A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore...

Pages: 327 Original date of publication: 1921-1928 My copy: 2007 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, October 2012 Katherine Mansfield wrote the 25 stories in this collection during the 9 months she spent at Montana sur Sierre in Switzerland, seriously ill with tuberculosis. The stories are arranged in the order she wrote them, and many were left unfinished. Some characters are recurring; Mansfield also gained inspiration from other writers, including Chekhov, Louisa May Alcott, Virginia Woolf, Henry James, and DH Lawrence. Mansfield chastised herself for writing “lowbrow” stories and made jokes about them (“ the Mercury is bringing out that very long seaweedy story of mine ‘At the Bay.’ I feel inclined to suggest to them to give away a spade an’ bucket with each copy…”); but as the publisher’s note at the end says, “what choice did she have?” Mansfield wrote herself that she did not consider herself a good writer. B...

Pages: 372 Original date of publication: 1925 My copy: 2009 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone shop, September 2011 Greenery Street is the story of a year in the life of a young married couple. The street of the title is a symbol of a way of life; the first-time houses that young married people have before they begin having families. The couples always vow to stay longer, but when they begin to have children, they move onward and upward in search of larger houses in which to live. The novel is based on Denis Mackail’s experience living as a newlywed in Walpole Street, in a house that had apparently once been occupied by PG Wodehouse and that was later occupied by the author Jan Struther . Mackail himself came from a rather exalted family; he was related to Rudyard Kipling and Stanley Baldwin,; his sister was Angela Thirkell (who apparently was quite a bully) and his nephew was Colin MacInnes. Mackail grew up as a nervous child, only...

Pages: 309 Original date of publication: 1941 My copy: 2010 How I acquired my copy: Persephone shop, September 2011 Persephone is famous for publishing out-of-print, lesser-known classics, but there’s a sub-theme to their list as well: they reprint a number of Jewish authors ( Marghanita Laski , Amy Levy , for example). Farewell Leicester Square is the only one of Betty Miller’s novels that touches on the Jewish experience in England. This story focuses on a man named Alec Berman, who manages to rise to fame in the film industry (the opening scene of the novel is centered on the premiere of one of his films, Farewell Leicester Square) and marry a non-Jew. From the way I saw the book described, I though that this was going to be a straightforward and pretty typical story. But Betty Miller turns it around a bit, by making the anti-Semite Alec himself. He’s so aware of his background as a Jew and not wanting people to mention it that he almost becomes a bit self-hating...

Pages: 192 Original date of publication: 1935 My edition: 2010 (Vintage) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Borders, April 2011 Wigs on the Green was written as a satire of British fascism, and specifically a satire of the members of Nancy Mitford’s family that partook of the movement. Sir Oswald Mosley, Nancy Mitford’s future brother-in-law, formed the British Union of Fascists in 1932 and by the mid-1930s, when this book was written, the BUF had aligned itself with the Nazi party in Germany. Mitford regretted writing this book and worked to suppress copies of it from getting out to the public (not surprising, honestly). The plot focuses on a young woman named Eugenia Malmain (based on Unity Mitford); and two young men who come to the town of Chalford with mischief on their mind. Eugenia is a rather idealistic young woman who works tirelessly on behalf of a political party called the Union Jackshirts (a play on the word “Blackshirts,” the uniform of t...

Pages: 328 Original date of publication: 1911 My edition: 2011 Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, June 2012 No Surrender was published in 1911 at the height of the women’s suffrage movement in England. The novel tells the story of to women from different walks of life: Jenny Clegg, a former mill worker, and Mary O’Neil, an upper-class woman who gets Jenny involved in the suffragette movement. No Surrender is a product of Constance Maud’s involvement with the Women Writers Suffrage League, an organization that sought to change public opinion with the use of words, and whose members included Violet Hunt and May Sinclair. As a piece of social history, No Surrender is excellent in its portrayal of the suffrage movement. But this isn’t necessarily a novel that’s just about suffrage. It’s also about the struggle against oppressive authority and the senseless rules that, to give an example from the novel, allow a husband to send his c...

Pages: 410 Original date of publication: 2012 My edition: 2012 (Henry Holt) Why I decided to read: review copy was offered by the publisher How I acquired my copy: Review copy from the publisher, April 2012 Bring Up the Bodies has been anticipated greatly by me (and I’m sure many others) ever since I read Hilary Mantel’s fabulous Wolf Hall in 2009. The second book in a trilogy, Bring up the Bodies b egins in 1535 and covers the dissolution of Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn and her execution in 1536. While this book covers the strange events of that time, the book is actually more about Thomas Cromwell—the enigmatic, far-range-thinking mastermind behind both the Katherine of Aragon divorce and Anne Boleyn’s trial. To read this novel properly, it must be remembered that Cromwell is the star of this show, not Henry or Anne. Cromwell is one of most fascinating figures of Tudor England—and in this book and in Wolf Hall , Mantel portrays him in a more positive light than previous nove...

Pages: 320 Original date of publication: 1958 My edition: 2001 (Vintage Classics) Why I decided to read: it’s on the list of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die How I acquired my copy: The Strand, NYC, July 2011 The Bell is set in the lay community belonging to Imber Abbey, home to an order of sequestered nuns. The Abbey is about to get a new bell, a time-honored symbol of standing witness. At the same time, there’s a legend about the old, medieval bell, which is said to ring when death approaches. Imber Court contains a variety of complicated people: Paul Greenfield, whose wife, Dora, comes back to him after running away; Michael Meade, the head of the community, who has an unpleasant history with Nick Fawley; Nick’s sister Catherine, who is about to enter the religious order, and Toby, a teenage boy who becomes involved with Michael Meade. Although it’s only February, I can tell that this is going to be one of my top reads for 2012. I loved every bit of this book from start to finish....

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 mos...

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: 308 Original date of publication: 1908 My edition: 1998 (Bantam) Why I decided to read: re-red of an old favorite How I acquired my copy: Amazon, July 2011 Anne of Green Gables is a book that’s obviously a classic. Everyone knows the story of Anne, Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, Anne’s “bosom” friend Diana, and Gilbert, and it was a pleasure to re-read this book—inspired by recently reading The Heroine’s Bookshelf , a collection of essays about life lessons learned from fictional characters. The lesson to be leaned from Anne is happiness—despite her circumstance as an unloved, unwanted orphan, she can still use her imagination to see her situation in a positive light. Anne could easily come across as too sugary-sweet for most people, but I think her optimism is refreshing. What I’d forgotten about the book is how much time passes in the course of the story—Anne is twelve when she arrives at Green Gables, and sixteen or thereabout when she finishes school. So there’s a lot of cha...

Pages: 294 Original date of publication: 1942 My edition: 1983 (Houghton Mifflin) Why I decided to read: it’s a Virago title How I acquired my copy: Philly Book Trader, February 2011 Beryl Markham led a fascinating life. . Born in Britain in 1902, she spent much of her life in Kenya, working as the only female airplane pilot in Africa. She was also a racehorse trainer, and her memoir details her childhood and adulthood in Kenya. Markham had a wide range of friends and acquaintances, among them Karen Blixen and her lover, Denys Finch-Hatton. All of this should equal a well-written, interesting memoir, right? Well-written this book is, but Markham’s writing isn’t all that engaging and so I was very bored in man y places as I was reading this book. I became interested in West With the Night after reading The Virago Book of Women Travellers , which contains an excerpt from it, but other than that excerpt, there’s not much all that interesting about the way that Markham tells her story. Par...

Pages: 438 Original date of publication: 1993 My edition: 1999 (Virago) Why I decided to read: heard about it through LibraryThing How I acquired my copy: Awesomebooks, February 2011 The Virago Book of Women Travellers is a collection of excerpts of writing from women traveler, from the seventeenth century through the twentieth. Many, many authors are represented here, from Flora Tristan (who I learned was the grandmother of Paul Gaugin) to Isabella Bird to Beryl Markham, and includes a number of authors who I knew through their fiction but wrote about their travels as well: Vita Sackville-West or Edith Wharton, for example, or Kate O’Brien, who had a lifelong love for Spain that you see in her novels, but experience her love for the country firsthand through her travel writing. These women represent a number of nationalities, traveled pretty much everywhere, and experienced pretty much everything. Especially prior to the twentieth century, women (particularly single women) used trave...

Pages: 446 Original date of publication: 2010 My edition: 2010 (Crown) Why I decided to read: I was offered a copy for review How I acquired my copy: review copy from the author, February 2011 Michelle Moran has been known for her novels set in the ancient world—Egypt and Rome. Madame Tussaud is a departure for her, delving as it does into the world of late-18 th century France and the Revolution. Madame Tussaud, nee Marie Grosholtz, made a name for herself as an artist, making wax models of famous contemporaries—becoming involved, as she does so, with some of the major political and cultural figures of her day. It was an era in which everything changed almost overnight (right down to the clothes that people wore), and Madame Tussaud was right there to see it all happen. You almost fell, while reading this book, that you’re there yourself. This is an absolutely stunning novel that had me captivated from beginning to end. Marie wasn’t exactly a beauty, and she wasn’...

Pages: 673 Original date of publication: 1977 My edition: 2010 (Avon) Why I decided to read: re-discovered it in Borders while browsing How I acquired my copy: Borders, November 2010 The Thorn Birds is actually a re-read. I first read this at about this time of year when I was thirteen, and ever since then it’s kind of been one of the books that defined my adolescence. The Thorn Birds is a classic about one family in New Zealand and Australia from WWI to the 1960s, especially focusing on the relationship between Meggie Cleary and Father Ralph de Bricassart. Fourteen years after my first reading of this book, my opinion of it has changed somewhat. One of the things I remember most about it was that there was a lot of sex in it—and I mean a lot. This time around, I kind of skipped through all that stuff in order to get to the heart of the story—Meggie and Ralph. I must have been much more of a romantic the first time I read this book, because this time I found myself...

Pages: 562 Original date of publication: 2010 My edition: 2010 (Atria) Why I decided to read: I love all of Kate Morton’s books How I acquired my copy: Amazon preorder, November 2010 Kate Morton is one of the few authors I’ll buy in hardcover. I first heard about her through the Amazon Vine program, when The House at Riverton was offered, and I’ve been hooked ever since; I even bought The Forgotten Garden when it was out in the UK but not in the US. The Distant Hours takes place in a crumbling old castle and features three elderly spinsters who harbor a dark secret dating from WWI. Their story is contrasted with that of Edie, a young woman in 1992 who investigates the story. Like Morton’s previous books, there’s a Gothic undertone to the book, but it’s never overt. The emphasis here is on telling a good story, and that Kate Morton does very well. Each of the characters, minus Edie, has skeletons in the closet, but the skeletons aren’t what you think they’ll be. I ...

Pages: 415 Original date of publication: 1885 My edition: 1980 (Virago) Why I decided to read: browsing on Ebay How I acquired my copy: Ebay, June 2010 Diana of the Crossways is a novel that was closely modeled on the life of Caroline Norton , a Victorian feminist who famously separated from her husband, later having an affairs with a rising politician. George Meredith was a close friend of Norton’s and so this novel portrays Caroline (renamed Diana in this book) in an extremely sympathetic like—sometimes too sympathetically. To protect her reputation, I suspect Meredith took a lot of the scandal out of Diana’s story—really, to the detriment of the book, since Caroline Norton had an extremely fascinating life. As a result, Meredith manages to make Diana’s story uninteresting, to the point where I just didn’t care much about the story or characters. It’s too bad, because George Meredith has a lot of material to work from. Instead, he spends a lot of time in thi...

Pages: 347 Original date of publication: 1924 My edition: 1999 (Virago Modern Classics) Why I decided to read: perusing the list of Virago Modern Classics How I acquired my copy: ebay auction, July 2010 Mary Jocelyn is the middle-aged daughter of an elderly clergyman, who has spent all her life in Dedmayne, a quiet English village. The arrival of Mr. Herbert, son of an old friend of Canon Jocelyn’s, brings much excitement for Mary, who falls in love with him. But life is much more complicated than that, and Mr. Hebert marries Kathy, a younger woman who is Mary’s polar opposite. FM Mayor novel is character-driven rather than plot-driven. It seems as though all her life, Mary has been waiting for something—anything to happen to her. Her life at the vicarage in Dedmayne, severely curtailed by her father, is constricting. And yet Mary spends most of this novel (covering a period of about ten years) letting things happen to her. I found it very hard to like Mary at times...

Pages: 440 Original date of publication: 2010 My edition: 2010 (Subterranean Press) Why I decided to read: read the first two books in the series back in 2007 How I acquired my copy: review copy from the publisher, February 2010 Mister Slaughter is the first book in a series that began with Speaks the Nightbird and continued with The Queen of Bedlam . Mister Slaughter is sort of a continuation of The Queen of Bedlam (I certainly recommend reading that book first, since this book references some of the events and people of the first. Speaks the Nightbird is more of a stand-alone novel). Here, Matthew Corbett (a “problem solver” for the Herrald Agency in New York) and his associate, Hudson Greathouse, are charged with the task of transporting a murderer named Tyranthus Slaughter from an insane asylum to New York, where he will be sent back to England to await trial—and, inevitably, the hangman’s noose. But this being a Matthew Corbett novel, things don’t go quite as planned, and Matth...

Pages: 834 (with index) Original date of publication: 2007 My edition: 2008 (HarperCollins) Why I decided to read: it’s been on my TBR list for ages, and I’ve always been fascinated by the Mitford sisters How I acquired my copy: bought secondhand, January 2010 I’ve long been fascinated with the Mitford family, six sisters and a brother whose lives spanned the 20th century. This collection of letters strictly focuses on the sisters: Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah. In a nutshell, this is who they were: Nancy (1904-1973): The writer/ reader. Author of The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate, and several other novels and biographies. Married Peter Rudd; worked for the London bookseller Heywood Hill and lived for a time in Paris in the 1950s. Pamela (1907-1994): Married for a time to the physicist Derek Jackson (she was the second of his six wives). Diana (1910-2003): married Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the BUF (British Union of Fascists) in the 1930s. Spent some ti...

Pages: 352 Original publication date: 2010 My edition: 2010 (NAL Trade) Why I decided to read: I enjoyed Maxwell's novel on Elizabeth I a few years ago; the idea of a novel on Romeo and Juliet intrigued me. How I acquired my copy: ARC through Amazon Vine O, Juliet is the story of Juliet Capelletti, daughter of a merchant in Florence, who, betrothed to her father’s partner Jacopo Strozzi, falls in love with Romeo Monticecco, whose family own a rival company. The story is told primarily from the point of view of Juliet, and attempts to follow Shakespeare’s play. I was so prepared to love this novel, but I simply didn’t. O Juliet is faithful neither to Shakespeare’s play, nor is it faithful to the historical story of Romeo and Juliet (and there really were a Romeo and Juliet, who lived in Verona in the early 14th century). Maxwell, for some inexplicable reason, chooses to set her story in 15th century Verona, which really had me scratching my head—especially when Cosimo de Medici en...