A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore...

Pages: 297 Original date of publication: 1931 My edition: 1983 Why I decided to read: read it for All Virago/All August How I acquired my copy: from a LT user, July 2011 Lady Slane has spent seventy years living in the shadow of her husband, a venerated statesman and former Prime Minister. When Henry, the Earl of Slane, dies, Lady Slane retreats to a country house in Hampstead, much to the constrnation of her children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. There, in the company of her aging maid, landlord, handyman, and an eccentric millionaire, she revisits the her past, in which she harbored a secret ambition to become an artist—abandoned in order to embrace the Victorian ideals of wifehood and motherhood. It’s a wonderfully whimsical novel; one day Lady Slane buries her husband in Westminster Abbey, then two days later she’s taking the Tube out to Hampstead! I loved the characters in this novel; they’re all so whimsical. I mean, what estate agent would leave a ho...

It’s another Sunday! I’ve been busy this weekend, preparing for vacation starting on Friday: cleaning and laundry, and some preliminary packing. My sister and I are going to London and York for ten days, and the more I research, the more excited I get about this trip! We are spending two days in London before we hop on a train to York for three, and then back down to London for the rest of the time. It’ll be fun to get back there and explore: the museums, theater, food (I’ve been craving Indian food all week), and of course book shopping! I think the first place we’re stopping is the Persephone shop; I can’t wait to get back! I also look forward to getting back to the British Museum, which I visited twice on my last trip and only managed to scratch the surface of. We’re going to be seeing Much Ado About Nothing at the new Globe Theatre—a play I’ve read and seen the movie of, but never actually seen performed. I don’t plan on bringing many books on vacation with me, because I anti...

Sometimes I feel like the only person I know who finds reading history fascinating. It’s so full of amazing-yet-true stories of people driven to the edge and how they reacted to it. I keep telling friends that a good history book (as opposed to some of those textbooks in school that are all lists and dates) does everything a good novel does–it grips you with real characters doing amazing things. Am I REALLY the only person who feels this way? When is the last time you read a history book? Historical biography? You know, something that took place in the past but was REAL. I read a lot of history! As a former history major, every now and then I’ll read some popular history, or biography. I’m currently reading Letters From Egypt, letters that Lucie Duff Gordon sent home from Egypt in the mid-19th century. I do enjoy reading historical nonfiction, but I probably only read about one such book a month. I also read memoirs; a couple of books ago I read Myself When Young , Daphne Du M...

Pages: 308 Original date of publication: 1908 My edition: 1998 (Bantam) Why I decided to read: re-red of an old favorite How I acquired my copy: Amazon, July 2011 Anne of Green Gables is a book that’s obviously a classic. Everyone knows the story of Anne, Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, Anne’s “bosom” friend Diana, and Gilbert, and it was a pleasure to re-read this book—inspired by recently reading The Heroine’s Bookshelf , a collection of essays about life lessons learned from fictional characters. The lesson to be leaned from Anne is happiness—despite her circumstance as an unloved, unwanted orphan, she can still use her imagination to see her situation in a positive light. Anne could easily come across as too sugary-sweet for most people, but I think her optimism is refreshing. What I’d forgotten about the book is how much time passes in the course of the story—Anne is twelve when she arrives at Green Gables, and sixteen or thereabout when she finishes school. So there’s a lot of cha...

Pages: 458 Original date of publication: 2011 My edition: 2011 (Crown) Why I decided to read: I’ve enjoyed the author’s previous books How I acquired my copy: Amazon, June 2011 Set in the court of Louis XIV, the Sun King, this novel follows the early period of his relationship with Louise del la Baume le Blanc, who comes to court as a teenager. Louis develops a close relationship with his brother’s wife, Henriette (younger sister of Charles II of England!); and to create a decoy and keep scandal from happening, Louise agrees to an affair with the King. I expected this novel to be primarily about Louise, so I was disappointed in that regard. It’s told from many different points of view: Louis, Philippe, even the story of the Man in the Iron Mask comes into play, which really added nothing to the main story. The author’s depiction of Louis’s character is very story, but I didn’t quite get what we’re supposed to see in Louise. As a character, she didn’t come across as strongly as some of ...

Pages: 285 Original date of publication: 1941 My edition: 1990 (Virago Modern Classics) Why I decided to read: read it for All Virago/All August How I acquired my copy: Ebay, June 2010 Set in an Irish convent school in the early years of the 20th century, The Land of Spices is a novel that covers the school career of Anna Murphy, who comes to Compagnie de la Sainte Famille at the ago of six. She attracts the attention of the Reverend Mother, an Englishwoman who watches Anna from afar during the eight or ten years that Anna remains at the school. I’ve had good luck and bad with Kate O’Brien’s novels; I disliked The Ante Room but loved Mary Lavelle. The Land of Spices falls into the “love” category for me. I wasn’t sure that a novel set in a convent school would be my cup of tea, but the novel in a greater sense is about human relationships, not just religion and spiritually. It’s also obviously a coming of age novel, about how one girl changes and adapts to her surroundings, even thoug...

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: • Grab your current read • Open to a random page • share two “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page Be sure NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) • Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers! “Outside the hen-house (which had been built years long ago for fowls too choice to lodge with the commoner of their species) , the July sun stared hotly down, bringing out the smells of tarred felt and the faint choking incense of the nettles that grew round lush and high. Easter and Evelyn stepped through them cautiously, going single file down the little beaten path that led from this secret spot of theirs back to the more vulgar haunts of man.” --From Mad Puppetstown , by Molly Keane