The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

I am like a broken record when I say that the Louise Penny Three Pines Series just keeps getting better and better and The Beautiful Mystery the 8th book in the series is excellent.  I rated it five stars on goodreads and after I did I wondered should I reserve five stars for the classics and national book award winners.  But then I thought no.  A book should be judged within its genre and by that criteria The Beautiful Mystery is a five star read.  

And what makes The Beautiful Mystery different than the prior seven novels in the series that I have read is that the fictional little village of Three Pines and its residents: Clara, Peter, Ruth, Olivier, Gabriel, Myrna do not appear in this novel.  Instead this book is set in a monastery Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups located on an island in a remote part of Quebec.

Twenty-four monks live at the Saint-Gilbert--Entre-les-Loups.  They are entirely self sufficient and were living in isolation with no one knowing of their existence until they decided to make their beautiful music, the Gregorian chants, available to the outside world.  

The monks became famous overnight with money from CD sales pouring in but they continued their cloistered life not allowing anyone from the outside to enter the Saint-Gilbert--Entre-les-Loups.  But then one of the monks, the choir director Frere Mathieu, is found murdered in the garden.  Chief Insp. Armand Gamache and his first lieutenant, Insp. Jean-Guy Beauvoir, make their journey to the monastery to find out which of the monks committed the murder and why. 

We learn in The Beautiful Mystery about the monastic life, Catholic Church history, the Gregorian chants and so much more.  There is also a sub plot involving Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir and that sub plot interested me a good deal.  We get a deep dive into the character and insecurities of Jean-Guy Beauvoir and though he is not an easy character to warm up to, I am starting to find him fascinating and will be eager to get on to the ninth book in this marvelous series.

84, Charing Cross Road by Helen Hanff

These days if you are looking for an out-of-print book it's often a click away on Amazon.  But in 1949 for Helene Hanff, a free-lance writer living in New York, finding the out-of-print books she loved was not easy.

But then Helene saw an ad from an antiquarian bookstore Marks and Co located at 84, Charing Cross Road London, England.  Helene sent off a letter inquiring if they had three books she had been trying to find.  The manager, Frank Doel, wrote back letting her know that he would be sending Helene two of the books she requested.  The Leigh Hunt essays would be harder to find but he would do his best to locate that book as well.

And so began a twenty year correspondence (1949 - 1969)  between Helene Hanff, Frank Doel and the staff at Marks and Co.  Their letters are collected in the book 84 Charing Cross Road published in 1970 which has gone on to be a much loved classic.  Most of the letters in the book are from Helene and here is part of a letter dated March 25, 1950 she wrote to Frank:  

"I require a book of love poems with spring coming on.  No Keats or Shelley, send me poets who can make love without slobbering - Wyatt or Jonson or somebody, use your own judgement.  Just a nice book preferably small enough to stick in a slacks pocket and take to Central Park" 

In the years after World War II Helene discovered that foods and products were still being rationed in England and so as a thank you for the books they had been sending her, Helene began to send gift packages that the Marks and Co staff really appreciated.  

At the heart of 84 Charing Cross Road is Helene's friendship with Frank and the Marks and Co staff and also her love for English literature. Helene Hanff didn't care for fiction but she had a deep knowledge of English poetry and essayists and it's a pleasure to read her interesting and opinionated views about books and authors.

Frank and his staff were always hoping Helene would come to England to visit and she wanted to go but as a struggling freelance writer it was not affordable. She finally did make it to England but by that time Frank had passed away and the bookstore had closed down.  But the book 84 Charing Cross Road has become a classic to treasure and reread.  Also the movie starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins is wonderful.  I have seen it more than once and it's available online.

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices From A Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz

"I wrote these plays for a group of students at the Park School where I work as a librarian.  They were studying the Middle Ages and they were going at it hammer and tongs ... The only difficulty was that there were seventeen children in every class and no one wanted a small part ...  So I decided to write seventeen short plays - monologues - instead of one long one, so that for three minutes at least, every child could be a star" -  Laura Amy Schlitz

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices From A Medieval Village was the winner of the Newbery Medal in 2008 for children's literature.  It's the second book I have read for this year's historical fiction challenge hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader and Baker. Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! is a novel consisting of 22 short chapters each profiling a different young person living in a 13th century English village:  Hugo, the lord's nephew, Taggot, the blacksmith's daughter, Constance, the pilgrim, Otho, the miller's son, Piers, the glassblower's apprentice etc. Here for example is Nelly, the sniggler talking about her life:

"I was born lucky. Nay, not born lucky, as you shall hear - but lucky soon after and ever after. My father and mother were starving poor, and dreaded another mouth to feed. When my father saw I was a girl-child, he took me up to drown in a bucket of water.  

But here's the lucky part - and 'tis pure sooth. I didn't drown, babe though I was. I took hold with my wee fingers and held to the side of the bucket.  And my mother wept, and my father's heart went soft, and he could no more drown me than himself-and they named me Nelly, for Queen Eleanor". And their luck changed. First my uncle died of the scurvy and we got his pigs. Then the nuns at the abbey hired us to catch eels - and we've been sniggling ever since "

After Nelly the sniggler finishes her story the author let's us know a few facts.  We learn that a sniggler is a person who catches eels and that Nelly was named after Queen Eleanor of Aquitane (1122-1204).  And Nelly as a baby holding on to the edge of the bucket of water her father was trying to drown her in is a true story: "The original plucky newborn was a woman named Liafburga, who lived around 700 a.d."

Laura Amy Schlitz does not sugarcoat life in the 13th century and some may feel that the book is too realistic for children.  But if you are teaching kids about the Middle Ages isn't it better to explain how it really was?  I found Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! a very well written, interesting and educational novel which people should check out.

Emma by Jane Austen

In describing Emma (1815) Jane Austen famously wrote: "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like”.  And over the years I have wondered about that quote.  What would I discover about Emma Woodhouse when I finally got around to reading the novel that would cause me to dislike her?  But now that I have read Emma is it possible that Jane Austen was teasing us?  I ask because despite her imperfections I liked Emma Woodhouse and I am sure many readers over the years have liked her as well.

All of this is not to say that Emma is without flaws.  She is a very wealthy 21 year old woman living with her father in their Hartfield Estate in Surrey England at the beginning of the 19th century.  Emma's mother died when she was very young and since then she has been raised by her father and her governess Miss Taylor and Emna is used to getting her own way. 

But when the novel opens Miss Taylor has just gotten married to Mr Weston.  Miss Taylor and Emma are sad to be parting but Emma is happy for Miss Taylor and she soon makes a new friend, Harriet Smith. Harriet is a sweet, pretty young woman.  Her parentage is unknown and the highborn Emma wants to do something nice for Harriet. Why not set up a great match for her new friend?

And so Emma convinces Harriet to reject a proposal of marriage from Robert Martin, a successful farmer who Harriet loves.  Emma feels that Harriet can do better.  She convinces Harriet to set her sites on the new vicar Mr. Elton and it doesn't go well.  Mr Elton is a scoundrel only interested in Emma and her wealth and social standing.  Emma discovers this when she and Mr. Elton are riding in a carriage together: 

Am I to believe that you have never sought to recommend yourself particularly to Miss Smith?—that you have never thought seriously of her?” 

“Never, madam,” cried he, affronted in his turn: “never, I assure you. I think seriously of Miss Smith!—Miss Smith is a very good sort of girl; and I should be happy to see her respectably settled. I wish her extremely well: and, no doubt, there are men who might not object to—Every body has their level: but as for myself, I am not, I think, quite so much at a loss. I need not so totally despair of an equal alliance, as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith!—No, madam, my visits to Hartfield have been for yourself only; and the encouragement I received—”

Emma rejects Mr. Elton's advances and feels terrible about having gotten Harriet's hopes up and this is an example of why I like Emma.  She can be vain, a bit of a snob and too sure of herself but Emma is also capable of impressive self-reflection and regret when she has done wrong.  She deeply regrets the harm she has caused Harriet and later in the book feels terrible about her cruel comment at the picnic to Miss Bates.  Emma is unaware at first of how badly she has hurt Miss Bates until Mr. George Knightley brings it to her attention.  Emma is mortified and tries to make amends.

Of course in every Jane Austen novel there is the romantic hero as well as the heroine and in Emma the hero is George Knightley.  Like Emma he is very wealthy with a great estate of his own.  Mr. Knightley has known Emma since she was a child and is not afraid to criticize her when he feels she is making a wrong decision.  And he is often right.  But I did wonder about Mr. Knightley.  He confesses at one point that he has loved Emma since she was thirteen and since Mr. Knightley is sixteen years her senior do the math on that one.  But if Jane Austen is okay with it so am I.

After I finished reading Emma I rated it five stars on goodreads.  For me nothing will compare with Pride and Prejudice and Mr. Darcy but Emma is a brilliant novel.  It's a rather long book so you do have to pace yourself but it is worth the effort.

Beartown by Fredrik Backman (translated by Neil Smith)

"She’s lived here all her life, she knows how quickly information spreads. Someone will know someone who has a brother who’s a cop or has a friend who works at the local paper or a mom who’s a nurse at the hospital. Someone will say something to someone. And all hell will break loose" - Fredrik Backman, Beartown

Beartown (2016) by the bestselling Swedish writer Fredrik Backman is the first novel in his trilogy focusing on life in Beartown, a fictional rural community set in northern Sweden.  It's a town surrounded by a forest that has seen better days. The jobs have pretty much disappeared and the people are moving away.  But the residents who remain in Beartown are loyal and nowhere is that more true than when it comes to the hopes they have pinned on their high school hockey team, the Bears.

And their hopes are not unrealistic because for the first time in many years the Bears have a chance of making it all the way to the top thanks to three great players on the team: seventeen year old Kevin Erdahl who is their star player, seventeen year old Benji Ovich who is Kevin's best friend and almost as good as Kevin on the ice and fifteen year old Amat who has so much speed that the coach is letting him play with the juniors. 

Kevin is wealthy and lives in the Heights, an exclusive part of Beartown.  Benji and Amat come from the Hollow, a poor part of town where families have to struggle.  Hockey is seen as a way to a great future for all three boys.  They have the talent.

SPOILER ALERT  

And then on the night the Bears win a big game Kevin's teammates and classmates attend a party at his house.  His parents are away, the alcohol is flowing, and Kevin is drunk.  Fifteen year old Maya Andersson, the daughter of Peter Andersson who is the General Manager of the Bears, is at the party.  She has a crush on Kevin, most girls in Beartown do.  Maya and Kevin end up kissing but he wants to go further.  Maya says no and Kevin doesn't take no for an answer.  The rest of the novel is the fallout from what happened at the party and how it affects the town and how the different characters we have been introduced to react.  Some rise to the occasion but most do not.

I found Beartown to be a really fine novel.  It can be dark at times but it is wonderfully written and moving as well.  If I have a criticism it might be that Fredrik Backman spends the first 170 pages describing the town, what hockey means to the town and who the various characters are both major and minor. I felt at the beginning that the book was going slow.  But then I switched from kindle to audible and Marin Ireland's first rate narration picked up the pace considerably.  And when I got to the night of the party I was engrossed all the way through to the end of the book.

Later this year I plan to read book two in this series: Us Against You (2018).  I want to find out more about Beartown and how the residents are getting on.  And hopefully learn more about Benji, Amat and my favorite character Ramona the elderly widow who runs the local pub and serves as a kind of therapist for the town locals who stop by for a drink.  

And so it turns out Fredrik Backman who is an excellent writer knew what he was doing in taking his time introducing us to Beartown and its residents because I am on to book two.

Salutation To The Dawn - A Poem by Kalidasa

I am a worrier and so while I was reading Dale Carnegie's How To Stop Worrying And Start Living, a very good book, I came upon this poem by Kalidasa (4th - 5th century CE) and wanted to share:

Salutation To The Dawn ~ by Kalidasa

Look to this Day,

for it is Life – the very Life of Life.

In its brief course lie all the verities

and realities of your existence:

the Bliss of Growth,

the Glory of Action,

the Splendor of Beauty.

For yesterday is already a dream

and tomorrow is only a vision;

but today, well-lived,

makes every yesterday a dream of happiness

and every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this Day.

Such is the salutation of the Dawn.

~ by Kalidasa, Indian Sanskrit Playwright and Poet,

Two Children's Classics: The Door In The Wall by Marguerite de Angeli and Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes

This year I have signed up for the 2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader and Baker.  My goal is to read 15 Medieval historical novels this year and the Door In The Wall (1949) by Marguerite de Angeli is the first book I have completed.  It's a children's classic, winner of the 1950 Newbery Medal and the novel is set in 14th century England around the time of the black plague although the plague doesn't factor into the book that much.  

Instead The Door In The Wall tells the story of ten year old Robin who is the son of Sir John de Bureford.  Robin comes from a family of noblemen.  His father is a knight and is away fighting in a war that is going on between England and Wales.  His mother is leaving to take a position as one of the Queen's Ladies in Waiting.  Robin has good parents who love him and he will miss them but he is excited to begin his apprenticeship towards becoming a knight and making his father proud.

But then a few days before Robin is set to leave for his apprenticeship he is taken ill.  It's not the plague but whatever the illness is it leaves Robin unable to walk and his plans for being a knight are over.  Robin is depressed at this sudden change in his life and he is sent to a monastery where the monks will take care of him and it turns out to be the best thing that could have happened.  The monks are good men and they teach Robin to read, write, carpentry.  He learns about science and the stars and mostly Robin learns that despite his disability there is so much he can do.  As Brother Luke tells him: “Thou hast only to follow the wall far enough and there will be a door in it.”

 

It's a book with an important message and A Door In The Wall is well written and you also learn some of the customs, foods, clothing etc from the Middle Ages.  But there are children's books that can be enjoyed at all ages and then there are children's books that are specifically geared to children and for me The Door In The Wall fits into the latter  category.  

And while I was reading The Door In The Wall I started thinking of another children's classic, Johnny Tremain (1943) by Esther Forbes, winner of the 1944 Newbery Medal that I read a few years ago

Johnny Tremain is set in Boston during the American Revolutionary era and centers around a 14 year old orphan boy named Johnny Tremain.  Johnny works for and lives with a silversmith and his family.  Johnny is training to be a silversmith and even at 14 his ability to craft beautiful objects from silver is admired and requested by everyone.  Like Robin, Johnny sees his future all mapped out until an injury to his hand ends his career as a silversmith.

Johnny is a fully developed well drawn character in a way that Robin in my opinion was not.  Robin is a good kid all the way through The Door In The Wall whereas Johnny Tremain is more three-dimensional, good qualities but also flawed.  Johnny before the accident was arrogant, too sure of himself and he makes enemies.  But after the hand injury he loses everything including a place to live.  We see Johnny go from age 14 to 17 in the novel and watch him slowly build his way back and he learns that there are people out there willing to help if you let them.  I found Johnny Tremain to be a powerful novel for adults as well as kids and it has stayed with me.