Category Archives: Book Review

 I selected this book because it was recommended by Jane Brocket. I bought it from here (which, by the way, is a fabulous place – free postage!).

This is the blurb from the back …

I picked up a copy of the above book in a second hand book store (while on holiday). As I really enjoyed Larkrise to Candleford both the novel and the recent BBC adaptation, I thought I would like this one as well.

From a social history point of view it is really interesting – the period detail is fabulous and not many novels are written about agricultural labourers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, the book was dull and I struggled to finish it. The characters didn’t seem as compelling as in Larkrise to Candleford and it was written in a sentimental manner that didn’t appeal to me.

I’m a bit of a Janet Evanovich fan (in some ways it’s a bit like saying I’m an alcoholic!). Someone from my book clucb recommended them about six years ago and I’ve been addicted ever since. They are all the same (I think there is 15 of them now), but as Dorcas Lane says in Larkrise to Candleford ‘they are my one weakness’!

Here is the stuff on the back …

Stephanie Plum has a way of attracting danger, lunatics, oddballs, bad luck . . . and mystery men. And no one is more mysterious than the unmentionable Diesel. He’s back and hot on the trail of a little man in green pants who’s lost a giant bag of money. Problem is, the money isn’t exactly lost. Stephanie’s Grandma Mazur has found it, and like any good Jersey senior citizen, she’s hightailed it in a Winnebago to Atlantic City and hit the slots. With Lula and Connie in tow, Stephanie attempts to bring Grandma home, but the luck of the Irish is rubbing off on everyone: Lula’s found a job modeling plus-size lingerie. Connie’s found a guy. Diesel’s found Stephanie. And Stephanie has found herself in over her head with a caper involving thrice-stolen money, a racehorse, a car chase, and a bad case of hives.

These novels are hilarious – there is lots of sex (not graphic), so not for the faint hearted, but all the characters are fabulous – particularly Grandma Mazur – so if you like fast paced, far fetched, trashy stories this one is for you – although you might like to start with One for the Money.

I bought this book because the  Australian Book Review claimed it was an outback Pride and Prejudice. Definitely misleading advertising! Unless their talking about the small cast of characters in a country village or maybe the annoying mother.

Here’s the blurb

“A quirkily engaging comedy of small town manners. Set on a Victorian family vineyard in 1894, it’s the sort of provincial novel you might expect if Pride and Prejudice met Steele Rudd’s On Our Selection … While it’s the social and romantic intrigue that carries the story, it’s Ham’s wickedly black humour and finely researched social observation that deliver the real joy of the book”. The Australian

“Rosalie Ham’s second novel is unforgettable and unputdownable as her first, the quirky The Dressmaker… Ham is a gifted storyteller. Her ideas are fresh, unusual and entertaining, and result in a marvellous story steeped in an Australia at once recognisable but also new. There’s not a cliche within a cooee”. The Sun Herald

Here’s a plot summary from Dymocks

Phoeba Crupp is a young woman who lives with her parents and sister on a small farm near
Geelong in the 1890s. Her father is an eccentric ex-accountant who moved his family from
the city in order to establish a vineyard, a decision her mother bitterly – and loudly – resents.

While her sister makes a play for the local squatter’s son, Phoeba is content with her best
friend Harriet, until circumstances push her towards the world of men and money. ‘Summer
at Mount Hope’ has a lot of the black comedy of Ham’s first novel, ‘The Dressmaker’, but
also contains a more serious strand about the efforts of a woman a century ago to be
free.

I was disappointed with this novel – it was depressing. No one ended up with what they wanted. Phoeba settled for a marriage of convenience to escape her family, Lilith married the squatter’s son, but by then they had lost the farm and they had to move back to the Crupp’s place (hence Phoeba needing to marry Hadley to escape) and Henrietta ended up being an unpaid skivvy for her mother.

I chose to read this book because Jane Brocket (The Gentle Arts of Domesticity) recommended Elizabeth Taylor – she recommended At Mrs Lippincote’s – however, The Blushwas the only Elizabeth Taylor book I could lay my hands on (I bought it from Ebay).

Here is the blurb on the back …

In these short stories, first published in 1958, Elizabeth Taylor pursues the nuances of ordinary life with her usual dexterity. There is the upright Mrs Allen who unwittingly provides an alibi for Mrs Lacey, her ‘slackly corseted’ home help; Emily who has written fluent and amusing letters to a distinguished novelist for ten years but descends into small talk when they meet; Katie, Natalie and Frances, preparing for their first dance amidst a cloud of talcum powder and bathroom giggles; and the strained conversation between ex-lovers Peter and Catherine at her children’s seaside Barbecue. ‘Here Mrs Taylor displays her gift – her extraordinary gift – for sheer situation – not a tale here fails to expand in the imagination of the reader’ – Elizabeth Bowen.

I did enjoy these stories they have an old world charm – very middle England. The situations are ordinary, but vividly described and the inner life of the characters is described in an unsentimental manner that none the less makes you feel their pain, frustration, etc. These stories are all about character, so if you like a story ‘where nothing really happens’ then these stories are for you.

I’m definitely going to track down some more Elizabeth Taylor novels probably from here.

I try to read the Man Booker prize winners – I think it makes me appear vaguely cultured (probably just pretentious). I seem to like about half of them – I hated The Sea (John Banville), but loved Possession (A S Byatt) was indifferent to The Life of Pi (Yann Martel), but enjoyed The Blind Assassin (Margaret Atwood) you get the picture.

As I had already read Enright’s Making Babies Stumbling into Motherhood, I thought I would read this one.

The gathering in the title is the getting together of the Hegarty clan to mourn the death (a suicide) of Liam. Veronica is our narrator and she is one of 12 children – Liam was her closest sibling.

Before I go any further let me just say this book is grim very grim. Also, there might be spoilers following … 

The Hegarty family are dysfunctional and not just in the ways that all big families are dysfunctional – something nasty happened in the wood shed (or at least in the good front room) to Liam.  It takes almost the entire novel for this dreadful secret to be revealed. Veronica spends quite a bit of time re-imagining her Grand Parents courtship and marriage – and remembering a time when Liam and she (and another sister) stayed with the Grand Mother (was it after another of her mother’s miscarriages – she had 7 – I told you this story was grim). Veronica’s grief is dreadful, she seems to be losing grip of her life – drinking too much, hating her husband and her comfortable middleclass life style.

On a positive note, Enright’s prose is fabulous each sentence is finely crafted and she puts words together in unexpected combinations. For example, “I lay them out in nice sentences, all my clean, white bones” and “… I find she has run through me like water”.

I found this book confronting and not particularly pleasant, but I’m glad I read it.

Here are some more reviews …

The New York Times – Sunday Book Review

http://theasylum.wordpress.com/2007/08/16/anne-enright-the-gathering/

They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell. I chose to read this book because Cornflowerwas reading it for her book club – of course they had all finished it before I even started. It was a difficult book to find in Australia, but eventually I tracked down a copy in Borders.

It was set in America just after World War One – during the time of the Spanish Influenza – and it’s about the relationship between Mothers and Sons and to some extent husbands and wives.

It is written in three parts – each from a different point of view. The first section is written by Bunny the younger child, the second by Robert the oldest and child and the third by James the husband.

The novel is really about the relationships these three have with Elizabeth the wife and mother. Bunny is a quiet, gentle and introspective child whose Mother is the centre of his world. Robert is an active child who is embarrassed to have a brother like Bunny, but he feels protective of his mother and finally James loves his wife and children, but he doesn’t really understand his children – that’s Elizabeth’s role.

There is a slightly menacing tone to the novel – Spanish Influenza is ravaging their town, Elizabeth is pregnant and the births of her previous two children have been dangerous. It is decided that she needs to go to another town (to a specialist) to deliver this child and the two boys will stay with James’s sister. Schools and churches are closed and people are warned to avoid unnecessary travel and to avoid congregating in groups to try to stop the spread of the influenza. James and Elizabeth must catch a train to the hospital and, of course, the worst happens they both contract influenza. Elizabeth dies, after giving birth to a little girl, and James survives although he wishes he was dead.

It probably sounds depressing, but I enjoyed this novel. It had a gentle style and I enjoyed reading something set in the early 20th century (almost an historic novel). I will be looking for more of his novels.

There is a great review at goodtoread.org.

I bought three books from Persephone Press – Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson, The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher and Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton.

The service was fabulous and the books arrived within a week and they are beautiful! Each with a book mark that matches the end papers.

So far I have only read Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. I liked it. It definitely had that between the wars, elegant, sophisticated movie feel about it. In fact it would make a fabulous film – (there is a film being released in May in Australia). It’s quite dated, a bit like reading old romance novels, but it made me want to stay up late drinking gin and visiting late night cocktail bars. So all in all a fun, light read.

I’ve just finished reading Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. I read it because Jane Brocket recommended it in The Gentle Arts of Domesticity (in the section on The Domestic Library page 28).I enjoyed it – it was certainly domestic. In someone ways it reminded me of E F Benson’s Mapp and Lucia novels (although less tongue in cheek). It had lots of lovely ancedotes about lace, swapping between your two candles so they’re always the same height and everybody thinks you always burn two, etc. For the lovely middle aged genteel ladies of Cranford it is all about ‘elegant economy’ anything else would be vulgar.

I recommend this book – if only to see how women of a certain age, income and class lived in the 1800s.

I even bought the latest BBC version of Cranford (did you know that the BBC Store sells region 4 (Australia) DVDs? And they arrive in less than a week!).