The little Cotswold village of Fairacre weathers a challenge to its existence from plans to build a large housing estate nearby. Miss Read, the schoolThe little Cotswold village of Fairacre weathers a challenge to its existence from plans to build a large housing estate nearby. Miss Read, the school teacher, copes with an unhappy junior colleague, the grouchy cleaner, Mrs Pringle, and the day to day challenges of teaching.
*****
Reread because I didn’t realize until one-third of the way through that I’d read it before. I’ve added a bit to my review to distinguish this from the other Miss Read books....more
Often elegiac, these poems come from places and communities present and past, drawing on Irish, classical and contemporary history and mythos. There aOften elegiac, these poems come from places and communities present and past, drawing on Irish, classical and contemporary history and mythos. There are elegies, celebrations, a few translations, humor, and searches in language for what no longer remains. These poems are rich in unexpected observations and connections.
“Dialects, words or music, or/designs to win in love: it’s all the same;/for every man that has a house to build/will not start off without reflection,/but first takes in the sky’s elevation …” The Granaries of Finisterre
“Oh but they were the stars: the elder sisters/In the Pleiades of Woolworths-girls…They alone have held/Their station through our seasons of Filofax/And mobile phones and cappuccino,/Rolling their Corks r's and eyes at everyone.” The Orange Girls of Cork
“If things got any worse, she’d take up knitting/and sit across the hearth from his thin-lipped silence,/murmuring a new language and logic:/Cast on purlwise. Knit one stitch through back/of loop. Yarn around needle. C6B, P6, K2....” Philomela
“just to one side of where the unbroken rapture/seemed to come from, a few degrees away, a dancing point, a concentration of/the cloud. No more than that, yet everything/your eyes’ attentiveness had reached out for.” Sedge-Warblers at Beckley, June 20 ...more
This collection of essays and speeches focuses on theater and music with topics ranging from the Greeks to opera, from Dickens and music to folk songsThis collection of essays and speeches focuses on theater and music with topics ranging from the Greeks to opera, from Dickens and music to folk songs, from Hamlet to Jung to book collecting. Reading this book is as entertaining and enlightening as sitting by the fireplace listening to a great raconteur and writer talking about his ideas and experiences....more
In these seven short stories gathered together for the first time, Virginia Woolf explores what she calls "party consciousness." Written during the saIn these seven short stories gathered together for the first time, Virginia Woolf explores what she calls "party consciousness." Written during the same time Mrs Dalloway was conceived and written, these stories (and the thoughtful introduction) are an interesting accompaniment and variation on the themes of that novel....more
The journal of a trek through the Himalayas to look for wild sheep and possibly glimpse the rare snow leopard is beautifully written. The trek is paraThe journal of a trek through the Himalayas to look for wild sheep and possibly glimpse the rare snow leopard is beautifully written. The trek is paralleled by the author's spiritual search for peace after the recent death of his wife. This book gives an American reader a glimpse at a way of life and places which have probably changed beyond recognition in the forty years since it was written. It may be the author's stoicism and Zen practice work against expression of underlying feelings, but however it is, there is an odd distance between the reader and author, more like the relationship between someone met at a cocktail party than a diarist and a reader.
"Moving upright in near darkness, we find a bear's nest in a hackberry--our first sign of the Asiatic black bear, called the "moon bear". The bear sits in the branches and bends them toward him as he feeds on the cherry- like fruits: the broken branches make a platform which the bear may then use as a bed. In a corner of this nest, a blue rock pigeon--the wild ancestor of the street pigeon--has late-October young, as yet unfledged. We make a bear's breakfast of wild berries touched by frost." ...more
There are poems I loved in this collection which centers on experiences of grief, faith and nature: "The Poet Visits the Museum of Fine Arts", " GreatThere are poems I loved in this collection which centers on experiences of grief, faith and nature: "The Poet Visits the Museum of Fine Arts", " Great Moth Comes from his Papery Cage" " The Winter Wood Arrives", "Heavy", "Percy ( Six)" and "Thirst".
"That time/I thought I could not/go any closer to grief/without dying". "Heavy"
"How many summers does a little dog have?" "Percy (Six)"...more
If you want to read Penelope Fitzgerald at her best, read one of her fine novels: The Bookshop, Offshore, The Blue Flower. The eight short stories in If you want to read Penelope Fitzgerald at her best, read one of her fine novels: The Bookshop, Offshore, The Blue Flower. The eight short stories in this 117 page collection vary tremendously in setting, scope, subject and successfulness. My favorites were Desideratus, with a haunting search like an all too real fairytale and Beeherzn, where a festival organizer hunts down a retired Mahler maestro. The Axe is a dark modern twist on Bartleby....more
"A Letter always feels to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend." Many of these letters are as original and truthf"A Letter always feels to me like immortality because it is the mind alone without corporeal friend." Many of these letters are as original and truthful of thought as her poems. They also provide a biography in her own voice. A few letters from her friend the poet, T.W. Higginson are included, as well as the letters he wrote to his wife after meeting Emily Dickinson for the first time. He quotes her as saying, "If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way." By her own standard of measurement, this book should be classified as poetry instead of a book of letters....more
Despite all the praises and honors given this book, I wasn't initially enthusiastic about reading it. Who wants to read another book about Henry VIII Despite all the praises and honors given this book, I wasn't initially enthusiastic about reading it. Who wants to read another book about Henry VIII and Anne Bolelyn? I asked myself. A Man for All Seasons, Ann of a Thousand Days, The Other Bolelyn Girl, the list goes on and on. What else is there to say? Just that this is one of the best historical novels I've ever read. Short of time travel, this is probably the closest to life in the 16th century court as anyone is likely to get. There is a richness and depth that justifies this book's length, and made me sorry to see the number of pages left getting smaller and smaller....more
In this brief novel about a young man's life, Virginia Woolf experiments with her techniques for capturing experiences and emotions, some times more sIn this brief novel about a young man's life, Virginia Woolf experiments with her techniques for capturing experiences and emotions, some times more successfully than others--experiments that will reach full fruition in later books like Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, and The Waves. Very interesting for a student of Virginia Woolf, but probably not the place for a new reader to begin. ...more
What a wonderful surprise for these lucky children to find a letter from C.S. Lewis in the mail. The letters in this short selection are thoughtful, hWhat a wonderful surprise for these lucky children to find a letter from C.S. Lewis in the mail. The letters in this short selection are thoughtful, humorous, truthful, and delightful even second hand.
"I am so glad to hear that you liked the Narnian books, and it was very good of you to write and tell me that you did. Everyone is pleased, you know, to be appreciated, even elderly authors!"
"I'm afraid I've said all I had to say about Narnia, and there will be no more of these stories. But why don't you try to write one yourself? I was writing stories before I was your age, and if you try, I'm sure you would find it great fun. Do!"
"I am thrilled to hear that your street runs North as well as South, because in this country all streets (and even country roads) run in two directions at the same time. They are trained to change the moment you turn around. What is even cleverer of them they turn their right side into their left side at the same time. I've never known it to fail."
"Anyway, you can drive a typewriter, which I could no more drive than a locomotive (I'd sooner drive the locomotive too)." ...more
Gideon and Julie Oliver head to France to investigate some mysterious bones that surfaced in Les Eyzies, a hot spot for research into prehistoric man Gideon and Julie Oliver head to France to investigate some mysterious bones that surfaced in Les Eyzies, a hot spot for research into prehistoric man with the usual resident assortment of quirky anthropologists and other scientific suspects. The plot was clever but too complicated for belief....more
This historical mystery makes the reader feel as if they are sitting in on the action. Careful details create a vivid sense of time, place and cultureThis historical mystery makes the reader feel as if they are sitting in on the action. Careful details create a vivid sense of time, place and culture of 15th century England and the all too human cast of characters....more
After the death of her husband, Mrs Palfrey moves to a London hotel full of other retirees and "adopts" a young would-be-writer as her grandson. SharpAfter the death of her husband, Mrs Palfrey moves to a London hotel full of other retirees and "adopts" a young would-be-writer as her grandson. Sharply observed, unsentimental about old age and death, this is a fine novel, insightful, well written and bracing as a dip in the winter sea. ...more
The characters and situations in the best of these eleven short stories continue to reverberate in the mind after the book is closed: the country hostThe characters and situations in the best of these eleven short stories continue to reverberate in the mind after the book is closed: the country hostess of two disadvantaged city children discovers their sharp eye for mimicry, a man sends himself a birthday card, two middle aged vacationers unsuccessfully try for a night together, the head of an exclusive clothing department retires, a woman looks back at mistakes of her younger self ironically. The author has a sharp eye for the telling detail and for the insincerities of social life.
"Once, she had been insatiable as a flame. She lay and remembered the days of her youth, but with interest, not wistfully." Flesh
"She also had a few scruples about Charlie, but they were not so insistent as the cicadas." Flesh
"She seemed to be concerned about my butterfly mind, its skimming over things, not stopping to understand. I felt that knowing things ought to 'come' to me, and if it did not, it was too bad. I believed in instinct and intuition and inspiration--all labour-saving things.
Miss Martin, who taught English (my subject, I felt), approached the matter coldly. She tried to teach me the logic of it--grammar. But I thought 'ear' would somehow teach me that. Painless learning I wanted, or none at all." Miss A. And Miss M.
Lexi Smart wakes up in a hospital room without any of her memories of the last 3 years --which means she's forgotten her father's funeral, a stint on Lexi Smart wakes up in a hospital room without any of her memories of the last 3 years --which means she's forgotten her father's funeral, a stint on a corporate reality show, her husband, her new high-powered job and, oh yes, the man she'd fallen in love with-- or so he says. The story took a long time to set up, and the heroine's thoughts/reactions didn't always come across as authentic. But,.....there were some very funny scenes toward the end....more
Who sent a skeleton to Mr Murivance at the London Royal College of Pediatricians' museum? "Was she a bequest or a loan or merely someone's unwanted guWho sent a skeleton to Mr Murivance at the London Royal College of Pediatricians' museum? "Was she a bequest or a loan or merely someone's unwanted guilty secret?" A clever plot and odd cast of characters made for an enjoyable read, with a humorous tone that reminded me of Edmund Crispin and Sarah Caldwell. ...more
" Mizu-ziiipi was an Ojibwe phrase that meant 'very big river'". The very big river was a dangerous place in the early to mid nineteenth century, and " Mizu-ziiipi was an Ojibwe phrase that meant 'very big river'". The very big river was a dangerous place in the early to mid nineteenth century, and this book covers the scene from the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812, revival meetings, river bandits, missionaries, steamboats, and the snags and hazards of the river itself up to shortly after the Civil War. A detailed and different but fascinating slant on American history. ...more
William Stafford writes deceptively simple poems that reverberate and return to memory. This collection focuses on the natural world, with standards lWilliam Stafford writes deceptively simple poems that reverberate and return to memory. This collection focuses on the natural world, with standards like "Ask Me" and "Traveling Through the Dark" and less familiar (to me) poems like "Climbing Along the River", "Glimpse Between Buildings", "Fall Wind" and "Keepsakes". Here is the short "Storm at the Coast": "What moves on, moves far,/ here. What holds, holds long./ But it is the wind and water will stay,/ after the cliffs are gone."...more
Perfect book for anyone curious about the Fo'c'sle, the 20x16 foot seaside cottage where Henry Beston observed the seasons of Cape Cod in the 1920's. Perfect book for anyone curious about the Fo'c'sle, the 20x16 foot seaside cottage where Henry Beston observed the seasons of Cape Cod in the 1920's. The author provides a history of the house, accounts of her own visits, and pictures, photographs and maps.
"Year after year on a quiet afternoon I could wander along the marsh road in an orange confetti shower of monarchs flittering up from the blossoms of the goldenrod as I passed. Strange how chance encounters with life in a natural setting can emancipate the human spirit."...more
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