A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore...

Pages: 259 Original date of publication: 2013 My copy: 2013 (Penguin) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Phoenix bookstore, May 2013 In January 1937, the body of a young British girl, Pamela Werner, was found near Peking’s Fox Tower. Although two detectives, one British and the other Chinese, spent months on the case, the case was never solved completely, and the case was forgotten in the wake of the invasion of the Japanese. Frustrated, Pamela’s father, a former diplomat, tried to solve the crime. His investigation took him into the underbelly of Peking society and uncovered a secret that was worse than anything he could have imagined. At first, I thought that this would be a pretty straightforward retelling of a true crime, but what Paul French (who spent seven years researching the story) reveals in this book is much more than that. Foreign society in Peking in the 1930s was stratified, with the British colonials at the top and the White Russian refu...

Pages: 268 Original date of publication: 1924 My copy: 2008 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, November 2011 Set in small-town America around the time it was written, this novel explores gender roles and how they affect families, and one family in particular. Lester Knapp is an accountant for a department store; his wife, Evangeline, is a housewife raising their three children. They both perform the roles expected of them by society, yet neither is suited to their role and neither is particularly happy. When Lester is injured in an accident that leaves him home-bound, his wife goes to work—to the benefit of everyone in the family. Dorothy Canfield Fisher gets her reader deep into the heads of her characters, so we can understand exactly what they’re like and so that we get a three-dimensional view of the situation. Even the children’s point of view is well represented—especially Stephen, aged 5, who fears having his...

Pages: 347 Original date of publication: 1909 My edition: 1986 (Virago Modern Classics) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Amazon UK, June 2012 Some Everyday Folk and Dawn is set during a monumental time in Australian history: women have just achieved suffrage, and the defining moment of this novel is the first election in which they have the ability to vote. The women’s suffrage movement in Australia, like its counterparts in the US and Britain, had its roots in the 19th century, but it seems as though it was met with a lot less resistance. This novel deals with the ways in which the town of Noonoon, in New South Wales (the Everyday Folk of the title), deal with this change, as two candidates come to town: one who puts himself forward as the “women’s candidate” and the other for the men. On a more immediate novel, the books is set around a boarding house in Noonoon run by Grandma Clay, a fierce, energetic, and talkative woman who lives with her grandd...

Pages: 232 Original date of publication: 1901 My edition: 1981 Why I decided to read: All Virago/All August How I acquired my copy: Amazon UK June 2012 My Brilliant Career was written when Miles Franklin was only 16, and it shows all the imperfections of youth. Based on Franklin’s experiences, the novel is the story of Sybylla Melvyn, a young girl who proves to be too much for her parents to handle, is sent to her grandmother’s in the Australian bushland, where she quickly becomes enamored of that way of life—and of pursuing a career as a writer. Sybylla is headstrong and opinionated, but as with youth she is naive and defiant. I liked her at first for being different from the usual housewife aspirant, and for wanting something more from life than the obvious. Our heroine is, nonetheless, a product of her environment, and she is, accordingly, naïve. But the more I read, the less I really liked Syblla. As I’ve said the book is autobiographical, so I don’t think that...

Pages: 285 Original date of publication: 1817 My edition: 2010 (NYRB Classics) Why I decided to read: it’s an NYRB Classic How I acquired my copy: Joseph Fox Bookshop, Philadelphia, January 2012 Eliza Fay was 23 when she accompanied her husband Anthony Fay, a lawyer, to India in 1779. Not much is known about her early life, but her editor, EM Forster, surmises that her father might have been a sailor. On her first journey out to India, she traveled through France and Egypt, and she and her husband were imprisoned when they arrived in Calcutta. Due to Anthony Fay’s mismanagement of money and infidelity, Eliza Fay split from her husband a few years later, and set herself up briefly as a milliner. Over the next 30 years she was to travel to India a few more times, and each time she traveled, she kept a journal of her journey. It was a time when the British turned from mere merchants and traders in India to a major imperial power. Eliza Fay wasn’t of the wealthiest class, but she nonethele...

Pages: 387 Original date of publication: 2011 My edition: 2011 (St. Martin’s Griffin) Why I decided to read: I enjoyed Marina Fiorato’s other books and thought I’d give this a go How I acquired my copy: Amazon Vine, May 2011 Set amidst the danger and excitement of early 18th-century Siena, the plot of this novel centers on an event to which the Sienese look forward to eagerly: the Palio, a traditional horse race that takes place twice, in July and August. Pia of the Tolomei is descended from Cleopatra and the daughter of a wealthy patrician. He marries her to a member of a family from an opposing ward in the city, despite tradition. When her future husband is killed in the Julia Palio, Pia is married to his brother. Over the course of the next month or so, she develops a relationship with a horse rider, and the two of them work (in conjunction with Violante de’ Medici, who has governed the city for ten years) to fight a plot to take over Siena, led by the Nine—leaders from ea...

Pages: 463 Original date of publication: 1937 My edition: 2006 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone catalogue, January 201 1 Born in 1870, Grace Scrimgeour is the youngest daughter in a large, not-wealthy Victorian family. In an age and society where women were defined by their marital status, the Scrimgeours fail to make any provision for marriage for their younger daughters—Grace, Queenie, and Mary. One of the sisters becomes a nun; the others marry; but the focus is on the spinsters who remain at home with their mother, a selfish woman who fritters away money in their large house in Kensington. The book chronicles Grace’s life from birth, through her abortive attempts to find a husband because she’s not attractive enough, through the family’s poverty and Grace’s attempts to earn money as a governess, work that she’s completely unsuited for. It’s a desperately sad novel about what happened to unmarried women—the book opens with Grace...

Pages: 380 Original date of publication: 1908 My edition: 1986 Why I decided to read: heard about it through the Virago Modern Classics list How I acquired my copy: Ebay, August 2010 I’ve been on quite a “spinster lit” kick recently, since many Virago Modern Classics seem to fall along these lines. Set in the Scottish town of Crossriggs, this is the story of Alexandra Hope, a woman in her thirties who lives with her father, a vegetarian, and her widowed sister and her children. Alexandra becomes a devoted aunt, taking up reading aloud in order to support her family. Meanwhile, she begins a friendship with a married man with whom, predictably, she falls in love. It’s a good story, but I thought that Alex was a bit dense most of the time—especially when it came to her feelings for Mr. Maitland! And I thought she was especially harsh when it comes to Van—poor Van, who seems to come out the loser in this story. I also had a bit of a problem with Alex’s personality; she ...

Pages: 223 Original date of publication: 1937 My edition: 2004 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: Heard about it through the Persephone catalogue How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, November 2010 One day, three tourists are given a tour of Keepsfield, a rambling, palatial estate in Scotland, and the home of the absent Lady Rose, Countess of Lochlule. The tour is given by the housekeeper, Mrs. Memmary, who tells the story of Lady Rose in snippets, from her childhood to early adulthood. This is a very sweet romance and a tale of how one woman manages to find happiness—first doing what is expected of her and then finding happiness in the most unexpected place. There’s even a fun little twist at the end of this short novel, which is both sweet and heartbreaking at the same time. I generally love the books that Persephone have reprinted (there have bee one or two exceptions), and this is one of them, very similar to, as the Persephone website suggests, Miss...

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 ...

Pages: 416 Original date of publication: 1987 My edition: 2000 (Ballantine) Why I decided to read: Haven’t re-read this is a while, but I’m digging up one of my old Amazon reviews (August 2004) How I acquired my copy: Borders, about ten years ago This is a review I posted on Amazon in August 2004, back when I was just staring to write reviews of the books I read. I was prompted to post this after re-watching the film version a few weeks ago. My how my writing style has changed! One of my favorite novels of small-town America in the South, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is the story of the friendship between Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Bennett. Covering a period of time of about sixty years, the story is told through the eyes of Evelyn Threadgoode to a middle-aged housewife in the 1980s. Whistle Stop, Alabama, 1920s: suffering from the loss of her older brother, Buddy, tomboy Idgie goes into reclusive hiding. When Ruth Bennett comes into town to stay with her family, the ...

Pages: 188 Original date of publication: 1931 My edition: 2010 (Bloomsbury Group) Why I decided to read: Heard about it through LTER How I acquired my copy: review copy from the publisher, February 2010 As Miss Martin says about the Carne girls, this book is “v. weird.” And yet, I loved it. Right from the very first paragraph, you know you’re going to be in for quite a ride: “How I loathe that kind of novel which is about a lot of sister. It is usually called They Were Sisters, of Three-Not Out, and one spends one’s entire time trying to sort them all, and muttering ‘Was it Isobel who drank, or Gertie? And which was it who ran away with the gigolo, Any or Pauline? And which of their separated husbands was Lionel, Isobel’s or Amy’s?’”. How can you not continue reading, with an opening like that one? I’m glad to say that the rest of the book is just as witty and funny as that one bit is. The Brontes Went to Woolworths is told from the point of view of Deirdre, one of the Carne sisters. S...

I probably shouldn’t even be writing this review, as I didn’t finish it. Well, I got through 350 pages before throwing in the towel, but only because I had nothing else to read with me at the time. I was intrigued by the premise, about a young Russian girl in China in the 1920s, and her relationship with a native Chinese. But from there, it quickly went downhill. First of all, the prose is pretty overwrought, littered with one-word, repetitive sentences that were very choppy. There were lots of writing clichés (of the “he could feel into her soul” variety”). The writing actually gave me a headache at some places. There were also problems with the plot and characters. I simply didn’t feel emotionally invested in any of these characters’ stories, particularly Lydia, who grated on my nerves (and if the author mentioned her flame-red hair one more time, I thought I was going to throw the book at the wall!). She didn’t ever seem to be her age, and I didn’t find her relationship with Chang t...

Originally published in 1903, The Nubuly Coat is a rare book—yet it influenced the novels of so many other writers of Gothic fiction. The story opens when a young architect named Westray comes to the village of Cullerne to oversee the restoration of the old Norman church. The town itself is populated by an interesting array of characters: Mr. Sharnall the organist, who believes that a hidden specter with a hammer is out to kill him; the Rector and his wife, who seem as though they stepped out of an episode of Keeping Up Appearances . There are also Miss Joliffe, the landlady; and her teenage niece, Anastasia, who seems surprisingly mature for her age. We’re also introduced to, although not at firsthand, Martin Joliffe, who for many years before his death believed that he was the rightful heir of the Blandamer family fortune. There’s also Lord Blandamer, the mysteries local squire, who keeps his distance from the rest of the town, though his family insignia, the “nebuly coat” of the ti...

From Amazon: “Damian Baxter was a friend of mine at Cambridge. We met around the time when I was doing the Season at the end of the Sixties. I introduced him to some of the girls. They took him up, and we ran about together in London for a while….” Nearly forty years later, the narrator hates Damian Baxter and would gladly forget their disastrous last encounter. But if it is pleasant to hear from an old friend, it is more interesting to hear from an old enemy, and so he accepts an invitation from the rich and dying Damian, who begs him to track down the past girlfriend whose anonymous letter claimed he had fathered a child during that ruinous debutante season. The search takes the narrator back to the extraordinary world of swinging London, where aristocratic parents schemed to find suitable matches for their daughters while someone was putting hash in the brownies at a ball at Madame Tussaud’s. It was a time when everything seemed to be changing—and it was, but not always quite as exp...

I admit that I thought I was going to hate this book. But I was actually quite surprised—and in a good way. Narrated by Dr. John Watson, the story follows the adventures of Sherlock Holmes as he tries to solve the Jack the Ripper murders in 1888. It’s basically a what-if mystery, and provides a solution, albeit fictional, to a mystery that people have been trying to solve for 125 years. I liked this mystery. I’d originally thought that this kind of pastiche would be hokey, but it’s not. I’m not completely familiar with the Ripper case, so I was excited to read a fictional account of it. The author provides an interesting solution to the murders, and Holmes and Watson are believable and conform with those created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Even the characters (such as Mary Ann Monk) that Faye’s created herself are very fleshed out. It’s clear that the author knows quite a lot about Sherlock Holmes (though there was one place in the novel where I questioned that Holmes wouldn’t know the ...

I loved The Glassblower of Murano , so I had high hopes for Madonna of the Almonds . However, I was really, really disappointed by Marina Fiorato’s second novel. Simonetta di Saronna is a widow, her husband killed in the Italian wars of the early 16th century. Bernadino is a painter who once apprenticed under Leonardo Da Vinci, and a ladies’ man to boot. When Bernardino is commissioned to paint the chapel of Saronna’s chapel, he meets Simonetta. Later, Siomoetta invents a drink that will become famous the world over. I liked the premise of the novel, but unfortunately, most of the story relies on circumstance. Also, the plot was predictable; I could see the ending coming from a mile away, and I’m not even all that good at predicting what will happen in novels. This book promised passion, but I really got no sense of that while reading this novel. Neither was there any kind of romantic tension between the two main characters. All the characters were wooden and unrealistic; I found it ha...

In 1844, Lily Wilson becomes lady’s maid to Elizabeth Barrett, invalid daughter of a wealthy, overbearing London merchant. Elizabeth became a recluse, corresponding and eventually meeting the poet Robert Browning. Because her father disapproved of his children marrying, Elizabeth eloped with Robert to Italy. The story is half about Elizabeth Barrett Browning and half about Lily. I found the details of EBB’s life to be much more interesting than that of Wilson’s, and I wish there was more about her in this novel. I got the feeling that Wilson never really had a life of her own—everything she did was connected in some way with her mistress. However, I’d like to think that this was characteristic of the period—good servants didn’t really have lives of their own. Nonetheless, Wilson seemed to get herself into a lot of romantic entanglements that made me wonder what the point of it was. The writing style of the book is very dense, and it took me a long time to get through—much longer than i...

I really enjoyed Roopa Farooki’s first novel, Bitter Sweets . Her prose was lively, her characters unique, and the overall story was intriguing. Reading Corner Shop , however, made me wonder, “what happened?” The story centers around the Khalil family: Zaki, who runs a corner shop in a run-down part of London; his son, Jinan, who’s a lawyer; Jinan’s wife, Delphine, a French transplant; and their son, Lucky, destined to have a great career as a soccer player. The story follows the characters over a long period of time, from the moment that Zaki and Delphine meet until the present. The first part of this book started off strongly and promisingly enough. But then, it deteriorated for me towards the middle (I’ll be spoiling the story if I say any more). The Asian influence, which was such a big part of the story in Bitter Sweets, is only incidental here; in fact, these characters could have been British Caucasians. There’s very little warmth and vitality here, either in the story or the ch...

Usually, novels set in split-time are dominated by either one of its settings or the other, leaving the second to muddle along behind. Not so with The Glassblower of Murano . Although the story takes place alternately in 1681 and present-day Venice, both story lines are exceptionally strong. I love novels set in Venice, as you know that a story about treachery and intrigue will follow, and The Glassblower of Murano is no exception. Nora Manin leaves London and an ex-husband to work as a glassblower in one of the furnace on the island of Murano. More than three hundred years previously, her ancestor, Corradino Manin, was also a glassblower, one of the best in Venice, who sold Venetian glassmaking secrets to the French. Very soon, inevitably, the Council of the Ten (Venice’s secret police force) catches wind of Corradino’s activities, and he is murdered one evening, stabbed in the back with a dagger made of Murano glass. This is the scene that the novel opens up with, and it’s definitel...