Susan Allen Toth

55. England As You Like It by Susan Allen Toth. Toth has written several books about traveling around England, part travel guide, part memoir, they are books of slow, calming travel with lots of manor houses and gardens, usually with her husband James.
This book is geared towards the first-time traveler to England, and as it was published in 1995, much of the travel advice can be skipped as the internet has made things like writing to a historical society for pamphlets obsolete. But these show more first few chapters can also be read to remember how much effort had to be made back then.
Toth travels by her "thumbprint theory" which is trying to spend a week at a time in an area that covers no more than the size of her thumb on the map. While this is a good way to get to know a place better than moving around, it works best for someone who knows they will be returning often.
My favorite chapter was one about Daphne Du Maurier's area of Cornwall, seeing Menabilly, Du Maurier's home and the inspiration for Manderlay, and exploring her neighborhood. But there is also a fun chapter about shopping for biscuits and sweets at Sainsbury's and another chapter explaining why she and her husband prefer packing their own food rather than eating in restaurants. show less

As I was (still) busily cataloguing my books on LibraryThing, I came across this one and pulled it out to dive into immediately. I can't really even say why. Perhaps it was the title combined with the knowledge that my 20th high school reunion is rapidly approaching. Add in that Toth lives almost in the shadow of my high school, in a city I've never been back to since I graduated, and that made it seem sort of ordained that I would stumble across it now. It is not all about high school show more reunions but instead is a collection of essays just musing about life in general. Some of the essays are a bit dated; ironically, many of the essays, written in Toth's middle-age, were indeed written when I was a high-schooler and therefore just a hop, skip, and jump away from her. But most of them are still pertinent, thoughtful writings on the minutia of everyday living. The essays are almost entirely domestically set or concerned--including one that takes on the pre-conceived view that domestic writing is worthless--so they come off as being about small subjects but for those of use who live those small subjects, they are satisfying indeed. show less

This book was meant to be relatable.

Reading this memoir was like reading a Judy Blume book in the 5th grade. I felt the same sense of not being able to quire relate to the awkward teen thing. I just wasn't really an awkward teen and definitely wasn't an innocent or inexperienced one. Now that I'm living a much more moral and decent life than I did as a teen, I should be able to say that I wish my teen years would have been more like the idyllic ones she describes. But really, they were great show more years and I wouldn't be who I am now (and wouldn't be avoiding the stuff I now avoid) without them. Does that character revelation disappoint you? Ha! Well, I guess you can take comfort in the fact that I'll always tell it to you straight---like it or not!

In other ways, I related completely. For instance, in her chapter on being a bookworm she discusses the city library of her youth. "Entering the Ames Public Library I could feel its compelling power immediately." In describing the selection of books she says, "It was like having a box of assorted chocolate, all tempting, with unknown centers. I wanted to bite into each one right away to see what it was like." Recently, my mom and I visited the library in my hometown. So many wonderful memories came rushing back---libraries have always felt like home to me. Even upon the very first visit!

I related well to her stories about her early days in journalism and trying to put together a feature story form an interview subject that was way over her head. Her experiences mirrored my own immature attempts to appear to be a "real newspaperwoman" in my early 20s. Like me, she didn't last long in journalism.

The book is basically a really thorough social commentary on American life in between my mother's and grandmother's eras. Allen Toth had a simple, positive childhood, for the most part and told her story in an engaging way. Were I a good 30 years older than I am, I think this story would have affected me strongly. As it is, I can't say that I enjoyed the book---but I obviously found enough worth in it to read it through. show less

With her first trip to London as a college student in 1960, American professor Toth was a confirmed Anglophile. Over the decades she kept returning, as a new teacher clumsily guiding a group of students on a literary course, through a short and rocky marriage, as a mother with a hectic schedule and an unhappy child, and many times with a new husband who learns to love England too. She hitchhikes, discusses food,sheepdog trials, English gardens and walking the countryside.

And all that sounds show more pretty unoriginal and sappy, doesn't it? The title alone is probably why I let it sit on the shelf for at four years even though it came with high recommendations. I'll say that Toth would likely have a bigger audience if her titles were more intriguing. For example, the essay title "1978: A Shady Patch" is about the seven month period when she, her daughter and a friend shared a London flat as Toth taught a course at a nearby college. Newly divorced, with little money and even less time, Toth ends up renting the flat belonging to the brother of the infamous Lord Lucan, a place Toth refers to as "The Murder Flat". The friend, brought along as a live-in babysitter, can't deal with Toth's six year-old and both women have brief flings with men who disappear. Now would you expect all that from the title? show less