth to their eldest son, Henry; next thing you know he and his siblings are teenagers! In some ways this harms the novel, because there’s not a lot of room for character development; Eleanor hardly seems to change at all from being a teenager to being middle-aged.

Nonetheless, the novel is well-researched, and pretty much jives with what’s known about the people involved in this story, or what was written about them (the author seems to have borrowed a lot from Matthew Paris’s accounts of the Plantagenet family, which although contemporary were not always, shall we say, objective). Dymoke doesn’t take too many liberties with history, which is in many ways good, because it’s a fascinating story. The author recreates mid-13^th century England and its various political struggles in great detail at times, though would have liked a more in-depth description of the scene at the battle of Evesham. Still, this novel is a good introductory, fictional account of this era, though for historical fiction on the period, Sharon Kay Penman’s novels are much meatier.

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesday asks you to:

--Grab your current read

--Let the book open to a random page

--Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12

--You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from—that way people can have some great recommendations if hey like the teaser you’re given!

“Shortly after their marriage, the celebrity couple paid a visit to Princeton, where a university official with unspeakably bad judgment appointed them official chaperones at a weekend house party. Scott traumatized the impressionable undergraduates by introducing Zelda as his ‘mistress’ and ended the sojourn badly hung over and with a black eye.”

--From Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celerity, and the Women Who Made America Modern, by Joshua Zeitz (he’s describing the antics of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald!)

Review: The Campaigners, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

Pages: 580

Original date of publication: 1990

My edition: 2006 (Sphere)

Why I decided to read: it’s a continuation of the Morland series

How I acquired my copy: Amazon.com, September 2009

#14: Spring-summer 1815; covers the Battle of Waterloo

As Napoleon’s reign comes to its inevitable end and the allied troops converge for a last, decisive battle, the beau monde of English society gather in Brussels, essentially creating their own little society there, complete with cricket matches and balls and coming out parties. Lucy and Heloise, now respectable matrons, take Rosamund and Sophie there for their coming out, as James Morland (back in England) attempts to deal with the devastating loss of his daughter, Fanny. In Brussels, Rosamund deals with her feelings for Marcus, and Sophie falls in love with a French major. It seems that the only man not in uniform is Bobbie, Earl of Chelmsford.

This is a very strong addition to the series, again, with some very strong characters and character development. The titles of the books in this series often have a double meaning; in this case, you could consider Rosamund and Sophie as kind of campaigners in the marriage market, even as Wellington and his men campaign against Napoleon. Although the outcome of the war is of course well known, I found myself invested enough in the characters to care about who survives this particular chapter of history—or not. The novel features many returning characters, but introduces a nice collection of new ones that I hope to see in future installments of the series. Plus, there’s that rivalry between Benedict and Nicholas, still children here, which threatens to blow into a full conflict later on…

The author’s descriptions of the period are excellent, describing as they do the calm before the storm, so to speak: the day to day lives of people in English society, leading up to that famous ball on the eve of the battle of Waterloo, and through the battle itself. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Harrod-Eagles is especially skilled at battle scenes. Once again the Morland family has a front-row seat to what’s going on, and are indeed active participants. It’s an interesting way to learn about history, especially since I don’t know much about the 19^th century pre-Victoria. Military history seems to be something that Cynthia Harrod-Eagles is passionately interested in, as seen in the descriptions of the battle at Quatre Bras and Waterloo.

The Sunday Salon

This past week I participated in and enjoyed immensely Persephone Reading Week, hosted by Verity and Claire. I read They Were Sisters and A London Child of the 1870s; loved the former and was interested in but didn’t love the latter. I’m now about a third of the way through one of Persephone’s newest books, Still Missing, which is readily available in the US from Harper. So why did I pay about $4 for shipping from the UK? Need I answer that question?

I learned, through the Spring/Summer 2010 Persephone Biannually that arrived at my house yesterday, that the other of Persephone’s Spring titles, Dimanche and Other Stories, was also reprinted by Vintage here in the US this past week (the image above has been reproduced on the US cover as well as that of the Biannually). So it looks as though the Irene Nemirovsky revival continues... I also found to my delight that an excerpt of my review of The Carlyles at Home was spotlighted in the Biannually!

Book shopping continued this week, with the purchase of six more books in the Morland Dynasty series, all of the Dorothy Sayers books I don’t own that Barnes and Noble had (about half a dozen of them), Shinju, by Laura Joh Rowland (the first in the Sano Ichiro mystery series, set in 17^th century Edo, or Tokyo), The Circular Staircase, by Mary Roberts Rinehart, and Nightingale Wood, by Stella Gibbon, all of which were bought with leftovers from various giftcards and then some. I seem to buy books faster than I read them, and so my TBR shelves are full to bursting! For the rest of the month I think I’ll try to curb my spending (easier said than done) and actually read!

Today is of course Mother’s Day, and my sister took the train down from New York as a surprise for Mom. Yesterday we had dinner at home and then today were went out to brunch.

Review: A London Child of the 1870s, by Molly Hughes

Pages: 173

Original date of publication: 1934

My edition: 2008 (Persephone)

Why I decided to read: browsing on the Persephone website

How I acquired my copy: from the Lamb’s Conduit Street shop, September 2009

A London Child of the 1870s is a collection of remembrances of the author’s life, living in suburban London in the 1870s. Molly Hughes, nee Thomas, was born in 1866 and grew up in the company of four older brothers.

The whole tone of the book is very nostalgic, a kind of “what had been” about Hughes’s early life, looking back on it fifty years on, sometimes comparing “then with “now.” And the book is very sentimental in many places, the author fudging a bit at the end the circumstances of her father's death. And yet it’s a very, very funny collection of remembrances, covering everything from trips to Cornwall to visit relatives to what was read on Sundays when no “fun” books were allowed (“Again and again I turned to something entitled The Dark Journey, only to find that it was an account of one’s digestion. You may wonder why I did this more than once, but I always hoped that I had been mistaken, and that such a splendid title must mean a good story. No, there was still that forbidding picture of one’s insides cut through the middle” (p. 86)). Hughes’s book isn’t exactly told from the point of view of herself as a child, but I think this is a very readable account of a middle-class family of the period. However, as a side note, I didn't much care for Adam Gopnik's Preface--I've always found his writing to be rather self-centered and pretentious. Somehow he manages to make this Preface all about himself and his experience living on the Upper East Side of New York City in the '80s, an area of the city which he manages to make sound like a third-world country.

After Molly Hughes’s father died in 1879, her life became very difficult indeed; her family was left with very little money and so the five children of the family were forced to go to work (Molly went to the Cambridge Training College—later called Hughes Hall and incorporated into Cambridge University—and became a teacher). Later, both her husband and young daughter died and so there was always a sense of sadness about her life. And yet Hughes managed to live to the age of ninety, so one has to think that she must have been a very strong, resilient woman indeed.

A London Child of the 1870s (previously published as A London Child of the Seventies) is the first book in a trilogy that continues with A London Girl of the 1880s and A London Family in the 1890s (though this of course is the only one of the three that Persephone has published. Despite my reservations about this book, I do wish that Persephone will someday publish the other two, as A London Child… is nonetheless an interesting read about “just an ordinary, suburban, Victorian family, undistinguished [themselves] and unacquainted with distinguished people.”

This is Persephone No. 61. Endpaper below:

Review: They Were Sisters, by Dorothy Whipple

Pages: 455

Original date of publication: 1943

My edition: 2007 (Persephone)

Why I decided to read: browsing on Persephone’s website

How I acquired my copy: From the LCS shop, September 2009

“….they were sisters and loved each other, no matter how deeply the circumstances o

f their lives seemed to divide them.” (p. 138).

This is the story of three sisters, as different as three people could ever be. Charlotte marries Geoffrey, who’s not good enough for her; Vera marries Brian, she she’s not good enough for; and Lucy, the eldest of the three Field sisters, marries a man with whom she’s completely compatible. They each lie separate lives in separate parts of the country, but what brings them together, as the quote above shows, is their love for one another—and the children, who are visibly affected by the breakdown of two marriages. Happiness—the having or not having of it—is a strong theme in this book.

This novel had a strong impact on me. Geoffrey’s abusive behavior towards Charlotte never actually descends into the physical; but it’s the psychological aspect of it that really chills the reader to the bone (the scene with the dog especially left a bad taste in my mouth about him). It’s a textbook abusive relationship, with Charlotte constantly making excuses for her husband, the children cowering in fear of what he will think, say, or do. At the same time, Whipple manages to make her reader see things from Geoffrey’s point of view: what it all comes down to is that Geoffrey is an overgrown bully, extraordinarily selfish and unable to see other people be happy. He's insensitive, too; so much so that he actually laughs at Lucy when she expresses concern over Charlotte's drinking and drug-taking. It's interesting how each of his children reacts to him in a different way: one submits meekly, one rebels violently against him and runs away, and the third eventually ends up happy, with a little help from the people who care about her. My only complaint against the book is that Geoffrey doesn’t really get what he deserves in the end; but I suppose that the way in which Whipple wrote the story is more realistic, and serves to illustrate how the men have all the power in cases such as these.

Vera and Brian’s marriage is nearly the exact same as Geoffrey and Charlotte’s, except in reverse. Bored with her marriage, Vera turns to other people to cope; she’s is just a selfish as Geoffrey was, and it’s her selfishness that destroys her marriage and leads her daughter to resent her. One of the big themes of this book is how the behavior of adults impacts children; nowhere is this more true than in the case of Judith and Sarah, who seem adrift with parents who are unfit to raise them. It’s not surprising that they should find comfort in one another and in their Aunt Lucy, the most levelheaded and happy of the three older women.

Dorothy Whipple’s writing style has been described over and over again as “readable;” They Were Sisters is easily one of Whipple’s most readable books. The plot takes a back seat to the writing and the character descriptions, which are first rate. This is definitely a book worth thinking about, and one I enjoyed immensely.

This is Persephone no. 56. Endpaper below:

Persephone Reading Week Update

I finished They Were Sisters yesterday, and thought it was excellent (review to come). I'm now about halfway through A London Child of the 1870s (originally published in 1934 as A London Child of the Seventies). This is the first in series of books that continues with A London Girl of the 1880s and A London Home in the 1890s, though this of course is the only one that Persephone has published. The picture above is of the house the family lived in (borrowed from the Persephone website). It's a short memoir about Molly Hughes's experience growing up in a middle-class family in North Islington with four brothers. While I'm not totally taken with it (it has a "way back then" kind of feeling to it), I'm finding that it's a fascinating look at middle-class life during the high Victorian period. It's also very funny. I should finish it today and have a review posted soon.

Review: The Young Pretenders, by Edith Henrietta Fowler

Pages: 231

Original date of publication: 1895

My edition: 2007 (Persephone)

Why I decided to read: browsing on Persephone’s website

How I acquired my copy: the Persephone bookshop, LCS London, September 2009

The Young Pretenders is the story of two children, Babs and Teddy—or, more aptly, it’s about Babs, a five-year-old living in late Victorian London. Covering the space of about a year, the story follows Babs and her adventures living in London with Uncle Charley and Aunt Eleanor, while her father and mother are in India (collectively referred to as “Father-and-Mother-in-Inja.” Babs is no ordinary child, and she certainly defies the old maxim of “children should be seen and not heard.”

Babs is a little girl who’s unprepossessing in personal experience, but more than makes up for it in personality. I don’t I’ve ever come across a more engaging character in fiction in a very long time. Babs is constantly described as “merry,” and so she is, unhampered as she is by the same kinds of cares that adults are. She doesn’t have a malicious bone in her little body, but she’s constantly being pegged by her elders as “naughty”—simply because she doesn’t know how to filter what she says! In fact, there’s a hysterically funny scene where Babs copies something that her uncle Charley says, and unintentionally offends an older matron while asking her if she was born during the reign of Alfred the Great! In fact, the whole book is filled with Babs’s social gaffes, but she makes them so innocently that you can’t help but be charmed by her. And some of her lines are priceless, as in this exchange she has with her cousin Ronald during the Queen's procession:

“Wasn’t Britannia a queen?” Babs asked.

“Oh, yes! She rules the waves, you know.”

“Well, queens is all alike,” argued Babs triumphantly, and Ronald did not feel quite equal to gainsaying this statement.

There are a lot of great characters in this book: Uncle Charley and Aunt Eleanor, who are so selfish that they don’t understand their niece and nephew; the Draconian governess, aptly named Miss Grimstone (an positively ancient at the age of about fifty), and others. Teddy is a bit disappointing as a character, but Babs’s personality quite stole the show for me, so that didn’t matter in the end. The Young Pretenders is a lovely little book about life as told from a child’s perspective; it’s accompanied by a gorgeous set of illustrations at the beginning of each chapter (done by Philip Burne Jones).

This is Persephone #73. Endpaper below:

Spotlight on a Persephone author: Dorothy Whipple

I’ve decided to take a break from my reading during Persephone Reading Week and talk about one of my favorite Persephone authors—Dorothy Whipple, whose book, They Were Sisters, I'm reading right now. I’ve only read two of her books—The Priory and Someone at a Distance, both reviewed on this site, and I’ve loved both of them.

Dorothy Whipple, the daughter of an architect and one of eight children, was born in 1893, in Blackburn, Lancashire. She became a secretary in the Education office, where she met her husband, Alfred Whipple. After her marriage in 1917, Dorothy concentrated on her writing career; her first novel, Young Anne, was published by Jonathan Cape in 1927, though she'd had stories published before this. Whipple died in 1966 in Blackburn.

Whipple is far and away one of Persephone’s most popular authors; they’ve reprinted Someone at a Distance (in 1999), They Knew Mr. Knight (2000), The Priory (2003), They Were Sisters (2005), The Closed Door and Other Stories (2007), and High Wages (2009). In all, Whipple published over a dozen books between 1927 and the 1960s—novels, short stories, and autobiographies. She was one of the most popular authors of the 1930s and ‘40s; but her writing became unfashionable in the 1950s and her last book, Someone at a Distance, didn’t sell well. Two of Whipple’s novels, They Knew Mr. Knight and They Were Sisters, have been made into films (sadly, I don't believe either is available on DVD).

As Nicola Beauman wrote, “ She may not be an amazing stylist like the New Yorker writer Mollie Panter-Downes. But her prose is understated, to the point, subtle, and intensely readable.” It’s for this reason that Whipple’s books have been reprinted-and why they’re becoming so popular with a new generation of readers.

Sources:

http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/pages/authors/index.asp?id=48

http://www.cottontown.org/page.cfm?pageid=4411&language=eng

Oooh, this is bad....

Yesterday I arrived home to find a package lying on my doorstep. It was in one of those bubble mailers that bookdepository uses, had a British stamp, and it was a hardcover book… so I got a bit excited, thinking it was Elizabeth Chadwick’s new book, somehow come early. My hopes were raised... and then...

I opened the package to discover it’s a copy of one of Meira Chand’s books, which had me exceedingly puzzled for a moment… until I read the packaging and discovered that it was meant for one of the people I live with! Oh, the disappointment I felt! What a cruel trick. This waiting is killing me... it's May finally, can I please have my copy of To Defy a King arrive already?

My moment of supreme disappointment was alleviated somewhat by the fact that also in the mail were two packages from Persephone: Still Missing and Dimanche and Other Stories, just in time for Persephone Reading Weeek…

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesday asks you to:

--Grab your current read

--Let the book open to a random page

-Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12

--You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from—that way people can have some great recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

“Geoffrey turned swiftly and seized a book from a table. Clenching his teeth, he hurled it at the angry boy, by Stephen dodged it.”

--From They Were Sisters, by Dorothy Whipple (p. 160)

Persephone Reading Week: Beginnings

Persephone Reading Week has begun! Two years ago, in an effort to become better read, I started reading from the 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list—of which Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day is one. I bought a Classics edition of the book at a Borders near where I worked at the time, during my lunch break. That led me to purchase The Priory online (though Amazon, so it didn’t come with one of their lovely bookmarks). Later, on a trip to London in September, I went to the Lamb’s Conduit Street shop, where I bought half a dozen more. For Christmas I received a Persephone subscription, and so every month a lovely Persephone arrives on my doorstep!

I’ve just started reading Dorothy Whipple’s They Were Sisters, so I don’t have much to report just yet. I read The Young Pretenders last week, and I’ll have a review of it up at some point this week. Until I’ve made progress in my reading, here are some links to other Persephone books I’ve reviewed on this blog:

No. 2: Mariana, by Monica Dickens

No. 3: Someone at a Distance, by Dorothy Whipple

No. 4: Fidelity, by Susan Glaspell

No. 6: The Victorian Chaise Lounge, by Marghanita Laski

No: 16: Saplings, by Noel Streatfeild

No. 21: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, by Winifred Watson

No. 29: The Making of a Marchioness, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

No. 32: The Carlyles at Home, by Thea Holme

No. 32: The Far Cry, by Emma Smith

No. 40: The Priory, by Dorothy Whipple

No. 68: The Expendable Man, by Dorothy Hughes

No. 81: Miss Buncle’s Book, by De Stevenson

If you’re participating in Persephone Reading Week, what are you reading? What are you looking forward to about this week?

The Sunday Salon

What I read in April:

Gildenford, by Valerie Anand (4 stars)

The Royal Griffin, by Juliet Dymoke (3.5 stars)

The Young Pretenders, by Edith Henrietta Fowler (4.5 stars)

The Confessions of Catherine de Medici, by CW Gortner (4.5 stars)

The Campaigners, by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles (4 stars)

Jerusalem, by Cecelia Holland (4 stars)

The Expendable Man, by Dorothy Hughes (4 stars)

My Fair Lazy, by Jen Lancaster (4.5 stars)

The Peacock and the Pearl, by Jennifer Lang (3 stars)

Spooky Little Girl, by Laurie Notaro (3.5 stars)

The Brothers of Gwynedd: Sunrise in the West, by Edith Pargeter (2.5 stars)

Mistress of Rome, by Kate Quinn (2 stars)

Clouds of Witness, by Dorothy L. Sayers (4 stars)

I read a number of really great books this month; among my favorites were The Young Pretenders and The Confessions of Catherine de Medici. Unfortunately there were a few duds in the mix, but in all it was a solid reading month.

This past month I received a review copy of Every Last One, by Anna Quindlen, through the Amazon Vine Program. Well, within 48 hours of acquiring the book, my mom, who loves Anna Quindlen’s books (bording a wee bit on obsession), had made off with it. She ended up loving it and this past week has been begging me to read it, too. She even went out and bought four more copies of the book! On Thursday she went to see Quindlen speak at the Philadelphia Free Library and (somewhat embarrassingly) mentioned my blog to her!. On the other hand, Quindlen did sign my copy “For Katherine—one book love to another.” A signed ARC—can you beat that? I read Every Last One on Friday and finished it yesterday; yes, it is a good book, though I don’t think I love it quite as much as my mom does.

Speaking of review copies, this week I received another review copy that has puzzled me exceedingly: it's a finished copy of a memoir that I know I won't read--mostly because, with some notable exceptions, I don't read memoirs (Jen Lancaster's books are an exception; and a couple of years ago I read a collection of essays by Sloane Crosley that I enjoyed greatly). But other than that, I steer clear of memoirs--they seem like so much navel-gazing and name-dropping to me, and the one I just received sounds suspiciously like it might be more of the same. Reading reviews on Amazon was no help, either; there are three reviews of this book on there, and all are glowing five-stars reviews by people who have only reviewed one or two books. So I'm at a loss. I don't think I'll read or review the book, but it was nice that the publisher thought of me when sending this out. What about you? Have you ever received unsolicited books for review from publishers/authors?

What next for me? This upcoming week is Persephone Reading Week, and I’ve got a few unread Persephones to choose from! Should I start with William: An Englishman? Or The Crowded Street? Or A London Child of the 1987s? Or They Were Sisters or High Wages? Despite my current state of indecision, though I know I’m going to enjoy this week! I also intend to write a post about one of my favorite Persephone authors, Dorothy Whipple, so keep an eye out for that midweek. I'm still trying to figure out how to save pictures from the internet on to my computer, however, so that I can post some pictures of DW; so that post might sadly be photo-less.

Currently I'm reading The Tulip Virus, by Danielle Hermans, out from the library through ILL. It's a mystery set in the present-day and 17th century Holland, and focuses on the tulip frenzy of the 1630s. After a shaky start, in which I didn't know if I'd like the book or not, I'm reading on. Since we've had such warm weather here, I spent most of yesterday afternoon reading outside. At some point, hopefully soon, my copy of Elizabeth Chadwick's new book, To Defy a King, should be arriving from Bookdepository. Later, I'll be reading a number of Amazon Vine books. So I know that May will be a busy month!

Review: My Fair Lazy, by Jen Lancaster

Pages: 371

Original date of publication: 2010

My edition: 2010 (NAL)

Why I decided to read: Jen Lancaster is one of my favorite authors

How I acquired my copy: review copy from the publisher

I’ve been reading Jen Lancaster’s books for a while now—since after her second book, Bright Lights, Big Ass was published, actually—and she never fails to entertain her readers. I’ve been following her through her now-famous experience at losing her job and taking up temp work; bad neighbors; and her efforts at weight loss, and she’s truly not afraid to put herself out there. Her last book before this one wasn’t her best however, so I was pleased to discover that with My Fair Lazy, Jen Lancaster has returned to true form.

My Fair Lazy is a collection of essays about Lancaster’s addiction to reality TV and how she made a conscientious effort to change her habits by becoming more cultured-visiting the theatre, for example; or eating cuisine beyond her old standard of hamburgers, French fries, and orange soda; or reading (or rereading) the classics—there’s a hilarious bit in there that’s classic Jen, where she goes into a bookstore to try to find “a novel written by a woman whose initials are EW,” picking up a book by Edith Wharton, and realizing that she meant Evelyn Waugh instead! Then there are some very funny comparisons between Edith Wharton’s characters and the characters on Gossip Girl (not a reality show, but yes, there are a number of similarities between them now that I think about it). Each chapter has a title that's a twist on a certain reality show's title o catchphrase ("Outwit, Outlast, Outclassed," for example, or "The Biggest Winner"). And Lancaster's prose is littered with zingy references to various shows, although tat, of course, isn't the focus of the book.

There’s a fair amount of plugging here for her previous books, as well as many details about her writing the books and going on book tours; and there are a couple of factual errors (cycle thirteen of America's Next Top Model was the one with the petite girls, not cycle eleven). Also, the book dates easily, as Jen mentions seasons of various TV shows from a few years ago (e.g., Survivor: China). But other than that, I thought that this was a really strong, humorous book. I read very few memoirs, especially since many of them seem like navel-gazing most of the time; but Jen Lancaster’s books are the exception. She always manages to learn her lesson at hand with a certain about of humility—although, as she says herself, she’s perhaps not so skilled at filtering what she says. All the better for her readers, however, as Lancaster’s books never fail to be entertaining and insightful.