Midweek Miscellany & hemingWay of the Day: on Spanish whisky

Posted on March 2, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I have a sprinkling of things to share with you today.

One. I have updated my blogroll (look right–> and down some) to include all the blogs that I (try to) visit every day. And you will see ABOVE the blogroll, a short list of My Very Favorites. Check ’em out.

Two. I have a very favorite blog post of the day to share with you, too: it’s a review of a book called To Bed With Grand Music by Marghanita Laski and you can find this delightful post here. I am super intrigued by the idea of this book, and it’s completely due to the discussion of it by the Book Snob, so thank you Book Snob! This one goes on the list. Check that out, too.

Three. I am still reading By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, and still loving every minute of it. I may have to put it down at some point to pick up An Incomplete Revenge, the next Maisie book. But fortunately, as a collection of short pieces, By-Line is a pretty good book to put down and pick back up. I should also confess to now being in the middle of no fewer than five books. Hm. (The others are Whatever You Say I Am by Anthony Bozza; The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien; Dust by Martha Grimes; and The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Eclectic, a bit.)

Four. Now for my daily quotation out of By-Line.

Beer is scarce and whisky is almost unobtainable. Store windows are full of Spanish imitations of all cordials, whiskies and vermouths. These are not recommended for internal use, although I am employing something called Milords Ecosses Whisky on my face after shaving. It smarts a little, but I feel very hygenic. I believe it would be possible to cure athlete’s foot with it, but one must by very careful not to spill it on one’s clothes because it eats wool.

(from Hemingway’s dispatch on Sept. 30, 1937 from Madrid, in covering the Spanish Civil War. incidentally the subject of perhaps my most favorite novel ever, For Whom the Bell Tolls, for which Hem pretty obviously collected his material during the very time when this dispatch was written.)

Does this make you laugh? It does me. I’m having a good day of laughing while I read; I usually laugh at the posts of Useless Beauty, books i done read, TERRIBLEMINDS, and Hyperbole and a Half, too. It’s a good day when you laugh out loud while reading.

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Hemingway’s recommended reading

Posted on March 1, 2011 by pagesofjulia

In reading By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, I have been struck several times over, now, by his graciously recommending books that I should be reading. I have compiled them here for you in case you are as interested as I am:

Anna Karenina, Tolstoy
Far Away and Long Ago, W.H. Hudson
Buddenbrooks, Thomas Mann
Wuthering Heights, Bronte
Madame Bovary, Flaubert
War and Peace, Tolstoy
A Sportsman’s Sketches, Turgenev
The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky
Hail and Farewell, George Moore
Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson
La Reine Margot, Dumas
La Maison Tellier, De Maupassant
Le Rouge et le Noir, Stendhal
La Chartreuse de Parme, Stendhal
Dubliners, James Joyce
Yeats’s Autobiographies
Midshipman Easy, Marryat
Frank Mildmay, Marryat
Peter Simple, Marryat
L’Education Sentimentale, Flaubert
Portrait of the Artist, James Joyce
Ulysses, James Joyce
Tom Jones, Henry Fielding
Joseph Andrews, Henry Fielding
The Open Boat, Stephen Crane
The Blue Hotel, Stephen Crane

…as well as “all the good De Maupassant, all the good Kipling, all of Turgenev… Henry James’s short stories, especially Madame de Mauves, and The Turn of the Screw, The Portrait of a Lady, The American -” here he is interrupted by the young writer to whom he has been dictating. (The young man says he can’t possibly write all these down, and Hemingway promises to give him more the next day; “there are about three times that many.”)

The list I’ve compiled here for you comes from two different articles. In the first, he’s basically discussing boredom, not having the opportunity to hunt or fish, and having already read for the first time all “the best of the books”; he says he “would rather read again for the first time [these books] and a few others than have an assured income of a million dollars a year.” In the second story, Hemingway portrays himself as pestered by a young struggling writer who has traveled to Key West to beg for his advice and help. Hemingway employs the young man and is tortured (it would seem) by having these advice-giving sessions, in one of which he gives a slightly different list of books that it is “necessary” a writer have read. I have bolded for you the ones that appear in both of his lists.

So how do we feel about this? Well, first of all I feel shamed, because I have read exactly THREE of these books. Dear, dear! I’m not exquisitely well-read but I generally feel I’m above-average. (Don’t ask me what the average is, that’s a whole new subject. I am especially above it if the “average” is those kids on Jersey Shore. They write books too, you know.) I have read Wuthering Heights, Madame Bovary, and of course The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, all three of which I absolutely agree are outstanding and timeless books. So do I need to follow Hemingway’s advice? Well, as I’ve said before, I consider myself awfully a fan of his. I am inclined to want to read the books he considered “best” and “necessary.” These generally sound like solid pillars of a person’s education who wants to call herself well-read. I shall put them on The List but you know how that goes. The List is pages and pages long.

What about you? What do you think? Are you inclined to take advice from Papa? (Perhaps you despise Papa. Some people do. It’s allowed.) Or what about your favorite author – would you feel strongly about reading the books he or she described as “best” and “necessary”? How about the fact that there is only one book on his list by a woman? How bothered are you by this? I’d love to hear your feelings! Thanks and have a happy Tuesday!

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back from the weekend, with very little reading, just a touch of Hemingway.

Posted on February 28, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Hello friends. Thanks for bearing with me. Life is busy. I have this job, see. And I’m taking this class in Database Searching which is fab but takes up time. And I’m trying to be back on this bike and train for the Ouachita Challenge, and we took that vacation, and, and. Thanks for bearing with me.

I had a great weekend, very productive. On Saturday I got to ride bikes with the Husband who made it home from Newark earlier than expected; we planted a tree and did some yard stuff; my mother brought us a beautiful quilt she made for us; and I finally photographed for you of a beautiful set of bookshelves the Husband made (several weeks ago now). Pictures:

Mother and Husband with swamp cypress oak and whimsical wheelbarrow herb garden


whimsical wheelbarrow herb garden with dragonfly


Encyclopaedia Britannica bookshelves, courtesy of Husband (please ignore electronic mess)


close-up Encyclopaedia Britannica shelves


beautiful "union" t-shirt quilt courtesy of Mother


This is an elaborate, beautifully crafted quilt made up of (cycling) event t-shirts belonging to the Husband and myself. It is our wedding gift (we will soon be married 3 years, this is not a fast process) from my Mother and it’s a “union” quilt because it symbolizes our union, combining our two histories of bicycle racing as it does. It’s so lovely, we don’t know what to do with the little dogs who like to muss up bedcoverings.

close-up of quilt: notice Chihuahuan Desert Challenge (earlier incarnation of the trip we just took to Big Bend) and above, the Warda Race (earlier incarnation of the race I did yesterday)

Aren’t I a lucky girl? And that was Saturday.

Yesterday – Sunday – I headed out to race Bikesport Presents the Warda Race. Without boring you too much (hopefully), I will say that I have gotten fat & out of shape while being off the bike for an unexpectedly long time this past fall & winter, and I knew this race would be a rude awakening. So, I did the reasonable thing and signed up for not the Category 2 Men, not the Category 1 Women, but the Pro Women’s race. This got me an extra lap of pain and suffering and embarrassment in my currently-undersized spandex. It went as expected. But, this kind of pain and suffering is going to get me back on track. I’m now less than 5 weeks away from the Ouachita Challenge, so it’s time to get to work.

This busy, productive, and happy weekend did not leave time for much reading. I don’t think I did any reading, in fact. So today I’m back on By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, and very happy to be. I shall make a few bookish remarks so this blog doesn’t seem too much a sham, ok?

I really enjoy reading Hemingway’s short articles and dispatches. I can’t believe it took me this long to pick up on this little pleasure. I have always loved him and have devoured all his novels, several of his nonfiction works (and I think you really have to love Hemingway to get through Death in the Afternoon – or bull-fighting, perhaps – but I actually did enjoy it), and I THINK I’ve read all his short stories – I’ve got a collection of collections. But somehow this collection of his journalism has eluded me til now.

These are short pieces of writing, covering his international travels, war and international politics, fishing, hunting, and general lifestyle. It seems that then, as now, this man’s life was of some interest; he had outrageous adventures (how much he’s elaborated or exaggerated them, would be a subject for another post) and saw outrageous sights. Hemingway’s fiction was heavily based on fact, and I fear his journalism might be tinged with fiction, especially where the Exploits of Papa are concerned. This is one of the mysteries and controversies of Hemingway. It may not be a popular feminist position to take, but I adore Hemingway for his work, even if he wasn’t a savory character – let alone a good husband. To any of his wives.

I was contemplating today, as I read some hunting-and-fishing stories he wrote for Esquire, that one of the Hemingway’s most beautiful and rare talents, is that he makes me care about things I don’t care about. I don’t care for hunting or fishing. These activities are not interesting to me; and in some cases I find hunting downright distasteful. But when Hemingway describes the way a fish, or a bird, moves, or the battle between the fisherman and his prey a la The Old Man and the Sea, or when he describes the experience of the bottle of icy cold white wine he’s had stuck down in the cold trout stream all day – I can taste the wine, and I care about the fish. He makes me taste and feel things very vibrantly, even things I’ve never experienced. He’s a very visceral writer.

In the same way, I’ve always said one of my favorite things about the Drive-by Truckers is their ability to make me care about things I don’t care about. For example, car racing is not interesting to me. But just about every time I hear a recording of them playing Daddy’s Cup (and I’ve heard it a lot), I cry. Take a moment and listen, yourself. (The video portion of this video is just filler. You’re there for the audio. Close your eyes.)

I’ve even sent the Husband (who does care about fishing) a short article by Hemingway to read, and the Husband, who doesn’t read, did enjoy it. The Husband prefers to DO things rather than sit around and read about them (we don’t watch movies, because two hours is too long to sit down – I love that he’s a do-er), but perhaps he can appreciate that Hemingway makes his reader feel the action, the doing of it.

I may be moving slowly these days, but a nice compilation like this, of short stories, or newspaper articles, or what have you, is just the thing for a part-time reader. Thanks for bearing with me and my busy life, and have a happy Monday!

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Messenger of Truth, by Jacqueline Winspear

Posted on February 28, 2011 by pagesofjulia

So. As I discovered earlier, I read this book out of order. Somehow I thought I was on book 3 and this turns out to be book 4 and although I do have book 3, Pardonable Lies, I haven’t yet started it.

Even so, Messenger of Truth was my favorite Maisie book yet. She got more human, more multi-faceted, in my opinion. She was tempted by friendship with Georgiana; that speaks of human weakness. She gets lonely. This has been one of my complaints about Maisie, that she lacks this human quality, so for me this developed her. We can see she’s still not ready for a romantic relationship, though. At least she’s now struggling with the question of it.

On the other hand, I’m also still enjoying the macro view of the world, if you will. Maisie and Billy have slightly different perspectives, but both are bothered by the haves vs. have-nots issue. In past books, discussion of the war and the post-war depression have given me a similarly satisfying treatment of the larger world. I want Maisie to be a real person; but I also like it when Winspear deals with these macro issues.

Here comes the SPOILER:

I was surprised that Winspear let Lizzie die! I guess I have to respect her for going whole hog. It’s realistic that she would die, I guess.

I still find the series interesting. I still look forward to seeing what’s going to happen to Maisie. I still intend to read book 3. :-/ But… there’s still something a bit… sanitized or somehow not entirely, grittily human about this series, for me. On the other hand, I like Maisie so much that I bought THIS!

see! my new cloche!


Call me Mad for Maisie 🙂

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Booking Through Thursday

Posted on February 24, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Whew! Must say I needed this little inspiration for today’s post. It’s been a crazy busy week and I’m nowhere near ready to relax. But I found a topic that I needed to answer!

Hosted by Booking Through Thursday, this week’s question asks: All other things being equal–do you prefer used books? Or new books? (The physical speciman, that is, not the title.) Does your preference differentiate between a standard kind of used book, and a pristine, leather-bound copy?

Easy! I vastly prefer old books! Not that I want them stained, stinky, or falling apart. But I don’t need them to be new or pristine. I like books because I like the words printed inside them, and I need to be able to read the words, simple as that. I’d prefer not to have highlighting or comments in the margins (unless they’re mine – that can be interesting, to see what I noted in high school!) but I’m pretty tolerant in general. So dogeared pages or some minor damage that leaves them readable is fine with me; really it’s probably a bit better, because I have less anxiety about messing up a brand-new copy. Uncracked spines make me nervous. A copy with some history on it is comforting and comfortable. A few of my favorite, most memorable books – like Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – I read for the first time out of battered copies older than I am that belonged to my parents. I love those copies; they’re irreplaceable.

When people shop for books for me for presents (oh boy!) I always ask them not to buy new copies, but to buy used paperbacks. For one thing, I used to commute by bicycle (sadly, those days are gone, for now at least) and carry books to and from work; the lighter and smaller for these purposes, the better. This is still true for carrying books around, of course, I just do less of it by bike. And, your money and mine both go further when buying used paperbacks than when buying new. I really think I just like the history of the actual, physical book, though.

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vacation reading: a series of short reviews

Posted on February 23, 2011 by pagesofjulia

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Still a good story! Spooky and short, it’s a bit reminiscent of Poe. Action-packed and efficient. I would not have sworn I had read this before, but now I recognize that I have. What a classic. I highly recommend this as a bang-for-the buck, action-packed, early sci-fi spookster with a bit of meditation on the human condition. Not sure if I should count this for the Classics Challenge as its a re-read. :-/

Worth Dying For by Lee Child. (audiobook) Surprisingly good as audio. I wasn’t sure. I’m such a BOOK purist that audio doesn’t always work for me; but it can’t be argued with on a road trip. Part of what made it special, too, is that I got to share it with the Husband, who doesn’t normally read. He got really into it, and we shared this suspenseful adventure together. That’s priceless.

Classic Jack Reacher! He’s such a Rambo. It’s a bit comical in the over-the-top violence and general bad-ass-ness, but I eat it up. It’s great fun. We both enjoy the slight absurdity of it, while also appreciating that we can count on this guy to get it right. And I finally begin to understand, at least a little bit, what was so frustratingly up-in-the-air at the end of 61 Hours. This may be my favorite Reacher novel yet.

The Ballad of Typhoid Mary by J.F. Federspiel. Opening quotation: “Life is strange and the world is bad.” (Thomas Wolfe) This sets the tone.

This is another creepy story. It’s historical fiction, and I have made a note in large letters to read up on the concept of Typhoid Mary and how much we know about her in the real world. She was a carrier of typhoid fever: she never got sick herself, but she made people around her sick, to the tune of several hundred at least. She was a cook, passionate about cooking for people, despite seeming to understand that she was killing them. She wasn’t a serial killer; she didn’t do it on purpose; she just didn’t let it stop her. What can we expect, in an age with poor understanding of hygiene and the spreading of disease, of a poor, uneducated, abused & orphaned young woman with no opportunities who suspects she might, in some way, be responsible for all these deaths around her? This was a fascinating read, and another very short one, too.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks.This is a collection of case studies, or short stories, or essays, by a neurologist who also fancies himself a philosopher with literary leanings. It was quite attention-grabbing, and I had to keep putting it down to tell the Husband stories. Reading about brain injuries or anomalies of the brain is infinitely more interesting to me since I had my bad wreck and experienced some brain injury and healing of my own. The most interesting thing about a number of these cases is that these patients often don’t realize that anything is wrong!

Sacks’s approach is to contemplate the relationship between mind, body, and soul, which perhaps too few of our hard scientists do. It still ended up a bit on the hard-science side for me, perhaps; he made a number of references (unexplained) to other hard scientists, which made it a bit less accessible to us laypersons. But I loved the stories, the concepts, possibilities, complexities of the human mind.

In the Woods by Tana French. I’ve been hankering for more of Tana French since reading Faithful Place. I really fell for that Frank Mackey! This one opens with immediately recognizable poetry-in-prose, stark, gritty, and strongly Irish. Then I was disappointed to recognize a familiar story: grown male detective forced to confront unsolved childhood trauma of missing friend(s). Argh! But I guess why mess with a good thing…

Oh man. I stayed up nearly all night to finish this book. (and this, in a place where I LIKE to get up to watch the sun rise!) Same story my head; it did have its plot similarities but it was so gripping and spooky, like a ghost story, except even spookier because there was nothing supernatural at all, just creepily realistic human nature. I can’t wait to get the next book!

Side note: the beautiful, tragic, doomed, perfect friendship reminded me somewhat of One Day by David Nicholls, which had an entirely different tone to it.

Echo Park by Michael Connelly. (audiobook)Another highly enjoy audiobook! This one unabridged, thank goodness. (I realized AFTER we listened to Worth Dying For that it was abridged, and now have to go back and read the book.) Connelly, for all that he’s sort of stark and black-and-white, also strikes me as a poet; I love that Bosch “educates” his ice with vodka. That’s unique! I’ve read this book before, but it’s been long enough that I still enjoyed the mystery. I like all the background or frame elements in Connelly, like the jazz (and I like that the Library of Congress, and some clever librarian there, make an appearance in relation to the jazz), and the audio format took advantage and gave us a few jazz riffs in the background here and there, which was a nice touch. I hadn’t really thought about using music on on audiobook, and actually, there were some other snippets of music added that I didn’t think worked so well; but jazz behind Connelly is a strong choice.

Whatever You Say I Am (the life and times of Eminem) by Anthony Bozza.I put this in the same category as the Hefner biography, actually. These are some highly controversial men, offensive to many if not to all, who have impacted our world; without making a value judgment, I can say I find them interesting to read about. My feelings about Eminem are complicated, just like with Hefner. (I was talking with my Pops the other night along these lines and we put Reagan in the same category but that’s a whole new can of worms.) I haven’t finished this book, am less than halfway through, but I can say I really enjoy the way Bozza puts his reader fully into a time and place. For example, to help place us in the year in which Eminem was working to release his first album, he gives us a full rundown of the musical hits and award winners of the year in various categories, as well as what movies and television were hot. Now, I’m not generally all that up to date on pop culture, but this worked for me; it really evoked a time in my life. I think that works for all of us, because isn’t sound or music second only to smell as a mnemonic? Doesn’t hearing a particular song take to you a time and place? At any rate, I’m enjoying this biographical study of a controversial figure.

And finally, By-Line: Ernest Hemingway. As I’ve said, I’m enjoying reading Hemingway’s usual tone and style, that I know so well, used in journalism. I hadn’t read any of his journalism before. I guess the nonfiction I’ve read would be Death in the Afternoon and A Moveable Feast, and then all that fiction that’s so heavily autobiographical. Any Hemingway I can get, I like.

I’ll keep you up to date on the books I still have to finish; and I have a few Maisie books waiting for me. I might finally be caught up!

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Safe return

Posted on February 21, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Hello friends! I’m safely home! It was a whirlwind and SO much fun and wonder. Usually by the end of our vacations I’m tired and looking forward to my own bed; this time it was really sad to come home. 😦 It was nice to get back to the little dogs last night, but really sad to leave the desert. I could have stayed longer! And this, after one of our longer trips, too. Ah well.

In case you were wondering, we stuck awfully closely to the plan as outlined in my daily posts you saw. I’ll be filling in the holes at some point, and sharing some pictures, but today is not that day. Today I’m struggling to catch back up in the library, with the laundry, in Database Searching, etc.

I DID do some reading! Yay! I finished Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear. I read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. The Husband and I listened to the audiobook of Worth Dying For by Lee Child on the drive. Then The Ballad of Typhoid Mary by J.F. Federspiel, and then The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks, and then In the Woods by Tana French, which I stayed up just about all night to read cover to cover, and scared myself silly, which is crazy, but it was vacation! then I started Whatever You Say I Am (the life and times of Eminem) by Anthony Bozza, and also By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, both of which are still ongoing. And then Husband and I listened to Michael Connelly’s Echo Park on the drive home. Whew! How many is that? 8 books on a 9 day vacation? Not to mention 2 hikes and 4 mountain bike rides, a few hula hoops and perhaps more than a few beers. Ahhh.

Being in the desert out there is dreamy. There’s a different quality to the light; the air is so fresh and dry and sparkly (and gets a bit thin, too, for us sea-levelers) and the landscape is lunar and majestic and… it’s otherworldly. But, I have these little dogs…

Awww….

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TBR… on vacation, and beyond

Posted on February 10, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I sat down to document my TBR (to be read) shelf today, and was alarmed at what I came up with. It is neverending, and constantly growing. I thought I’d share with you below… and be advised, this is only the TBR books that I feel really inspired to read RIGHT NOW; I haven’t even listed for you the ones that are sitting lonely to which I say “meh”.

West with the Night, Beryl Markham - came with an endorsing blurb from Hemingway, good enough for me


The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera


In the Woods, Tana French


The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, Oliver Sacks


By-line: Ernest Hemingway


The Stranger, Albert Camus


Main Street, Sinclair Lewis


The Ballad of Typhoid Mary, J.F. Federspiel


Two Lives, Janet Malcolm (biography of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas)


Good Bones, Margaret Atwood


The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson


The Professor and the Madman, Simon Winchester


The Apothecary's Demise, Anne Sloan


The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon


The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion


War and Peace, Tolstoy


A Separate Peace, John Knowles


Tender Buttons, Gertrude Stein


Don Quixote, Cervantes


The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery


Whatever You Say I Am (Eminem autobiography)


Notes from Underground, Dostoevsky


Love Medicine, Louise Erdrich


The Giver, Lois Lowry


Stories of Eva Luna, Isabel Allende


God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy


The Castle in the Forest, Norman Mailer


The Pied Piper, Ridley Pearson


Nothing to Lose, Lee Child


The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, Allison Hoover Bartlett


The Club Dumas, Arturo Perez-Reverte

…WHEW! I know, right?

I’m such a head case collector. We’ll see what I get through on the vacay, hmm? Aren’t you curious? I am. 🙂 There’s still books 4 and 3 of Maisie Dobbs to finish, too, of course – and no, I was not able to put Messenger of Truth (book 4) down, so I will be reading Pardonable Lies (book 3) next. Yes, I’m a mess.

I’ll try to post tomorrow on my way out, so we’ll have one last goodbye. And then I’ve got daily posts coming, if all goes according to plan, to see you through my vacation! Happy reading! I’ll try and take some notes and oh, what I’ll have to tell you upon my return! Where should I start in this huge pile? Any votes?

P.S. Sorry about the weird tiling above – it was too much work to get all these images loaded so I hope that you will please kindly deal with it 🙂 Thanks!

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WWW Wednesdays, and an oops

Posted on February 9, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Weekly meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

What are you currently reading?

Currently reading Jacqueline Winspear’s Messenger of Truth, which is book 4 of the Maisie Dobbs series, and therein lies the oops. I requested several Maisie books all together from my local library, and naively picked up the next one they brought me when I’d finished book 2, thinking of course it was book 3, which is actually a terrible assumption. Sigh. This explains the void in time between book 2 and the beginning of the one I just started – I thought Winspear was being tricky and was going to explain it in flashbacks, but aha! she probably told that part of the story in book 3. Last night I picked up the REAL book 3, which is Pardonable Lies, which I shall start on righ-taway (remember that from Indian in the Cupboard? no?) and put down Messenger until I’m ready to read it in the right order. Whew! I’m a bit sheepish about my mistake but it’s all going to work out.

What did you recently finish reading?

Recently finished Maisie’s book 2, Birds of a Feather.

What do you think you’ll read next?

This is the most fun question to answer today! Because on Friday I leave for NINE days of vacation, and I will be doing some reading! Also some hiking, mountain biking, and socializing, but definitely some reading. What to take with me? Oh my.

Obviously I will need to pick up Pardonable Lies next. I will probably finish Messenger of Truth on the vacay, too. But what else? I finally found a copy of In the Woods, by Tana French, and will definitely want to start that as soon as I can clear my Winspear-plate. I think I would like to read a “classic” soon too, so I can stop feeling so guilty about the Classics Challenge, but what that will be, I don’t know. I may just browse my classics shelf on my way out on Friday. I’ve been thinking lately about Gone with the Wind which I have never read, but I haven’t seen a copy recently and won’t be going out of my way for it before this trip… It will be interesting, upon my return, to see what I HAVE read! I don’t really plan my reading much, so really it’s a grab bag. But I’m excited about the possibilities. 🙂

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Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear

Posted on February 7, 2011 by pagesofjulia

This weekend I devoted myself to the second Maisie Dobbs novel. (See my notes on the first one here.) I am participating in the Maisie Dobbs Read-Along, although I’m doing a terrible job because I’m so LATE on each book. 😦 I am observing that I will continue to be LATE for at least the second and third books. Perhaps I will catch up on book four…

I am currently nearly finished with Birds of a Feather. We got to know Maisie in the first book: we learn her history as a young girl who loses her mother and goes to work as a servant; gets “discovered” for her intellect and tutored by her lifelong friend and mentor Maurice; goes to college; volunteers to nurse in the Great War; meets the love of her life and suffers tragedy. We learn of her relationships with her father, mentor Maurice, and patroness, if you will, the Lady Rowan. We also meet Billy Beale, who she hires as her assistant. In the second book, then, there is much less background to be covered, although it is sufficiently reviewed that a reader starting with book 2 will be just fine. Really, the review was a bit heavy-handed for me so recently after book 1, but I appreciate a series that can be begun in the middle, so I’ll be patient.

Maisie and Billy have undertaken another case, and operate as a team this time around, whereas in book 1, Billy took on an assistant’s role only late, and informally. Strangely, I don’t find the explain-it-to-the-assistant device to be natural or useful; I liked it better when Maisie just thought things to herself. These are lovely stories, and I love the time and place evoked so beautifully, and I like Maisie herself – plucky, smart, and caring, and with a satisfyingly complex backstory, relationships, and personal hang-ups. She’s very human. But I find myself frustrated, fairly often, with the way Winspear communicates some of her points; things tend to feel a bit forced. I think I want her to show more, and tell less. I still enjoy the books, but I am developing a hang-up. I guess I’m not explaining it perfectly, though, and will see if I can find a concrete example for you as I continue.

At any rate, there is much to like about the book. Billy is a wonderful addition, to the story as well as to Maisie’s life, and I really appreciate the way Winspear addresses substance abuse in the 1930’s. Maisie’s relationship with her father is another realistic device that I feel is well-done, like her problem with visiting Simon in book 1. The men in Maisie’s life in this book add a bit of fun that I hope we’ll continue; if I have a problem with Maisie, it’s definitely the lack of fun! A touch of romance along with mystery, history, evocative sense of place, and relationship dynamics makes for an enjoyable read, if it can just be done naturally.

I’m satisfied to continue reading Maisie Dobbs and discussing with the Book Club Girl. Maybe I’ll catch up one of these days… I expect to give you my end-of-book report tomorrow, and then I’ll venture over to the discussion to participate. For now, I’m avoiding plot spoilers.

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