Skip to main content

The Sunday Salon


Another Sunday, come and gone! I’ve been reading Viragos this past week; Kate O'Brien's The Land of Spices, and now I’m halfway through Vita Sackville-West’s All Passion Spent, which is stunning. I had no idea I’d find a novel about an elderly woman so engaging! I think that Vita Sackville-West is becoming one of my favorite authors; she certainly had an interesting, unusual life.

In other news, my sister and I have booked a trip… to England in September! We’re going to London, then taking the train up to York for three or four days, and then back to London—so about 9 or ten days total. The last time I was there was 2009; and it’s been at least ten or fifteen years since my sister went. I’m really excited to get to York, where I’ve never been; all that medieval history really fascinates me. Obviously, book shopping is on my list of things to do (I’m making a beeline for the Persephone shop right off the plane!), and I want to go see Much Ado About Nothing at the new Globe Theatre. My sister is into art and art galleries, so I’m sure we’ll have a lot to do while we’re over there. Any suggestions on where to go or what to do? We’re also trying to figure out where to eat while we’re there.

So that’s about it for me!

Comments

prerna pickett said…
How exciting! Love all your reviews :)
joan.kyler said…
I would recommend the Courtauld Gallery, if you haven't been there. It's a great small museum right off the strand. Also, Sir john Soane's Museum in London.

You're so lucky to be going to England. I've been there many time but it's been ages since I've been there. York is beautiful. You'll have a great time!
John (London) said…
To eat: the Tate Modern restaurant on the top floor has great views across the river if you get there early for the best tables.Good food. When I was there they had v. good bottle conditioned ale from the Kernel Brewery which is local. The new wing of the Nationaql Gallery also has a nice restaurant upstairs with good view Trafalgar Square. The centre of Chinese food in London is Gerrard Street which is a short walk from Charing Cross Road which still has several bookshops.
I recmmend 2 interesting pubs: The Harp in Chandos Place off Trafalgar square serves real ale in excellent condition, and the Jerusalem Tavern in Britton Street Clerkenwell is little changed from when it was a coffee house in the 18thC.

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...