Susan Allen Toth

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

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

I quite enjoyed this travel guide. True, it begins with a couple of chapters that are now seriously outdated (this book was written in the early 90's, slightly before the Internet could be used for travel research & bookings, and in the long-ago days when you could overpack as much as you wanted for a flight and bring all sorts of food and drink on the plane, etc.)

But then the author gets into the meat of the book. I enjoyed her chapter on how to keep a travel journal, and why it can be so show more delightful. I loved her descriptions of various out-of-the-way places in the English and Scottish countryside. Pooh country! Bluebell woods! The far northeast Highlands! Only one chapter of the book is devoted to London, and even that focuses on the garden spaces.

Her theory of travel (that on one trip, you should only plan to explore an area about the size of your thumbprint on a large-scale map, staying for at least a week in one spot and checking out places no more than an hour's drive away) means that she and her husband were able to soak in much more of their travel experience than your average sightseer rushing from place to place. Ah, for the luxury of being able to take multiple trips to England and not feel like you had to see it all in one go! show less

This is the second book I've read from Toth. She and her husband are hardcore Anglophiles from Minnesota, spending much of their time in London while also driving all over the U.K., searching out gardens, castles and animal sanctuaries. These aren't just "my vacation" type memoirs, as Toth has 30 years of traveling about the U.K. and gets to meet with Lords to discuss their property. She's still enchanted with Great Britain decades later, which makes her an easy-going travel companion.