My latest haul from British Library

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I’ve been doing my best to get on the list for review copies for several of my favorite reprint presses. One is the British Library, and last week I just received two each of the latest books from British Library Crime Classics and British Library Women Writers. I am so excited!

My review copies from British Library!

The books from the Crime Classics series are two by women, one by an author I haven’t read before, Marie Belloc Lowndes, and one by E. C. R. Lorac, who is becoming one of my favorites.

The books from the Women Writers series are by two old favorites, Diana Tutton and E. M. Delafield.

Thank you, British Library!

Review 1667: JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956

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JFK is a biography that makes you feel you really understand John F. Kennedy despite it being the type of biography not necessarily aimed at mass consumption. Although it is eloquently and clearly written, it contains about 150 pages of notes and sources. It examines the first 39 years of Kennedy’s life in a balanced fashion, showing both strengths and faults, and is absorbingly interesting. It also tries to dispel some of the myths about Kennedy’s political career, showing, for example, that his interest in politics began long before his older brother’s death, in answer to the belief that he entered politics at his father’s urging as a replacement for his dead brother.

Although a lot of people are fascinated by the Kennedys, I knew only the basic facts and found the home life of his family growing up to be a very strange one. First was their emphasis on competition and winning, one that was extreme and probably explains the tendency toward alcoholism in a few of its members (not JFK, who was not a drinker). A few details stood out—one that family members didn’t seem to have permanent bedrooms in Hyannis Port but treated the house more like a hotel. Very odd.

I was less interested in his development as a politician than I was in the earlier material, but still, even though I knew, for example, that Kennedy was not the vice presidential nomineee in 1956, Logevall was able to make the Democratic convention truly exciting.

Logevall is a Harvard historican whose last book won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for history. This is a serious, well-researched biography that nevertheless offers much interest to the more casual reader.

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Review 1666: The Winged Horse

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It’s going to be hard to describe this novel without either giving too much away or being too vague. The description on the Virago back cover focuses too much on the role of business tycoon J. G. Baron, when really he is more the catalyst of the action.

Harry Levitt is an American on his way to England for a job with J. G. Baron. He and Baron’s entourage are on shipboard along with Baron’s oldest daughter, Celia, who has been living in the States but is now separated from her husband and moving home.

J. G. is an unlikable person. He surrounds himself with yes men and is hypocritical and self-deceptive. He dislikes two of his three children and terrifies the third. Celia is the only one who doesn’t try to please him, as she dislikes him back.

When we meet Harry, he is a practiced dissembler who feels insecure about his Midwest background so has invented Californian origins. Despite a bad start with Celia, while living in England, Harry develops a close relationship with her siblings Tobias and Liz and with their friend Anthony Carey, a mediocre sculptor known to the family as Thank-God-for-Anthony. Anthony seems perfectly assured and the only person who is not afraid of J. G. The Barons consider him the epitome of probity.

Harry, as he grows to love England and feel accepted, becomes calmer and more assured. However, there is a family tragedy, and subsequent events allow Frankau to explore themes of power, truth, and dishonesty.

At first I had trouble being interested in these characters, but eventually I became involved in this story. I did find irritating the way Frankau handled the characters’ inner thoughts, just as if they were dialogue, which seemed artificial. But this is a minor criticism.

I read this book for my Classics Club list.

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Review 1665: Sugar Street

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Sugar Street is the third book in Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy and in many ways the weakest. Although it spends some time with Kamal, it goes on to the next generation and deals mostly with Kamal’s nephews.

The patriarch of the family, Ahmad Abdal-Jawad, although only in his early 60’s in 1935, has let his intemperate habits get the best of him and becomes more and more decrepit as the book goes on. We don’t see much of him or his wife, Amina.

Kamal has come to believe in nothing. He is an English teacher who writes difficult philosophical articles for a journal for no pay. His family urges him to marry, but he does not. He is not happy except in a few friendships with men he can exchange ideas with.

Aisha is a faded shadow of herself after the death of her husband and sons, so it is Khadiya’s and Yasin’s sons we follow for most of the novel as they get involved in politics. Abdal-Muni’m becomes a Muslim Nationalist, Ahmad a socialist, and Ridwan becomes involved with an important political sheikh in a way that seemed vaguely homosexual to me but perhaps wasn’t.

In any case, although you might think these different political alliances would provide more insight into the state of the country, the strangely formal and didactic conversations I mentioned in a review of the previous book assume too much knowledge for me and throw too many names around. On the other hand, what was missing from this novel were the intimate family relationships and strong individual characterizations. We never really get to know any of these nephews like we did the original brothers and sisters.

Finally, Kamal’s character is so mired in inaction that he brings every scene to a halt with his inner observations. When he finally sees the little sister of his boyhood love, Aïda, and fancies himself in love with her, first he creepily stalks her and then, finally, having won her attention, he backs off. Oh! I thought at first, something is going to happen! Not!

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Review 1664: Greenwood

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Best of Ten!

Greenwood starts with an image of the cross-section of a tree trunk, this showing the novel’s structure. The novel begins in 2038, the outer ring of the tree, and visits four different years in the past, the center being 1908. Then it returns through each of those years to 2038.

In 2038, Jake Greenwood is an overqualified scientist working as a forest ranger in one of the few forests left on earth after the Great Wilt. She is glad to have the job in a world of excessively rich people and have-nots. Greenwood Island is a sort of private park that entertains the very wealthy by touring them through the forest.

Jake doesn’t think her family has a connection with the Greenwoods of the island, once owned by the fabulously wealthy lumber baron Harris Greenwood, but a lawyer arrives saying that she may have a claim to the island.

The novel returns back in time to visit Jake’s ancestors at important events in their lives. In 2008, Jake’s father Liam’s girlfriend leaves him and then lets him know she is pregnant. Later, doing a carpentry job, he has a serious accident.

In 1974, Liam’s mother Willow, an environmental activist, lives with Liam in her van and travels around sabotaging logging equipment.

In 1934, Everett, who makes a little money tapping and selling maple syrup, finds a baby hanging on a tree outside his cabin. Although he at first tries to give her away, he begins to think she’s in danger.

In 1908, two nine-year-old boys are the only survivors of a massive train wreck. When no one claims them, the town puts them in a cabin and provides the bare minimum of their needs, the boys growing up almost feral. The boys cannot remember their names, so the town calls them Harris and Everett Greenwood.

The novel is beautifully written and like The Overstory is concerned with trees and their impact on the world. Its descriptions of forests are lyrical. The plot itself is at times so involving as to read almost like a thriller. This is an unusual and absorbing novel.

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Review 1663: The Woman in Blue

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Elly Griffiths is getting much better at fooling me than she was in the first few Ruth Galloway books, so that is all to the good.

Ruth’s friend Cathbad is house- and cat-sitting in Walsingham when the cat gets out one night and runs into the cemetery. There, Cathbad sees a young blond woman wearing a blue cloak. He is about to offer help when the cat trips him up and the woman disappears. The next morning she is found strangled.

That day Ruth has an appointment to meet Hilary, an old school friend, for lunch in Walsingham. She is astonished to find that her friend has become a priest. Hilary shows her some threatening letters she’s received, apparently because she’s a female priest.

When Ruth gives DCI Nelson the letters, he seems inclined to think they might be connected to the murder. A few nights later, the women priests, who are attending a conference, go out to dinner, a dinner to which Ruth is invited. Afterwards, one of them is found strangled.

Although Ruth uncovers a clue, she is not directly involved in the solution of the murders. That’s okay, though, because Griffiths has created an ensemble cast of strong characters. If Ruth isn’t out there sleuthing in every book, Griffiths gets around the problem of the unlikelihood of an amateur sleuth being involved in so many murders. The Ruth Galloway series continues to be interesting and engaging.

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Review 1662: The Poison Thread

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Dorothea Trueblood is a youngish Victorian heiress who prefers to spend her days pursuing charitable causes rather than in socializing. Her conservative father wants her to marry as highly as possible, but she has secretly engaged herself to a police constable. Something keeps her from breaking the news to her father, even though she is of age.

She is fascinated by phrenology, so one of her charities is Oakgate Prison, where she visits prisoners in hopes of measuring their heads. Therefore, she is excited when Ruth Butterham, a young maid who murdered her employer, comes to the prison.

Ruth begins to tell Dottie her story, and it’s not long before Dottie realizes that Ruth is telling her she killed people by putting bad thoughts into the sewing she was doing for them. Dottie doesn’t find an enlarged organ of deceit in Ruth, but she can only assume she is lying.

This gothic novel has quite a lot going for it. It pins you to the page while you wonder where it is going. I was suspicious of Dottie at first, thinking her interest in Ruth a bit salacious. But I liked Ruth more. This is quite a nice dark book.

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Review 1661: I Go by Sea, I Go by Land

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When I made up my current Classics Club list, I reflected that I had never read a book by P. L. Travers, the author of the Mary Poppins books. So, I picked this one.

Sabrina is eleven years old when World War II begins worrying her parents. When a bomb comes close to their house in Sussex, her parents decide to send Sabrina and her younger brother James to America to stay with Aunt Harriet.

Sabrina keeps a diary, so she records her thoughts, badly spelled, on their journey by ship to Canada and by plane to New York, and then of their life in the United States. Along with them travels their parents’ friend Pel, a famous writer, and her baby Romulus.

This novel is funny and charming and ultimately touching, as the children experience new things, are homesick, and worry about the situation at home. It does have some slight political incorrectness, given that it was written in 1941. However, I liked it very much.

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A New Challenge: Reading Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series in Order

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Angela Thirkell

For a long time, I have been saying I was going to read Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire series in order, but I just continue to pick them up randomly. I think there would be some benefit to reading them in order, because although each one seems to focus on different people and different plots, I’m sure I would better understand the relationships if I read them in order. So, I finally decided to do it and to announce it in case anyone wants to do it with me.

We’ll see how far we get along, as I understand that the post-war books are not as good as the others. I propose to announce each book at the beginning of the month and post its review at the end, starting in June. I would appreciate the company of anyone who wants to read along with me. I realize that for some people one book a month is a big commitment or even a difficult rate to read. However, there are lots of Barsetshire novels and to read one every two months would take this project five years into the future.

Since I have already posted reviews on a few of these books, I won’t repost my original reviews, but I will make comments on any insights I have gained since the last review. Even if you don’t want to go along with me, if you would like to jump in with comments on the books you have read or read one or two at the same time, any participation is appreciated.

Although I will post reminders of what the next book is, for now, here is the list:

  1. High Rising
  2. Wild Strawberries
  3. The Demon in the House
  4. August Folly
  5. Summer Half
  6. Pomfret Towers
  7. The Brandons
  8. Before Lunch
  9. Cheerfulness Breaks In
  10. Northbridge Rectory
  11. Marling Hall
  12. Growing Up
  13. The Headmistress
  14. Miss Bunting
  15. Peace Breaks Out
  16. Private Enterprise
  17. Love Among the Ruins
  18. The Old Bank House
  19. County Chronicle
  20. The Duke’s Daughter
  21. Happy Returns
  22. Jutland Cottage
  23. What Did It Mean?
  24. Enter Sir Robert
  25. Never Too Late
  26. A Double Affair
  27. Close Quarters
  28. Love at All Ages
  29. Three Score and Ten

So, if anyone wants to get a head start on June, the first book is obviously High Rising. I made a tag, #ThirkellBar, for those who want to use Twitter. I don’t.