Merry Christmas and a Christmas Poem From Anne Bronte

Music On Christmas Morning by Anne Bronte

Music I love – but never strain

Could kindle raptures so divine,

So grief assuage, so conquer pain,

And rouse this pensive heart of mine –

As that we hear on Christmas morn,

Upon the wintry breezes borne.

Though Darkness still her empire keep,

And hours must pass, ere morning break;

From troubled dreams, or slumbers deep,

That music kindly bids us wake:

It calls us, with an angel’s voice,

To wake, and worship, and rejoice;

To greet with joy the glorious morn,

Which angels welcomed long ago,

When our redeeming Lord was born,

To bring the light of Heaven below;

The Powers of Darkness to dispel,

And rescue Earth from Death and Hell.

While listening to that sacred strain,

My raptured spirit soars on high;

I seem to hear those songs again

Resounding through the open sky,

That kindled such divine delight,

In those who watched their flocks by night.

With them, I celebrate His birth –

Glory to God, in highest Heaven,

Good-will to men, and peace on Earth,

To us a Saviour-king is given;

Our God is come to claim His own,

And Satan’s power is overthrown!

A sinless God, for sinful men,

Descends to suffer and to bleed;

Hell must renounce its empire then;

The price is paid, the world is freed,

And Satan’s self must now confess,

That Christ has earned a Right to bless:

Now holy Peace may smile from heaven,

And heavenly Truth from earth shall spring:

The captive’s galling bonds are riven,

For our Redeemer is our king;

And He that gave his blood for men

Will lead us home to God again.

Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year to all my blogging friends!

The 2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

For 2024 I have decided to participate in The Historical Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader and Baker (http://www.theintrepidreader.com)

As Marg tells us: "Any sub-genre of historical fiction is accepted (Historical Romance, Historical Mystery, Historical Fantasy, Young Adult, History/Non-Fiction, etc" and you can choose from the following categories: 

20th Century Reader - 2 books  

Victorian Reader - 5 books

Renaissance Reader - 10 books

Medieval - 15 books

Ancient History - 25 books 

 Prehistoric books - 50+ books                                         

I have decided to go with 15 historical novels from the Medieval period (500 AD to 1500 AD).  It sounds like a fun challenge.

My Top 5 Books for 2023

Next year I am hoping to increase the number of books I read so that my top 5 books will have more depth.  Still, this year I did read 32 books some of which I have reviewed.  And in no particular order here are my top 5:  

I have been hearing about Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe for years and this is a classic that definitely lived up to the praise.  As with two other classics (Frankenstein and The Call of the Wild), Things Fall Apart is not a very long book but it is so worth your time.

I am not a birder but H is For Hawk is a beautifully written memoir.  I would advise you read this book in the audio version by the author Helen MacDonald.  She reads her memoir with emotion and it adds to her story.

I loved The Outcasts by Sarah Stegall.  The setting 1816 Lake Geneva Switzerland and how one stormy night in response to a challenge from Lord Byron, Mary Shelley conceives the idea for her classic novel Frankenstein.  The story itself is interesting but in addition Sarah Stegall does a very good job of letting us know what Lord Byron, Dr. John Polodori, Claire Claremont and Percy and Mary Shelley may have been like and it rings true.  

I love Louise Penny's Three Pines Mystery series and A Trick of the Light is my favorite book so far in this series.  I enjoyed it so much because A Trick of The Light takes place entirely in the village of Three Pines and the focus is on Clara and Peter's relationship which has interested me from the start of this series.  

Many years ago I read Thomas Cook's Red Leaves and the book made a lasting impression on me.  I was pleased to discover this year that Thomas Cook's The Last Talk With Lola Faye is equally memorable and I did not see the ending coming!

Hope everyone has a great Holiday Season and a Happy and Healthy New Year!

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb

When Lori Gottlieb was in her forties her life was going great.  She had a successful and fulfilling career as a psychotherapist, an eight year old son Zach who was everything to her; she was writing a new book and was in a relationship with a great guy.

But then one night two years into their relationship the great guy tells Lori it's over.  It's not that he doesn't want to marry Lori but he doesn't want to help raise her eight year old son. He likes Zach well enough but he has already raised his own kids and his parenting days are behind him. 

Lori is devastated.  The break-up brings on a midlife crisis and a friend suggests that maybe she needs to see a therapist.  Lori agrees and the result would end up being her bestselling memoir Maybe You Should Talk To Someone which was published in 2019 to critical acclaim. 

Now, some may ask themselves, do I want to spend an entire book with an author in her therapist's office as she discusses the break-up.   I worried about that too.  But Lori Gottlieb's sessions with her therapist represents only a small portion of the book. And as we get deeper into Maybe You Should Talk To Someone the boyfriend issues fade.  The book becomes about alot more.  It's part memoir but it's also about what therapy entails, how and why people change and the meaning of life.  And for me Maybe You Should Talk To Someone is most memorably about Lori's own patients and their struggles. 

Lori Gottlieb let's us in on the therapy sessions she has with four of her patients.  She has changed their names and the stories these patients tell are interesting and often heartbreaking.  I will not forget Julie's story in particular.  And these patients are a reminder of how we can never know what people have been through just by looking at them.  

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone is very well written, humorous and I think the book will help many readers navigate their own journeys.  Over 42,000 reviews on Amazon.com for Maybe I Should Talk To Someone and 92% of them 4 and 5 stars.  That's very impressive and put me in the 4 and 5 star category as well.  

Ithaka by C. P. Cavafy

I am a bit obsessed right now with the poet C P Cavafy (1863-1933).  He  was born to Greek parents but lived most of his life in Alexandria Egypt.  I first discovered him in a book of essays by the very fine writer Philip Lopate.  It's another example of how books can lead us to other books and authors we otherwise would never have heard of.  

Ithaka is Cavafy's best known poem and though it is set in ancient Greece, critics say its really about the journey through life

ITHAKA BY C. P. CAVAFY 

(Translated by Edmund Keeley)

As you set out for Ithaka

hope your road is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:

you’ll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind—

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you’re destined for.

But don’t hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you’re old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn't have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean"

The Last Talk With Lola Faye by Thomas H Cook

"A wave of relief passed over me. So this is why Lola Faye Gilroy had dragged herself from God knows where over to the Museum of the West on a wet December night. She'd come to make the case before me, clarify the issue Woody Gilroy had raised in his suicide note, rid herself of the guilt he'd laid at her feet, revisit all that in a talk with me, then enter her plea at the end of it: not guilty".

Lucas Paige the narrator of The Last Talk With Lola Faye (2010) has been successful in life one would think. He's a Harvard educated college professor who has published a number of history books.  All the more impressive since Lucas grew up in a small Southern town where very few of his peers went to college, let alone Harvard.

But Lucas is bitter and angry because his dream was to write great books, not the mediocrities he's been writing as he sees it.  Lucas' personal life is not going well either.  His wife Julia left him a few years back and her departing words were "Call me, Luke, when your past is in the past".  

And so at the start of The Last Talk With Lola Faye, Lucas is in St Louis at a book signing when Lola Faye walks in.  Lucas hasn't seen Lola Faye or been back to Glenville, Alabama in twenty years.  And yet here is Lola, his father's mistress.  Their affair led to Lucas' father's murder when Lola's husband found out.  Lucas is furious and in shock.   How does this woman dare to show up at his book signing after the pain she caused?  And why has she sought him out?  

Lola Faye asks if they can go somewhere to talk.  Lucas is not thrilled with this idea but he cautiously agrees.  And as the two sit down for drinks they discuss the tragic events of the night of Lucas' father's murder and what really happened.  Lucas it turns out consumed with his own ambition and desire to get out of Glenville made alot of assumptions about his parents and their marriage that turned out not to be true and led to tragic results.

All through the novel as Lucas and Lola have their talk I thought I knew what the big reveal would be, the deep secret, but then Thomas Cook would expertly draw back from where I thought the story was heading.  Publisher's Weekly gave The Last Talk With Lola Faye a starred review and I agree.  I was gripped all the way through and the ending was powerful, redemptive and a suprise I did not see coming.  If you have never read Thomas H Cook you absolutely should.  I highly recommend The Last Talk With Lola Faye.

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

The Victorian novel is a favorite genre of mine and I am pleased to say that in the past eight years I have read some of the great novels from this period.  I had yet to read Wilkie Collins however and I was torn.  He is best known for two classic novels: The Woman In White and The Moonstone.  I went with The Moonstone (1868) and I am happy with my choice.

The Moonstone begins in 1799 when a British officer Colonel John Herncastle while serving in India steals a precious yellow diamond adorning a statue of the Hindu God of the Moon.  Herncastle is a bad character who murders three of the Hindu priests guarding the yellow diamond and he takes the gem back to England.  

Fast forward and it's 1848.  John Herncastle is a an elderly spiteful man and his life has not gone well.  He has never been able to shake the rumors of what he did as a young officer in India.  He has no friends and his sister, the wealthy Lady Verinder, refuses to see him.  Herncastle is furious and writes out his will stating that after his death the yellow diamond will be given to his niece Rachel Verinder, Lady Verinder's daughter, on her 18th birthday.  Herncastle is giving the diamond to Rachel not to make amends. He knows that possessing the diamond comes with a curse and so it's his way of getting back at his family.

Herncastle dies and Rachel's eighteenth birthday arrives.  Rachel is thrilled to receive the diamond not knowing it's backstory.  But her mother and her cousin Franklin Blake do know or they suspect something and they are worried.  Also three mysterious Indian men have recently been seen walking the grounds of the Verinder estate.

On the night of Rachel's party all her friends are there including two men who are competing for Rachel's hand in marriage, her cousin Franklin Blake and her other cousin Godfrey Ablewhite.  Apparently in the 19th century you could marry your cousin.  

Rachel wears the diamond on her dress at the party.  It's a festive evening and then the next morning the diamond is missing, a detective is called in and things go downhill with alot of unhappiness for the characters involved.  The yellow diamond (the moonstone) does have a curse attached to it but not in the way I originally thought.  

It's not that people in posession of the diamond come down with a fatal illness or fall down a flight of stairs.  But rather once the diamond goes missing people start suspecting each other, tempers flare, engagements are broken off and in one tragic case a young housemaid of the Verinders with a past that included prison for theft is afraid she will be blamed and though she is not responsible it ends tragically.  

The Moonstone is told in the form of a number of first person narrators.  My favorite narrator is the butler Gabrielle Betteredge who is certain that all of life's answers can be found in the pages of his well worn copy of Robinson Crusoe.  My least favorite character and narrator was Drusilla Clack, a busy body who is constantly forcing her religious pamphlets on friends and relatives.  In fact the one complaint I have about The Moonstone is that the eight chapters narrated by Drusilla distracted from the story and should have been omitted.  Doing so would have tightened up the book in my opinion.

But otherwise I enjoyed The Moonstone.  Along with Bleak House it is considered to be one the first British Detective novels.  It is also a romance and I found The Moonstone to be a classic worthy of praise.

The Warden by Anthony Trollope

"Mr Harding is a good man, the warden to an alms house which provides a peaceful home to twelve old men. The young and zealous John Bold is also a good man, but he believes he sees in Harding's comfortable existence an injustice which must be exposed. The law, the church and the self-righteous national press all have their say in the scandal that ensues, causing a crisis in the hearts and minds of many in the quiet country town of Barchester". - Penguin Books

My thoughts - The Warden (1855) by Anthony Trollope is the first novel in his acclaimed Chronicles of Barsetshire series.  There are six books in the series, all set in the fictional English cathedral town of Barchester.  And having read Trollope's excellent stand alone novel The Way We Live Now, I came to The Warden with high expectations.  The Warden is 113 pages and so I was sure I would have the book finished in three days tops.  

But the Warden took me longer to complete than I anticipated.  I struggled to finish it actually.  I think it's partly because I am not a focused reader these days.  Increasingly I read ten pages of a book then I'm scrolling the internet or turning on the news, picking up another novel and that's not a good way to read.  I need to start committing to a book because otherwise I lose the rhythm.  

That said, if The Warden had held my interest I would have been able to finish it in three days.  It's one of Anthony Trollope's earliest novels and maybe his powers as a writer weren't yet at the heights they would reach in his later classics.   The story itself didn't grab me nor did the characters but I understand that changes as one reads deeper into the Barchester series.

The Warden is the first book I have now read from my Victober list and I am hoping to get to Moonstone by Wilkie Collins and the Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte Mary Young before the month is through but to do so I will resolve to read thirty pages a night and focus.

Too Late To Die by Bill Crider

"There were many county sheriffs, and Rhodes knew some of them, who were really politicians—men who liked the title, but not the job; men who turned all the work over to their deputies and spent their time in the drugstores drinking coffee with the rest of the good old boys. Men like Ralph Claymore. Rhodes had never been like that, and he never could be." 

A few weeks ago Tracy at Bitter Tea and Mystery (please check out Tracy's excellent website under blogs I follow) was reviewing Murder Most Fowl, book seven in Bill Crider's Sheriff Dan Rhodes mystery series.  Now I am normally hesitant to check out a new series because I have too many books on my TBR list as it is.  But I was intrigued by Tracy's review of Murder Most Fowl and so I decided to start with the first book in Bill Crider's Dan Rhodes mystery series, Too Late To Die (1986) and I found it to be a very enjoyable experience

Too Late To Die (1986) is set in Clearview, a small town within Blacklin County, TX.  There is no serious crime in Clearview and the people who live there have known each other for years.  Dan Rhodes is the Sheriff of Clearview.  He has a small department consisting of his deputy, Johnny Sherman, the dispatcher, old Hack Jensen and Lawton the jailer who as the book describes him is almost as old as Hack Jensen.  

Sheriff Dan Rhodes is running for reelection when Too Late To Die begins.  He doesn't like the politics and the backslapping part of his job but he understands it comes with the territory.  Sheriff Rhodes' wife Claire passed away a year back and he misses her very much.  He has a grown daughter named Cathy who he has a good relationship with.  Sheriff Rhodes is smart and thoughtful.  He doesn't throw his weight around but when trouble arrives he will meet it courageously.

And trouble arrives when a local woman Jeanne Clinton who everyone in Clearview knew and liked is found murdered in her home.  Jeanne in her younger days was rather wild but a few years back she married her husband Elmer Clinton who is 30 years her senior.  Despite the age difference it seems to have been a good marriage.  But then Jeanne turns up dead and it turns out that while Elmer was at work a number of men in the neighborhood would drop by Jeanne's house for coffee.  Was it just coffee and talk or something more?  DId one of these men get rebuffed and murder Jeanne or did her husband Elmer find out and in a fit of jealousy lose control?

On paper Too Late To Die may sound like an average small town mystery novel with a conventional plot and a good-hearted Sheriff trying to solve the case.  But Too Late To Die won the prestigious Anthony Award in 1987 for best first novel and what set the book apart for me was the writing.  Bill Crider has a very nice writing style.  I enjoyed the humor that is delicately placed throughout the book.  I enjoyed descriptions of Clearview and its people.  Bill Crider spends his time on local color and customs and it pays off. I never knew for example how popular Dr. Pepper is in Texas and very refreshing in the hot climate of Clearview.  And most important there is Sheriff Dan Rhodes who is interesting, smart, a good man and I see myself following him at least into book two of this series.

A Trick of The Light by Louise Penny

A Trick of the Light (2011) is the 7th book in Louise Penny's excellent Three Pines Mystery series.  I am reading these books in order which is recommended because starting with Penny's first novel Still Life we get to know the residents of Three Pines, a charming little village off the beaten path.  We learn the secrets of the people who reside there, their hopes, fears, their interactions with each other and how they change and grow as the series progresses.

And at the center of each of Penny's novels is Chief Inspector Armand Gamache tasked with solving the crime.  A mystery series rises or falls based on its lead detective and Armand Gamache with his dedication to justice, knowledge of history, the arts, human psychology, kind but tough when he needs to be is definitely a detective worth following.

And so when A Trick of The Light begins one of the local residents of Three Pines, Clara Morrow, is experiencing a moment she has dreamed of all her life.  Clara's artwork is having a solo showing at a very prestigious museum in Montreal.  After the exhibit there is a party at Clara's home and all of Clara's neighbors are there and art critics and gallery owners as well.

Peter, Clara's husband, is happy for his wife's success but he's conflicted.  It's understandable in that Peter is an artist too and he feels some jealousy that his artwork which supported both he and Clara throughout their marriage is seen as good but not great.  Peter would have liked his own solo exhibit and he feels bad that he is thinking this way.  

But before the issues between Clara and Peter can be dealt with they are quickly overshadowed the morning after the party when a dead woman is discovered in Clara's garden.  She was killed the night of the party but by who and why?  And Clara knows the dead woman, Lillian Dyson, her childhood friend.  Clara and Lillian were as close as could be as children but had a major falling out in college.  They haven't seen or spoken to each other since.   Lillian would go on to be an art critic known for her vicious reviews which could and did destroy people's careers and so the list of suspects is long.  

A Louise Penny's novel usually has more than one storyline going and A Trick of The Light is no exception.  Book six of the series, Bury Your Dead, recounted a terrible police raid that ended in  tragedy.  The police were ambushed, young officers died and Armand Gamache and his first lieutenant Jean-Guy Beauvoir were badly injured.  Gamache is still trying to recover emotionally and deal with survivor's guilt and he is making progress.  But Jean-Guy Beauvior never one to share his feelings is doing poorly and is using opiods to deal with his lingering physical and emotional pain.

So I plan before the year ends to read book eight and maybe even squeeze in book nine in this series.  I am eager to find out what is next in store for Armand Gamache, Jean Guy Beauvoir, Clara, Peter and all of the fascinating residents of Three Pines who make this series such a delight.

Hurricane Season and September Book Haul.

Here in Florida we are all tracking Hurricane Lee.  I'm worried.  It will be a category 5 soon and everything hinges on it making a northward turn on Tuesday and therfore no landfall as I understand.  But no one can say for sure.  The maps I am seeing right now are scary.

But on a positive note I was at the library today and checked out five books I am looking forward to reading: 

The Everglades: Rivers of Grass by Marjorie Stoneman Douglas  -  Marjorie Stoneman Douglas devoted her life to preserving the Everglades.  Sadly too many (including me) first heard of her after that terrible mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School.  But I would like to know more about The Everglades and this book is her classic.

.

Between Breaths by Elizabeth Vargas - Saw Elizabeth Vargas interviewed by Diane Sawyer about a week ago about her battle with addiction and how she recovered. I was pleased to see her memoir at the library and I wish her the best.

Walter Benjamin at the Diary Queen by Larry McMurty  I keep promising myself I will read Larry McMurty's Lonesome Dove because he's an excellent writer.  But until then I will read his memoir about growing up in West Texas.  

All That Is Bitter And Sweet by Ashley Judd -  Loved her in Ruby In Paradise.  Always interesting on and off the screen.  Tragic about her Mom, Naomi Judd. RIP.

Florida: A Short History by Michael Gannon - Might as well find out something about the history of where I am living.  And as I understand Michael Gannon is one of the best historians out there when it comes to Florida history.

So a pretty good book haul today.  Stay safe and happy reading!

Victober 2023!

Victorian literature (1837-1901)  is a favorite genre of mine.  And I particularly like the Victober Challenge because of the five booktubers who host it each year.  They have wonderful channels worth checking out.  And for 2023 our five hosts have given prompts for Victorian novels we might want to read during the month of October, many of which can be found on kindle free or at a very low cost:

Kate Howe: https://youtu.be/xJ8xftaK7rA?si=P3GV5.-  Choose a Victorian Novel Featuring A Stranger Or Outsider - I am going with Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Ros, Scallydandling about the books: https://youtu.be/ocr29HvFj8c - Choose a Victorian Novel About Class.  -  The Nether World by George Gissing, one of my favorite writers.

Katie, Books and Things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwTa7... Choose a Victorian Novel with a New Woman Theme - Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley. 

Marissa, Blatantly Bookish: https://youtu.be/DDj47C04psg - Choose A Victorian Author That's New To You -  I am going with The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte Mary Younge

Peta U: https://youtu.be/jlUkLBdQR8k - Choose a Victorian Novel with First Person Narration - Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.

The Group Read - The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope.  I have already read this novel and thought it was excellent.   So I will go with The Warden also by Anthony Trollope which is his first novel in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series.

I probably won't finish all of these books in October but three on the list might be a possibility.  And to complete the challenge all you have to do is commit to reading one Victorian novel or play during the month of October.  That I can do.

Happy Autumn!

The Road Taken by Rona Jaffe

During her life Rona Jaffe wrote sixteen novels and I have now read three: The Best of Everything (1958), Five Women (1997) and The Road Taken (2000).  If Rona has a theme in her books, at least the one's I've read, it's the changing role of women in the 20th century.  Her bestselling classic The Best of Everything for example is about four young women who come to New York to work in publishing and hopefully find Mr. Right.  The book was ahead of its time and along with Five Women well worth reading.

I wish I could say the same for The Road Taken but at least for me I found it a sad book which maybe I needed to be in a better frame of mind to appreciate.  The premise of the novel is interesting.  We follow the life of Rose Smith born on Jan 1 1900 and the book ends in 1999 with Rose about to turn one-hundred.  It's a journey through the turbulent and often tragic 20th century.

The Road Taken is also about Rose's three daughters Peggy, Joan and Ginger who will face choices their mother's generation never faced.  We follow the story of Rose's brother Hugh.  As a young boy he knows he has feelings for other boys that he can't share with anyone.  But by the time The Road Taken ends Hugh, age 80 with his partner Teddy, is going on protest marches to raise money for AIDS research.

Hugh and his sister Rose remain close all their lives possibly because they have an optimistic spirit and they change with the times.  This is also true of Rose's youngest daughter Ginger a brilliant and kind-hearted young woman who is stricken with polio at age 16.  It leaves her in a wheelchair but Ginger is determined to graduate from medical school and go into research and through hard work and determination that's exactly what she does.

Ginger's older sisters, Peggy and Joan, have a harder time managing the 20th century and they are constantly at war with each other.  They are too different and their relationship is permanently broken by a tragic accident that happens halfway through the novel.  Peggy is never able to completely forgive Joan for this accident and the best they will ever achieve is a cold peace.

And as we get deeper into the 20th century we see the enormous changes in society but also time passing by so quickly.  The Road Taken really brings this home in the story of Celia, Rose's stepmother.  Celia is a minor character in the novel, a good woman but rather direct in her advise which can exasperate her family.  The family also marvels at Celia's tremendous energy, going on cruises, volunteering, lunch with her girlfriends, never stopping. 

And then 3/4 of the way through The Road Taken there is a heartbreaking passage where Celia notices that when she calls her friends to chat and make lunch plans her friends  are becoming somewhat annoyed.  Their response is "Celia you just called me ten minutes ago".  Celia is puzzled but not yet alarmed.  She makes a joke about getting old.  The friends laugh as well but Celia begins keeping a list of her friends names on a notepad near the phone crossing out each name after she calls that person so that she will remember not to call them ten minutes later.  I wish I could say that this solves the issue for Celia but when you have seen this illness up close you know it only gets worse.

But on the plus side The Road Taken ends with Rose in pretty good health getting ready to celebrate her 100th birthday with her extended family.  And so to sum up I probably wasn't in the right mood to enjoy The Road Taken.  It got a little too real for me with Celia's story.  But I definitely recommend Five Women and The Best of Everything and I plan to read one or two more novels by Rona Jaffe going forward.

Swamp Story by Dave Barry

I had originally chosen Tourist Season by Carl Hiassen as one of my Ten Books of Summer.   But after a few chapters I realized Tourist Season was not for me and so I decided to go with another bestselling Florida writer, Dave Barry.   His latest novel Swamp Story (2023) is set in the Florida Everglades and focuses on a number of characters who have hit a rough patch and are hoping for something better. 

There is Jesse Braddock, her baby daughter Willa and Willa's father, Slater.  They all live in a cabin in the Everglades where Slater is dreaming of producing a reality TV show called Glades Man but in the meantime he is doing nothing but getting wasted.   Jesse knows that she and Willa need a way back to civilization.

Then there is Phil Teagler, an alcoholic ex-newspaperman.  Phil is looking for a way to make money, stop drinking and repair his relationship with his daughter Stella.  And we have Ken and Brad owners of Bortle Brothers Bait and Beer who are trying to attract tourists to their failing business.  Ken at least is trying, Brad thinks it's hopeless.

And so the future is not looking bright when Swamp Story begins.  But then things begin to change.  Jesse discovers a fortune in gold bars buried in swamp land near her home.  She decides to hide the gold until she can figure out what to do.  But bad guys are also after the gold and they know that Jesse has it hidden

Meanwhile Phil is in a bar in Miami when Ken from Bortle Brothers approaches him.  Phil has become semi-famous due to an internet video where he and his friend Stu dressed up as Disney characters for a children's birthday party and the event went viral.  Ken sits down next to Phil with a proposal.

The plan involves Phil disguising himself as a character Ken has thought up  called The Everglades Melon Monster.  They'll film a few videos near Bortle Brothers Bait and Beer and post them online.  People will flock to the Everglades looking for the melon monster and Phil and Ken will split the profits from all the melon monster t-shirts and paraphernalia they'll be selling.  

Phil is skeptical but agrees to go along and the plan works very well.  Thousands of tourists descend on the Everglades looking for the monster and the problems for Jesse Phil, Ken and Brad continue from there.  Swamp Story also includes a separate plot in which a US Secretary of the Interior Witt Chastain, who hates going outdoors, heads down to the Everglades to launch the annual Python Challenge.  And all of these stories link up as we get to the end of the book.  

Swamp Story has been receiving alot of critical praise, including a starred review from Publisher's Weekly, and I wish I could be on board because I like Dave Barry.   Many of us came down years ago to a very different Florida than exists now and the fact that Barry is still living in Miami and still chronicling the weirdness here is comforting to those of us who would like to leave but can't.

And so I wanted to recommend Swamp Story and certainly the characters, Jesse, Phil, Brad and Ken are well drawn and realistic.  I was rooting for them.  But Swamp Story  began to drag for me the deeper I got into it.  Jesse's dilemna with the gold bars and her blossoming relationship with Brad I enjoyed.  But the melon monster storyline takes up a significant part of the novel and did not hold my interest.

But that's just me and Swamp Story is funny and Dave Barry is certainly someone to read, a reminder of the loveable weirdness that made Florida a fun place as opposed to what we have now.

H Is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald

Fifty pages into H Is For Hawk by Helen Macdonald (2014) I put the book down.  It was beautifully written, the international acclaim well deserved, but I am not a birder or particularly interested in nature books.  It was my fault, not the author's, for choosing the wrong genre.

But then a few weeks later I saw that H Is For Hawk was available on Audible as part of my membership.  The author, Helen Macdonald, was the reader and that's not always a great idea but in this case it worked out wonderfully.  Helen Macdonald is a an excellent reader and writer.  And when I got to the part of the book where Helen purchases her goshawk Mabel and retreats to the English countryside to begin Mabel's training I was hooked.  

And I particularly liked that Helen takes her treasured copy of T. H. White's memoir Goshawk (1951) with her on her journey.  T. H. White was a British writer best known for his classic novel The Once And Future King.  And throughout the course of H Is For Hawk, Helen rereads T. H. White's Goshawk and reflects on his life and her own:

"Like White I wanted to cut loose from the world, and I shared, too, his desire to escape to the wild, a desire that can rip away all human softness and leave you stranded in a world of savage, courteous despair."

And then there is Mabel, the young goshawk.  Helen does a good job in H Is For Hawk in trying to interpret what Mabel is thinking and feeling.  And it does seem at first that they are bonding. But part of training a hawk is taking them hunting and that's where the other side of Mabel emerges and it's disturbing.  At one point Helen is injured when Mabel turns on her in the woods

I would have sent Mabel packing at that point but for Helen, fascinated by hawks since childhood, training Mabel was a way to get over her grief at her father's death.  Training Mabel became a way to deal with that loss.  But Helen comes to realize through her experiences with Mabel and reflecting on T. H. White's life that isolating oneself from people is not the answer.  

H Is For Hawk is a book I didn't think I would be able to finish when I first picked it up and now I would say it's a five star read.

The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) is Booth Tarkington's most famous novel and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1919.  Booth Tarkington would go on to win a second Pulitzer for Alice Adams in 1922.  That's not an easy thing to do and yet nowadays his novels have been relatively forgotten.  That's a shame because I rather liked The Magnificent Ambersons.  The characters and the story held my attention and I also think there are lessons in this novel about the dynamics within a family that remain relevant.

The Magnificent Ambersons takes place in Midland, a fictional town in Indiana at the start of the 20th century. Major Amberson the grandfather made his fortune in 1873 and with his money he begins building up the town of Midland. There is the Amberson Hotel, The Amberson Opera House, fountains, statues and above all there is the magnificent Amberson mansion where three generations of the Ambersons (the Major, his daughter Isabelle, her husband Wilbur Minafer, their son George Amberson Minafer and Aunt Fanny) reside.

One would think with all their wealth and social standing that the Ambersons would be an insufferable lot.  But actually the Major who is getting on in years just wants some peace and quiet. HIs daughter Isabelle a beautiful and lovely young woman in her day has retained that beauty and innocent good nature as the years have gone by. 

Isabelle when she was young had two suitors: Eugene Morgan and Wilbur Minafer. Eugene was the love of Isabelle's life but he was a bit wild when they were courting and so she picked the safer choice, her husband Wilbur. She is a good wife and Wilbur is a good man but then there is their only child George.  From the day he is born George is spoiled rotten.  Isabelle only sees the angel in him. The rest of the town sees something else and begins hoping that one day young George will get his “comeuppance”.

And the reader can see that day coming because for George "being" is more important than "doing".  He doesn't train for any career because he is counting on the Amberson name securing his wealth and status throughout his life.  But the early 20th century is bringing change to Midland.  New industries are flourishing, factories are opening up, automobiles are replacing horse drawn carriages.  Its becoming harder for wealthy families to live off their inheritance, particularly if like the Ambersons they start making bad investments.

But I came to the end of the novel feeling compassion for George Amberson Minafer because he's not a two dimensional character.  Yes he is a snob and deluded about what his future will look like if he doesn't start applying himself.  But George is not selfish and we see that clearly towards the end of the book in the generosity he shows his Aunt Fanny at considerable cost to himself.  Maybe George's true legacy was inheriting a bit of his mother's generous and thoughtful nature.

I recommend The Magnificent Ambersons.  Its the fourth book I have read for the Books of Summer Reading Challenge.  I better get a move on!

Top Ten Tuesday

Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl  has an interesting challenge every Tuesday in which she picks a topic and asks readers and bloggers to choose a list of 10 books that conform to that topic.  Today's topic is Forgotten Backlist Titles - choose 10 books that you really enjoyed that no one really talks about much anymore.  Here are my ten and though many of these authors are well known these books are not read as much as they should be and that's a shame.  I would happily read all of them again:

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St James

I have been meaning to read The Sun Down Motel since reading Lark's really fine review (larkwrites.blogspot.com) back in 2020.  I don't know why I didn't get to this novel sooner but now that I have I definitely plan to read more from Simone St James. 

The Sun Down Motel takes place in Fell NY, a small upstate town that has had more than its share of murders:  Betty Graham, Cathy Caldwell and Victoria Lee to be specific.  All murdered between 1978 and 1981 and all unsolved.

And then in 1982 Vivian Delaney age 20 arrives in Fell and takes a job working as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel. It's an eerie place with very few customers and it's haunted.  Viv wants to quit soon after she arrives but her family situation back home is not good and she needs the money.

And what also keeps Viv in Fell is learning about the murders of Betty, Cathy and Victoria.  Viv is bothered by the fact that these women have been forgotten and that their killer has not been caught.  Viv decides to do some investigating of her own.  And then Viv goes missing.  

Fast forward to 2017 and 20 year old Carly Kirk is working as a night clerk at the Sun Down.  Carly has come to Fell with a goal in mind, finding out what happened to her Aunt Viv thirty five years ago.  No one in her family ever talked about Viv's disappearance and as Carly tells us:

"It was only after Mom died that I got mad. Not at Mom, really—she was a teenager when Viv disappeared, and there wasn’t much she could have done. But what about everyone else? The cops? The locals? Viv’s parents? Why hadn’t there been a statewide search? Why had Viv been allowed to vanish into nothingness with barely a ripple?"

The chapters in the Sun Down Motel alternate between Viv's point of view in 1982 and Carly's in 2017.  I liked both women and their determination to solve these murders.  The novel has a larger theme which deals with missing women and how people should care more.  Viv and Carly do care and they are not willing to be bystanders, particularly Viv!

In addition to Viv and Carly The Sun Down Motel has a number of interesting and well drawn characters: the police officer Alma Trent, a local photographer Marnie Mahoney and Nick Harkness a young man who is staying at the Sun Down in 2017.  Nick agrees to help Carly find out what happened to her Aunt Viv and there is good chemistry between them that I think readers will enjoy.

So what did happen to Viv?  Who killed the missing women?  Is Carly in danger for trying to dig this up thirty-five years later?  All I can say is that the last 80 pages of the book tied it all together in a scary believable and page turning way.  I did not see the ending coming and it was well done.

Thank you Lark for recommending The Sun Down Motel.

Love's Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley

The fountains mingle with the river

   And the rivers with the ocean,

The winds of heaven mix for ever

   With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

   All things by a law divine

In one spirit meet and mingle.

   Why not I with thine?—

See the mountains kiss high heaven

   And the waves clasp one another;

No sister-flower would be forgiven

   If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth

   And the moonbeams kiss the sea:

What is all this sweet work worth

   If thou kiss not me?

From reading The Outcasts I got the sense that Percy Bysshe Shelley could be reckless and rather thoughtless but he also had a generous nature.  He died young in a boating accident but as with Mary Shelley he was a brilliant writer and his poetry lives on.

The Outcasts by Sarah Stegall

The Outcasts by Sarah Stegall is a historical novel about a famous literary event that occurred during a three day weekend in the summer of 1816.  The story takes place in the Villa Diodati in Lake Geneva, Switzerland where Lord Byron and his friend Dr. John Polodori are staying.  In a house nearby resides Percy and Mary Shelley and Mary's step-sister Claire Clairmont.  The weather has been bad and so Byron invites the Shelleys and Claire to his villa.  After dinner Byron challenges his friends to write a ghost story and 18 year old Mary Shelley in response to a vision she has that night will begin writing Frankenstein, one of the great classics of English literature.

But what else happened during that famous weekend?  Sarah Stegall has done a very nice job filling us in.  She lets us know through Mary Shelley's eyes what Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Polodori and Claire Clarmont must have been like and what Mary was like as well. 

Lord Byron age 29 is the oldest member of the group but he is no role model.  Claire Clairmont, Mary's step-sister, is 17.   Claire regards Byron as her soul mate and she is sure he will feel the same once she tells him about her pregnancy.  Mary tries to get Claire to see reality but there is no reasoning with Claire.  Meanwhile John Polodari has dreams of running off with Mary which is futile since she only has eyes for Percy.

And that is the one relationship, Percy and Mary Shelley, that is working out.  But there are some difficulties.  The Shelleys are unable to go back to England because two years prior Percy (who was already married) eloped with Mary taking Claire with them since she wanted to be part of the adventure. Percy loves Mary but a part of her cannot help but worry.  Percy is a believer in free love and other revolutionary ideas.  He left his first wife to elope with Mary, might he one day get tired of Mary as well?  What would Mary do, a single mother on her own, with no family since her father, the radical philosopher William Godwin, has disowned her.  

Percy and Mary have an infant son William but they still grieve for their first born daughter who only lived eleven days.  In a moving passage in The Outcasts Percy goes outside into the storm trying to catch lightening in a jar. Mary is frantic he will be killed.  But later she thinks about the lightening and wonders:

“I thought she was sleeping,” she whispered, lost in the memory. Shelley took her hands. “Our little one, our first. I thought she was asleep .... But in the morning, I knew she was dead. And the doctor said she died … of convulsions.” The tears started behind her eyes; her hands shook. Shelley gripped them firmly. “If we had known, if you’d been there, maybe with your … your jar. Maybe you could have revived her, maybe you could have saved her.” She kept her voice low, but it was not low enough. “I don’t know,” Shelley said. “I don’t think it would have worked. She was too frail, my love. Too early.”

I read this passage and another in which Mary writes a letter to her father that he won't answer and I could see what might have inspired Frankenstein, a classic about a doctor trying to reanimate life and a creature being rejected by his creator/parent.  

Sarah Stegall has done a fine job with The Outcasts and as a companion non-fiction work I also recommend The Young Romantics: The Shelleys, Byron and Other Tangled Lives by Daisy Hay.  Both books shine a light on the British Romantic era in literature, a period just before the Victorians, that extended from 1785 - 1832.  The Romantic era included such  great poets and writers as Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, William Blake,  John Keats to name just a few.  I plan to read more on this subject.

The Importance of Rereading

This month I am participating in Jane Austen July and the group readalong is Northanger Abbey (1817).  I read this book for the first time in 2020 and for me it was a bit of a let down.  But now reading it again for Jane Austen July I am having a better experience.  Participating in a readalong helps because other readers are pointing out things I missed in the novel the first time.  

And finding out new things can be true of rereading even without a group read.  Maybe 20 years ago for example I read Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte. I didn't care for it.   But since that time I have had life experiences that have changed how I look at things.  I have also gone on to read Anne Bronte's masterpiece The Tennant of Wildfell Hall and a book about her life and so I came to Agnes Grey this year with a new perspective and I enjoyed the book the second time around.

Rereading doesn't always go so well though.  Sometimes we pick up a book that meant so much to us and when we reread it the magic is gone.  For me rereading Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck was just such an experience.   I had loved this novel when I was a teenager.  I quickly went on to East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath which I didn't particularly care for but that didn't matter because Steinbeck would always be a favorite of mine thanks to Of Mice and Men.  But decades later Of Mice and Men didn't hold up for me upon rereading.  That said, I am not giving up on Steinbeck and am planning a rereading of The Grapes of Wrath.  It's Steinbeck masterpiece and I probably first read it when I was too young.

Rereading confirms how we feel about a book in good ways too.   I read Pride and Prejudice in my twenties and my forties and loved it even more the second time around.  I was also quite pleased that my rereading of The Good Earth by Pearl Buck held up so well.   The same is true for A Separate Peace which I first read in high school.  I knew it was a book about jealousy, guilt and regret set in 1942 at an elite New England boy's prep school.  But what I had missed as a teenager when I first read the book is what a big role World War II plays in this novel.  The boys at the prep school are 16 and 17 and upon graduating they will be enlisting and going overseas and it gives A Separate Peace a sad and haunting quality.

Going forward I plan another rereading of Pride and Prejudice and I plan to reread Wuthering Heights and Crime and Punishment.   Crime and Punishment is a masterpiece and along with Pride and Prejudice ranks as one of my all time favorite books.  I also need to reread Wuthering Heights.  I recognized the brilliance of this book the first time I read it decades ago but I have never been sure of what the deeper meaning was and what Emily Bronte was trying to say.  Maybe a second reading will make things clearer.

Rereading is so important and if anyone has books they reread and either loved, hated or learned new things from the reread I would love to hear your experiences.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (1989) is a book I have been meaning to read for a long time.  Not sure what held me back.  I did see the film which I really liked and maybe I figured the novel would be pretty much more of the same and therefore uneccessary.  But now I have read The Joy Luck Club and I am glad I did.  

The Joy Luck Club is set in 1980's San Francisco and China during the 1930's and 1940's.  When the novel begins Jing Mae-Woo's mother, Suyuan Woo, has passed away and Jing Mae's father asks if she would like to take her mother's place as a member of the Joy Luck Club.  It's a club her mother and three friends started in 1949 when they were young Chinese immigrant women recently arrived in America.  Every week the four would meet at each other's homes, bring food, sit down to a game of Mahjong and tell each other stories about their lives in China, the hopes for their children and their fears as well.  

Fast forward to the 1980's and these women are now in their sixties and their daughters are in their 30's. The lives of the four daughters have hit a rough patch, each in a different way.  The mothers are worried and feel their daughters have become too American and have forgotten what they have tried to teach them about Chinese culture and tradition.  How are their daughters going to navigate the world if they don't know what their mothers have been through?  It's a universal regret.  We often don't ask our parents about their lives when they were young and when they are gone we wish we could.

But in the Joy Luck Club we hear the mothers' stories and for me the story that stood out was that of An-mei Hsu and her daughter Rose Hsu Jordan.  When An-mei Hsu was a young girl in China her mother, who was forced into the life of a concubine, committed suicide.  Rose Hsu Jordan is also trapped in a bad marriage to a husband who does not respect her and who is not faithful.  Rose is afraid to leave him and her mother An-mei Hsu says: 

"I know this, because I was raised the Chinese way: I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other people’s misery, to eat my own bitterness. And even though I taught my daughter the opposite, still she came out the same way! Maybe it is because she was born to me and she was born a girl. And I was born to my mother and I was born a girl .... That was what people did back then. They had no choice. They could not speak up. They could not run away. That was their fate. But now they can do something else"

I also liked the story of Suyuan Woo and her twin baby daughters that she was forced to leave behind in China when the Japanese invaded.  As in the movie this story has a very touching ending forty years later.  

But the two remaining mothers, Ying-Ying St Clair and Lindo Jong are more problematic as role models.  Not every mother is a fount of wisdom and sometimes you have to unlearn from your parents as well.   So I am glad I read The Joy Luck Club.  It's one of those books that new readers will be discovering fifty years from now and not many novels have that distinction.

Nomadland by Jessica Bruder: Surviving America In The Twenty-First Century

Nomadland by Jessica Bruder has been on my TBR list for some time now but I have stayed away because the subject matter scared me a bit.  Normally I love books about  people who hit the road in their vans and discover what they want in life. 

But that is contingent upon the van dweller having had a choice with regard to living in their van.  The men and women profiled in Nomadland had no such choice.  As to how it could get to that point, Jessica Bruder explains it well:

"Among the people I met, some had their personal savings wiped out by bad investments or saw their 401(k)s evaporate in the 2008 market crash. Some hadn’t been able to create enough of a safety net to withstand otherwise survivable traumas: divorce, illness, injury. Others had been laid off or owned small businesses that folded in the recession. And though workers under fifty were a minority, I met them too ... problems compounded by student debt and degrees that turned out to have little practical value. Many hoped life on the road would be an escape from an otherwise empty future"

In another part of the book Jessica tells us that vandwellers may seem similar to the hobos and Hoovervilles of the 1930's but there is a key difference:

"For the nomadic Dust Bowl–era refugees who were once snubbed as “Okies,” self-worth meant keeping alive the embers of one precious hope: that someday the status quo would return, moving them back into traditional housing, restoring at least an iota of stability. Along with many of the wayfarers he came to inspire, Bob saw things differently. He envisioned a future where economic and environmental upheavals had become the new American normal".

As I began Nomadland I was concerned it would be a grim read. But I found it to be a thought-provoking and fascinating book about an off the grid and growing subculture here in the US.  Vandwellers have their own blogs, stores, meeting places. They have created cities like Quartzsite, Arizona, a ghost town during the summer but full of life every winter as hundreds of thousands of people arrive in cars, vans and RV's to set up camp, socialize, find work and help each other out.  

Non-fiction books come and go but I predict Nomadland will last because of the excellent journalistic job Jessica Bruder did, living and researching the vandwelling life for two years. But also because social security, salaries and savings accounts are increasingly not keeping up with the skyrocketing cost of apartment dwelling even if all you require is a studio.  This problem is not going away and Nomadland will be relevant for many years to come.

20 Books of Summer Challenge

This year I have been slow in the number of books I have read.  Maybe a dozen since the year started.  And so Cathy at 746 Books hosts a yearly Summer Challenge.  The goal is to read 20 books between June 1 through Sept 1. But it's a no pressure challenge and so I have decided on 10 books to be read this Summer.  All from my TBR list:

Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Road Not Taken by Rona Jaffe

The Maid by Nita Prose

Emma by Jane Austen

Outcasts by Sarah Stegall

Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

Nomadland by Jessica Bruder

Changing Tides by Michael Thomas Ford

Tourist Season by Carl Hiassen

I am excited about this challenge and I hope everyone is having a great summer and happy reading!