I love it when I get completely blown away by my own prejudices 🙂 A prejudice I had no idea I had was that all books in ‘Penguin Classic Yellow edged cover with dark picture’ books are…. boring.
I wonder where I got that from. Actually I know. I was given Hard Times to read as part of S Level preparation; I didn’t like the first chapter (actually, I didn’t like the TV adaptation either) and a assigned all books with that style of cover to the *Boring Book Archive*
Sometimes I wonder when exactly I am going to get over my school created, small minded Merry, issues. 🙄 I shall link to a copy with a different cover, so I don’t pass my prejudices on 😉 Washington Square (Wordsworth Classics)
This book was the local library reading club book for the month; I ended up not being able to go but I’m so glad I got to read the book and feeling I really had to give it a good try was a great motivation for that. What seemed at first to be a story that tripped dangerously close to the life in a different continent of Fanny from Mansfield Park, turned into something quite different. The book focuses on the ill-advised love affair of a young American woman and a cad; honestly, my head drew a picture of “The Rake” in old fashioned Happy Family packs and that was exactly what he was like. The aunt, a meddlesome woman who really needed a war to fold bandages for, was a perfect mixture of far too many relatives I can think of from my own and other peoples families (I wanted to reach through the pages and shake her) while the Father was, I think, just exactly how parents can too easily be and a cautionary tale for it.
Catherine, the main character, is quietly revealed. She’s not what you think, nor is she quite what she thinks and most importantly, she is not the person her aunt and father think. It is an odd story, because how it turns out is both sad and positive, an illustration of women who chose their path in the days that were one step behind emancipation. All of them are a joy to be in the company of and the elegance of the description of life in New York when Fifth Avenue was just a fairly nice road, is stunning.
Now I’ve got Henry James and James Joyce sorted out, and discovered that boring covers do not equal boring reads on all occasions, I’m going to push at my boundaries and find a few more quiet classics. It was most definitely time with a book well spent and I’m still blushing at having wrinkled my nose when I first thought about reading it.
series.) I love historical factual books nearly as much (Alison Weir is wonderful) and have adored Harry Potter and Artemis Fowl and His Dark Materials in equal measure as an adult, even if they were written with children in mind. Lord of the Rings will always be special and there are entire series’ on Boudica and Julius Caesar I have devoured.
when I was at college, from a WHSmith opposite the Swiss Cottage. I seem to remember buying with one other, now forgotten but kept for years, book and a Chalet School story. I must have been in that half confused stage of still being small and also being big. It is a typical ‘girl has a tough time, meets a cad, starts a business, cad turns out good’ type story but it is also of friendship and pulling together and I still love it. Katie Fforde at her best.
and it is another story of friendship, love and tragedy all mixed into the heady reality of youth becoming adult life. When I read it, it reminded me powerfully of a group of friends I had not long left, most particularly of one of them and all that I feared for and missed about those friends. It still makes me nostalgic for them now. I’m not sure if any other of Jane Green’s books haul me so close, especially now her focus has moved to America, but I still enjoy them all.
from the Swiss Cottage shop. Eva Ibbotson remains one of my most favourite authors; her writing is magical, beautiful, nostalgic and captivating. She weaves fairytale and brutal reality together with a charm and joy that would seem impossible to achieve and yet she does. The Morning Gift tells the story of a girl escaping Vienna at the time of Nazi occupation and all she encounters as she moves to London and falls in love. It is funny, clever and magical.
is one of three books by Elizabeth Buchan I have kept; I’m not a fan of her relationship books but this is the story of 1920’s-30’s England and the fading rose of aristocratic life. It tells the love story of Daisy, Kit and Matty through the eyes of another person and the themes of love, loss, wanting and passion are quite searing, though somehow conveyed through English demure and stoicism. I think it is masterful.
and perhaps the reason I like it is that Chloe is sent on a journey of discovery by a loving elder at a crux time in her life and the journey brings her home. There is something comforting about a theme which manages to twist together age bringing wisdom and the people who love you wanting to allow you the freedom to discover what is right for yourself. She is eminently likeable too and there is a recurring theme through the books of each character popping up at the end of the next one, so that you see how it worked out.
has always been special for the bohemian and slightly scatty but endearing nature of the artist heroine and her journey to self discovery. Unfortuately her name is Freddie (short for Elfrida) and she plays a large part in the subsequent book. I think it will be a long time before I can read it again.
by Kate Atkinson is an inspiration and a triumph, the sort of book I would love to write, a mastery of story telling, whimsy and word craft. It is simply a remarkable tale of a girl, a family, lives and the tangled twists of family history. I love it for it’s ramble and the imperfect ending which is nonetheless how life is. I was reading it before I had Freddie and just after and it was extraordinarily appropriate and oddly comforting.
is a re-release, with some overhauling, of one of her earliest novels, from the time when she wrote of fictional characters within accurate historical periods of time. As such, her prefaces suggest she feels slightly embarrassed by these now, having moved on to real people from history but actually, so long as you remember hey are not as factual as others, they make a cracking read and are full enough of life, love, detail and colour to be a truly enjoyable way to spend a day. This one is the last part of a trilogy and concludes a story about a family living on the English edges of Wales. The strength is in the description of the life the ex-Normans had as they strove to be in charge and curtail the indignation of the English and Welsh, fighting for a place on the land while embroiled in their own internal court struggles. Does make you realise why we’re all so mixed up 😆
which, had I not had a Kindle, I would have had to wait for as I hate hardbacks and it isn’t out in paperback yet. This is the story of Mahelt Marshall, also known as Matilda among other things, daughter of 
which was the first of the book I read by Chadwick. It’s effectively the other side of the story to the second book about him 
, with Mahelt married into the 
.
by Mavis Cheek. The premise of this is a newly widowed woman who becomes entranced by the mystery surrounding the historical perception of Anne of Cleves. The book explores her own path through the complexities of grief and relief at being her own woman again alongside the relationship she develops with a historical figure she feels kinship with. It is cleverly done, whimsical yet believable and a gentle chuckle at village life and the absurdities of marriages that go a little, but not terribly, wrong. As a book it really spoke to me and if you enjoy something with a gentle pace, I highly recommend it.
and was equally pleased with the choice. Again it focuses on one woman, who finds herself carried along in a series of unsatisfactory and absurd relationships which she is too passive to prevent. The book explores her gradual and rather pitfall strewn path to independence through education and maturity, set against the characters of the houses she lives in along the way.