A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore...

Pages: Original date of publication: 1929 My copy: 2000 Why I decided to read: Re-read How I acquired my copy: Borders, 2000. A Farewell to Arms has been called one of the best books to come out of WWI. In it, Hemingway loosely fictionalizes his experience working as an ambulance driver on the Italian front, as well as his relationship with Agnes von Kurowsky, a Red Cross nurse he met while recuperating from shrapnel wounds. In A Farewell to Arms , Lieutenant (Tenente) Frederick Henry is a driver in the Italian ambulance corps who develops a relationship with a Scottish VAD nurse, Catherine Barkley. Hemingway’s themes deal with death, women, war and love, all of which of course are present here. There’s a kind of detached unemotionalism about A Farewell to Arms ; even death doesn’t see to faze Henry. Yes, it’s brutal, but the tone of the book reflects the overall themes that play out here. Hemingway’s style is sparse, laconic; he doesn’t use flowery language to de...

Pages: 420 Original date of publication: 1905 My copy: 2000 Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Borders, 2000 The title for the book famously comes from the Ecclesiastes quote, “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.” Lily Bart is possibly Edith Wharton’s most complicated character, and this novel one of the best portrayals of the glitter and cruelty upper class New York society. When the novel opens, Lily is 29 years old, unmarried, and trying to “keep up with the Joneses,” so to speak. Torn between her desire to fit in with society and a desire for a relationship, Lily fits in nowhere. This novel then is the story of her downfall. I first read The House of Mirth in high school, but really didn’t appreciate it the way I do now—or even understand the complexity of the themes that Edith Wharton explores. Reading The Age of Innocence a couple of years ago led to a newfound love for Edith Wharto...

Pages: 218 Original date of publication: 1977 My copy: 1977 (Perennial) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Philly Book Trader, July 2010 Quartet in Autumn centers around four retirement-aged office workers in London: Edwin, Norman, Letty, and Marcia. Edwin, a widower, is a church hopper; Norman, struggles with his anger; Letty’s an eccentric spinster whose childhood friend is set to marry a much younger clergyman; and Marcia, a survivor of a mastectomy. As the story progresses, Letty and Marcia do retire from their jobs (“something vaguely to do with filing”), an occurrence that brings the characters together more than they realize. You might think it’s a depressing novel, but it’s bittersweet in a way. The characters are stuck in a kind of limbo; stuck in the past and remembering how things used to be, but still faced with the decisions they have to make about the future. So it’s interesting to see how each one copes with change in their lives. Pym’s ...

Pages: 297 Original date of publication: 1922 My edition: 1994 (Collier Books) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Philadelphia bookshop, August 2012 The Glimpses of the Moon tells the story of Nick and Suzy Lansing, a young couple who married for neither love nor money—or, rather, they married for money but other people’s. Their bet is to spend a year honeymooning in their rich friends’ houses in France, Venice, and elsewhere; and if one or the other should wish to marry someone else who can advance themselves socially, they will be free to do so. What really happens surprises not the reader but Suzy and Nick. Nick and Suzy are characters who undergo a lot of self-growth. They start out as people who are only concerned with living in the moment; and enjoying life, or their perception of it, as much as they possibly can. They both come to realize that there’s much more to life than what appears on the surface. Their growth is pretty predictable, but it’...

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: 588 Original date of publication: 1853 My edition: 2001 (Modern Library) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Border, 2001 I tried reading Villette once, a number of years ago. I got about halfway through and stopped; maybe I wasn’t old enough to appreciate it very much. About a year and a half ago, when I moved into my apartment, I came across my copy and threw it on TBR Mountain, “to read sometime in the future.” Villette , as is Jane Eyre , is based on personal experience: Charlotte Bronte famously spent a year teaching English in Brussels. The novel is set in the fictional country of Labassecours, based on Belgium (at first I thought the setting of the book was some extension of Angria, the kingdom she and her siblings created when they were children). Lucy Snowe comes to Villette from England in search of a job and almost accidentally ends up at the door of Madame Beck’s pensione, or school for young ladies, where she initially gets a job as ...

Pages: 224 Original date of publication: 1959 My edition: 2000 (New Directions Classic) Why I decided to read: pre-reading for Muriel Spark Reading Week, April 23-29 How I acquired my copy: Joseph Fox bookshop, Philadelphia, February 2012 In Mememto Mori , a group of senior citizens unite after a mysterious person keeps calling to say, “remember you must die.” The phone calls are secondary to the plot, but they serve as a catalyst to the rest of the story, which involves love affairs, blackmail, and death for some. In a novel where “young” is someone in their 50s, everyone is obsessed with life, death, age, aging, and everything that comes with those things. At the ages that these characters are, they can’t help BUT remember that they will, at some point, die. There’s a neat technique to this novel in which, although the bulk of the story takes place in 1950s London, there are shifts back to things that happened in the 1920s and the turn of the century, so it’s interesting to see how t...

Pages: 320 Original date of publication: 1958 My edition: 2001 (Vintage Classics) Why I decided to read: it’s on the list of 1001 Books to Read Before You Die How I acquired my copy: The Strand, NYC, July 2011 The Bell is set in the lay community belonging to Imber Abbey, home to an order of sequestered nuns. The Abbey is about to get a new bell, a time-honored symbol of standing witness. At the same time, there’s a legend about the old, medieval bell, which is said to ring when death approaches. Imber Court contains a variety of complicated people: Paul Greenfield, whose wife, Dora, comes back to him after running away; Michael Meade, the head of the community, who has an unpleasant history with Nick Fawley; Nick’s sister Catherine, who is about to enter the religious order, and Toby, a teenage boy who becomes involved with Michael Meade. Although it’s only February, I can tell that this is going to be one of my top reads for 2012. I loved every bit of this book from start to finish....

Pages: 233 Original date of publication: 1932 My edition: 2006 (Penguin) Why I decided to read: It’s on the list of 1001 books to read before you die How I acquired my copy: Waterstone’s, Piccadilly, London, September 2011 A tongue-in-cheek satire, Cold Comfort Farm is a novel about a young woman named Flora Poste, who goes to live with her cousins, the Starkadder family, on their farm in Sussex. It’s a cast of characters, to be sure: Judith and Amos, and their children, Seth, Reuben, and Elfine; and a host of others, including the reclusive Aunt Ada Doom, who hasn’t left her room in 20 years because she saw something nasty in the woodshed when she was a child. One by one, Flora takes on each member of the family, acting as a sort of fairy godmother, especially to Elfine. It’s a funny novel, but not overtly so. For example, I loved the part where Mr Mybug (not really his name, but no matter) regales Flora with his theory about Branwell Bronte being the author of Wuthering Heights. In ...

Pages: 315 Original date of publication: 1847 My edition: 1981 (Bantam Classics) Why I decided to read: Re-read; first read summer 2002 How I acquired my copy: Barnes and Noble, summer 2002 I first read this in 2002, when I did an internship in Chicago and went on a classics reading kick that summer, and this book was one of them ( Vanity Fair and Bleak House were two of the “loose baggy monsters” I read that summer). Although I’d read Charlotte’s Jane Eyre several times in school, Wuthering Heights was, for some reason, never on any of the syllabi for any of the classes I took (and English was my major!). Wuthering Heights is a complicated novel, and it probably says a lot about Emily Bronte herself. The novel is melodramatic at times, and it contains two narrators: an old former family servant and a near neighbor, neither of whom is an observant or reliable narrator (at the beginning of the book, Mr. Lockwood thinks that a pile of dead rabbits is a cat). Emily Bronte had a wildl...

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: 366 Original date of publication: 1920 My edition: 1992 (Collier) Why I decided to read: the 1001 Books to Read Before you Die list How I acquired my copy: the Philadelphia Book Trader, March 2011 “In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done of even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs…” (Ch. 6). Newland Archer is a member of upper-crust, Gilded Age New York Society, about to marry May Welland, a naive heiress. He becomes attracted to May’s cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, back in New York after disgracing herself. Part of her attraction for Newland is the fact that she is so free-spirited, and so a struggle ensues: will Newland choose the conventional path with May, or will he flaunt society’s expectations of him and choose the Countess? Edith Wharton’s observations of Gilded Age New York are extremely incisive; although she was a part of the society she wrote about, she was nevertheless able to ...

Pages: 624 Original date of publication: 1847 My edition: 2010 (Vintage) Why I decided to re-read: the film adaptation inspired me to re-read this book How I acquired my copy: Borders, Mach 2011 Oh, Jane Eyre , how do I love thee? The first time I read this book was in middle school; then I read it twice in high school and once in college. The recent movie adaptation inspired me to re-read this book after an eight-year gap since my last reading. I won’t go into the plot since it’s one of those plots that most people in the English-speaking world seem to know (even if they haven’t read the book), and one of those plots that resonates throughout English literature. Suffice it to say that Jane Eyre is one of those books that stands up to the test of time well—not just historically but personally as well. It captured my imagination as a teenager; and, as I’ve been dealing with some recent emotional disappointment, there are some quotes in Jane Eyre that really seemed ...

Pages: 288 Original date of publication: 1929 My edition: 1980 (The Dial Press) Why I decided to read: read this for Virago Reading Week How I acquired my copy: The Philly Book Trader, October 2010 Man, this is a weird one, one I don’t quite know how to describe; and maybe it went over my head a bit too much! This novel tells the story of the relationship between two people: the free-spirited musician Harriet, who lives in a lopsided house in London, and her lover, Arnold, a politician The story takes their relationship/friendship through many years, at which they meet up periodically. This was a very, very slow read for me, and one I didn’t enjoy very much. Part of my problem with this book was Rebecca West’s writing style; the only way I can describe it is bizarre! For example: “But the governess had turned her gaze on them, and had on seeing the marks of deep emotion on the faces made a long leap through the ether to some universe thickly upholstered with seducti...

Pages: 320 Original date of publication: 1958 My edition: 1999 (Back Bay Books) Why I decided to read: I was inspired to read it after reading Bright Young People How I acquired my copy: Local library sale, November 2009 I bought this book a year ago, after a member on Shelfari recommended it to me. It came back on my radar after reading Bright Young People, DJ Taylor’s biography of the Bright Young things of 1920s English society. Vile Bodies is a parody of that group, and several characters in this book are clearly exaggerated versions of real people that Evelyn Waugh knew. Our main character, Adam Fenwick-Symes, is clearly a projection of Waugh, on the fringe of the society that he writes about. Vile Bodies is a very funny, highly stylized version of 1920s and ‘30s society. On one hand, these are highly glamorous people Waugh is writing about; on the other, they’re superficial and empty. As with most satirical writing, this book tends to be very over-the-top at t...

Pages: 177 Original date of publication: 1853 My edition: 2009 (Barnes and Noble) Why I decided to read: I watched the BBC miniseries of Cranford last winter and loved it How I acquired my copy: Barnes and Noble, February 2010 Last winter, I rented Cranford , the BBC miniseries (starring Judi Dench), from Netflix—and that got me interested in the book on which that’s based. The book is a series of vignettes about the ladies of the town of Cranford, many of whom are elderly spinsters like Miss Matty Jenkyns and her sister Deborah, or Miss Pole (much as I tried not to, I kept seeing Judi Dench and Imelda Staunton in the roles of Miss Matty and Miss Pole). This short story differs significantly from the miniseries; the miniseries focuses a lot on the encroachment of the railways on the town of Cranford, and there’s a romantic subplot going on there. The book is much more centered on the middle-aged and elderly ladies of the town, as seen through a semi-outsider, Miss ...

Silk is a short novel—so short that I finished reading it within the space of an hour two. It’s the story of Herve Joncour, a French merchant of silkworm eggs, who travels to Japan. While there, his attention is caught by a young woman, with whom he has an affair. As I’ve said, this is a pretty short novella—my edition is only about 90 pages, most of which is white space. There are lots of short chapters in this book, lots of short sentences, ideas half realized. The love affair between Herve and the young woman in Japan is so muted and mysterious that it’s nearly indiscernible. There’s not much characterization, so we don’t ever really get to know Herve or any of the other characters in this book (his love interest isn’t even given a name!). This makes it very hard for the reader, in the end, to really care about the characters—or the love story. For such a short book, there’s a lot of repetition, too; the author mentions over and over again how Herve’s paramour doesn’t have oriental...

The Remains of the Day is a hard book to describes. Ostensibly about an aging butler who’s given a few days off to tour the English countryside, there are many, many layers to this complicated novel. Stevens is the prototype of the repressed butler who has a preoccupation with maintaining one’s “dignity.” Being a butler is not simply a job; it’s a way of life. Stevens’s relationship with the lively housekeeper Miss Kenton is shaky, and Stevens prides himself on the way he deals with her. His obsession with being the “perfect” servant is a little unsettling at times, and there was nothing in his behavior that I could sympathize with, but in all this is a wonderful psychological study of a man who essentially doesn’t have a life of his own. I've never seen the movie, but as soon as I read this book, I added it to my Netflix queue. Also reviewed by: Semicolon , Books 'N Border Collies , A Guy's Moleskin Notebook , Books I Done Read

On New Year’s Eve, Lord Peter Wimsey is driving through the East Anglia countryside, when a flat tire causes him to stop in a local village. The village bell ringers are about to perform, and Wimsey fills in for one of the ringers who can come down with the flu. The nine tailors of the title are the nine bells that are rung upon someone’s death; you can tell that Sayers did her research on bell ringing for this book, since most of the beginning of the novel focuses on campanology. When a local man dies several months later, and his grave is dug, it’s discovered that there’s already a dead body in that grave—the body of an unknown man who was seen tramping about the countryside in January by Lord Peter himself. Who is the strange man? It’s a mystery that stumps even Lord Peter, and it’s pretty ingenious—read it and see for yourself. Dorothy Sayers’s novels are such a treat because she really knew how to pull a mystery together—she won’t kill off one of her characters simply because she ...

So many people have written a review of this book already that I think it would be a little redundant of me to do another plot summary (yawn). Suffice it to say that the plot really revolves around three characters: Briony Tallis, who’s thirteen in the summer of 1935, her sister Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the charlady’s son, who conducts an illicit romance with her. The novel is written in four parts, taking place in 1935, the Battle of Dunkirk during WWII, at a hospital in London, and then in 1999 when Briony turns 77. I have to say that I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would. I’d heard that the book was slow to begin with, but for me that wasn’t the case at all. Rather, it was when the novel got to WWII where my interest began to flag a bit (I’m sorry, but endless descriptions of warfare are uninteresting to me). The novel is all about perspective: that of thirteen-year-old Briony as she truly doesn’t understand what was going on at the fountain that day; that of Robb...