Classics Spin #29

I've been very bad the past year or so about my Classics Club list -- I have thirteen books left on the list, and just about a year left to complete them! I did add several of them to the TBR Pile Challenge, and some of them would work as selections for other challenges (including my own Back to the Classics Challenge). Enter the latest Classics Club Spin -- I do love having other people choose books for me, so I've selected seven from my list that would work nicely with my other scheduled reading for the year. 

Next Sunday, March 20, the Spin will randomly assign a number from one to twenty, and whichever number is chosen, I'm pledging to finish that book by April 30! Here's my list:

1. My American by Stella Gibbons
2. A Pin to See the Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse
3. The World My Wilderness by Rose Macauley
4. Noli Me Tangere by Jose Rizal
5. Jenny Wren by E. H. Young
6. The Bright Side of Life by Emile Zola
7. Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig

8.  My American 

9. A Pin to See the Peepshow 

10. The World My Wilderness 
11. Noli Me Tangere 
12. Jenny Wren 
13. The Bright Side of Life 

14. Beware of Pity

15. My American 
16. A Pin to See the Peepshow 
17. The World My Wilderness 
18. Jenny Wren 
19. The Bright Side of Life 
20. Beware of Pity

My top choices would be Jenny Wren (for my Back to the Classics Challenge); The World My Wilderness (TBR Pile Challenge); or The Bright Side of Life (Zoladdiction; also counts toward the European Reading Challenge and the Back to the Classics Challenge). I'd be happy with any of them though I'm a bit hesitant about Noli Me Tangere as it sounds rather dark. I've been putting it off for so long, though, I should just suck it up and give it a try.

Anyone else signing up for the next Classics Spin? What's on your list? 

Updated: The Classics Spin has assigned me. . . Number 11! So I'll be reading Noli Me Tangere, wish me luck!

Classics Spin #27

 

Third time's the charm? I've failed spectacularly on my last two attempts to participate in the Classics Spin. I'm down to the last 15 books on my Classics Club list, so I've picked ten books I really want to finish this year, listing all of them twice. Hopefully next week the random spin will inspire me to actually read -- and blog about -- one of the books on the list. 

UPDATE: The Classics Spin has spoken, and I'll be reading #6, A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym. I'm very pleased and look forward to reading it August.

1. The Caravaners by Elizabeth von Arnim
2. The Caravaners
3. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
4. Crime and Punishment
5. A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym 
6. A Few Green Leaves 
7. Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann
8. Invitation to the Waltz
9. Mandoa, Mandoa! by Winifred Holtby
10. Mandoa, Mandoa!
11. My American by Stella Gibbons
12. My American
13. A Pin to See the Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse
14. A Pin to See the Peepshow
15. Ralph the Heir by Anthony Trollope 
16. Ralph the Heir
17. Westwood by Stella Gibbons 
18. Westwood
19. The World My Wilderness by Rose Macauley 
20. The World My Wilderness 

Bloggers, are you participating in the next Spin? What's on your list? 

Classics Spin #26

Time for another Classics Spin, #26! I'm getting close to the end of my second Classics Club list. A week from today, April 18, the Spin will assign me a random number which will determine the next read from my list. 

I only have 17 books left, and I also eliminated a few that I know I won't read right now. Therefore I have doubled up most of them to make it an even 20. To make it a little more interesting, I've put them in reverse order alphabetically by author. Here's my list:

1. La Debacle by Emile Zola
2. La Debacle 
3. Jenny Wren by E. H. Young 
4. Jenny Wren 
5. Ralph the Heir by Anthony Trollope 
6. A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym 
7. A Few Green Leaves 
8. The World My Wilderness by Rose Macauley 
9. The World My Wilderness 
10. The Little Ottleys by Ada Leverson 
11. The Little Ottleys 
12. Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann
13. Invitation to the Waltz
14. A Pin to See the Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse
15. A Pin to See the Peepshow
16. Mandoa, Mandoa! by Winifred Holtby
17. Westwood by Stella Gibbons 
18. My American by Stella Gibbons
19. The Caravaners by Elizabeth von Arnim 
20. The Caravaners 

I'm really hoping for Jenny Wren or The Caravaners. I will also probably read La Debacle for Fanda's Zoladdiction. 

Bloggers, have you read any of these? What's on your list? I'm looking forward to my next Spin selection! 

Classics Spin #25

 

I just realized it's been nearly a month since I posted, I'm in a bit of of reading/blogging slump. I've been so distracted lately I can hardly read anything, much less blog about it. But hopefully another Classics Spin will get me out of my reading rut. Only 18 books left on my Classics Club list! I thought I could finish the list by the end of the year but seriously, who am I kidding? 

So. The idea is that after I post a list of 20 possible reads from my Classics Club list, a random number will be selected on November 22. I then have until January 30 to read and post about the book. Since I have only 18 books unread on the list, I've repeated two books to get an even 20. 

1. The Bright Side of Life by Emile Zola
2. Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann
3. Westwood by Stella Gibbons
4. Jenny Wren by E. H. Young
5. A Pin to See the Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse
6. A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym
7. The Little Ottleys by Ada Leverson
8. The Caravaners by Elizabeth von Arnim
9. Hudson River Bracketed by Edith Wharton
10. Ralph the Heir by Anthony Trollope
11. The World My Wilderness by Rose Macauley
12. A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym 
13. La Debacle by Emile Zola
14. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
15. Beware of Pity by Stephan Zweig
16. My American by Stella Gibbons
17. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
18. Mandoa, Mandoa! by Winifred Holtby
19. Noli Me Tangere by Jose Rizal
20. The Bright Side of Life by Emile Zola

I'm hoping to read A Few Green Leaves, Jenny Wren, or The Caravaners. I'm sort of dreading Crime and Punishment, The Portable Dorothy Parker, and Hudson River Bracketed -- I've read most of Edith Wharton now and my last one was pretty dire.

Bloggers, which ones should I hope for? Which should I be dreading? And what's on your spin list?  

UPDATED: The Spin has assigned me #14, The Portable Dorothy Parker.  It's 600 pages long, yikes! I'm pretty sure I won't be finishing it until January 30, but I'll probably also count it for one of my Back to the Classics reads -- that's right, Back to the Classics is returning in 2021!

Classics Spin #24: Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy

Another Classics Spin success! I always look forward to the Spins, they motivate me to read the books that I keep putting off. I bought this in June of 2017, on a trip to London in the hottest week of the year. . I had a bit of nostalgia when I found the receipt still stuck in the back of the book, from a used bookseller on Charing Cross Road. (I paid £5 for it, one of three green Virago Modern Classics purchased that day). 

Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy had all the signs of an ideal read for me. Published in 1953, the story begins with correspondence in 1879, between two brothers-in-law. The honorable Frederick Harnish is researching some family history while recuperating from something unspecified, and requests some papers left by an ancestor, Ludovic, who died in 1830. He's specifically looking for letters he might have written, and what emerges are letters and diary entries from Ludovic's lifelong friend Miles Lufton, the owner of a property called Troy Chimneys. So, essentially this is a mid-century book about a Victorian researching a Regency ancestor. 

What follows are the memoirs of Miles Lufton, a former MP from Wiltshire. The actual property called Troy Chimneys is mostly peripheral -- it's really just slices of life in the early 1800s by a man on the fringes of upper-crust society. Son of a clergyman, he really doesn't have any money, but uses his Oxford connections to gain a seat in Parliament, though that's not a big part of the book either. It's more about his everyday life, though there are hints of a family scandal that is revealed at the end of the story.

Not a long book at just under 250 pages, but not what I'd call a quick read. It was slow going at first as the story is first framed by correspondence regarding the history of the late relatives, and also a bit confusing as Lufton begins to explain the history of his family -- I really should have written down a family tree as I was reading. It's also a bit confusing because Lufton sometimes refers to himself as Pronto, which is sort of his alter ego, the sociable persona he adopts to make himself interesting and in demand as a guest with the upper-crust people. It's also a bit confusing that two of the characters are Lufton and Ludo. 

But I really did enjoy it. What I liked most about it was that it was really written in the style of the Regency period -- it probably slowed down the reading, but I really felt like this could have been written by Jane Austen or one of her contemporaries, thought it's definitely from the male point of view. Miles could absolutely have been a minor character in a Jane Austen novel, like Mr. Yates in Mansfield Park or Captain Fitzwilliam in Pride and Prejudice -- probably as a sidekick to a leading man, but a younger son without much money. 

The book does include a Jane Austen reference which delighted me: 

But over novels she was obstinate; she could not like them. . . . she objected strongly to anything sentimental, nor would she listen to my pleas for my favorites: Emma and Mansfield Park, of which she complained that they kept her continually in the parlour, where she was obliged, in any case, to spend her life. A most entertaining parlour, she allowed, but: 

'That lady's greatest admirers will always be men, I believe. For when they have had enough of the parlour, they may walk out, you know, and we cannot.'

Interesting that a woman of the period (albeit fictional) would have thought of it that way! Yet very true. And so ironic since nowadays the majority of Austen's fans are women.  

So, a very successful Spin pick, and I hope there will be another before the end of the year. Only 18 books left on my Classics Club list! I'm tempted to try and finish it in 2020, though there are several doorstoppers which would probably slow me down. Still, it's worth trying. 

Bloggers, did you participate in the latest Classics Spin? Did you enjoy your pick? 

Classics Spin #24

I only have 21 books left on my second Classics Club list! That made it pretty easy to make my list for the upcoming Classics Spin: to participate, you list 20 books from your Classics Club List, and on August 9, we'll be assigned a random number that will select the book for it. The book is to be read by September 30 -- two whole months! Plenty of time in case it's a big long book. 

All but one are from my own shelves, so there's a good chance I'll knock off another of my owned-and-unread pile (ever growing, sigh). I've put them in order alphabetically by title this time to make things more interesting. 

1. Beware of Pity by Stephan Zweig
2. The Bright Side of Life by Emile Zola
3. The Caravaners by Elizabeth von Arnim
4. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
5. La Debacle by Emile Zola
6. A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym
7. Imperial Palace by Arnold Bennett
8. Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann
9. Jenny Wren by E. H. Young
10. The Little Ottleys by Ada Leverson
11. Mandoa, Mandoa! by Winifred Holtby
12. My American by Stella Gibbons
13. Noli Me Tangere by Jose Rizal
14. A Pin to See the Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse
15. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
16. Ralph the Heir by Anthony Trollope
17. Roughing It by Mark Twain
18. Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy
19. Westwood by Stella Gibbons
20. The World My Wilderness by Rose Macauley

The only ones I'm dreading are Crime and Punishment (it sounds so dire) and La Debacle (a war novel), I'm really in the mood for lighter reads. Roughing It might also be a bit of a slog. 

I've heard good things about Troy Chimneys and The World My Wilderness, and I've been meaning to read Jenny Wren what seems like forever! And how have I not read A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym? She's one of my favorite writers, and it's the only one of her novels I haven't read yet.

Bloggers, are you signing up for the next Classics Club Spin? What do you want to read most from your lists?

UPDATE: The Classics Spin has assigned us #18. So I'll be reading Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy. I'm looking forward to it and who knows, maybe I'll try to read even more from my list in the next two months before I post on my spin pick on September 30. 

Classics Spin #23: The Hireling by L. P. Hartley; and Some English Cathedrals

 

It's June 1st so that means it's time for my post on Classics Spin #23, which for me was The Hireling by L. P. Hartley. Published in 1957, it's the story of Stephen Leadbitter, a thirty-something man who earns a living as personal driver, taking customers in the car he is slowly paying off through a hire-purchase. Other than his job, he has a very solitary existence, no real friends or family. The aptly named Leadbitter had formerly been in the army and still lives his life very much as a disciplined military-type man. One day he takes on a job driving a wealthy widow on a day trip to Canterbury. Much to his surprise, she's young and beautiful. Lady Franklin, still mourning the death of her older husband, wants to visit all the cathedrals that her late husband loved, thinking it will bring her some kind of closure. 

Unlike most passengers who sit in the back and want silence or the radio, Lady Franklin wants to sit up front with Leadbitter and wants to her all about him. Since has little life outside of his job and he wants to please his customer, Leadbitter starts making up stories about an imaginary family, complete with a wife and three children. The trip goes well and Lady Franklin starts booking Leadbitter for more day trips around the countryside. Eventually, Leadbitter begins to look forward to the bookings, and begins to develop feelings for Lady Franklin, which leads to a very awkward moment and then spirals into something tragic and heartbreaking.

This was a fast read, and it wasn't at all what I was expecting. I don't know what I thought it would be -- a sweet love story? Driving Miss Daisy, but with white people? It was neither, though it definitely had a lot to say about class consciousness -- I honestly did not see them having a happily ever after (and now I'm having serious doubts about the romance between Tom the chauffeur and Lady Sibyl in Downton Abbey). I had only read one other book by L. P. Hartley which was The Go-Between, which I really liked, and which also has a lot to say about love between the classes. I've also heard wonderful things about The Boat and the Eustace and Hilda trilogy from Simon at Stuck in a Book. 

This book also reminded me of the trip I took to England in 2018 with my mother, which was mostly a Jane Austen pilgrimage but did include several churches and cathedrals -- we didn't make it to Canterbury but we did visit St. Paul's in London (I climbed all the way to the top!), Bath Abbey, Salisbury Cathedral, and Westminster Cathedral, where Jane Austen is buried. Just for fun, I'm including a few photos. 

St. Paul's dome

Front of the church. Loved the iconic buses passing by. 

Bath Abbey. We had amazing weather every day of the trip.

Spire of Salisbury Cathedral, the tallest in England at 404 feet. I did not climb it. 

The Salisbury Cathedral clock, c. 1386. Said to be the oldest working clock in the world.

Origami peace doves installation at Salisbury Cathedral

Winchester Cathedral 

The Winchester nave. It's 554 feet long, the longest Gothic church in the world.

The ceilings of Winchester were especially beautiful.

Jane Austen also gets a mention in The Hireling which amused me terribly: 

'. . . . Now read me what it says about Jane Austen.'

Putting one hand behind his back, he squared himself in front of the tablet. When he had finished reading, Lady Franklin said: 

  'I don't think she was kind hearted, do you?'

  'I couldn't say, my lady," Leadbitter said cautiously. It wouldn't surprise me if she wasn't.'

  'Why?'

  'Because with one or two exceptions,' and his voice faintly underlined the words, 'ladies aren't very kind-hearted, in my experience.' 

  'Oh, would you say so?' Lady Franklin said, made thoughtful by the compliment. 'Perhaps we haven't a very good name for it.'

  'It makes the others stand out,' said Leadbitter obliquely.' 

  Lady Franklin couldn't but lap up this repeated dewdrop. 

  'How sweet of you!' she said. 'I'm afraid I don't deserve - But Jane Austen had many qualities more valuable than kind-heartedness. At least, more valuable to posterity.'

  'I expect she was a tartar in her time,' ventured Leadbitter.

I don't know that I've ever heard Jane Austen described as a tartar but I know she had a biting wit and there are some real zingers in some of her letters, so it's quite possible. And here is the tablet itself, and the plaque on the adjacent wall, commemorating the great author:

So -- a good book, a little armchair traveling, and another book crossed off my Classics Club list! I've finished 27 of 50 on my second list, and I hope to finish more this summer. Did everyone enjoy your Classics Club spin picks? And how are your lists coming along? 

Classics Spin #23

I haven't participated in a Classics Spin for a while, but what else do I have to do? I'll let the Classics Spin random number generator pick my next read. Next Monday, April 19, they'll announce a number from one to twenty, and that number will determine which book I should read from the twenty books I've selected below.  I'm nearly halfway through with my second Classics Club list, and all of these are books on my own shelves, so that's a win-win.

I've put them in random order to mix things up a bit and make it more interesting, I hope. Here's my list:

1. My American by Stella Gibbons
2. Noli Me Tangere by Jose Rizal
3. Jenny Wren by E. H. Young
4. Westwood by Stella Gibbons
5. The Fruit of the Tree by Edith Wharton
6. The Hireling by L. P. Hartley
7. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
8. The Misunderstanding by Irene Nemirovsky
9. Hudson River Bracketed by Edith Wharton
10. A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym
11. The Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer
12. Mandoa, Mandoa! by Winifred Holtby
13. A Pin to See the Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse
14. Beware of Pity by Stephan Zweig
15. Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy
16. Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamund Lehmann
17. The Caravaners by Elizabeth von Arnim
18. Imperial Palace by Arnold Bennett
19. The Little Ottleys by Ada Leverson
20. The World My Wilderness by Rose Macauley

Most of these are Virago Modern Classics, all but three are by women writers. I think the one I'm least excited about is Dorothy Parker, as I have a hard time blogging about short stories. I'm hoping for one that I can count for one of the categories in the Back to the Classics Challenge. 

Bloggers, which of these do you recommend? And what's on your Classics Spin list? 

UPDATED: The Classics spin came up as #6, so I'll be reading The Hireling by L. P. Hartley. I'm very pleased and look forward to reading it!

Classics Spin #20: The Misses Mallet by E. H. Young

I love participating in the Classics Club Spins -- it's always fun to have someone else pick a book for you. I really want to read everything on my Classics Club list (and on all the TBR shelves, really!) and the periodic Spin challenges usually behoove me to read something that's been languishing on the shelves. I've had really good luck with all my Spin picks and I'm nearly always glad I read them.

This Spin pick was no different -- The Misses Mallett (originally published as The Bridge Dividing), published in 1922. I'd read Young's award-winning novel Miss Mole last year, so I was happy to finally tackle The Misses Mallett. Like Miss Mole, the novel is largely set in Radstowe (a fictionalized version of Bristol), probably around the Edwardian era.

In the first section of the book, the Misses Mallett are three sisters living in Nelson Lodge: Caroline, Sophie, and their much younger half-sister Rose. Caroline and Sophie are probably in their forties when the book starts -- they're more than twenty years older than Rose, the child of their father's second marriage. When her mother died in childbirth, Caroline and Sophie cared for Rose as though she were their own child. The Misses Mallett are from an old family and are financially independent. Neither had any desire to marry, though they spend a lot of time reminiscing about their old beaus and romantic conquests. Caroline, the dominant older sister, seems quite proud to have been a bit of a flirt in her day, and Sophie, who is shyer and dreamier, secretly pines for a long-lost lover her sister never knew about.

Rose is in her early twenties, and Caroline and Sophie think she is fit for a king. However, they really expect her to marry a local landowner, Francis Sales, who's known Rose since they were children. Rose seems indifferent to Francis, who goes off in a huff to Canada and shocks everyone when he returns with a bride, Christabel, and there's a big plot twist.

E. H. Young, 1932. From the National Portrait Gallery, UK

Later, the fourth Miss Mallett arrives: Henrietta, their niece, whom they have never met. Her father Reginald (the younger brother of the oldest Miss Malletts) is a bit of a ne'er-do-well and was disinherited by his father, though he shows up periodically looking for money. Eventually his only child is orphaned and has grown up in straightened circumstances, but her aunts welcome her with open arms.

Henrietta was her father's daughter, willful and lovable, but she was also the daughter of that mother who had been good and loving. Henrietta had her father's passion for excitement, but being a woman, she had the greater need of being loved. 

Eventually, there is a love triangle which becomes a love quadrangle, and then (I suppose) a quintangle. (Is that even a real word? Or would it be a pentangle?) Nevertheless, it all becomes very muddled, and there is another family involved, and more plot twists. The ending was a little predictable, but satisfying, though I wouldn't have minded if it had gone a different way. I really enjoyed this novel -- the female characters were all very distinctive and well-drawn, though Francis Sales was a bit flat. And the writing was excellent, with lovely descriptions. A great Spin pick!

E. H. Young was a very popular writer in the first half of the century, and published eleven novels and two children's books before her death in 1949. I'm pretty sure all of her novels are out of print, though several were reprinted by Virago Modern Classics and most of them are easily available as reasonably priced used paperbacks. I still have three more of her novels on the TBR shelves, all VMC editions: Jenny Wren; William; and Chatterton Square, which I've been wanting to read ever since Simon and Rachel discussed it on Episode 40 of Tea or Books?, my favorite bookish podcast.

Bloggers, did you participate in the Classics Club Spin? How did you like your pick? And should I just poll my readers to choose my next book?

Classics Club Spin #20

It's time for another Classics Spin! If you're not familiar, it's a periodic mini-challenge created by The Classics Club. Participants pick 20 books from their Classics Club reading list, and next Monday, April 22, we'll be assigned a random number from one to twenty that will determine our next read from the list. 

I haven't done one of these for awhile, so I'm looking forward to it. It was pretty easy to make up my list -- I posted a second list last March, and I've read nearly half, so there were plenty of choices. 

Here's what I came up with -- heavy on the mid-century British women authors this time around, since I'm trying really hard to read more books off my own shelves (I think half of the books on this list are Virago Modern Classics!)

1. The Caravaners by Elizabeth von Arnim
2. One Pair of Feet by Monica Dickens
3. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
4. My American by Stella Gibbons
5. Westwood by Stella Gibbons
6. Living/Loving/Party Going by Henry Green
7. The Hireling by L. P. Hartley
8. The Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer
9. Mandoa, Mandoa! by Winifred Holtby
10. A Pin to See the Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse
11. Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy
12. Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamund Lehmann
13. The Little Ottleys by Ada Leverson
14. The World My Wilderness by Rose Macauley
15. The Misunderstanding by Irene Nemirovsky
16. A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym
17. Frost in May by Antonia White
18. Jenny Wren by E. H. Young
19. The Misses Mallett by E. H. Young
20. Beware of Pity by Stephan Zweig

The books I'm most hoping for are The Caravaners, One Pair of Feet, and A Few Green Leaves (the very last Barbara Pym I have left to read). 

Books I'm hoping not to get this time around: Crime and Punishment, Beware of Pity, and Living/Loving/Party Going. But odds are in my favor, I hope! 

Are there any others I should dread or hope for? Which are the hidden gems? And are any of these on your spin list? 

Update: The Classics Spin number is 19, so I'll be reading The Misses Mallett by E. H. Young. I'm looking forward to it! 

Classics Spin #18: Whisky Galore: More Scottish than Outlander

I was delighted by the most recent Classics Club Spin selection. I had been actually hoping to visit Scotland this summer (after my trip to London to see Hamilton) but since we decided to visit Jane Austen country, reading Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie would have to suffice for my Scotland fix. It includes so many of my favorite bookish requirements: Mid-century -- Check! Scotland location -- check! Quirky characters -- check! I am sorry to say most of what I know about Scotland comes from reading and watching Outlander (which I realize was written by an American). This has a lot more drinking and a lot less kilts and steamy Scotsmen -- and no time-travel.

The setup: loosely based on actual events of the 1940s, this comic novel is set during WWII and is the story of the residents of Little Todday and Great Todday, two fictional islands in the Outer Hebrides. Of course there is rationing due to the war, but what hits everyone hardest is the lack of whisky -- as the story begins there hasn't been any Scotch for weeks, and everyone is rationed to one beer every other day. They are all miserable.  

The tale opens with the return of Sergeant Odd, a forty-something English solider who had been previously assigned to the island, and fallen in love with a local girl, Peggy Macroon, before he shipped off to Africa. He's ready to get married but her father keeps putting off the wedding. The locals tell him they can't possibly host a reiteach, a traditional Gaelic engagement party, when there's no whisky to be had. The first third of the book mostly deals with Odd visiting various locals so the reader is introduced to the various quirky locals. 

Finally, a miracle occurs -- a steamer called the Cabinet Minster is wrecked on a reef between the two islands, and it seems like manna from heaven when the locals realize the hold was filled with 15,000 cases of premium whisky bound for the United States (apparently much of the whisky has been diverted to sell to America to pay for the war effort -- it's not clear if the Americans have entered the war yet). The shipping company writes off the loss and the residents get busy salvaging what they can before the excise men arrive, and the engagement party is back on.

Hilarity ensues when the resident self-important gentry, Captain Wagget, decides that everyone is flaunting the law (and enjoying themselves), so he tries to get the police and military involved. There are also some really funny bits with the local school master, George Campbell, whose domineering mother is trying to prevent his engagement. 

I really enjoyed this book. I do think it started out a bit slow, and I had a little trouble with Gaelic references and some of the dialect written phonetically into the dialogue. It's not what I'd describe as a rip-roaring yarn but more of a simmer -- perhaps I would have enjoyed it more if I'd been sipping a wee dram myself while I'd been reading it! It was definitely worth sticking with. I feel like I got a real flavor of the islands, so to speak, and I enjoyed all the colorful characters. I really wish now that I had been able to visit Scotland this summer. 

Eddie Izzard as Captain Wagget

There have been two film adaptations of Whisky Galore -- the first one from 1949 starred Gordon Jackson (Hudson from Upstairs, Downstairs) as Mr. Campbell and is a classic comedy from the British Ealing studios.  The 2016 remake stars Eddie Izzard as Captain Wagget which I think is brilliant -- I love his stand-up and he's wonderful in almost every film and TV role. Sadly neither version is available from Netflix or at my library so I'll have to see if I can get one via inter-library loan, or I may just suck it up and see if I can find a cheap copy on the internet. 

Bloggers, has anyone seen either version? And how did everyone do with their spin picks? 

Classics Club Spin #18

One of my favorite parts of being a member of the Classics Club are the Spins. Basically, participants select 20 books from their Classics Club list and number them. The club chooses a random number, and club members read the corresponding book from the list with that number, and have a month to read and post about it. I've just started my second Classics Club list, which has some very obscure classics because I'm desperately trying to read books from my own shelves. Here's my list:

Five Classics I've Owned the Longest:

1. Imperial Palace by Arnold Bennett

2. Alas, Poor Lady by Rachel Ferguson
3. Living/Loving/Party Going by Henry Green

4. The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore

5. The Children by Edith Wharton

Five From the 20th Century:
6. Westwood by Stella Gibbons
7. The Hireling by L. P. Hartley
8. The Little Ottleys by Ada Leverson
9. Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie
10. Barmy in Wonderland by P. G. Wodehouse

Five in Translation:
11. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
12. The Misunderstanding by Irene Nemirovsky
13. The Bright Side of Life by Emile Zola
14. The Fortunes of the Rougons by Emile Zola
15. Beware of Pity by Stephan Zweig

Five Virago Modern Classics:
16. Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy
17. Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamund Lehmann
18. The World My Wilderness by Rose Macauley
19. Jenny Wren by E. H. Young
20. Frost in May by Antonia White

On August 1 I'll be assigned a number and that will be my next Spin pick! Which ones should I be hoping for? Which should I be dreading? And what's on your Spin list? 

Updated: The number is up, and I'll be reading #9, Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie. Sounds like a perfect summer read and I'm looking forward to it.