August Garden Notes and Reading Notes

 

August is upon us, which means afternoon thunderstorms in Colorado and the garden is finally starting to produce. I picked tomatoes and peppers this week and roasted the anaheims for green chili. 

The picture above is our Cinderella pumpkin, now a lovely creamy golden color, but it should continue to grow and turn orange as the days and nights turn cooler. The plant has lots of flowers, hence lots of pollinators doing their thing in the garden.

August is also when our phlox are at their peak in my flower garden. You can see the white phlox behind the heron statue--I love how the white looks with the black-eyed susan.

Reading Notes

The Bookshop, by Penelope Fitzgereal - quite a short novel by quite a prolific author. I had not read anything by her before, but she comes with great credentials.

Here's her GoodReads bio: 

Penelope Mary Fitzgerald was a Booker Prize-winning novelist, poet, essayist and biographer from Lincoln, England. In 2008 The Times listed her among "the 50 greatest British writers since 1945." The Observer in 2012 placed her final novel, The Blue Flower, among "the ten best historical novels." A.S. Byatt called her, "Jane Austen’s nearest heir for precision and invention."

Based on her bio, I should have loved The Bookshop, but sadly I found it only a 3-star read. Here's the GoodReads blurb on the book:

In 1959 Florence Green, a kindhearted widow with a small inheritance, risks everything to open a bookshop - the only bookshop - in the seaside town of Hardborough. By making a success of a business so impractical, she invites the hostility of the town's less prosperous shopkeepers. By daring to enlarge her neighbors' lives, she crosses Mrs. Gamart, the local arts doyenne. Florence's warehouse leaks, her cellar seeps, and the shop is apparently haunted. Only too late does she begin to suspect the truth: a town that lacks a bookshop isn't always a town that wants one.

I loved Florence Green and cheered for her as she worked to open a bookshop in a bookshop-less village. The problem is that I couldn't actually figure out why so many of the townspeople thwarted her attempt to do something good for the village. Most of the inhabitants went to her shop and her lending library (the village also had no library before Mrs. Green arrived) was a hit. I suppose it came down to the class system in England at the time and the fact that Mrs. Green (as she is invariably referred to in the text) didn't allow herself to be dictated to but did things her own way.

As it turns out, my paternal grandmother was a Florence Green, and although I never met her (my grandparents emmigrated to Australia when my parents emigrated to North America after WWII), I felt connected to Mrs. Green because of that coincidence. 

Growing up, I always wished that my parents had stayed in England instead of moving first to Canada and then the US. I remember my Dad trying to convince me that the class system in England was oppressive and difficult to live within. Reading this book enabled me to really feel what he was talking about. Not just the way Mrs Green was treated by the lady of the manor, but also the way children were pegged at age 11 as to whether they were grammar school worthy or trade school worthy. What a waste of time and energy, talent and ambition.

The ending of the book just left me grumpy, and I had to spend more time in the garden to get my equilibrium back.

One Day, by David Nicholls - I absolutely loved You Are Here and Us by the same author, so I was confident that I would love this earlier book of his (2009). I was wrong. It was interminable and didn't rate more than 2 stars for me. Looking at reviews on GoodReads, it seems that others either loved it or felt the way I did, with lots of 1-star reviews.

The premise is great--here's what GoodReads said:

15th July 1988: Emma and Dexter meet for the first time on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that? And every year that follows?

The basic problem is that Dexter is a colossal jerk--beautiful, vain, cocky, alcoholic, druggy, and not all that bright. Emma is very bright, very grounded, very beautiful (of course), and very humble. I was so bored hearing endlessly about how drunk and stupid Dexter would get at parties, even well into his thirties, and after he married and had a child. And the ending was completely gratuitous and frustrating--no spoilers in case you want to read it. I liked Emma and thought she was likeable but seemingly incapable of making a wise decision where Dexter was concerned.

David Nicholls has clearly honed his craft since this book came out. 

Reading Scotland Update and Recommendation

I'm currently in book 2 of the fabulous Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett, Queen's Play, and have started reading Antonia Fraser's bio of Mary Queen of Scots as a companion since so far the Lymond books are mapping to Mary's life, with book 1 covering her birth and few years in Scotland, and book 2 is all about her early days in France...and the assassination attempts on her! Great stuff.

I want to recommend the Scottish History Podcast and specifically the episode on Gregor MacGregor (July 30) and the fraud he perpetuated in the early 19th century regarding the mythical land of Poyais. It's a great story, and Owen Innes of the podcast really relates it so well.

That's all for now, folks. Looking forward to cooler weather, more rain, and an abundant harvest. Stay well and let me know what you're reading!

Post-Holiday Reading Roundup - Wrist is on the Mend

I'm back, having graduated from a splint to a brace in just one week, and the doctor's orders to do whatever. "If it hurts, then don't do it!" So cooking, driving, typing are all back--not sure I can play the piano yet or sew, but so much happier to be doing instead of whining!

So, without further ado, I present to you...what I have been reading:

Making It So - Patrick Stewart's Memoir

Really enjoyed this. I have never watched Star Trek: The Next Generation, which catapulted him from a stock Shakespearean actor to a global celebrity, but it is now on my watch list. I particularly enjoyed hearing about Stewart's youth in Yorkshire--very poor, hardscrabble, with a rough father, but incredibly interesting. I loved hearing about his early days as an actor, going from school plays to a scholarship in Bristol to the dream job with the Royal Shakespearean Company. All the backstage, behind the scenes stuff reminded me of the Judi Dench memoir, which I also loved. And his "bromance" with Ian McKellen was simply wonderful. Despite his celebrity, Stewart seems to have maintained a practical, salt of the earth demeanor which made the memoir work for me. I listened to him read it, but I did have to up the speed to 1.5 as he talks slower than is comfortable for this listener.

Fun Fact: Did you know that one of Stewart's first TV roles was as Mr. John Thornton in a BBC adaptation of Elizabeth's Gaskell's North and South, from 1975? I thought the marvelous version with Richard Armitage was the one and only adaptation! Not sure that I necessarily want to watch it, but who knew?

You Are Here - David Nicholls

Actually, this was a pretty good Valentine's Day read. It's all about getting over the heartache of a breakup and figuring out how to live and relate and even love again. And the best part is that our hero and heroine walk the Coast-to-Coast path in the UK--something I still burn with ambition to do myself. Of course, they do 15-20 miles a day, whereas I am a 8-12 mile/day hiker. But still, I loved reading about the walking.

Nicholls creates realistic characters who deal with modern life in ways that make sense to me--I really enjoy his writing and his characters.

In a Dark, Dark Wood - Ruth Ware

I am becoming addicted to Ware's thrillers, despite her penchant for rather dim heroines. This is the third one that I've read in the last 6 months, and it was a page turner and definitely took my mind off of my broken wrist. I did figure out the killer fairly early, which is never as much fun as being surprised, but it was still an interesting story.

Rereads 

The Winter King - Thomas Penn 

I reread this nonfiction book about the later years of the reign of Henry VII, and I enjoyed it immensely. It is so rich in detail that a reread still worked--lots to review and try to retain. Penn has written several other books about this time period--late Renaissance in England, and I want to read them all, starting with The Brothers York. One of my favorite historical periods to dive into.

Here's my original post on the book.

The Briar Club - Kate Quinn

I do love this book so much. The reread was listening to it with my husband because I knew he would enjoy it and it's fun to listen to a book while we're doing errands or on road trips.

And, here's my original post on this one.