January Roundup

Despite the snowy, cold weather we've been having in Colorado, I don't feel like I have been doing much reading. I just realized that the puzzle I just finished consumed a lot of my reading time, so I guess that explains it.

Apart from finishing a very short classic, Elizabeth and Her German Garden, I only managed to read three books this month but they were all quite enjoyable.

Rosamunde Pilcher binge - I read Winter Solstice in December as part of my holiday reading and loved it so much that I decided to indulge in rereading both The Shell Seekers and September. Both were a real treat. 

I gave The Shell Seekers five stars and vowed not to wait another 30 years to reread it! Absolutely love the setting--Cornwall mostly and the flashbacks to the years between the wars. Penelope Keeling is definitely a character I admire and reading the book made me long to get back in my garden and get my hands dirty with planting, weeding, pruning, transplanting, and admiring my handiwork. She has such a zest for life that I found invigorating, and I loved the story of her youth, and the art world, and Cornwall...did I mention Cornwall? It is rapidly moving up the list of places I must visit and soon. Two of her three children were maddening to the point of distraction, but that was part of the story.

I gave September four stars. It was great and I loved the Scottish setting and the diverse cast of characters, but the story was just quite not up to the same level as that of The Shell Seekers. I'm a huge fan of small town settings and this was a good story, but it didn't have a character that I could love quite as much as Penelope from The Shell Seekers. 

I was thinking I might watch one of the two versions of The Shell Seekers, but am not sure. I read that the original version, with Angela Lansbury, varies quite a bit from the book, which would drive me to distraction. The version with Vanessa Redgrave was a German production and I haven't been able to determine whether it is in German or not. If anyone has seen either one and can provide some insight, I would appreciate it.

Apart from basking in Pilcher-land, I also read Peter Ackroyd's biography of Edgar Allan Poe, Poe: A Life Cut Short. I enjoy Acroyd's writing and he is a first-rate biographer, but this was such a somber book to read. I learned an immense amount about Poe--I had thought I had a handle on him--but I was sorely ignorant. First of all, he lived much earlier in the 19th century than I had thought, and while he lived in poverty for virtually all of his life, his genius and talents were recognized by his peers and the reading public. 

I am in no way qualified to diagnose his mental challenges, but he clearly suffered from various mental disorders that made his sad life so much harder and sadder. I found myself comparing Poe to Dickens, who was just three years younger than Poe. Both had troubled childhoods, with parents and surrogate parents who didn't provide them with the care that children need. Both worked as journalists, for newspapers as well as magazines. Dickens was driven to succeed and was energetic almost to a fault. Poe was sporadic, sometimes bursting with energy but then diving into despair and self-destructing via alcohol. I think in terms of raw talent, they were comparable, but Dickens was able to channel his talents better. While Poe's stories and poems have stood the test of time, I do feel that his output is far more limited than was that from Dickens and he didn't mature as a writer in the same way that Dickens did. 

Catching Up

One might think, based on the rate at which I post new blogs, that my reading life is waning. Not so. Between harvesting the garden, working, hiking in gorgeous Rocky Mt. National Park, making salsa and tomato sauce for the winter, figuring out how to do a photo directory for our church and then doing it, and generally being a parent, the blogging part of my reading life has taken a hit.

To make amends, here's a snapshot of what I've been reading.

I basically have two mysteries series going. Nevada Barr's series on Park Ranger Anna Pigeon and Donna Leon's series on Venice Commissario Guido Brunetti. I recently got my Leon fix with A Sea of Troubles, which was actually quite different from most of the other books in the series that I've read so far in that Brunetti personally had a stake in this one. Mostly taking place on the island of Pellestrina, south of the Lido on the Venetian lagoon, Signorina Elettra, staff secretary and researcher, beomes an integral part of the story and Brunetti's concern for her safety and jealousy of her relationship with other men in the story force him to acknowledge that his feelings for her transcend that of mere work colleagues.

I found the premise, that of a small society (i.e., a fishing village) closing ranks against the outside world, interesting, and I learned a lot about the fishing industry in the Adriatic and nuances of Venetian society, both of which are bonuses on top of another first rate murder mystery yarn from Leon.

This was #11 in the series, and in looking at a list on Amazon listing them in order, I appear to be reading them out of order. I think the next one I'll read is Blood from a Stone, which is #14.

I also recently finished Coming Home, by Rosamunde Pilcher. I loved both The Shell Seekers and September when I read them years ago. I've also read a book of romantic short stories as well as Winter Solstice, which I liked okay. A friend sent it to me as a thank you for a favor, and so I shoved aside all the other books on my TBR shelf and dove into Coming Home. It was wonderful--everything I like about Pilcher captured in this ~1000 pages paperback. The timeframe: 1936-1945; the setting: mostly Cornwall with a bit of London and bit of wartime Ceylon (Sri Lanka); the premise: family drama, with a strong female heroine on her own, growing up, and doing a good job of it.

I've been reading a fair amount of WWII non-fiction lately, so this was a real treat to indulge in a meaty, detail-rich novel with lots of interesting characters. A book to escape into definitely.

In looking for the book image, I found that there was a 2-part video done of the book in 1998, and it's on NetFlix. I know what I'll be watching when I'm done with Larkrise to Candleford.

I also recently finished rereading Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell. It is the book's 75th anniversary, and I enjoyed Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey from Atlanta to Hollywood when I read it earlier this year. It was a nostalgic read, definitely, but troubling. Much as I admire Mitchell's writing and storytelling abilities, I can't recommend the book because of its racism. My contention that GWTW is a book about the south of the 1930s not the south of the 1860s holds on this rereading.

I'm also working on finishing up London, by Edward Rutherford, John Adams, by David McCullough, and Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott. I've promised myself I won't start anything new until I finish at least one of these. They are all marvelous. I'm liking Little Women so much more than I expected to. Wish I'd read it as a teenager!