A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore...

Pages: 175 Original date of publication: 1934 My copy: 1985 (Virago Modern Classics) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Amazon UK, June 2012 Set just after WWI, Trooper to the Southern Cross is narrated by Major Bowen, a former military doctor. He and his wife Celia book passage on a trooper ship, the Rudolstadt, from England to Australia. On board are former military personnel, diggers, prisoners, and others, and this novel is the story of their voyage. The novel is based on personal experience. Angela Thirkell came from an illustrious family; her grandfather was the painter Edward Burne-Jones, her father was the first biographer of William Morris, her brother was Denis Mackail (author of Greenery Street , published by Persephone), Rudyard Kipling and Stanley Baldwin were first cousins, her son was Colin MacInnes, and JM Barrie was her godfather. Thirkell’s second husband was George Thirkell, one of the first Australians to enlist in WWI. In January 1...

Pages: 252 Original date of publication: 1957 My edition: 2012 (NYRB Classics) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Amazon.com, March 2012 This is the third of Elizabeth Taylor’s novels that I’ve read: Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont , which I enjoyed and In a Summer Season , which I couldn’t finish. However, Angel is amazing—probably one of the best novels I’ve red all year. Set at around the turn of the century, the novel’s heroine, if such she can be called, is one of the most fascinating characters I’ve come across in a long time. Angelica Deverell lives in a drab English town with her mother. A girl with irrepressible imagination, Angel grows up to become a famous novelist who churns out bad novels that her reading public nonetheless loves (Elizabeth Taylor apparently modeled Angel’s novels on those of Ethel M. Dell, who was a famous writers of romances in the early 20th century). Angel has an inflated sense of her own importance. She is obstinate, self-righteous, narcis...

Pages: 469 Original date of publication: 2010 My edition: 2011 (Hyperion) Why I decided to read: it was offered through Amazon Vine How I acquired my copy: Amazon.com, November 2010 Last year, I read one of Andrew Taylor’s other books: Bleeding Heart Square , set in Earl’s Court in the 1930s, right in the heart of the British fascist movement. The Anatomy of Ghosts is completely different. Set in 1786, it features a bookseller who is commissioned by a wealthy lady to catalogue a library, while at the same time find his benefactress’s son, a student at Cambridge who has been committed to an insane asylum. It’s an interesting premise, but it’s not an original one. The author turns to all the old clichés: a femme fatale (guess where that story line is going?), a mysterious library, a murder, a secret mission, etc. Taylor doesn’t really go out of the box for this book as he did with Bleeding heart Square, and Holdsworth, his main character, is about as bland as they com...

Pages: 206 Original date of publication: 1971 My edition: 2009 (Virago Modern Classics) Why I decided to read: LT recommendation How I acquired my copy: LT Virago Modern Classics group member, December 2010 Mrs. Palfrey is an elderly widow who moves in to the Claremont Hotel, a stop-gap between home and a nursing home. One day she has a fall and is assisted up by Ludo Myers, a young writer whom she quickly befriends. It is a very unlikely friendship, but one with many possibilities. Mrs. Palfrey has a rather detestable grandson, and with the help of a little white lie, Ludo steps into that role. Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is a sweet, quiet story of friendship and of growing old, contrasting Mrs. Palfrey’s situation with that of Ludo’s. Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is a short, easy read, but its emotional impact is strong. Although Mrs. Palfrey’s real family, with the daughter up in Scotland and the unlikeable grandson, seems to have abandoned her, it’s amazing...

Pages: 280 Original date of publication: 1952 My edition: 1986 (Virago Modern Classics) Why I decided to read: it was on the list of Virago Modern Classics How I acquired my copy: Ebay, June 2010 The Gentlewomen is one of the first books I added to my TBR list when I first heard about Virago Modern Classics back in May (how come I’d never heard about them before then?). This particular VMS tells the tale of Roona Bolby, a middle-aged governess who styles herself as a “gentlewomen.” She gets a situation with the daughters of Lady Rushford. It’s wartime, but the old attitude towards governesses still stands. Miss Bolby places great stress upon her genteel connections and Indian background, but she can’t quite launch herself out of the in-between ground that governesses occupy. Miss Bolby is perhaps one of the most detestable characters I’ve come across in a really long time. She is one of the most conceited, snobbish, and rude characters I’ve ever seen. The reader isn...

Pages: 361 (with Appendices and Index) Original date of publication: 2007 My edition: 2010 (FSG) Why I decided to read: infernal Amazon rec How I acquired my copy: Amazon third-party seller, March 2010 Bright Young People is the story of a particular group of young people who lived in London in the 1920s and ‘30s. Born at around the turn of the century, they were well connected and, for the most part, wealthy. They were known for the outrageous lifestyles they led, holding themed parties until dawn and performing tricks upon each other. The Bright Young People relied largely on the press to publicize their activities, and they included, among others, Nancy and Diana Mitford, Bryan Guinness, Evelyn Waugh, Brian Howard, Brenda Dean Paul, Cecil Beaton, and Elizabeth Ponsonby. The book is divided into thirteen chapters, with little interludes focusing on specific people or things (on is on all the books Brian Howard never wrote). The book is a bit disorganized; the cha...

Pages: 233 Original date of publication: 1933 My edition: 2009 (Moyer and Bell) Why I decided to read: heard about this book through the Persephone discussion board on LibraryThing How I acquired my copy: Amazon.com, February 2010 High Rising is the first in a very long (31 books) series about the fictional place of Barsetshire, modeled on Trollope’s books. High Rising is the story of Laura Morland, a widow and mother who is also the author of ‘good bad books.” It follows Laura’s story over the course of roughly a year, as she manages her career and boisterous youngest son, Tony, and witnesses the foibles of the town of High Rising and its environs. The story itself is was good enough for me to read to the end, but I do feel as though Angela Thirkell doesn’t quite have the comedic touch of DE Stevenson, or a knack for subtlety that Barbara Pym does. However, Thirkell is good at making her characters seem real, and immersing her readers in the world of Barsetshire....

Pages: 235 Original publication date: 2010 My edition: 2010 (Ballantine) Why I decided to read: Interest in the subject matter How I acquired my copy: ARC through the Vine Brigid of Kildare is a split-time novel. The story goes back and forth between Bridgid, a 5th-century woman chosen by Saint Patrick himself to convert the Irish into Christianity; and a modern-day appraiser of medieval objects named Alex, who is invited to Kildare to appraise a book that the nuns there own. The story is told as both a straight narrative and a series of letters written by a Roman spy named Decius, sent to Ireland to uncover possibly heresy. The idea of the story is appealing, but the execution of the book is rather lackluster, I’m afraid. It’s rare that I complain that a book I don’t like is too short; but I thought that the story could have been fleshed out a lot more, especially the characters of Alexandra, who never comes across as more than a cold appraiser. Where’s her personality? Even Brigid he...

In 1934, Lydia Langstone leaves her husband and moves in with her father at 7 Bleeding Heart Square. Four years earlier, the woman who owned the house, Philippa Penhow, disappeared, and now someone is sending Lydia’s creepy landlord Mr. Serridge animal hearts in the post. At about the same time that Lydia moves in, a young man named Rory Wentworth moves in as well. He’s looking for work as a journalist, yes, but he has an ulterior motive for moving into the house. Compounded on all of this is the fact that the Fascists are coming into power, a party to which Lydia’s husband belongs. Punctuated by snippets from Miss Penhow’s diary, Bleeding Heart Square is primarily a story of revenge and deep, dark secrets. The story is darkly bizarre and a bit gory, to be sure, but it’s well-put-together and left me wanting more. Taylor does a wonderful job with description, too: you really feel as though you’re witnessing a Fascist rally or smelling the hearts in the front hall. Rather stomach-turni...

In 1920, a man, hated by everyone around him including his wife, is murdered in a tithe barn in Somerset. His body is found suspended from the rafters in a contraption used for the angel for local Christmas pageants. Inspector Ian Rutledge of the Scotland Yard is in the neighborhood to attend a wedding, and is called to the scene of the crime. A Matter of Justice is the eleventh book in the Inspector Ian Rutledge series. The author is actually a mother and son writing team. From the get-go, I could tell that the authors are influenced by PD James's style. Rutledge is haunted by the ghost of his past, especially a dead lieutenant he fought with in the First World War who speaks to Rutledge in a faux-Scottish accent (I'm no expert, but do the Scots really say things like "yon?" Did the authors even speak Hamish's lines out loud as they were writing them?). The authors tend to pepper their prose with Americanisms such as "bookstore" for "bookshop,...

Kept is a Victorian murder mystery. Set in the 1860s, the book opens when an East Anglia squire falls from his horse and dies. His wife later goes mad and goes to live at Easton Hall, the home of Jonas Dixey, an eccentric, amateur taxidermist. Seemingly unconnected is a train robbery orchestrated by a couple of crooked lawyers and their henchmen. Channeling Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, and the sensationalist novelists of the 1860s, Taylor gives us a wonderfully descriptive picture of Victorian England. It’s clear that the author has done his research. While it takes a little while for the book to get to the point, the mystery is a little anticlimactic, and the book doesn’t really seem to have a proper ending, the characters in the novel are intriguing, lively, and unique. By far my favorite character was Esther, the lively kitchenmaid at Easton Hall. You never know where the story is going to take you next, and that’s what I liked about Kept . It’s similar to The Meaning of Night in...

This book is more than just a bunch of punctuation rules strung together, or a manual on English grammar: its a book made for the people who are sticklers to the (proper) rules of punctuation. Many of the things Lynne Truss said in this book ring true for me, though it made me pay attention to marks of punctuation that normally I would just let go. I realized that I am NOT the only crazy, punctuation-obsessed person on the planet. She might not be the best writer I've ever read, but she makes her subject interesting in the way that very few people can, by being sarcastic and humorous. Some quotes: "They regard us as freaks. When we point out illiterate mistakes we are often aggressively instructed to 'get a life' but people who, interestingly, display no evidence of having lives themselves" (p.4) "Punctuation has been defined in many ways. Some grammarians use the analogy of stitching: punctuation as the basting that holds the fabric of language in shape...

An intimate portrait of Henry James's life from 1895-99, The Master is the story of a great American author. Colm Toibin takes his reader deep into the psyche of this extremely complicated man, as we witness first the bomb of a play on the London stage, then move to a dinner party in Ireland to which he is invated, and the buying of his dream house in Rye. Although the book is divided into eleven chapters, each with its own "time" and place, the action really isn't limited to a particular place. The narrative goes back in time to James's childhood, exploring the relationships he had with his siblings, especially his invalid sister Alice. The reader gets a look at Henry James's relationships with other authors, and the effect other writers had on him. We get a look into the inspiration behind Henry James's own works. The subject of the book is infinitely fascinating; this book looks into the private life of a man who chose not to enter the Union army durin...

I was introduced to Josephine Tey through a group I belong to on Shelfari.com. We have an informal book group and discussion, and this is our most recent selection. It’s the first Tey I’ve read, and it won’t be the last. It features a character who apparently recurs in several of her novels, Inspector Alan Grant of the Scotland Yard. Laid up after suffering a broken leg, Grant tries to dispel the boredom by trying to solve an unsolved crime: the mysterious disappearance of the two princes in the Tower in the fifteenth century. Using the evidence presented to him, Grant and his research associate from the British Museum come up with a satisfactory and believable solution to a problem that has puzzled people for over five hundred years. One thing I found difficult to believe in this mystery was the fact that Grant knew so little about the history of his own country. For example, he didn’t recognize a famous portrait of Richard III on sight. And that he was easily convinced by Thomas More...

This is the story of Martin and Jasper Dean, a father and son who are as different as they are alike. The story begins with Martin, whose brother, Terry, was a famous criminal in Australia. Martin Dean has spent pretty much his whole life philosophizing about everything, and his mind tends to go to unexpected places. It’s essentially a novel about soul-searching. The characters, especially the two main ones, are extraordinarily eclectic, much as John Irving’s are; however, the story of A Fraction of the Whole tends to wander all over the place, which is something I didn’t really like about the book. Both men in their turns provide narration, and although there’s not much to say who’s speaking when, it’s pretty clear by the style of talking who is narrating the story. That’s one thing that I thought was done very well; Steve Toltz has a gift for narration and for creating distinct “voices” for his characters. Nothing ever occurs as expected. Te book is rife with satire and a unique sen...