Some Comfort Reading

Adele Geras' books have become another form of comfort reading for me. Thick, long stories spanning many years, somewhat melodramatic, with romance and hidden secrets. Yep, that's what I like in a comfort read.

Hester's Story is the third of Geras' books that I have read. The story goes back and forth from Hester's youth to her life as a middle aged woman. Hester had an unhappy childhood, losing her mother at a young age and then being shuttled off to live with relatives in England. She never felt that she fit in anywhere until Madame Olga came to town and Hester discovered a passion for ballet. Hester is gifted and spends time in London becoming a prima ballerina until an affair with the wrong man changes the course of her life.

As a middle aged woman, Hester lives in an estate called Wychwood and supervises a special ballet performance that occurs there annually. As the story opens, the dancers and choreographers descend on Wychwood and of course they all have their own personal issues and dramas going on. Ultimately, Hester's past and present come together in a way that she never expected.

This was a good read for me. There is an awful lot of talk about ballet in this novel, so if you have absolutely no interest at all in ballet, I wouldn't recommend this. I did find the ending a little disappointing. I had a feeling about what was going to happen (and I was mostly right) but I was expecting more emotions from the characters when all was revealed. Instead, things wrapped up a little bit too quickly and neatly for me.

All in all though, I enjoyed this and would recommend it. I still think I liked Geras' first adult novel, Facing the Light best, and I also enjoyed Made in Heaven.

It's a good day for chocolate cake....

Because today is My Birthday!

I woke up to a homemade card that reads: I love you so,so,so,so,so,so,so,so,so,so MUCH! Fabulous.

I received some new earring to replace the ones that were stolen in November (house was broken into). Nothing fancy, just costume jewelery.

I am going out to dinner and then I am going to eat Chocolate Mousse Cake from Buttercream Bakery. They make wedding cakes and use all natural ingredients. Yum!

I am going to treat myself to some new Persephone books thanks to their 3 for 2 anniversary offer; it seems we share a birthday.

Finally, it seems like a good time to share some books that have creeped into my house lately.



Here we have some books I ordered from The Book Depository when they were having a sale.

Persephone's Miss Buncle's Book. The Cranks Bible which is a vegetarian cookbook with a Middle Eastern twist. Singled Out which I've had my eye on for ages. The Blackest Streets - subtitle is The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum - just my thing, and another Barbara Ewing novel - loved The Trespass a few years back.



Here are new advance copies that have arrived.

This Lovely Life: a memoir of premature motherhood - I've skimmed this one a bit - it looks heartbreaking, devastating, and wonderfully written.

Sarah Dunant's new book Sacred Hearts about a 16 year old sent to a convent against her will in the 16th century.

Gifts of War - a love story set against the backdrop of WW2.

Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine and the End of France - food, wine, France? Sounds good to me.



Here are the books I've purchased, new and used.

The Moonflower Vine - 'A timeless American classic rediscovered, An unforgettable saga of a heartland family' This was a bestseller in the 1960s.

Ruth Rendell. Of course.

Laurie Colwins's cooking memoirs - I got tired of seeing these all over the place and not having read them. I'm on a bit of a food memoir binge, anyway.

The Silent Raga - the story of two sisters in India - the cover is gorgeous - I couldn't resist.

American Cookery - A family saga complete with recipes. I kept picking this up and putting it back until finally I found a used copy and brought it home. Has anyone read this or anything by author Laura Kalpakian?



Finally, here are some books that I've won or mooched, or scored from paperbackswap.

Highlights here include What the Butler Saw:Two Hundred and Fifty Years of the Servant Problem and Barbara Vine's latest, The Birthday Present which is of course worth mentioning today.

Cheers!

Joyce Carol Oates - An Acquired Taste?

Thanks so much for all your kinds words, thoughts, and vibes last week. I had a totally blissed out time with the girl last week. Camp started this morning. My stomach was churning and she was fine until we arrived. That small hand clutched mine and whispered 'I want to stay with you mama.' But. Soon her best friend arrived and all was well, kiss and out the door. Can't wait to hear all about it.

My introduction to Joyce Carol Oates was her novel We Were the Mulvaneys which I read with my book club in 2002. I didn't keep records then so I cannot remember my specific response to the book but I remember that while it was readable we all felt awfully lukewarm about it. It's somewhat surprising then that we chose to read The Gravedigger's Daughter this year. I think we were all drawn in by the description of the book.

The Jewish Schwart family has immigrated to the US from Nazi Germany. Typically, these sorts of characters would be written in a sympathetic light, but not by JCO. Father Jacob is authoritarian and crazy. The only job he's been able to procure is that of the town gravedigger. Ma is passive, doesn't speak English or frankly much of anything. Youngest daughter Rachel is smart and inquisitive, but thwarted by poverty and her family situation.

Jacob commits a crime that leaves Rebecca on her own. Without any positive male role models in her life Rebecca naturally becomes involved with the Wrong sort of man and bears him a child. A series of circumstances lead Rebecca to relocate and change the names of her son and herself. Suddenly the girl who had been dumpy is beautiful and desirable to men. They want to get to know her better while she wishes to keep them at arm's length. Some more things happen to Rebecca, none of them good. There is a somewhat funny and strange series of letters at the end of the book. And then it just ends.

If you couldn't tell already I wasn't crazy about this book, and sadly it was quite long at nearly 600 pages of small print. JCO has a unique narrative style. As a reader I felt quite distant from all the characters. There seemed to be an excessive amount of exclamation points. Exclamation points! Like that! The story is just entirely depressing, crass at times, horrific in others, and towards the end I just didn't care to be introduced to new characters that frankly didn't seem to add much to the story. I'm glad I read it since it sounded good to me, but I don't think I'll be returning to this author.

So, I'm curious to know if there are any JCO fans out there. I'm wondering if she's sort of like Margaret Atwood - you have to sort of 'get' her to enjoy her books. It'll be interesting to see what my bookclub thinks. Or if they even finish it.

I wanted to mention our last meeting when we 'discussed' Emma. It was a disappointing meeting in terms of the bookishness. Only 3 out of 7 members finished the book. There were so many negative comments! It was hard to follow, too many characters, couldn't get into the language, on and on. I was actually pretty surprised at the reaction. I guess we won't be dipping into Austen again as a group.

I guess it sounds like I've been reading a lot of books which I did not enjoy - but I've actually read a few good ones too! I'll share those soon.

Sigh of Relief

what I haven't been doing:

* worrying about next week
* spending more than 1/2 hour per day on the computer
* blogging


(photo taken last summer)

what I have been doing:

* enjoying the girl being home with me, just us
* wondering at when she became such a young lady
* and so tall
* letting her lead me on a 2 hour walk
* eating ice cream in the middle of the afternoon
* going to the playground
* trips to target where I get talked into stuff I never buy
* feeling sad that she's starting daycamp next week
* reading lots
* loving her

see you next week

Out of Sorts

I'm feeling all out of sorts today. It's been a strange stretch of days here. Late last week when I was taking both members of my family to the doctor I was feeling all smug and healthy when suddenly my stomach started hurting. Ugh! So most of my weekend was spent in pain in the hopes that it wouldn't move to my right side (appendix) - it didn't. Whew. What else? It's freezing here! I actually broke down and turned on the heat last night after pulling out my down comforter and fuzzy socks on Friday night. Brrr! And today is the Last Day of First Grade. I can't believe it! I get stressed during change and next week my girl is starting a new camp with new people And I'm not sure how it's going to go And I work weird hours so our schedule is kind of wacky And I'm trying not to be annoying, I really do not want to be annoying but I want to make sure everything goes well next week And that the people don't think we're crazy because of our crazy schedule. Whew. Not to mention, that the place where the camp is is a place where we might want the girl to go to school someday so I want to make a good impression. Yep, I'm stressed.

So, should we talk about books now? Okay.


Well, after I finished Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life, I naturally did a little google searching looking for interviews and such. I came across the blog of Adam Roberts, The Amateur Gourmet and realized he had a book. Something about him sparked my interest as well as the fact that there was apparently a chapter in his book in which he dines with foodie extraordinaire Ruch Reichl, so I picked up his book, aptly named The Amateur Gourmet: How to Shop, Chop and Table-Hop Like a Pro (Almost) at the library.

Roberts comes from a family where reservations are made instead of dinner and he did not begin cooking for himself until adulthood, though he's quite able now. Besides the dinner with Reichl (which I loved), highlights of the book include how to shop at the grocery store or farmers' market and a trip to a famous knife sharpener. This is a good book for beginning cooks - Roberts aims to take the fear out of cooking, or for cooks like myself who are interested in the inner food world. The book is a short quick read (less than two hours, I'd say), and Roberts has a fun and easygoing voice. I recommend it - especially if you get it from your library.

Next!


I won Shoot the Moon by Billie Letts - I think it was practically impossible not to win a copy there were so many giveaways a while back. I was looking forward to this book since I'd heard good things about the author (Oprah-approved) and the premise sounded interesting.

In 1972, windswept DeClare, Oklahoma, was consumed by the murder of a young mother, Gaylene Harjo, and the disappearance of her baby, Nicky Jack. When the child's pajama bottoms were discovered on the banks of Willow Creek, everyone feared that he, too, had been killed, although his body was never found.

Nearly thirty years later, Nicky Jack mysteriously returns to DeClare, shocking the town and stirring up long-buried memories. But what he discovers about the night he vanished is more astonishing than he or anyone could have imagine. Piece by piece, what emerges is a story of dashed hopes, desperate love, and a secret that still cries out for justice...and redemption.

See, sounds good, right? To be honest, I don't have much to say about this, that is good anyway. I found the writing style very simplistic, thought the overabundance of characters with odd names were underdeveloped, and the romance was implausible. The word that keeps coming to my mind is pedestrian. Read something else.

An Incomplete Revenge

I won the fifth book in the Maisie Dobbs series, An Incomplete Revenge, from Iliana, ages ago and I've just finally read it. The only reason I put it off is because I wanted to save it for just the moment and I finally found the right one.

I really, really liked this episode in the story of Maisie, in fact, I think this might be my second favorite after the original, Maisie Dobbs. It feels like going back to the basics in many ways. The romantic story lines from the recent books are completely absent here and Maisie is forced to come to terms with issues in her past that go back to the first back. We as readers also get to know Maisie better through this tale, making this a really great read.

So what is it about? Well, Billy Beale is off on vacation, a rather sad vacation actually, that involves traveling with the family out to the countryside to live in huts and pick hops. I suppose this was the only way the working class could afford a little time outside the city. Maisie has been hired by an old friend to seek out information about some property he wants to purchase and learn about some oddities in the town where it is situated. Naturally this town happens to be located just where Billy is. Gypsies have come to pick hops as well; the townspeople are suspicious of them while Maisie gains their trust and we learn about their unique ways. As is often the case, the secrets this town protects go back to the War and Maisie finds herself investigating suspicious yearly fires, crimes of theft, and a deadly Zeppelin raid that killed an entire family. It is truly a tale of tragedy, but as always, Maisie wraps up the case nicely and all secrets are revealed.

Naturally, I recommend this book and the entire series. I can hardly keep my hands off the sixth book, but I am going to make myself wait. It will be interesting to see if Winspear brings the element of romance back (do you think people didn't like it?) as well as the fate of Billy. It seems eventually he will move on - it won't be easy to find someone to take his place as Maisie's right hand man.

Shanghai Girls

I was a huge fan of Lisa See's novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, so you can imagine how thrilled I was to get an advance copy of her latest release, Shanghai Girls!

Pearl and May are sisters living what they considered to be a fabulous life in Shanghai in the 1930s. Beautiful and without worries, they partied, slept late, and generally enjoyed life. A financial situation their father is embroiled in changes everything. The sisters are married off to men living in Los Angeles but before reaching America find themselves on the run from the Japanese who have invaded Shanghai. Their lives in America are not what they were led to believe, and the sisters bring to their new home a secret that must not be revealed. Time passes, the sisters adjust to their new life, but as always seems to happen, fate intervenes again and changes everything.

If you're looking for an uplifting book - this isn't it! That's not to say I didn't enjoy it since I tend to like depressing books, but really, there is not much good that happens to these sisters. And even when things aren't going terribly bad, there is still a sense of melancholy that surrounds these women. It was interesting to learn about the point of view of Chinese immigrants and the particular challenges they faced coming to America. I tend to read more of the Jewish/European immigrant story so this was educational for me.

I couldn't help but compare Shanghai Girls to Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. In that respect, Shanghai Girls just didn't resonate with me in the same way the previous book did but I still found it to be a satisfying read. The ending of this book is rather unexpected and open ended. Things were really left hanging; on the plus side we may have another book about these characters, on the other hand, I think some readers will be put off by such a cliffhanger of an ending.

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In other news, the girl has her first piano recital this evening. How cute is that! She will be playing piece called Pillow Fight which her teacher thought suited her personality - and she is right!