Blogging Sick Leave and Comfort Reads

Sorry to have been away from the blog for so long, but, unfortunately I've been nursing a nasty ear infection for the past week.  I've managed to read a few comforting books, though I've been a little too foggy to put together enough coherent and insightful thoughts to write an actual book review.  (Though I have been gratefully reading lots of other brilliant and clever postings!)  Hopefully, I'll spend the holiday getting caught up and start posting again soon.

In honor of my little sick leave, I'm posting a short list of some of my favorite comfort reads (in no particular order):

1.  Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. The book that made me fall in love with the wizarding world.  It will always be my favorite of the entire series.

2.  The Chronicles of Narnia.  My favorites are The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Horse and His Boy.  Though Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader are awfully good. . .  . okay, pretty much the whole series except The Magician's Nephew and The Silver Chair, both of which I found to be dreary and depressing.

3.  Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. [Spoiler alert!] Elizabeth realizes Mr. Darcy isn't such a horse's ass after all, they fall in love, and all is right with the world.  Sigh.

4.  Persuasion.  See #3 and substitute Anne Eliot and Captain Wentworth for Lizzie and Darcy.

5.  Danny, the Champion of the World, by Roald Dahl.  By far my favorite Roald Dahl book, and curiously, one of the few without magic.  I love the relationship between Danny and his father.  The great pheasant caper is pretty cool also.

6.  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith.  Poor Francie Nolan's life is so terrible, so why is this story so comforting?  

7.  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  My favorite parts of this book are about the minutiae of life in a small town in the South.   This book just gets better as I get older.

8.  The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare.  One of the best historical juvenile books ever.  It even makes me want to go back to Colonial Times -- and I don't do so well without running water.

9.  Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum.  Dorothy's back in Oz after a shipwreck with a talking chicken. There are also trees with lunch boxes and dinner pails growing on them, a Hungry Tiger, and a princess with multiple heads -- what could be better?  How about Dorothy standing up to the princess who wants to trade heads with her -- "I b'lieve you won't!!"  You go, Dorothy!

10.  Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.  Is it weird that a creepy gothic novel is comforting?  A young woman marries a much older widower who brings her back to his big scary mansion, complete with a creepy housekeeper who's obsessed with the first wife -- sounds comforting, right? Still one of my favorites.

So, bloggers, which books do you turn to when you're sick or cranky?  Childhood reads, mysteries, chick lit?  I'd love to know what other people find comforting.

Top Ten War Stories

In honor of Veteran's Day I've created a list of my Top Ten War Stories.  Thanks to Suey for the inspiration!  In no particular order:

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.  Yes, it's racist, but Scarlett is so spunky, and I'm always interested in reading about wars from the perspective of the home front.  I'm not really into battles and action sequences.

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak.  Death narrates the story of a young orphaned German girl during WWII.  I cried like a baby at the end.

A Very Long Engagment by Sebastien Japrisot.  A heartbreaking look at WWI France, and its aftermath.  Also a great movie adaptation.

Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene.  A 12-year-old Jewish girl living in the American South befriends a German POW. One of my favorite young adult books of all time.

The Complete Maus by Art Spiegleman.  The groundbreaking graphic novel, one of the best books about WWII I've ever read.  Not to be missed.

The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett A great unappreciated book about the very different lives of two Victorian sisters. One of the sisters, Sophia, is trapped in the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. Scary.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows.  On the lighter side of WWII fiction, but a great read.  I never knew that the British Channel Islands were invaded by the Germans during the war.  It's mostly in letters, which I always love, and it's about a book group in wartime!

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.  Another heartbreaking love story.  I think I liked the movie adaptation even more than the book, even though Colin Firth plays a real ass.

Stones From the River by Ursula Hegl.  And interesting look at WWII, from a German viewpoint.  This book had great insight into how the Germans tolerated the rise of Nazism, until it was too late.  One of the best of Oprah's books.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Not my favorite Dickens, but still, great writing, and a frightening look at the French Revolution.

So -- which books have I missed?  Suggestions from the blogosphere?

Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons

Oh, I am so behind on my book reviews.  I still haven't reviewed all the books that I read during Readathon, and now my vacation books.  Well, now that I'm back I'll hopefully be able to catch up. I'm going to start out with Nightingale Wood, the first book I read on my trip.  (Technically, I started it a couple of days before I left, but since I finished it on the airplane to my recent vacation, I count this as a vacation read.) And it was just the thing -- light, funny, and not too mentally taxing.

I really enjoyed this book.  The only other book I'd heard of by the author, Stella Gibbons, is Cold Comfort Farm, which is a charming satire of British pastoral fiction, full of quirky characters and a rather know-it-all heroine.  Nightingale Wood isn't really like that -- yes, Gibbons does poke fun at some literary archetypes like the stodgy English lord-of-the-manor, and the rich playboy-type, but this is more of a Cinderella story.

So here's the setup.  The book is set about the 1930s, I'm guessing after the stock market crash.  In her early twenties, Viola Withers is newly widowed and broke.  She was briefly married to the only son of a somewhat wealthy family, and is forced to move in with her in-laws due to her reduced circumstances.  So she leaves London to live in the country with her stodgy, money-obsessed father-in-law, her rather bland mother-in-law, and her two sisters-in-law; one of whom is secretly in love with the handsome young chauffeur, and the other who wants nothing more than to play golf and raise dogs.  There's another wealthy family nearby, with a handsome son Victor, who's all but engaged to a bitchy socialite.  Viola, a former shopgirl, is pretty, sweet, and not terribly intelligent, but her presence in the dull countryside shakes things up a bit, especially when she meets her Prince Charming at the annual charity ball.

Since this is sort of a twist on a fairy tale, some people might consider this chick lit.  However, I found it so much more original and joyful than most of the chick lit available these days.  Yes, it has romance, a young single woman, and a happy ending, but it's much more than that.  Viola isn't terribly bright, but we're still rooting for her and for all most of the other single women in the story, her sister-in-law Tina and Victor's bookish bohemian cousin Hetty.  Gibbons also puts a little twist on some of the other typical characters, like the village hermit and the hot young chauffeur.  Nightingale Wood lacks some of the biting satire of Cold Comfort Farm, but Gibbons gets some good digs in, particularly about readers and writers.  Here's a description of Victor's cousin Hetty:

"Hetty had taken after her father's side, the unsuccessful (that is, poor) Franklins who were all teachers and parsons and librarians, and as dull as ditch-water, with their noses in books, their socks in holes and their finances in muddles.  Hetty was a disappointment.  All that Mrs. Spring [her aunt] could do with Hetty was to let Victor see that her investments did not go down, while she herself chose her clothes and tried to marry her off."

I suppose I found that amusing (instead of being offended) because I'm both a bookworm and a librarian!  Of course, most of the librarians I know are extremely interesting people.  And here's what Viola's sister-in-law Tina is thinking when she takes her first driving lesson from the family chauffeur:

"She was not a fuzzy person like Viola; had she been, she might have married, for the distressing truth is that the fuzzies usually do; men like them.  She had kept her brain exercised by reading heavyish books, which might not always be truly wise but at least were not those meringues of the intellect, those mental brandies-and-sodas -- novels."


Oh, shocking, the reading of novels!  I hope my fellow book-bloggers are giggling over this instead of snorting in disgust.   I prefer to think that Gibbons is actually poking fun at people who don't read novels, since she wrote 25 novels in her lifetime, plus short stories and poems.  Oddly enough, she's best known for her Cold Comfort Farm, her very first novel, and that which is most widely available.  Nightingale Wood was only just reprinted here in the U.S., and sadly, I don't think any of her other books are still in print here.  Like the works of Winifred Watson, author of Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day, it seems Gibbons' novels have fallen out of favor.  Hopefully publishers will start reprinting more of her books.

Posting from Hawaii

Well, bloggers, I am on vacation, and have been so busy getting ready for said vacation, I've been remiss in my postings.  However, I did pack plenty of books -- I do have my priorities.  I can't complain as I am on Oahu!  (My DH had a convention and it would be unfair to let him go alone, wouldn't it?)

I did try very hard to find appropriate books to bring, but since I couldn't face James Michener's Hawaii, the closest thing I could find on my to-read shelf was The Wives of Henry Oades, a contemporary historical fiction book I won in a giveaway from Suey several months ago.  It's actually set in New Zealand, but it's in the South Pacific, so I figured it was somehow appropriate.  I started it today (while waiting for my husband outside the convention center) and I'm enjoying it so far.

However, nearly every other book I brought with me is set in England!  Here are the other books I brought:

Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons -- finished on the plane (nine hours total, plus a layover in Dallas).

The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett -- (I had to bring at least one Persephone).

Greenery Street by Denis Mackail -- okay, another Persephone.  I've signed up for the Persephone Christmas Exchange.  This is research.  Really.

Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope -- because I signed up for the upcoming Trollope feature on The Classics Circuit.  It is 825 pages long, so I need to get cracking.  I've read 80 pages and it's good so far, so this is promising.

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson.  Set in Sweden, but it's in the summer, and it's summer here all year round.  Close enough. And it's short.

And because I could not go 24 hours on vacation without buying a book, I bought Mark Twain's Letters From Hawaii.  I'm feeling a little guilty because I really wanted to buy this at an independent bookstore called Native Books.  I walked and walked and walked and got frustrated and (after visiting the Iolani Royal Palace) I broke down and bought it at Barnes and Noble, which actually had a really big selection of Hawaiiana.  But I feel guilty because I know if people don't support independents, they'll all go out of business.  Of course I got back to the hotel and looked it up --  I was only a block away!!!  Grrrr.  I'll just have to go back and buy something else before I have to leave.

The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Ever since I discovered the Persephone imprint, I've been so excited to read all their books.  Unfortunately, they're hard to find here in the U.S.   The Home-Maker is still in print here in the U.S. from another publisher, but the copy I received from the library via interlibrary loan was actually published in 1924!!  It's one of the oldest copies of a book I've read.

If you're familiar with Persephones, you're probably thinking of charming, cozy midcentury women's British fiction, like two of my first Persephone reads, Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day and Miss Buncle's Book, both of which are fun, delightful reads.  The Home-Maker starts out with a much darker story; in fact, it was so depressing at first I almost abandoned it altogether.  It did get better, though, and I'm really glad I stuck with it.

It's set in a small American town (not clear where, maybe the midwest) in the early part of the century.  A struggling housewife, Evangeline Knapp, is obsessed with keeping her house clean and her family in order.  They're all absolutely miserable -- she's practically OCD, her kids are cowed and frightened of her, her husband is in a dead-end accounting job at the local department store and probably has ulcers.  They're all so unhappy, it's just awful.  Her husband Lester is kind of a cerebral, poetic person, totally miserable stuck in an office, and when his job is on the line he considers suicide -- a bit like It's a Wonderful Life without the angels.

Something terrible happens, and Evangeline is forced to pick up the pieces of the family and go looking for a job.  There had been previous hints of Eve's quick mind and inventiveness, but she'd been completely stifled in her role as Wife and Mother.  So things start to turn up for this family.  Basically, this book is a very feminist, forward look at gender roles and families. It was so surprising and I was absolutely rooting for the Knapp family and couldn't wait to find out how it all turned out.  This book was published more than 80 years ago and it's still very timely, given the struggles of couples and families to balance work and childcare, and the issues of childrearing and caregivers.  It's pretty groundbreaking.

I'm really glad I was able to get a copy via ILL, but I was totally annoyed while reading it -- I got to page 315 (it's 320 pages) and I realized a page was missing.  Of course I was able to get the gist of the ending but I was sort of thrown for a loop.  Luckily, I was able to find it online through Google reader and read the two missing pages.  How irritating -- has that ever happened to anyone else?

By the way, if you're a fan of Persephones, you'll be pleased to learn that The Home-Maker is being reprinted as a Persephone Classic next June, and will be readily available for the U. S. market (according to Amazon.com and The Book Depository).  You can even pre-order now if you're willing to wait for it.

Final Comments on Bleak House and My Favorite Dickens Novels

I have finished Bleak House -- all 28 discs of the audio version, alternating with nearly 1000 pages of the print version.  We're nearly finished with the eight-week readalong, and again, I'd like to thank Amanda for organizing this -- it's nice to see so many participants.  I know not everyone is as big a Dickens fan as I am, so I'm especially impressed with the bloggers that have stuck with it this far, considering the length.  It's a big reading commitment, especially if you're not enjoying it.  I did enjoy this just as much this time around as my previous read, and even more than my multiple viewings of the excellent BBC adaptation.  If you're intrigued by the story but put off by the length of the book, please, do yourself a favor and watch this -- believe me, you will be hooked.  It may even inspire you to attempt reading it.

I'm not even going to attempt to recap the plot thus far -- it would take too long and include far too many spoilers.  I love Bleak House because of the memorable characters, the fascinating, twisty plot, the great cliffhangers, and the brilliant way in which Dickens ties everything together while including social commentary, mystery, humor, tragedy, and romance.  Seriously, this book has everything.  It will remain one of my favorite books of all time.  If I was going into outer space for a year and could only bring ten books with me, this would be one of them.

Like Bleak House, most of Dickens' works are a commitment.  They are long.  His prose is flowery and sometimes challenging.  His plots can be labyrinthine.  Some of his characters (especially the women) can be irritating.  I also find that he's elitist -- good characters, even if they are criminals, are usually nice looking and come to a happy end, and they are usually well-born, even if they are miserable orphans and don't realize they are From a Good Family.  Many of the poor, unhappy characters are uneducated, unloved, and unattractive, and they suffer sad fates.  Those that are not rarely rise above their station.

However, this does not deter me, because Dickens is really and truly worth it.  I read my first Dickens work, Great Expectations, back in college and then basically ignored his oeuvre until 2007, when I read A Tale of Two Cities with an online classics group.  It wasn't until I watched the BBC miniseries adaptation of Bleak House that I was seriously hooked on Dickens.  I've now read about half of his major works.  I'm ranking them below in order of preference.

Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock

1.  Bleak House.  Still my favorite.  Maybe it was the miniseries, but I am captivated by the tragic story of the Jarndyce court case.  The lives of the Jarndyce heirs are intertwined with the heroine, Esther Summerson, as well as the mysterious Lady Dedlock.  This book has everything -- romance, blackmail, murder, the brilliant Inspector Bucket (the first detective in English fiction!) and a host of side characters that are both grotesque and charming.

2.  Oliver Twist.  The quintessential Dickens orphan.  By now, the trope of the Poor Orphan is a little hackneyed, but little Oliver manages to survive the workhouse and a gang of thieves and still be sweet and saintly.  Also one of Dickens' shorter works, so it's a great starting point for the Dickens novice.

3.  Great Expectations.  My first Dickens, read in my last semester of college.  I took a fifth class, Introduction to Fiction, on a whim.  I can't remember any of the other books we read except this one.  I was sure I'd hate it but I was blown away, it was so enjoyable!  It contains some of Dickens' most memorable characters -- Pip, the hero; his kindly but hapless stepbrother Joe, and his shrew of a sister.

4/5.  Little Dorrit and David Copperfield -- tied for fourth place.  Copperfield started out so well, vying with Bleak House for my favorite, but the middle gets really slow, and the story doesn't seem to go anywhere.  And David's True Love Dora is one of his most annoying ingenues EVER, so it slips in the ranking.  Little Dorrit has a lot of the colorful characters for which Dickens is famous, but somehow the story isn't quite as enchanting.  Young Amy Dorrit was born and raised in the Marshalsea Prison, where her father has spent years imprisoned for debts.  Dickens was pointing out the injustice of this vicious cycle.  The hero, Arthur Clennam, is trying to help the Dorrits and falls in love with Amy.

6.  A Tale of Two Cities.  This one gets big points for being fairly short, and also for having the BOTH the best first line and the best last line in a book EVER.  Lots of great books have great first lines, but to have both is pretty impressive.  Also, one of the best female villains, Madame DeFarge.  However, points are taken away because, once again, Lucie Manette, the beautiful ingenue, is so boooring.  Why is everyone so in love with her?  Apparently Dickens believes that since she is young, innocent and pretty, no character development is therefore necessary. Snore.

7.  Nicholas Nickleby.  Poor Nicholas has to get a teaching job at a terrible school to support his widowed mother and sister, and along the way he has some adventures.  It was okay, but the characters didn't appeal to me nearly as much as those in Bleak House, Oliver Twist, or even Great Expectations.

8/9.  Hard Times and A Christmas Carol.  Bleah.  They're short, but I just don't see the appeal.  Hard Times is often read in schools because it's one of Dickens shortest works -- because he left out all the good stuff!  Seriously, I cannot recall a single element of this book that I liked, or a single interesting character.  It seems like Dickens had a novel all planned out and hadn't added any of the funny and/or grotesque side characters, but he was in a rush to publish something so he just handed it off to the publisher.  A huge disappointment.

And A Christmas Carol -- it's so popular, and I've seen so many adaptations -- there's even a Disney adaptation with Mickey Mouse and Scrooge McDuck.   When I finally got around to reading it, I didn't see what the big deal was.  I suppose I would have enjoyed it more if a TV version hadn't scared the crap out of me when I was about six or seven.  (What was my mother thinking, letting me watch this?  I was so scared of the Ghost of Christmas Future I slept under the bed for a week).  I finally got around to reading it a few years ago and was seriously underwhelmed.

So, now that I'm nearly finished with Bleak House I have to think about which Dickens to read next.  My top choices are Martin Chuzzlewith, Dombey and Son, and Our Mutual Friend.  Bloggers, have you read any of these?  Which one should I read next?  I'd love to hear your comments and also your thoughts about other Dickens novels.

Bleak House Readalong, Week 8

This is my second reading of Bleak House, and I'm enjoying the heck out of it.  I can't help it.  I know, it's kind of a nineteenth-century soap opera.  It's melodramatic, and there are far too many coincidences, but I still love it.  It's kind of like a Victorian version of Lost, but without the island and the smoke monster. There's lots of characters whose lives end up mysteriously interconnected. . and they were on an island. . . and there was a lot of smoke in Victorian England. . . so I guess it's a lot like Lost!  (But without the plane crash.  Hey, what about a steampunk version of Bleak House?  Maybe a mashup?)

But I digress.  Sometimes I've fallen behind in the reading/posting, and for this, I apologize.  As far as a plot summary goes, if I describe too much at this point, it would spoil it.  I'll just say the action has really moved along here -- one of our characters is on a major downward spiral, one is in serious trouble, one is dead, and others are suspected of the crime.  Inspector Bucket, one of my favorite characters, had been introduced previously, but now he's really involved in the story.  He's one of the first detectives in English literature, if not THE first, which is pretty cool.  He may have been inspired in part by an actual detective in Victorian history, Mr. Whicher.

I have to admit that I've never actually read the print version of the book the entire way through -- it's so long, and I have so much else to read, that I've combined the audio and print versions.  I'm fortunate that my library has the Naxos audiobook version, narrated by Sean Barrett and Teresa Gallagher, and I think it's just wonderful.  Both of them are such great readers, and can do so many voices so well.  I'm always amazed when a male reader does a distinctive female voice, and vice versa.  With both of these excellent readers, I'm able to tell instantly when Ms. Gallagher is doing Mr. Jarndyce, or Mr. Vholes, or when Mr. Barrett is reading Lady Dedlock's part.  There are more than 40 characters in Bleak House (seriously, I once made a list!) and to be able to so many parts so well is real talent.   The right reader can make or break an audiobook -- I am quite sure that the audio of Wuthering Heights may have been what ruined it for me.

Alun Armstrong as Mr. Bucket

And as I've said repeatedly, I think the BBC miniseries adaptation of Bleak House is just fantastic.  Yes, they had to cut a few characters, and condense things a bit -- they've made a thousand page book into an eight-hour miniseries, so a few things had to go.  The series is quite faithful and really captures the essence of the story, if not every single detail.  I honestly can't say whether I liked the book or the series better, they're both just wonderful.

I still have more than 200 pages to go, with a lot of unanswered questions -- who is the murderer?  Will everyone learn Lady Dedlock's deep secret?  Will the Jarndyce case EVER be settled in Chancery Court?  And will Esther find true love?  And will someone finally smack Harold Skimpole upside the head?  See, I told you it was a Victorian soap opera -- stay tuned for the next episode.

Readathon Wrap-Up

All done!  I lasted until about 2 a.m. Central time.  I did finish my final book, a creepy little Gothic thriller by Joan Aiken called Died on a Rainy Sunday.  It's a short book, only about 120 pages, and I'd read it before so it was a fun way to end the evening (plus it counts for the RIP challenge).  I was too tired last night to write a final update, so here are my numbers:

Pages read: 1237
Books finished: 5
Books finished from my shelves: 3
Books finished from the library: 2

Cecelia's books:

Pages read: 1499
Books finished (all from her own shelves): 6

It was really fun but I was sorry to get started so late in the day.  I also should have planned out the dinner better.  Hopefully I'll be able to plan my day better next year -- it just worked out that book group fell on this day, and I hate to miss it.  What I'd really love would be to pack a bunch of books into a suitcase and check into a hotel for Readathon!  I could lock myself into the room and order food in.  I'd get tons of reading done (except breaks for the hot tub, of course).  Wouldn't that be great?

Readathon Update 3

Four books and counting!

I'm so glad I have such a pile of short books -- it really helps me feel I'm making progress.  Of course the pile keeps getting bigger instead of smaller. . .

I've finished another Persephone, Cheerful Weather For the Wedding, which was super short.  And I finished Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  I read a total of about 90 pages of it today, so I'm going to count it was one of my finished books.

Updated totals:

Pages read: 1016
Books finished: 4
Books finished from my shelves: 3
Library books read: 1

It's after midnight and I think I'm going to reread a favorite gothic novel by Joan Aiken, then go to bed.  If I'm early enough tomorrow I may read some more.  I didn't get nearly as many books read as I'd hoped, but next time I'll hopefully have an entire day.

Readathon Update 2

I've made progress!!  582 pages of progress, to be specific! Woo hoo!  I finished Blankets by Craig Thompson, a wonderful, big, fat graphic novel.  And I finished it in less than two hours!  This will do great things for my total number of pages.  I'm definitely energized and inspired.  I loved Blankets and I'll post about it this week.

I've started my Persephone book, Cheerful Weather For the Wedding by Julia Strachey.  It's a really thin book, only 119 pages, and I realized it's one of those books that the publisher has fleshed out by using really, really wide margins -- the book itself is 5 1/2 by 7 1/2 inches, but the actual text on each page is only 3 inches by 4 3/4!!  That's a LOT of white space on each page.  I should finish it quickly.

I should have planned ahead for dinner, but I ended up making a roast duck with crusty potatoes and braised red cabbage.   I know, I should have planned ahead and ordered in or cooked ahead of time, but the duck was finally defrosted and I didn't know if it would keep another day in the refrigerator, so I stuck it in the oven.  But please don't be impressed -- roast duck isn't any harder than a roast chicken, it just has a lot more fat.  And it comes with its own packet of delicious orange sauce.  Gabriela, my 13-year-old, made cupcakes this morning, so dessert was ready.  She has already promised to make French toast for breakfast tomorrow.

I can't give an accurate update for Cecelia, because she fell asleep on the couch so her big sister tucked her into bed.  I'll report on her final page numbers tomorrow, but it's very impressive, somewhere around 1500 pages.  She's a fast reader and I think she reread the entire Percy Jackson series, but who cares?  She's raising money for charity and I think that's great.

Current totals:

Pages read: 838
Books finished: 2
Books finished from my shelves: 1
Library books finished: 1