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Happy November! Just a quick list (no commentary) for this week’s books recap—my weekend is running away again.
Family Read-Alouds:
I finished The Search for Delicious. The kids were glued to every page. Stay tuned for a Periscope in which I will discuss what book I chose for our next read-aloud and how I arrived at this choice. I’ll also talk a little bit about how I approach character voices.
Speaking of doing voices, Scott just started reading the first Harry Potter book to Rilla. His Dumbledore is magnificent.
This Orq (He Cave Boy) by David Elliott. We received a copy of this book from a friend at Boyds Mills Press and it became an instant hit. I booktalked it on Periscope on Thursday, if you’d like to hear more about why we fell in love with it. (The link will take you to katch.me where my scopes are archived, or you can scroll to the bottom of this post and watch the replay there.)
I’ve launched a series on Periscope. I’m calling it “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something True” — this will be a regular feature in which I do my favorite thing: talk about books. A family favorite (that’s the “old”), a new gem, a library book, and a nonfiction title. I tried out the format last week and I think it’s going to work nicely! Here’s the first installment. I’ll announce future editions here and on Twitter.
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Our past few weeks have been a swirl of doctor appointments and deadlines. I had to skip a few of my weekly Books We’ve Read roundups because usually I put them together on weekends, and my last three weekends were quite full! Three weeks’ worth of books is too many for one post, but I’ll share a few particular standouts…and next Sunday I’ll be back on track with my regular “this week in books.”
Mordant’s Wish by Valerie Coursen: a family favorite, now sadly out of print (but available used). This is a sweet story with a chain-reaction theme. Mordant the mole sees a cloud shaped like a turtle and wishes on a dandelion for a real turtle friend. The windblown seeds remind a passing cyclist of snow, prompting him to stop for a snow cone—which drips on the ground in the shape of a hat, reminding a passing bird that his dear Aunt Nat (who wears interesting hats) is due for a visit…and so on. All my children have felt deeply affectionate about this book. The domino events are quirky and unpredictable, and the wonderful art provides lots of clues to be delighted in during subsequent reads. If your library has it, put it on your list for sure.
Sloth Slept On by Frann Preston-Gannon. Review copy provided by publisher. A strange, snoozing beast shows up in the backyard, and the kids don’t know what it is. They ask around but the adults are busy, so they hit the books in search of answers. All the while, the sloth sleeps on. The fun of the book lies in the bold, appealing art, and in the humor of the kids’ earnest search unfolding against a backdrop of clues as to the mysterious creature’s identity. Huck enjoyed the punchline of the ending.
Possum Magic by Mem Fox, illustrated by Julie Vivas. I’ve had this book since before I had children to read it to: it was one of the picture books I fell in love with during my grad-school part-time job at a children’s bookstore. Fox and Vivas are an incomparable team—it was they who gave us Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, which I described in 2011 as perhaps my favorite picture book of all time, an assertion I’ll stand by today. Possum Magic is the tale of a young Aussie possum whose granny works some bush magic to make her invisible, for protection from predators. Eventually young Hush would like to be visible again, but Grandma Poss can’t quite remember the recipe for the spell. There’s a lot of people food involved (much of it unfamiliar to American readers, which I think is what my kids like best about the book).
Rilla and I finished Dancing Shoes, our last Saturday-night-art-date audiobook. Now we’re a couple of chapters into Swallows and Amazons. She’s a little lukewarm on it so far—so many nautical terms—but I suspect that once the kids get to the island, she’ll be hooked. The Ransome books were particular favorites of Jane’s and I’m happy to see them get another go with my younger set.
After Charlotte’s Web, I chose Natalie Babbitt’s The Search for Delicious as our next dinnertime readaloud (for Huck, Rilla, and Wonderboy). We’re nearing the climax now and oh, this book is every bit as gripping as I remember from childhood. The kingdom is about to erupt in war over the question of what food should define “delicious” in the Royal Dictionary. The queen’s brother is galloping across the kingdom spreading lies and fomenting dissent, and young Gaylen, the messenger charged with polling every citizen for their delicious opinion (a thankless and sometimes dangerous task), has begun to discover the secret history of his land—a secret involving dwarves, woldwellers, a lost whistle, and a mermaid’s doll. So good, you guys.
My literature class (Beanie and some other ninth-grade girls) continues to read short stories; this month we’re discussing Poe’s “The Purloined Letter” and Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” In November we’re doing Around the World in Eighty Days, so I’ve begun pre-re-reading that one in preparation. But I also found myself picking up a book I read, and didn’t get a chance to write about, earlier this year: Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher. The fact that I’ve read it twice in one year is probably all the endorsement I need give: with a TBR pile is taller than the Tower of Babel, I really shouldn’t be spending any time on rereads at all. But there I was stuck in a waiting room, and there it was on my Kindle, calling me. It’s an epistolary novel—you know I love those—consisting of letters (recommendations and other academic correspondence) by a beleaguered, argumentative university writing professor. His letters of recommendation are more candid and conversation than is typical. He’s a seriously flawed individual, and he knows it. But his insights are shrewd, especially when it comes to the challenges besetting the English Department. I thoroughly enjoyed this book on both reads.
Beanie finished Betsy and the Great World and is now reading Betsy’s Wedding (Rose insisted, and I fanned the flames) and Rilla of Ingleside, as our 20th-century history studies take us into World War I. Don’t Know Much About History continues to work quite well for us as a history spine, a topics jumping-off place, especially given the way it is structured: each chapter begins with a question (“Who were the Wobblies?” “What was the Bull Moose Party?”) that serves as a narration hook for us later. Then we range into other texts that explore events in more depth or, as with the Betsy and Rilla books above, provide via narrative a sense of the period. I probably don’t have to tell you I’m pretty excited about getting to include Betsy and Rilla in this study. Rilla of Ingleside is one of my most beloved books. The fact that my youngest daughter’s blog name—which I use nearly as much as I use her real name—is Rilla is probably a good indication of how much this book (and Rainbow Valley) means to me.
My late-September busy-ness put me in a bit of a slump with my sketching progress—it’s really the first time I’ve dropped the ball on my practice since I began just over a year ago. This week I pulled out our Illustration School books (Beanie and Rilla found them under the tree last Christmas) and decided that whenever I feel slumpy, I’ll just pick a page in one of those, or in a 20 Ways to Draw a… book (we have Tree, Cat, and Tulip) and follow those models. It’s an easy way to get some practice in and there’s something satisfying in filling a page with feathers, mushrooms, or rabbits—even when I make mistakes. Which I do. A lot.
This roundup doesn’t include much of the teens’ reading, and nothing from Scott although he has racked up quite a few titles since my last post. I’ll get the older folks in next time. And I suppose it goes without saying that these posts also provide a bit of a window into our homeschooling life, since I try to chronicle all our reading—a large part of which is related to our studies. If you’re curious about what resources we’re using (especially the high-schoolers, about whom I get the most queries via email), you’ll find a lot of that information here.
Speaking of which: any favorite WWI-related historical fiction you’d like to recommend?
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I’m taking Jane back up the coast to college this weekend, so I probably won’t get my Sunday book recap posted. So here’s a (less comprehensive) midweek update instead. This has been a week for finishing, it seems! Charlotte’s Web, Dancing Shoes, and Vanessa and Her Sister.
Huck was furious with E.B. White over Charlotte’s death. FURIOUS. “Why did he have to write it that way?” he stormed. “He could have made it go different.”
In other words, to quote Annie Wilkes from Misery: Cockadoodie.
By the next evening, his ire had subsided a bit. I read the final chapter over dinner (I’ve been feeding Huck and Rilla before the rest of the family, netting a little extra read-aloud time). Listening intently while poking shredded carrots through his bread-and-salami—don’t ask me, I’m just the narrator—he interrupted the penultimate paragraph to say, in a dreamy, Fern-like tone, “But this book should never end. It should go on forever.”
I know that feeling, my boy. Not about this book specifically, I have to admit—knowing what was coming, and knowing that this would likely be the last time I read Charlotte’s Web aloud to my own children, I had a lump in my throat through the final few chapters and it was something of a relief, albeit a bittersweet one, to make it through the Last Day and leave the fairgrounds behind. Goodbye, Charlotte, you good writer and true friend. Goodbye, Charlotte’s daughters.
Goodbye, very odd open-faced sandwich.
The next day, yesterday, presented me with a grave decision. What, pray tell, is the right book to choose after the epochal experience that is Charlotte’s Web? I pondered many options—the Rilla-shelf is, of course, full of possibilities. But this book has big shoes to fill. And a Huck-and-Rilla book is not the same thing as a Rilla-book. I pulled a dozen contenders off the shelf, considering.
At last I made a choice, and judging from the rapt reactions to the prologue and first chapter, it was a good call.
Unlike many (most?) of the books on the Rilla-shelf, this isn’t one I’ve reread a dozen times. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve revisited it since age eleven or so. But I’ve never forgotten it, the impact it had on me—Babbitt does that to one, of course. You never get over Tuck Everlasting. And I’ve never stopped thinking about conflicting perspectives and the strife that can result when people dig in too deeply to an opinion and don’t try to see others’ point of view. A thousand times in my life, I’ve taken a drink of cold water on a hot, thirsty day and flashed back to the cover of this book, or to an illustration near the end. It defined “delicious” for me.
(Hint: it does not involve a sandwich stuck full of carrot bits. But Huck may have a different perspective on that.)
So very hot. We were languid this week and didn’t seem to read as much as usual, but maybe that’s just me. We had a lot of medical appointment stuff happening with Wonderboy and it’s possible I just didn’t do a good job keeping track of what people were reading. A few things, though, absolutely shone.
A Fine Dessert is one of those picture books everyone is talking about this year, for good reason. Four families, four centuries: mothers and daughters in Lyme, England, 1710; on a Charleston, South Carolina plantation, 1810; in Boston, Massachusetts, 1910; and a father and son in—we were all so excited to see the narrative arrive in our own backyard—San Diego, California, 2010. Each pair gathers the necessary ingredients for a most delicious-sounding dessert: blackberry fool. This is a deft and fascinating look at progress and culture: what changes over time, and what stays the same. Rich history, rich dessert: a delicious combination. Naturally, there’s a recipe for the dish in the back of the book—along with informative notes from author and illustrator. Is there a blackberry fool in our future? Absolutely.
Huck really enjoyed Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt. You walk through the year with a grandmother and child, tending the garden and watching the activity of a whole village of little creatures below the soil. Sounds like familiar territory, but this is a new presentation, gorgeously illustrated, and my kids loved watching the below-ground bustle of roly polies, earthworms, and other nibbling creatures.
Land Shark: everyone read it but me! I’ll have to report back later on that one. Seemed to be a hit, though.
Huck devoured Glorkian Warrior—a young graphic novel I’m told is most entertaining. Now, the Mother Goose was a tiny bit of a cheat. This is a much beloved book in my house—a gift from my sister when Jane was born, and considerably tattered from hundreds of readings. Huck knows it more or less by heart. Which is where the cheat comes in: I have a policy of requiring a kid to memorize a poem before he (it is nearly always my youngest who asks) may download a new iPad app. The neighbor kid turned Huck on to some free motorcycle game, but Huck couldn’t add it to our device until he recited a poem for me. He trotted off to the poetry shelf and came back—oh, it must have been seconds—later, triumphantly announcing he’d learned one by heart. Sure, he had. IN THE CRADLE, PRACTICALLY. He rattled off Jack and Jill and hustled away to download his game before I could muster an argument about loopholes. Next time I’ll have to be more specific about which end of the poetry shelf he may draw material from, the scamp.
The Supergirl graphic novel was a Rilla read.
Continued from last week:
I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the last two chapters of Charlotte’s Web. Just the sight of the next chapter title—”Last Day”—got me all choked up. And, you know, this is very likely the last time I will read it aloud to my own children.
Vanessa and Her Sister is so good, you guys! I’m reading pretty slowly, just because I’ve been so busy and I zonk out quickly most nights. But that’s all right because I’m happy to be savoring it slowly. Gorgeous writing. And I took Kortney’s advice and requested Hermione Lee’s Virginia Woolf biography from the library. It arrived and is about three inches thick. It doesn’t seem to be available on Kindle, more’s the pity. All fat books should be available on Kindle.
Beanie reread a bunch of Harry Potter books this week, and I don’t know what everyone else was into. Rilla checked out a stack of library books about the moon. She’s been spouting interesting tidbits at me all week.
I have two more crammed-full weeks ahead of me, and then I hope to get back to posting in between these Sunday book recaps. But for now, I’m just happy I’ve managed to pull this together four weeks in a row!
These graphic novels have wide appeal, as you can see by the range of ages enjoying them at my house—kids ages six through fourteen, this week! One morning this week, I left Huck home with Jane while I took the other kids on an outing. Now, normally Huck would jump at the chance for a whole morning of undivided attention from his big sister, but on this day I returned home to find him sitting on the couch, engrossed in the third Zita book. “The entire time you were gone,” said Jane, answering my inquisitive glance. “He read the whole series, one after the other.” When a six-year-old boy gives up the chance to trounce his grown sister in Mario Kart, you know you’ve got a winning series.
On to picture books. I never manage to track them ALL, because the boys read them in bed at night. You should see the stack on their floor right now. Actually, no you shouldn’t, it’s a mess.
Chester’s Way by Kevin Henkes. Read to: Huck. The Big Green Pocketbook by Candice Ransom, illustrated by Felicia Bond. Read to: Huck. Diary of a Fly by Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Harry Bliss. Read to: Huck.
I wonder how many times I’ve read The Big Green Pocketbook out loud. It never gets old. And I still always choke up at the end!
Beanie and Rilla have been using this book for inspiration and instruction for at least a couple of years now. Seems like it is ALWAYS out on a desk or table beside a pad of paper. Has to be their favorite how-to-draw resource. I’ve been trying to add more pictures to my bullet journal and I decided (inspired by Sailor Mimzy, XX, and XX on Instagram) to try to design chibi figures for our whole family. Naturally I turned to my resident experts for advice. I’m still a rookie compared to my girls, but I’m getting there.
Another beloved graphic novel. Sara Varon illustrated my friend Cecil Castellucci’s wonderful Odd Duck, a great favorite around here. Bake Sale is a quirky story about friendship. Yes, that’s an eggplant and a cupcake making…cupcakes. Rilla almost missed our Saturday night art date because she didn’t want to put this one down. (I’m seeing an absorbing-graphic-novel trend this week.)
I guess I didn’t mention this one last week or the week before, but I should have! This is Rilla’s history spine. We read a couple of chapters a week, with Huck listening in—one of our narration texts. This week was the Trojan War.
Oh, I just love this book so much. I asked Beanie to reread it as context for our early 20th-century studies. Betsy’s tour of Europe involves a romance in Venice, a long stay in Germany, and a hurried departure for home from England when the Great War begins. The final chapters involve one of my favorite moments in all of literature. I mean that without any hyperbole at all. It’s even better than the end of Pride and Prejudice.
Dancing Shoes by Noel Streatfeild. Read by: Wonderboy (in progress).
This book makes the list twice this week! Rilla and I are still listening to the audiobook (below) during our Saturday-night art dates. I pulled out the hard copy to check how much we had left, and Wonderboy wanted to read it. He’s slowly making his way through. Fun fact about the edition pictured here: I’m pretty sure this was the first book I ever wrote cover copy for.
Storm Thief by Chris Wooding. Read by: me (in progress).
Rose asked me to read this—one of her favorite books. I’m only a chapter in so far, but it’s gripping. I’ll report back later.
My bedtime Kindle reading is this fictionalized tale of Virginia Woolf and her sister, as told by Vanessa. So far: fascinating and fraught. After I finished To the Lighthouse I was hungry for background on Woolf, and I found this in my queue of digital review copies. Perfect timing. More to come on this one too, I’m sure.
Books Continued from Last Week:
Notes:
Beanie’s lit class (which I teach) finished a two-week discussion of An Old-Fashioned Girl. Alcott is so funny—this is such a heavy-handed, moralistic book, quite preachy in places, with absolutely zero subtlety in its contrast of simple, wholesome, “old-fashioned” ways of bringing up children (especially girls) and the unhealthy “modern” practices she observed in the middle- and upper-middle class East Coast society of her day. And yet…despite the many anvils she drops all over the place, I am drawn in, I get wrapped up in the characters’ ups and downs. My group of 14-year-old girls found much to discuss in the contrasting upbringings of Fanny and Polly, and in the vision Alcott paints of a “future woman”—”strong-minded, strong-hearted, strong-bodied, strong-souled,” she says—envisioning us, the girls and women of generations to come.
Next up for this group: Sarah Orne Jewett.
We’re nearing the end of Charlotte’s Web—too soon, too soon! When we left off, the crickets were singing about the end of summer, and everyone’s preparing for the county fair. “Summer is over and gone,” sang the crickets. Good-bye, summer, good-bye, goodbye!”
Here are the things I have been reading instead of stuff I could be writing about here:
After I came back from my trip — actually, there are a couple of books I read while I was away that I have yet to post about–I reread Kate Ross’ Julian Kestrel books. If you like historical mysteries, anything set during the Regency era, upper class amateur detectives, or historical novels written in the ’90s (this is absolutely its own category), you will probably like these. If you aren’t particularly interested in any of those things, you might like them anyway. They’re really good.
Julian Kestrel is a dandy with a mysterious past. Everyone in 1820s London knows who he is, but no one knows very much about him. His valet, Dipper, was a pickpocket who tried to steal Julian’s wallet shortly after his arrival in London, and against whom Julian decided not to press charges. The mystery stuff starts when Julian, during a stay at a friend’s country house, finds a dead body in his bed. That’s in Cut to the Quick, which also introduces us to Dr. Duncan McGregor, a crotchety local doctor who becomes one of Julian’s best friends. Next comes A Broken Vessel, in which Dipper’s sister Sally gets Julian involved in a death at a reformatory for prostitutes. In Whom the Gods Love, a distraught father enlists Julian’s help in discovering the murderer of his son (who, unsurprisingly, turns out to be much less perfect than anyone had thought. The fourth book, The Devil in Music, finds Julian, Dipper, and McGregor in Italy, where they investigate the death of Marchese Lodovico Malvezzi, recently discovered to be a murder.
Sadly, that’s all there is, except for a couple of short stories. Kate Ross died in 1998. Maybe that’s easier to deal with when you know going into the series that you’re going to be left hanging?
Anyway, the books are great. Julian is cool and mysterious, the supporting characters are always fun, and the mysteries are fun to read even when you know how they end. I read the whole series every few years, and this reread was particularly fun because I realized exactly how deeply the books have embedded themselves in my brain. There are so many lines that I think about all the time without thinking consciously about where they come from.
Other than that, I read a couple more Georgette Heyers that I picked up at that library book sale, and now I’m reading A.S. Byatt’s The Children’s Book, which…so far totally okay, I guess? I have a difficult relationship with modern novels, but I like Posession a lot. I found a copy of The Children’s Book lying on the sidewalk, so I picked it up and took it home. A lot of it is interesting, and it intersects with bits of history I like, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll finish it.
I absolutely adore these books! It’s so sad that there aren’t more. But you’ve intrigued me with your mention of “a couple of short stories”. Please, please, could you (would you) give us details? I don’t think I knew about them or have read them.
Melody said, on 12/13/2011 7:22:00 AM
I actually only found out about them recently. There are two, in two separate anthologies. One is about Julian Kestrel and the other features an 18th century female detective. I’ve ordered both books for my mom for Christmas, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to read them pretty soon.
Teresa said, on 12/15/2011 5:41:00 AM
So great that you remember Julian Kestrel – 2nd time in a couple weeks he has been plugged – the other one was in another blog talking about favorite historical fiction males (http://janetility.com/?p=396#comments) – also recommended another favorite of mine the Sebastian St Cyr books. Glad that Ross books are not forgotten.
Melody said, on 12/15/2011 12:09:00 PM
Thanks for the link — Julian Kestrel is one of my favorite men in historical fiction, too, so I should probably check out the others on her list.
anshika said, on 12/27/2011 12:10:00 AM
These sound really fun. Is he like a Regency Wimsey?
I feel like my reading has been kind of scattered and unfocused lately. So, this week I finished the Georgette Heyer book I started last weekend. Then I read half of Charles Brockden Brown’s Jane Talbot, which I’m reviewing for the Classics Circuit’s Gothic Lit tour later this month. Then I read a chunk of one of Carolyn Wells’ lesser children’s books, The Story of Betty, which I ready in bite-sized chunks because it’s falling apart and I can’t take it anywhere. Then I reread the first couple of chapters of The Contested Castle, which is a really enjoyable analysis of Gothic literature in relation to the ideal of the home. It’s already been helpful in relation to Jane Talbot — I wasn’t really seeing how it was Gothic, but now I’m having an easier time picking out the relevant themes.
ETA: I’m not sure what it says that I read Harold Bell Wright’s The Eyes of the World yesterday and completely forgot about it.
One nice thing about doing these weekly posts is that it helps me actually keep track of what I’m reading. But then there are weeks like this, where all I have to offer is the fact that I reread half of Georgette Heyer’s The Convenient Marriage this morning, and it’s just kind of embarassing. What can I say? There have been numerous distractions this week.
But here, have some dark and blurry photographs of things I bought at a library book sale yesterday:
I don’t spend all my time at book sales, I promise. It’s just that one of the libraries in my area has been running a ook sale out of a side room on alternate weekends or something, while another had a big booksale fundraiser thing this weekend.
The pictures are terrible, but yes, that is a stack of twelve Georgette Heyer paperbacks on the left. I’ve read all of them, I think, but I didn’t own any of them. And I left at least as many behind.
On the other side we have…hmmm. There’s a book by Katherine Cecil Thurston, an early 20th century bestseller whose books I’ve never read. There’s a copy of Rupert of Hentzau, because I didn’t have a nice one. There’s one of the Lillian Elizabeth Roy Polly and Eleanor books, which are pretty great and which I should write about at some point. That skinny white thing is by Annie Hamilton Donnell, and the second thing from the top is something randomly entertaining-looking by Mabel Dana Lyon (anyone familiar with her?). And the last one is someting by Grace Livingston Hill, who should have appeared on this blog before but hasn’t.
Grace Livingston Hill has moments of awesome– I loved both Aunt Crete’s Emancipation and Cloudy Jewel. Although they’re both Rescue-The-Spinster stories, the non-standard rescue makes them both worth it, and the period details in Cloudy Jewel were perfect.
Also love Polly & Eleanor for their moments of borderline incoherence, really loved Donnell’s “Rebecca Mary”, and I thought Mabel Dana Lyon was a pulp writer, but now I suspect I’m conflating her with someone else.
Mel said, on 10/2/2011 7:25:00 PM
My virtual slush pile has most of those authors in it, and I already worked my way through the Polly & Eleanor stories. And now I want to revisit Heyer–she was a big fave of my grandmother so I read a lot of her books when I was quite young. And since I read her years before I read any Jane Austen, when I finally stepped in to Jane’s world, it felt very familiar!
Cathlin said, on 10/2/2011 9:37:00 PM
I love Grace Livingston Hill books. My favorites are Cloudy Jewel, A Daily Rate, and The Seventh Hour. I really like it when the Wicked Person is killed off but allowed to repent at the last minute.
I remember reading Georgette Heyer’s The Convenient Marriage when I was quite young and not really understanding it. I’ve never read anything of hers since, but maybe I should.
I just downloaded the Katherine Cecil Thurston books from Project Gutenberg. They look quite promising.
threeundertwo said, on 10/3/2011 1:53:00 PM
Who on earth actually gave up her Georgette Heyer books? :)
Great finds.
Melody said, on 10/4/2011 7:41:00 AM
Cloudy Jewel is the one I just bought, and now I’m excited about spinsters. The two books of hers I’ve read have had young, not terribly interesting heroines.
Polly and Eleanor are kind of great, aren’t they? Half the time they’re more sophisticated than you would expect and the other half they’re completely nonsensical.
The Lyon book appears to be about a woman who marries into a snooty family and reforms them? It sounded pretty entertaining.
Melody said, on 10/4/2011 7:44:00 AM
I read the first few Polly & Eleanors a few years back, and really liked them. I’m looking forward to revisiting them.
Heyer is pretty great–I wouldn’t have wanted to read her books before Austen’s, but I’ve yet to meet anyone who dislikes her books.
Melody said, on 10/4/2011 7:49:00 AM
Cloudy Jewel is the one I just bought, and you’re the second person to list it as a favorite, so I’m pretty excited.
Georgette Heyer is a lot of fun. The Convenientr Marriage is atypical, since it’s Georgian, not Regency, but I like it a lot. My favorite of Heyer’s books are probably Cotillion, Black Sheep, and Powder and Patch (another Georgian one). Other peoples’ favorites often seem to be Cotillion, These Old Shades (same plot as Ethel M. Dell’s Charles Rex), Arabella, and The Grand Sophy (which sort of creeps me out sometimes). (So Cotillion is pretty great)
Melody said, on 10/4/2011 7:50:00 AM
They’re really fun copies, too–they seem to be from the late sixties or thereabouts, and the cover illustrations are hilariously dated.
Elaine said, on 10/4/2011 4:40:00 PM
Cloudy Jewel has a strong Christian theme going through most of it, and Julia herself totally comes off as weirdly manipulative in places, but it’s still a fun read. I don’t know Hill’s background, but both Cloudy Jewel and Aunt Crete have a strong “Fanny Fern”* feel– as if maybe Hill was familiar with being treated as the family workhorse, and dreamed of the day when someone would rescue her. There’s definitely a lot of emotion in
P&E – The whole God / good thing in the New York book was bizarre, but funny.
* How many stories did Fanny Fern write about a struggling widowed mother abandoned by her family, only to be lionized by then when she became a successful author?
Elaine said, on 10/4/2011 4:41:00 PM
whoops. “There’s definitely a lot of emotion in the way she tells about Crete & Julia’s lives with their families.”
Let’s see. I started the week with Samuel Hopkins Adams’ The Clarion, of which I have have a review written out in the kind of messy handwriting that results from trying to write on a moving train. Then I continued with Adams and read The Unspeakable Perk, which was pretty awesome.
That brings me to Friday. On my train into the city I reread Josephine Tey’s To Love and Be Wise, which I hadn’t read in enought years that I’d forgotten most of what happened in it–except, unfortunately, the soluion of the mystery. So that was enjoyable. Saturday I reread Roast Beef, Medium. It’s funny to think how recently I read it for the first time, because I’ve already lost count of how many times I’ve gone back to it. The same goes for the Torchy books. After that, I read a Nero Wolfe mystery, The Final Deduction, and followed it up with In the Best Families, which I had read once before but had not allowed myself to read again until now. It’s sort of one of the most emotionally engaging mystery novels I know, although I also think I’m being kind of crazy when I say that.
Have you read “Brat Farrar”? For me that is her most enthralling, in particular the character of Simon. For plot, I’d go for “The Franchise Affair”, and even the history/detective one “The Daughter of Time” is a clever conceit well carried off. Rather an under-rated writer, I think……
Melody said, on 9/26/2011 2:39:00 PM
Brat Farrar, The Daughter of Time, and The Franchise Affair are generally supposed to be her best, and I’ve reread them all more times than I can count. I also have a huge soft spot for The Singing Sands. There are things about Josephine Tey that weird me out a little, but she’s definitely one of my favorite writers.
Mel said, on 9/26/2011 6:17:00 PM
Sounds like you liked “The Unspeakable Perk” more than I did. I didn’t hate it or anything, but I said when I first read it, it had too many of those moments where you just want to punch a character for their inconsistency, or for their inconstancy. But it was still engaging and threaded through with a bit of mystery, even though I’d consider it mainly a romance. I ended up thinking it was slightly up the scale from “okay”. And I loved the opening scenes.
heidenkind said, on 9/27/2011 9:09:00 PM
I’ve heard some very good things about Tey’s books, but haven’t had a chance to read one yet.
Melody said, on 9/28/2011 4:47:00 AM
I sort of agree with you. It wasn’t particularly consistent, and out of the SHA books I’ve read, it’s the least good, but it was also incredibly charming, and mostly lots of fun.
Melody said, on 9/28/2011 4:52:00 AM
She’s so good, except for the xenophobia, and the classism, and the judging people by their looks, etc. I don’t know that I like Tey’s worldview very much, but her writing and her characters are great. I think the first one of her books that I read was The Daughter of Time, which is about Tey’s detective, Alan Grant, investigating a historical mystery from his hospital bed. I think either that or Brat Farrar — the story of an extremely sympathetic impostor trying to defraud an equally sympathetic family — is the best one to start with.
It hasn’t been a big reading week for me–I finished My Side of the Mountain, which was fun, dragged to a halt on the Dresden Files thing, reread A.E.W. Mason’s The Prisoner in the Opal, of which a review will be forthcoming once I figure out how to write it, and reread The Way of an Eagle, which may actually have been more fun the second time around.
I’ve also been watching silent movies–The Sheik, a couple of Biograph shorts, and now, in installments, The Birth of a Nation. I thought I’d seen the latter before, but I’ve realized that I only saw a part of it–probably less than an hour. Anyway, I’m wondering whether I ought to be reviewing these movies, since they’re in the public domain and available for free online. I’m not sure if I know how to review movies.
I’m trying out a new thing: weekly reading updates, to be posted on Sundays and to include all of the books I’ve been reading, regardless of whether they’re old, out of copyright, etc.
For most of the past week, I’ve been making my way through Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files books, a series about a wizard/private detective living in a Chicago overrun with fairies and demons and things. The books are, to be honest, not that great, and there are a lot more of them than I initially thought, but I’m determined to make my way through them. I’m on book five now.
Saturday I went to a book sale at my local library and bought kind of a lot.
In pile A:
River at Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston. I’ve never read any of this series, but I am pretty fond of children’s timeslip novels.
Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen. I recently reread this whole series and found it fascinating, but I never owned a copy of any of the books. And I’m hoping to make my brother read them.
My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George. Like Hatchet, a survival book, although it’s one with a very different feel. And I’d been wanting to reread this for years.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare. This is a childhood favorite that I haven’t read since I was in elementary school. Speare, incidentally, is the athor of my favorite children’s survival story, The Sign of the Beaver.
Pastoral, by Nevil Shute. I know nothing about the book itself, but Nevil Shute is the author of Trustee from the Toolroom, so I have a slight suspicion that he can do no wrong.
In pile B:
Greenwillow, by B.J. Chute. I hear this was made into a musical. The description on the back sounds a bit weird. Mostly, I got this because the tiny paperback was adorable.
Pam Decides, by Bettina von Hutton. This is a frivolous-looking novel from 1906, and therefore very appealing to me. I learned when I got home that it’s a sequel to another book, Pam. So I guess I’ll have to read that first.
The Lttle Minister, by J.M. Barrie. I probably bought this mostly because I was recently reading about Maude Adams, who starred in the original theatrical adaptation.
Above Suspicion, by Helen MacInnes. I feel like I read about MacInnes on a bog recently, but I can’t remember which one. This appears to be her first novel.
A Girl of the Limberlost, by Gene Stratton Porter. I didn’t have a copy, and this one is pretty.
Right now I’m reading My Side of the Mountain. Probably when I’m done I’ll go back to the Dresden Files.
I absolutely love The Witch of Blackbird Pond. It’s very high on the list for number of times I’ve reread a book. I also enjoyed Speare’s Calico Captive, about a young woman whose family is captured by Indians, but not quite as much.
Helen MacInnes might have been on my blog. I read one about a month ago. I haven’t read Above Suspicion yet, but I do like her earliest ones best because of the WWII setting.
Cathlin said, on 9/4/2011 10:03:00 PM
I love the Green Knowe series, especially the first one (Children of Green Knowe) and last one (The Stones of Green Knowe).
I remember reading Greenwillow a long, long time ago and not being really impressed with it, although it has rave reviews on Amazon.
And anything by Gene Stratton Porter is good.
Melody said, on 9/5/2011 11:24:00 AM
It was your blog! I thought I’d starred it in Google Reader, but apparently I hadn’t.
I think I must have read Calico Captive, but I don’t remember it. Sign of the Beaver is my go-to Speare book, but I remember adoring Witch of Backbird Pond, so I have high hopes for my first reread.
Melody said, on 9/5/2011 11:29:00 AM
I read a review of one of the Green Knowe books at Charlotte’s Library not too long ago, and it sounded sort of like Allison Uttley’s A Traveller in Time, which I love. Hopefully I’ll end up reading the whole series.
Mostly, I’m prepared for Greenwillow to be kind of weird. But I’m definitely looking forward to rereading A Girl of the Limberlost.
Dorian said, on 9/5/2011 1:12:00 PM
The Green Knowe books are lovely. They’re not exactly time-slips, and they’re not exactly ghost stories; they’re sort of a bit like both but not entirely like either.
Good luck with the Dresden Files, btw – I gave up after the first one!
Melody said, on 9/5/2011 1:23:00 PM
Probably the best timeslip books are the hard-to-define ones.
The Dresden Files books get better after the first couple, but they haven’t yet got to be really good. Eventually I will run out of willpower and stop reading them.
heidenkind said, on 9/5/2011 1:35:00 PM
I think I got through the first three Dresden Files books before I lost interest, so you’re doing pretty good! There are a bazillion in the series; it never ends.
Melody said, on 9/6/2011 4:58:00 AM
Yeah, that’s the feeling I’m beginning to get. At some pont I’m going to give up; I’m just trying to read as many of them as I can before I do.
For one week I am attempting to record everything each member of the family reads. Today is day five. Day one. Day two. Day three. Day four.
Jane: —The Naming
—The Riddle
—Bella at Midnight
—Things Not Seen
—Things Hoped For
—Things That Are, these last three by Andrew Clements
(Saturday is library day.)
Rose:
—Pearls of Lutra (cont.)
—The Birthday Ball by Lois Lowry (ARC; in progress)
Beanie:
—Mossflower (cont.)
—Beck Beyond the Sea (Disney fairies book)
—Lily in Full Bloom (Disney fairies)
me:
—A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park (advance review copy)
—Great Expectations, first four chapters (long story) (ha, pun not intended)
read-aloud to Rilla & Wonderboy:
—Today I Will Fly (a Mo Willems Piggie & Elephant book)
—There Is a Bird on Your Head (ditto)
—Mr. Putter and Tabby Paint the Porch
Scott:
—Reveal: The Story of REM (cont.)
—Ringworld (cont.)
(List composed at 6pm. Bedtime reading will be added later.)
I forgot to do arrivals and departures! Saturday is our big library day, so a lot of things went back. I forgot to pay attention to what, though. A bunch of Jane’s things—handful of Dorothy Sayers mysteries, plus I think I saw the four-book Softwire series by P. J. Haarsma, the Orbis books (Virus on Orbis 1, Betrayal on Orbis 2, etc; and I know there was a Caroline Cooney book in the pile too. Also the two Cory Doctorow YA novels I’d checked out—I’ve decided to read them as e-books instead.
As for arrivals, the library-goers brought home more than they took back. I saw two of Mary Pope Osborne’s series of tales based on The Odyssey (brilliant idea, I must say); So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane; all the books in Jane’s list above; three Disney fairies books; the first book of a YA series by Ted Dekker; and Scott checked out Ta-Nehisi Coates’s memoir, The beautiful struggle: A Father, a Son, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood.
For one week—starting, awkwardly, on a Tuesday—I am attempting to record everything each member of the family reads. Day one was yesterday.
Jane:
—Mansfield Park (cont.)
—Unexplained (cont.)
—Showcase Presents: Batman 3 & 4
Rose and Beanie:
—Fraggle Rock comics #2 & 3
Rose: Pearls of Lutra (cont.)
Beanie:
—Mossflower (cont.)
—Rowan and the Ice Creepers
me:
—Feed (cont.)
—The Weed that Strings the Hangman’s Bag (cont.)
Scott to Rilla and older listeners-in:
—Pish Posh Said Hieronymus Bosch (whoops, strike that, she fell asleep too soon)
Arrivals:
—None! Practically a first!
Departures:
—Bears on Wheels went back to the library. Yup, I remembered.
Other book-related activities:
—Stopped into our local children’s bookstore to see if they were stocking the Betsy-Tacy reissues. The Emily of Deep Valley reissue with Mitali Perkins’s foreword, and the Carney/Winona reissue with my foreword, will be published in October. ALA Midwinter is being held right here in San Diego in January, and the Betsy-Tacy crowd is already gearing up for some Maud-themed fun. I wanted to make sure this little bookstore was up to speed on all things Betsy Ray. The manager had not heard about the reissues and was quite interested.
Miscellaneous notes:
—Busy morning out of the house; Jane had a friend over in the afternoon. I didn’t read anything at all to the little ones, a realization that, here at the tail end of the day, makes me wince a little.
This list doesn’t (yet) include bedtime reading. I’ll update it in the morning.
8 Comments on week in books: 9/4/11, last added: 9/6/2011
I absolutely adore these books! It’s so sad that there aren’t more. But you’ve intrigued me with your mention of “a couple of short stories”. Please, please, could you (would you) give us details? I don’t think I knew about them or have read them.
I actually only found out about them recently. There are two, in two separate anthologies. One is about Julian Kestrel and the other features an 18th century female detective. I’ve ordered both books for my mom for Christmas, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to read them pretty soon.
So great that you remember Julian Kestrel – 2nd time in a couple weeks he has been plugged – the other one was in another blog talking about favorite historical fiction males (http://janetility.com/?p=396#comments) – also recommended another favorite of mine the Sebastian St Cyr books. Glad that Ross books are not forgotten.
Thanks for the link — Julian Kestrel is one of my favorite men in historical fiction, too, so I should probably check out the others on her list.
These sound really fun. Is he like a Regency Wimsey?