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: Original date of publication: 1959 My edition: 2002 (Vintage) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Waterstone’s Piccadilly, London, September 2011 Laurie Lee was a journalist, writer, scriptwriter, and poet, who also spent some time volunteering in the Spanish Civil War. Later, he worked with a team of documentary filmmakers, among them Emma Smith , author of Persephone’s The Far Cry . At the time, Cider with Rosie was an idea that Lee had, but Emma Smith encouraged him to finish writing it. Cider With Rosie is considered a children’s book, but even as an adult, I enjoyed it. Cider With Rosie is the first in a trilogy of memoirs that Lee wrote about his childhood and young adulthood. This installment in the trilogy focuses on the war and early-interwar years, when Lee was roughly between the ages of 4 and teenage, and it is often hailed as a classic in describing scenes from a provincial childhood, much like Lark Rise to Candleford .   Th...

Pages: 361 Original date of publication: 2007 My edition: 2008 (Anchor Books) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: LibraryThing Secret Santa, December 2010 Elizabeth Marsh was truly an interesting and remarkable woman. Conceived in Jamaica and born in 1735, Marsh literally traveled from the time she was in the womb. She visited Morocco, the Mediterranean, Florida, and India. The books covers not only Elizabeth’s story, but her family’s and, by extension, world history. Because her father and grandfather were shipbuilders, Marsh’s life was linked to the English Royal Navy and the world of the British Empire. It was a time when there was a growing awareness of and connections between various cultures of the world, and Marsh’s story in some part personalizes that experience. In some ways, her life and adventures were similar to those of Eliza Fay, who wrote her “Letters” from India roughly a generation later. Both were lower-middle class (if you could use th...

Pages: 236 Original date of publication: 1970 My edition: 2007 (NYRB Classics) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Joseph Fox bookstore, Philadelphia, February 2012 In 1928, a young Canadian named John Glassco set out for Paris with his best friend. The two set out to explore all that the city had to offer: the cafes, bars, and brasseries that the Americans of the Lost Generation would have been familiar with as well. Glassco set out to have a literary career and along the way rubbed shoulders with some of the greats (at one point in this memoir a man walks into a bar and someone calls him “Ernie;” it took me a while to realize that yes, it was that Ernie). Glassco wrote this memoir as truth, although it’s not completely factual. For example, Kay Boyle and Djuna Barnes, both important figures of the literary expatriates of Paris at the time, receive new names; and there is a certain sense of scintillism to Glassco’s account—probably because the author w...

Pages: 294 Original date of publication: 2012 My edition: 2012 (Bloomsbury) Why I decided to read: Offered through the Amazon Vine program How I acquired my copy: Amazon Vine, April 2012 Isabella Robinson was a housewife in the mid-19th century. Her husband moved her and their family to Edinburgh, where she met Edward Lane, a doctor who specialized in hydrotherapy (Charles Darwin was one of his patients and supporters later on). Although Dr. Lane was married, Isabella began spending a lot of time with him. She began keeping a diary, detailing her friendship/relationship (real or imagined) with him. When Isabella fell ill, her husband found her diary and began divorce proceedings against her. The diaries were nearly pornographic in nature (the women in the courtroom had to be cleared out before the diaries were read) and indicate a woman who was caught up in her emotions as well as had a strong sex drive. These are the broad strokes of a fascinating incident—almost a blip in history, bu...

Pages: 256 Original date of publication: 2012 My edition: 2012 (Public Affairs) Why I decided to read: offered through the LTER program How I acquired my copy: review copy from LTER, April 2012 “A woman’s reputation depends on not being talked about.” So went the first line of Hortense Mazarin’s memoirs, belying the fact that much of her life, and that of her sister, Marie Mancini, was lived in the public eye, talked about and written about in the public gazettes. Both sisters bucked the traditions of the time by running away and seeking divorces from their husbands. The nieces of Cardinal Mazarin, Hortense and Marie made an impact early on at the French court, where Marie had a love affair with the King. A review of the book in a blurb on the back from Kirkus Reviews compares the two sisters to the Kardashians—a not unfair comparison. I think it would be a cliché to say that a work of nonfiction is written as though it’s fiction, but the story of Marie and Hortense is written in an ea...

Pages: 295 Original date of publication: 1960 My edition: 2006 (Virago) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Amazon, October 2011 The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte is a brief biography of the least-known of the Bronte siblings: Charlotte, Emily, and Anne’s brother Branwell, believed by his sisters to be the most brilliant of all the siblings. Born the only boy in a family of girls, a lot was expected of Branwell; but tied down by his imagination, which he fueled into the fictional world of Angria, a lack of job prospects, a disastrous affair, and a drug addiction, he died at the young age of 31 and was eventually eclipsed by his sisters. Yet Branwell was a moderately good poet and artist. In this short biography, Du Maurier draws from Branwell’s poems, prose, and letters to giver her reader more of an idea of what he was like. And yet, it’s hard to know, trapped as he was in his own “infernal world,” a phrase that Du Maurier uses way too many times in the book but which ...

Pages: 320 Original date of publication: My edition: 2006 (Profile Books) Why I decided to read: Amazon.com recommendation How I acquired my copy: Waterstones, Piccadilly, London, September 2011 Nella Last’s War is a compilation of diary entries that Nella Last, a middle-aged housewife, write for the Mass Observation Project during WWII. In her diary, which she later continued on after the war and into the 1950s, Nella chronicles her everyday life, living in Barrow-in-Furness. The diary starts in September 1939 and continues through VE Day. Although Nella meticulously describes the minutiae of her every day life, her story never gets boring. I think one of the hallmarks of good writing in personal nonfiction (diaries, letters, memoirs, etc.) is finding one’s voice, and Nella certainly did in her diary. She’s an optimistic woman and very, very sweet—although slightly neurotic. She takes pleasure in the small things, even with shortages of food and everything else. One thing that comes ...

Pages: 217 Original date of publication: 1913 My edition: 2008 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: I was in the mood for reading another Persephone How I acquired my copy: the Persephone shop, September 2011 In 1909, Maud Pember Reeves and the Fabian Society conducted a social experiment in one of London’s poorer neighborhoods (in Lambeth Walk) to explore the daily lives and living conditions of those people. Round About a Pound a Week is a report of that venture, in which Pember Reeves outlines what she and her coworkers found. They focused on poor, working-class families, but she is quick to point out that the subjects of her study weren’t the poorest in London. The book is divided into chapters that explore in (sometimes excruciating detail) housing, furniture, budgets, food, children, and attitudes to marriage. For example, Pember Reeves gives the exact breakdown of several families’ budgets. Interesting to note is how much these families spent on burial insurance. Pember Reeves do...

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: 304 Original date of publication: 2010 My edition: 2010 (Simon and Shuster) Why I decided to read: found it while browsing in a bookstore in Philadelphia’s 3oth St. Station How I acquired my copy: July 2011 Before reading this book, the only thing I’d really known about Pearl S. Buck was that she went to the same college as I went to. I’d also read The Good Earth many years ago, but didn’t care for it much (or maybe I didn’t understand it as well as I might otherwise have). Pearl Buck in China isn’t just a biography; it focuses mostly on how Pearl Buck’s childhood and adulthood in China influenced her writing and life. It’s a very strong, well-organized book that sticks closely to what the author set out to do. The Good Earth is Pearl Buck’s best-known book, but this biography focuses on all of her fiction that deals with China. There are some sketchy places in the book when the author talks about the family dynamic between the Sydenstrickers, and again at the end when describin...

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: 290 Original date of publication: 2006 My edition: 2006 (Grove Press) Why I decided to read: Amazon recommendation How I acquired my copy: borders, July 2010 The Perfect Summer chronicles the summer of 1911—one of the hottest summers of the 20th century in England. The coronation of George V took place in June 1911, and the summer was characterized by multiple strikes. It was one of the last few summers before WWI, one of the last summers of the Edwardian period, and a summer in which everything seemed idyllic. The book is arranged chronologically, from May to September 1911, and tells the story from the point of view of many different people—from queens to choirboys. Because of this method of organizing the book, it sometimes seems a little disorganized; there’s no central theme to any of the chapters (which are divided into the months of summer) and as a result they seem a bit unfocused. The book covers a lot of ground, too, from political events to social goings-on and beyon...

Pages: 434 Original date of publication: 2011 My edition: 2011 (Crown) Why I decided to read: It was offered on Amazon Vine How I acquired my copy: Amazon Vine, March 2011 I’ve read Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City twice, and also Thunderstruck ; so when this book was offered on Amazon Vine, I jumped at the chance to read it. Devil in the White City and Thunderstruck are books that deal with crime; In the Garden of Beast s is a little bit different. In this one, Larson traces the story of the Nazis’ rise to power, from the point of view of an American diplomat and his daughter. William Dodd spent four years in Berlin, but this book focuses on the first year. In reality, the whole family went over to Berlin; but it’s the stories of William and Martha Dodd that are much more interesting. Dodd was an odd choice for the role of Ambassador; a former college professor, he was more interested in American history and getting his book written than in foreign policy. ...

Pages: 410 Original date of publication: 1860 My edition: 1997 (Virago) Why I decided to read: LibraryThing recommendation How I acquired my copy: Amazon UK, March 2011 Emily Eden’s name has been floating around in my literary consciousness for a while—many years ago I read a novel called One Last Look , which apparently is based on Emily Eden’s travels in India; and then a couple of years ago I read Women of the Raj , a historical overview of British women in India in the 18 th , 19 th , and early 20 th centuries. So when I found out that her letters home to her sister were available, this became a must-read for me. The book is a collection of letters that Emily wrote between 1837 and 1841, when Emily’s brother George, who was Governor-General, set out to tour the Upper Provinces of India; Emily and her other sister, Fanny, came with him. Historically, Emily’s travels were important because she was able to witness the beginnings of the First Afghan War, although s...

Pages: 333 Original date of publication: 1880 My edition: 1984 (Virago) Why I decided to read: recommended to me through LibraryThing How I acquired my copy: Amazon UK seller, January 2011 Unbeaten Tracks in Japan is composed of a series of letters that Isabella Bird wrote home to her sister and friends during the summer of 1878. She set out from Tokyo, eager to explore the “unbeaten tracks” of the northern part of Honshu (the largest island of Japan) and Hokkaido. The letters are a combination of travelogue, anthropological study, and cultural study. I was especially eager to grab this book off my TBR shelf after what’s recently happened in Japan, and I enjoyed reading about Isabella Bird’s adventures there 130 years ago—a very different experience from when my family lived in Tokyo in the 1980s and ‘90s! Isabella Bird inserts very little of her own thoughts and feelings into the narrative of her letters, but at times her very subtle sense of humor comes through, ...

Pages: 590 Original date of publication: 1976 My edition: 2010 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: read this for Persephone Reading Weekend How I acquired my copy: Persephone mail-order, January 2011 Few Eggs and No Oranges is the diary that Vere Hodgson kept during the war years. The diary reprinted here covers the “official” start of the war on June 25, 1940, and takes us up through VE Day, May 1945. The subtitle is “A diary showing how unimportant people in London and Birmingham lived through the war years 1940-45, written in the Notting Hill area of London,” and that’s a pretty good summary of what this book is about. Vere Hodgson lets very little of her own personal feelings in (aside from her obvious hero-worship of Churchill), but she gives detailed updates about what’s going on politically. We get very little sense of the people she spends her days with, and very little about Vere’s personality, either. And yet, this book is a fascinating read, mostly because it...

Pages: 398 Original date of publication: 1983 My edition: 2008 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: I was in the mood for some nonfiction during Persephone Reading Week How I acquired my copy: Persephone mail-order, January 2011 Originally published by Virago in 1983, A Very Great Profession: The Woman’s Novel 1914-1939 is a fantastic overview of the woman’s novel in the interwar years (interesting that “woman” is in the singular, not plural, here). The book is divided not chronologically but by theme, covering such diverse topics as War, Spinsters (ie, Surplus Women), Love, and Sex. Beauman draws from some of the popular middlebrow women writers of the period, many of whom were later revived by Persephone and Virago. These are the writers that the average woman of the period would have borrowed from Mudie’s or Boots, and the authors of these books dealt with their topics in a way that were accessible to their readers. This is a well-researched and perceptive overview o...

Pages: 317 Original date of publication: 1937 My edition: 2004 (Virago) Why I decided to read: it’s on the list of Virago Modern Classics How I acquired my copy: Amazon UK, January 2011 The Du Mauriers is the biography Daphne Du Maurier wrote about her family in the 19 th century. The novel more or less starts where Mary Anne leaves off. Mary Anne Clarke’s daughter, Ellen, is the focus of the first half of the novel. Ellen marries Louis-Mathurin Busson du Maurier. Of their three children, their oldest son George (“Kicky”) is the focus of the second half of the biography, and covers the beginning of his career as a cartoonist. In this way, the book covers roughly 50 years of the du Maurier family history—and a very interesting history it is, too. This book is truly written as though it’s fiction—the author puts herself in the position of Ellen and George, writing as though she was witness to her ancestors’ lives (for reference, Ellen and Louis were Daphne Du Mauri...

Pages: 344 Original date of publication: 2008 My edition: 2010 (Vitage) Why I decided to read: discovered it browsing in Borders How I acquired my copy: Borders gift card, November 2010 The subtitle of this book is “The story of Idina Sackville, who ran away to become the chief seductress of Kenya’s scandalous ‘Happy Valley’ set.” It’s true that Idina Sackville (a cousin of Vita Sackvile-West and the great-grandmother of the author) had a fascinating life; during her lifetime she “bolted” from five husbands and three children, settling down in Kenya. She wasn’t a particularly beautiful woman, but her sexual exploits were legendary, and she inspired characters for several books, namely the Bolter in Nancy Mitford’s novels. The author, Frances Osborne, is a great-granddaughter of Idina; unfortunately, she imposes herself too much into Indina’s story. She also focuses too much on Idina’s sex life and not enough on Idina’s experiences in Kenya, which in itself is an int...