Skip to main content

The Sunday Salon


I can’t believe it’s already March—so much has been going on and I’ve been so busy lately! I’m still taking two courses on top of work, so I’ve been spending my evenings and weekends doing coursework—my classes “meet” online on Tuesdays and Wednesday and then I usually have several hours of work on top of that.

Although I’ve been so busy, I’ve still been reading a lot—I’m currently reading another Virago Modern Classic, The Weather in the Streets (Rosamond Lehmann), which is a sequel of sorts to Invitation to the Waltz. February was a busy reading month; in 29 days I finished ten books. I haven’t had that much time for blogging, but I’ve been writing and posting reviews, which should appear here over the next few weeks. In April I’ll be participating in Muriel Spark Reading Week and I’ve got three choices: Aiding and Abetting, Loitering With Intent, and a lesser-known one: Territorial Rights, set in Venice, which might just be perfect.

Like I imagine a lot of you, since the end of season 2 of Downton Abbey, I’ve been in Downton Abbey withdrawal. In lieu of it, I’ve been watching Lark Rise to Candleford, a series based on a novel/memoir about a young girl who goes to work in the post office of a small (to us) English village in the late 19th century. One of the stars of the miniseries is Brendan Coyle, who played Mr Bates in Downton Abbey, so if you’re looking for a temporary fix to Downton, Lark rise to Candleford might just be the perfect fix. Also on my Netflix instant queue is, of course, the first season of Upstairs, Downstairs (why oh why don’t they have every season on instant?), so I’ve been rewatching that as well.

How has your year been going so far?

Comments

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...