A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore...

Pages: 218 Original date of publication: 1977 My copy: 1977 (Perennial) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Philly Book Trader, July 2010 Quartet in Autumn centers around four retirement-aged office workers in London: Edwin, Norman, Letty, and Marcia. Edwin, a widower, is a church hopper; Norman, struggles with his anger; Letty’s an eccentric spinster whose childhood friend is set to marry a much younger clergyman; and Marcia, a survivor of a mastectomy. As the story progresses, Letty and Marcia do retire from their jobs (“something vaguely to do with filing”), an occurrence that brings the characters together more than they realize. You might think it’s a depressing novel, but it’s bittersweet in a way. The characters are stuck in a kind of limbo; stuck in the past and remembering how things used to be, but still faced with the decisions they have to make about the future. So it’s interesting to see how each one copes with change in their lives. Pym’s ...

Pages: 626 Original date of publication: 1944 (original collection; additions made to later editions) My copy: 2006 (Penguin) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Phoenix airport bookstore, December 2012 Dorothy Parker was famous for her satirical wit, a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, and one of the earliest writers for the New Yorker. She was once arrested for protesting the execution of the murderers Sacco and Vanzetti. Later, she pursued screenwriting in Hollywood and was later blacklisted there for her involvement in left-wing politics. She was married three times, twice to the same man; and had four suicide attempts, none successful. After her death, her ashes lay for 21 years on a shelf at a funeral home and then in the office of a Wall Street law firm, before she was finally buried at the headquarters of the NAACP. Parker loved one-liners and word play, and this is a compilation of short stories, magazine articles, letters, interviews, b...

Pages: 125 Original date of publication: My edition: 2008 Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: October 2011, Persephone subscription In Minnie’s Room , a collection of 11 stories published between 1947 and 1965, Mollie Panter-Downes explores some of the same themes she explores in her novel, One Fine Day . In the 1940s and beyond, people were struggling to adapt to their new circumstances, because things were, indeed, dire (for example, as the introduction to this book says, “bread had been newly rationed in 1946”). It was rough going for everyone, especially the middle classes, who were hit especially hard by the imposition of increased income tax to deal with postwar shortages. So the stories in this collection reflect on a small scale the larger issues that were going on in England and the world at that time. Although there is no immediate theme to this collection, her stories are all about people dealing with the aftermath of WWII and the effect it ha...

Pages: 256 Original date of publication: 1955 My edition: 1982 (Perennial) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Philadelphia Book Trader August 2010 As a parallel to society as a whole, Barbara Pym tells the story of a group of anthropologists in London. Tom Mallow is an incredibly self-absorbed but brilliant anthropologist working on his thesis, and he has a convenient live-in arrangement with a magazine write named Catherine, who seems to be more of a friend, although it’s hinted that the two may have had a relationship in the past. Tom takes up with Deirdre, an earnest but naive anthropology student. Barbara Pym worked with anthropologists for many years, so they are a recurring theme in many of her books. Anthropologists make cameo appearances in some of Pym’s other novels (such as Everard Bone from Excellent Women , who has a cameo appearance in this book; Emma from A Few Green Leaves ; and Tom Mallow is an early version of Rupert Stonebird from An U...

Pages: 250 Original date of publication: 1980 My edition: 1980 (Harper Perennial Library) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: The Philadelphia Book Trader, August 2010 Barbara Pym’s novels are comfort reads. They follow pretty much the same format and have very much the same elements; in fact, some of her characters overlap between novels. This novel is set in an Oxfordshire village in the 1970s and features a typically Pym-esque cast of characters: an academic, a rector, village doctors, spinsters, and possible love interests. One of the main characters, Emma, is an anthropologist, and her activities reflect the overall purpose of the book, because the story is more or less an anthropological study of the people who live in the village.Some of Pym’s characters are truly funny: the rector who’s so wrapped up in searching for his mythological DMV (deserted medieval village) that he scarcely pays attention to the present; the local spinster cat lady; the e...

Pages: 411 Original date of publication: 1946 My edition: 1983 (Virago Modern Classics) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: London, September 2011 The Roaring Nineties is set on the Australian frontier in the 1890s. Sally Gough is the wife of a gold miner, eking out a rough living in the goldfields of Western Australia. It’s a tough life these people live, certainly much different than ours is now; and it’s interesting to watch the characters grow, even as the Australian frontier changes with the advent of the railway and the growth of towns. It’s a tough book to get through; bleak in many places. As such, it’s a bit of a slog. But despite that, I enjoyed this novel; it’s very realistic and true to the time period (even though I know nothing about colonial Australia or the business of gold prospecting). Sally seems very flat and devoid of emotion; I guess that life on the frontier makes people become stoic in that way. Her focus is her family and she tu...

Pages: 256 Original date of publication: 1982 My edition: 1983 (Perennial) Why I decided to read: I was in the mood for reading Barbara Pym How I acquired my copy: the Philly Book Trader, August 2010 An Unsuitable Attachment is Barbara Pym at her best, with all the elements that make one of her novels so good. Set in the parish of St. Basil’s in London (although it feels small village-ish), this is a romantic comedy about a vicar and his wife, her sister, an anthropologist, and a “gentlewoman.” The book is punctuated by a lovely springtime trip the characters take to Rome. This novel is vintage Pym: “genteel” ladies and spinsters, and a gentle romantic comedy set in a parish community. It’s funny and sharp, and the characters are very much in Barbara Pym’s style. Ianthe Broome is one of the independent “excellent women” that Pym writes so well about; Rupert Stonebird is an anthropologist whose single status makes him a victim for the matchmaking ladies of the parish (but the reader ha...

Pages: 261 Original date of publication: 1944 My edition: 2010 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: I was in the mood for a Persephone How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, July 2012 A House in the Country is set in the later years of WWII. Cressida Chance is the chatelaine of Brede Manor, a manor house near the village of Brede Somervel. Cressida is a widow and mother, and the house is populated by a host of characters: a freeloading aunt, a European refugee, a young engaged couple who are horribly, horribly wrong for each other. Added on top of that is Cressida’s impossibly good looking brother, an officer in the army who keeps chasing his high-maintenance girlfriend all over the country. The story switches back and forth between the goings-on at the Manor and Charles Valery’s harrowing story. There’s a great sense of sadness and loss about this novel that the reader feels even before we find out Cressida’s background with Simon and Charles. There’s also a huge sense of un...

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 diffe...

Pages: 256 Original date of publication: 1958 My edition: 1980 (Perennial) Why I decided to read: I’m on a mission to read all of Barbara Pym’s books How I acquired my copy: from the Philadelphia Book trader, August 2010 A few years ago, when I first started reading Barbara Pym’s novels (with Excellent Women , which I think is a lot of people’s first Pym), I’d heard that her novels were a lot like Jane Austen’s. With a comparison like that, how could I pass that up? Barbara Pym’s novels are actually a lot funnier… but the humor is hidden. This is the story of Wilmet Forsyth, a thirty-something housewife leading a leisured life with her civil servant husband. She spends her life involved with church work and attending classes, but her life isn’t all that fulfilling or fulfilled. Wilmet herself isn’t a person to like much; she’s incredibly superficial and narcissistic, concerned more with fashion (how often in the novel does she turn aside and tell the reader exactly ...

Pages: 408 Original date of publication: 2009 My edition: 2010 (Harper) Why I decided to read: I LOVED the author’s first book How I acquired my copy: The Poisoned Pen bookstore, Scottsdale, AZ, December 2010 Originally published in hardcover as The Gun-Maker’s Gift , The Devil’s Acre tells the story of Samuel Colt, and the factory he built in Pimlico in London in 1853. The story is told alternately from the point of view of his London secretary, Edward Lowry; a young factory worker named Caroline Knox; and her sister and brother-in-law, an Irish immigrant who plots to use Colt’s weapons for a political assassination. Meanwhile, Colt himself has his own agenda—especially with war in Europe looming on the horizon. I really, really loved the author’s first book, The Street Philosopher , so of course I was excited to read this one. But what a huge disappointment for me! The author has a talent for describing the places and people (fictional and not) he writes about, but...

Pages: 252 Original date of publication: 1950 My edition: 1984 (Perennial) Why I decided to read: I’m on a quest to read all of Pym’s novels How I acquired my copy: secondhand bookstore near my office, November 2010 Some Tame Gazelle was Barbara Pym’s first novel. Her writing style is rather quaint and old-fashioned, which is probably why her books fell out of fashion, but it’s the quaintness that makes this novel so good. Some Tame Gazelle is less polished than some of Pym’s later novels (such as Excellent Women or Jane and Prudence ), but it shares some of the same themes. This one is set in a tiny village and focuses on the life of two spinsters in late middle age, Harriet and Belinda Bede. There’s a new, young curate in the village for whom Harriet develops a fondness; her sister has an unrequited love for the vicar, whose wife doesn’t love him. Added to this is a pompous Archdeacon and an Italian count who frequently proposes marriage to Harriet. As I’ve said,...

Pages: 222 Original date of publication: 1953 My edition: 1981 (Dutton) Why I decided to read: I’ve enjoyed other books by Barbara Pym How I acquired my copy: The Philadelphia Book Trader, August 2010 Jane and Prudence is the story of two friends—Jane is a middle-aged clergyman’s wife, and Prudence is a spinster at the age of 29, “an age that is often rather desperate for a woman who has not yet married.” When Jane and her husband move to a small parish, they meet a widower named Fabian Driver, with whom Jane wants to set Prudence up. This novel is a very quiet satire of love and romance and the constant search for them. Jane and Prudence’s friendship is an unlikely one, and it’s hard to see why, exactly, they’re friends (beyond the fact that they met at Oxford). In addition, I kept wondering why Jane would want to set up her good friend with someone who’s a known womanizer. Still, she means well. I think the interplay between the two main characters is well done. ...

Pages: 392 Original date of publication: 2010 My edition: 2010 (St. Martin’s Press) Why I decided to read: I heard about this through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program How I acquired my copy: Amazon Vine, May 2010 Set in 1492, Poison is told from the point of view of Francesca Giordano, professional poisoner to the Borgia family (or, more accurately, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope). Cardinal Borgia is a dangerous man, willing to do anything to further his ambitions, and he hires Francesca to help poison the current pope. Meanwhile, Francesca discovers a plot that her father, also a professional poisoner, may have been involved in. I did like the premise, I really did; that’s why I decided to read this book. It has a great, eye-catching opener, too, which kept me reading. But the plot is so convoluted and so “been there, done that,” that I found myself not caring anymore about what happened to any of the characters. I guess my main problem with the novel...

Pages: 203 Original date of publication: 1939-1945 My edition: 2008 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: browsing on the Persephone website How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, June 2010 Good Evening Mrs. Craven is a collection of 21 short stories that Mollie Panter-Downes wrote for The New Yorker during the war years. Although she was English and lived in Surrey for most of her life, her work both as a short story writer and as a journalist has been virtually forgotten in England; and yet she was a prolific writer, writing over 800 pieces for The New Yorker during her career. Mollie Panter-Downes’s stories are vignettes that focus on short moments in the day of average Britons during the war. None of these people is particularly remarkable, but they live in extraordinary times, and how they cope with that is what’s so fascinating about this collection. From country housewives serving on Red Cross committees and housing evacuees, to young working women sur...

Pages: 137 Original date of publication: 1974 My edition: 2010 (Sourcebooks) Why I decided to read: it had been recommended to me a long time ago How I acquired my copy: review copy from the publisher I’m sorry this isn’t a real review: a revised version of this review appears here for the first part of the quartet, Sunrise in the West . But my feelings for the book after having read part II haven’t really changed, and there’s not much more I can say about a book I generally dislike. Dragon at Noonday is the second book in the quartet. All four books are included in one volume, but they can be read separately—as they should be, because this is one of those books that you have to read in baby steps., whether you love it or no. This book is still very slow-going, There are a lot of descriptive passages in this book, and a lot of historical details; but Pargeter’s prose style is very, very dense—I’d find myself reading a few pages, putting the book down, and picking i...

Pages: 186 Original date of publication: 1974 My edition: 2010 (Sourcebooks) Why I decided to read: it had been recommended to me a long time ago How I acquired my copy: review copy from the publisher I’m reading The Brothers of Gwynedd for a sort of book club that the publicist at Sourcebooks is sponsoring—we’re reading one book from the quartet for four months, writing a review, and then discussing the book at various book bloggers’ blogs. I’m very glad that things have been spread out this way, otherwise, I think I’d get burned out over this book very quickly—I’ve only completed the first 200 pages or so, but already I feel as though I’m running a marathon with it! Sunrise in the West is the first book in the quartet. From what I’ve read so far, it promises to be slow going—the book opens with not a lot of action, just a number of details on the narrator’s (Samson) background, as well as that of the house of Gwynedd. This part of the book takes places from roug...

Pages: 514 Original date of publication: 2010 My edition: 2010 (Ballantine) Why I decided to read: An interest in the period led me to pick this one up How I acquired my copy: ARC through the Vine, January 2010 In The Sheen in the Silk, Anne Perry enters different territory than with her Victorian-era mysteries. Set in Constantinople in the 1270s and ‘80s, it features the adventures of Anna Zarides, a young woman who goes to the city to investigate a murder supposedly committed by her brother. Anna dresses as a eunuch and poses as a physician, so that she may better conduct her inquiries. All of this is set against a larger struggle between the Eastern Orthodox church and western Christianity. Oh, dear. I really wanted to like this book. A beautiful setting, an intriguing plot—I thought, how could you go wrong with that? Well, a lot of things. It’s not that Anne Perry is a bad writer; it’s just that this particular novel wasn’t interesting or intriguing enough to make me want to read o...

Pages: 355 Original date of publication: 2010 My edition: 2010 (Doubleday) Why I decided to read: interest in the time period How I acquired my copy: ARC through the Vine, January 2010 Giordano di Bruno, an Italian exile who is wanted for heresy, goes to Oxford in search for a book he believes is there. In addition, he’s also been commissioned by Sir Francis Walsingham to help uncover a Catholic plot to overthrow the Queen (Elizabeth I; this book takes place in 1583). However, his search for the book is waylaid when a College Fellow is savaged to death by a dog. Bruno;s task becomes manifold as he also tries to discover who the murderer is. OK, so the premise has been done to death. But I liked it nonetheless. The murder aspect is done in a way so that the reader is kept guessing the whole way through. The book is well-researched, too, and gives a lot of feel for the period without it being too overwhelming. However, there are some plot holes. I thought it was a weak moment when Bruno ...

Thomas Kitson is a journalist, sent out the Crimea in 1854 to be the junior correspondent for the London Courier. The Courier team includes the senior correspondent, Richard Cracknell, a loose cannon who has an affair with the commanding officer’s wife and pens scurrilous pieces for the newspaper; and Robert Styles, a young illustrator who quickly becomes disillusioned by the war. The war, culminating with the battle of Sebastopol, is interchanged with a second story line, in Manchester two years later, when Kitson is a social commentator for a local paper (a “street philosopher”), and trying desperately to run from the past. What, exactly, happened out in the Crimea? This is one of those “unputdownable” books. I read it nearly in one sitting, on an airplane ride back to the States after vacation. I needed a distraction from the 300-pound gorilla groping his girlfriend in the seat next to me, and this book was perfect towards that end. I was glued to this book from start to finish, rea...