A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore...

Pages: 162 Original date of publication: 1927 My copy: 1981 (Virago Modern Classics) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Library Thing member, July 2011 One day, young Jacky Jacka visits a witch, where he sees a vision of a woman in a bowl of water. The vision leads him to seek passage on a ship to the West Indies, which is then hijacked en route by the pirate Captain Lovel and the crew aboard the Moonraker. The year in 1801, a time when Napoleon had control of the high seas and the days of swashbuckling piracy was—nearly—on its way out. The story takes young Jacky throughout the Caribbean, and along the way he meets a Frenchman named Raoul and a black man Toussaint L’Ouverture, who works to free Haiti from the forces of Napoleon. On the surface it’s a fun tale; Tennyson drew her inspiration from Robert Louis Stevenson, and obvious comparisons might be made between this book and the Pirates of the Caribbean films. But this novel goes a bit deeper than th...

Pages: 293 Original date of publication: 1932, 1933, 1930 My edition:1982 (Virago Modern Classics) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Philly bookshop, August 2011 Women Against Men is a collection of three novels published in 1932, 1933, and 1937. Delicate Monster is the story of a writer and her many husbands, told from the point of view of a family friend; The Single Heart is the story of a young woman’s marriage and subsequent reconnection with an old flame; and A Day Off is the story of a middle-aged fallen on hard times woman who looks back on her life. The theme is as the title states, about the relationships and sometimes conflicts between women and men. But it’s also about the conflicts between women, particularly as seen in Delicate Monster (you get a sense of jealousy from the narrator over her friend’s exploits). Other than that theme, though, there’s not much to connect these three novellas. They don’t work either as short stories or longe...

Pages: 183 Original date of publication: 1880 My edition: 2010 (Oxford World’s Classics) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Amazon, September 2012 Published in 1880, Washington Square looks back to an earlier period of New York City’s history, when upper-crust society lived at or adjacent to Washington Square, before society eventually migrated uptown. Set in the first half of the nineteenth century and based on a story that was once told to Henry James, this novel tells the story of Catherine Sloper the daughter of a respected physician and the heiress to a fortune of $10,000. One evening she meets Morris Townsend, a young man of whom Dr. Sloper is immediately suspicious, for wanting to marry Catherine for her money. Although Dr. Sloper forbids his daughter to marry or even see Mr. Townsend, as the risk of her losing her fortune, she does so anyways, with the help of her aunt, Mrs. Penniman. Washington Square in the early nineteenth century wasn’t so ...

Pages: 431 Original date of publication: 1845 My edition: 1989 (Virago Modern Classics) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Oxfam Bookshop in London, September 2011 Zoe is the story of a young woman who marries at a young age and ends up having an affair—with the priest Everhard Burrows. Both of them are outsiders to their ways of life, so it’s natural that they find themselves drawn to each other. Geraldine Jewsbury spent many years in Manchester’s cultural scene, becoming friends with the Carlyles , GH Lewes, and others. Jewsbury was famous for her outrageous behavior—she wore men’s clothing, smoked, cursed, and claimed George Sand as her inspiration. As such, her novel Zoe was meant to titillate her readers, but as a modern reader, I didn’t care so much for either of the protagonists especially Zoe, who behaves as a coquette in her pursuit of Everhard. I didn’t find her behavior shocking so much as annoying. The theme certainly would have been s...

Pages: 260 Original date of publication: 2011 My edition: 2011 (Harper) Why I decided to read: it’s a review copy How I acquired my copy: Amazon Vine program, January 2011 Set in (according to Amazon.com’s product description) 1912, The Uninvited Guests takes place over the course of one day at an old English estate. It’s Emerald Torrington’s birthday, and her stepfather (who she and her younger brother inexplicably hate) has gone off to seek funding for the failing estate. Meanwhile, a train accident happens “on a branch line,” and a group of survivors show up at the house to be held for the interim. I really did want to like this book, but I didn’t I love historical fiction, especially fiction set in the Edwardian period, but I felt as though the author didn’t give her reader a good sense of time. Aside from the odd mention of cars or clothes, this book could be set in any time—1912, 1962, or even 2012. In fact, there was a distinctly modern feel to the characters. There are a numbe...

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: 401 Original date of publication: 1934 My edition: 1979 (Virago) Why I decided to read: It’s on the list of Virago Modern Classics How I acquired my copy: Amazon UK May 2011 A Pin to See the Peepshow is a book I’ve been itching to read for a long while—ever since I read F Tennyson Jesse’s The Lacquer Lady last summer. It’s hard to find copies of this Virago reprint, so I was lucky to find mine online. A Pin to See the Peepshow is a fictionalization of the Thompson-Bywaters murder case of the 1920s, when a young housewife was accused of being complicit with her lover in the murder of her husband. Edith Thompson is renamed Julia in the novel. The daughter of middle-class clerk, Julia grew up an imaginative, dreamy and romantic child. After school, she took a position in a dressmaker’s shop, where she was promoted several times and even got the opportunity to travel to Paris to buy clothes for the shop. Julia marries a much older man to whom she’s not all that attracted; and ha...

Pages: 252 Original date of publication: 1954 My edition: 1983 (Virago) Why I decided to read: Amazon UK recommendation How I acquired my copy: Ebay seller, July 2010 Imogen Gresham is 37, married to a very successful barrister. They have an eleven-year-old son, a rather beastly boy named Gavin. Imogen’s husband, Evelyn, develops a friendship with their neighbor, a wealthy fifty-something-year-old spinster named Blanche Silcox. She and Imogen are completely opposite; and it’s Evelyn’s relationship with Blanche that colors the whole tone of his relationship with his wife. Imogen is a domestic, preferring home over hunting or any of the other country pursuits that her husband engages in. It’s partly due to this as well that their relationship becomes fraught with tension. They have nothing in common, so it’s really no wonder that Evelyn turns to an older woman (one much closer in age to him than Imogen is) for, at the very least, friendship. It’s an odd affair; usuall...

Pages: 285 Original date of publication: 2010 My edition: 2010 (Crown) Why I decided to read: Heard about this through the Amazon Vine program How I acquired my copy: Amazon Vine, September 2010 The Countess is a novel about Countess Erzebet Bathory, apparently the first female serial killer. In the early 17 th century, she was rumored to have murdered dozens of young women. As with many of these kinds of novels, the story is told from the Countess’s point of view, and it covers her life starting from when she was a small child and continuing up until her incarceration. It’s an interesting subject, by my, does the author manage to make it boring. The novel focuses a lot on Erzebet’s early life, and the plot moves at a very, very slow pace. I don’t know a lot about Hungarian history, so the parts of this novel that dealt with that were extremely edifying; but this novel disappointed me in terms of plot. I was intrigued to find out how the Countess would explain her...

Pages: 383 Original date of publication: 1929 My edition: 1979 (Virago) Why I decided to read: discovered it browsing the master list of Virago Modern Classics How I acquired my copy: another Librarything member sent it to me, August 2010 The Lacquer Lady is set in 1870s and ‘80s Mandalay, in the time period leading up to the British takeover of Burma. Fanny Moroni is one part Italian, one part Burmese, who goes to school in England and returns to a country in a fair amount of turmoil. When King Mindoon dies, Thibaw becomes king, thus beginning rather disastrous seven-year period culminating with the British takeover of Burma and the ending of the Konbaung dynasty. Fanny enters into this sphere by becoming a lady-in-waiting to his Queen, Supaya-lat—who gives proof to the saying that behind every powerful man is an even more powerful woman. At first, getting into this book was slow going—I wasn’t all that interested in Fanny’s time in England. The novel got much mor...

Pages: Original date of publication: 2010 My edition: 2010 (Avon) Why I decided to read: it was offered on Amazon Vine How I acquired my copy: Vine, May 2010 Dracula, My Lov e is a retelling of the Dracula myth. It’s been a long time since I read the original, and my memory is a little hazy about whether or not this book stays true to its inspiration. But I really enjoyed this novel, covering Mina (Murray) Harker’s experiences from her time at Whitby (where she meets a man named Mr. Wagner, obvious to everyone but her that he’s Dracula), her love affair with Dracula (even though she’s married to Jonathan) up through the time when she must make a difficult decision regarding her personal happiness. I’ve read Syrie James’s other two books (one based on the life of Jane Austen and her inspiration for Sense and Sensibility, the other about Charlotte Bronte), and this one is just as enjoyable. The author’s prose flows very smoothly and the plot moves along quickly. James...

Pages: 384 Original publication date: 2009 My edition: 2010 (Harper) How I acquired my copy: ARC through the Amazon Vine program Set in 1956 in Cyprus during one of the “small wars” that the British fought after World War II, this novel focuses on the story of Hal Treherne, a major in the British army who is posted to Cyprus. His wife and their two small daughters join him there. Amid the violence and fighting against EOKA (Ethniki Organosis Kypriou Agonistou), Hal and Clara find that their relationship suffers. It’s very difficult to review a novel such as this one. Small Wars is a character-driven novel. It’s an intriguing look at the war a war, even a small one, can have such a strong psychological impact on someone who is conditioned to withstand it. The novel is often bleak; danger and even death are imminent in this novel. And yet the military action is such a strong contrast to the activities of the British colonists (their club in Nicosia and life on the military base, for exam...

The Last Duel is the true story of a duel—the last duel, in December 1386, sanctioned by the Parlement of Paris, conducted between two former friends, the knight Jacques le Gris and the squire Jean de Carrouges, over the alleged rape of Carrouges’s wife by le Gris. The trial and duel took over a year to complete, and it attracted the attention of people all over Europe. The eighteen-year old King Charles VI even postponed the duel so that he could attend. Set against the historic backdrop of the Hundred Years’ War, The Last Duel is primarily a legal history. The late fourteenth century was a litigious time in France, and it seems as though Le Gris and Carrouges were extremely contentious men—and both made some extremely foolish, un-tactful decisions, in an era when tact was valued at court. Everything about the trial, and trial by combat, was uncertain: did Le Gris ever really rape Marguerite? Or was it a case of mistaken identities? Either way, the outcome of the case was tragic for...

The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte is Charlotte Bronte’s story—as told from her point of view. Written more as a memoir than a diary with dated entries, the novel chronicles Charlotte’s story from her time at the Clergy Daughters’ School through her marriage to Arthur Bell Nicholls, who had been in love with Charlotte for eight long years before their marriage in 1854. At first, her feelings for him weren’t very strong, but they grew over time. I’d originally thought that the book was going to be more about Charlotte and Arthur’s relationship; but it’s also about Charlotte herself, and her relationship with her sisters, brother, and father. The “flashbacks” aren’t in chronological form, though of course memory doesn’t always work in a linear way. The voice that Syrie James uses for Charlotte Bronte is different than those used in Bronte’s novels, though that might be intentional; Charlotte’s own voice was much different than those she employed for the narrators in her novels. I en...

The Best of Everything is a pretty intriguing novel. Set in New York City in the 1950s, the story focuses on five career women: Caroline, the Radcliffe graduate who still lives with her parents; April, the naive girl from Colorado; Gregg, the actress; Barbara, the single mom, and Mary Agnes, the young woman who anticipates her wedding. There’s also Miss Fawcett, an editor who’s sort of a Miranda-Priestly-in-training. They all work at Fabian Publishing while dreaming of something bigger and better. Jaffe intended her book to be a kind of cautionary tale, but oddly enough, it’s had the opposite effect on young women everywhere; many decide to go into publishing or to work in New York because of this book. Like many other first novels, Jaffe’s book is largely autobiographical; she too went to Radcliffe and worked for a while in publishing as a file clerk and then as an editor. One wonders if Jaffe's romantic relationships were anything like the relationships in the novel. Though the ...

In Bar Flower: My Decadently Destructive Days and Nights as a Tokyo Nightclub Hostess , Lea Jacobson recounts the roughly two years she spent as a nightclub hostess in Tokyo’s Ginza district. After she went to Japan in 2003 to work as an English teacher, Jacobson was fired from her job after a psychiatrist spilled the beans to her employer about her fragile emotional condition. She then went to Tokyo, where she began work as a hostess, entertaining Japanese “sararimen,” even though she was psychologically unwell and unable to cope with the rigid demands of Japanese culture. Jacobson describes this underbelly of Tokyo culture as being in a “floating world,” where everything is fluid and nothing stays constant for very long. As a result, Jacobson’s identity kept changing. Along the way, we’re introduced to a variety of interesting characters, including a dragon-like mama-san, an Irish boyfriend named Nigel, who lies to her and breaks her heart; and a four-year-old girl who learned fluent...

Jack With A Twist is the cute, charming, and quirky follow-up to Scot on the Rocks. In it, Brooke Miller is about to marry Jack, the man of her dreams—but a wrench is thrown in Brooke’s plans when she finds herself representing her wedding dress designer in court—against her own fiancé. Jack With a Twist is also a meet-the-parents: we meet Brooke’s champagne-influenced mother and kosher butcher father, and grandmother and great-auth Devorah, as well as Jack’s Philadelphia Main Line parents, siblings, and identical brothers-in-law. Brooke always thinks that things can’t get any worse, but keep having the proverbial pie smacked in her face. How she manages to solver her problems is all part of the fun of this novel. Brooke Miller is extremely likeable—though she grows a little tiresome saying “like” all the time. Jack With A Twist isn’t quite as funny as its precursor, and the ending is a little predictable and cheesy, but it has its merits all the same. And will somebody please get Jac...

Many people want Hilary Robarts dead. First of all, there's Ryan Blaney, the struggling artist and single father who she has been trying to evict from his cottage. Then there's Alex Mair, her former lover, who won't marry her and wants her out of the way so he can move to London. And finally, there's Neil Pascoe, against whom Hilary Robarts has drawn up a libel lawsuit. Which one of these people, if any, actually killed her? On September 25th, Robarts's body is found on the beach by no less than Adam Dalgiesh, in Norfolk to deal with the personal effects of his aunt, who has recently passed away. The death is suspiciously simlar to the deaths of several other young women killed by someone dubbed "The Whistler." However, Hilary's death is different- someone has broken into her cottage. "The Whistler," so called because he (or she) has been known to whistle after the deaths of his victims. He stalks only at night, and kills only young women. Th...

Marci Newman is a healthy woman and high-powered attorney, so when she dies of a seizure on the floor of a courtroom, her best friend, Gwen Maulder of the FDA, suspects foul play. But Gwen, and her husband, as well as many others, find themselves in way over their heads when they uncover a sinister plot involving coffee, a Senator, and a major worldwide corporation. In all, I didn't like Capitol Reflections . While the action was fast-paced and had me frantically turning pages (I admit I'm a bit of a sucker for action-adventure-mystery commercial fiction), I thought that a lot of the book was cliché, in a way. The characters are all stereotypes for the genre and don't have much three-dimensional-ness to them. The bad guys are all a part of a secret group called Tabula Rasa (Clean Slate in Latin--how predictable) a la the Da Vinci Code , and it doesn't take much guesswork to figure out straight from the beginning who Ops One is. The writing is choppy and the plot dives o...

It’s tempting to create a story about Jane Austen's romantic life, considering that she was so private about her personal life. In The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen , Syrie James creates a lively, likeable, and realistic heroine that stays true to what I think Austen must have been like. Set in the time period in which Jane Austen was revising Sense and Sensibility , Jane introduces us to Frederick Ashford, a charming gentleman she meets one day at Lyme. They instantly form an attachment, but nothing comes of it until one day two years later, when they encounter one another quite unexpectedly. Syrie James acquaints the reader with many real and imagined characters, who may or may not have served as inspiration for characters in her novels (particularly delightful in his foolishness is Mr. Morton, who “becomes” Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice ). The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen is a cute, charming tale of “what if…” What was the source of Jane’s inspiration? What really happened th...