A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore...

Pages: 384 Original date of publication: 1863 My copy: 1984 (Virago Modern Classics) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: bookshop in Charing Cross Road, London, September 2011 Aurora Floyd is a member of that genre of novels called Victorian sensationalist fiction. Published in the 1860s, sensationalist novels, mostly written by women, addressed the fears that people of that era had and addressed issues such as adultery, bigamy, murder, and other scandalous social issues. Nothing is ever what it seems in a novel like this. This novel has all the classic elements of this brand of novel: a young woman, Aurora Floyd has a deep, dark secret, which leads her to reject marriage proposals from two men (but then accept one). As the story plays out, her secret threatens to come out as well and destroy the life she’s created. Aurora isn’t your typical Victorian heroine, but given the heroines we seem in fiction these days, she’s pretty much the same as the rest: ...

Pages: 317 Original date of publication: 1939 My copy:   2009 (Bloomsbury) How I acquired my copy: Borders, November 2010 Miss Hargreaves is a novel of pure fantasy. Norman Huntley is a young man who lives in the cathedral town of Cornford and possess quite an imagination. As his father says to him, “Always be careful, my boy, what you make up. Life’s more full of things made up on the Spur of the Moment than most people realize. Beware of the Spur of the Moment. It may turn and rend you.” This novel is all about what happens when Norman forgets these words of advice. It all happens one day when Norman and his friend Henry visit a church in Ulster and make up an eccentric elderly woman in her 80s named Constance Hargreaves. It all seems like harmless fun—until Miss Hargreaves actually comes to Cornford and begins to wreak havoc on Norman’s life. At first I thought this was a charming novel—I liked Miss Hargreaves herself a lot. But as I continued to read, I ...

Pages: 311 Original date of publication: 1963 My edition: 1994 (Virago Modern Classics) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Awesomebooks, October 2012 A Favourite of the Gods is an unusual story. Set in the late 1920s it revolves around the impetuous action of a young woman, Costanza, as a result of losing a ring. The story then jumps back in time to Costanza’s childhood, and tells the story also of her mother Anna, an American heiress who married an Italian count. The beginning part of the novel is told from the point of view of Costanza’s daughter, Flavia, although Flavia is never a fully rounded character, only a literary device. The story does jump around, but in a sense the narrative is a lot like Costanza: impetuous, lively, outgoing, jumpy. Because there’s no real chronology it was a little hard for me to get into the book at first. But once I got used to it, the better the book got for me, because I was immediately drawn to Anna and Costanza, wo...

Pages: 372 Original date of publication: 1934 My edition: 1984 (Virago) Why I decided to read: AV/AA How I acquired my copy: September 2011, London Luminous Isle takes place in Jamaica in the 1920s, where Emmeline Hibbert has been raised. She returns to Jamaica after years spent in England and is immediately thrust back into the colonial life: parties, tennis, and polo matches. But Em’s real interest and focus lie in the Island itself. Eliot Bliss’s writing style is incredibly philosophic; Em is an extremely introspective character, as well as introverted, so we get snippets of her thoughts that go somewhat like this: People who felt dull when they were alone could not really be people; they were parts of ideas rushing about the world looking for the other parts--that was what must have been meant by 'looking for your complement'--they didn't seem to think it was unflattering to be considered unrelated pieces of a jig-saw puzzle. P 76 Each li...

Pages: 588 Original date of publication: 1853 My edition: 2001 (Modern Library) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Border, 2001 I tried reading Villette once, a number of years ago. I got about halfway through and stopped; maybe I wasn’t old enough to appreciate it very much. About a year and a half ago, when I moved into my apartment, I came across my copy and threw it on TBR Mountain, “to read sometime in the future.” Villette , as is Jane Eyre , is based on personal experience: Charlotte Bronte famously spent a year teaching English in Brussels. The novel is set in the fictional country of Labassecours, based on Belgium (at first I thought the setting of the book was some extension of Angria, the kingdom she and her siblings created when they were children). Lucy Snowe comes to Villette from England in search of a job and almost accidentally ends up at the door of Madame Beck’s pensione, or school for young ladies, where she initially gets a job as ...

Pages: 476 Original date of publication: 1907 My edition: 2011 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, December 2011 In the 19th and early 20th centuries, wealthy young women from the States flocked over to England to marry titled men. It was a win-win for both sides: she would get his title, while he would get her money in order to maintain his estate. One of the most famous of these transatlantic marriages was that of Jennie Jerome and Lord Randolph Churchill (parents of the future Prime Minister Winston Churchill), which apparently helped inspire the characters in The Shuttle . Rosalie Vanderpoel is the daughter of a wealthy American and marries Sir Nigel Anstruthers, an English aristocrat who plans to squander her money and cut her off from her family. When Rosy’s younger sister Bettina decides to go to England to see what happened to her sister, things begin to change. I really enjoyed Burnett’s story. Her style is ...

Pages: 328 Original date of publication: 1932 My edition: 1989 (Virago Modern Classics) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Ebay, November 2011 Peking Picnic is one of Virago’s lesser-known titles, by one of their lesser-known authors (and sadly, never reprinted; Ann Bridge’s novels are incredibly hard to find). Ann Bridge was the pseudonym of Mary Dolling Sanders. She later married a Foreign Office official, whose work took their family to China. The brief time they spent in China informed the plot of Ann Bridge’s first novel. Peking Picnic is the story of Laura Leroy, wife to a British attaché in Peking. She is an active participant in Peking life, but misses her children, who are back in England at school. One day, she and a few acquaintances take a trip to a nearby temple. Laura plays fairy godmother, of sorts, to several of the young lovers on the trip, but finds herself intrigued by another member of the party. Ann Bridge’s writing is lyrical...

Pages: 184 Original date of publication: 1984 My edition: 1986 (Dutton) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: The Strand, NYC, July 2011 When Edith Hope, a romance novelist, retreats to the Hotel du Lac in Switzerland, she goes there at the request of her friends. An "event" in her near past has led her friends to be concerned for her mental health. The story revolves around the people she meets at the hotel: a wealthy jetsetter and her grown daughter; an aristocratic beauty; and a gentleman with whom she quickly becomes friends. It’s late August and the offseason at the Hotel du Lac, and everything seems to wilt in the heat, even the waiters in the empty salon. There’s an air of sadness pervading this novel, not helped much by the fact that Edith herself is a rather sad character. She’s introverted, morose, and rather pessimistic. Edith comes across strongly as a character, although I could identify with her a little bit. Edith certainly lives in her head a lot, so ...

Pages: 108 Original date of publication: 1977 My edition: 2002 (NYRB Classics) Why I decided to read: It’s on the list of NYRB Classics How I acquired my copy: Joseph Fox bookstore, Philadelphia, February 2012 What an odd novel. Caroline Blackwood was an heiress to the Guinness family fortune, a 1950s socialite, and, at one time married to the poet Robert Lowell. Great Granny Webster is a semi-autobiographical novel. In it, the narrator tells the story of several generations of her family: her Scottish Great Granny Webster, who lives in a mildewed cottage in Hove; her grandmother’s descent into madness; unstable, freewheeling Aunt Lavinia; and the narrator’s father, who died during WWII. Our unnamed narrator is not so much a well-rounded character as she is an observer of her family history. At the heart of it all is the family seat, Dunmartin Hall, a dilapidated pile of stone in Scotland. The novel is full of dysfunctional characters, and the only one of them that seems to have it all...

Pages: 259 Original date of publication: 1923 My edition: 2002 (Virago Modern Classics) Why I decided to read: it’s a VMC How I acquired my copy: Awesomebooks, March 2011 The Dark Tide is an autobiographical novel set during Vera Brittain’s years at Oxford after WWI. The story opens when Daphne Lethbridge returns to finish her education at Oxford after working as a driver in the War. She takes up modern history and does her coaching with Virginia Dennison, a frustrating know-it-all who Daphne takes an immediate disliking to (partly, I think, because of jealousy). Although there are similarities between Vera and Winifred Holtby’s friendship and that of Daphne Lethbridge and Virginia Dennison, there are many differences (neither Vera or Winifred had a Raymond Sylvester in their lives, thankfully), and I think Vera infused a bit of her personality into both Daphne and Virginia. However, both women are very, very different; Daphne is shy and awkward (but belongs to one of the top cliques ...

Pages: 315 Original date of publication: 1847 My edition: 1981 (Bantam Classics) Why I decided to read: Re-read; first read summer 2002 How I acquired my copy: Barnes and Noble, summer 2002 I first read this in 2002, when I did an internship in Chicago and went on a classics reading kick that summer, and this book was one of them ( Vanity Fair and Bleak House were two of the “loose baggy monsters” I read that summer). Although I’d read Charlotte’s Jane Eyre several times in school, Wuthering Heights was, for some reason, never on any of the syllabi for any of the classes I took (and English was my major!). Wuthering Heights is a complicated novel, and it probably says a lot about Emily Bronte herself. The novel is melodramatic at times, and it contains two narrators: an old former family servant and a near neighbor, neither of whom is an observant or reliable narrator (at the beginning of the book, Mr. Lockwood thinks that a pile of dead rabbits is a cat). Emily Bronte had a wildl...

I’m really, really behind on review-writing, so I thought I’d write a few short reviews instead to get caught up... Miss Mole, by EH Young Pages: 288 Original date of publication: 1930 My edition: 1984 (Virago) Why I decided to read: it’s on the list of Virago Modern Classics How I acquired my copy: The Strand, New York, April 2011 The story of a middle-aged nanny/companion/nurse/housekeeper. Set in EH Young’s fictional city of Radstowe (based on Bristol), Miss Mole’s sharp tongue keeps getting her into trouble. A very witty novel, but not my favorite by this author, because the pace of the book is rather slow at times. 3 stars. The Group, by Mary McCarthy Pages: 437 Original date of publication: 1963 My edition: 2009 (Virago) Why I decided to read: it’s on the list of Virago Modern Classics How I acquired my copy: Waterstone’s, Piccadilly, September 2011 The Group is the story of eight roommates from Vassar living in New York City in the 1930s. Although the author is extremely candi...

Pages: 200 Original date of publication: 2010 My edition: 2010 (Harper Collins) Why I decided to read: it looked interesting when it was offered on Amazon Vine How I acquired my copy: Amazon Vine, March 2011 The Heroine’s Bookshelf: Life Lessons, from Jane Austen to Laura Ingalls Wilder , is a series of essays on life lessons to be gotten from classic, well-loved novels. For example, we learn to have a sense of self from Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice ; we learn about the importance of happiness from Anne of Green Gables . Each essay is short, only about ten pages or so (and this is physically a small book), and gives at the end of each bullet points for when to read the book and characters from other novels who are similar. As I’ve said, each chapter is short, and there’s not a lot of character analysis (probably purposeful, if the author wanted to only focus on one virtue for each character). The novels are all well known, and the author assumes that her reader has read al...

Pages: 241 Original date of publication: 1962 My edition: 2004 (NYRB Classics) Why I decided to read: found it through the VMC list How I acquired my copy: Barnes and Noble, April 2011 Cassandra Edwards is a French literature graduate student at Berkeley, who returns to her childhood home for her twin sister’s wedding. She loves her sister Judth fiercely, and although she’s never met her fiancée, Cassandra is determined to stop the wedding from happening. This is a very difficult novel to explain, because although short, and taking place over the course of a couple of days, there’s a lot going on. Cassandra is one of the oddest people I’ve run into in literature in a long time; although the book is told mostly in the first person from her point of view, I’ve never seen a character who is less self-aware. There are also a number of contradictions to Cassandra’s personality, which makes her an intriguing character. For example, if she loves her sister so much, then why is she hell-bent o...

Pages: 316 Original date of publication: 1931 My edition: 1987 (Virago) Why I decided to read: found this while browsing the shelves at the Philadelphia Book Trader How I acquired my copy: The Philly Book Trader, March 2011 Saraband is one of Virago Modern Classics’s lesser-known reprints, and therefore often overlooked. I didn’t even know about it until I accidentally stumbled across a copy in a local bookstore. I'm glad i did, because I thought that this novel was wonderful. The story of this book follows the childhood and young adulthood of Louie, an intensely imaginative young girl who lives with her grandmother in the years leading up to WWI. When her cousin Tim comes to stay, Louie imagines that she’ll hate him; but instead, they become very dear friends. Their friendship sustains them through Louie’s time at convent school and secretarial college. At heart this is one of those coming-of-age stories; Eliot Bliss’s style is very similar to that of Antonia White, who wrote abo...

Pages: 263 Original date of publication: 1982 My edition: 2010 Why I decided to read: it’s on the list of NYRB Classics How I acquired my copy: Borders, March 2011 In the midst of Royal Wedding Madness, I incidentally picked up a copy of Wish Her Safe at Home , set during another time of Royal Wedding Madness (thirty years ago). Rachel Waring inherits a house in Bristol and moves there from London, abandoning her old job and roommate for a life of idle dissipation. She becomes obsessed with her 20-something gardener, as well as the first owner of the house she lived in—who lived and died two hundred years ago. At first, the story is quirky and charming, a kind of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day . Going in to the novel, I liked Rachel right away; she’s youthful, exuberant and carefree, and doesn’t seem to care what the people around her think of her. Rachel seems socially awkward, saying and doing things that are “off” (in fact, for a while while reading I thought tha...

Pages: 624 Original date of publication: 1847 My edition: 2010 (Vintage) Why I decided to re-read: the film adaptation inspired me to re-read this book How I acquired my copy: Borders, Mach 2011 Oh, Jane Eyre , how do I love thee? The first time I read this book was in middle school; then I read it twice in high school and once in college. The recent movie adaptation inspired me to re-read this book after an eight-year gap since my last reading. I won’t go into the plot since it’s one of those plots that most people in the English-speaking world seem to know (even if they haven’t read the book), and one of those plots that resonates throughout English literature. Suffice it to say that Jane Eyre is one of those books that stands up to the test of time well—not just historically but personally as well. It captured my imagination as a teenager; and, as I’ve been dealing with some recent emotional disappointment, there are some quotes in Jane Eyre that really seemed ...

Pages: 333 Original date of publication: 1880 My edition: 1984 (Virago) Why I decided to read: recommended to me through LibraryThing How I acquired my copy: Amazon UK seller, January 2011 Unbeaten Tracks in Japan is composed of a series of letters that Isabella Bird wrote home to her sister and friends during the summer of 1878. She set out from Tokyo, eager to explore the “unbeaten tracks” of the northern part of Honshu (the largest island of Japan) and Hokkaido. The letters are a combination of travelogue, anthropological study, and cultural study. I was especially eager to grab this book off my TBR shelf after what’s recently happened in Japan, and I enjoyed reading about Isabella Bird’s adventures there 130 years ago—a very different experience from when my family lived in Tokyo in the 1980s and ‘90s! Isabella Bird inserts very little of her own thoughts and feelings into the narrative of her letters, but at times her very subtle sense of humor comes through, ...

Pages: 398 Original date of publication: 1983 My edition: 2008 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: I was in the mood for some nonfiction during Persephone Reading Week How I acquired my copy: Persephone mail-order, January 2011 Originally published by Virago in 1983, A Very Great Profession: The Woman’s Novel 1914-1939 is a fantastic overview of the woman’s novel in the interwar years (interesting that “woman” is in the singular, not plural, here). The book is divided not chronologically but by theme, covering such diverse topics as War, Spinsters (ie, Surplus Women), Love, and Sex. Beauman draws from some of the popular middlebrow women writers of the period, many of whom were later revived by Persephone and Virago. These are the writers that the average woman of the period would have borrowed from Mudie’s or Boots, and the authors of these books dealt with their topics in a way that were accessible to their readers. This is a well-researched and perceptive overview o...

Pages: 280 Original date of publication: 1951 My edition: 1990 (Penguin/Virago) Why I decided to read: Read this as a part of Virago Reading Week How I acquired my copy: The Philly Book Trader, January 2011 Lady Diana Cooper was a famous socialite of the 1910s and the wife of Duff Cooper. She and the life she led were fictionalized in several books, including Nancy Mitford’s Don’t Tell Alfred and The Loved and Envied , which was written by Lady Diana’s longtime friend, Enid Bagnold. The Loved and Envied is the story of Lady Ruby Maclean, and deals with the theme of aging, especially the effect that aging has on a beautiful woman. This is the third book I read for Virago Reading Week; unfortunately, it just wasn’t my week! I didn’t really care for this book, either. The author tends to hit her reader over the head—over and over—with her theme. Lady Ruby is supposed to be this fascinating woman, attractive to everyone she meets; and yet I didn’t see the appeal at all...