Skip to main content

The Sunday Salon

Another weekend, come and gone! I spent much of this morning reading Hester, by Margaret Oliphant, and part of this afternoon watching Thelma and Louise (HOW have I never seen this movie before??). I've changed up the layout and background of my blog, too. I also write a review of Few Eggs and no Oranges, which I started reading for Persephone Reading Weekend, but due to its length (590 pages, one of Persephone’s longest reprints, if not the longest) took me most of this past week to read. It’s a fascinating look at an average, middle-aged woman’s life in London during WWII; highly recommended.

Speaking of Persephone, I’ve had a barrage of them arrive at my home this past week; I never received my January book for my subscription, and then it, along with my February and March books, arrived within days of each other. The books I’ve received are The Mystery of Mrs. Blencarrow, Consequences, and Flush: A Biography. A few Viragos have arrived in the mail this past week, too: Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys, Letters From Egypt (Virago Travellers), The Virago Book of Women Travellers, Myself When Young, The Glass-Blowers, The Three Miss Kings, and The Camomile. I spent about an hour at the Book Trader in Old City and used up credit with:

Testament of Youth, by Vera Brittain

Hungry Hill, by Daphne Du Maurier

Madame De Pompadour, by Nancy Mitford

Boudica: Dreaming the Bull, by Manda Scott

The Judge, by Rebecca West

The Thining Reed, by Rebecca West

The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton

Whew! That’s a lot. Even just looking at all my unread books is overwhelming. Despite all of that, however, I think my next read will be a re-read of Jane Eyre—another adaptation is coming out on March 11, although, sadly, not in my area (yet). But I’m just dying to see it!

Comments

Karen K. said…
I'm listening to an audio of Jane Eyre in the car in anticipation of the film release too -- it's been so long since I read it! I didn't realize it was coming out so soon, I need to hustle and finish it before I go see the movie. And what a lovely bunch of Persephones! It's always like Christmas when I see the fat white envelopes in the mailbox.
I am excited about Jane Eyre and it's playing at my movie theater one block away! I plan on seeing Cedar Rapids this week and Jane Eyre next. I'm not making time to read it before, but I know I'll crack open that book for a reread after.

Popular posts from this blog

Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars...

Review: The Piano Teacher, by Janice Y.K. Lee

The Piano Teacher is a complicated novel. On the surface, it’s about a love affair between two British ex-patriots in Hong Kong in 1952-3. Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong with her husband Martin at a time when the world is still recovering from WWII; Claire takes up work as a piano teacher for the daughter of a wealthy Chinese family, where she meets Will Truesdale, the Chens’ enigmatic chauffeur. The book jumps back in time between the 1950s and the beginning of WWII, when Will is interned in Stanley, a Hong Kong camp for enemies of Japan. On “the outside” is Tudy Liang, Will’s beautiful Eurasian lover. There’s no doubt that Lee’s writing is beautiful. But there’s something lacking in this short, terse novel that I can’t quite put my finger on. First, I think it’s the tenses she uses when taking about each story: that which is set in the 1950s is in the past tense, while the war scenes are talked about in the present tense (confusing, no?) The interpersonal relationships of the m...