Open Book: July 2016

    June's general life craziness did not allow for much reading. I was able to finish the Princess Bride memoir As You Wish; as well as an advance copy of my sister's newest which will be published later this summer.

Current reads include You Learn by Living by Eleanor Roosevelt. This interesting combination of advice book and memoir is proving to be a wonderful read with lots of interesting tidbits about her life and insights she gained along the way.  The format is her responses to the questions she was most often asked in letters and despite being written over 50 years ago her reflections very much resonant with me.

Emma: a Modern Retelling by Alex McCall Smith, is just that and so far so good. McCall spends the first several chapters providing Emma's back story which I enjoyed as Jane Austen never explains the reasons for her father Mr Woodhouse's hypochondria and it is nice to have some context for that but am now excited to be reading the actual retelling of the Emma story of well meaning matchmaker gone awry.  While McCall doesn't quite have the knack of the Austen voice nor is it grating and so far the modernizations have been reasonable and on several occasions very funny.

Please head over to Carolyn's for more Open Book.

What We're Reading Wednesday: June 3rd

Linking up with Jessica of Housewifespice and sharing what I've been reading.

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
    There is a very slow start to this novel but it came so highly recommended I decided to push through and I'm glad I did.  In so many ways this novel is a treasure. It's not easy to write a political novel with a strong love story and good characterizations. Gaskell takes on quite a bit and mostly succeeds in her task of describing the changes industrialization brought to England. She balances her sympathy for the workers in the factories with the dilemmas posed to the mill owners by new machinery, competition from abroad, and the threats of potential workers' strikes. She contrasts very effectively the excitement of this new way of life against the nostalgia for the agrarian past. These were new concepts in Victorian England, but they are not so foreign today that we cannot readily understand their significance.

She gives us a sympathetic and spirited heroine in Margaret Hale, who is wise beyond her years. Another colorful character is Nicholas Higgins. I found myself looking forward to his scenes because he provides the humor in an almost-humorless book. I definitely missed the comedy of manners usually found in books by Jane Austen or Georgette Heyer.   Mr. Thornton is a character we can readily identify with--someone who triumphs over adversity and seeks to constantly better himself. Someone with high standards, yet none higher than he holds himself to. Margaret is his match in every way.

I did see many plot similarities with "Pride and Prejudice" in the love story. We have characters of different class backgrounds who are initially repelled but who come to appreciate each other and are kept apart by misunderstandings and circumstances. The proposal scenes are strikingly familiar, and the first proposal includes almost the same language (re gentlemanlike behavior) that Elizabeth speaks to Darcy. And we have a Lady Catherine DeBourgh character in Mrs. Thornton, who does her best to drive the lovers apart. But I can't fault Mrs. Gaskell for borrowing plotlines from the master. Although Gaskell is a strong writer, she does not quite have Jane Austen's gift for revealing the humanity in her characters with humor and affection. There is not much "fun" and no banter (until the very last lines of the book) in the North and South love story.
Mostly I'm glad I held in there, I learned a lot about English history at that particular time. I love that it rewarded me for getting through those first 150 pages with a rich, compelling story.  As Victorian novels go, this is surprisingly modern and a worthwhile read.

Currently finishing up Them ~ starting Erin's Ring and as part of the Stella Maris book club reading some of Flannery O'Conner short stories

WWRW: January 21st

   Finished Dear Mr Knightly by Katherine Reay earlier this week which I found to be a sweet quick read in the flavor of Daddy Long Legs. While I occasionally found the letter writing format of the book cumbersome at times I really enjoyed this lovely coming of age/romance with all it's great book quotes.

While I'm off to conquer other books on my book stack I do hope at some point soon to check out Reay's next Lizzie and Jane.

Up next for me is the current Stella Maris book club selection The Dean's Watch by Elizabeth Gouge; the story of an unlikely friendship between the dean of an English Cathedral and a watch maker.

What are you reading?

Please head over to Housewifespice for more WWRW

WWRW: January 14th

   Nearly done with Sense and Sensibility and while it will not compete for the status of my favorite Austen, Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion get to duke it out for that distinction, I am glad I decided to reread it (started once in high school and never finished).  I found Eleanor much more engaging, Marianne less annoying and the side characters more entertaining then I remembered.  And I now have a place holder for the "book I should have read in high school' category for the MMD reading challenge; ideally I will slot one in that I start and finish this year but nice to have the challenge begun.

Fiction wise I'm staying in the Austen realm though in a modern take and hoping to read Dear Mr. Knightly next ~ will report back later.

Non-fiction wise I am reading A book of Saints for Catholic Mothers by Lisa Hendey and am so far enjoying it though discovering it is really more of a daily devotional am scouting around for more of a chapter at a time book.

So what is in your book stack?