Author: whatmeread

WWW Wednesday!

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

  • What I am reading now
  • What I just finished reading
  • What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading or plan to read.

What I am reading now

I am reading The Town House by Norah Lofts. It’s the first book in Lofts’ Suffolk Trilogy. It begins in the 14th century with a serf escaping serfdom, much like Cathedral of the Sea. I looked for a book by Lofts after finishing her book Lady Living Alone, which I really enjoyed.

What I just finished reading

I just finished reading Beggar’s Choice by Patricia Wentworth. Although I had difficulty getting started because it was so obvious that someone was trying to frame the oblivious main character, it turned out to be a pretty good read.

What I will read next

I guess I’m on a roll with classic novels, because the book I will probably read next is Death in Ambush by Susan Gilruth. I think I bought this book to read for the Christmas season and apparently forgot to do that!

Review 2676: The Portuguese Escape

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

Having accidentally plunged into the middle of the Julia Probyn series by Ann Bridge, I already knew some of the plot points of this book from reading a later one. So far, I find the two non-series books by her that I read first to be better than these Cold War thrillers.

This book begins with the British authorities in Lisbon being concerned with the release of Countess Hetta Páloczy from Communist Hungary. The countess was only ten years old when her father had to flee Hungary with the advent of the Russians. Hetta, suffering from scarlet fever, had to be left in her convent school, and her father tried for the rest of his life to get her out of Hungary. Now she is being released to her mother.

And my first question is, why would they make a person leaving the Eastern Bloc travel across Europe to Lisbon to be received? Surely, at least one person would have got on the train with her as soon as they crossed the Iron Curtain.

Anyway, once the convents were disbanded, Hetta stayed with one of the nuns, who became housekeeper to a theologian, Father Antal Horvath. At least, Hetta was doing the work, because the nun was so incompetent.

At the beginning of the novel, the situation is being discussed by Richard Atherley, the First Secretary at the British Embassy and Townsend Waller, who is in the same position with the U. S. Embassy. Both of them also discuss the girl’s mother, whose biggest concern seems to be not the arrival of her long-lost daughter but getting an invitation to an upcoming royal wedding.

Hetta turns out to have a good but rigid sense of values and doesn’t get along with her mother at all. However, others are much taken with her, including both First Secretaries and Julia Probyn, a reporter in town to cover the royal wedding.

Soon, though, another Hungarian arrives, this one an agent being brought West with information about conditions in the East. It happens to be Hetta’s beloved former employer, Dr. Antal Horvath. Hetta is asked to identify him at the airport to make sure he is legit. Horvath is in danger, because the Communists want him back, and so is Hetta, because she knows where he is. Julia helps them by arranging with her former employer, the Duke of Ericeira, for him to stay there.

From this rather slow start-up, the book eventually becomes about protecting Father Antal, rescuing Hetta from the Communists, and a budding love affair between Hetta and Richard Atherley. It’s a little slow moving for a thriller, and I was especially astonished when Bridge began describing the scenery while several of the protagonists were chasing after Hetty, who has been kidnapped. I found both girls’ various suitors to be a little tedious, but Hetty is very likable, and some of the secondary characters, including the Duke, his daughter, her nanny, and Julia’s old friend Mrs. Hathaway, are delightful.

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Review 2675: Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

I bought this book a couple of years ago in Ashland while attending the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and it has taken this long to come to the top of my pile.

This is an unusual book. It’s not exactly a memoir, although it certainly recounts some of Dench’s memories. It is rather a series of interviews with her friend, director Brendan O’Hea. O’Hea explains in the Introduction that it was intended as a series of interviews with Dench about Shakespeare roles for the archives of Shakespeare’s Globe. He had no idea they might be of general interest until friends made comments and expressed curiosity.

The book is divided by play, more or less in chronological order of her career except when she repeated a role or took on a different part in the same play. The interviews discuss the plays in depth but only from the point of view of the role, so that entire plot points are not covered if they didn’t involve that character.

Dench shows her love of Shakespeare clearly in this book. Anyone who loves Shakespeare or is interested in acting will get a lot from it. And Dench’s personality shows through strongly, particularly her sense of humor. She also mentions the names of many of the actors and directors she worked with and tells a lot of stories.

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2026 Classics Club Questionnaire Answers (at least to some)

~ whatmeread ~ 13 Comments

On January 1, the Classics Club posted a questionnaire for members. I decided to answer the questions, and here are my answers. As a moderator, I hope that some of you will choose to answer at least some of the questions.

Cover for The Long Ships
  1. When did you join The Classics Club? How many titles have you read for the club so far? Share a link to your latest classics club list. I joined the Classics Club on February 14, 2014, and have finished two lists. I have read 142 books for the Classics Club. I became a moderator about 2020 or so. Seems like I have been doing it longer. Here’s my current list: Classics Club – What? Me Read?
  2. What classic are you planning to read next? Why? Is there a book first published in 1926 that you plan to read this year? I think my next classic will be The Little Dinner by Christine Terhune Herrick from 1892. It’s not on my list. I don’t really pay much attention ahead of time to the dates of publication except for the Year Club hosted by Stuck in a Book and Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings.
  3. Best book you’ve read so far with the club? Why? The best book I’ve read from my current list is The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield Fisher about the whole of a woman’s life up to early middle age and her efforts during World War I. It would be difficult to pick a favorite book from all my lists. I have great re-reads, like Bleak House by Charles Dickens, and new discoveries, like Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant.
  4. Classic author who has the most works on your club list? Or, classic author you’ve read the most works by? I haven’t repeated authors on my lists a lot, although there are certain ones for whom I’m trying to put a book on each list: E. Nesbit, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Alexandre Dumas, Rafael Sabatini, and Margaret Oliphant. This is because I own their complete works in eBook form.
  5. If you could explore one author’s literary career from first publication to last — meaning you have never read this author and want to explore him or her by reading what s/he wrote in order of publication — who would you explore? Obviously this should be an author you haven’t yet read, since you can’t do this experiment on an author you’re already familiar with.  Or, which author’s work you are familiar with might it have been fun to approach this way? Maybe Joseph Conrad. I read two or three books by him long ago, but I’ve been thinking of looking back at his work. I can’t think of anyone offhand who I haven’t read at all and would like to explore from the beginning.
  6. First classic you ever read? I don’t know what my first classic was. My parents bought me books all the time. The first one I remember reading is David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, but I may have read Little Women or The Secret Garden first. And I had fairy tales before that.
  7. Favorite children’s classic? My favorite children’s classic is The Secret Garden.
  8. Which classic is your most memorable classic to date? Why? I guess I just love Bleak House. It is so complex and interesting.
  9. Least favorite classic? Why? From my lists, the only one I couldn’t finish was Don Quixote. Not my kind of humor.
  10. Favourite movie or TV adaption of a classic? My favorite movie of a classic. Boy, there are so many good Jane Austen adaptations and the Kenneth Branaugh Shakespeare movies. I think it has to be the Hitchcock adaptation of Rebecca.
  11. Favorite biography about a classic author you’ve read, or the biography of a classic author you most want to read, if any? Although I have read many really good biographies of classic authors, I’ll pick Jane Austen at Home by Lucy Worsley, because she has such a light, humorous touch. However, The Invisible Woman by Claire Tomalin was a real game-changer for the Dickens world.
  12. Favourite classic author in translation? Do you have a favorite classics translator? What do you look for in a classics translation? My favorite book in translation that I’ve read for Classics Club is The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson, translated by Barrows Mussey. It captured the light humor perfectly.
  13. Do you have a favorite classic poet/poem, playwright/play? Why do you love it? I don’t really have a favorite classic play that I can think of, and I hardly read any poetry. Well, maybe some play by Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Ernest or An Ideal Husband.
  14. Which classic character most reminds you of yourself? Which classic character do you most wish you could be like? I don’t think about characters reminding me of myself or of wanting to be like them.
  15. What is the oldest classic you have read or plan to read? Why? The oldest classic I’ve read for Classics Club is The Aeneid by Virgil.
  16. If a sudden announcement was made that 500 more pages had been discovered after the original “THE END” on a classic title you read and loved, which title would you be happiest to see continued? I don’t know about this one.
  17. Favorite edition (or series) of a classic you own, or wished you owned, if any? I have some nice Folio editions of many classics, but I don’t tend to compare editions unless I get what seems to be a really bad translation. Although I would like some books to continue, the author has carefully planned where they will end, so maybe I would only say that about an unfinished book, like The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
  18. Do you reread classics? Why, or why not? Yes, I often reread classics that I loved or ones that I can’t remember very well, and I sometimes reread books I haven’t read for a long time to see if I like them better the second time.
  19. Has there been a classic title you simply could not finish? I couldn’t finish the second book of Don Quixote, because it just seemed like more of the first book.
  20. Has there been a classic title you expected to dislike and ended up loving? I don’t think I usually start in with the expectation that I’m going to hate a book, although for some of my prize projects, I go in that way for a few of the authors, but they are new books, not classics.
  21. List five fellow Classic Clubbers whose blogs you frequent. What makes you love their blogs? I follow FictionFan, She Reads Novels, Stuck in a Book (who isn’t a CC member but reads lots of classic novels), This Reading Life, and Literary Excursions, because they all write interesting reviews and I pay attention to their recommendations.
  22. If you’ve ever participated in a readalong on a classic, tell us about the experience. If you’ve participated in more than one, what’s the very best experience? the best title you’ve completed? a fond memory? a good friend made? I participated in last year’s Jane Austen event for Classics Club, if that was a Read-Along.
  23. If you could appeal for a readalong with others for any classic title, which title would you name? Why? I’d have to think about that some more.
  24. What are you favourite bits about being a part of The Classics Club? I like interacting with the members and working on the blog.
  25. What would like to see more of (or less of) on The Classics Club? That’s for others to tell us moderators.
  26. Question you wish was on this questionnaire? (Ask and answer it!) Hmmm.

Review 2674: Long Island

~ whatmeread ~ 6 Comments

Long Island is Colm Tóibín’s sequel to Brooklyn. Twenty years have passed, and Eilis is the mother of two nearly grown children, Rosella and Larry.

A man comes to the door one morning and tells Eilis that her husband Tony has made his wife pregnant. He tells her that he won’t have the child in his house, and when it is born, he’s bringing it to her. When Eilis talks to Tony, she says she won’t have the baby in her house. No one consults her, but she learns that her mother-in-law plans to raise the child. Eilis doesn’t want this either, because she lives in a small cul-de-sac next to the homes of her in-laws. For the last 20 years, everything has been about Tony’s Italian family, and no one has shown any curiosity about Ireland at all.

Eilis decides to fly to Ireland to see her mother and decide what to do. Her children will follow in a few weeks.

To understand what happens in Ireland, it helps to know how Brooklyn ended, so if you haven’t read it and plan to, you might want to stop here.

Twenty years before, Eilis flew back to Ireland for her sister’s funeral and stayed for the summer. She had already married Tony, but for some reason that I can’t remember, they kept it a secret. In Ireland, which Eilis didn’t want to leave in the first place, she met Jim Farrell. He was close to asking her to marry him when she fled back to New York.

Jim has remained single, but lately he has been seeing Nancy Sheridan, Eilis’s best friend, and they have decided to get married, but they are keeping it a secret until after her daughter Miriam’s wedding. Eilis returns confused about what to do about the situation at home. She wants to talk to Jim, but sees no way to do it for a while. She knows nothing about Nancy. When she finally sees Jim, the spark is still there.

I was a little frustrated with these people and their secrets, which cause all the problems. There’s Tony’s secret and the fact that he won’t discuss it with Eilis but figures the situation out with his family instead, showing just how much of an outsider Eilis is. There’s Eilis and Tony’s original secret marriage, which created the situation with Jim. Then there’s the secret engagement.

If you like your stories all settled and wrapped up in a bow, this may not be the book for you. I can handle some ambiguity, though, so I liked it very much, although maybe not as much as I liked Brooklyn.

Just as a side point, Tóibín throws in an appearance by Nora Webster from a prior book, a character I understand is based on his own mother.

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Review 2673: Saint Peter’s Fair

~ whatmeread ~ 2 Comments

Happy New Year, everyone! Wishing you all the best in 2026!

Saint Peter’s Fair is the fourth book in Ellis Peters’ Cadfael series. Only a year has elapsed since the beginning of the series, so it is the summer of 1139. The town of Shrewsbury is preparing for a big event, St. Peter’s Fair, that draws merchants from all over England and parts of Europe.

The proceeds of the fees for the fair traditionally go to the monastery. But this year a group of guild members appeal to the new abbot, Radulfus, that the abbey withhold a percentage of the fees to give to the town, which is still badly damaged from the siege by King Stephen the year before. Abbot Radulfus, who is worried about infringing on the abbey’s rights, declines.

Later, the guild members’ sons, led by Philip Corviser, ask the merchants if they will withhold a portion of the fees to give to the town. Of course, they decline. Philip approaches the wealthiest merchant to make a point and gets bashed on the head by accident. The boys riot and throw goods into the water. Thomas of Bristol’s beautiful young niece, Emma, almost gets knocked into the water, but she is rescued by the handsome young noble, Ivo Corbière.

That night, Thomas does not return from setting up his booth. Emma goes to the undersheriff, Cadfael’s friend Hugh Beringer, because she is alarmed. Thomas is found dead in the river, stripped bare.

Since Philip Corviser went out and got drunk after the tiff with Thomas, he can’t account for his time. So, the sheriff arrests him. But it’s not too much longer before another merchant, a glover, is found murdered in his booth.

Abbot Radulfus has asked Cadfael to report back to him on the situation, but of course Cadfael takes a more active part.

Recently another blogger told me that she had quit reading the Cadfael series because it got so involved with the political situation. But so far that hasn’t bothered me, although sometimes I don’t like it when mysteries become more to do with espionage. Again, I was fairly certain of the murderer from the start, and I was right, but I’m finding the history and the characters interesting.

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Review 2672: Night Watch

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

This novel begins in 1874 with ConaLee, a thirteen-year-old girl in a wagon with her mother and a man she calls Papa. Her mother had twins three months before and has not been able to care for herself since, nor does she speak. On the journey, Papa tells ConaLee that he is not her father, that he has given away his children by her mother and sold everything. He is taking her mother to an asylum, where she is to say her mother is called Miss Janet and she is her servant. He drops them off at the gate and goes on, and they do what he tells them, only her mother soon begins to speak and care for herself.

Returning to 1864, we follow ConaLee’s father, a Union sharpshooter in the Civil War. He has hidden his family, his pregnant wife Eliza and the woman he considers his mother, Dearhbla, as high up on the West Virginia ridges as he can, hoping to keep them out of the war. He has been gone three years, but in the Wilderness battle, he is injured so badly by an explosion that he loses an eye and part of his brain—and his memory. Thus, when the war ends, he does not return home. And his family is left prey to Papa.

This novel contains quite a few mighty coincidences. One that gives nothing away is that Dearhbla, an Irish wise woman with second sight, travels to the hospital in Alexandria because she knows her son is there. They will not let her in because of an epidemic, so she gives the name he took when he went to war—for all of them are fugitives. But no one of that name is there, so she leaves. All the while, he is watching her from the window, with no idea that he knows her.

Despite the coincidences, I found this novel absolutely enthralling. It captures the chaos during and after war, the fear that doesn’t stop just because the war does. It is altogether a compelling story. I read it for my Pulitzer Prize project.

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Review 2671: The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

Constance Haverhill has an uncertain future post-World War I. She and her mother helped out her mother’s school friend, Lady Mercer, for years, and she took them in after the death of Constance’s father, a farmer. However, now that her mother has died, Lady Mercer has made it clear there is no place for her. She is giving her the summer as a companion to her mother, Mrs. Fog, who is recovering from serious illness at a seaside resort. A problem is that, with the end of the war, young men are returning to the work force, so young women are losing their jobs.

In the lobby of the hotel, Constance encounters Poppy Wirral, who runs her own business transporting people around the seaside town in the sidecars of motorcycles. She has ridden there to meet her mother, Lady Wirral, for lunch, but she has forgotten to bring proper dress. Constance ends up lending her a skirt, and Poppy invites her to lunch with her mother and brother, Harris, an ex-RAF pilot who lost a leg in the war.

It’s obvious from the beginning where the relationship between Constance and Harris will go, although there are impediments. Most of the novel is about the remaining effects of the war, particularly upon women and disabled soldiers. Harris, for example, tries to get work as a flight instructor and failing that, a promised job in his late father’s bank, but everyone just assumes he can take up the job of running his estate. But the estate needs money. Poppy has been employing only women motorcyclists in her transport business, but then she is told that a new law by the labor board will require her to employ only men. Constance, although she ran the Mercer estate during the war, faces sex discrimination and worse when she tries to find a job as an accountant or bookkeeper.

Of course, the problem with all this is the predictable romantic finish. It’s all very well to write a book protesting the problems of women trying to make a living, but that message is undercut somewhat when the heroine’s problems are all going to be solved by marriage. (I don’t think this is going to be a surprise for anyone, so I didn’t warn about spoilers.) I commented on this same thought in a recent review of a contemporary novel from the same period.

Another theme is snobbishness and racism, as embodied by Lady Mercer and her daughter’s fiancé, an American named Percival Allerton. It was actually hard for me to imagine that a man in the diplomatic services would behave the way he does. Part of this theme involves Mrs. Fog’s reunion with old school friends, Mathilde de Champney and her brother Simon. Mrs. Fog’s family has repeatedly separated her from them, as they are of mixed blood.

Another thread in this theme concerns Mr. Pendra, an Indian representative of one of the states of India, whom Constance and the Wirrals befriend.

My final criticism hints around at a spoiler. Harris’s and Constance’s insipient romance is disturbed by the intervention of a spiteful character. However, this problem is resolved in about two pages, and then (spoiler, really!) Constance gets to run into his arms for that blissful finish. Only if it was me, after what happened, he’d have a lot more ‘splainin’ to do.

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Review 2670: Doorstoppers in December! The Deepening Stream (and Holiday Greetings!)

~ whatmeread ~ 7 Comments

Merry Christmas, everyone! This isn’t exactly a festive entry, but I have a real treat here in my one contribution to Doorstoppers in December. Although I had already read one book by Dorothy Canfield Fisher and thought it was far ahead of its time, The Deepening Stream was captivating.

This novel follows the life of its protagonist Matey from her first memories of childhood to the end of World War I. Apparently, the novel parallels Canfield Fisher’s own life, with the difference that Matey is a more ordinary person, according to the Introduction, than Canfield Fisher was, an everywoman.

Matey Gilbert and her sister Priscilla and brother Francis grow up affected by the state of their parents’ marriage, in which there is a continual state of one-upmanship. Matey’s father is a Midwestern college professor whose “company manners” are entertaining and charismatic and, Matey believes, false. But whatever his wife’s current interests are, he trivializes them, and his moods rule the household.

As a young teenager, Matey lives a year in Paris with the Vinets while her father is on sabbatical. (They always go to France because of her father’s field of study, where her mother cannot speak the language. A painful memory is the trip they took to the Netherlands, where her mother could speak but her father could not, and the fuss he made about it.) There she learns about a different kind of home life and a different way of conducting her own life. Used to running wild with little supervision, she sees that she is behind the Vinet children, who are younger, and begins taking her schoolwork and piano lessons seriously. She also feels at home.

Priscilla, whom Matey as a child believes is fearless, eventually copes with their home situation by making herself too busy to notice things, and this becomes a habit that continues to adulthood and keeps her from developing. Francis copes by treating everything as unimportant. Matey takes much longer to process her parents’ relationship, and it affects her throughout her life. However, when her father dies unexpectedly of an untreated wound, she is the only one to see that there was more to their parents’ relationship than they understood.

After her parents’ deaths, Matey learns that she has relatives on her mothers’ side that she has never heard of, because her parents never returned to her mother’s home after they were married and never talked about them. Matey has received a small bequest from her Cousin Constance, and when she goes to Rustdorf to inquire about it, she remembers her cousin’s home from when she stayed there as a child. At the bank, she meets Adrian Fort, a young distant cousin brought up as a Quaker who has just returned from Paris, where he has had to admit he’s failed as an artist and will join his father at the savings bank. He will become her husband, their relationship a close one. But she first has to learn how to be close to anyone.

With the advent of World War I, despite the U. S. neutrality, she and Adrian decide they want to go to Europe—Adrian to be an ambulance driver and Matey to use her legacy to help the Vinets and others who need it. Their friends and family are incredulous when they decide to take their two young children. Most of the rest of the book is about the struggles and conditions of World War I.

This is an absolutely fascinating novel. There were a few pages toward the beginning of the novel when Canfield Fisher was writing about the importance of play to children (childhood development being one of her interests) when I got a little bored, but after that, I was completely captured by the novel. It explores the intricacies of marital and other personal relationships, the influence of upbringing on children, the effects of war on humans, our responsibilities to others, and other issues that Matey thinks through, and it does all this without seeming weighty.

This is a terrific and thoughtful novel. It also is on my Classics Club list, so it serves two purposes. Three, really, because it is so, so good.

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