Kathy's (kac522) Reading Log by Year--Part 2

Way back in 2019 I started keeping track by year of the books I had read between 1920 and 2019. I had hoped to read a book from all 100 years. I didn't quite make it, but it was such an interesting way of looking at my reading that I decided to continue keeping track as I read.

This thread keeps track of all the books I've read since 2019, and they are organized by Publication Year. All the books I read in the first 6 years (2019-2025) are here, and I will continue to add to it in the years to come. I also use this thread to compose my reviews and TBR lists for each month.

In 2026 I have two other threads on LT:

--a chronological list of my reading in the 75ers Group: https://www.librarything.com/topic/377299#
--and my reading by Challenges in the Category Challenge Group: https://www.librarything.com/topic/377305#

For years with multiple books, I may go back and mark my favorite. Some years it's difficult, as I have some years with 10+ books. This will be a work in progress, for sure.

18th Century & before-- BCE - 1799 CE

ca. 432 BCE "Oedipus the King" from The Three Theban Plays, Sophocles (Apr 24)
2 CE Meditations, Marcus Aurelius (Jan 22)

1599 As You Like It, Shakespeare (Nov 23)

1600 A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare (Apr 22)
1600 The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare (Nov 24)
1601 Twelfth Night, Shakespeare (May 22)
1603 Othello, Shakespeare (Apr 19)
1606 Macbeth, Shakespeare (Nov 19)
1610 The Tempest, Shakespeare (Jan 21)
1623 The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Shakespeare (Nov 25)

1719 Robinson Crusoe, Daniel DeFoe (Mar 26)
1722 A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe (Mar 24)
1752 The Female Quixote, Charlotte Lennox (Sep 25)
1764 The Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole (Jul 23)
1774 The Sorrows of Young Werther, J. W. von Goethe (Jul 25)
1778 Evelina, Fanny Burney (Jul 25)
1788 Emmeline, Charlotte Turner Smith (Jun 19)
1789 The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, Ann Radcliffe (Sep 24)
1791 The History of England by a partial, prejudiced & ignorant historian, Jane Austen (Jul 25)
1795 Letters for Literary Ladies, Maria Edgeworth (Jan 26)

1800 - 1819

1802 Belinda, Maria Edgeworth (Feb19)
1807 Tales from Shakespeare, Lamb (Jan21)

1811 Sense and Sensibility: An annotated edition, Austen (Mar20); (Jul 24 Collector's edition text);
1811 The Annotated Sense and Sensibility, Austen, annotated by David M. Shapard (Dec 25)
1812 The Absentee, Maria Edgeworth (Jul 22)
1813 Pride and Prejudice, Austen (Dec 20); (Apr 21 audio E. Fox); (Dec 21 audio Stevenson); (Jul 22 audio); (Jul 23 text); (May 24 audio); (Jul 25 audio); (Jun 26 audio)
1814 Mansfield Park: an annotated edition, Austen (May 20), (May 25)
1814 Waverley, Sir Walter Scott (Mar 24)
1816 Emma: an annotated edition, Austen (Apr 22) -- text and audiobook
1817 Sanditon, Jane Austen (Jan 20) -- text
1817 Persuasion, Austen (Jul 21 audio); (Jul 22 text); (Jan 25 audio);
1817 Northanger Abbey: an annotated edition, Austen (Jul 21 text and audio); (Jul 23: Collector's Library edition); (Feb 25: audiobook & Norton Critical Edition)

1820 - 1839

1827 The Highland Widow, Sir Walter Scott (Jan 23)
1838 Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens (Jan 25)
1839 Nicholas Nickleby, Charles Dickens (Oct 22) audiobook re-read

1840 - 1859

1840 The Betrothed, Alessandro Manzoni (Jun 23)
1841 Barnaby Rudge, Charles Dickens (Aug 20), (Sep 21), (Jun 23)
1842
1843 A Christmas Carol and other Christmas Writings, Dickens (Dec 21); audiobook (Dec 21), (Dec 22), (Dec 23), (Dec 24), (Dec 25)
1844 Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens; audiobook (Sep 23)
1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass (Feb 23)
1846 Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life, Melville (July 20)
1847 Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (Oct 21), (Oct 25) on audiobook
1847 Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte (Jan 23)
1847 Agnes Grey, Anne Bronte (Oct 23)
1847 The Children of the New Forest, Frederick Marryat (Oct 25)
1848 The Kellys and the O'Kellys, Anthony Trollope (Mar19)
1848 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte (Jan 20)
1848 Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens (May 20), (Nov 23)
1849 Shirley, Charlotte Bronte (Jun 21)

1850 Audiobook: David Copperfield, Charles Dickens, read by Simon Vance (re-read) (Apr19, Mar 22, Dec 23)
1850 The Moorland Cottage, Elizabeth Gaskell (Dec 20, Dec 23)
1850 Olive, Dinah Mulock Craik (Mar 21)
1850 The Black Tulip, Alexandre Dumas (Oct 25)
1851 Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell (Oct 21) audiobook re-read
1851 London Crimes, Charles Dickens (originally published in Household Words, 1851)
1851 The House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne (Mar 23)
1852 Roughing It In the Bush, Susanna Moodie (Feb 23)
1853 Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell (Oct 23)
1853 Bleak House, Charles Dickens (Feb 24)
1854 Hard Times, Charles Dickens (Feb 24)
1854 The Heir of Redclyffe, Charlotte Mary Yonge (Oct 24)
1855 North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell (Dec 20), (Jun 22), (Jan 24)
1855 The Warden, Anthony Trollope (Jul 22)
1855 A Month in the Country, Ivan Turgenev (Sep 24)
1856 The Poor Clare, Elizabeth Gaskell (Dec 19), (Oct 23)
1857 Scenes of Clerical Life, George Eliot (Dec19)
1857 Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens (Mar 21), (Mar 24) audiobook re-read
1857 Barchester Towers, Trollope (Aug 22) audiobook re-read
1857 Madame Bovary, Flaubert (Dec 22)
1857 The Dead Secret, Wilkie Collins (Apr 24)
1858 The Three Clerks, Anthony Trollope (Apr19)
1858 Doctor Thorne, Anthony Trollope (Sep 22) audiobook re-read
1858 "The Manchester Marriage", Elizabeth Gaskell (Jan 24)
1859 The Bertrams, Anthony Trollope (Sep19)
1859 Adam Bede, George Eliot (Apr 21)
1859 The Lifted Veil and Brother Jacob, George Eliot (Jun 21), (Nov 23)
1859 A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (May 22), (May 24) audiobook
1859 My Lady Ludlow and Other Stories (Round the Sofa), Elizabeth Gaskell (Oct 24)

COMPLETE: 1860 - 1879

1860 Castle Richmond, Anthony Trollope (Feb20)
1860 The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot (Jul 22)
1860 Love and Youth: Essential Stories, Turgenev (Aug 23)
1861 The Doctor's Family and Other Stories, Mrs Oliphant (Sep 20); (May 21)
1861 Silas Marner, George Eliot (May 21)
1861 Framley Parsonage, Anthony Trollope (Feb 23) audiobook re-read
1862 Fathers and Sons, Ivan Turgenev (Jun19)
1862 The Struggles of Brown, Jones and Robinson, Trollope (Mar20)
1862 Lady Audley's Secret, Mary E. Braddon (Apr20)
1862 Orley Farm, Anthony Trollope (Oct 20)
1862 Les Miserables, Victor Hugo (Apr 26)
1863 Rachel Ray, Anthony Trollope (Dec 20), (Dec 21)
1863 Salem Chapel, Margaret Oliphant (Jun 21)
1863 Sylvia's Lovers, Elizabeth Gaskell (Aug 24)
1863 The Notting Hill Mystery, Charles Felix aka Charles Warren Adams (Jan 26)
1864 The Lifted Veil and Brother Jacob, George Eliot (Jun 21)
1864 The Perpetual Curate, Margaret Oliphant (Mar 22)
1864 The Doctor's Wife, Mary Elizabeth Braddon (Jan 23)
1864 The Small House at Allington, Anthony Trollope (Mar 23); audiobook re-read
1865 Miss Mackenzie, Anthony Trollope (Apr 21), (May 22)
1865 Our Mutual Friend, Dickens (Jun 21), (Aug 24), (Feb 26) audiobook re-read
1865 Cousin Phillis and Other Tales, Elizabeth Gaskell (Jun 21), (Oct 22)
1865 Can You Forgive Her?, Anthony Trollope (Sep 24), audiobook re-read
1866 The Belton Estate, Anthony Trollope (Jun 21), (Jan 23)
1866 Miss Marjoribanks, Margaret Oliphant (Oct 22)
1866 Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell (Jun 25)
1867 The Claverings, Trollope (Oct 21), (Jul 23)
1867 Nina Balatka, Trollope (Nov 21), (Feb 24)
1867 The Last Chronicle of Barset, Trollope (Apr 23)
1868 Linda Tressel, Trollope (Feb 22)
1868 The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins (Mar 22), (Jan 26)
1868 Behind the Scenes: Thirty Years a Slave, Elizabeth Keckley (Sep 23)
1869 Little Women: An Annotated Edition, Alcott (Jul 24)
1869 Phineas Finn, Anthony Trollope (Oct 24--audio re-read)

1870 The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dickens (Oct 21)
1870 The Vicar of Bullhampton, Trollope (Oct 22)
1870 Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite, Trollope (Nov 22)
1870 Man and Wife, Wilkie Collins (Oct 24)
1870 Memoir of Jane Austen, James Austen-Leigh (Oct 25)
1871 Lady Susan, Austen (publ. post) (Aug 20), (Jul 22), (Jun 23, audio re-read); (Feb 24, audio re-read); (Jan 25, audio re-read); (Jul 25 audio re-read), (Jan 26 audio re-read)
1871 Desperate Remedies, Thomas Hardy (Oct 21)
1871 Ralph the Heir, Anthony Trollope (Dec 23)
1872 Under the Greenwood Tree, Thomas Hardy (Apr 22), (May 23-audiobook re-read), (Jul 25 audiobook re-read)
1872 Middlemarch, George Eliot (Dec 22)
1872 The Golden Lion of Granpère, Trollope (Oct 23)
1872 The Eustace Diamonds, Trollope (Dec 24)
1873 A Pair of Blue Eyes, Thomas Hardy (Oct 22), (Aug 25)
1873 Phineas Redux, Anthony Trollope (Feb 25- audio re-read)
1874 Lady Anna, Anthony Trollope (Sep 22)
1874 Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions), Louisa May Alcott (Feb 23)
1874 Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, Anthony Trollope (Sep 23)
1874 Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy (Sep 25)
1875 The Way We Live Now, Anthony Trollope (Apr 24)
1875 The Curate in Charge, Margaret Oliphant (Mar 25--ebook)
1876 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain (Jan 23)
1876 Phoebe, Junior, Margaret Oliphant (Apr 23)
1876 A Bad Business: Essential Stories, Dostoevsky (Sep 24)
1876 The Prime Minister, Anthony Trollope (Apr 25-audiobook re-read)
1876 The Hand of Ethelberta, Thomas Hardy (Oct 25)
1877 Three Tales, Gustave Flaubert (Jun 23)
1877 The American Senator, Anthony Trollope (Jun 26)
1878 The Lady of Launay, Anthony Trollope (Feb 23)
1878 Is He Popenjoy?, Anthony Trollope (Mar 25)
1878 The Europeans, Henry James (Apr 25)
1878 The Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy (Nov 25)
1879 A Rogue's Life, Wilkie Collins (Jan 19)
1879 Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, Robert Louis Stevenson (Oct 24)
1879 An Eye for an Eye, Anthony Trollope (Oct 24)
1879 John Caldigate, Anthony Trollope (Apr 26)

1880 - 1899

1880 Heidi, Johanna Spyri (Oct19)
1880 Washington Square, Henry James (Mar 23), (May 24)
1880 The Duke's Children, Anthony Trollope (Jul 25)
1880 The Trumpet-Major, Thomas Hardy (Dec 25)
1881 Mad Monkton and Other Stories, Wilkie Collins (Apr 24); stories range from 1852 to 1881
1881 Dr. Wortle's School, Anthony Trollope (Oct 25)
1881 A Laodicean, Thomas Hardy (Jan 26)
1881 Ayala's Angel, Anthony Trollope (Mar 26)
1882 Two Heroines of Plumplington, Anthony Trollope (Feb 23)
1882 Christmas at Thompson Hall and Other Christmas Stories, Anthony Trollope (collection published 2014; stories range from 1866-1882); (Dec 24), (Dec 25)
1882 Two on a Tower, Thomas Hardy (Feb 26)
1883 Hester, Margaret Oliphant (Aug 22)
1883 Treasure Island, R L Stevenson (Feb 24)
1883 The Silverado Squatters, R. L. Stevenson (May 24)
1884 An Unsocial Socialist, G. B. Shaw (Dec 21)
1885 A Child's Garden of Verses, R. L. Stevenson, Illus. Jessie Willcox Smith (1905)
1886 The Guilty River, Wilkie Collins (Jul19)
1886 Little Lord Fauntleroy, Frances Hodgson Burnett (Jan 21)
1886 Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson (Jan 22)
1886 The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy (Oct 22), (Mar 26--on audio read by Simon Vance)
1886 The Mystery of Mrs. Blencarrow, and Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond, Margaret Oliphant (Oct 24)
1887 Pansies and Water-Lilies, Louisa May Alcott (Feb19)
1887 "A Study in Scarlet" from Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories Volume 1, A C Doyle; on audiobook read by Simon Vance (Oct 24)
1887 Ten Days in a Mad House, Nellie Bly (Feb 26)
1887 The Woodlanders, Thomas Hardy (Apr 26)
1888 The Romance of a Shop, Amy Levy (Jun 21)
1888 Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance, Sholem Aleichem (Jan 22)
1889 Reuben Sachs, Amy Levy (Oct 21)
1889 Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome (Sep 25)

1890 How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis (Apr 24)
1890 The Mystery of Mrs. Blencarrow, and Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond Margaret Oliphant; two novellas (Oct 24)
1891 The White Company, Arthur Conan Doyle (Jan 24)
1891 The Canterville Ghost, Oscar Wilde (Oct 25)
1891 Tess of the D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy (May 26)
1892 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle (Nov 24)
1892 The Happy Prince and Other Stories, Oscar Wilde (Jan 25)
1893 The Odd Women, George Gissing (Oct 23)
1893 A Woman of No Importance, Oscar Wilde (Oct 25)
1894
1895 The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde (Oct 22); The Time Machine, H. G. Wells (Jun 23)
1895 The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane (Apr 23)
1895 The Christmas hirelings, M. E. Braddon (Jul 25)
1895 Nazarin, Benito Perez Galdos (Nov 25)
1896 The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories, Sarah Orne Jewett (May 22)
1896 A Child of the Jago, Arthur Morrison (Oct 23)
1896 A Shropshire Lad, A. E. Housman (Jan 25)
1896 The Spoils of Poynton, Henry James (May 25)
1896 The Library Window, Margaret Oliphant (Oct 25)
1897 A Pair of Silk Stockings and Other Stories, Kate Chopin (Jan 23)
1897 Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling (May 25)
1898 Elizabeth and her German Garden, Elizabeth von Arnim (Sep 20)
1899 The Solitary Summer, Elizabeth von Arnim (Jul 21)
1899 Red Pottage, Mary Cholmondeley (Oct 25)

1900 - 1919

1900 The Touchstone, Edith Wharton (May 21)
1901 My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin (Apr 21)
1901 Crucial Instances, Edith Wharton (Mar 23)
1902 Anna of the Five Towns, Arnold Bennett (Feb 26)
1902 Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume II, Arthur Conan Doyle (Mar 26)
1903 Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories Volume I, A Conan Doyle (Sep 25)
1904 The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen, Elizabeth von Arnim (May 23)
1904 "John Bull's Other Island", George Bernard Shaw (Feb 24)
1904 Selected Stories, E. M. Forster (Dec 23)
1905 Where Angels Fear To Tread, E. M. Forster (Feb 21)
1905 A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett (Apr 26)
1905 The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton (Apr 26)
1906 "The Silver Box", John Galsworthy play (May 20)
1906 The Railway Children, E Nesbit (Jul 21)
1906 The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, Edith Holden (May 25)
1906 New York Revisited, Henry James (Sep 25)
1907 "Joy", John Galsworthy play (May 20)
1907 "Major Barbara", GB Shaw (Dec 20)
1907 Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther, Eliz von Arnim (May 21)
1908 A Room with a View, E. M. Forster (May 21)
1908 Crossriggs, Jane & Mary Findlater (Mar 22), (Feb 26)
1908 Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery (Oct 23), (Sep 24)
1909 "Strife", John Galsworthy play (May 20)
1909 The Caravaners, Elizabeth von Arnim (Aug 22)
1909 Anne of Avonlea, L. M. Montgomery (Dec 24)
1909 A Girl of the Limberlost, Gene Stratton-Porter (Dec 24)

1910 Howards End, E. M. Forster (Apr20), (Jun 25)
1910 The Getting of Wisdom, H. H. Richardson (Dec 22)
1911 Jenny, Sigrid Undset (May 21)
1911 The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett (Aug 23), (Jun 24)
1911 Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton (Sep 24)
1912 Alexander's Bridge, Willa Cather (Jan20)
1913
1914 The Pastor's Wife, Elizabeth von Arnim (Jun 20)
1914 "Pygmalion" from George Bernard Shaw's Plays: Norton, Shaw (Feb 24)
1914 The Prussian Officer and other stories, D. H. Lawrence (Jun 24)
1915 Spoon River Anthology, Edgar Lee Masters (Oct 19)
1915 Fighting France, Edith Wharton (Jun20)
1915 The 39 Steps, John Buchan (Feb 21)
1915 Anne of the Island, L. M. Montgomery (May 25)
1916 Understood Betsy, Dorothy Canfield Fisher (Jan 23)
1916 Madame de Treymes and Three Novellas, Edith Wharton (Apr 23)
1917 Fanny Herself, Edna Ferber (Nov 24)
1917 Anne's House of Dreams, L. M. Montgomery (Dec 25)
1917 Christine, E. Von Arnim (Feb 26)
1918 Eminent Victorians: The Illustrated Edition, Lytton Strachey (Oct 22)
1918 The Return of the Soldier, Rebecca West (Feb 23)
1919 Winesburg, Ohio, Sherwood Anderson (May 21)
1919 Christopher and Columbus, von Arnim (Aug 23)
1919 William - an Englishman, Cecily Hamilton (Apr 25)
1919 Mary Olivier, May Sinclair (Feb 26)

1920 - 1929

1920
1921 The Secret Adversary, Agatha Christie (Jan 19);
1921 The Girls, Edna Ferber (Jun 23)
1921 The Sunny Side: Short Stories and Poems for Proper Grown-Ups; A. A. Milne (Dec 24)
1922 The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim (Dec 19)
1922 The Misses Mallett, E. H. Young (Oct 20)
1922 The Lark, E. Nesbit (Sep 22)
1922 Seducers in Ecuador & The Heir, V. Sackville-West (Mar 23)
1922 The Glimpses of the Moon, Edith Wharton (Feb 25)
1922 Life and Death of Harriett Frean, May Sinclair (Sep 25)
1923 Emily of New Moon, L. M. Montgomery (Jul 20)
1923 Anderby Wold, Winifred Holtby (Dec 20)
1923 A Lost Lady, Willa Cather (Feb 22)
1923 A Son at the Front, Edith Wharton (Mar 23)
1924 So Big, Edna Ferber (Feb19) ♥
1924 The Man in the Brown Suit, Agatha Christie (Apr19)
1924 The Crowded Street, Winifred Holtby (May 21)
1924 The Home-Maker, Dorothy Canfield Fisher (Oct 23)
1924 The Rector's Daughter, F. M. Mayor (Aug 24)
1925 The Secret of Chimneys, Agatha Christie (May19)
1925 William, E. H. Young (May 21)
1925 The Professor's House, Willa Cather (Dec 23)
1925 Greenery Street, Denis Mackail (Jun 24)
1926 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Christie (Dec19), (Jun 22)
1926 My Mortal Enemy, Willa Cather (Sep 24)
1927 The Big Four, Christie (Dec19)
1927 The Way Things Are, E. M. Delafield (Mar 21)
1927 The Land of Green Ginger, Winifred Holtby (Aug 21)
1927 The Vicar's Daughter, E. H. Young (Aug 21)
1927 Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster (Dec 23)
1927 Young Anne, Dorothy Whipple (Apr 24) ❤️
1927 The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen (Mar 26)
1928 Quicksand, Nella Larsen (Nov19)
1928 The Mystery of the Blue Train, Agatha Christie (Jan20)
1929 Good-bye To All That, Robert Graves (Jan19)
1929 The Seven Dials Mystery, Agatha Christie (Jul19)
1929 Partners in Crime, Agatha Christie (Feb20)
1929 Passing, Nella Larsen (Dec 20 & Nov 21)
1929 A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf (Mar 22)

COMPLETE 1930 - 1939

1930 The Mysterious Mr Quin, Agatha Christie (Mar20)
1930 Private Lives, Coward (May 21)
1930 Diary of a Provincial Lady, Delafield (Nov 21)
1930 Miss Mole, E. H. Young (Jan 22)
1930 High Wages, Dorothy Whipple (May 24)
1930 Rhododendron Pie, Margery Sharp (Jan 25)
1931 Hard Lines, (poems) Ogden Nash (May19)
1931 The Sittaford Mystery, Agatha Christie (Jul20)
1931 Plagued by the Nightingale, Kay Boyle (Sep 20)
1931 The Country Child, Alison Uttley (Dec 21)
1931 My Husband Simon, Mollie Panter-Downes (Mar 22)
1931 Poor Caroline, Winifred Holtby (May 22)
1931 Father, Elizabeth von Arnim (Aug 22) (Oct 24)
1931 The Fortnight in September, R. C. Sherriff (Sep 22), (Sep 25)
1931 All Passion Spent, Vita Sackville-West (Mar 23)
1932 The Tuesday Club Murders, short stories, Agatha Christie (Nov19)
1932 Peril at End House, Agatha Christie (May 20)
1932 Jenny Wren, E. H. Young (Apr 22)
1932 The London Scene: Six Essays on London Life, Virginia Woolf (Sep 22)
1932 Heat Lightning, Helen Hull (Nov 23)
1932 Greenbanks, Dorothy Whipple (Aug 24)
1932 Thank Heaven Fasting, E. M. Delafield (Nov 24)
1932 The Provincial Lady in London, E. M. Delafield (Nov 24)
1932 Nothing Venture, Patricia Wentworth (Aug 25)
1933 Lord Edgware Dies, Agatha Christie (Jul 20)
1933 The Hound of Death and other stories, Agatha Christie (Dec 20)
1933 Good-Bye, Mr Chips, James Hilton (Sep 23)
1933 Business as Usual, Jane Oliver & Ann Stafford (Sep 25)
1934 Miss Buncle's Book, D. E. Stevenson (Feb19), (Feb 22)
1934 The Boomerang Clue, Christie (Oct 20)
1934 Three Act Tragedy, Christie (Dec 20)
1934 Murder on the Orient Express, Christie (Feb 21)
1934 Parker Pyne Investigates, Christie (Mar 21)
1934 Now in November, Josephine Johnson (Nov 21)
1934 Burmese Days, George Orwell (Feb 22)
1934 Rumour of Heaven, Beatrix Lehmann (Mar 22)
1934 The Curate's Wife, E. H. Young (May 22)
1934 A London Child of the 1870s, Molly Hughes (Jan 24)
1934 Roman Fever, Edith Wharton (May 24); short stories from 1899-1934
1934 They Knew Mr Knight, Dorothy Whipple (Apr 25)
1934 Heaven's My Destination, Thornton Wilder (Sep 25)
1934 Crooked Cross, Sally Carson (May 26)
1935 The Young Clementina, D. E. Stevenson (Mar 20)
1935 Smouldering Fire, D. E. Stevenson (Apr 20)
1935 Death in the Air), Christie (May 21)
1935 Caddie Woodlawn, Carol Ryrie Brink (Jan 23)
1936 Miss Buncle Married, D. E. Stevenson (Apr19)
1936 Begin Again, Ursula Orange (Mar 21)
1936 The A. B. C. Murders, Christie (Sep 21)
1936 Murder in Mesopotamia, Christie (Nov 21)
1936 Jamaica Inn, Du Maurier (Sep 23)
1936 Anne of Windy Poplars, L. M. Montgomery (Jul 25)
1936 Cards on the Table, Agatha Christie (Aug 25)
1936 Greengates, R. C. Sherriff (Nov 25)
1936 South Riding, Winifred Holtby (May 26)
1937 Scoop, Evelyn Waugh, (Aug19)
1937 Rosabelle Shaw, D. E. Stevenson (Apr20)
1937 Dumb Witness, Christie (Dec 21)
1937 Death on the Nile, Christie (Mar 22)
1937 They Came Like Swallows, William Maxwell (May 24, Jun 24)
1937 Celia, E. H. Young (Jul 24)
1937 Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary, Ruby Ferguson (Mar 25)
1938 The Baker's Daughter, D. E. Stevenson (Sep 20)
1938 The Wild Geese, Bridget Boland (Aug 21)
1938 Rebecca, Daphne DuMaurier (Oct 21)
1938 Appointment with Death, Agatha Christie (Sep 22)
1938 Easy To Kill, Agatha Christie (Nov 22)
1938 Hercule Poirot's Christmas, Agatha Christie (Dec 22)
1938 The Squire, Enid Bagnold (May 23)
1938 My Uncle Silas, H. E. Bates (Mar 24)
1939 At Swim-Two-Birds, Flann O'Brien (Mar19)
1939 Mollie Panter-Downes story (Oct 19)
1939 Green Money, D. E. Stevenson (Nov 20)
1939 And Then There Were None, Christie (Mar 23, Oct 25 on audiobook)
1939 The Priory, Dorothy Whipple (Aug 25)
1939 An Old Woman's Reflections, Peig Sayers (Sep 25)
1939 Mrs Miniver, Jan Struther (Feb 26)

COMPLETE: 1940 - 1949

1940 Mr Skeffington, Elizabeth von Arnim (Mar19);
1940 Rochester's Wife, D. E. Stevenson
1940 Mollie Panter-Downes stories (Oct 19)
1940 Letter from England, Mollie Panter-Downes (May 21)
1940 The English Air, D. E. Stevenson (May 21)
1940 The Patriotic Murders, Agatha Christie (Apr 23)
1940 Sad Cypress, Agatha Christie (Nov 23)
1940 Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Willa Cather (Mar 26)
1941 Mollie Panter-Downes stories (Oct 19)
1941 Tom Tiddler's Ground, Ursula Orange (Mar 21)
1941 English Country Houses, V. Sackville-West (Mar 23)
1941 Evil Under the Sun, Agatha Christie (Feb 24)
1941 N or M?, Agatha Christie (Mar 24)
1941 Two Days in Aragon, Molly Keane (Jul 24)
1942 Suite Francaise, Irene Nemirovsky, translated from the French by Sandra Smith (Jun19)
1942 Mollie Panter-Downes stories (Oct 19)
1942 Spring Magic, D. E. Stevenson (Nov 21)
1942 Crooked Adam, D. E. Stevenson (Jan 22)
1942 West with the Night, Beryl Markham (Feb 23)
1942 The Moving Finger, Agatha Christie (May 24)
1942 Five Little Pigs, Agatha Christie (Jun 24)
1942 The Dreaming Child and Other Stories, Isak Dinesen (Jan 25)
1942 Never No More, Maura Laverty (Mar 25)
1943 The Two Mrs. Abbotts, D. E. Stevenson (Jun 19)
1943 Mollie Panter-Downes stories (Oct 19)
1943 Celia's House, D. E. Stevenson (Dec 19)
1943 "Betrothed" from Two Tales, S. Y. Agnon (Feb 22)
1943 The Betsy-Tacy Treasury, Maud Hart Lovelace (May 23)
1943 O, the Brave Music, Dorothy Evelyn Smith (Jan 25)
1943 Remembered Death, Agatha Christie (Mar 25)
1943 The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage, Enid Blyton (Apr 25)
1944 Mollie Panter-Downes stories (Oct 19)
1944 Listening Valley, D. E. Stevenson (Feb20)
1944 Towards Zero, Agatha Christie (Aug 24)
1944 Green for Danger, Christianna Brand (Jan 25)
1944 Cluny Brown, Margery Sharp (Apr 25)
1945 Death Comes as the End, Agatha Christie (Dec 24)
1946 Palladian, Elizabeth Taylor (Nov 19)
1946 The Four Graces, D. E. Stevenson (Dec 19)
1946 A Tale of Beatrix Potter, Margaret Lane (May 20)
1946 The Hollow, Agatha Christie (Apr 25)
1946 The Old Country: Collected Stories of Sholom Aleichem (May 25)
1946 Miss Pym Disposes, Josephine Tey (Apr 26)
1947 A View of the Harbour, Elizabeth Taylor (Jun 20)
1947 One Fine Day, Mollie Panter-Downes (Sep 20)
1947 Country Place, Ann Petry (Nov 20)
1947 Jeeves: Joy in the Morning, P. G. Wodehouse (Jul 22)
1947 Kate Hardy, D. E. Stevenson (Dec 22)
1947 A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams (Sep 23)
1947 Chatterton Square, E. H. Young (Feb 25)
1947 The Labors of Hercules, Agatha Christie (Nov 25)
1948 I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith (Jan 21)
1948 Witness for the Prosecution, Agatha Christie (Aug 21)
1948 Young Mrs Savage, D. E. Stevenson (Nov 23)
1948 Peony, Pearl S. Buck (Mar 25)
1948 The Best of Clarence Day, Clarence Day (Jul 25)
1948 Crooked House, Agatha Christie (Nov 25)
1948 There is a Tide, Agatha Christie (Mar 26)
1948 The Foolish Gentlewoman, Margery Sharp (May 26)
1949 Little Boy Lost, M. Lanski (Aug 19)
1949 A Wreath of Roses, Elizabeth Taylor (May 20)
1949 Vittoria Cottage, D. E. Stevenson (Dec 23)
1949 Arrest the Bishop?, Winifred Peck (May 25)
1949 Tea with Mr Rochester, Frances Towers (Jan 26)

COMPLETE 1950 - 1959

1950 Tea is so Intoxicating, Mary Essex (Jun 22)
1950 The Feast, Margaret Kennedy (Jun 22)
1950 Music in the Hills, D. E. Stevenson (May 24)
1950 A Murder is Announced, Agatha Christie (Jan 26)
1951 My Cousin Rachel, Daphne du Maurier (Apr 21)
1951 The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger (Jun 21)
1951 All-of-A-Kind Family, Sydney Taylor (Sep 21)
1951 A Game of Hide and Seek, Elizabeth Taylor (Nov 21)
1951 Winter and Rough Weather, D. E. Stevenson (May 24)
1951 The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey (Sep 24)
1952 Period Piece, Gwen Raverat (Sep 21)
1952 The Natural, Bernard Malamud (Mar 22)
1952 Excellent Women, Barbara Pym (Sep 23)
1952 The Village, Marghanita Laski (May 25)
1953 The Night of the Hunter, Davis Grubbs (Oct19)
1953 The Sleeping Beauty, Elizabeth Taylor (Feb 22)
1953 Maud Martha, Gwendolyn Brooks (Mar 23)
1953 Five Windows, D. E. Stevenson (Jul 24)
1953 Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (Feb 26)
1953 The Indomitable Mrs. Trollope, Eileen Bigland (Mar 26)
1953 The Gipsy in the Parlour, Margery Sharp (Apr 26)
1954 Charlotte Fairlie, D. E. Stevenson (May 25)
1954 A Wreath for the Enemy, Pamela Frankau (Aug 25)
1955 Inherit the Wind, J. Lawrence and R. E. Lee (Oct19)
1955 Fresh from the Country, Miss Read (Nov 22)
1955 Shaw on Music, G B Shaw (Feb 24)
1955 The Quiet American, Graham Greene (Mar 24)
1955 Amberwell, D. E. Stevenson (Sep 25)
1956 Lincoln Reconsidered, David Herbert Donald (Feb20)
1956 Summerhills, D. E. Stevenson (Nov 25)
1957 You Can't Get There From Here (poems), Ogden Nash, illustrated by Maurice Sendak (Apr19)
1957 Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury (Jul19)
1957 What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw, Christie (Jan 23)
1957 Angel, Elizabeth Taylor (Feb 24)
1957 A Winter Away, Elizabeth Fair (Dec 24)
1957 The Eye of Love, Margery Sharp (May 26)
1958 Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris, Paul Gallico (Jun20)
1958 The Blush and Other Stories, Elizabeth Taylor (this VMC edition 1987) (Feb 24)
1959 The Hills is Lonely, Lillian Beckwith (Feb 21)
1959 Thrush Green, Miss Read (Aug 21)
1959 A Chelsea Concerto, Frances Faviell (Sep 22)
1959 Miss Plum and Miss Penny, Dorothy Evelyn Smith (Feb 25)
1959 Still Glides the Stream, D. E. Stevenson (Mar 26)

COMPLETE: 1960 - 1969

1960 A Man For All Seasons, Robert Bolt (Dec19)
1960 Out on a Limerick, Bennet Cerf (Mar 21)
1960 Selected Stories: Anton Chekhov (Signet Classics) (Mar 25)
1961 Lanterns & Lances, James Thurber, essays (Jan 21)
1961 Winter at Thrush Green, Miss Read (Sep 21)
1961 The Spinoza of Market Street, I. B. Singer (Nov 24)
1961 No Fond Return of Love, Barbara Pym (Feb 25)
1961 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark (Sep 25)
1962 Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury (Oct 23)
1962 Martha in Paris, Margery Sharp (Jun 26)
1963 Country Bunch, Miss Read (Feb 21)
1964 The Soul of Kindness, Elizabeth Taylor (Apr 25)
1964 A Song of Sixpence, A. J. Cronin (Sep 25)
1964 Martha, Eric and George, Margery Sharp (Jun 26)
1965 Yorkshire: Regional Archaeologies, Ian Longworth (Apr 21)
1966 The Infinite Variety of Music, Leonard Bernstein (Jun19)
1966 The Caxley Chronicles book 1:"The Market Square", Miss Read (Aug19)
1966 The Corner Shop, Elizabeth Cadell (Jun 25)
1967 The Chosen, Chaim Potok (Jan19)
1967 The Caxley Chronicles book 2: "The Howards of Caxley", Miss Read (Oct19)
1968 The Johnstown Flood, McCullough (May20)
1968 Picture Miss Seeton, H. Carvic (May 24)
1968 The Wedding Group, Elizabeth Taylor (Aug 25)
1969 A Day of Pleasure, Isaac Bashevis Singer (Jun 24)

COMPLETE: 1970 - 1979

1970 The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison (Feb20)
1970 James Joyce, John Gross (Nov 20)
1970 84, Charing Cross Road, Hanff (Oct 21), (Jan 24), (Jan 26)
1970 News from Thrush Green, Miss Read (Nov 21)
1971 The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Ernest Gaines (Sep19)
1971 Elizabeth Bowen, Allan E Austin (Dec19)
1971 The Golden Ball and Other stories, Agatha Christie (Apr 21)
1971 Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, Elizabeth Taylor (Aug 24)
1971 Reunion, Fred Uhlman (Mar 26)
1972 The Summer Book, Tove Jansson, transl. by Thomas Teal (Aug 21)
1972 The Optimist's Daughter, Eudora Welty (Sep 22)
1972 My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok (May 23)
1972 To Serve Them All My Days, R. F. Delderfield (Jun 23)
1972 All Creatures Great and Small, James Herriot (Nov 24), audio re-read (Mar 25)
1972 The Devastating Boys and Other stories, Elizabeth Taylor (May 25)
1973 Village Christmas and The Christmas Mouse, Miss Read (Jan19)
1973 The Dressmaker, Beryl Bainbridge (Aug 23)
1973 The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, Helene Hanff (Mar 24)
1973 By and About Women: An Anthology of Short Fiction, B K Schneiderman, ed. (Sep 24)
1974 The Summer of the Great-Grandmother, Madeleine L'Engle (Mar20)
1974 Farther Afield from Fairacre Roundabout, Miss Read (Apr 20)
1974 Look Back with Love: a Manchester Childhood, Dodie Smith (Jan 21)
1974 All Things Bright and Beautiful, James Herriot (Aug 25)
1975 Battles at Thrush Green, Miss Read (Jan 22)
1975 From These Shores, Helga Skogsbergh (Aug 23)
1976 No Holly for Miss Quinn, Miss Read (Dec19)
1976 Lady Oracle, Margaret Atwood (Jun20)
1976 The John McPhee Reader, John McPhee (Oct 22)
1976 The Definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach, Peter Schickele (Feb 24)
1976 Blaming, Elizabeth Taylor (Nov 25)
1977 Village Affairs, Miss Read (May20)
1977 Staggerford, Jon Hassler (Sep 21)
1977 Quartet in Autumn, Barbara Pym (Apr 24)
1978 Return to Thrush Green, Miss Read (Mar 22)
1979 The White Robin, Miss Read (May20)

COMPLETE: 1980 - 1989

1980 Village Centenary, Miss Read (Aug 20)
1980 A Few Green Leaves, Barbara Pym (Apr 22)
1980 A Month in the Country, J. L. Carr (May 23) re-read
1981 Death in a Tenured Position, Amanda Cross (Dec19)
1981 Gossip from Thrush Green, Miss Read (Apr 22)
1982 Second Words: Selected Critical Prose, Margaret Atwood (Nov 23)
1982 At Freddie's, Penelope Fitzgerald (Sep 24)
1982 The True Deceiver, Tove Jansson (Sep 25)
1983 Brighton Beach Memoirs, Neil Simon (Oct19)
1983 The Shawl, Cynthia Ozick (Mar 21)
1983 Affairs at Thrush Green, Miss Read (Jun 22)
1983 Blue Remembered Hills, Rosemary Sutcliff (May 25)
1984 Summer at Fairacre, Miss Read (Aug 20)
1984 Letters to Alice, Fay Weldon (Nov 20)
1984 Over By the River and Other Stories, William Maxwell (Jan 23)
1984 Good Daughters, Mary Hocking (Aug 23)
1984 Hotel du Lac, Anita Brookner (Sep 24)
1985 Hiroshima, John Hersey (Jun20)
1985 Rebecca West, Fay Weldon (Nov 20)
1985 At Home in Thrush Green (Aug 22)
1985 Indifferent Heroes, Mary Hocking (Sep 23)
1985 Q's Legacy, Helene Hanff (Mar 24)
1985 Henrietta's War, Joyce Dennys (Feb 25)
1985 The Portobello Road and Other stories, Muriel Spark (Mar 25)
1985 In the Steps of Jane Austen, Anne-Marie Edwards (Apr 25)
1986 Augustine: A Very Short Introduction, Chadwick (Oct19)
1986 Fences, a play by August Wilson (Apr20)
1986 Marriage and Morals among the Victorians, Gertrude Himmelfarb (May20)
1986 Chaim Potok, Edward Abramson (May 23)
1986 Welcome Strangers, Mary Hocking (Dec 23)
1986 Henrietta Sees It Through: More News from the Home Front 1942-1945, Joyce Dennys (May 25)
1986 Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume II, Arthur Conan Doyle (Mar 26)
1987 Joseph Banks: A Life, Patrick O'Brian (Sep 21)
1987 The School at Thrush Green, Miss Read (Mar 23)
1987 Civil to Strangers, Barbara Pym (Aug 25)
1988 A Far Cry from Kensington, Muriel Spark (Apr 22)
1988 The World of Thrush Green, Miss Read (Dec 22)
1988 Two-Part Invention, Madeleine L'Engle (Feb 23)
1988 The Diary of an Isle Royale School Teacher, Dorothy Simonson (Apr 23)
1989 Mrs Pringle of Fairacre, Miss Read (Nov 20)
1989 Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel (Jul 21)
1989 The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (Jul 22)
1989 A Particular Place, Mary Hocking (Sep 24)
1989 The Mirror Maker, Primo Levi (Jun 25)

COMPLETE: 1990 - 1999

1990 The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien (Jan19)
1990 The Road To San Giovanni, Italo Calvino (Dec19)
1990 The Gate of Angels, Penelope Fitzgerald (Jul 20)
1990 Floating in My Mother's Palm, Ursula Hegi (Jan 22)
1990 Friends at Thrush Green, Miss Read (Apr 23)
1990 Oscar Peterson: The Will To Swing, Gene Lees (Nov 23)
1991 Lost in Yonkers, Neil Simon (May19)
1991 Bach: Essays on his life and music, Christoph Wolff (Sep 20)
1991 Changes at Fairacre, Miss Read (Apr 21)
1991 Typical American, Gish Jen (Jul 22)
1991 Letters from Constance, Mary Hocking (Mar 26)
1992 Young Men and Fire, Norman Maclean (Feb 20)
1992 Truman, David McCullough (Aug 22); audiobook re-read; read by McCullough
1992 Playing in the Dark, Toni Morrison (Feb 23)
1992 Celebrations at Thrush Green, Miss Read (Jun 23)
1992 Aunt Dimity's Death, Nancy Atherton (Sep 25)
1992 Brave Companions: Portraits in History, David McCullough (Oct 25); audiobook read by McCullough
1993 Farewell to Fairacre, Miss Read (Jun 21)
1994 The Shape of Water, Andrea Camillieri (Jan19)
1994 Open Secrets, Alice Munro (Sep 21)
1994 Tales from a Village School, Miss Read (Sep 23)
1995 Johann Sebastian Bach: Play by Play/Cantata, Alan Rich (Nov19)
1995 The Great Irish Famine, ed. Poirteir (Jun20)
1995 Epitaph for a Peach, David Mas Masumoto (Aug 22)
1995 Kids at Work: Lewis Hine, Russell Freedman with photos by Lewis Hine (Dec 22)
1995 Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature, Margaret Atwood (Feb 23)
1995 Chicago History, Spring 1995, Volume XXIV, Number 1, Rosemary Adams, ed. (Apr 26)
1996 Is Heathcliff a Murderer?, John Sutherland (Oct19)
1996 A Peaceful Retirement, Miss Read (Jul 21)
1996 The Complete Maus, Spiegelman (Jan 23)
1996 The Year at Thrush Green, Miss Read (Nov 23)
1996 Great Short Stories by American Women, Candace Ward, editor (Sep 24)
1996 A Year's Turning, Michael Viney (Jan 26)
1996 Chicago History, Spring 1996, Volume XXV, Number 1, Rosemary Adams, ed. (Apr 26)
1996 Cross Channel, Julian Barnes (Apr 26)
1997 The World of Jane Austen, Nigel Nicolson (Nov19)
1997 The Man Made of Words: Essays, Stories, Passages, N Scott Momaday (Nov 22)
1997 The Journals of Susanna Moodie, Margaret Atwood & Charles Pachter (Feb 23)
1997 Tearing the Silence: On Being German in America, Ursula Hegi (Apr 23)
1997 Carnegie Libraries Across America: A Public Legacy, Theodore Jones (Jan 24)
1997 The Annotated Anne of Green Gables, ed by Doody & Barry (Sep 24)
1998 The Other Side of the Dale, Gervase Phinn (Feb 22)
1998 Poems of the Great War: 1914-1918 (1998) (Sep 24)
1999 Undue Influence, Anita Brookner (Jan19)
1999 Hidden in Plain View, Tobin & Dobard (Mar 21))
1999 The Lighthouse Stevensons, Bella Bathurst (Mar 23)
1999 Five Days in London May 1940, John Lukacs (May 26)

COMPLETE: 2000 - 2009

2000 Jane Austen: Bloom's Major Novelists, Harold Bloom (May 20)
2000 Leonardo da Vinci, Sherwin Nuland (May 24)
2000 The Life of Mendelssohn, Peter Mercer-Taylor (Jul 25)
2001 A Cafecito Story, Julia Alvarez (Sep19)
2001 Year of Wonders, Geraldine Brooks (Aug 20)
2001 Jane Austen, Carol Shields (Nov 20)
2001 Margaret Oliphant's Carlingford Series, Birgit Kamper (Jun 21)
2001 The Means of Escape, Penelope Fitzgerald (Feb 23)
2001 Founding Brothers, Joseph J. Ellis (May 25)
2002 Enemy Women, Paulette Jiles (Dec19)
2002 Jane Austen: The World of Her Novels, Deirdre Le Faye (Jul 21)
2002 Winston Churchill, John Keegan (May 22)
2002 John Adams, David McCullough (Apr 24)
2002 When the Emperor Was Divine, Julie Otsuka (Apr 25)
2003 The Doctors' Plague, Sherwin B. Nuland, M.D. (Mar19)
2004 His Excellency: George Washington, Joseph Ellis (Jan 21), (Jul 25)
2004 London: a history, A. N. Wilson (Aug 21)
2004 Old Filth, Jane Gardam (Apr 22)
2004 Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry (Jun 25)
2005 Leaving Home, Anita Brookner (Aug19)
2005 Still Life, Louise Penny (Oct 20)
2005 The Devil's Highway: A True Story, Luis Alberto Urrea (Nov 22)
2005 So You Think You Know Jane Austen?: A Literary Quizbook, John Sutherland and Deirdre Le Faye (Aug 25)
2006 Mister Pip, Lloyd Jones (Oct19)
2006 The Whistling Season, Ivan Doig (Sep 23)
2006 The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson (Oct 23)
2006 Domestic modernism, the interwar novel, and E.H. Young, Briganti & Mezei (Jul 24)
2007 On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan (May19)
2007 Letters from Lamledra: Cornwall 1914-1918, Marjorie Williams (Nov19)
2007 Early Days, Miss Read (Sep 22)
2007 Shakespeare: The World as Stage, Bill Bryson (May 23)
2007 The Annotated Secret Garden, F H Burnett; annotated by Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina (Aug 23)
2008 Home: A Memoir of My Early Years, Julie Andrews (Aug19)
2008 The Best American Spiritual Writing 2008, P. Zaleski, editor (Sep19)
2008 An Irish Country Village, Patrick Taylor (Mar 21)
2008 The Norman Maclean Reader, Norman Maclean (Jun 23)
2009 The Cello Suites, Eric Siblin, (Sep19)
2009 Strangers, Anita Brookner (Nov19)
2009 The Crossing Places, Elly Griffiths (Jun20)
2009 The Education of a British-Protected Child, Chinua Achebe (Nov 20)
2009 Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End, Jennifer Worth (Jun 22)
2009 An Irish Country Christmas, Patrick Taylor (Dec 22)
2009 Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall, Kazuo Ishiguro (Mar 23)
2009 Brooklyn, Colm Toibin (Mar 23)
2009 Christmas at Thrush Green, Miss Read (Dec 23)
2009 Facing Unpleasant Facts, George Orwell (Feb 26)

COMPLETE 2010 - 2019

2010 At Home: A Short History of Private Life, Bill Bryson (Feb 22)
2010 Foster, Claire Keegan (Jan 23)
2011 Three ebook stories by Alexander McCall Smith: The Perils of Morning Coffee, (2011); At the Reunion Buffet, (2015); Sweet, Thoughtful Valentine, (2016).
2011 The Buddha in the Attic, Julie Otsuka (May 22)
2011 Soldiers with Picks and Shovels, Tom Emery (May 23)
2011 The Fair Miss Fortune, D. E. Stevenson (orig written 1938); (Mar 24)
2011 The Cross of Redemption, James Baldwin (Aug 24)
2011 Brief Lives: Elizabeth Gaskell, Alan Shelston (Oct 24)
2012 My Ideal Bookshelf, LaForce and Mount (May19)
2012 Three Things You Need To Know About Rockets, Fox (Jan20)
2012 Scales to Scalpels, Lisa Wong, M.D. (Oct 20)
2012 Great Expectations: the Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens, Gottlieb (Nov 20)
2012 Mrs Robinson's Disgrace, Kate Summerscale (Jun 21)
2012 The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things, Paula Byrne (May 22)
2012 Dangerous Work: Diary of an Arctic Adventure, Arthur Conan Doyle (May 22)
2012 What Matters in Jane Austen?, John Mullan (Aug 22)
2012 The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reader, Gates (Aug 22)
2013 My Beloved World, Sonia Sotomayor (Dec 20)
2013 The Perfect Peach, David Mas Masumoto (Aug 22)
2013 The Great War: July 1, 1916, Joe Sacco with text by Adam Hochschild (Feb 23)
2013 Revolutionary Summer, Joseph J. Ellis (Jun 24)
2013 A Fine Romance: Falling in Love with the English Countryside, Susan Branch (Mar 25)
2013 Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer (Apr 26)
2014 Think Like A Freak, Levitt & Dubner (Oct19)
2014 Paper Love, Wildman (May20)
2014 My Life in Middlemarch, Rebecca Mead (Aug 23)
2014 Mr Mac and Me, Esther Freud (Jul 24)
2014 You'll enjoy it when you get there : the selected stories of Elizabeth Taylor, (Aug 25)
2014 The Red Notebook, Antoine Laurain (Sep 25)
2014 A Merry Christmas and Other Christmas Stories, L. M. Alcott (Dec 25)
2015 England and Other Stories, Graham Swift (Jan20)
2015 The Light of the World, Elizabeth Alexander (Jan20)
2015 The Wright Brothers, David McCullough (Oct 20)
2015 Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Toshikazu Kawaguchi, translated by Geoffrey Trousselot (Jul 23)
2015 Men Explain Things To Me, Rebecca Solnit (Sep 22)
2015 Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates (Jan 24)
2015 Mr. Selfridge in Chicago: Marshall Field's, the Windy City & the Making of a Merchant Prince, Gayle Soucek (Sep 25)
2016 The Last Days of Night, Graham Moore (Jul19)
2016 Salt to the Sea, Ruta Sepetys (Feb20)
2016 Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood (Jan 21)
2016 My Own Words, Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Apr 21)
2016 Susanna Moodie: Roughing It In the Bush, Carol Shields & Patrick Crowe, adapted by Willow Dawson and Selena Goulding (Feb 23)
2016 Browse: The World in Bookshops, ed. Henry Hutchings (Feb 23)
2016 The Little Virtues: Essays, Natalia Ginzburg (Sep 24)
2017 The Best We Could Do, graphic memoir by Thi Bui (Feb19)
2017 The Good Pilot Peter Woodhouse, Alexander McCall Smith (Mar19)
2017 The Diary of a Bookseller, Shaun Bythell; Audiobook read by Robin Laing (Sep19)
2017 Going into Town, Roz Chast (Jan 22)
2017 The Order of the Day, Erick Vuillard (May 22)
2017 The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser (Mar 25)
2018 The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt, graphic biography by Ken Krimstein (Feb19)
2018 Reading Art, David Trigg (Mar19)
2018 The Art of Reading: An Illustrated History of Books in Paint, Jamie Camplin and Maria Ranauro (Mar19)
2018 Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany, Jane Mount (May19)
2018 Becoming, Michelle Obama, Audiobook read by the author (Sep19)
2018 The Cut Out Girl, Bart Van Es (Nov19)
2018 What to Read and Why, F. Prose (Apr20)
2018 A view of the Empire at Sunset, Caryl Phillips (Jul 20)
2018 Queen Victoria: Twenty-Four Days That Changed Her Life, Lucy Worsley (Apr 23)
2018 American Histories, John Edgar Wideman (May 23)
2018 The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Hendrix (Sep 23)
2018 Dear Mrs. Bird, AJ Pearce (Jan 24)
2018 101 Things I Learned in Urban Design School, Frederick & Mehta (May 24)
2018 The Feather Thief, Kirk W Johnson (Aug 24)
2019 The Second Worst Restaurant in France, A. McCall Smith (Aug19)
2019 The Department of Sensitive Crimes, A. McCall Smith (Sep19)
2019 This America, Jill Lepore (Jan20)
2019 They Called Us Enemy, George Takei (Feb20)
2019 Letters from an Astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson (Aug 20)
2019 Pianos and Flowers, Alexander McCall Smith (Aug 21)
2019 The Pioneers, David McCullough (Sep 21)
2019 Semicolon, Cecelia Watson (Feb 23)
2019 The Swedish Art of Death Cleaning, Margareta Magnusson (Apr 23)

2020 - 2029

2020 The Geometry of Holding Hands, Alexander McCall Smith (Sep 20)
2020 Confessions of a Bookseller, Shaun Bythell (Nov 20)
2020 The Address Book, Deirdre Mask (Mar 21)
2020 The Other Bennet Sister, Janice Hadlow (Mar 21)
2020 Miss Austen, Gill Hornby (Jul 21)
2020 The Artful Dickens, John Mullan (Aug 21)
2020 Our Malady, Timothy Snyder (Nov 21)
2020 Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell (May 22)
2020 The Forest of Wool and Steel, Natsu Miyashita, tr. Philip Gabriel (Jan 23)
2020 Dear Reader: The Comfort and Joy of Books, Cathy Rentzenbrink (Jan 23)
2020 The Thursday Murder Club, Richard Osman (Jan 24)
2020 World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, Aimee Nezhukumatathil (Jan 25)
2020 The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction, William Doyle (Sep 25)
2021 Tiny Tales, Alexander McCall Smith (Jun 21)
2021 Chicago in 50 Objects, Joseph Gustaitis (Dec 21)
2021 On Tyranny Graphic Edition, Snyder & Krug (Feb 22)
2021 Murakami T: The T-Shirts I Love, Haruki Murakami (Jul 22)
2021 Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan (Sep 22), (Dec 25)
2021 Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, Daniel Kahneman (Oct 22)
2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed, John Green (Apr 23)
2021 Postcards: The Rise and Fall, Pyne (Apr 23)
2021 Unearthing the Secret Garden, Marta McDowell (Aug 23)
2021 The Last Bookshop in London, Madeline Martin (Aug 24)
2021 The Life and Works of Jane Austen The Great Courses, Devoney Looser, 24 lectures on DVD (Jul 25)
2022 Mrs England, Stacey Halls (May 22)
2022 The Sweet Remnants of Summer, Alexander McCall Smith (Sep 22)
2022 Our America: A Photographic History, Ken Burns (Dec 22)
2022 Tove Jansson (The Illustrators), Paul Gravett (Jul 23)
2022 Home/Land: A Memoir of Departure and Return, Rebecca Mead (Feb 24)
2022 Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt (Aug 25)
2023 Secret Harvests, David Mas Masumoto (Jun 23)
2023 Simply Artificial Intelligence, DK Publishing (Sep 23)
2023 The Private Life of Spies and The Exquisite Art of Getting Even, Alexander McCall Smith (Dec 23)
2023 Praying with Jane Eyre, Vanessa Zoltan (Dec 23)
2023 Chasing Bright Medusas: A Life of Willa Cather, Benjamin Taylor (Feb 24)
2023 Funny Things: A comic Strip Biography of Charles M. Schulz, Luca Debus and Francesco Matteuzzi (Mar 24)
2023 Jane Austen's Wardrobe, Hilary Davidson (Jul 24)
2023 Burning Questions, Margaret Atwood (Jul 24)
2023 Wednesday's Child: Stories, Yiyun Li (Sep 24)
2023 The Heaven and Earth Grocery Stores, James McBride (Feb 25)
2024 The Perfect Passion Company, Alexander McCall Smith (May 24)
2024 Composers Who Changed History, DK Publishing (Dec 24)
2024 On Freedom, Timothy Snyder (Dec 24)
2024 The Conditions of Unconditional Love, Alexander McCall Smith (Jan 25)
2024 Why We Read: On Bookworms, Libraries and Just one More Page before Lights Out, Shannon Reed (Feb 25)
2024 Blues in Stereo, Langston Hughes; poetry, curated by Danez Smith (Feb 25)
2024 The Truth About Immigration, Zeke Hernandez (May 25)
2024 Clear, Carys Davies (Jun 25)
2025 Jane Austen's Bookshelf, Rebecca Romney (Jun 25)
2025 The Next Day: Transitions, Change and Moving Forward, Melinda French Gates (Jul 25)
2025 Hidden Libraries: The World's Most Unusual Book Depositories, D C Helmuth (Jul 25)
2025 When the Cranes Fly South, Lisa Ridzen (May 26)

Some thoughts & stats about my reading in the last 5 years (2019-2024):

Prior to the 1840s, my reading is scanty, except for Jane Austen. Beginning with the 1840s, I've managed to read at least 1 book from every year to the present day, except for:
1842--American Notes, Dickens
✔️1894
✔️1902
✔️1903
1913--Virginia, Ellen Glasgow
1920--Open the Door, Carswell (VMC)
✔️1954
✔️1964

I may seek out a book here & there to fill in these gaps, as well as the 1820s & 1830s.

Top 3 years for books read in 2019-2024:
2018 publication year--14 books
2020 publication year--11 books
1934 publication year--11 books---quite a surprise!

Books read, published by decade:
1840s 13
1850s 28 --thank you to Dickens & Trollope
1860s 31 --ditto
1870s 24
1880s 29
1890s 12
1900s 19
1910s 19
1920s 35 --thank you to Agatha Christie
1930s 63 --most books in 20th c decade--again Agatha Christie
1940s 44
1950s 31
1960s 15 --least books in any decade
1970s 31
1980s 35
1990s 39
2000s 40
2010s 66 --most books in any decade
2020s 38

2025 Reading--January through June

JANUARY

1. 2024 The Conditions of Unconditional Love, Alexander McCall Smith
2. 1838 Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
3. 2020 World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, Aimee Nezhukumatathil
4. 1930 Rhododendron Pie, Margery Sharp
5. 1817 Persuasion, Jane Austen
6. 1871 Lady Susan, Jane Austen
7. 1944 Green for Danger, Christianna Brand
8. 1896 A Shropshire Lad, A. E. Housman
9. 1892 The Happy Prince and Other Stories, Oscar Wilde
10. 1943 O, the Brave Music, Dorothy Evelyn Smith

FEBRUARY
11. 2024 Why We Read: On Bookworms, Libraries and Just one More Page before Lights Out, Shannon Reed
12. 1942 The Dreaming Child and Other Stories, Isak Dinesen
13. 1947 Chatterton Square, E. H. Young
14. 1985 Henrietta's War, Joyce Dennys
15. 2024 Blues in Stereo, Langston Hughes
16. 1959 Miss Plum and Miss Penny, Dorothy Evelyn Smith
17. 1873 Phineas Redux, Anthony Trollope
18. 2023 The Heaven and Earth Grocery Stores, James McBride
19. 1922 The Glimpses of the Moon, Edith Wharton
20. 1817 Northanger Abbey: Norton Critical Edition, Jane Austen
21. 1961 No Fond Return of Love, Barbara Pym

MARCH
22. 1943 Remembered Death, Agatha Christie
23. 2013 A Fine Romance: Falling in Love with the English Countryside, Susan Branch
24. 1878 Is He Popenjoy?, Anthony Trollope
25. 1937 Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary, Ruby Ferguson
26. 1942 Never No More, Maura Laverty
27. 2017 The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser
28. 1972 All Creatures Great and Small, James Herriot
29. 1875 The Curate in Charge, Margaret Oliphant
30. 1960 Selected Stories (Signet Classics), Anton Chekhov--stories from 1880s
31. 1948 Peony, Pearl S. Buck

APRIL
32. 1985 The Portobello Road and Other stories, Muriel Spark (2 stories from 1950s, others unknown)
33. 1878 The Europeans, Henry James
34. 1946 The Hollow, Agatha Christie
35. 1944 Cluny Brown, Margery Sharp
36. 1985 In the Steps of Jane Austen, Anne-Marie Edwards
37. 1964 The Soul of Kindness, Elizabeth Taylor
38. 1919 William - an Englishman, Cecily Hamilton
39. 2002 When the Emperor Was Divine, Julie Otsuka
40. 1876 The Prime Minister, Anthony Trollope
41. 1934 They Knew Mr Knight, Dorothy Whipple
42. 1943 The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage, Enid Blyton

MAY
43. 1906 The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, Edith Holden
44. 2024 The Truth About Immigration, Zeke Hernandez
45. 1954 Charlotte Fairlie, D. E. Stevenson
46. 1952 The Village, Marghanita Laski
47. 1983 Blue Remembered Hills, Rosemary Sutcliff
48. 1896 The Spoils of Poynton, Henry James
49. 1949 Arrest the Bishop?, Winifred Peck
50. 1897 Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling
51. 1946 The Old Country: Collected Stories of Sholom Aleichem
52. 1814 Mansfield Park, Jane Austen
53. 1972 The Devastating Boys and other stories, Elizabeth Taylor
54. 1986 Henrietta Sees It Through: More News from the Home Front 1942-1945, Joyce Dennys
55. 2001 Founding Brothers, Joseph J. Ellis
56. 1915 Anne of the Island, L. M. Montgomery

JUNE
57. 1966 The Corner Shop, Elizabeth Cadell
58. 1866 Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell
59. 1989 The Mirror Maker, Primo Levi
60. 2025 Jane Austen's Bookshelf, Rebecca Romney
61. 2024 Clear, Carys Davies
62. 2004 Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry
63. 1910 Howards End, E. M Forster

2025 Reading--July through December

JULY
64. 2025 The Next Day: Transitions, Change and Moving Forward, Melinda French Gates
65. 1880 The Duke's Children, Anthony Trollope
66. 1774 The Sorrows of Young Werther, J. W. von Goethe
67. 1895 The Christmas hirelings, M. E. Braddon
68. 1791 The History of England by a partial, prejudiced & ignorant historian, Jane Austen
69. 1778 Evelina, Fanny Burney
70. 2021 The Life and Works of Jane Austen The Great Courses, Devoney Looser (2021); 24 lectures on DVD
71. 1813 Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen; audiobook read by Juliet Stevenson
72. 2004 His Excellency: George Washington, Joseph Ellis
73. 1948 The Best of Clarence Day, Clarence Day
74. 2025 Hidden Libraries: The World's Most Unusual Book Depositories, D C Helmuth
75. 1872 Under the Greenwood Tree, Thomas Hardy, audiobook
76. 1936 Anne of Windy Poplars, L. M. Montgomery
77. 2000 The Life of Mendelssohn, Peter Mercer-Taylor

AUGUST
78. 2005 So You Think You Know Jane Austen?: A Literary Quizbook, John Sutherland and Deirdre Le Faye
79. 1936 Cards on the Table, Agatha Christie
80. 1987 Civil to Strangers, Barbara Pym
81. 1932 Nothing Venture, Patricia Wentworth
82. 1873 A Pair of Blue Eyes, Thomas Hardy
83. 2014 You'll enjoy it when you get there : the selected stories of Elizabeth Taylor
84. 2022 Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt
85. 1968 The Wedding Group, Elizabeth Taylor
86. 1954 A Wreath for the Enemy, Pamela Frankau
87. 1939 The Priory, Dorothy Whipple
88. 1974 All Things Bright and Beautiful, James Herriot

SEPTEMBER
89. 1889 Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
90. 1903 Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories Volume I, A Conan Doyle
91. 2014 The Red Notebook, Antoine Laurain
92. 1992 Aunt Dimity's Death, Nancy Atherton
93. 2015 Mr. Selfridge in Chicago: Marshall Field's, the Windy City & the Making of a Merchant Prince, Gayle Soucek
94. 1906 New York Revisited, Henry James (Sep 25)
95. 1982 The True Deceiver, Tove Jansson
96. 1922 Life and Death of Harriett Frean, May Sinclair
97. 1939 An Old Woman's Reflections, Peig Sayers
98. 1933 Business As Usual, Jane Oliver & Ann Stafford
99. 1934 Heaven's My Destination, Thornton Wilder
100. 1752 The Female Quixote, Charlotte Lennox
101. 1964 A Song of Sixpence, A. J. Cronin
102. 1955 Amberwell, D. E. Stevenson
103. 1874 Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
104. 2020 The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction, William Doyle
105. 1961 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
106. 1931 The Fortnight in September, R. C. Sherriff

OCTOBER
107. 1891 The Canterville Ghost, Oscar Wilde
108. 1896 The Library Window, Margaret Oliphant
109. 1992 Brave Companions: Portraits in History, David McCullough
110. 1899 Red Pottage, Mary Cholmondeley
111. 1881 Dr. Wortle's School, Anthony Trollope
112. 1876 The Hand of Ethelberta, Thomas Hardy
113. 1939 And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie
114. 1847 Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
115. 1870 Memoir of Jane Austen, James Austen-Leigh
116. 1850 The Black Tulip, Alexandre Dumas
117. 1847 The Children of the New Forest, Fredrick Marryat
118. 1893 A Woman of No Importance, Oscar Wilde

NOVEMBER
119. 1936 Greengates, R. C. Sherriff
120. 1956 Summerhills, D. E. Stevenson
121. 1878 The Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy
122. 1947 The Labors of Hercules, Agatha Christie
123. 1623 The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Shakespeare
124. 2010 Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories, Simon Winchester
125. 1895 Nazarin, Benito Perez Galdos
126. 1976 Blaming, Elizabeth Taylor
127. 1948 Crooked House, Agatha Christie

DECEMBER
128. 1917 Anne's House of Dreams, L. M. Montgomery
129. 2014 A Merry Christmas and Other Christmas Stories, L. M. Alcott
130. 1811 The Annotated Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
131. 1880 The Trumpet-Major, Thomas Hardy
132. 2021 Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan
133. 1843 A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
134. 1882 Christmas at Thompson Hall and other Stories, Anthony Trollope

January reading plans:

I have 3 books I definitely will be reading in January, and all the rest are mere possibilities....

Currently Reading
1. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens, a re-read on audiobook for my RL Book Club (also MyChallenge #5)
2. Felix Holt, the Radical, George Eliot, for MyChallenge #1

My other for sure read will be:
3. The Count of Monte Cristo, A. Dumas, a group read with Mark; (also MyChallenge #4)

Anything else will be dependent on whether there's any reading time left after these 3.

The Waiting List: (in no particular order)

The Conditions of Unconditional Love, Alexander McCall Smith (library book)
World of Wonders, Aimee Nezhukumatathil (nonfiction, library book)
Chatterton Square, E. H. Young
O, The Brave Music, D. E. Smith
Rhododendron Pie, Margery Sharp
Green for Danger, Christianna Brand
In the Steps of Jane Austen, Anne-Marie Edwards (nonfiction)
No Fond Return of Love, Barbara Pym
The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen
Mary Olivier: A Life, May Sinclair
Evelina, Fanny Burney

>1 kac522: Happy Reading! ☺️

>24 Sergeirocks: Happy New Reading Year to you, too!

Have a great reading year, and congratulations on only having a few years to fill in your By Year list 🥂

>26 threadnsong: Thanks! I think I can fill in the misc. years soon, but it's the 1820s and 1830s that are going to be hard...I can only think of Sir Walter Scott, but I'm sure there are others.

Long overdue because of internet issues, here is a quick re-cap of my January reading:



1. The Conditions of Unconditional Love, Alexander McCall Smith (2024)
Newest entry in the Isabel Dalhousie series. This time I found the philosophical meanderings a little annoying, but only a little. It could have had more Edinburgh in it for me. But always so, so much kindness makes it worthwhile every time.

2. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens (1838); audiobook re-read, narrated by Simon Vance
It's Dickens, so I mostly enjoy it, but I had forgotten how terribly violent this story is, and how confusing all the parts are. All the reveals in the very last chapters feel contrived. I wish they had been revealed more slowly throughout the story. There are very few humorous bits of relief.

3. World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, Aimee Nezhukumatathil (2020)
A series of essays by poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil that explore various aspects of nature and her own life. She describes each natural element in beautiful language and seamlessly slides into some aspect of her life: her youth, her college years, her thin legs (compared to the flamingo), etc. Some of these essays were very powerful, particularly the peacock, touch-me-nots, flamingo and firefly; and some were just OK. Not long (about 160 pages) and well worth the time to read and reflect on the illustrations by Fumi Mini Nakamura.

4. Rhododendron Pie, Margery Sharp (1930)
Ann Laventie is the untalented and youngest child in a family of snobby, Bohemian artists. She has grown up admiring her more talented siblings and father and absorbing her family's disdain for conventions and plebeian society. But Ann has a different temperament; she likes people and as she goes out into the world she discovers a different way of looking at others and most importantly her family. In subtle ways Sharp has us consider the artist/intellectual vs. the everyday worker. All this is done in an off-hand, irreverent and yet surprisingly affectionate style. I really enjoyed this little novel, and I will keep it around to read again, as I suspect that I will get more out of it a second time.

5. Persuasion, Jane Austen (1817); re-read, audiobook read by Juliet Stevenson
and
6. Lady Susan, Jane Austen (1871); re-read, audiobook read by var. readers
Kicking off my celebration of the 250th anniversary year of Jane Austen's birth, I listened to these on audiobook--have no idea how many times I've read these comfort books throughout my lifetime. Persuasion was Austen's last, and most melancholy novel, and Lady Susan was one of her first completed works as a young adult; it's in epistolary format, very funny and wasn't published until 1871, many years after her death.

7. Green for Danger, Christianna Brand (1944)
Set during WWII in a Kent hospital, this focuses on 3 doctors and 4 nurses who are present when a man injured during an air raid dies in the operating room. This is a tense and claustrophobic mystery with a genuine feel for life in a hospital during the Blitz.

8. A Shropshire Lad, A. E. Housman (1896), poem cycle
Classic poem which I only knew by name. Finished in one evening and only one section did I recognize: "When I was one-and-twenty..." There is a lot of thoughts of friends who have been lost, so it's easy to see how the cycle of verses became popular during and after WWI.

9. The Happy Prince and Other Stories, Penguin 60s, Oscar Wilde (1888-1892)
This collection contains 4 stories from 1888-1892: The Happy Prince, The Young King, The Devoted Friend and The Model Millionaire. They all read like delightful moral fairy tales, where we know who is being good and who is being bad. A statue is crying because it sees so many people in need in his city and befriends a Swallow to help alleviate the suffering. A young man about to be crowned king eschews jewels and crowns to be among the people. A rich selfish Miller takes advantage of a poor gardener. And a beggar is discovered to be not as he seems.

10. O, the Brave Music, Dorothy Evelyn Smith (1943)
Told in first person from the vantage point of middle-age, Ruan Ashley remembers her young girlhood in pre-WWI Yorkshire. She slowly realizes her distance from her minister father, free-spirit mother and aspiring sister, and eventually finds her own friends and loves on the moors. The descriptive passages sometimes felt forced, but the story and dialogue felt true.

I also had 2 DNFs this month. I read both books to the half-way point, so I feel I gave them a good chance:

The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexander Dumas (1844)--made it to page 750 (of 1400+), but I had to give up--I realized it was not for me. I was finding myself skimming a lot and not really invested in the story or characters. Revenge, especially now, is not my cuppa. It doesn't matter if it's good-guy or bad-guy revenge, since the bad-guys *see* themselves as good-guys, which justifies their revengeful actions, as we're witnessing today. Revenge is revenge, and leads to a never-ending cycle. I also found myself missing any sort of relatable and well-drawn female character and after 750 pages I hadn't found one. I know this is a beloved classic for many, but it only made me angry.

The Country Ahead of Us, the Country Behind, David Guterson (1989); short stories
Many years ago I read Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars and loved it. But of the 10 stories in this collection, I read 5 stories and skimmed a 6th. They seemed to be all from the point of view of a teen-aged boy and I just didn't connect. The only story that felt more universal was the story about two brothers, the older one just returned from Vietnam, which was very short, but powerful.

"Pink and Rose", before 1917
William Morris, Morris & Co
Wallpaper design, Brooklyn Museum, New York
Image for February 2025 from "2025 Calendar William Morris Arts & Crafts Designs", Pomegranate Communications, Inc

February's Pile of Possibilities

Way too many books on the pile as usual, so let's get right into it:

Currently Reading:
The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser (2017), nonfiction, for my JA 250th reading
Civil to Strangers, Barbara Pym (1987 post), stories for the Virago monthly challenge
Chatterton Square, E. H. Young (1947), fiction
Phineas Redux, Anthony Trollope (1874), fiction re-read on audiobook

Completed:
✔️Why We Read: On Bookworms, Libraries and Just one More Page before Lights Out, Shannon Reed (2024), essays
✔️The Dreaming Child and Other Stories, Karen Blixen (1942), stories for Paul's European Tour

Priorities
Glimpses of the Moon, Edith Wharton (1922), fiction, for my RL book club
Is He Popenjoy?, Anthony Trollope (1878), fiction for my Trollope complete the author challenge
Virginia, Ellen Glasgow (1913), fiction, from my Virago shelf
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, James McBride (2023), LT Monthly Author for February

Possibilities from my shelves
Nothing Venture, Patricia Wentworth (1932), Golden Age mystery
Mary Barton, Elizabeth Gaskell (1848), fiction re-read
No Fond Return of Love, Barbara Pym (1961) fiction re-read
The Red and the Green, Iris Murdoch (1965) historical fiction
The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen (1927) fiction
They Knew Mr Knight, Dorothy Whipple (1934) fiction

and maybe these library books....
Spillover, David Quammen (2012) nonfiction: the science of animal infections and pandemics
Henrietta's War, Joyce Dennys (1985) fiction
Miss Plum and Miss Penny, Dorothy Evelyn Smith (1959) fiction
The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers, Zeke Hernandez (2024) nonfiction

Summaries of my February reading:



11. Why We Read: On Bookworms, Libraries, and Just One More Page Before Lights Out, Shannon Reed (2024); nonfiction, books about books
Series of (mostly) humorous essays about the author's life + reading. This was mostly OK; I picked it up because Shelley (thanks, Shelley!) quoted the chapter about Lincoln in the Bardo, and I wanted more perspective on that book (which I have not read yet). Some of her reflections on teaching books were interesting, especially the essay on teaching Jane Eyre. I think these are essays I'd enjoy reading occasionally, like in a magazine or online monthly, but read together in one collection felt somewhat repetitive.

12. The Dreaming Child and Other Stories, Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen); (orig publ 1942); 3 short stories
A "Penguin 60s" mini-paperback that contains 3 stories from Blixen's Winter Tales: "The Dreaming Child", "The Sailor-boy's Tale" and "Peter and Rosa." All 3 are melancholy fantasy tales, featuring young people caught up in their own imagined worlds. Beautifully written and ethereal; read for Paul's Great European Tour Challenge.

13. Chatterton Square, E. H. Young (1947); fiction
Set in the months prior to England entering WWII, this is the story of two families, the Blacketts and Frasers, who live next door to each other. Mrs Fraser is raising her children alone and the Blacketts appear to have cracks forming in their marriage. The families couldn't be more different and yet ties begin to develop between some of the children.

This took half the book for me to get into it. Reads slowly and is dense. Most of the characters are unlikable. Some dialogue (especially between Rosamund Fraser and her friend Miss Spanner) was extremely ugly and mean...I didn't understand why that had to be. Yet it has much to say about marriage and about the coming of WWII. This book felt jarring and pointed toward the less desirable characters. I have been reading E. H. Young's books published by Virago, and this is the last of her novels for me to read. Perhaps it will be better on a re-read, but it is very different from her other books, which have a more gentle humor toward imperfect characters.

14. Henrietta's War, Joyce Dennys (1985; originally published serially 1939-1942); fiction--epistolary
During WWII Joyce Dennys had a regular column in the periodical Sketch, in which she reflected on life on the homefront. Dennys re-discovered them in the 1980s and republished them in 2 volumes. These columns were fictional letters to a friend in the service from Henrietta, who relayed news and happenings in their Devonshire village. These were funny and entertaining and yet they did not gloss over the fact of the real fear of being bombed. I plan to read the sequel Henrietta Sees it Through, with her "letters" from 1942-1945.

15. Blues in Stereo: The Early Works of Langston Hughes, Langston Hughes (2024; orig publ 1921-1927); poetry, curated by Danez Smith
Poet Danez Smith has collected early works (1921-1927) of Langston Hughes. Most were published in periodicals and a few were from the Langston Hughes Archive at Yale; all have never been published in book/collection form. I can't comment on the poetry, because it's just not my thing, but what I did notice is how you can feel in many of these early works the rhythm of song and jazz. Probably best for a Hughes "completist", since these are all works that have been out of print (or never published) for a century.

16. Miss Plum and Miss Penny, Dorothy Evelyn Smith (1959); fiction
Miss Alison Penny is in her forties and leads a simple life with her older live-in housekeeper Ada in a small Yorkshire village. When the twenty-something Miss Victoria Plum enters her life, Miss Penny's well-ordered life is thrown into confusion. This had some humor, a few memorable characters and some insights into village life. I picked up this title because last month I read Smith's O, the Brave Music, which I enjoyed. Miss Plum and Miss Penny was a nice diversion, but I won't go out of my way to seek much else by D. E. Smith. I think Miss Read does a better job of village life with a gentler touch.

17. Phineas Redux, Anthony Trollope (1873); re-read on audiobook, read by Simon Vance
Continuing the story from Phineas Finn, our hero returns to London and Parliament after the sudden death of his wife in Dublin. I enjoyed this more on the second reading, mostly because of the audiobook narration. Vance as narrator gives Phineas more character and I had more sympathy for Phineas in this narrated portrayal than I found on the printed page. Again the political commentary (how to navigate loyalty to one's party vs. personal moral values) had a lot of meaning at this point (2025). I was still frustrated with Phineas, but I had much more compassion for him. I thought Madame Marie Goesler was well done here, and I think this is the first book where Trollope begins to fill in the marriage of Lady Glencora and Plantagenet much more than in previous books. Next up is The Prime Minister.

18. The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, James McBride (2023); fiction
This novel, set in the 1930s, is about a run-down area of Pottstown, PA, that is home to Jews and African-Americans. The plot involves a discovered skeleton, a theater owner, a deaf boy, an evil doctor, an imprisonment, an escape plot, a murder, and the interactions between the two communities. I refer you to the description here on LT to get a better sense of the book.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, but it didn't completely work for me. On the negative side, I didn't always follow what was happening, who the side characters were and some side plots left me scratching my head. By the end I felt claustrophobic, like I was caught in a room with too many people and too many plots and couldn't find my way out. I was glad when it ended, to be honest.

But there's a lot of positive: the portrayals of the Jewish and African-American communities were real and honest and you could feel the love that McBride put into these characters. Characters with disabilities are important players in this book, and McBride's masterful handling of them made the book for me. In particular, the struggles to communicate between two institutionalized boys is unforgettable.

I don't read a lot of 21st century fiction these days. I loved McBride's The Color of Water, so this newest book of his was a wild ride for me, but I'm not sorry I read it. In the Acknowledgements, McBride credits Sy Friend, a man who took a chance on a teen-aged McBride, as the inspiration for this book and the decades of work that Mr Friend did with kids. I hope some day McBride writes Mr Friend's real story; I'd read that in a heartbeat.

19. The Glimpses of the Moon, Edith Wharton (1922); fiction
Set during the years before WWI, Nick and Susy, with no money or steady income, are on the edges of high society. Knowing that they both must marry money to keep up their lifestyles, they decide to marry each other for a year, spending that time sponging off of their wealthy friends. They agree that if either one meets the "right sort" (i.e., with money), they'll freely divorce to allow their partner to marry money. Wharton spends the book throwing daggers at the rich and selfish, and probing the fine line Nick and Susy must walk between accommodating their rich friends and their own moral standards. This is funny and entertaining at times, but also a sad commentary on marriage, society and money. Not the best Wharton I've read, but a worthwhile read.

20. No Fond Return of Love, Barbara Pym (1961); fiction; re-read from 2013
A delightful re-read. Dulcie Mainwaring, a 30-something indexer, is recovering from the break-up of a long-time engagement. Into her life come Viola Dace (a fellow indexer), Laurel (Dulcie's niece, just entering the working world) and Aylwin Forbes, a handsome middle-aged scholar. Intrigued by the scholar, Dulcie sets out on a snooping mission to find out all she can about him, through city directories, phone books, cemeteries and more. Pym's observations of these characters and several others are spot-on, and made me smile on almost every page. The other delightful parts of the book are when Pym spends a page or so musing and observing seemingly unimportant characters, like fellow train travelers or people passed on the street. A great deal of fun, with a clever nod to Austen's Mansfield Park at the end.

21. Northanger Abbey: Norton Critical Edition, Jane Austen (1817); fiction; a re-read for my year-long Jane Austen reading; read critical material and listened to the audiobook read by Juliet Stevenson
Every time I re-read Northanger Abbey it goes up in my estimation, and this reading was no exception. It was helped by Stevenson's fantastic narration on audiobook, which I supplemented with the nearly 200 pages of critical material in this Norton Critical Edition. Austen makes so many astute comments on novels, novel writers and novel readers, and the critical materials brought many of the more obscure elements in

Persian, before 1917
William Morris, Morris & Co
Wallpaper design, Brooklyn Museum, New York
Image for March 2025 from "2025 Calendar William Morris Arts & Crafts Designs", Pomegranate Communications, Inc

March Reading Possibilities

As always, the pile's too high, but let's start here:

Completed
Remembered Death, Agatha Christie
A Fine Romance: Falling in Love with the English Countryside, Susan Branch -- for RandomKIT "Wishes" theme
Is He Popenjoy?, Anthony Trollope
Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary, Ruby Ferguson, from my Persephone collection
Never No More, Maura Laverty
DNF Imagining Characters, A. S. Byatt & Ignes Sodre--read 50% and not inclined to read remaining essays.

Currently Reading
two library books:
--The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser -- for my 2025 Jane Austen reading
--All Creatures Great & Small, James Herriot--for my RL book club--a re-read on audiobook read by Nicholas Ralph
--Anton Chekhov Selected Stories and The Old Country: Collected stories of Sholom Aleichem, for Paul's European Tour--Warsaw
Pact countries
--Peony, Pearl S. Buck -- for March Monthly Author challenge

Priorities for March
--This is Happiness, Niall Williams -- Irish readathon
--Blue Remembered Hills, Rosemary Sutcliff, memoir
--Under the Net, Iris Murdoch
--An Atomic Romance, Bobbie Ann Mason, from my very long-time TBR shelf
--Anna of the Five Towns, Arnold Bennett--late Victorian author I've been meaning to try
--The Prime Minister, Anthony Trollope, on audiobook

The "as time allows" pile:
In the Steps of Jane Austen, Anne-Marie Edwards moved to April
Virginia, Ellen Glasgow, from my Virago collection moved to April
Mary Barton, Elizabeth Gaskell, a re-read, moved to April
Nothing Venture, Patricia Wentworth moved to April

March is moving on and I've got some time, so I thought I would do a mid-month wrap-up, as the end of the month will be busy.

March Reading, Part I



22. Remembered Death, Agatha Christie (1944); (also known as Sparkling Cyanide), mystery
A woman dies at her own birthday dinner party, apparently of suicide. A year later on the same date, another party at the same place with the same guests may reveal how she really died.
Colonel Race and Inspector Kemp are called in to investigate. I liked the way Christie organized this one--just enough characters and background to keep it interesting, but not too many to make it confusing. My suspicion of the villain was confirmed, but twists revealed at the end showed it was not for the reasons I suspected.

23. A Fine Romance: Falling in Love with the English Countryside, Susan Branch (2013); travel memoir
A lovely scrapbook-type memoir of the author's trip to England in 2012. All handwritten and hand-decorated, this follows the author & her husband's anniversary trip, from the Queen Mary II to various locations in England and home again. Inserted are pictures from the trip through Kent, the Peak District, the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales, the Cotswolds and more. Places visited include Wordsworth's home, Virginia Woolf's home, William Morris's home, Beatrix Potter's Hilltop Farm and Jane Austen's home, plus gardens, gardens and more gardens. Like any good scrapbook, the highlights are emphasized and we don't hear about any lowlights. A lovely book to dip in occasionally for happy memories or travel dreaming.

24. Is He Popenjoy, Anthony Trollope (1878); fiction
Not the best Trollope, but still kept me interested and immersed. The plot centers around the marriage of Mary Lovelace, a pleasant clergyman's daughter, and Lord George Brotherton, a 2nd son who is serious but not settled to any profession. Lord George's older brother, the Marquis, is the heir to the estate and living in Italy, but there is a question about the legitimacy of the Marquis' marriage and his only child (is the heir, the baby Lord Popenjoy really Lord Popenjoy?). Added to this basic inheritance plot are various discussions of class and marital fidelity. There's a side plot about the rising women's movement where Trollope is clearly on the wrong side of history concerning women's rights, so that was disappointing.

25. Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary, Ruby Ferguson (1937); fiction
A charming, short novel centered around an old but deteriorating great Scottish estate, Keepsfield, now advertised "To Let." On a lark a couple and their friend decide to "view" the house and are shown the house by Mrs Memmary, the caretaker. Lady Rose is the owner but she is "on the continent." As the visitors go through the home, Helen, the wife of the couple, prods Mrs Memmary with questions about Lady Rose's life and loves.

As they move from room to room, each chapter starts with Helen questioning Mrs Memmary about Lady Rose, and then switches to a third person narration of Lady Rose's story, from childhood to adulthood. Along the way there's lots of love of Scotland and Scottish history, and the entire book has a fable-like quality to it. A very memorable short tale, with a bit of a bittersweet twist at the end.

26. Never No More, Maura Laverty (1942); fiction
Inspired by a book of Irish country recipes, Maura Laverty's novel is loosely based on her own teen-age years and the cooking she loved. The novel begins in 1920 in a small country village in County Kildare. When the father of the Scully family dies, Delia Scully, 14, is allowed to remain with her beloved Gran, while her mother and 8 siblings move to the city. The novel covers Delia's teen-aged years, interweaving Gran's amazing country meals with Delia's school life, the village life and its many eccentric characters.

This novel has a lot of love and a lot of life in it. There are way too many stories and characters to keep completely straight at all times (just like any good Irish gathering), but the bond between Delia and her Gran is what makes this a delight to read.

Currently Reading to complete the month
--The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser -- for my 2025 Jane Austen reading
--All Creatures Great & Small, James Herriot--for my RL book club--a re-read on audiobook read by Nicholas Ralph
--Anton Chekhov Selected Stories and The Old Country: Collected stories of Sholom Aleichem, for Paul's European Tour--Warsaw
Pact countries
--Peony, Pearl S. Buck -- for March Monthly Author challenge

as time permits...
--This is Happiness, Niall Williams -- Irish readathon
--Blue Remembered Hills, Rosemary Sutcliff, memoir
--Under the Net, Iris Murdoch
--An Atomic Romance, Bobbie Ann Mason, from my very long-time TBR shelf
--Anna of the Five Towns, Arnold Bennett--late Victorian author I've been meaning to try
--The Prime Minister, Anthony Trollope, on audiobook

A few good reads in the last half of the month, ending with a problematic one:

March Reading, Part II



27. The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser (2017); nonfiction analysis of Austen in culture; ; nonfiction analysis of Austen in culture

This book takes a look at aspects of Austen in popular culture and scholarly study from the 19th century through the first half of the 20th century. Looser explores how the popular culture and scholars perceived Austen through the various illustrations of her works in the 19th century, dramatizations around the turn of the century, films in the early 20th century, the suffragist movement and how Austen was portrayed in school curriculums.

I found most interesting her in-depth look at Hugh Thomson's illustrations and how they portrayed Austen and the novels to readers in the late 19th century, and how perception carries on even today. Another chapter shows how both sides of the women's suffrage movement (both for AND against) used Austen as an example. And there is a detailed chapter on the complete history (from initial concept to final production) of the 1940 Pride and Prejudice movie, starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson, and how the lasting effects of the choices made in that movie influenced the popular view of Austen and her characters until the 1990s.

Some details seemed to go off on tangents for me, and I tended to skim these. But overall it's an interesting book, presenting historical perceptions of Austen and her novels in popular and scholarly culture that aren't normally covered in books about Austen.

28. All Creatures Great and Small, James Herriot (1972); fictionalized memoir; on audiobook, read by Nicholas Ralph; a re-read

This was a re-read for me; I read it last year, and decided to re-read on audio for my RL book club discussion in March. For whatever reason, I had forgotten (or merged together) many of the stories, and the narration on audio brought back all the details and made it alive for me. Nicholas Ralph (who plays James Herriot in the current series), did an excellent job, particularly with dialogue. And it generated a lot of good discussion in our book club, which was a relief, since it was my recommendation.

29. The Curate in Charge, Margaret Oliphant (1875); fiction; on ebook, downloaded from Project Gutenberg

Rev. Cecil St. John, in his 60s and twice widowed, has been the curate in the country parish of Brentburn for 20 years. The current rector, Rev. Chester, has been living in Italy for health reasons, and he pays Mr St. John (the "curate-in-charge") a meager salary of £200 a year to run the parish. From his first marriage Mr St. John has two daughters who have been away in boarding school; from his 2nd wife he has twin toddler sons. When Mr St. John's 2nd wife dies, the teen-aged daughters, Cicely and Mab, return from school to assist their father in running the house and caring for the toddlers. Cicely takes on the bulk of the responsibilities, while Mab works on her art in hopes of being able to make a living from it.

When the rector in Italy suddenly dies, Mr St. John is not considered for the rector position and a much younger Oxford man, Mr Mildmay, is chosen as the new rector. Mr St. John, without any independent income, must find a new position at age 65, the family must seek a new place to live, and this crisis is the thrust of the rest of the novel.

Margaret Oliphant is best known for her Carlingford series, which was inspired by Trollope's Barsetshire books. I've read the Carlingford books--some I enjoyed quite a bit (The Perpetual Curate) and some were just OK. Oliphant is a master of the domestic situation: she describes the furniture, the cooking, the lighting, the clothing--even the rugs and carpets, as well as the servants and the minute details of a household. In this book she focuses on the 3 main characters: Mr St. John, Cicely and Mr Mildmay, and how each one responds to the crisis at hand. Cicely in particular is well done, as she takes over the household, attempting to advise her unworldly father and to determine where the family should go. Oliphant generally has a strong woman in every novel, and Cicely shines here. Also examined is the way church politics and social class influence how church positions are awarded. Like almost all of Oliphant's novels, the ending is a slightly ambiguous one, letting the reader decide what will happen next.

I really enjoyed this one, and if you enjoy Trollope, I think you'll enjoy The Curate in Charge.

30. Selected Stories (Signet Classical Books), Anton Chekhov (collected 1960; originally published 1880s); short stories translated from Russian by Ann Dunnigan

I read 14 stories from this Chekhov collection of 20 stories, most originally published in the 1880s. These were quite short and often seemed bitter; his characters have a "why me?" attitude: life is unfair to them or that Fate intervenes in their happiness. Since I have two other volumes of Chekhov stories, I skipped those in my other collections.

31. Peony, Pearl S. Buck (1948); historical fiction

Set in the mid-19th century in the city of Kaifeng, which had been a center for Jews since about the 10th century, this historical novel follows Peony, a Chinese bondmaid of the prominent Jewish family of Ezra ben Israel. We follow the story mostly through her eyes. We also follow the family of the local Rabbi, who is now blind, and his children, Leah and Aaron. The heart of the story begins when David, son of Ezra, is torn between marrying two women: Leah, the Rabbi's daughter and a favorite of David's mother; and Kueilan, the Chinese daughter of his father's business partner.

I did not warm to the character of Peony. She is loyal and dutiful to David and eventually in love with him, but she also lies and creates distrust between David and others in order to stay close to him. Even though by the end of the novel she seems to "redeem" herself, it did not change my opinion of her.

What didn't sit right with me was Buck's emphasis on assimilation and the inevitable dying out of Jews in China, and by implication, in the world. There is a marked distinction in the story between Jews who are part Chinese (Ezra and David) and those who are full Jews (David's mother, the Rabbi and his 2 children). It felt to me like the full Jews were all portrayed in a negative light: David's mother is obstinate and overbearing; the Rabbi is blind (literally & figuratively) and his congregation is dying out; the Rabbi's son Aaron is a ne'er-do-well, with no interest in continuing his father's work; and while the Rabbi's daughter, Leah, is good and her father's caretaker, Buck gives her a tragic ending. By contrast all of the Chinese Jews (of both Jewish & Chinese heritage) are portrayed as more rational, better adjusted to society and will endure.

By the end of the book, David no longer practices his faith: the Torah and even prayers for the dead have been forgotten and the community's synagogue is abandoned, ransacked and crumbling. In the end, it's clear that Buck wants us to think that by remaining separated from others because of their religion, Jews will create animosity toward themselves, will eventually intermarry and will die out.

I find this vision curious, since the book was published in 1948, the year of the founding of the State of Israel. My thoughts on Israel are quite conflicted, but certainly in 1948, on the immediate heels of the Holocaust, it was clear that Jews from all over the world needed a "safe haven", a place where all Jews could go freely and practice their faith without fear of persecution. I ended the book wondering how the novel was received by Jews when it came out, and what was Buck's objective with this story in light of events at the time of its publication.

"Bower"
William Morris (1834-1896)
Morris & Co. Wallpaper design, circa 1877
Brooklyn Museum, New York
Image for April 2025 from "2025 Calendar William Morris Arts & Crafts Designs", Pomegranate Communications, Inc

April Reading Possibilities

Currently Reading:

The Portobello Road and Other Stories, Muriel Spark (CoverCAT: roads)
In the Steps of Jane Austen, Anne-Marie Edwards, for my 2025 JA challenge
The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers, Zeke Hernandez
The Prime Minister, Anthony Trollope, on audiobook, read by Simon Vance

Priorities:

The Europeans, Henry James, April's Monthly Author
The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature, David George Haskell
An Atomic Romance, Bobbie Ann Mason--been on the TBR way too long
The Appointment, Herta Muller, for Paul's European Tour (Romania)
The Hundred Secret Sense, Amy Tan (ColourCAT: Brown)

As Time Allows:

Blue Remembered Hills, Rosemary Sutcliff, memoir
William: An Englishman, Cicely Hamilton (Persephone collection)
What Maisie Knew, Henry James
A Small Boy and Others, Henry James, memoir
They Knew Mr Knight, Dorothy Whipple (Persephone collection)
Good Behaviour, Molly Keane (Virago collection)
The Light Years, Elizabeth Jane Howard
The Hotel Elizabeth Bowen
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

April Reading:



32. The Portobello Road and Other Stories, Muriel Spark, collected 1985, original publication dates not given; short stories
This collection contains 4 stories: "The Portobello Road", "Bang-Bang You're Dead", "The Seraph and the Zambesi", and "The Dragon." The first 3 stories are either set in or have references to Southern Africa. "The Portobello Road" was my favorite: a woman's ghost haunts the man who killed her, which was quirky and with a bit of wit. The others were just OK.

33. The Europeans, Henry James (1878); fiction
Baroness Eugenia Munster is about to have her marriage annulled for political reasons, so she and her brother Felix Young, a happy-go-lucky and sometime artist, decide to visit their American cousins in Boston with an eye to securing an eligible (i.e., wealthy) match for the Baroness. Although their parents were Americans, Felix & Eugenia were born and raised in Europe and have lived in various locations. Their American cousins, Mr Wentworth and his 3 children, Gertrude, Charlotte and Clifford, are true New England Puritans. The novel explores the different value systems of the two families, both positive and negative.

I found the beginning narratives of the book rather a slog, but as more of the story unfolds and dialogue takes over, I found the novel more accessible. Sometimes the dialogue felt a bit cryptic, and I wonder if this would have worked better as a play, where the actors could give more meaning to some of the lines. Overall, not bad, but not exactly memorable.

34. The Hollow, Agatha Christie (1946); mystery
Lady Angkatell is having a luncheon with her extended family and a special guest, her detective neighbor Mr Poirot is invited. When he arrives, of course, he sees a woman with a gun hovering over a dead man's bleeding body at the side of the pool.

Christie spends a good deal of time fleshing out all the characters. their backstory, their motives. There's not a lot of detective work here, but lots of musings over the psychological portrait of each character. Suffice it to say that, as always, I was fooled. Still an interesting character study.

35. Cluny Brown, Margery Sharp (1944); fiction
It is 1938 London and Cluny Brown, about 20, "doesn't know her place." She's an orphan, raised by her uncle, a plumber. In exasperation her uncle sends her out to service to a grand family in Devon, and the story carries on from there. I thought the story was delightful, until the last 20 pages, when the ending made no sense to me whatsoever. Fun, but be prepared to scratch your head when it's done. I think I enjoyed Sharp's Rhododendron Pie a bit more than this one.

36. In the Steps of Jane Austen, Anne-Marie Edwards (1985); nonfiction, travel walks
This book is organized into 15 walks around places where Jane Austen lived or visited. Edwards starts off with introducing the place and its relation to JA, often quoting right from her letters. Then she gives a meticulous description of the "walk", and the highlights along the way. Each walk has a map and gives the length in miles and difficulty. Since it was published 40 years ago, I'm sure some things have changed, but still an interesting journey. My only minor disappointment was that the photos in the book were all black & white; color would have been more enticing, I think.

37. The Soul of Kindness, Elizabeth Taylor (1964); fiction, Virago collection
Flora feels that she is the soul of kindness, and mostly her mother, husband, best friend, and neighbors try to think so, too. Flora does mean well in an Emma Woodhouse sort of way, but fails to see where her kindness is really interference.

Besides Flora, Taylor gives us full-fledged portraits of about 7 more characters. The writing is stellar, as always with Taylor. There isn't a lot of plot, and usually I can deal with that, but this novel didn't seem to go anywhere and it lacked something for me.

❤️❤️38. William - An Englishman, Cecily Hamilton (1919); fiction, Persephone collection
It's hard to summarize this short (226 pages) book without giving away a lot of spoilers. It was my shortest, but most thought-provoking read of the month.

In pre-WWI London, William, an average young office clerk, has been ruled by his mother his entire life. When she dies and leaves him a small income, he decides he needs to do more with his life. A friend introduces him to a progressive group fighting for Trade Union rights. Here he meets Griselda, an ardent suffragette, and the two get married in late July, 1914. In the midst of their progressive causes, they have paid little attention to the world events that are brewing in Europe, and opt for an extended August (1914) honeymoon in a remote cabin in Belgium. They are confused by the constant "thunder" in the distance, and learn too late that they are, in fact, in the path of an advancing German army. They are taken prisoner and the 2nd half of the book goes on from there.

This book asks more questions than it answers: what is the value of smaller causes if the larger ones remain unresolved? Are they still relevant to one's life? What does it mean to be part of a war effort--is it good or bad? How does one continue with life after observing the horrors of war? And finally what is the value of one person's life--how can one individual make a difference against tremendous forces out of one's control? Hamilton doesn't answer any of these question, but makes us turn them over and over. This novel is the first book published by Persephone and it is a short, but unforgettable one. Added to my "must re-read" list to fully appreciate it.

❤️39. When the Emperor Was Divine, Julie Otsuka (2002); fiction
Beginning in Spring 1942, this is the story of a Japanese family from Berkeley, California who have just been told they are to be "relocated." The first chapter is from the point of view of the mother as she dutifully packs up the house and gets the children ("the boy" and "the girl"--we are never given names for the main family) ready for the trip to destinations unknown. The father was taken away in the night soon after December 7, 1941, and they have only received sporadic postcards from him, mostly redacted. The second chapter is from the point of view of the daughter as they travel by train to a desert in Utah. The third chapter is from the son's point of view and description of life in their hot, dusty, desert camp with little to no privacy. The fourth chapter is told from the children's perspective ("we") when they return to their ransacked family home after the war. And the last chapter is told by the father.

This is a short but poignant and powerful novel. The nameless family represents all families and the inhuman treatment they received. The details of the abuses, the camp life and the scorn and indifference of their neighbors is all told with crystal precision of details of the barracks and internment life. So apropos for our times, especially as it shows how we have not learned from our shameful history.

❤️40. The Prime Minister, Anthony Trollope (1876); audiobook, read by Simon Vance; fiction; re-read from 2016
This is the 5th book in the Palliser series following the political career of Plantagenet Palliser (now Duke of Omnium) as he becomes the reluctant Prime Minister of a coalition government. Along with this story we follow the Duke's marriage with Lady Glencora (now Duchess) as they navigate their political and social position. Parallel to this older marriage is the story of the young marriage of Emily Wharton, daughter of a wealthy lawyer, and Ferdinand Lopez, a man of unknown origin and finances.

Most of the political thread was not above my head, but not necessarily compelling. The two marriages really make the story, with all the stubbornness and miscommunication and heartache that Trollope can bring to relationships. I ended up liking this much better than on my first reading 10 years ago; I think the audio interpretations by the narrator, Simon Vance--especially of the characters' dialogues--helped to improve my feelings about the book.

41. They Knew Mr Knight, Dorothy Whipple (1934); fiction; Persephone collection
When middle-class factory manager Thomas Blake meets wealthy financier Mr Lawrence Knight on the train, it is the beginning of a long journey of change, both good and not so good, for the Blake family. Most of the book is told from the point of view of Celia, wife of Thomas, who is skeptical of the wealthy Mr Knight, but still supports her husband. The 3 children have various reactions to the changes in their family life.

This book is about taking risks, about class, about marriage, about expectations between parents and children, and much more. It didn't grab me as quickly as the 3 previous books I've read by Whipple, but it has a staying power in its observations of family life. Not everyone or everything ends up well, but it still has hope in the end.

42. The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage: The First Adventure of the Five Find-Outers and Dog, Enid Blyton (1943); children's fiction
I picked up this book on a whim, only because I'd never read any Enid Blyton, either as a child or as an adult. This is the first in the series, and followed typical mystery-solving protocol (searching for clues, interviewing possible suspects and witnesses), with the 5 children acting together to solve the mystery of an apparent act of arson. I was a little put off in the beginning by some rather mean treatment of one character, but that smooths out by the end. I probably won't be reading any more in the series, but I can see how middle-grade kids would gobble these up.

"Garden"
John Henry Dearle (English, 1860-1932)
Wallpaper design for Morris & Co.
Brooklyn Museum, New York
Image for May 2025 from "2025 Calendar William Morris Arts & Crafts Designs", Pomegranate Communications, Inc

May Reading Possibilities:

These are in the pile right now, but anything (and everything) can change. I also have a couple of holds I've requested from the library--if they come in, they'll be a priority.

Completed:

The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, Edith Holden (1906--this facsimile published 1977) diary, drawings
The Truth About Immigration: Why successful Societies Welcome Newcomers, Zeke Hernandez (2024), nonfiction
Charlotte Fairlie, D. E. Stevenson (1954), fiction

Currently Reading:

A Small Boy and Others, Henry James (1913), memoir, April monthly author
Mansfield Park, Jane Austen (1814); on audiobook, read by Juliet Stevenson, for my 2025 JA Challenge
Blue Remembered Hills, Rosemary Sutcliff, memoir
The Village, Marghanita Laski

Priorities:

Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling for my RL book club
Founding Brothers, Joseph Ellis OR Polio: An American Story, David Oshinsky, for AAC May challenge (Pulitzer winners in history)
The Old Country: Collected Stories of Sholom Aleichem, translated from the Yiddish; short stories for Paul's European tour
What Maisie Knew OR The Spoils of Poynton, Henry James (April monthly author)
The Devastating Boys (short stories) AND The Wedding Group (novel), Elizabeth Taylor (May monthly author)
"Arrest the Bishop?", Winifred Peck, for May RandomKIT: title with punctuation

Possibilities (by time or by whim!)

An Old Woman's Reflections: The life of a Blasket Island Storyteller, Peig Sayers, memoir, translated from the Irish
The Eternal Husband, Fyodor Dostoevsky
Anne of the Island, L. M. Montgomery
Good Behaviour, Molly Keane, Virago title
Dangerous Ages, Rose Macaulay
The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams

Library Holds:

A Wilder Shore: The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson, Camille Peri, biography
Charlotte Fairlie, D. E. Stevenson
Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore

Onto the Lusty Month of May reading........

I read 14 books in May, the most in a month so far this year. A few gems among mostly pleasant reads:



❤️43. The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, Edith Holden (1906--this facsimile published 1977); nonfiction; diary and drawings
A beautiful, comforting book which I read month by month from June 2024 through May 2025. Holden's watercolors are exquisite and her knowledge of plants, flowers and birds is absolutely amazing. Each month starts with sayings and poetry appropriate to the season and followed by diary entries of her observations of nature during her walks and travels. It's been a wonderful year, starting each month with Holden's drawings and observations.

44. The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers, Zeke Hernandez (2024); nonfiction

I first heard Zeke Hernandez talking about his book on the Freakonomics radio podcast. Hernandez, an economics professor at the Wharton School in Pennsylvania, provides facts, figures and numerous studies to show how immigrants are a plus to our society throughout our history. I couldn't possibly list all of his data points, but essentially immigrants are in general successful and by the 2nd generation have economically equaled or surpassed those persons born here. Hernandez is an immigrant from Uruguay who is now a U.S. citizen and he has a unique and positive perspective on economics and immigration.

45. Charlotte Fairlie, D. E. Stevenson (1954); fiction

Charlotte Fairlie is a young head mistress of a girls' school. Although she is doing well, she finds the managing of teachers and board members (let alone students) to make her job stressful and not as rewarding as she would like. When she takes an interest in a troubled student, she begins to look at her life in new ways.

This is a typical D. E. Stevenson that has a quieter plot, decent love story and lots of lovely descriptions of a Scottish island. Stevenson adds a special real current event, Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, to the story, which I enjoyed. This was a good novel, not spectacular, not bad. One thing about Stevenson's novels is that she always has at least one or 2 characters that are just outright bad, with no redeeming qualities, and this gets on my nerves. I wish there was more nuance with the bad characters, as there is with the characters we love.

46. The Village, Marghanita Laski (1952); fiction

I decided to read this Persephone book on the 80th anniversary of VE day, because the book's story starts on May 8, 1945--VE Day. Two women from opposites sides of a village (by geography, by wealth and most importantly, by class) decide for one last time to perform their regular volunteer overnight shift at the Red Cross bomb shelter, as they have been doing throughout the war. Even though now there is no probable threat since the European war is over, they set out the tea things and biscuits and sit down for a chat to pass away the hours. They talk about their husbands, their children, other villagers and other types of small talk to pass the time. At the end of the evening they realize that they will never have this same sort of relationship again and part almost as strangers. The rest of the book explores the two families separately and the interactions between the daughter of one and the son of the other, and how the war has made the barriers between the families seem artificial and wrong.

The first few chapters drew me in, especially the beginning scene in the bomb shelter. But as the novel moves on, the author almost knocks us over the head with the vulgarities of class. The mother of the wealthy family, in particular, is shown as a very disagreeable, prejudiced person. The story mostly follows her meek but obedient daughter, and how her mother's attitudes have left the daughter friendless and alone.

Except for the beginning (and ending) the entire book was uncomfortable and I thought could have been done is some other way, without creating such an ogre. I really loved Laski's Little Boy Lost, so I was disappointed in The Village. It was an exploration of class without complexity or empathy or nuance.

47. Blue Remembered Hills, Rosemary Sutcliff (1983); memoir

I've never read any of Rosemary Sutcliff's books, but somewhere (?) I read or heard a review of her memoir, which sounded interesting. Sutcliff contracted Still's disease, now known as juvenile arthritis, as a toddler and had limited mobility for the rest of her life. Although this disability is never hidden, this is not a book of misery or blame or regrets. It's a wonderful memoir of Sutcliff childhood and young adult years, up to about age 30. Her father was in the Navy and the family moved often; her mother was sometimes difficult, possibly manic-depressive. There are engaging descriptions of people, places and nature; hospital stays and outings; governesses and schools. I'm amazed at all that she could recollect of her young years. This was a heart-warming story of a woman who thrived amidst setbacks and disabilities.

48. The Spoils of Poynton, Henry James (1896); fiction

This is a short novel focusing on only 3 characters. Mrs Gereth is a widow who has spent her life collecting beautiful and rare furniture, art and objects for her country home, Poynton. Under the terms of her husband's will, both Poynton and all the objects in it belong to her son, Owen. Owen is about to be married and now wants to take over Poynton for his bride's sake. Mrs Gereth befriends Fleda Vetch, a young woman, who has similar tastes and appreciation of Mrs Gereth's home. The story revolves around the struggle over the contents of the home, but it's more about the power struggle between mother, son and Fleda, as she tries to be the intermediary between the two.

Overall this is an intriguing story: how our "things" become our life. James relentlessly pursues the psychological battles of the three. All this is interesting, but sometimes his wordiness just left me skimming sentences rather than reading them over and over again. This is one of his shorter novels and the dialogue was quite perceptive at times, and more accessible than the prose.

49. Arrest the Bishop?, Winifred Peck (1949); mystery

It's late 1920 and Bishop Broome is about to ordain 6 new priests. They have been invited, as well as several other clerical men, to stay at the Palace, his home with his wife and younger daughter. When the elder daughter (soon to be divorced) and the thoroughly despised Rev Thomas Ulder show up unannounced, the Palace starts to get crowded and tense. For Rev. Ulder needs money to flee to America and he claims to have enough evidence to blackmail several people in the house. When he's found dead in his bed the next morning, Dick Marlin, one of those to be ordained and a WWI ex-intelligence officer, gets on the case and assists the local Constable.

I was a bit confused with all the characters at first, but once the mystery took off, it was easier to follow. Peck has a light, wry touch and as the daughter of a bishop, has a unique view of the clergy--respectful, but playful. This was a fun mystery to follow and an interesting look at ecclesiastic personalities.



50. Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling (1897); fiction

Set in the early 1890s, a bratty and spoiled teen-aged son of a railroad tycoon falls off an ocean liner in the Atlantic. Picked up by a working fisherman's ship, he must mend his ways and adapt to a working vessel.

This wasn't a bad story, but there was so much sailing lingo and dialect that the reading experience was a chore. Kipling did much research about the American fishing industry before writing this story to be accurate in its telling. When the ship gets back to shore, the last few chapters (now in regular English), Kipling shows a respect for the fishing community and the losses and hardships of the families left behind. This is a story that might be more accessible on audio and I may re-read it sometime that way.

51. The Old Country: Collected Stories of Sholom Aleichem, collected and translated from the Yiddish in 1946 by Frances & Julius Butwin; short stories
Sholom Aleichem is best known for his "Tevye" stories, which are the basis for "Fiddler on the Roof." Most of these stories were centered around the village of Kasrilevka, including a few Tevye stories. The stories were often a bit philosophical, sometimes whimsical and not unhappy. The characters tend to either blame someone else for their misfortunes, or more commonly, shrug their shoulders and accept life as it is. Some of the last stories of the book were the most entertaining. I particularly enjoyed "Hannukah Money", "You Mustn't Weep--It's Yom-Tev" and "Dreyfus in Kasrilevka." This last story is about how the townspeople in Kasrilevka react to the ongoing trial of Captain Dreyfus as they hear through the one man in the town who receives a newspaper from the outside world.

The translators were born in Eastern Europe who immigrated to the United States. The translations were very readable, capturing the humor and pathos of the stories. The authors included a preface with an explanation of their process to translate highly idiomatic Yiddish into English.

❤️52. Mansfield Park, Jane Austen (1814), on audiobook, read by Juliet Stevenson; fiction; re-read

I've read Mansfield Park many times and this re-read was very enjoyable. This is the story of young Fanny Price who leaves her over-crowded Portsmouth home to live with her wealthy uncle and aunt on their estate in Mansfield Park. It's a story about finding what home and family really mean, and Fanny is one of my favorite Austen characters.

53. The Devastating Boys and Other Stories, Elizabeth Taylor (1972); short stories

This was Elizabeth Taylor's last collection of short stories. As always Taylor can zero-in on emotions and relationships in very spare wording. The stories that stood out for me were:
"The Devastating Boys" is about a middle-aged country couple who decide to host two poor boys of color from London for two weeks in August. The story covers the two weeks and is told from the wife's point of view.
"Tall Boy" is a snapshot of several days in the life of a recent West Indian immigrant living alone & working in London, and attempting to connect with this very different life.
"Sisters" is about a woman who is visited by a journalist trying to dig up stories about the woman's deceased sister, a writer.
"The Fly-Paper" brilliant tense story that leads up to a creepy, scary ending.

54. Henrietta Sees It Through: More News from the Home Front 1942-1945, Joyce Dennys (1986); humor, epistolary

This is a continuation of Henrietta's War, which I read a few months ago. During WWII Joyce Dennys had a regular column in the periodical Sketch. These columns were fictional letters from Henrietta to a friend in the service, relaying news and happenings in their Devonshire village. These were funny and entertaining and yet they did not gloss over the fact of the real fear of being bombed. Dennys re-discovered them in the 1980s and republished them in 2 volumes. This second book covers the years 1942-1945 and were just as delightful as the first volume.

❤️55. Founding Brothers, Joseph J. Ellis (2001); nonfiction--American history

American historian Joseph Ellis examines 7 of the "founding fathers": Aaron Burr, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. He brings their personalities, convictions and conflicts into focus by concentrating on 6 events: the Burr/Hamilton duel; the slavery debate (Madison & Franklin); the compromise for a new capital (Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton); Washington's Farewell Address; Adams' presidency; and the tempestuous relationship between Adams and Jefferson.

This was a short book, organized into 6 essays that shed light on the personalities, passions and grievances of the revolutionary generation. It was extremely readable and I finished the book being amazed at how well these disparate men founded our country. A lot packed into 248 pages and gives one hope that maybe this country can still be saved.

56. Anne of the Island, L. M. Montgomery (1915); fiction; re-read

I eventually want to read the entire Anne of Green Gables series. This is the 3rd book, which I read 35 years ago and remembered nothing. It covers Anne's time in college, living in a boardinghouse during the school year and coming home to Avonlea in the summer. I liked this better than Anne of Avonlea, which seemed rather flat to me. In Anne of the Island Anne shows maturity and introspection. The only thing that disappointed me is that we get so little of Marilla in this book and even less of young Dora, a twin staying with Marilla, who is a mere shadow figure. Both Mrs Rachel and Dora's brother Davy get lots of dialogue and print time. I wish Montgomery had given more space to the shyer, quieter characters.

"Harebell", Wallpaper design, before 1917
John Henry Dearle (English 1860-1932) for Morris & Co.
Brooklyn Museum, NY
from Pomegranate Calendar, William Morris, June 2025

Possible June reading:

Currently reading
The Mirror Maker: Stories and Essays, Primo Levi, for Paul's European Tour
Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell
Jane Austen's Bookshelf, Rebecca Romney, library book
The Duke's Children, Anthony Trollope, re-read on audiobook (last book in the Palliser series)

Priorities:
Life with Father, Clarence Day, included in The Best of Clarence Day, library book
Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry
The Female Quixote, Charlotte Lennox
Howards End, E. M. Forster, a re-read
There is a Tide, Agatha Christie
The Wedding Group, Elizabeth Taylor (left over from May)

...and as time permits...:

At Mrs Lippincote's, Elizabeth Taylor, re-read
The Children of the New Forest, Captain Marryat
Our Spoons Came from Woolworths, Barbara Comyns
Juneteenth, Ralph Ellison
Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster, nonfiction re-read
A Wilder Shore: The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson, Camille Peri, library book
Clear, Carys Davies, library book

Completed
The Corner Shop, Elizabeth Cadell (1966); library book

Highlights for the first half of 2025:

Although so far I have read much more fiction than nonfiction, there were more outstanding nonfiction works:

Nonfiction highlights:
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments, Aimee Nezhukumatathil (2020)
The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser (2017)
The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, Edith Holden (1906--this facsimile published 1977)
The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers, Zeke Hernandez (2024)
Founding Brothers, Joseph J. Ellis (2001)
Jane Austen's bookshelf : a rare book collector's quest to find the women writers who shaped a legend, Rebecca Romney (2025)

Fiction highlights:
Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary, Ruby Ferguson (1937)
William - An Englishman, Cecily Hamilton (1919)
Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell (1866)

Re-read highlights:
No Fond Return of Love, Barbara Pym (1961)
All Creatures Great and Small, James Herriot (1972), on audio, read by Nicholas Ralph
Anne of the Island, L. M. Montgomery (1915)
Howards End, E. M. Forster (1910)
Phineas Redux and The Prime Minister, Anthony Trollope, on audio, read by Simon Vance

and finally re-reads for my "Jane Austen at 250" year-long project:
Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, Lady Susan, and Mansfield Park, on audio

Some Mid-Year Stats:

63 books read
77% fiction
19% nonfiction

42 books from my TBR
19 from the library
8 audiobooks
1 ebook

3 books in translation (Russian, Italian, Yiddish)

25% published in the 19th century
54% published in the 20th century
21% published in the 21st century

June Reading

A slower reading month....



57. The Corner Shop, Elizabeth Cadell (1967); fiction

A quick and easy read: a little humor, a little mystery and a little romance, all wrapped in some bursts of clever dialogue and partially set in Paris.

❤️58. Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell (1865); fiction

This was the last major novel of Gaskell I had not yet read. Molly Gibson, devoted to her widowed father, learns to accept her new stepmother and stepsister. An amazing study of various characters, small town life and its gossips, and a look at an age of change (the 1830's) in England. It definitely deserves a re-read to absorb all the themes. In some ways, Molly and her situation reminded me of Fanny in Mansfield Park, although Molly always has her father to support her.

This was very good, but her North and South still takes first place in my heart.

59. The Mirror Maker, Primo Levi (1990), translated from the Italian by Raymond Rosenthal; stories and essays

This is a slim volume (under 200 pages), with about half short stories and half essays. Levi (1919-1987) was an Italian Jew trained as a chemist. During WWII he was an anti-fascist and was sent to Auschwitz. His most famous writings are The Periodic Table and If Not Now, When?.

My favorite stories involved a Journalist interviewing (in order) a Gull, a Mole, a Giraffe, a Spider, a E. Coli bacterium, and a Queen Ant. These were very funny: each "interviewee" bragged about their special abilities, especially where they exceeded humans. The essays ranged widely in topic: from chemistry, translating Kafka, gossip, poetry, to memories of the camps. Overall I enjoyed the essays more than the stories.

❤️60. Jane Austen's bookshelf : A Rare Book Collector's Quest To Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend, Rebecca Romney (2025); nonfiction, books about authors and Jane Austen

This was a highly anticipated book by Jane Austen fans for 2025, and in my opinion, it lives up to the hype. It's an interesting mix of biography of 8 women writers that influenced Austen, their place in the "canon" of literature, threaded together with the rare book business and Romney's own curiosity about these women. The authors profiled are: Charlotte Smith (Emmeline), Charlotte Lennox (The Female Quixote), Anne Radcliffe (The Mysteries of Udolpho), Maria Edgeworth (Castle Rackrent, The Absentee, Belinda), Hannah More, Fanny Burney (Evelina), Elizabeth Inchbald (Lovers Vows) and Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi.

Sometimes I get annoyed when supposed nonfiction is more memoir (me, me, me) than about the subject, but I think Romney has a good balance here; her own journey usually illustrates a point she's trying to make about the author and her legacy. Well worth reading if you're interested in Jane Austen, "lost" women writers of the 18th century or the rare book business.

61. Clear,Carys Davies (2025); historical fiction

This is a short novel (185 pages) about a poor Scottish minister during the 1840s Scottish "Clearances" who takes on a job to evict the last known man on a remote island in the Shetlands. The two form an unlikely connection as the pair navigate language and customs. The story alternates points of view from the minister, from his wife on the mainland and from the hermit. The setting is haunting and the writing is evocative and tense. The abrupt ending, however, seemed unrealistic to me: a 21st century ending rather than a realistic 19th century outcome.

62. Hannah Coulter, Wendell Berry (2004); fiction

Hannah Coulter, in her seventies, looks back on her long life on a rural Kentucky farm from the Depression years to the Millennium. She gives us the good and the not so good in the same even tone; she acknowledges that we all carry grief around with us, but we persevere. She laments her children's choices, who have decided not to stay on the farm, but for the most part have moved far away, and she blames education (specifically college) for luring young people away.

This book is part of the Port William Membership series and it is a good overview of the series as a whole. However, I wasn't sure if Hannah's view of the lure of college and the abandonment of the farm didn't also represent Berry's own point of view. I probably will not continue with the series.

❤️63. Howards End, E. M. Forster (1910); fiction; re-read

The blurb on the back of my Vintage edition summarizes it the best:
"Only connect," Forster's key aphorism, informs this novel about an English country house, Howards End, and its influence on the lives of the wealthy and materialistic Wilcoxes; the cultured, idealistic Schlegel sisters; and the poor bank clerk Leonard Bast.

I loved it again, and found more to ponder: class, wealth, social responsibility, personal responsibility, a life of ideals and ideas vs. making a living, etc., etc. I also read "Boyhood Recollection of Rooksnest". Rooksnest, owned by a Mr Howard, was the Forster's family home in Hertfordshire when Forster was a boy, and he modeled the country house Howards End after it. This recollection was written by Forster at age 15, and is his first known written work to survive.

Orchard, before 1917
Wallpaper design by John Henry Dearle, English (1860-1932)
for Morris & Co., London
from Brooklyn Museum, NY
July image: 2025 William Morris Calendar from pomegranate.com

July Reading Possibilities

I'll never read all of these books in July----just sayin'---but they're on the pile of possibilities anyway....

First and foremost--Jane Austen July possible reads:

Pride and Prejudice, an umpteenth re-read
✔️The History of England by a partial, prejudiced & ignorant historian, from Jane's juvenilia
What Matters in Jane Austen?, John Mullan, literary criticism, a re-read
✔️Evelina, Fanny Burney, an author Austen admired
Jane Austen at Home, Lucy Worsley, biography
Jane Austen, Tony Tanner, literary criticism

and I'll watch a few JA movie/TV series adaptations

Currently reading:
The Sorrows of Young Werther, Goethe for Paul's European Tour
The Best of Clarence Day, Clarence Day
The Female Quixote, Charlotte Lennox, a work Jane Austen enjoyed and may have modeled for Northanger Abbey

Other reading:
His Excellency, George Washington, Joseph J. Ellis, for my RL book club
The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction, William Doyle for Reading through Time--18th century
The Life of Mendelssohn, P J Mercer-Taylor for Reading through Time--composers
Under the Greenwood Tree, Thomas Hardy, a re-read for Hardy Readalong with Jen the Librarian (YT)

...very low possibilities...
At Mrs Lippincote's, Elizabeth Taylor, a re-read
A Wilder Shore: the Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson, Camille Peri, biography
There is a Tide, Agatha Christie
I Contain Multitudes, Ed Yong
Brave Companions, David McCulloch

Completed
The Next Day: Transitions, Change and Moving Forward, Melinda French Gates
The Duke's Children, Trollope, a re-read on audiobook
The Christmas Hirelings and other stories, Mary Elizabeth Braddon for Monthly Authors group
The History of England by a partial, prejudiced & ignorant historian, from Jane's juvenilia
Evelina, Fanny Burney, an author Austen admired

July Reading, Part I

Not sure how I did it, but I read 14(!) books in July....here's the first half:


64. The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward, Melinda French Gates (2025); nonfiction, memoir

Memoir by the famous philanthropist, about various points in her life where she made important decisions, with her point being that the real work starts "the next day" after you've made the decision. OK. I wanted to learn more about her without a tell-all type memoir and this filled the bill.


❤️65. The Duke's Children, Anthony Trollope (1880); fiction; re-read on audiobook read by Simon Vance

This was a re-read on audiobook. I've given it 5 stars for the Duke's relationship with his children, the two romance stories and the political commentary. But the racing subplot was boring and by the end I hated Lady Mabel Grex with all my heart.

The audiobook experience wasn't completely successful. There are 2 versions of The Duke's Children. As originally published in 1880, Trollope had to cut about 25% of his manuscript to appease his publisher. This was the standard version until 2016, when scholars painstakingly reviewed the original manuscript and restored all the cuts. The full book is well worth the time reading. However, I started listening to the recent David Shaw Parker narration of the complete version, but halfway through I decided I couldn't stand it--he was just TOO slow, and his character voices and emphases didn't ring true for me. I then began listening to the original "cut" version (pre-2016) narrated by Simon Vance (my favorite narrator) around Chapter 40. So the reading was much, much cleaner (and at a better pace), but of course it was missing the 2016 restored material. Sorry for the long diatribe, but it just reinforced my feeling that a sub-par reader can ruin a great book. Maybe one day someone else will record the full version.


66. The Sorrows of Young Werther, J. W. von Goethe (1774); translated from the German by David Constantine; fiction

Obsessive love with lots of Sturm und Drang. At least it's short. I read a review that imagined that Marianne Dashwood (from Sense and Sensibility) would have loved this book. Exactly.


❤️67. The Christmas Hirelings, Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1895); fiction, on ebook; this edition from Google books includes this novel plus 3 additional stories

The Christmas Hirelings (1894) is set on a great manor, Penlyon Place, in Cornwall, the home of Sir John, a widower. Of his two daughters, one died childless and the other made an imprudent marriage which Sir John disapproved and they are now estranged. Sir John is a bit of a bah-humbug sort when it comes to Christmas, but each holiday his amiable and kind friend, Mr Tom Danby, spends the holidays with Sir John. This Christmas Mr Danby suggests that what Penlyon Place needs to brighten the season is children, so he proposes a plan: he will find some well-deserving and well-behaved but needy children to brighten Penlyon Place. He suggests Sir John reimburse the family for 100 pounds. When Mr Danby shows up with 3 children all under 10 years of age, Penlyon Place and Sir John are turned upside-down.

This is a sentimental, predictable and good-hearted story, so different from the other Braddon works I've read, and I enjoyed it. It's a book I could easily make an annual Christmas read.

This 1895 edition, which I downloaded from Google books, also includes the stories "One Fatal Moment" (1889), "The Ghost's Name" (1891) and "Stapylton's Plot (1887)." All 3 short stories are typical Braddon mystery/sensational fare, with a suspicious death in each story, and with an interesting twist at the end in each.


❤️68. The History of England by a Partial, Prejudiced & Ignorant Historian, Jane Austen (1791); this 1999 edition with illustrations by J. L. Carr; juvenilia

Part of Austen's juvenilia, this is very irreverent and funny.

This edition was published by Quince Tree Press, which was run by J. L. Carr (author of A Month in the Country). Carr also drew the illustrations, based on originals from Cassandra Austen.


69. Evelina, Fanny Burney (1778); fiction

This was Burney's first (and shortest) novel and for me the most entertaining. The book is written in epistolary form as letters Evelina writes to her guardian, Mr. Villars. Evelina is an orphan who has been raised by Mr Villars in a quiet, retired country town. The book begins as Evelina, in her late teens, has been allowed to visit friends of her guardian and late mother on her own, in her first entrance into "society." The letters detail her innocence and naivete in social customs and her brush with people of various ranks of society. She gets into scrapes, is affronted by various men, and eventually finds love and discovers the truth of her own history.

I've read all 4 of Burney's novels now, and this was clearly the most entertaining and funniest of them all. It moved rapidly and explored issues of class and women's place in society. Although the letter format was clumsy at times, I think it helped move the story along. I'm glad I read it.


❤️70. The Life and Works of Jane Austen The Great Courses, Devoney Looser (2021); 24 lectures on DVD; nonfiction

These 24 half-hour lectures are presented on DVD by Devoney Looser. I read Looser's The Making of Jane Austen earlier this year and enjoyed it. The lectures are good and cover Austen's biography, the Regency period in general, her main novels plus some of the minor and incomplete works, and ends with Austen's place in literature and popular culture. This was the first time I finally got some of Austen's relatives a little clearer in my head. I really appreciated an entire lecture on Lady Susan, one of my favorites, which is so often over-looked in most books about Austen's works.

My only disappointment is that the DVD presentation is fairly dull: Looser stands and presents each lecture, with an occasional still shot of a book illustration or other picture applicable to the content. I believe this is on audio and would work perfectly fine that way--the video didn't add much for me. However the content is what I enjoyed and is definitely worth pursuing all the lectures.

July Reading, Part II


❤️71. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (1813); a re-read on audiobook read by Juliet Stevenson

A many times re-read, this month for Jane Austen July and my year-long Austen project.


72. His Excellency George Washington, Joseph J. Ellis (2004); biography; a re-read from 2021

This was a re-read for my RL book club. This is a concise volume on Washington's life, work and legacy, without getting into a lot of details, which Ellis notes has been done many times over. Ellis sets up the purpose of his book in the preface:

"It seemed to me that Benjamin Franklin was wiser than Washington; Alexander Hamilton was more brilliant; John Adams was better read; Thomas Jefferson was more intellectually sophisticated; James Madison was more politically astute. Yet each and all of these prominent figures acknowledged that Washington was their unquestioned superior....Why was that?"

Suffice to say that Ellis does an excellent job in under 300 pages answering this question. On this re-read I noticed how dense the writing was, but how Ellis keeps circling back to how each event and decision in Washington's life was an aspect of his developing character and personality. On this read I was only disappointed that the full "Farewell Address" wasn't printed as an appendix to the book.


73. The Best of Clarence Day, Clarence Day (1948); humor

This volume includes Day's titles "Life With Father," "God & My Father," "Life with Mother," "This Simian World" and "Thoughts without Words." The first three titles comprise short essays, originally published in magazines in the 1920s and 1930s, on his memories of growing up in NYC in the 1880s and 1890s. Most were funny and a interesting look at the times and attitudes. I did not get on with This Simian World--it seemed repetitive and not all that interesting to me--and the Thoughts without words were OK.


❤️74. Hidden Libraries: The World's Most Unusual Book Depositories, D C Helmuth (2025); libraries

This over-sized book profiles unusual libraries throughout the world with text and photos. Some of the libraries profiled include 2 Little Free Libraries (one at the South Pole and one constructed into a tree stump); a mobile library that looks like a tank called "Weapon of Mass Instruction"; vending libraries in China; the Haskell Library which is half in Vermont and half in Quebec; a few "In Memoriam" libraries that no longer exist; several with "secret" locations and many more. I picked this up at the library on the "new books" shelf and so glad I did--fascinating.


❤️75. Under the Greenwood Tree, Thomas Hardy (1872); fiction; a re-read on audiobook read by Simon Vance;

I've started participating in a Thomas Hardy read-along, led by Jen the Librarian on youtube. WAY back in the 1980s I read Hardy's best-known novels. I'm curious to re-read them after all these years and also read those titles that are new to me. We'll be reading all of Hardy's 14 novels in publication order. It started in June 2025 and continues through July 2026. Here's her announcement video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVRuE8hjBFI&t=148s

I skipped June's selection, (Desperate Remedies), which I've read, but may return to it at the end of the readalong in 2026. I started participating with the July 2025 selection Under the Greenwood Tree, which I've also read before.

Set in the 1840s, this is an affectionate look at the rural past with an acknowledgement of inevitable change. I love the rural narratives more than the love story. I especially enjoyed the dance scene--I don't think I've read a dance scene more detailed and exuberant. Our "heroine", Fancy Day, kind of annoys me, or maybe Hardy's attitude toward her--in fact, I don't think there's a decent female in the entire story except maybe Mrs. Dewy.

Once again, narrator Simon Vance's dialect during the parts with dialog made the book a 5-star read for me. I read the Intro and Appendix ("Rural Painting of the Dutch School") of this OUP edition and both of these opened up all kinds of thoughts that pulled things together for me.


76. Anne of Windy Poplars, L. M. Montgomery (1936); fiction

I'm slowly making my way through the entire Anne of Green Gables series. Prior to this, I'd only read the first couple of books.

In this fourth book (chronologically), Anne is teaching high school in Summerside, where she boards with two elder ladies and their housekeeper. The book is structured with narrative sections interspersed with Anne's letters to Gilbert, who is in medical school. The time frame covers 3 years while Gilbert is finishing his education.

I found some of the interactions between Anne and others OK (like little Elizabeth, who is a miniature Anne), but there are stretches where Anne is just too good, too perfect and "rescues" people, basically from themselves. And we get very little of her day-to-day school time. I see that this book (listed as book #4 chronologically) was written in 1936 (and Anne of Ingleside in 1939), well after the other books. I wonder if that accounts for how I feel about the book.


77. The Life of Mendelssohn, Peter Mercer-Taylor (2000); biography

In a little over 200 pages, the author does an excellent job of narrating Mendelssohn's family background, his life, his relationship with his family, his major compositions and achievements in his brief life of 38 years. It was accessible and liberally sprinkled with excerpts from his many letters. I was unaware of how young he was when he first became an important musical name in Germany and England. I was impressed with his scholarship to uncover older compositions, not only of J. S. Bach which I knew, but of other early music composers and championing contemporaries, like Beethoven. In his many positions and programmatic duties as a conductor, he was instrumental in developing the German "canon" of composers. He was one of the first conductors to use a baton.

Somewhat confusing were all of Mendelssohn's friends and colleagues, some mentioned only in passing. Less well covered was his married life and children; missing was a chronology of his life and a list of his major compositions. A good basic intro to the performer, conductor and composer, but left me wanting more.

Artichoke, before 1917
John Henry Dearle (English, 1860-1932)
Wallpaper design for Morris & Co
Brooklyn Museum, NY
August image: William Morris 2025 Calendar from pomegranate.com

August Reading Possibilities

Another impossible pile of possibilities:

Currently Reading:
A Pair of Blue Eyes, Thomas Hardy, for the Hardy readalong, on audiobook
So You Think You Know Jane Austen?, John Sutherland and Deirdre Le Faye, for my Jane Austen @250 project
Frost in May, Antonia White, for All Virago/All August---see below

For challenges, etc.:
Cards on the Table, Agatha Christie, a re-read for August Reading through Time
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro, for August Monthly Author Challenge
Nothing Venture, Patricia Wentworth, for Color Challenge (gray)
Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt, for my RL book club

All Virago/All August (join us here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/372740#8910503)

Besides Frost in May which I'm currently reading, these are my 2 "for sure" Virago reads:
Civil to Strangers by Barbara Pym and You'll Enjoy it When you Get There: The stories of Elizabeth Taylor--I've read about half of the short stories in each collection and hope to finish them this month for All Virago.

More Virago possibilities:
Fenny, Lettice Cooper
The Wedding Group, Elizabeth Taylor
Company Parade, Storm Jameson
Mandoa, Mandoa!, Winifred Holtby
Good Behaviour, Molly Keane
A Wreath for the Enemy, Pamela Frankau
Family History, Vita Sackville-West
The Priory, Dorothy Whipple (Persephone)

and lastly,
one or more of these miscellaneous books may be chosen, if time permits (maybe if another week or two is added to August?):
Miss Pym Disposes, Josephine Tey
Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome (a re-read)
Brave Companions, David McCullough
Summer, Edith Wharton

Guess I better get started...if you see one you'd like to recommend, please holler!

August reviews will be up in a few days.

Until then, here's my plan for September Reading.



Indian, red and black, circa 1870
possibly George Gilbery Scott (1839-1897, English) for Morris & co.
Wallpaper design
Brooklyn Museum, NY
September image: William Morris 2025 Calendar from pomegranate.com

In September I'm repeating a "clear-out" challenge that I did last September 2024 and was fairly successful. I ending up reading 16 books that month and many of them I was able to move out of the house.

Hoping for a successful repeat, I'm reading as many "short" books as possible this month. For me, a "short" book is anything that's about 250 pages or less--there may be a few that creep in a little over 250, but that's OK. I hope I can match (or maybe even exceed) last year's total.

There will be one exception to this: that's the book I will be reading for the Thomas Hardy readalong, which this month is Far From the Madding Crowd (389 pages).

I've already finished one book:
Three Men In a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome (1889); 211 pages, a re-read.

And I'm currently reading:
Brave Companions, David McCullough (1991); nonfiction essays; 232 pages
The Red Notebook, Antoine Laurain (2014); fiction; 159 pages

I have more than 30 other books picked out, and I'll choose from these what I'll be reading, depending on my mood.
Besides the Hardy, there are a few that are "for sure" reads because they meet other challenges:

Heaven's My Destination, Thornton Wilder (1934); fiction; 186 pages for my RL book club
The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction by William Doyle (2019); 113 pages for Reading thru Time Quarterly 18th Cent
An Old Woman's Reflections, Peig Sayers (1939); memoir; 131 pages for Reading thru Time Monthly--Islands
The True Deceiver, Tove Jansson (1982); fiction; 181 pages for CoverCAT
Pictures from Italy, Charles Dickens (1846); nonfiction; 187 pages for Paul's European Tour

The Giant Pile of Short Possibilities for September:

Poetry and Nonfiction Shorts:
The Best of Robert Service, poetry; 212p
Levels of Life, Julian Barnes, memoir & fiction, 128p
A Song of Sixpence, A J Cronin, memoir, 224p
New York Revisited, Henry James, memoir, 93p
Emma Lazarus Rediscovered, Eve Merriam, biography, 159p
Mr Selfridge in Chicago, Gayle Soucek, biography, 113p
Lincoln and Chicago, Toman & Frutig, history, 135p
The Schlemiel as Modern Hero, Ruth R. Wisse, literature, 124p

Fiction Shorts:
Aunt Dimity's Death, Nancy Atherton, 244p
The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen, 199p
The Labors of Hercules, Agatha Christie, 263p
Happy All the Time, Laurie Colwin, 214p
Our Spoons Came From Woolworth's, Barbara Comyns, 196p
Loving, Henry Green, 209p
The Beast in the Jungle, Henry James, 47p
The Violins of Saint-Jacques, Patrick Leigh Fermor, 139p
So Long, See You Tomorrow, William Maxwell, 135p
An Unsuitable Attachment, Barbara Pym, 256p
The Edwardians, Vita Sackville-West, 222p
Life and Death of Harriett Frean, May Sinclair, 184p (with big font!)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark, 137p
At Mrs Lippincote's, Elizabeth Taylor, 215p
Blaming, Elizabeth Taylor, 190p
Miss Pym Disposes, Josephine Tey, 235p
Tea with Mr Rochester, Frances Towers, 162p
Hunt the Slipper, Violet Trefusis, 180p
Summer, Edith Wharton, 216p

I'm listing all of these so I won't GIVE UP!!

If you have any favorites or recommendations, please holler!

Several re-reads (4!) in August; here are some thoughts on my reading--a mixed bag, with a strong finish:



❤️78. So You Think You Know Jane Austen?: A Literary Quizbook, John Sutherland and Deirdre Le Faye (2005); literary quizzes & analysis; a re-read for my JA at 250 project.
Fun. Questions with answers (of increasing difficulty) on Austen's 6 main novels. Like the first time I read this, I didn't agree with some of the answers, especially the harder ones that speculate, but it certainly made you think about the text.

❤️79. Cards on the Table, Agatha Christie (1936); mystery; re-read
Four "detective" types are invited to a bridge party where four "murderers" have been invited as well. I read this years ago before I had a firm concept of the four sleuths: Poirot, Colonel Race, Inspector Battle and Ariadne Oliver. Mrs Oliver is a great character; so glad I re-read this.

80. Civil to Strangers, Barbara Pym (1987); novellas & short stories; re-read
These novellas and short stories were collected and published after Pym's death. On this reading I think I enjoyed most the title story "Civil to Strangers", plus "Home Front" (although unfinished & perhaps too many characters) and the transcript of a radio interview Pym did with the BBC in 1978. The other stories, especially the "spy" story, were less satisfying.

81. Nothing Venture, Patricia Wentworth (1932); mystery
Mystery/romance about a marriage of convenience in which the newly married groom's life appears to be in jeopardy. This was a page-turner filled with thrills, but suffered from the heroine having prophetic dreams and lots of unexplained intuition. One or two instances in a mystery is OK, but this book took the concept overboard, IMHO.

❤️82. A Pair of Blue Eyes, Thomas Hardy (1873); fiction; re-read on audiobook read by Anna Bentinck; for Hardy readalong
Hardy's third published novel set in rural Cornwall concerns a widowed parson's daughter, Elfride Swancourt, and her two suitors: a young architect and a famous literary man. The love triangle story goes on from there, exploring class, sexuality and secrets. Hardy based the story of Stephen and Elfride on his own experience with his first wife, Emma. This is a masterful character study of these two men, although Elfride's portrayal felt superficial, albeit sympathetic. Sad, powerful, but not quite as tragic as Hardy's later novels.

This was a re-read on audiobook, and there is something about listening to Hardy on audiobook that brings out the poignancy as well as the humor of the tale. I could not stop listening.

83. You'll enjoy it when you get there : the selected stories of Elizabeth Taylor (2014); stories selected and intro by Margaret Drabble
This NYRB collection, selected and introduced by Margaret Drabble, takes some stories from each of Taylor's short story collections, originally published between 1954 and 1995. I have been reading this collection off and on this year. For me Taylor really shines in the short story format; she can focus on one or two characters to produce a precise and insightful study. I think my favorites were "The Blush", "The Devastating Boys", "Summer Schools", "Girl Reading" (probably the most positive of all the stories), "In the Sun", and "Sisters."

84. Remarkably Bright Creatures, Shelby Van Pelt (2022); fiction; for my RL book club
Widower Tova is a night shift cleaner in a small town aquarium, where she befriends an octopus, who seems to have superhuman intellectual powers. The book is told from the alternating points of view of Tova, the octopus, and a young man named Cameron. I liked Tova's portrayal, which felt full-fledged and true. Cameron was annoying and the octopus Marcellus was unnecessary; for me it would have been better without his unbelievable antics. If this weren't for book club, I would have stopped reading about page 40--just not for me. I'll give the author credit for making each narrative particular to the character, but I felt manipulated into a tear-jerker.

85. The Wedding Group, Elizabeth Taylor (1968); fiction; from my Virago collection
Cressy, 19, leaves her insular artsy/religious community in the country run by her grandfather to take a job in the village at an antique store. There she meets David, a journalist some years her elder, who lives with his over-protective mother Midge. These three characters dominate this novel in a tangled web of neediness and manipulation. I found Taylor's writing superb as always, but the characters were hard to like and therefore I felt unsatisfied in the end.

86. A Wreath for the Enemy, Pamela Frankau (1954); fiction; from my Virago collection
A complicated book, beautifully written, with an unusual structure. The book is told in 3 sections. The first section is narrated by Penelope, 14, whose bohemian and unconventional family runs a small hotel on the French Riviera. This summer she meets the Bradleys, a family of four, that seem to do everything together and epitomize the perfect family that she longs for. Penelope befriends the 2 children, Don and Eva, but their parents are strict and disapproving of Penelope's casual upbringing. The second section, several years later, is narrated by Don, now at boarding school, who befriends an older disabled man and helps to take care of his horses. Don is desperately trying to shake-off his family's strict ways. The last section is two years later, with parts narrated by Penelope and 2 other characters. In this last section, all the strands of plots and characters converge in a web reminiscent of Dickens.

I found the first 2 sections so good, but the last section seemed contrived and unsatisfying, which left me disappointed.

❤️87. The Priory, Dorothy Whipple (1939); fiction, from my Persephone collection
Saunby, once an ancient priory, is now the crumbling estate of Major Marwood, a middle-aged widowed gentleman, who has mismanaged this place and the household help for years. Now in the mid-1930s (the "Great Slump"), the Major, severely in debt, decides he needs a wife to manage his household and his two daughters, Christine and Penelope. Enter Anthea, a 30-something shy spinster who marries the Major, and attempts (and often fails) at these tasks. The story rotates from Anthea to the daughters to the servants. Eventually Anthea has a baby and the two daughters quickly get married and leave the household, leaving it in the hands of the baby's no-nonsense Nurse Pye. Various members become estranged with each other, but in the end all comes mostly right, just as it appears that a second Great War (the book was published in 1939) has been averted.

Whipple has an easy, flowing style that grabs me immediately and has me turning pages. There are quite a few characters here, but they all are rounded and interesting and not perfect, but all have redeeming qualities. In particular, Whipple focuses on the marriages: the Major & Anthea, Christine's and Penelope's, as well as relationships among several servants. This is the 5th book I've read by Whipple, and I've enjoyed them all--there is an overall positive vibe to her books, without being sappy or sentimental. And her writing just takes me in--hook, line and sinker.

❤️88. All Things Bright and Beautiful, James Herriot (1974); memoir
The second book in Herriot's "All Creatures" series is as wonderful as the first. This book concentrates on the animals and their owners than with the inhabitants of Skeldale House, although Helen makes a few appearances. Still fascinating, particularly all the various treatments that he tries and comparisons of the old ways with the new. The book ends Helen is pregnant and James is on his way to London to sign up for the RAF, as war is on the horizon.

Halfway through September reading:

It's already the middle of September and I've finished 10 books in my personal "clear-out" challenge. I figured it would be a good time to get them written up:




❤️89. Three men in a boat : to say nothing of the dog, Jerome K. Jerome (1889); humor

"J" and his 2 friends and the dog take a 2 week boat ride on the Thames, with misadventures and side stories along the way. A re-read, and still as fun as ever. I a, amazed at how much of the humor is relevant for a book written in 1889!

❤️90. Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories Volume 1, Arthur Conan Doyle (1887, 1891, 1892, 1903); mystery, on audiobook, read by Simon Vance.

I've been listening on and off to this collection since last October. Volume 1 (25 CDs) includes:
A Study in Scarlet
The Sign of Four
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
The Return of Sherlock Holmes

I'm a little late to the party with Sherlock. I had read a few of the stories as a teenager, but that was a life-time ago. I started listening from the beginning back in October 2024, and finally finished Volume 1. It makes great listening in-between other longer books and each story is easy to listen to, without requiring a lot of prior knowledge.

I soon plan to start Volume 2 (another 25 CDs), which includes all the rest of the Sherlock tales. May not finish it for another year, but that's OK--enjoying the ride.

91. The Red Notebook, Antoine Laurain (2014); translated from the French by Emily Boyce and Jane Aitken; fiction

Woman gets mugged and knocked out; man finds her purse and uses clues to trace who it belongs to. Charming, but not really my kind of book. Set in Paris and lots of (living) author name-dropping. There was a certain amount of a stalking feel to the book that was unsettling.

Bugged me: heroine is Laure; hero is Laurent; author is Laurain. And heroine has a red notebook in her purse; hero's bookshop is Le Cahier Rouge (The Red Notebook). Either too cute or the author's laughing at us.

92. Aunt Dimity's Death, Nancy Atherton (1992); mystery

Lori, in her 30s, is in between jobs and in debt and is recovering from a broken marriage and her mother's death. Her life is up-ended when she discovers she is the beneficiary of a will, under certain conditions and tasks that she must perform. This is a cozy, sweet mystery for those in need of an easy read. It does have paranormal visitations, which, unfortunately, did not do much for me. Perhaps I've spent too much time with Sherlock Holmes lately to appreciate it. But if comforting is what you're craving, and other- worldly interference isn't a problem for you, Aunt Dimity will fit the bill.

93. Mr. Selfridge in Chicago: Marshall Field's, the Windy City & the Making of a Merchant Prince, Gayle Soucek (2015); biography

Biography of Harry Selfridge, his rags to riches to rags story--from Wisconsin birth to Chicago to London death. The book puts its focus on the years before London, with some interesting bits of Chicago history, particularly Selfridge's impact on Marshall Field's. Lots of good photographs. However, the author had NO notes or bibliography documenting her sources. Yet she reports many times that Harry Selfridge's stories were often fabricated or exaggerated; that he even used various dates for his birth date. And yet, for example, the author claims he was born in 1856, without telling us how she documented this. She also tends to wander off-topic, particularly in Chicago where she spends time detailing business transactions that don't seem to relate to Selfridge directly. A disappointment.

94. New York Revisited, Henry James (1906); memoir

In 1904-5 Henry James revisited America after living in Europe for almost 30 years. This volume, New York Revisited, was first published in Harper's in 1906 and later included in his full work The American Scene. Here James goes back to the city of his birth overwhelmed by the skyscrapers, the commerce they represent and constant bustling of the city. He finds old small churches dwarfed by new buildings; revisits his Washington Square neighborhood, mostly intact, only to find his birthplace and adjacent homes replaced by a skyscraper. He watches the incessant humanity as it arrives at Ellis Island.

Not exactly enjoyable; I wish I could wrap my head around more of James's prose, which often eludes me.

95. The True Deceiver, Tove Jansson (1982); translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal; fiction

Set in the dark winter in a small Nordic village on the sea, we follow Katria and Mats, sister and brother, and their relationship with an older member of the village, Anna. The setting is important: unrelentless snow, days with little light and extreme cold are emphasized. And the coldness seeps into the characters, who seem aloof and distrustful of others.

I could not get into or understand this story; much is left unsaid. It was too distant, with most of the characters out for their own self-interest. It was a disappointment, since I loved Jansson's The Summer Book.

❤️96. Life and Death of Harriett Frean, May Sinclair (1922); fiction; from my Virago collection

In this novel we follow the life of Harriett Frean, born in the early years of the Victorian era until her death, nearly 70 years later. As a young woman, Harriett makes a difficult choice, but feels it is the right and moral choice. It will follow her for the rest of her days, even as she feels virtuous in her self-denial.

This is a short but intense book in which we are inside Harriett's thoughts and feelings, and see her life from her perspective. May Sinclair coined the term "stream of consciousness" and although there is only a small amount of that feeling at the beginning and the end of Harriett's life, the novel doesn't stray from Harriett's view of her world. Every word and thought is important and deliberate here, and already I know I need to re-read this to appreciate all that Sinclair was doing.

97. An Old Woman's Reflections: The Life of a Blasket Island Storyteller, Peig Sayers (1939 in Gaelic);English translation from the Gaelic by Seamus Ennis, 1962

Peig Sayers (1873-1958) was a revered storyteller from the Great Blasket Island, a small island off the coast of County Kerry, Ireland. "Big Peig" learned storytelling in the original Gaelic from her father and grandfather. Her son Michael wrote down the stories and they were edited and published in Gaelic in 1939. This 1962 edition, the first English translation, was translated by Seamus Ennis, which I found sometimes clumsy, but still readable.

The stories are told in first person as she remembers her childhood, as well as stories told to her by her father and grandfather. Many of these deal with village rivalries, jealousies and superstitions; there are also quite a few sea stories. Some of the most interesting bits were at the end, where she recounts how the Island got the news of the 1916 Rebellion and her trip to the mainland in the 1930s to experience her first ride in a "motor-car." By the end of her life-time, only a handful of people remained on the Island, and today it is completely uninhabited, which makes the survival of these tales even more remarkable.

❤️98. Business as Usual, Jane Oliver & Ann Stafford (1933); fiction

This was delightful! It's 1931 and during the year that her fiancé is establishing his medical practice in Edinburgh, Hilary Fane is determined to get a job and support herself. She manages to land an entry-level job at Everyman's Department Store (a thinly disguised Selfridge's). The story is told through Hilary's letters back home, to her fiancé and Interdepartmental Memos (remember those?). Eventually Hilary is promoted to the store's circulating library department as the year comes to a close.

I totally enjoyed the details of working life in the 1930s--work place rules, dress, co-workers, supervisors, etc., particularly after reading the book about Harry Selfridge. And a reminder that the world of work has certainly changed, but perhaps not all that we think.

Summary through September 15:
10 books read: 1 library book, 6 donated and 3 I'm keeping to re-read.

Hoping to read at least 6 more in the latter part of the month, although I do have one larger book: Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, that I hope doesn't sidetrack the others.

Myrtle, before 1917
Wallpaper design
William Morris (English 1834-1896)
Brooklyn Museum, NY
October, William Morris 2025 Calendar from pomegranate.com

October Reading Plans

As I have for the last few years, I'll be reading Victorian literature for the Victober (Victorian October) Challenge hosted on booktube. This year there are 10 challenges; some of my choices meet several challenges.

Here are the 10 challenges with my possible reads:

I. A book with friendship:
✔️Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (on audiobook)

II. Not a novel (play, poem, short story nonfiction):
✔️The Library Window, Margaret Oliphant
✔️The Canterville Ghost, Oscar Wilde
Pictures from Italy, Charles Dickens (nonfiction)

III. Change in class status:
✔️The Hand of Ethelberta, Thomas Hardy

IV. British Empire spotting:
We are to find instances of the Empire in our reading; I know the British Empire (the West Indies) is important in Jane Eyre, but I'll also be on the lookout in my other books:
✔️Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (on audiobook)
✔️Red Pottage, Mary Cholmondeley

V. Underrated woman writer:
✔️Red Pottage, Mary Cholmondeley
✔️The Library Window, Margaret Oliphant
Jessie Phillips, Mrs. Fanny Trollope
The Trail of the Serpent, Mary Elizabeth Braddon

VI. Education:
✔️Dr. Wortle's School, Anthony Trollope
✔️Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (on audiobook)

VII. Set in a different era:
✔️Children of the New Forest, Captain Marryat
✔️Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (on audiobook)

VIII. Use a color wheel for cover color--I spun black for my cover color:
✔️The Hand of Ethelberta, Thomas Hardy has a lot of black on the cover

IX. Fantasy (I'm expanding this to include ghost stories):
✔️The Library Window, Margaret Oliphant
✔️The Canterville Ghost, Oscar Wilde

X. Connection to Jane Austen:
✔️A Memoir of Jane Austen, James Austen-Leigh (biography)

I believe this comes up with 9 full books and 2 short stories, so I'm hoping I can finish them all. Except for re-reading Jane Eyre, all of these books are new to me.

September "clear-out" reading: The Second Half

Finally, my reading for the last half of September:




99. Heaven's My Destination, Thornton Wilder (1934); fiction

This novel follows George Brush, a recent college graduate and now traveling text-book salesman during the Great Depression. George is a Christian, a sincere pacifist, a believer in Gandhi, and a bit of a socialist. As he travels across the country he believes he is doing good by talking and "helping" the people he meets, but invariably things go wrong and he generally ends up alienating people rather than "converting" them. Over time he begins to question his own principles, in a coming-of-age sort of way.

I found this interesting and thought-provoking, but not exactly compelling or satisfying. It is said that Wilder was influenced by Don Quixote, which he had read several times, in various languages and was teaching at the time. It caused a bit of a stir, as some felt religion was being mocked. I didn't get that impression, but I think I would need to re-read it to let all of Wilder's themes sink in.

100. The Female Quixote, Charlotte Lennox (1752); fiction; on audiobook, read by Juliet Stevenson

Lady Arabella has led a sheltered and protected life due to her widowed father. Her only solace has been the 17th century French novels of romances and adventures of the ancients, especially those of Madeleine de Scudéry, which are filled with unbelievable tales of love and chivalry. After her father dies, Lady Arabella begins to encounter real-life persons and can only compare them to the stories she has read, causing her to be an oddity. Her cousin Mr Glanville is the only one who seems to have any understanding of her nature and soon falls in love with her, but Lady Arabella doesn't make life easy for him.

I had a hard time with the print version--every noun capitalized, every name italicized and NO quote marks. I was only able to finish this because I switched to the audiobook read by Juliet Stevenson. This was another book influenced by Don Quixote. Overall the book is funny in parts, but went on too long for me. I understand why Jane Austen enjoyed this and why it is important, but I won't be reading it again.

❤️101. A Song of Sixpence, A. J. Cronin (19644); fiction

This has been sitting on my shelf for at least 8 years. For whatever reason, I've always looked past it, but for my "clear-out" challenge this month it was "do-or-die"--either I read it now or get rid of it. And after just a few pages, I loved it!

It's basically a coming of age story of Laurence Carroll, born around the turn of the last century, who is the only son of an Irish Catholic father and Scottish Presbyterian mother. Told in first person, it read like a memoir, with his memories of the challenges he faced in his small Scottish village. It starts when he's about 4 or 5, and ends at about age 16. It's funny, honest, warm; we feel for Laurence as he struggles to fit in.

I believe his story is continued in A Pocketful of Rye, and I plan to find a copy SOON.

102. Amberwell, D. E. Stevenson (1955); fiction; library book

The Ayrton family have been owners of the Amberton estate in Scotland for generations. We follow William Ayrton, his wife & five children from the early 1930s into the post WWII years. We watch as the family deals with keeping up the estate, the sons going to war, daughters getting married.

D. E. Stevenson can tell a good story and her love of Scotland always shines through in her books. There's even a bit in this book about Bell Rock, the lighthouse built by Stevenson's g-grandfather Robert Stevenson. I do find that Stevenson purposely gives us characters that feel static: either good/sympathetic or bad/unsympathetic. Sometimes the lack of character development and nuance leaves me disappointed in her books, but in this novel the story and the "character" of Amberwell estate made the book enjoyable enough that I was less bothered by the flat characters.

❤️103. Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy (1875); fiction

My records say I read this in the 1980s when I read 4 or 5 Hardy books in a row. I remember virtually nothing about that reading, so this was like a new book to me. The story concerns Bathsheba Everdene who has inherited a farm and the three men who vie for her hand: Gabriel Oak, a former farmer and now a shepherd on Bathsheba's farm; Mr Boldwood, a neighboring gentleman farmer; and Sgt. Francis Troy, a dashing soldier. The story follows Bathsheba as she attempts to manage her farm and employees while navigating relationships with these 3 men.

This is such a wonderful novel where Hardy explores the limitations put on women and the expectations that society, especially men, have of women. There are evocative descriptions of the land and rural people, along with vivid scenes of the hardships of the farming life. I am so glad I am participating in this Hardy readalong to read all of his novels in publication order.

104. The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction, William Doyle (2020); nonfiction, history;

Lots of concepts, not necessarily presented in chronological order. It did not give the sense of exactly what happened when. The last part of the book about the Revolution's legacy into the 21st century, was a little more interesting. I will keep it solely for the timeline of events at the back of the book.

105. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark (1961); fiction

The story begins with a group of 6 girls in the early 1930s. Since the age of 10 they have attended the same Edinburgh school and have been considered by the rest of the school as "Miss Brodie's set." Miss Brodie is a quirky teacher, who believes she knows better than the school what young girls need to know, and she selects these girls as those who she especially deems worthy of her instruction. As the girls go through school, they have different teachers, but they remain attached to Miss Brodie. Eventually, however, one of the girls will betray Miss Brodie, a hint we get early on in the novel.

Normally I have a hard time with stories that jump forward and backward in time, but as I acclimated to Spark's writing style, I had no trouble following the action. The story is mostly told from the viewpoint of one girl, Sandy. There is a lot to ponder here: young girls and their need for a sense of belonging; Miss Brodie's need of adoration; how Miss Brodie "labels" each girl (the one famous for math, the one famous for her vowels, the one famous for sex, the one famous for her intuition, the athletic one, the stupid one) and how the girls accept these labels. The heart of the novel is Miss Brodie's emotional and psychological hold on the girls and how as they get older and move on, they each finally break away. It's a fascinating little novel (137 pages), but it's not one I would say I loved.

❤️106. The Fortnight in September, R. C. Sherriff (1931); fiction; re-read; library book

This is a simple story about the Stevens family (Mr, Mrs, Mary, Dick and Ernie) on their annual September trip to the English seaside circa 1930. The book begins the day before the trip in their modest London home and ends a fortnight (and a day) later on the afternoon as they are leaving the seaside for home. There is delightful detail of the packing, train ride, arrival, and boarding house where they stay every year, with its worn furniture and lumpy beds. In the story, each member of the family has a tiny "moment of discovery." Although there isn't much plot per se, Sherriff's style and good humor kept me reading. We can tell he enjoyed the characters he created.

Overall it is a gentle, heart-warming story of an average, mostly happy family in a bygone era, without being saccharine or sentimental. I'm so glad I re-read it right now.

Final tally of my personal September "clear-out":

I began with 20 books, most of them around 200 pages:

•18 read + 2 DNFs (not recorded here--they just weren't for me)

Of the 18 books I completed:

•13 books from my shelves
•3 library books
•2 audiobooks

•I donated 11 books (9 read and 2 DNFs).
•I'm keeping 4 books.

•The shortest book was 93 pages; the longest was 389 pages; average # of pages per book = 210.

•For the first time I tracked pages read in a month: 3,776 pages in September, averaging 125 pages per day.

This was fun--generally I average between 8 and 10 books a month, so reading mostly shorter books and finishing 18 felt like a good accomplishment.

Chrysanthemum, 1877
William Morris (English, 1834-1896) for Morris & Co.
Brooklyn Museum, New York
November 2025 William Morris Wall Calendar, pomegranate.com

November Reading Plans

One done, and lots of possibilities (per usual):

Completed:
✔️Greengates, R. C. Sherriff (1936), mostly good, went a bit south for me at the end

Currently Reading:

Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories, Simon Winchester, audiobook read by the author
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer
Summerhills, D. E. Stevenson

Priority Books:
The Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy--November's book for the Hardy readalong
Nazarin, Benito Perez Galdos, for Paul's European Tour Challenge
Blaming, Elizabeth Taylor--finish my reading of all Taylor's novels
Two Gentlemen of Verona, Shakespeare, for my RL Book Club
An Atomic Romance, Bobbie Ann Mason, from my very old TBR, meets ColorCAT and CoverCAT challenges

Possibilities
The Labors of Hercules, Agatha Christie--moving along in my Christie reading
The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen, long-time TBR
Rough-Hewn, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, want to get this done and out of here
South Riding, Winifred Holtby, my Holtby reading
All Things Wise and Wonderful, James Herriot, the next in the series
The Trail of the Serpent, Mary Elizabeth Braddon--Victorian book that I didn't get to in October
Bleak House, Charles Dickens, audiobook re-read

Hope to have my October reading wrap-up soon.

October (mostly Victorian) reading

Late again, oh well. I'm enjoying my November reading, but I'm taking a break to wrap up my Victober (Victorian October) books, plus a few others.

Overall, I had a great month of reading. I re-read 2 of my absolute favorites books, found a new favorite (and short!) Trollope novel, and had a pleasant surprise with a novel by Dumas. Only 1 of the Victorian books was a disappointment, so I consider the month a success!

⭐ = Victorian read for the Victober reading challenge



⭐❤️107. The Canterville Ghost, Oscar Wilde (1891); short story

An American family moves to England and purchases the Canterville Chase estate, despite being warned by the prior owner that the place is haunted by the ghost of a ruthless killer. The Americans laugh off the ghost story, but when strange things start happening, the family doesn't take it sitting down. A very funny & enjoyable story.



⭐❤️108. The Library Window, Margaret Oliphant (1896); short story

This is one of Oliphant's last published works. The narrator, a young girl staying with an elderly aunt, is recovering from an unnamed illness. She spends her time reading in the drawing room window seat and often gazes upon a library window across the street. This window, in normal light appears to be painted over or blocked, but each evening around twilight she sees a desk and eventually a man in the window. These visions disappear, however, when the light fades, and only return every evening around twilight. It is eerie--is the narrator seeing something real or is she having visions?



❤️109. Brave Companions: Portraits in History, David McCullough(1992); essays on history, on audiobook, read by the author

This is an eclectic and enjoyable collection of 17 essays written by McCullough between the 1960s and the 1980s for various magazines. They cover a wide range of topics. My favorites were "The Unexpected Mrs. Stowe" (about Harriet Beecher Stowe); "The Treasure from the Carpentry Shop" (about the discovery of the original plans of the Brooklyn Bridge); "Cross the Blue Mountain" (about author Conrad Richter); "South of Kankakee" (about traveling with photographer David Plowden in Central Illinois) and "Simon Willard's Clock" (an address to Congress in 1989). I ended up listening to this on audio, which was read by McCullough, making it even more special.



⭐110. Red Pottage, Mary Cholmondeley (1899); fiction

This novel tells the story of Hester and Rachel, friends since girlhood and now in their late twenties. The book begins with recent life changes for each: Hester, an orphan who has been raised in London by an aunt, must now live with her brother, a conservative clergyman in a small village, where Hester feels stifled. Rachel, also an orphan, who has been scraping by as a typist and living in dismal lodgings in the East End of London, suddenly comes into a fortune. She must learn how to navigate "society." The book examines how they each handle their new situations and people, while remaining true to themselves.

Most people who've read this book have loved it, but overall I struggled with it and found it disappointing. I had a hard time with the writing style of the author; I had to force myself to pick it up and read. Written at the very end of the Victorian Era and considered a "New Woman" book, it does examine the ways women were confined to strict conventions, but I became frustrated when both women have hysterical fits and faintings when disasters happen to them.



⭐❤️111. Dr. Wortle's School, Anthony Trollope (1881); fiction

This is a shorter work by Trollope and very accessible. Dr Wortle runs a boys school and Mr Peacocke is his assistant schoolmaster. Early on it becomes clear that there is a question about the legitimacy of Mr Peacocke's marriage to his American wife. The rest of the book is how Dr Wortle handles this possible scandal, both for himself, his school and his good friend Mr Peacocke. I enjoyed this book quite a bit, and loved the way Trollope takes an ethical question and looks at all the various facets and sides to the story. If you've been meaning to try Trollope but were imitated by his long works, this is a good place to start.



⭐112. The Hand of Ethelberta, Thomas Hardy (1876); fiction

This is the story of Ethelberta, who has risen from her working class background of ten children to become the wife of a wealthy young man. When the story begins, Ethelberta is recently widowed and is living with her mother-in-law. Ethelberta begins to consider how she can help to support her large family by becoming a celebrated poetess. Along the way, she meets several suitors who vie for her "hand", but she must keep her humble background a secret.

There is a lot to say for the strength and determination of Ethelberta as portrayed by Hardy, but sometimes it's hard to consider her sympathetic, as she plays one suitor against another. I can't say I loved this novel, but I didn't hate it either.



❤️113. And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie (1939); mystery, a re-read on audiobook

This was a re-read for my RL book club--it's the classic Christie mystery in which 12 people are summoned to an island off the Devon coast, where indiscretions of their past lives are heard over a loud speaker for all to hear. One of them dies, and then another, and it becomes clear they have all been brought here for a purpose. This is my absolute favorite Christie novel and this time I listened to it on audiobook read by Dan Stevens, who did an excellent narration.



⭐❤️❤️114. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (1847); fiction; re-read on audiobook

My favorite Victorian novel of all time and a many times re-read; it was so comforting to return to this again. This time I noticed the richness of Bronte's writing and Jane's utter determination to be independent. After listening to the audiobook, I read the extra material contained in the Norton Critical Edition. I particularly enjoyed the essay by Adrienne Rich and an essay discussing the two film adaptations with Orson Welles (1943) and George C. Scott (1970). The author pointed out how these 2 films make Rochester the main character, rather than Jane. More recent adaptations give Jane more agency.



⭐❤️115. Memoir of Jane Austen, James Austen-Leigh (1870); memoir

A very partial and loving portrayal of Jane Austen by her nephew, with lots of quotes from her letters to and from family members and famous people. I rather liked this little book, even if now just about everything in it has been quoted or referred to by modern biographers. It also includes the original ending of Persuasion that Austen re-wrote and some bits from her last incomplete novel Sanditon.



❤️116. The Black Tulip, Alexandre Dumas (1850); translated from the French by Robin Buss; historical fiction

This is a short and engaging historical fiction tale of a Dutch tulip grower in the mid-17th century amid real political uprisings in Holland. The story begins with the real events of the mob deaths of the DeWitt brothers in 1672, accused of being traitors to the Prince, William of Orange. The story quickly shifts to the fictional hero, Cornelius van Baerle, a wealthy doctor and avid tulip grower, who, amidst the tulip mania of the 17th century, takes up the challenge to grow a perfect black tulip for a major prize. His envious neighbor, who fails in the quest for the black tulip, embarks on a revenge plan, alerting authorities to circumstantial evidence that implicates Cornelius in the DeWitt brothers traitorous plot. Cornelius is imprisoned and there he falls in love with Rosa, the jailer's daughter, who helps him to cultivate his black tulip in secrecy. The rest of the plot revolves around this quest.

This was a surprise--I really enjoyed this little tale, which has adventure, romance, revenge and a quest for the perfect tulip. It almost felt like a fairy tale in a way. Dumas, however, has more than just romance here: Rosa questions whether Cornelius loves his tulip more than he loves her, implying what type of person elevates his Art over his human relationships? Dumas also compares beautiful scenes and objects to famous works of art throughout the book. It was a delightful reading experience and the translation by Robin Buss was smooth and accessible. I had a hard time with The Count of Monte Cristo, which seemed all revenge to me. This little novel (234 pages) was a good mix of romance, adventure and revenge that felt just right.



⭐117. The Children of the New Forest, Frederick Marryat (1847); children's historical fiction

One of the first adventure novels geared toward children, the story is set during the English Civil Wars in the mid-17th century. Four children (2 boys and 2 girls) are left orphans after their father, a Royalist and supporter of King Charles I, is killed by Oliver Cromwell's Parliamentarians. When rumors surface that Cromwell's men are coming to burn their home, the children are whisked into a simple cottage in the New Forest by their father's loyal and elderly friend forester Jacob Armitage. Here they take on new identities as Jacob's grandchildren and Jacob teaches them to be self-sufficient in the forest, learning hunting, farming, milking, raising chickens, sewing, cooking, and bartering in the nearby market town. When Jacob dies, the children are on their own, and the story focuses mostly on the two eldest, Edward and Humphrey.

This was mostly an exciting tale. It did slow down some in the first half, especially with long and repeated descriptions of trapping and killing animals for food and trade. As the eldest boy Edward gets older, the story focuses mostly on him and his restlessness to make himself useful to the Royalist cause, without revealing his identity, and here the story's pace picks up. I found the historical aspect of the Civil Wars well done for the most part, as characters discuss the pros and cons of each side, although it's fairly clear that the novel is written from the Royalist viewpoint. The two boys' characters are well established, but the girls (as in most tales like these) are flat and mostly not on the page. Overall I enjoyed this novel and found it a good introduction to this part of English history (especially with the end notes provided by the Oxford edition).



⭐❤️118. A Woman of No Importance, Oscar Wilde (1893); drama

The play opens at a country house where a large group has gathered for a dinner party. One guest, Mrs Arbuthnot, is startled to encounter, Lord Illingworth, the man who fathered her child 20 years ago, but refused to marry her and who she has not seen since. The play continues from there, as the two argue over the fate of the son, whose existence was unknown to Lord Illingworth all these years. There are many characters in this play, which is a bit confusing on the page and the dialogue includes many lines with double meanings, sometimes witty, sometimes decidedly sharp in its criticism of English society and attitudes about gender. This is a play that rather blew me away and I need to re-read it and hope that I can find a screen version to view.

November Reading Wrap-Up:

A lot of good solid books this month, although I can't say that any of these would be considered the best of the year.



119. Greengates, R. C. Sherriff (1936); fiction

The novel opens at the retirement party of Mr Tom Baldwin, where he has worked for many years, and where he has a handful of close friends. We move quickly into his adjusting to new day-to-day habits which are driving his wife crazy, upsetting her daily routines that she has had for these last 30 years. One day they decide to go on a long walk in a rural area that they used to visit when they were first married. They come upon an area that is now begin developed with new homes. At first they are shocked, but then on a lark they decide to tour one of the model homes, and it doesn't take long for them to be awed by all the modern conveniences they lack in their old house.

The remainder of the novel is about the Baldwins going through the process of buying & selling & moving, which sounds rather boring, but Sherriff makes these mundane activities seem important. Sherriff has an ability to keep us interested and the characters relatable, despite the ordinariness of their lives. I enjoyed this book for the most part, although I felt the last couple of chapters about starting a "club" in the new development felt unpleasant and snobbish. This was not as enjoyable for me as his The Fortnight in September, but it still had some interesting aspects of retired life and starting a new life that made it worthwhile.



120. Summerhills, D. E. Stevenson (1955); fiction

This is a continuation of the story of the Ayrton family from the previous book Amberwell. It focuses more on Roger, the eldest son and now owner of the Amberwell estate, who returns home on leave from his military service with an idea of setting up a boys' school. As the school goes from idea to reality, we are re-acquainted with the family and some new characters are added and minor ones are flushed out. Roger finds a kindred spirit, his sister Nell continues to run the house and raise Roger's son Stephen, and Anne, the estranged younger sister, is still housekeeping for the vicar Mr Orme while recovering from her disastrous marriage. Siblings Connie & Tom are only briefly mentioned in this book, and Mrs Ayrton, the children's mother, is a shadow of her former self.

I thought that this novel had a lot of plot, a lot of romance, and the usual Stevenson despicable characters: in this book, both women. Overall it was a quick read, but not particularly memorable.



❤️121. The Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy (1878); fiction

I read this novel back in the 1980s, but I remembered absolutely nothing about it except the names of some of the characters. The story is basically a love "square" (maybe even a pentagon?) in which two outsiders and three natives of Egdon Heath are entangled. The heath itself is a major character, if you will, in this story, as it is key to several plot points. Two marriages between (clearly) the wrong people lead to the outcomes that drive the plot of the story. As always Hardy explores class, rural vs. urban and the life of a woman who feels constricted by society's rules.

The novel was slow at first: very dense, filled with descriptions of the heath: in heat, in rain, in snow, in wind; with animals, snakes, birds and many insects (especially moths), all of which I enjoyed, but could only read in short bits. About the halfway point, when the two marriages show signs of trouble, I became fully engrossed in the story and read the second half, almost without stopping. I can't say I loved any of the characters, but Hardy gave me enough empathy for most of them to keep me engaged until the end.



❤️122. The Labors of Hercules, Agatha Christie (1947); short stories

A series of 12 Poirot short stories with allusions to the 12 Labors of Hercules. I enjoyed them--I like the short story format with Poirot.



123. The Two Gentlemen of Verona, William Shakespeare (first published 1623); drama

Thought to be one of Shakespeare's earliest plays, this had some funny punny moments, especially at the beginning. This was mostly fun, but not particularly thought-provoking. The abrupt ending left me scratching my head.



124. Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories, Simon Winchester (2010); nonfiction on audioboook, read by the author

This is a sprawling history of the Atlantic Ocean, starting from its geological formations, to the first human interactions, to first voyages, to modern commerce and wars, and finally man's neglect and polluting of the ocean. Mostly it works, although like any Winchester book, it goes off on various paths which sometimes work, but sometimes don't. Some of the last bits on climate change I assume are dated (published in 2010) and it would be interesting if Winchester would publish an update to the book, including current trends and thought.

I listened to this on audio read by Winchester, who is an excellent reader and made the content come alive. I think if I had read it in print, I probably would have given up at some point. In the end I'm glad I stuck with it.



125. Nazarin, Benito Perez Galdos (1895), translated from the Spanish by Jo Labanyi; fiction

I read this for Paul's "Grand European Tour" Challenge. The book was one I picked up at a library sale--I had no idea of the author or title, but it looked interesting and fit in with November's challenge to read an author from the Iberian peninsula. Benito Perez Galdos (1843-1920) was born in the Canary Islands and lived most of his life in Madrid. He was a great admirer of Tolstoy.

Nazarin (1895) is the story of a humble priest, Don Nazario, from Madrid who is determined to take Christ’s gospel literally. He leads through example: he lives the life preached by the gospels, the life of meekness, poverty, non-resistance to evil and keeps to the truth at all costs. He has no possessions and begs only for food that he absolutely needs. As he sets out from Madrid to live out his principles, along the way two women of dubious character decided to change their ways, and they follow him on his path. Early on the narrator asks: “The locals generally regard him as a saint, but others think him a fool. Which version is correct?” Thus he encounters on his journey those who admire him, but also those who taunt him and dismiss him at best, and physical abuse at worst.

The edition I read had excellent notes, pointing out how Perez Galdos cleverly weaves the parallels between the priest’s journey and Christ’s journey, as well as the priest’s journey and Don Quixote’s journey to seek the ideals of chivalry. The priest meets and discusses his ideals with many people along the way, bringing out various concepts of capitalism, socialism and Christian thought prevalent during the late 19th century. There’s a lot packed in this little book (190 pages), but I don’t think I could have navigated it successfully without the editor’s excellent notes in this Oxford World’s Classics edition. This was an interesting and thought-provoking read, although I can't say I loved it. It would probably make for great discussions in the classroom.



126. Blaming, Elizabeth Taylor (1976, post.); fiction

Married couple Nick and Amy are on a Mediterranean cruise while Nick is recovering from surgery. During the holiday they meet a young American author, Martha, who attaches herself to the couple which does not entirely please Amy. When Nick dies suddenly on holiday, Martha comes to Amy's rescue, but when the women return to England, Amy is not interested in keeping up the friendship. And yet, Amy knows she owes Martha for her help in a crisis.

This had excellent writing, but unlikable characters. Amy has complaints and little patience from the first page of the novel and Martha seems to be about whenever she's not wanted. There are perceptive observations on grief and guilt. Written when Taylor knew she was dying and published after her death, this is quite a melancholy book. Not one I would want to re-visit.

With this book, I have read all of Elizabeth Taylor's novels and most of her short stories.



127. Crooked House, Agatha Christie (1949); mystery

There are no particular detectives in this one, although Scotland Yard is called in. Told in the first person by a friend of the family, the patriarch is poisoned and, of course, this had loads of characters with possible motives that took some time to sort out. Near the end I was ready for it to be solved; we only learn the truth via letters in the last few pages.

Daisy, 1864
Wallpaper design
William Morris (English, 1834-1896)
Pomegranate 2025 William Morris Calendar: December; www.pomegranate.com

December's Massive Pile of Possibilities--when will I learn???

Completed
Anne's House of Dreams, L. M. Montgomery (1917), for ColorCat (purple on the cover)

Currently Reading:
December 16 is the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth so I'm re-reading:


The Annotated Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen, annotated by David M Shapard--reading the notes while listening to the audiobook
and hope to get to: What Matters in Jane Austen?, John Mullan, a re-read

Other books on the go:


The Tobacconist, Robert Seethaler--for Paul's Grand European Tour
Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer

Priorities:


The Trumpet-Major, Thomas Hardy, December's book in the Hardy readalong
The Heart Goes Last, Margaret Atwood--for RandomKIT--titles with beginning & ending words ("Last")
Silent Night, Mary Higgins Clark, for my RL book club
Tea with Mr Rochester, Frances Towers--short stories, from my Persephone collection

Holiday reading possibilities--mostly re-reads--hope to get to a few:


A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, on audio read by Jim Dale--I try to read this every year
Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan, re-read set during Christmas
Christmas at Thompson Hall, Anthony Trollope, a re-read
A Merry Christmas and Other Christmas Stories, Louis May Alcott
Thrush Green and Winter at Thrush Green, Miss Read

Other possibilities--maybe one or two of these:


South Riding, Winifred Holtby
The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton (a re-read)
All Things Wise and Wonderful, James Herriot
The Edwardians, Vita Sackville-West
Rough-Hewn, Dorothy Canfield

December was a slow reading month for me: a few holiday re-reads and only 2 books more than 200 pages. My mind seemed to be elsewhere and mostly interested in comfort reading. Here's a quick recap:



❤️128. Anne's House of Dreams, L. M. Montgomery (1917); fiction

In the 5th book in the series, Anne & Gilbert move into their first home together, as Gilbert starts his practice as a doctor. Although isolated from the main town, Anne & Gilbert make a few friends, and have both sad and happy times.

Except for a strange twist to part of the plot near the end, I liked this installment in the Anne series. There are just a few main characters, and we get to know them fairly well, although I would have liked to learn more about Gilbert and his practice. Anne is empathetic but doesn't feel the need to fix everybody's problems, as in book #4 Anne of Windy Poplars. In this book, there's a lot of thoughtful conversations and lovely nature writing. And it was special because I read it over L. M. Montgomery's birthday, November 30.

129. A Merry Christmas: And Other Christmas Stories, Louisa May Alcott (1875); short stories

Over-sweet Christmas tales are combined with Alcott's moral tone of doing good. The last story was not quite so bad ("Mrs. Podgers' Teapot"), which had a regular plotline combined with the moral one. Still I do love the holiday cover.

130. The Annotated Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen (1811), annotations by David M. Shapard; fiction

In these Shapard annotated editions there is a page of annotations following every page of text, so it doubles the pages of reading (in this case, a total of 700 pages). The explanations are good, especially about social protocol of the era. However I think it would be way too much information for someone reading the novel for the first time. Although Shapard doesn't have spoilers per se, he often makes allusions to what will happen later in the story.

There are very helpful maps of southwest England and London, showing important places in the story. One of the most useful chars is a chronology of events in the book, so you get an idea of when things happen. The main action of S&S, for example, takes place over the course of a year, from one autumn to the next autumn, starting with the Dashwoods leaving Norland and ending with Elinor & Edward's marriage. I don't think I would have figured this out on my own without a lot of effort, and I've read S&S many times. So this timeframe was very helpful for me as a many times re-reader.

❤️131. The Trumpet-Major, Thomas Hardy (1880); fiction

A unique novel for Hardy, this historical fiction novel is set during the Napoleonic war era: a seaside town near Weymouth is on watch for Napoleon's army to land. The heroine, Anne Garland, has 3 suitors: John, a steadfast soldier; his brother Bob, a sweet but unreliable sailor; and the nasty Festus Derriman, a rogue. The romance plot is rather lame, particularly because Anne, otherwise intelligent and practical, is frustratingly blind to recognize the man who truly loves her. The historical context was well done and Hardy shows some rare bits of humor and lightness. He apparently did extensive research and personal interviews to get the details of the era and events correct, which includes a scene of a King George III having a short chat with a town local.

After finishing I read the introduction and one comment made by the editor was interesting: that Hardy may have purposefully made the personal love story rather boring and unsatisfying, so as not to over-shadow the tense and dramatic larger events of the times. Given this viewpoint, I think it was a successful novel, although not a typical Hardy novel, as it contains minimal personal misery.

❤️132. Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan (2021), short fiction; a re-read

A small Christmas story of tremendous impact where every word matters. This is my 3rd or 4th re-read.

❤️133. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (1843); on audiobook read by Jim Dale; fiction

A many times Christmas re-read.

❤️134. Christmas at Thompson Hall : and Other Christmas stories, Anthony Trollope (2014); a selection of holiday short stories from the 1860s, 1870s & 1880s, a re-read.

Five delightful short stories centering around Christmas time that I have read several times. No politics, just the usual Trollope relationship misunderstandings.

One story was different: "Two Generals", which was written in 1863 and is set in Civil War Kentucky. Two sons end up becoming generals on opposing sides of the war. Not only is the material very different for Trollope, the language seemed different too. I did a bit of research and learned a little about "Two Generals": it may have been influenced by Trollope meeting Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky in 1863, who confided he concerns about his two sones: one a general in the Union Army and the other a general in the Confederate Army. Although Trollope changes the names and creates a fabricated story, the premise certainly is from his meeting with the Senator.

2025 Highlights

Despite a lackluster ending to the year, overall I had a great reading year. I had some long-term projects and am fairly pleased with my reading.

📚Jane Austen: For the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, I read (or re-read) the following in 2025:
Novels:
✔️Sense and Sensibility, audiobook re-read and reading the 350+ pages of annotations of David M. Shapard
✔️Pride and Prejudice, audiobook re-read
✔️Mansfield Park, audiobook re-read
✔️Persuasion; audiobook re-read
✔️Northanger Abbey: Norton Critical Edition; listened to the audiobook and read the 200+ pages of critical material in this edition
Shorter works:
✔️Lady Susan; audiobook re-read, January
✔️The history of England by a partial, prejudiced & ignorant historian from the Juvenilia
Nonfiction: about Jane Austen and her time:
✔️The Making of Jane Austen, Devoney Looser; Jane Austen in popular culture
✔️In the Steps of Jane Austen, Anne-Marie Edwards; her biography through the places she lived
✔️Jane Austen's Bookshelf : a rare book collector's quest to find the women writers who shaped a legend, Rebecca Romney (2025); part memoir/biography/look at the rare book business through the 6 women writers who influenced Austen
✔️So You Think You Know Jane Austen?, Sutherland and Le Faye; a quiz book of the 6 novels with questions & answers
✔️Memoir of Jane Austen, James Austen-Leigh (1870); the first biography of Austen written by her nephew
Works that influenced Jane Austen:
✔️"Lovers' Vows", Elizabeth Inchbald (1798), a play, referred to in Mansfield Park
✔️Evelina, Fanny Burney (1778); an author Jane Austen read and admired, and mentioned in Northanger Abbey
✔️The Female Quixote, Charlotte Lennox (1752), on audiobook, read by Juliet Stevenson; a book Jane Austen read several times and influenced Northanger Abbey
✔️Finally, I watched half a dozen film adaptations of Austen's works.

📚Other long-term goals:
✔️I've kept up with the Thomas Hardy chronological read of his 14 novels, reading 6 this year and hope to read the remaining next year, starting with A Laodicean in January 2026
✔️And I finished my reading of all of the major works of Elizabeth Gaskell, Elizabeth Taylor and E. H. Young.

Overall here are the highlights from my 2025 reading:

Fiction Highlights:
William: an Englishman, Cicely Hamilton, a Persphone reprint
The Life and Death of Harriet Frean, May Sinclair, A Virago reprint
Dr Wortle's School, Anthony Trollope
The Christmas Hirelings, Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell
Business as Usual, Jane Oliver and Ann Stafford
Rhododendron Pie, Margery Sharp
Two spooky stories: "The Canterville Ghost", Oscar Wilde and "The Library Window", Margaret Oliphant

Nonfiction Highlights:
The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, Edith Holden, a naturalist's diary from 1906
Brave Companions, David McCullough, essays
Jane Austen's Bookshelf :a rare book collector's quest to find the women writers who shaped a legend, Rebecca Romney
The Truth About Immigration, Zeke Hernandez
The Life of Mendelssohn, Peter Mercer-Taylor
World of Wonders, Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Most Rewarding Re-reads
Thomas Hardy: Under the Greenwood Tree, A Pair of Blue Eyes, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native
Howards End, E. M Forster
No Fond Return of Love, Barbara Pym

Pleasant Surprises--books that exceeded my expectations
A Song of Sixpence, A. J. Cronin
The Black Tulip, Alexandre Dumas
The Trumpet-Major, Thomas Hardy

Some Final 2025 Stats:

Books read: 134

Fiction: 103 (77%)
Nonfiction: 26 (19%)
Other (plays, poetry, etc.): 5 (3%)

Re-reads: 30 (22%)

Library books: 36 (27%)

Audiobooks: 17 (13%)

Female authors: 79 (60%)
Male authors: 53 (40%)

By century publication date:

Prior to the 19th century: 5 (4%)
19th century: 40 (30%)
20th century: 62 (46%)
21st century: 27 (20%)

In translation: 9 (6%)

2026 Reading: January through June

JANUARY
1. 1970 84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff
2. 1871 Lady Susan, Jane Austen
3. 1949 Tea with Mr Rochester, Frances Towers
4. 1795 Letters for Literary Ladies, Maria Edgeworth
5. 1950 A Murder is Announced, Agatha Christie
6. 1881 A Laodicean, Thomas Hardy
7. 1868 The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins
8. 1863 The Notting Hill Mystery, Charles Felix aka Charles Warren Adams
9. 1996 A Year's Turning, Michael Viney

FEBRUARY
10. 2009 Facing Unpleasant Facts, George Orwell
11. 1865 Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens
12. 1939 Mrs Miniver, Jan Struther
13. 1908 Crossriggs, Jane & Mary Findlater
14. 1887 Ten Days in a Mad House, Nellie Bly
15. 1919 Mary Olivier, May Sinclair
16. 1882 Two on a Tower, Thomas Hardy
17. 1953 Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
18. 1902 Anna of the Five Towns, Arnold Bennett
19. 1917 Christine, E. Von Arnim

MARCH
20. 1902 Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume II, Arthur Conan Doyle
21. 1927 The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen
22. 1881 Ayala's Angel, Anthony Trollope
23. 1971 Reunion, Fred Uhlman
24. 1948 There is a Tide, Agatha Christie
25. 1940 Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Willa Cather
26. 1991 Letters from Constance, Mary Hocking
27. 1719 Robinson Crusoe, Daniel DeFoe
28. 1953 The Indomitable Mrs. Trollope, Eileen Bigland
29. 1886 The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
30. 1959 Still Glides the Stream, D. E. Stevenson

APRIL
31. 1953 The Gipsy in the Parlour, Margery Sharp
32. 1995 Chicago History, Spring 1995, Volume XXIV, Number 1, Rosemary Adams, ed.
33. 1996 Chicago History, Spring 1996, Volume XXV, Number 1, Rosemary Adams, ed.
34. 1862 Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
35. 1905 A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett
36. 1879 John Caldigate, Anthony Trollope
37. 1946 Miss Pym Disposes, Josephine Tey
38. 1887 The Woodlanders, Thomas Hardy
39. 1996 Cross Channel, Julian Barnes
40. 1905 The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton

MAY
41. 2013 Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer
42. 2025 When the Cranes Fly South, Lisa Ridzen
43. 1957 The Eye of Love, Margery Sharp
44. 1999 Five Days in London May 1940, John Lukacs
45. 1891 Tess of the D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
46. 1948 The Foolish Gentlewoman, Margery Sharp
47. 1936 South Riding, Winifred Holtby
48. 1934 Crooked Cross, Sally Carson

JUNE
49. 1962 Martha in Paris, Margery Sharp
50. 1813 Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
51. 1964 Martha, Eric and George, Margery Sharp
52. 1877 The American Senator, Anthony Trollope

January Reading Wrap-Up:

I wanted to get to more this month, but that's OK.



❤️1. 84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff (1970); letters; audiobook re-read by Barbara Rosenblatt and others

I've made it a tradition to start the new year off with this wonderful testament to books and reading and friendships around books.



❤️2. Lady Susan, Jane Austen (1875); epistolary fiction; audiobook re-read by multiple narrators

Another one that I listen to at least once a year. It always puts me in a good mood.



3. Tea with Mr Rochester, Frances Towers (1949); short stories from my Persephone collection

This volume of short stories is the only collection of Frances Towers' writing and was published after her death. It's hard to describe her writing style, except to say that it's kind of ethereal and evocative. It takes concentration but is rewarding. My favorite was the title story, "Tea with Mr Rochester" about an adolescent girl who admires an older man from afar.



4. Letters for Literary Ladies, Maria Edgeworth (1795); letters/essays

This was a small volume first published in 1795. The first two letters are between two gentlemen friends. The first letter, "From a Gentleman to His Friend, upon the Birth of a Daughter", advises his friend that educating a woman can only bring unhappiness, with a long list of negatives. The response by his friend disagrees with every point and shows how a woman will be benefited by an education. The second set of letters are between two women, one of "sense" and the other of "sensibility," and concerns the marriage of the second. The last essay is a tongue-in-cheek argument on how a woman can win any argument with her husband.

Jane Austen admired Maria Edgeworth's work. I've read 3 of her novels and liked them all. In this volume I enjoyed the first set of letters the most, especially the way the arguments for education were expressed. The other letters and essay were interesting and funny, but not quite as spot-on as the first set.



5. A Murder is Announced, Agatha Christie (1950); mystery

A "murder game" becomes a real crime scene. Includes several characters who are living under a different name and/or different person's identity. Miss Marple gets involved (relatively) early in this one and provides the psychological rationale for the killer's actions. Although I didn't figure out the killer I did figure out the true background of Phillipa. I enjoyed this one more than I expected.



6. A Laodicean, Thomas Hardy (1881); fiction; the next book in the Thomas Hardy readalong challenge

This is a departure from rural Hardy and focuses on a decrepit castle in Wessex, its new wealthy female owner Miss Paula Power, and her two suitors, Mr Somerset (an architect) and Capt. De Stancy. The love triangle takes precedence as our suitors vie for her hand and the characters travel across Europe in pursuit of her. Lots of descriptions of architecture and an architect's work in this one as well as some rather sensational elements that kept me turning pages. In between Hardy has his characters argue the pros and cons of revering the aristocratic past vs. the benefits of progress and the new order.

Paula, the "Laodicean", got on my nerves after a while with her in inability to make up her mind. The love triangle seemed to take too long to resolve for me, and some details were sketchy, but the book was an interesting read and (surprise!) it did not end in complete misery.



7. The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins (1868); fiction; a re-read

This was a re-read and is an historical fiction novel of a stolen diamond from India, told in letters, documents and narratives. Set in 1848-1850, it has all the basic elements of a detective mystery as the genre would be known. The crime is investigated by both Sergeant Cuff, a hired detective from the Metropolitan Police and the main character, Franklin Blake, who has assembled all the documents two years after the crime. "Mesmerism" (hypnosis) and opium addiction are factors blurring the lines of the facts. Probably my favorite "narrator" was Gabriel, the house steward, whose testimony made me laugh out loud sometimes, especially when he quotes Robinson Crusoe. In subtle comments and documents, Collins takes a critical look at what it means "to steal" and the consequences of Britain's Imperialism in the 19th century.

I read this for my RL book club and led the group discussion. I liked this more than I did in previous readings, probably because I took copious notes and paid more attention to what was happening and why. For many years The Moonstone was thought to be the first English language full length detective novel until scholars discovered The Notting Hill Mystery, Charles Warren Adams (1863), which I read next.



8. The Notting Hill Mystery, Charles Warren Adams, aka Charles Felix (1863); mystery

I decided to read this book after reading introductory material on the last book I read, The Moonstone. For many years The Moonstone, published in 1868, was considered the first English-language detective novel, but recent scholarship as shown that The Notting Hill Mystery, first serialized in 1862-63, was a novel-length detective story that pre-dates The Moonstone.

Mr Henderson, an insurance investigator, is our narrator. He is investigating a large life insurance claim that appears to be questionable. He provides a basic narrative around letters, depositions, court documents, a marriage certificate and even a map to back up his investigation of possible murder(s). Like The Moonstone the story involves "mesmerism" (hypnosis) and takes some unusual turns and suppositions, so it's a bit hard to take seriously in the 21st century. On the other hand, it's presented in such an interesting structure that it had me turning pages to find out how the murders were committed. Although not up to our standards today, being the first of its kind gives the novel an added interest in the development of the detective novel.



9. A Year's Turning, Michael Viney (orig publ 1996; this edition 2022, with a new foreword by Viney); memoir/nature writing

Viney and his wife, both writers in Dublin, left their city life in the 1970s to live on a farm in a remote area of County Mayo on the Atlantic coast. Organized by months (January through December), Viney gives a smattering of life in that month in nature, coupled with his learning to adapt to living on a farm over many 20+ years.

The writing is exquisite, but often it meandered too much for me. Lots of terms for wildlife and plants and topography that were unknown to me, making the reading slow-going. This was an interlibrary loan book, so it had to be finished on time. If I can ever find a copy, I think I would read it again, slowly, over a year, one month at a time.

February planned reading:



A Three Month Project:
In January I started a slow reading (25 pages a day) of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables (1862) (translated by Christine Donougher), which I have never read. It is historical fiction starting in about 1815 and so far I am really enjoying it. But it is long (1,304 pages) and physically heavy, so I'm taking my time. I'm also listening to podcasts by Briana Lewis from her website The Les Miserables Reading Companion (https://sites.google.com/view/readlesmis/home-menu), which is greatly enhancing my appreciation of the book. As of today, I'm about 325 pages in. My goal, if I can keep up the 25 pages/day, is to finish by the end of March.

So far I've completed 2 books in February which I mostly read in January:
Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays by George Orwell
Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens (1866), a re-read on audiobook

Currently Reading
Mrs Miniver, Jan Struther (orig 1939, this edition 1942 with one additional entry)--assembled from Struther's newspaper articles from 1937-1939 about the fictitious Mrs Miniver, a typical British housewife.

February Priorities
Crossriggs, Jane and Mary Findlater (1908); a re-read from my Virago collection
Mary Olivier, May Sinclair (1919), from my Virago collection for the DecadeCAT
Two on a Tower, Thomas Hardy (1882), next up in the Thomas Hardy chronological read
They Were Sisters, Dorothy Whipple (1943), from my Persephone collection
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (1953), a re-read for my RL book club
Lost on the Lady Elgin, Valerie van Heest, nonfiction about a Great Lakes disaster for February Reading through Time
The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen--I keep putting this off--THIS IS THE MONTH

Other possibilities (in no particular order)
Consequences, E. M. Delafield, from my Persephone collection
Ten Days in a Mad-House, Nellie Bly, nonfiction 19th investigative journalism into a NY asylum
There is a Tide, Agatha Christie
Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe (1719), peaked by my reading of The Moonstone and also fits DecadeCAT
The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather (1915), another DecadeCAT possibility
Anna of the Five Towns, Arnold Bennet (1902); historical fiction set in the Victorian era

Of course, there are only 23 days left in February, so who knows....

January Reading Wrap-Up:

I wanted to get to more this month, but that's OK.



❤️1. 84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff (1970); letters; audiobook re-read by Barbara Rosenblatt and others

I've made it a tradition to start the new year off with this wonderful testament to books and reading and friendships around books.



❤️2. Lady Susan, Jane Austen (1875); epistolary fiction; audiobook re-read by multiple narrators

Another one that I listen to at least once a year. It always puts me in a good mood.



3. Tea with Mr Rochester, Frances Towers (1949); short stories from my Persephone collection

This volume of short stories is the only collection of Frances Towers' writing and was published after her death. It's hard to describe her writing style, except to say that it's kind of ethereal and evocative. It takes concentration but is rewarding. My favorite was the title story, "Tea with Mr Rochester" about an adolescent girl who admires an older man from afar.



4. Letters for Literary Ladies, Maria Edgeworth (1795); letters/essays

This was a small volume first published in 1795. The first two letters are between two gentlemen friends. The first letter, "From a Gentleman to His Friend, upon the Birth of a Daughter", advises his friend that educating a woman can only bring unhappiness, with a long list of negatives. The response by his friend disagrees with every point and shows how a woman will be benefited by an education. The second set of letters are between two women, one of "sense" and the other of "sensibility," and concerns the marriage of the second. The last essay is a tongue-in-cheek argument on how a woman can win any argument with her husband.

Jane Austen admired Maria Edgeworth's work. I've read 3 of her novels and liked them all. In this volume I enjoyed the first set of letters the most, especially the way the arguments for education were expressed. The other letters and essay were interesting and funny, but not quite as spot-on as the first set.



5. A Murder is Announced, Agatha Christie (1950); mystery

A "murder game" becomes a real crime scene. Includes several characters who are living under a different name and/or different person's identity. Miss Marple gets involved (relatively) early in this one and provides the psychological rationale for the killer's actions. Although I didn't figure out the killer I did figure out the true background of Phillipa. I enjoyed this one more than I expected.



6. A Laodicean, Thomas Hardy (1881); fiction; the next book in the Thomas Hardy readalong challenge

This is a departure from rural Hardy and focuses on a decrepit castle in Wessex, its new wealthy female owner Miss Paula Power, and her two suitors, Mr Somerset (an architect) and Capt. De Stancy. The love triangle takes precedence as our suitors vie for her hand and the characters travel across Europe in pursuit of her. Lots of descriptions of architecture and an architect's work in this one as well as some rather sensational elements that kept me turning pages. In between Hardy has his characters argue the pros and cons of revering the aristocratic past vs. the benefits of progress and the new order.

Paula, the "Laodicean", got on my nerves after a while with her in inability to make up her mind. The love triangle seemed to take too long to resolve for me, and some details were sketchy, but the book was an interesting read and (surprise!) it did not end in complete misery.



7. The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins (1868); fiction; a re-read

This was a re-read and is an historical fiction novel of a stolen diamond from India, told in letters, documents and narratives. Set in 1848-1850, it has all the basic elements of a detective mystery as the genre would be known. The crime is investigated by both Sergeant Cuff, a hired detective from the Metropolitan Police and the main character, Franklin Blake, who has assembled all the documents two years after the crime. "Mesmerism" (hypnosis) and opium addiction are factors blurring the lines of the facts. Probably my favorite "narrator" was Gabriel, the house steward, whose testimony made me laugh out loud sometimes, especially when he quotes Robinson Crusoe. In subtle comments and documents, Collins takes a critical look at what it means "to steal" and the consequences of Britain's Imperialism in the 19th century.

I read this for my RL book club and led the group discussion. I liked this more than I did in previous readings, probably because I took copious notes and paid more attention to what was happening and why. For many years The Moonstone was thought to be the first English language full length detective novel until scholars discovered The Notting Hill Mystery, Charles Warren Adams (1863), which I read next.



8. The Notting Hill Mystery, Charles Warren Adams, aka Charles Felix (1863); mystery

I decided to read this book after reading introductory material on the last book I read, The Moonstone. For many years The Moonstone, published in 1868, was considered the first English-language detective novel, but recent scholarship as shown that The Notting Hill Mystery, first serialized in 1862-63, was a novel-length detective story that pre-dates The Moonstone.

Mr Henderson, an insurance investigator, is our narrator. He is investigating a large life insurance claim that appears to be questionable. He provides a basic narrative around letters, depositions, court documents, a marriage certificate and even a map to back up his investigation of possible murder(s). Like The Moonstone the story involves "mesmerism" (hypnosis) and takes some unusual turns and suppositions, so it's a bit hard to take seriously in the 21st century. On the other hand, it's presented in such an interesting structure that it had me turning pages to find out how the murders were committed. Although not up to our standards today, being the first of its kind gives the novel an added interest in the development of the detective novel.



9. A Year's Turning, Michael Viney (orig publ 1996; this edition 2022, with a new foreword by Viney); memoir/nature writing

Viney and his wife, both writers in Dublin, left their city life in the 1970s to live on a farm in a remote area of County Mayo on the Atlantic coast. Organized by months (January through December), Viney gives a smattering of life in that month in nature, coupled with his learning to adapt to living on a farm over many 20+ years.

The writing is exquisite, but often it meandered too much for me. Lots of terms for wildlife and plants and topography that were unknown to me, making the reading slow-going. This was an interlibrary loan book, so it had to be finished on time. If I can ever find a copy, I think I would read it again, slowly, over a year, one month at a time.

On the TBR for February:

I am very slowly making my way through Les Miserables--I'm reading about 25 pages a day and am now about 25% through the book. I'd like to finish by the end of March. Along the way I've been listening to the podcasts I found at The Les Miserables Reading Complanion (https://sites.google.com/view/readlesmis/home-menu) and they have been helpful.

Completed (books started in January)
✔️Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens (1865); re-read on audiobook narrated by Simon Vance
✔️Facing Unpleasant Facts: Narrative Essays, George Orwell (2009)
✔️Mary Olivier: A Life, May Sinclair, also for DecadeCAT from my Virago collection
✔️Ten Days in a Mad House, Nellie Bly, for February RandomKIT (hospitals)
✔️Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury, a re-read, for my RL book club
✔️Crossriggs, Jane & Mary Findlater (1908), a re-read,
✔️Two on a Tower, Thomas Hardy, next in the Hardy chronological read
✔️Anna of the Five Towns, Arnold Bennett (1902), a short classic

Currently Reading
Lost on the Lady Elgin, Valerie van Heest, for February Reading Through Time, about a Great Lakes ship disaster with connections to my family

Priorities
Consequences, E. M. Delafield, for DecadeCAT, from my Persephone collection

Audio
Les Miserables podcasts to supplement reading
Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer, on audio when I'm caught up with the Les Mis podcasts

As time allows:
There is a Tide, Agatha Christie, next in my Christie chronological reading
Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe, inspired by mentions in The Moonstone and also fits DecadeCAT
The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather, next in my Cather chronological reading and also fits DecadeCAT

On the TBR for March:

It's long, but so is March....

Completed
Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume II (Bantam Classic), Arthur Conan Coyle; on audiobook read by Simon Vance

Currently Reading
Lost on the Lady Elgin, Valerie van Heest, for February Reading Through Time, about a Great Lakes ship disaster with connections to my family
Les Miserables, Victor Hugo--hit the half-way point, and hope to complete this month
The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen, my complete the author challenge
All Things Wise and Wonderful, James Herriot

Priorities
Audiobook: The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy, for my Hardy challenge
Jessie Phillips, Mrs Trollope, March British Authors Challenge
Letters from Constance, Mary Hocking, March British Authors Challenge
Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Willa Cather, Reading through Time--March
Greenmantle, John Buchan, Color/CoverCAT
Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe, for RL book club
Virginia, Ellen Glasgow, my Virago chronological read
Ayala's Angel, Anthony Trollope, my complete the author challenge
There is a Tide, Agatha Christie, my complete the author challenge
Consequences, E. M. Delafield, from my Persephone collection

Priority library books
The Indomitable Mrs. Trollope, Eileen Bigland
Reunion, Fred Uhlman

Other Audio
Les Miserables podcasts to supplement reading
Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer, on audio when I'm caught up with the Les Mis podcasts

As time allows:
Murder at the Vicarage, Agatha Christie, a re-read
The Night of Fear, Moray Dalton
Fenny, Lettice Cooper
Mandoa, Mandoa!, Winifred Holtby
Rough Hewn, Dorothy Canfield Fisher
They Were Sisters, Dorothy Whipple

February reading wrap-up:



10. Facing Unpleasant Facts : Narrative Essays, George Orwell (2009); essays from the 1920s through 1950

George Orwell was first and foremost an essayist: he wrote hundreds of pieces of journalism, essays and short pieces. This collection of 27 narrative essays edited and selected by George Packer covers a selection from his first essay to his last published essay and all of them were accessible and interesting. They ranged from memoir to English food to politics and everything in-between. I think my favorites were the longest: his War-Time Diary from May to December 1940, and "Such, Such Sere the Joys", a poignant essay about Orwell's youth in a boarding school published after his death.

I had some trouble with some of the political content, as I'm not familiar with the nuances of political labeling (Leftist, Socialist, Communist, Right, etc.) as it applies to Britain and Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, but it didn't keep me from appreciating the basic thoughts in those essays. I plan to read All Art is Propaganda, a selection of his critical essays.



❤️11. Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens (1866); a re-read on audiobook read by Simon Vance

I believe this is the 4th time I've read this novel. The plot's too complicated to list here, but essentially it's about a man who pretends (for various reasons) to be someone else. And of course there are a myriad of side plots and characters that all seem to come together at the end. This time I noticed how many other characters pretend to be something that they're not, generally for bad or devious purposes. This is not my favorite Dickens, but I think it is his best crafted novel.

If you're interested and read the novel or aren't afraid of spoilers, I spent some time sorting through the characters here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/377436#9109269



12. Mrs Miniver, Jan Struther (1939, this edition 1942); fiction

Most people know this title from the 1942 film. Published just as the war was starting in Europe in Fall 1939, the book is a collection of articles Struther wrote for the The Times from 1937 to 1939 about a fictional "average" British woman and her life and thoughts. She hardly seemed "average" to me--several servants, two homes, etc. But it was still interesting, although I was less able to relate to her daily life. However, for some reason I was expecting this to be lighter stuff, but Struther actually ponders real concerns and inequalities that she sees around her. It ends Fall, 1939 as the family are fitted for gas masks and the war is becoming a reality, not some distant uncertainty. This 1942 edition added an additional piece by Struther set at Christmas, 1941. Overall it was interesting and it read very fast, as each chapter (article) is 4-5 pages.

I also watched the 1942 movie, which is mostly set during the war (not before) and has a completely different story line and feel from the book. The characters are basically the same, but they are now engulfed in war.



❤️13. Crossriggs, Jane & Mary Findlater (1908); fiction; a re-read

I read a library copy of this book back in 2022 and loved it. When I saw a copy in a used bookstore a few months ago, I grabbed it to re-read and I wasn't disappointed. This book was a roller-coaster of sorts: funny, sad, hopeful, despairing, all within the struggles of everyday people facing their small and not-so-small challenges that life puts in your way. We follow Alexandra Hope, about 30, who is living with her elderly father, "Old Hopeful", a "fruitarian" and all-round radical thinker. At the outset Alexandra's widowed sister and 5 young children from Canada join the family in their small house in the small village of Crossriggs. It is Alex who must find ways to make ends meet, and in these struggles we follow her good days and bad days, and her admirers and her secret loves. Through difficult situations Alex learns to follow her own path and it is a hopeful ending.

The introduction points out that it is thought that the Findlater sisters were influenced by Jane Austen's Emma, and some of those elements are apparent (hypochondriac widowed father, older calm sister). But this time I found Alex more like Jo March (from Little Women) than like Emma--Alex is determined to support her family with little resources. On re-reading this time I also found Alex sometimes annoying, as she often evades directly dealing with difficult situations. But I would still recommend this to anyone who loves this sort of story from the turn of the century, just for its enthusiasm and love of life.



14. Ten Days in a Mad-House: A Story of the Intrepid Reporter, Nellie Bly (1887); 19th century investigative reporting

Nellie Bly (real name: Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman) was a young reporter for the New York World when her editor asked her to investigate the living conditions at the notorious insane asylum on Blackwell's Island. She began by impersonating an insane person at a local boarding house, where the matron had her taken away by the police, brought before a judge and declared "insane." She was initially taken to Bellevue Hospital and then transferred to Blackwell's Island Asylum.

This book is based on her original newspaper articles that detailed the ill-treatment she received and the psychological and physical abuse of the hundreds of women inmates at the asylum. Inedible food, locked sleeping cells and regular beatings were all commonplace. She also found many women who, either because their English was limited or were destitute and very ill, were probably completely sane but were placed here because they had no where else to go. Her articles did eventually lead to additional funding and improvements at the asylum. Eye-opening and ground-breaking reporting by one of the very few young female reporters of her era.



15. Mary Olivier: A Life, May Sinclair (1919); fiction

This is the story of Mary's restricted life with her parents, focusing especially on a complex mother-daughter relationship, and apparently loosely based on Sinclair's own life. It was hard to like any of the characters, even poor Mary herself. Sinclair deep-dives into Mary's inner life, which felt overdone and repetitive to me.

Looking at comments of this book, there are loads of rave reviews. After I finished the novel I read the introduction by Jean Radford, who summed up my feelings about the novel: "The novel is too long; there are too many lovers lost; too much detail about her philosophical reading; too many scenes in which mother and daughter enact the same painful conflict." I loved Sinclair's Life and Death of Harriett Frean, but Mary Olivier just ended up feeling tedious.



❤️16. Two on a Tower, Thomas Hardy (1882); fiction

Hardy's seventh novel concerns a married woman who falls in love with a young man 10 years her junior while studying the stars together. Lots of plot twists and sensation-type elements in a stifling small town, which avoids blatant misery until the very end. Not the best Hardy novel, but it was a page-turner and Hardy gets in lots of astronomy which made the novel surprisingly interesting. Recommended if you'd like to read a Hardy novel that won't leave you completely devastated.



17. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (1953); science fiction; a re-read for book club

This is the classic story set in the future about Guy Montag, a fireman whose job is to burn books. Montag slowly begins to see what destroying knowledge may mean for the future. Guy's wife spends her time in one room of the house where the walls are covered with screens--she calls this "her family"--not all that far away from today's social media explosion.

Bradbury's writing is stunning, but it took some time for me to get into the flow of it. This was my book club's selection for February and generated a lot of great discussion. The edition I read was the 60th anniversary edition, with 60+ pages of additional material which really enhanced my reading, including several pieces by Bradbury on the making of the novel.



❤️18. Anna of the Five Towns, Arnold Bennett (1902); fiction

This is a short novel with an interesting portrait of the Staffordshire pottery towns at the turn of the 20th century, focusing on Anna, a young woman and her tyrannic, miserly father who rules nearly every aspect of her life. There are several interesting scenes, including a highly detailed and descriptive chapter when Anna gets a tour of a pottery factory, following a lump of clay to finished dinner plate. Another scene records Anna's first trip outside the Five Towns area to the Isle of Man and her awe and wonder on the sea and the beauty of the island.

Bennett, who grew up in the area, gives us a portrait of a complex female character in an almost impossible situation, but doesn't flinch from a realistic ending. I enjoyed it more than I expected and I think it will stay with me for a long time. I plan to continue reading more of his "Five Towns" books.



19. Christine, Alice Cholmondeley pseud. of Elizabeth von Arnim (1917); epistolary novel

The story is told in fictional letters in 1914 from Christine, a teen-aged daughter studying violin in Germany, to her English mother. Christine arrives in Berlin in early 1914 to study with a renowned master, as she has been identified as having great talent. She has limited German, but she observes and reports on the people she meets and lives with in a boarding house. She practices hard and yet feels isolated until she meets a young soldier who shares her love of music. As war is declared in August 1914, she must find her way out of Germany.

This is loosely based on von Arnim's own daughter who became trapped while studying in Germany as war was declared, and eventually died of pneumonia there. There is very clear German stereotyping in this book, probably due to von Arnim's own experience with her estranged husband. This was an easy, flowing read, as von Arnim's writing always is, but there is a definite point of view that might be considered propaganda of its time.

April has possibilities, possibilities, and even more possibilities:

Completed
Les Miserables, Victor Hugo (1862)
The Les Miserables Reading Companion Podcasts, Prof Briana Lewis--to supplement my Les Mis reading
The Gipsy in the Parlour, Margery Sharp (1953)
John Caldigate, Anthony Trollope (1879)
A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett (1905) -- for the DecadeCat--"00"s
Two Spring issues of Chicago History Magazine -- for the Reading through Time April theme of "Spring"
Miss Pym Disposes, Josephine Tey
The Woodlanders, Thomas Hardy (1887) -- next in my Hardy chronological reading

Currently Reading
Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler (1993) -- for my RL book club
Cross Channel, Julian Barnes -- for the April monthly author read
Lost on the Lady Elgin, Valerie van Heest -- nonfiction about the Great Lakes disaster, that I *need* to finish this month
All Things Wise and Wonderful, James Herriot

Priorities
Virginia, Ellen Glasgow (1913) -- next in my Virago reading
The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton (1905) -- for the Decade Cat and next in my Wharton Chronological reading; a re-read
Stephen Fry in America: Fifty States and the Man Who Set Out To See Them All, Stephen Fry (2008)--for April BAC

Audio
Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer (2013)

Library Books
Deborah, Esther Singer Kreitman -- fiction by the sister of I B Singer

And if time permits.....
The Song of the Lark, Willa Cather
Castle Rackrent and Ennui, Maria Edgeworth
A Pocketful of Rye, A. J. Cronin

Enjoyed any of these? Let me know!!

March reading wrap-up:



❤️20. Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume II, Arthur Conan Doyle (this edition 1986); novella and short stories; on audiobook narrated by Simon Vance

Volume II contains The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902); The Valley of Fear (1914); His Last Bow (1917) and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1927). I listened to this on audio read by Simon Vance. I've been listening to the complete works over the last year and half and have enjoyed it quite a bit. It's a great one to listen to between other books--easy to pick up and put down. I'm so glad I committed to this project as it brought a great deal of enjoyment over the past months. Now I have all of them to listen to again & again, when I need a break from other works.



21. The Hotel, Elizabeth Bowen (1927); fiction

The nameless hotel in this story is a famous vacation spot for British upper-class tourists on the Italian Riviera. There are a variety of characters, including widows, young women on the lookout for husbands, clerics on vacation and the occasional obscure young man. We focus on one young woman, Sydney, 21, who is bit too carefree and unconventional compared to the rest. Brought here by her cousin, she becomes friends with Mrs Kerr, an enterprising 40-something widow. Sydney is not without a few stray admirers along the way.

This is Bowen's first novel from 1927. The characters are, on the whole, hard to like and even harder to understand. The dialogue was sometimes difficult to follow--it felt like it was above or below or floating around its meaning, but perhaps I'm not smart enough to understand all the implications. Poor Mr Milton, who has become entranced with Sydney, was the only character who seemed to speak directly about anything.

I've read a couple of Elizabeth Bowen's novels (Friends and Relations, The Last September) and enjoyed them, and now have quite a few of her others unread on the shelf. I'm ambivalent about continuing with her books; I may try one more--The Death of the Heart looks to be her most popular--before I decide to give her up.



❤️❤️22. Ayala's Angel, Anthony Trollope (1881); fiction

What a delight to come "home" to Trollope! He is on his game in this wonderful story of two sisters, Ayala, 19 and Lucy, 21. Recently orphaned, they are each sent separately to homes of relations--outgoing Ayala to the wealthy Tringle family and quiet Lucy to the just-getting-by Dosetts. As they learn to adjust to these new surroundings, both girls are very unhappy and clash with their new guardians. The plot focuses more on Ayala, who is a dreamer and has imprinted in her mind the ideal husband--her "Angel of Light." She seems to attract suitors everywhere she goes, much to the disapproval of her Aunt Tringle and to Ayala's own disgust, as none measure up to her "Angel." Besides the two sisters, there are several other budding young couples in the Tringle family and beyond. In the end, it all works out to just about everyone's satisfaction.

This is a wonderful romantic comedy in Trollope's own off-hand style. The names alone had me laughing: Mr Tringle works for "Travers and Treason", counting his millions; Ayala's suitors include Colonel Stubbs, Captain Batsby, and her cousin "poor Tom" Tringle; a romantic walk is taken in Gobblegoose Wood. Just some of the funny and almost fairy-tale like names. There are laugh-out loud moments, but it's not without some serious thoughts about love and marriage and money. I loved this--it will be a favorite comforting re-read for many years to come.



❤️23. Reunion, Fred Uhlman (1971); fiction

This is a short novella set in 1930s Stuttgart, Germany, about the end of the friendship and childhood of two teen-aged boys: Hans, the son of a middle-class Jewish doctor, and Konradin, an upper-class schoolmate with whom Hans forms an intense friendship. Formed on common interests of coins and collecting, the book is told from the hindsight point of view of Hans some 30 years later, in a poetic and intense style. The forces of the times ultimately decide what happens to their friendship.

Fred Uhlman (1901-1985) was born in Stuttgart into a Jewish family and obtained a law degree in 1923. After Hitler took power in 1933, Uhlman left Germany for Paris, then Spain, finally settling in England in 1936 with no English. Here he married an English woman he had met in Spain and supported himself by painting. When the war began, he was interred on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien. After the war he continued to paint and featured in exhibitions. Besides Reunion, Uhlman wrote one other novel and a memoir, The Making of an Englishman (1960).

Many books have been written about this era, but this short book encapsulates so much in just a little over 100 pages. It was intense and a compelling look at everyday life in 1930s Germany.



24. There is a Tide, Agatha Christie (1948); mystery

The mystery was decent (several murders connected to many family members who feel their inheritance has been unfairly taken away from them), but in the end it seems no one is held responsible for 3 deaths, blackmailing, robbery or impersonating a deceased person. But the book was completely ruined for me in the last couple of pages when a woman, who has broken off her engagement, returns to her fiancee when she realizes that she really does love him because he shows his "manliness" by nearly strangling her to death in an uncontrollable rage. Excuse me??? Agatha, what were you thinking????



25. Sapphira and the Slave Girl, Willa Cather (1940); fiction

Set in western Virginia in 1856, Sapphira and her husband Henry own a mill, farm and large house, and have enslaved people inherited by Sapphira. They live in an area where slave ownership is not common and Henry is conflicted about slavery. The story centers around Nancy, a young slave in her late teens, whose mother and grandmother live and work on the premises. Sapphira has become irrationally jealous of Nancy and makes Nancy's life miserable.

This was Cather's last novel and is set in the area of western Virginia where she was born and where her mother grew up, and is supposedly loosely based on family stories Cather heard as a child. The characters are complicated and nuanced, and the plot had me turning pages. NOTE: The language used made me uncomfortable (the n-word and "darkies"), but it was probably reflective of the language at the time (1850s).



26. Letters from Constance, Mary Hocking (1991); fiction, from my Virago collection

Constance and Sheila have been close friends since school days. In 1939, as Constance prepares to join the WRNS and Sheila is off to university, they vow to keep in touch by letter. We only read Constance's letters to Sheila found in Sheila's desk after her death. (Constance, obeying Sheila's wishes, has burnt all the letters she received from Sheila.) But even with only one side of the correspondence we get full pictures of the two young women as they make their way through school and war, marriage and children, love and loss. The letters end with Sheila's death in 1986.

I've read 3 other novels by Mary Hocking and enjoyed them quite a bit. For whatever reason, I was not completely engaged in this book until close to the end of the book, when Constance tries to organize her thoughts about one of her sons who has gotten in trouble with the law. I liked Constance as a "narrator" but I think I might have liked this book better 20 or 30 years ago, and I'm not sure why. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it, but didn't love it like I wanted to.



27. Robinson Crusoe, Daniel DeFoe (1719); fiction; read for my RL book club

Although I vaguely knew bits of this story (deserted island, my man Friday), I had never read this classic or seen any of many movies based on the book. The story essentially begins when Crusoe, around age 18, defies his parents and longing for travel, enters into the sailing life. After many adventures (good and bad), he is the lone survivor of a shipwreck in 1659, swims to the shore of an island which he surmises to be some distance off the coast of South America. Soon he realizes he is probably the only human on the island, swims & recovers as much as he can from the disabled ship, and begins to make a life for himself. His work building a shelter, growing food and surviving over 20 years takes up about 2/3 of the book. Eventually some natives from the mainland arrive on the island and Crusoe rescues one man who is most probably going to be dinner for the rest. Crusoe names this native "Friday", teaches him English and is thankful for a human companion. The rest of the book details how Crusoe & Friday manage to leave the island.

This was surprisingly readable and quite philosophical in its way. Crusoe recovers several Bibles from the ship, and these he relies on heavily; he argues often with himself of what the right and moral course should be and credits Providence to his good luck and fortune in staying alive so many years. I enjoyed this book until about the last 20 pages or so, in which Crusoe, after returning to England, goes on another sailing adventure, which didn't seem to make sense to me and the book ends rather abruptly. The book has a lot to say about survival and perseverance.

My book club wanted to read this because of a book we had read in January, The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1868), in which one of the characters is often quoting from Robinson Crusoe. None of us had read it, although most were familiar with the story. I'm glad one classic led us to another classic that has remained influential for centuries.



28. The Indomitable Mrs. Trollope, Eileen Bigland (1953); biography

Better known as the mother of novelist Anthony Trollope, Frances (Fanny) Trollope (1780-1863) was a celebrated novelist in her time. Not only did she write dozens of books, she traveled extensively, including to America, and supported her husband and children with her writing. From this account, Fanny Trollope was a non-stop whirlwind until dementia slowed her down in her later years.

But these old biographies bother me, as we aren't told where the author got her information on the many day-to-day details. From letters? memoirs? There's no index or detail of sources, just a listing of all of Fanny's published works. For me it's hard to put any faith in the narrative without any documentation.



❤️29. The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy (1886); fiction

I've been reading Hardy's 14 novels in chronological order; I had read 8 of them years ago, including this one, which I've read at least 3 times before. The novel follows the adult life of Michael Henchard, a farm laborer, who becomes drunk at a fair and sells off his young bride and infant child to a passing sailor for 5 guineas. The next morning Henchard awakes from his stupor, repents his terrible deed and vows he will change his ways and pursue a productive life. He settles in the cathedral town of Casterbridge, builds up a grain business and eventually rises to mayor of the town. But one day nearly twenty years later, Henchard's past walks back into his life and thus starts his decline.

The Mayor of Casterbridge has always been my favorite Hardy novel, and so far in this chronological reading of his novels still remains my favorite. I particularly love Hardy's descriptions of Wessex and Casterbridge as a place with ancient roots and traditional values. The country people and customs were enjoyable. There are many twists and turns of the plot, which keeps the book at a fast pace. There is nothing in all of Hardy in the books up to this point to match the complex character study of Michael Henchard, at once kind and generous, then suddenly full of temper and rage, and finally overwhelmingly repentant. And this cycle repeats over and over. Hardy contrasts the old world (Henchard) with the new (Donald Farfrae, his young assistant), and makes us feel like we are looking back at a very ancient time; yet he was writing in 1886 about events circa 1846. Hardy's portrayal of women in this novel, especially Henchard's daughter Elizabeth Jane, felt well-rounded and sympathetic.

On this reading I listened to Simon Vance's narration and it moved me to tears many times. I also splurged on a new Oxford Classics edition, as my old Penguin was very beat up and had irritating spoiler-y notes, so I was not sad to part with it.



30. Still Glides the Stream, D. E. Stevenson (1959); fiction

Will Hastie and Patty Murray have known each other since childhood. Patty is recently engaged to her cousin Hugo, who is the typical Stevenson cad, while Will has returned home from the service to work the Hastie family farm. But there's a mystery about the death of Patty's brother (and Will's best friend) during the war, which takes Will on a trip to France. When Will returns from France, what he learns there unravels the Murray family.

Stevenson can communicate her love of Scotland so well and in this book contrasts her native land with a post-war France she doesn't quite understand or particularly like. Easy reading, a nice romance and perfectly forgettable.

>68 kac522: The Man Who Was Thursday and Miss Pym Disposes were both 4★ reads for me.
It’s many a year since I read the James Herriot books, but I remember some of his stories being laugh-out-loud funny. I think I’d like to revisit them.

>70 Sergeirocks: Good to know about the Chesterton & Tey books. I've decided to pause the Chesterton for a couple of months, but hope to get to the Tey in a few days.

Yes, the Herriot books are so wonderful, and they're easy to pick up, put down and pick up later--you can get back into the flow immediately. They are a nice break between other more demanding books. I just finished Les Miserables last night so a few chapters with Mr Herriot might be in order tonight!

What's on the May pile?

Lots, as usual....

Currently Reading
Audiobook: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, read by the author
Lost on the Lady Elgin, Valerie van Heest--MUST finish this in May
History Matters, David McCullough--just purchased this month and loving it
All Thing Wise and Wonderful, James Herriot--reading a chapter or two between other books, so a slow read

Priorities
LIBRARY BOOKS! I have way too many and I need to get these read:
Deborah, Esther Singer Kreitman
The Eye of Love, Marjorie Sharp
When Cranes Fly South, Lisa Ridzen

For Challenges:
South Riding, Winifred Holtby (for the DecadesCAT--the 30s)
Crooked Cross, Sally Carson (for the DecadesCAT--the 30s--set in Nazi Germany)
Rules of Civility, Amor Towles (Color/CoverKIT--turquoise/jewelry and DecadesCAT--set in the 30s)
Tender is the Night, F Scott Fitzgerald (DecadesCAT--the 30s and for my RL Book club)
Anne of Ingleside, L M Montgomery--next in the Anne series & published in 1939, so fits 30s DecadesCAT)

For my Author Challenges:
Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
They Were Sisters, Dorothy Whipple
The American Senator, Anthony Trollope

If time permits...
Three Blind Mice, Agatha Christie
The Trees, Conrad Richter--a book recommended in David McCullough's History Matters

And possibly start The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (3 novels & 2 novellas), which I plan to read over the summer.

April reading wrap-up:


❤️31. The Gipsy in the Parlour, Margery Sharp (1953); fiction

Our narrator is a young girl from London (never named) who spends her summers in the early 1870s with her aunts and uncles on their large Devonshire farm. The uncles are the four Sylvester brothers: handsome but mostly silent. Three of the brothers are married to big, blonde, formidable countrywomen who effectively run the household. Our narrator becomes a special favorite of the aunts, even though they are sometimes blunt or gruff in their ways. The equilibrium in the household is turned upside-down when the youngest brother, Stephen, shows up unexpectedly with his bride-to-be. Fanny--slim, dark-haired and sophisticated--has arrived to get married, but suddenly becomes ill, goes into a "decline" and takes over the family's parlour as she languishes on the sofa. The Sylvester household will never be the same.

This started out slowly but ended up being delightful, with clever writing and dialogue. The narration is many years after the fact, with many insights (and hindsights). The men are very much in the background, but the women in this book are complex and interesting characters. Sharp also employs an unusual dialect for the aunts and uncles, which adds a certain charm to the narration. At first I wasn't sure where the story was going, but about half-way through it picked up quite a bit and I'm glad I stuck with it, as it ends to everyone's satisfaction.


32. Chicago History, Spring 1995, Volume XXIV, Number 1, Rosemary Adams, ed. (1995);
and
33. Chicago History, Spring 1996, Volume XXV, Number 1, Rosemary Adams, ed. (1996)

Chicago History is the quarterly journal published by the Chicago Historical Society. I have quite a few of these issues picked up through the years, and focused on two unread “Spring” issues to meet the Reading Through Time April Challenge theme of “Spring.”

The Spring 1995 issue featured 3 articles:
--"Chicago and the Rise of Brewery Architecture" by Susan K. Appel, which described the "golden age" of American brewery architecture. From the end of the Civil War until Prohibition, brewery architecture required certain engineering and technical knowledge of brewing. Chicago, because of its central location and railroad hub attracted a large number of these architects who designed projects throughout the United States and Canada. I thought the article was well-done and clear, following the history from the earliest men to the Prohibition era, when breweries were no longer being built.
--"The Past and the Promise" by Olivia Mahoney is a history in photographs and short descriptions of the Douglas/Grand Boulevard neighborhood in Chicago on the near South Side. Named for Stephen Douglas, who owned much of the land in the area, this later became the famous "Black Belt" of Chicago, sometimes called Bronzeville. I thought this was the most interesting of the articles, particularly because of the archival photographs and the detailed background to each.
--"Friendless Foundlings and Homeless Half-Orphans" by Joan Gittens is an excerpt from her book Poor Relations: The Children of the State in Illinois (1818-1990. This excerpt focuses on the orphaned and homeless children in the 19th century in Illinois. The article included devastating photographs of destitute children and descriptions appalling conditions and attitudes. However I had a hard time following it because it didn't seem to follow any particular structure and was not organized in any order. I think because it was an excerpt from a larger work, it didn't feel cohesive or logically put together. It was the longest article in this issue and the one I felt I got the least out of, except for the photographs. They told more of the story than the text did.

The Spring 1996 issue had 3 articles and all were about Abraham Lincoln:
--A history of the February 1909 Centennial celebration of the 100th anniversary of Lincoln's birth across the U.S.
--A photo essay of Lincoln memorabilia acquired by the Chicago Historical Society, from his death through 1995.
--Finally, a description of the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates was my favorite article. These debates were in 1858 for U.S. Senator from Illinois between challenger Abraham Lincoln and incumbent Stephen Douglas, and occurred in several localities throughout the state. The article focused on them as events: how they were organized, who came and how they got there, and descriptions of the crowds, using newspaper accounts and personal memoirs as source material. Needless to say, it was a far cry from our controlled TV debates of today! Although Lincoln lost the Senate election, the debates helped make him a national figure.


34. Les Miserable, Victor Hugo; translated from the French by Christine Donougher (1862); fiction

I started reading this in January and finished in early April. I feel completely incompetent to give this novel justice, but is much, much more than ex-convict Jean Valjean being chased by policeman Javert and the side romance of Marius and Cosette. Set in France circa 1815-1833, everything in this book is grounded in French history, particularly the long-term effects of the French Revolution. It is the story of the miserables--those who are abandoned by society that even the law treats unfairly.

I did love the beginning section featuring the Bishop's story, but once he leaves the plot I was less engaged, although he does over-shadow Jean Valjean's choices and actions for the rest of the book. On my own, I would not have understood much of the significance of this masterpiece without the help of The Les Miserables Reading Companion podcast
( https://sites.google.com/view/readlesmis/home-menu ), a series of 60 episodes, which goes chapter by chapter, explaining the themes, subtle meanings in the original French, historical & political backgrounds and author's background as reflected in the text. Overall I am glad I read it, slowly, and with help. I think I can say I appreciated what Hugo was trying to do more than I loved it.


35. A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett (1905); children’s fiction

Although I read The Secret Garden, I never read anything else by Frances Hodgson Burnett as a child. This book is about Sara Crewe, who has lived a comfortable life in India and is brought to England by her father for school. Sara is very good and very smart; she is given special notice by the headmistress Miss Minchin because of her wealth. But life for Sara changes when her father dies, her wealth is gone and she becomes a charity pupil.

I think if I had read this as a child I would have liked A Little Princess more than The Secret Garden, but as an adult I found Sara too perfect and the story too unbelievable. I re-read The Secret Garden a couple of years ago, and while not perfect, I think it has more interesting and realistic characters, as well as the wonderful descriptions of the garden. Both stories have Hodgson Burnett's "Magic" theme, which is more expanded in The Secret Garden.


❤️36. John Caldigate, Anthony Trollope (1879); fiction

John Caldigate, lured by gold, goes to Australia to make his fortune. His long sea voyage is made easy by a new acquaintance, Mrs. Smith. Some years later, Caldigate returns to England, having made money and sold his interest in a gold mine. He marries the girl of his dreams, but is soon confronted with accusations of dishonesty and bigamy by old "friends" from the gold mines. The rest of the story is John's legal issues & trial, how it affects his marriage and the importance of a postage stamp.

This was quite a fast-paced novel, almost sensational in its tone. The descriptions of mining in Australia when John arrives, were fascinating, and were based on Trollope's own experience visiting Australia's mines. However, we're used to Trollope letting us in on the true details of a story, but in this novel Trollope gives us few particulars of John's latter years in the mines, and we must learn them slowly as our other characters learn them. This was a bit frustrating because it was so unlike Trollope's normal story-telling, but certainly keeps the reader turning pages! John was not particularly likable as a young man, but I think he does gain wisdom as he ages. The character I loved was John's father, Mr Caldigate, who slowly comes to respect and appreciate his son. I had a hard time, though, with Mrs Bolton, the mother of John's wife, who was unbending in her religious beliefs. Overall, a solid Trollope novel, with many interesting bits and a few frustrating ones.


37. Miss Pym Disposes, Josephine Tey (1946); mystery

I wasn't engaged in this girls' school story, so for me it took too long (nearly 3/4 of the book!) to finally get to the mystery and by that time I had lost interest. And the resolution wasn't clear (at least to me), which I found frustrating, although I admit true mystery fans might find it intriguing.


38. The Woodlanders, Thomas Hardy (1887); fiction

Grace Melbury, the daughter of a local timber dealer, returns from boarding school. Years before she and the local apple farmer, Giles Winterborne, had pledged themselves to each other. But her father, who spent considerable money to send her away to improve her station, is not completely happy with this choice. When Winterborne is essentially ruined, Grace catches the fancy of the new doctor in town, Edred Fitzpiers, a highly educated man with noble lineage. Encouraged by her father, Grace agrees to marry Fitzpiers, though there are signs that he has a roving eye.

I don't know how to review this novel--I feel like I need to read it again to do it justice. I know there are some who consider this their favorite Hardy novel. But from the very beginning the novel had a feeling of doom for me. There are lovely descriptions of the woodlands and as always some interesting local characters. But for me Giles & another character, Marty South, are portrayed as too good, too true and too loyal to be believed. Grace, on the other hand, is portrayed as indecisive and inconstant, despite all the pressures, both internal and external, that are put upon her. I disliked Hardy's attitude toward Grace, but I’m finding that Hardy never seems to portray a main female character that we (or more accurately, Hardy himself) can trust.


39. Cross Channel, Julian Barnes (1996); short stories

A set of 10 short stories about Brits in France. Most were forgettable. The only one where I truly felt engaged was "Evermore", about an elderly British woman who makes the trip to France every year to visit her brother's WWI grave in a British cemetery in northern France. Her memories of her brother, of the war, and of her life dedicated to his memory was the most moving story in the collection for me.


40. The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton (1905); fiction

Lily Bart is 29 years old, with a lovely face, aristocratic ambitions but no fortune to support her glamorous New York life-style. Marriage is her only option, but every time an eligible man seems to materialize, Lily backs out. As her debts mount, her desperation only causes her to become shunned by the very people that she wishes to impress. We watch as Lily constantly weighs her ambitions vs. ethical behavior.

I tried to like Lily Bart, but I had a hard time with it. I understand what Wharton was doing--exposing the shallow and meaningless society, and how even those with sometimes good intentions are caught up in the rat race. It's beautifully written, but it is a story doomed from the beginning.

June Reading Plans

I've been participating in the DecadesCAT Challenge in the 2026 Category Challenge Group. Each month the challenge is to read a book from a specific decade (20s, 30s, 40s, etc.). The decade can be from any century (i.e., the 20s could be 2021 or 1922 or 1823 or 1724, etc.). This month, June, is an "open" challenge, meaning you can choose whatever decade you want.

I've decided to create a mini-challenge for myself: to read one book from all ten decades for the month of June. Since I average about 10 titles per month, I think this is doable. I've come up with 10 "primary" titles (mostly those that meet other challenges), one for each decade, and an alternative for each decade, to give myself some mood and wiggle room.

Here's my current list of 10 proposed reads for June and 10 alternates, listed by decade, with a BIG caveat that it's all subject to change!:

00s: The Man Who Was Thursday, G. K. Chesterton (1908) OR A Man of Property, John Galsworthy (1906) (first book in the Forsyte Saga)
10s: This is Happiness, Niall Williams (2019) OR Lost on the Lady Elgin, V van Heest (2010)
20s: Open the Door!, Catherine Carswell (1920) OR History Matters, David McCullough (2025)
30s: Anne of Ingleside, L. M. Montgomery (1939) OR Faster! Faster!, E. M. Delafield (1936)
40s: They Were Sisters, Dorothy Whipple (1943) OR The Trees, Conrad Richter (1940)
50s: Troy Chimneys, Margaret Kennedy (1953) OR Three Blind Mice, Agatha Christie (1950)
60s: The Johnstown Flood, David McCullough (1968) OR Martha in Paris, Margery Sharp (1962)
70s: The American Senator, Anthony Trollope (1877) OR The Innocents, Margery Sharp (1972)
80s: Marion Fay, Anthony Trollope (1882) OR A Writer's Eye, Paul Horgan (1988)
90s: The Well-Beloved, Thomas Hardy 1892) OR Through Connemara in a Governess Cart, E. Somerville & V. M. Ross (1893)

I have no planned order of reading (besides library due dates) except to alternate short/easy with long/hard books, which I do every month.

If you've read any of these, let me know! These are all new to me except The Johnstown Flood, which I am re-reading for my RL book club on audio.

May Reading Wrap-up:


❤️41. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer (2015); on audiobook, read by the author; nonfiction, biology, ecology, Native Americans

This is a wonderful combination of memoir, Native American culture, biology and ecology, all told in a poetic prose. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a professor of environmental biology and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. The nature writing is outstanding. It was especially lovely to listen to her read the book; her voice is soft and calming and perfectly reflected the respect for nature she was conveying.

I was a little confused by the structure; it sort of rambled from one topic to another. And some of it is repetitive when emphasizing the philosophies of native cultures. But these are minor bits. Her message is important and needs to be read by all Americans.


42. When the Cranes Fly South, Lisa Ridzén, translated from the Swedish by Alice Menzies (2025); fiction

Bo is in his late 80s, living alone with his beloved dog and has a rotation of caretakers to help with everyday tasks. His wife is institutionalized with dementia. His son Hans visits occasionally and attempts to manage his father's care. The story is told in alternating parts of caretaker's notes and Bo's thoughts, dreams and memories. When his son suggests that Bo can no longer care properly for his dog, tensions rise and Bo begins to give up hope.

This was a realistic but emotional book. I sometimes felt manipulated, but I suppose it's just the content. Plus I don't understand why they didn't just hire somebody to walk the dog?? Oh well, then there wouldn't be a story.


❤️43. The Eye of Love, Margery Sharp (1957): fiction

It's 1932 and 9-year-old Martha is an orphan living with her middle-aged aunt, Miss Dolores Diver. Martha and Miss Diver get on well, although Martha is generally quiet and undemonstrative. Miss Diver has a devoted gentleman friend of 10 years, Mr Harry Gibson, a 50-something bachelor furrier, who visits often and has paid for the lease on Miss Diver's residence. When Mr Gibson's mother insists he consider marrying the wealthy Miranda Joyce, Mr Gibson reluctantly agrees, seeing the advantages of combining his business with the business of Miranda's father. How all is handled by Miss Diver, Mr Gibson and Martha follows.

I love Margery Sharp's writing--every sentence is a whimsical delight. When a librarian pushes too many books on Martha, our author provides this aside: "Interferingness--an adult vice." Martha will go on to teach herself drawing, while the adults work out the logistics of living and loving. Just a fun story, and the first in a trilogy.


44. Five Days in London, May 1940, John Lukacs (1999); on audiobook read by Ralph Cosham; nonfiction; WWII

This covers May 24-28, 1940, when Lukacs contends that new PM Winston Churchill coalesced the War Cabinet to support fighting the Nazis to the bitter end. Prior to these days Neville Chamberlain (the former PM) and Lord Halifax were somewhat leaning toward settling with Hitler. Lukacs uses notes, correspondence, memoirs and other official materials to tell the story of the relationship of these 3 men, their personalities, backgrounds and motives. He also spends time relating public opinion at the time from sources such as writers, other statesmen, local newspapers and the Mass-Observation reports that gathered public opinion.

This was probably too detailed for me and my ignorance of the men and times made it more difficult for me to understand the significance of Lukacs' research. However, I still enjoyed and appreciated his ability to describe each of the main players and their interactions with each other. I particularly enjoyed the public opinion parts of each chapter, and now have several other sources to follow-up about this period, including Nella's Last War by Nella Last, England's Hour by Vera Brittain and The Oaken Heart by Margery Allingham.

One drawback was that the audiobook narration by Ralph Cosham was uninspired, and it was difficult to tell when a footnote ended and the narrative resumed. Since Lukacs' footnotes were long, I think the book might have worked better for me if I had read it; I did consult it sometimes while listening and when the narration seemed confused.


45. Tess of the D'Urbervilles : a Pure Woman, Thomas Hardy (1891); fiction

Tess Durbeyfield, 16, is the daughter of a poor laborer/haggler who is prone to drink. When her father is told by a local clergyman that he is a descendant of the aristocratic D'Urberville family, Tess is urged by her parents to visit the newly arrived D'Urbervilles, comprised of a widow and her son, the heir. Not long after beginning employment with Mrs. D'Urberville, Tess becomes constantly harassed by the son, Alec, and within weeks is pregnant. She returns to her family to escape his abuses, eventually bearing a child that soon dies. From this point Tess's fate slowly declines because her "sin" has marked her forever in the eyes of society.

I believe I read this in the 1970s, but didn't remember much except some basic plot lines. Certainly one of the most poetic of Hardy's novels, one can feel the inevitable doom from the beginning. Although I felt great sympathy for Tess, I felt that Hardy was only partially in her corner. There are very few examples of Tess's own thoughts and feelings; we hear them all (except for several letters) from the narrator's perspective. Her "fall" is inevitable in Hardy's view, because she is part of "Nature" and therefore subject to the natural laws of sex and desire. Men are not accountable because they are only acting with their own natural instincts, and it is society, in its judgment, that is flawed. I found this reading torturous and was glad to be done with it.


❤️46. The Foolish Gentlewoman, Margery Sharp (1948); fiction

It is 1946 and Mrs Isabel Brocken, an elderly childless widow, returns to her large home in suburban London. Living with her are her nephew Humphrey, a WWII Australian vet; her household help Jacqueline Brown; and Mrs Poole the cook and her teen-aged daughter Grace. Newly arrived to live with Isabel is her late husband's brother, Simon Brocken, a curmudgeonly solicitor and manager of Isabel's affairs, who needs temporary lodging while his bombed home is being repaired. This assorted crew learn to get along reasonably well, mostly due to Isabel's excellent handling of all the diverse personalities. But Isabel is troubled by a wrong that she did to her distant relative Tilly Cuff more than 30 years ago, and Isabel is contemplating how to atone for it. Against her brother-in-law's advice, Isabel invites Tilly to stay; but the peaceful household will never be the same.

Margery Sharp is a sort of mid 20th century mix of Jane Austen, Barbara Pym and E. M. Delafield. Her writing is intelligent, witty and just plain interesting. Her characterizations are always multi-faceted: even characters that seem unlikeable have some redeeming qualities. This book was quite the page-turner for me: I finished it in 2 days. I was a bit puzzled with the ending; it was anticlimactic, to say the least, but I think that was the point. It was reflecting the feeling of those post-war times, when returning men & women from the service were not sure what they'll do next, jobs were scarce, rationing was still in force and the social order was rapidly changing. After thinking about it for awhile, it was the right ending for the times.


❤️47. South Riding, Winifred Holtby (1936 post.); fiction

Set in southeast Yorkshire in 1933-34, this is a sprawling book about a mostly rural area and the challenges of economic and social pressures between the wars. There's a 6 page character list at the beginning of the book, which was most useful. The novel is divided into sections that are titled with areas of concern for the community: Education, Highways and Bridges, Public Health, Housing and Town Planning, etc. Each section follows people of the town involved or impacted by these areas, including poor folk, rich folk, men out to make money and men with ulterior motives.

Although filled with characters, the story concentrates on 3 people: Sarah Burton, the new headmistress of the girls' high school, just come from London with socialist ideas; Robert Carne, a conservative gentry farmer trying to keep his family's many-generations' farm afloat; and Mrs Beddows, the first (and only) woman alderman on the local council. There are parallels to some 19th century classics, like Middlemarch (the large cast and focus on one community) and Jane Eyre (the electric relationship between Miss Burton & Carne), with 20th century sensibilities.

Holtby knew she was dying as she wrote, and finished the last chapter just a month before she died. Her good friend Vera Brittain edited and had the novel published. A sweeping story of the 1930s that I know I need to read again to fully appreciate.


❤️48. Crooked Cross, Sally Carson (1934); fiction

This book tells the story of the Kluger family (father, mother and 3 adult children) from December 1932 to Summer 1933. The family, like many in their small southern German town, are barely making ends meet. Only the daughter Lexa, age 20, is working; father and the 2 sons have been out of work for some time, but recently Helmy has joined the Nazi party and is finally feeling a sense of purpose. His brother Erich will soon follow. Lexa is engaged to Moritz Weissmann, son of a Jewish father and Catholic mother and is employed as a doctor. They are waiting for a promotion for Moritz to finalize their wedding plans. The book follows the family and their friends through Summer 1933 as tensions rise outside and inside the family circle.

This is an amazing and unbelievably prophetic story of one average family during Hitler's rise to power. The characterizations and tense family dynamics kept me riveted to the story.

Author Sally Carson, British, was on an extended visit to friends in Bavaria during this time and began writing the novel in Germany and later finished it in England before its publication in 1934. It received solid reviews when released but has been long out of print until Persephone republished it in 2025. Carson went on to write two more books following the Kluger family into 1936. Sadly, Sally Carson died of cancer in 1941, never to see the fall of Nazism.