End of year meme

I can’t believe it’s the end of 2011! I think I always breathe a sigh of relief once Christmas is over. Last weekend in observation of Christmas we had a 3-day weekend, and this week in observation of the New Year, we had another 3-day weekend, so it’s been nice to have a bit of a break, even if I couldn’t take a full vacation this week as I was originally planning. I’ve been busy with stuff at work and school, and it feels good to finish the year off strong. I stole this from Verity at Cardigangirlverity!

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

Moved in to my new apartment in January! Started working on my Master’s degree in biomedical writing.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t typically make (or keep) New Year’s resolutions, but this year I think I’d like to keep up an effort to clean house more often. Literally clean house, I’m often very lazy about that kind of thing! I’d also like to be more social and reach out to people more, especially at work.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What countries did you visit?
England!!!

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?A boyfriend might be nice!

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Nothing stands out.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Being accepted into grad school, finishing this semester with a B+! Initiating a major project at work.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Communication, in particular failing to communicate with someone about how I truly felt until it was too late.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

No.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
I would say my condo, but since it was officially a 2010 purchase, it doesn’t really count (but I moved in in 2011).

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

14. Where did most of your money go?
Mortgage, vacation in September.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
My trip to London and York with my sister in September!

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?

About the same!
b) thinner or fatter?
About the same!
c) richer or poorer?

Poorer due to mortgage and vacation.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Communicate, socialize more, read more (93 books completed this year in comparison to 140-plus in previous years), worry less and obsess less about things I can't control.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Watch TV.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
At my parent’s house in the Philly suburbs, with family. Christmas Eve church and dinner at a friend’s house, Christmas Day opening presents and having roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
Twice, unfortunately. Still single!

22. How many one-night stands?
None.

23. What was your favourite TV program?
Went to the UK and got hooked on a show called Don’t Tell the Bride. Also fell in love with Downton Abbey.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Don’t hate anyone!

25. What was the best book you read?
Any of the Persephones or Virago Modern Classics I read this year. Also re-read a few favorites, including Jane Eyre and Anne of Green Gables.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I re-discovered the Corrs, a group I loved when I was a teenager.

27. What did you want and get?
Rainboots for Christmas (I swear, sometimes I think I’m secretly 5 years old!).

28. What did you want and not get?
Nothing.

29. What was your favourite film of this year?
Jane Eyre.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
In September I was 28 and I spent it at work, then had dinner with my parents.

31.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
It was mostly satisfying, except in the area of my love life.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
Generally speaking, on any given day I wear something that’s black. Around this time of year I’m into wearing lots of skirts and dresses, paired with a chunky sweater, tights, and my favorite boots. I’m also kind of obsessed with this new pair of Mary Jane heels that I’ve been planning outfits around!

33. What kept you sane?
Family.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Don’t like politics and try not to take sides.

35. Whom did you miss?
My best friend from high school.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
Didn’t really meet many new people…

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:
It sounds cheesy, but I learned that you should always take advantage of every opportunity you get. And I learned to speak up more.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

39. So in as few words as possible, how would you sum up your year?
Pretty satisfying!

Booking Through Thursday

What were your favorite books of 2011?

1. A Woman’s Place, by Ruth Adam
Wonderful social history of women in Britain from WWI to 1975.

2. The Du Mauriers, by Daphne Du Maurier
Du Maurier’s account of a few generations of her family, in particular her grandfather, George Du Maurier, author of a popular Victorian children’s book.

3. Few Eggs and No Oranges, by Vere Hodgson
A diary that the author kept during WWII. I loved her sense of humor, even though she went through something horrific.

4. Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, by Isabella Bird
A fantastic travelogue, written by a fearless woman who became the first Western woman to travel in the hinterlands of Japan.

5. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte (re-read)
One of my favorite books of all time!

6. Anderby Wold, by Winifred Holtby
I love all of Winifred Holtby’s novels, and although this was only her first, I love the way that she depicts Yorkshire life.

7. The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton
Another classic, and on that I should have read many years ago.

8. The Diary of a Provincial Lady, by EM Delafield
Hysterically funny “diary” of an English housewife.

9. A Pin to See the Peepshow, by F Tennyson Jesse
Novel based on a famous Victorian murder trial. The author was a journalist, and it shows in this book!

10. Anne of Green Gables, by LM Montgomery (re-read)
An all-time favorite!

11. All Passion Spent, by Vita Sackville-West
I love the way that Vita Sackville-West skewers the English upper classes, mercifully so in this novel.

12. Myself When Young, by Daphne Du Maurier
Thought-provoking account of the author’s childhood, based on the diaries she kept at the time.

13. Cindie, by Jean Devanny
Wonderful novel about a woman manager on a colonial plantation.

14. The Loving Spirit, by Daphne Du Maurier
Daphne Du Maurier’s first novel, focusing on four generations of a shipbuilding family in Cornwall. Fabulous!

15. The Winds of Heaven, by Monica Dickens
A novel about an ‘aging” woman who gets shunted around between her three daughters.

Review: Bricks and Mortar, by Helen Ashton

Pages: 304
Original date of publication: 1933
My edition: 2004 (Persephone)
Why I decided to read: Persephone catalogue

How I acquired my copy: Persephone shop, London, September 2011

In Bricks and Mortar, a young architect meets and marries a young woman named Letty, mostly through the finagling of her mother. Unhappy in his home life, over the next thirty years, Martin Lovell looses himself in his work, moving houses every now and then. He also takes comfort in his relationship with his daughter Stacy.

Although not written in the first person, we see everything from Martin’s point of view, so, for example, in the opening scene when he arrives in Rome, the first thing that’s described is the city’s buildings. Ashton’s descriptions of architecture are truly beautiful. Poor Martin gets trodden on right from the first, but he takes comfort in the work he’s passionate about, and in the daughter who possesses a fiery spirit and a passion almost equal to his own. It’s a beautifully written book, contrasting Martin and Stacy against Letty and his son Aubrey (like his mother, weak and useless to Martin). Then there’s Stacy’s interesting relationship with Martin’s young associate, Oliver… we know where that story line goes, but it’s interesting to watch how all of that unfolds.

Martin is a great hero, not in the over sense, but in a quiet, understated way. He knows that his marriage is a mistake and that Letty isn’t quite on his intellectual level, but he tries to make the best of things. As such, the end of the book is truly heartbreaking.
This is Persephone no. 49.

Review: The Winds of Heaven, by Monica Dickens

Pages: 320
Original date of publication: 1955
My edition: 2010 (Persephone)
Why I decided to read: It’s a Persephone reprint
How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, April 2011

In The Winds of Heaven, a woman in late middle age is left nearly destitute when her husband dies. Forced to live off her three daughters, Louise spends her time going back and forth between the three of them. One is married to a successful attorney; another to a rural farmer; and the third works as an actress in London, having an affair with a married man.

It’s a bittersweet little story; Louise is treated as elderly, although she’s only 57, and treated as though she’s yesterday’s trash by her daughters and their husbands. On the other hand, she begins a friendship with a man who works in the mattress section of a large department store, offering her some kind of companionship in her “old age.” Dudley is the only one who treats Louise really well, not expecting anything back from her, but it’s not until it’s nearly too late that she realizes what a good friend he is. The other touching part of the story is Louise’s relationship with her young granddaughter, another person who doesn’t expect much from her.

I love Monica Dickens’s descriptions of the characters; although everyone seems to blend together at first, each of the three daughters quickly becomes delineated. They are all completely different, but similar in their indifference towards their mother. This book reminds me a lot of Vita Sackville-West’s All Passion Spent, a novel about a widow’s struggle to assert her own independence after her children have grown up and her husband has passed away. The story also reminds me a lot of Dorothy Whipple’s They Were Sisters, a story that’s mostly about the relationship between three sisters, but similar in describing the lives of very different people.
This is Persephone no. 90.

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• share two “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
Be sure NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!

“She stayed out late, deliberately, in order to keep Miles waiting. With her return t London she had regained something of her feminine self-assurance.”

--From Family History, by Vita Sackville-West

Review: Ordinary Families, by E. Arnot Robertson

Pages: 331
Original date of publication: 1933
My edition: 1986 (Virago)
Why I decided to read: It’s on the list of VMCs
How I acquired my copy: Charing Cross Road bookshop, London, September 2011

Ordinary Families is the story of an English family living in the small village of Pin Mill. Lallie is one of four children to a former adventurer, and they spend their days boating and hunting in Suffolk.

This is one of those classic coming of age stories in which one girl struggles to figure out her place in a large family, overshadowed as she is by her beautiful older sister. I liked Robertson’s descriptions of the family, especially Lallie and her father, but I also thought her descriptions of the family’s boating excursions were a bit, er, overboard at times. Robertson is good at character development and exploring the relationships between the various family members. It’s also very frank, for the 1930s, about various aspects of growing up. Because the plot moves along at a very slow pace, it’s very hard to follow at times.

The Sunday Salon

It’s hard to believe that Christmas is just a week away, and that the end of the year is two weeks away! I’ve spent the past couple of weeks doing the usual Christmassy things: buying gifts, etc. There doesn’t seem to be much point in actually decorating my apartment for Christmas, since it’s just one person. But it’s been fun seeing all the Christmas trees go up in the windows of the apartments in my apartment complex, and seeing the Christmas decorations down in the lobby. I also re-watched Love Actually, which is my favorite Christmas movie. So I’ve {kind of) gotten into the spirit of Christmas this year!

As for reading, I’ve just not done very much of it this year in comparison to other years. Usually I can read about 150 books per year, but this year I’m drastically down, with only 93 books finished (realistically only one or two more will be finished before the end of the year). Part of it is that I’ve been busy with school; and with me officially starting work on my Master’s degree in biomedical writing this spring, it looks as though I won’t get much more free time to read in the near future! We’ll see. I’m currently reading Vita Sackville-West’s Family Histories, which I’m loving but have been reading for over a week.

Happy holidays!

Persephone Secret Santa: Revealed!

About a week ago, I received a package in the mail with the telltale Persephone postmark on it, and yesterday I finally opened it to find… Marghanita Laski’s Little Boy Lost, which was given by Allie at A Literary Odyssey. A couple of years ago I read The Victorian Chaise Lounge and enjoyed it, so I’m eager to read this one as well. Thank you so much! I gave a copy of Someone at a Distance to Colleen at Colreads. I make no secret of the fact that Dorothy Whipple is one of my favorite Persephone authors, so when I saw this was on her wish list, this was a no-brainer. Interestingly enough, we live in the same state (Pennsylvania)!Happy Persephone Secret Santa! What did you give or receive, if you participated?

Review: Aspergirls, by Rudy Simone

Pages: 231
Original date of publication: 2010
My edition: 2010 (Jessica Kingsley Publishers)
Why I decided to read: I was on Amazon looking for books on Asperger’s to read
How I acquired my copy: Amazon, September 2001


I'm not usually into reading books about Asperger's, but I picked this book up because I recently disclosed it to my supervisor at work (after experiencing sensory processing problems), who told me he thought it was "just a label." This book more or less confirms everything I've ever known about Asperger's, but it's tailored to women and girls, which makes it much more relevant, at least to me. For some reason, research on autism and Asperger's focuses more on the male experience, so I thought that this book was refreshing in that aspect.

The book is divided into chapters that focus on all the challenges that girls and women with AS experience: self-taught reading skills, sensory problems, gender roles, puberty, dating and relationships, friendships, employment, having children, having temper meltdowns, rituals and routine, and getting older on the spectrum, just to name a few. Nearly all the things discussed in the book describe me life completely, so it was interesting to me to read that many of us have gastrointestinal trouble, connected to stress. I've had it all my life, but I'd never connected it to AS (which I didn't find out I have until I was 25). Another thing I thought was interesting, and totally on, was the chapter on AS in the workplace, and the importance of having obsessions to keep us focused on our careers (I always thought that having obsessions were bad for me).

Rudy Simone's approach is hands-on, and her writing style is easy to read. The chapters are short and give good tips to women and girls with AS and the people closest to them. I don't know that I believe all the holistic stuff, but I think this book should be required reading for women and girls who have been diagnosed with AS.

Review: The Bookshop, by Penelope Fitzgerald

Pages: 123
Original date of publication: 1978
My edition: 1997 (Houghton Mifflin)
Why I decided to read: LibraryThing recommendation
How I acquired my copy: The Strand, NYC, April 2011

In 1959, Florence Green opens a bookshop in the seaside town of Hardborough, a quintessential small village in which everyone knows everyone else’s business—and many people are resistant to change. Flying in the face of opposition, Florence opens her shop, which is popular at first—and then various interfering busybodies in Hardborough try to shut her down.

I thought that Florence as a character was a little bit flat and she tends to take back seat to some of the more interesting characters such as Christine, Florence’s assistant, or even the small-minded Violet Gamart. Florence doesn’t seem to be much of a reader; for example, when she reads the reviews that Lolita has gotten, she asks Milo to read it instead of reading it herself. She doesn’t even seem to care too much when the townspeople try to shut the bookshop down. As an avid book reader, I obviously see how the possible closing of the bookshop is tragic, but since Florence doesn’t care all that much about her fate and that of the bookshop, why should the reader? As a result, the emotional impact of the ending of the book wasn’t as great for me as it could have been.

However, the narrative flow of the book is good, and you as the reader find yourself wishing that the bookshop will succeed. Speaking from the bibliophilic point of view, the tone of this short novel is sad; how can so many people be so small-minded about something so innocuous as a bookshop? The people in Hardborough are certainly resistant to change. Aside from my major problems with the main character, I really did enjoy this book about books. There’s even a poltergeist to keep things interesting.

Review: One Fine Day, by Mollie Panter-Downes

Pages: 184
Original date of publication: 1946
My edition: 1985 (Virago Modern Classics)
Why I decided to read: It’s on the list of Virago Modern Classics
How I acquired my copy: The Last Word bookshop, Philadelphia

Set in the summer of 1946, One Fine Day is a novel about the inhabitants of one town as they try to regain some semblance of normal lives after WWII. Laura Marshall is the focal point of the story, but other characters meander in and out throughout the book. Even the dogs have personality.

Things are clearly changing; Laura, for example, tries to make do without household help, and the Cranmers leave the Manor after their family had been there for hundreds of years. Yet people are still forced to use ration books. The tone of the novel is bittersweet, a kind of wistful yearning for a way of life that can’t go on post-war: “it was too idiotic, but there she was all the time, down in her house in Wealding, struggling to keep up a life which had really ended.” Things are different for everyone, yet Laura and Stephen Marshall try to go on as they were before.

There’s not much “action,” as such; in fact this novel is written more as a group of character sketches. Mollie Panter-Downes writes beautifully; you can feel the breeze of a hot summer day up on Barrow Down. It’s a slow-moving, meandering book (much like the hot summer weather described in the book), and it takes a while to get into it. But once you do, this book is well worth it.

Review: The World My Wilderness, by Rose Macaulay

Pages: 254
Original date of publication: 1950
My edition: 1992 (Virago Modern Classics
Why I decided to read: it’s on the list of Virago Modern Classics
How I acquired my copy: the Philadelphia Book Trader, August 2011

The World My Wilderness is the story of Barbara Denison (or Barbary), a teenage girl who used to live with her Bohemian mother and French stepfather in France during WWII. All her experience is with the French Resistance, running free to do as she liked. When her stepfather drowns, Barbary is sent back to her father, a distinguished lawyer, and to London, still ruined from the Blitz and very much resembling a ghost town.

On the surface, The World My Wilderness is a coming of age story, set at a time when things had changed drastically. Macaulay uses the theme of wilderness and jungle over and over to illustrate the way that Barbary feels. She’s torn between the two halves of her family, belonging no place and lost. The World My Wilderness is one of Rose Macaulay’s most complicated novels, and Barbary is a complicated character because there are two sides to her. She’s frequently described as a small, slight girl, but she’s experienced enough in her life that she seems more mature beyond her years. The feeling of being lost that Barbary has is mirrored in the London landscape, which is why Barbary and her friends are so drawn to the ruins around St. Paul’s. It’s a stunning, well-written novel.

So men’s will to recovery strove against the drifting wilderness and tame it; but the wilderness might slip from their hands, from their spades and trowels and measuring rods, slip darkly away from them, seeking the primeval chaos and old night which had been before Londinium was, which would be when cities were ghosts haunting the ancestral dreams of memory.

The Sunday Salon

Another Sunday again! I’ve been spending my weekend a number of ways: yesterday my sister came down to Philly from New York, so I met her and a few of her friends for some shopping at Anthropologie and brunch, and then more shopping on Pine Street, where there are a few consignment shops where you can get designer fashion for really, really cheap! That’s how I found a fantastic camel-colored DKNY coat for $55! I love finding hidden gems like that, don’t you?

Today I am back at the grindstone, as I had several assignments to revise for class that are due tomorrow. Friday is the last day of class, so I have a break for a bit before the spring. I’ve finished everything but my final paper, which I haven’t gotten back from the instructor yet; thank goodness she gave us an extension for revisions on that!

I am always surprised at this time of year how close Christmas is. Only a little over 3 weeks away! I am never very good at shopping for Christmas gifts, because I’m very, very bad at figuring out what people want or need. I am not a theory of mind person! I also don’t like crowded, noisy stores (they usually have the music blasting, making the shopping experience doubly irritating to my sensory issues, and doubly unpleasant), so I usually end up frustrated and panicky when I go shopping. So, basically my worst nightmare realized. As you can tell, I haven't had much time for reading, but maybe once the semester is over, I'll have more time for it. I'm currently reading a VMC: Catherine Carswell's The Camomile, which is only about 300 pages and would normally only take a day or two to read, but I've been reading this for over a week and have only gotten through about 100 pages so far!

Have a great Sunday!

Review: Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons

Pages: 233
Original date of publication: 1932
My edition: 2006 (Penguin)
Why I decided to read: It’s on the list of 1001 books to read before you die
How I acquired my copy: Waterstone’s, Piccadilly, London, September 2011

A tongue-in-cheek satire, Cold Comfort Farm is a novel about a young woman named Flora Poste, who goes to live with her cousins, the Starkadder family, on their farm in Sussex. It’s a cast of characters, to be sure: Judith and Amos, and their children, Seth, Reuben, and Elfine; and a host of others, including the reclusive Aunt Ada Doom, who hasn’t left her room in 20 years because she saw something nasty in the woodshed when she was a child. One by one, Flora takes on each member of the family, acting as a sort of fairy godmother, especially to Elfine.

It’s a funny novel, but not overtly so. For example, I loved the part where Mr Mybug (not really his name, but no matter) regales Flora with his theory about Branwell Bronte being the author of Wuthering Heights. In this way Stella Gibbons parodies the classic Victorian novels, as well as many of the women’s novels of the 1930s (many of which were reprinted by Virago Modern Classics, so I kind of have a point of reference). As with most satirical novels, it’s over the top, but so over the top that it becomes unbelievable. But it’s an odd book, nonetheless, especially since Gibbons set it sometime in the future (from 1932). But we don’t know exactly what year it’s supposed to be, so the events in this novel take place in a kind of vacuum. It’s bizarre, but bizarre in a good way!

Where my two college majors collide

… or, where history meets literature. Isn’t it interesting how off the wall documents like library records can tell you so much about someone? What will our descendants be inferring about us from our reading habits 100 years from now?

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2011/11/the_wondrous_database_that_reveals_what_books_americans_checked_out_of_the_library_a_century_ago_.html

Review: The Rose Garden, by Susanna Kearsley

Pages: 429
Original date of publication: 2011
My edition: 2011 (Sourcebooks)
Why I decided to read: It was offered to be for review
How I acquired my copy: review copy from the publisher, July 2011

Warning: spoilers below!

The Rose Garden is Susanna Kearsley at her best. Eva Ward is a publicist who comes to the Cornish coast to scatter the ashes of her recently-deceased sister. A house called Trelowarth was once the home of smugglers, and Eva finds herself drawn back into the 18th century where she meets a man named Daniel Butler and becomes associated with Jacobean plots.

Daniel Butler is kind of a mystery as a character, because we only get to see him for short snatches of time. But I can definitely see how appealing he is as a hero. But other than that, the character development of this novel is good. Better than that, though, is the writing. Kearsley’s writing is smooth, and the romance aspect of the novel is neatly woven in—it’s not too strong, but we know where Eva’s heart lies.

The plot is strong, too—Eva and the reader in the 21st century know what’s going to happen to the Jacobeans, but she is stuck in a hard place—does she say something to Daniel to stop him from becoming involved? Or does she say nothing and allow history to unfold itself? That is the underlying theme of this book, and one that Kearsley explores so well.