Witchyrichy's Bookish World

Welcome to my world! It is a world I am happy to share with such a great group of readers. I haven't been able to find a book group in my new town and I'm honestly not sure that's what I need anyway. This place seems perfect for sharing my love of books and reading. Last year, I pretty read whatever happened to come in over the transom or onto the Kindle. It was an odd mix that included more young adult fiction than I had read for awhile and one of my all time favorite books as a child, From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

This year, I have a sense of needing to read the books I own. (So I also joined the ROOTS group.) I might also fill in with library books. But I seemed to have added more books to my collection than I have actually read and it's time to start digging in.

Here's the plan for at least the next month:
Villette by Charlotte Bronte: I just started this today and am finding it readable and absorbing.
The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell: Gaskell was quoted for much of the introduction to my copy of Villette so this seems to be the next obvious book on the list. I also have two of Gaskell's novels on the shelf but am not sure I want to read them. I may just content myself with streaming the BBC series based on Cranford.
Behind A Mask by Louisa May Alcott
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (I just finished her book about the Roosevelts in WWII and was fascinated by the way she make history so personal and engaging.)

I am seriously considering tackling Winston Churchill's history of WW II. Maybe one book per month.

As I review that list, I realize I'm going to need at least one or two "fun" fiction books thrown into the mix. Maybe I'll add in some Ivan Doig for some good old fashioned western fun.

So, there you have it...my next few weeks in books.

Welcome to Club Read! I read both Team of Rivals and No Ordinary Time last year. Goodwin made a fan out of me rather quickly! I also find myself needing to read the books I already own and not check out and/or buy more. Easier said than done!

Welcome, I hope you'll find us a great fit!

Welcome to Club Read. I read Villette a little over a year ago and really enjoyed it, as I did Shirley which I read last summer.

Churchill's Second World War was one of the great reading experiences of my youth. It's quite biased, naturally, so you wouldn't want to take it as your sole source for information about the war, but the writing is superb and the insight invaluable.

I am really enjoying Villette but taking my time to appreciate the prose.

I haven't gotten Churchill off the shelf yet...

January Reading Round Up

Currently Reading

I tend to be a quick reader, particularly with contemporary novels where the focus is on the story rather than the writing. Charlotte Bronte's novel Villette is an absorbing read but the thick prose, full of extended metaphors and sometimes surprising personifications has me moving more slowly than usual and absolutely enjoying the experience.

I've been spending a lot of time on the treadmill and I find it easier to read on the iPad when I'm walking. I started The Vikings by Robert Wernick. It's a lively historical read that shows the influence of the Vikings on the lives of those they conquered. I was particularly interested in the way language was used to trace historical integration. It is only when conquerors become settlers that their words make their way into the everyday vernacular.

Read

Two books in January have me thinking about the role of women in the life of America and how diverse those roles can be. I read Jennifer Scanlon's biography of Helen Gurley Brown Bad Girls Go Everywhere: The Life of Helen Gurley Brown and No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin that provided an intimate portrait of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. It wasn't hard to imagine Brown being the flirtatious cocktail companion who helped Franklin relax as he led the country. Meanwhile, Eleanor was the serious feminist who would have questioned Brown's philosophy of how women could get ahead in the United States and, having lived through Franklin's affair with Lucy Rutherford, would have been offended by Brown's liberal ideas about extra marital affairs. They seem to be two ends of a continuum and women find themselves somewhere in between. I'll admit that I'm closer to the Eleanor end than the Brown.

I am always happy for a road trip and a chance to listen to an Alan Bradley book. Jane Entwistle narrates Bradley's Flavia de Luce mysteries and I thoroughly enjoyed Speaking From Among the Bones.

I blogged about The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball at my farm blog: http://www.bottletreefarm.com/making-a-life/

interesting comparison of Eleanor Roosevelt and Helen Gurley Brown, and interesting to think of them as ends of a spectrum.

A Happy Ending?

Charlotte Bronte's novel Villette was engaging with both its wonderfully drawn prose and intricate tale of love and loss. Told through the viewpoint of Lucy Snowe, an independent young woman, the story includes surprising plot twists, mysterious apparitions, and wrenching emotional scenes. There were a few times when I wished for slightly less wordy paragraphs but there were other times when the descriptions captivated. At least twice in the novel, the main character strung out a long story only to say, "in short," and then summarize in a sentence what had just happened. I found it amusing: contemporary writers would have skipped the long paragraphs and gone straight to the summary. But there was a sense of having the luxury to spend time immersed in the luscious prose.

The ending is ambiguous, and Bronte leaves it up to the temperament of the reader to decide what happens. We do know that no matter what the ending, Lucy Snowe will persevere and succeed, her independence carrying her through.

I bought Villette on kindle a couple of years ago and still haven't gotten around to reading it. No Ordinary Time is a wonderful history, How she mananges to create a sense of suspense around historical events is beyond me.

yolana suspense is the perfect word...like somehow you weren't sure that the US would get involved in WW II!

Team of Rivals and No Ordinary Time made my favorites in non-fiction reading last year. The latter read like a novel, and I felt it was a page turner. I recently bought another by Kearns Goodwin that was one of the monthly deals. It is Wait Till Next Year: A Memoir

Villette sounds interesting. It is one I haven't read. I'll have to look for it.

I'm glad you enjoyed Villette. Like other Brontë heroines, the aptly named Lucy Snowe is too cold to be lovable except on long acquaintance, and her prideful reticence is often infuriatingly self-destructive. There were so many times when she could have made her life easier simply by speaking up for herself, but she refuses to do so. This was probably how Charlotte saw herself.

StevenTX Others, including the author of the introduction to my copy of Villette, have made the same point about Snowe and I was prepared to not like her. She was frustrating and there were times when I wanted to shake her. But I also found her to be a compelling character, unwilling to change for others. I felt her quiet happiness when she moved to her new home and built her school, imagining her in her calming solitude.

Update:

I am about half way through Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz and hoping to finish it this week as I lay by the pool in Florida. A lovely break from the dreary cold weather in Virginia.

On the plane yesterday, I read Mind Games by Kiersten White as part of a readathon. It was an interesting example of what I think contemporary Young Adult fiction is: dystopian realities where young people fight real evil. I'll do a post of the review I'm doing for a YA book blog.

I also finished Daniel Pink's Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. It was recommended by some grad students of mine and I really enjoyed it, particularly since he draws heavily from Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a favorite of my own from grad school.

I'm looking forward to see what you have to say about Mind Games, I have a 12 year old son who's a voracious reader.

yolana It's been a long time since I taught middle school language arts so I have trouble determining if this would be age appropriate for a 12-year-old. It has pretty violent moments.

Here's the review I posted at It's All About the Books

I will start this review sounding like the slightly-over-the-hill woman that I am. Don’t they write books like Anne of Green Gables anymore? I suppose it would be too tame in this day of dystopian, paranormal fantasies, where children are manipulated at the hands of evil adults. It is, as they say, a different world, perhaps especially for young women.

That being said, I loved Mind Games, precisely because of the strong young women. From the opening sentences, we are thrown into a fast-paced, well-crafted narrative in which we encounter events in much the same way as the characters, trying to figure out what is really going on, which is the right path, and who can be trusted. And, by the end, we’re still not sure, but I did feel a sense of hope.

What we are sure of is that Fia and Annie are finally taking control of their own lives and making their choices out of their love for themselves and each other, rather than out of anger and fear. Underlying the almost breathless plot is a rich story of two sisters, and as much as I wanted to find out what happened, I forced myself to slow down and understand and savor the relationship between the girls. Their shared guilt over the death of their parents, their moments of enlightenment when they see how their spiritual blindness has led them down wrong paths and their realization that what we think we see is not always what is true: these are the intertwining themes that take Mind Games above the horror and violence and provide the reader with a sense of something greater. We see two young women coming into their own and that’s a great story in itself.

White’s narrative weaves in and out between past and present and between the sisters. The resulting pattern is both intricate and intriguing. While the main story seems to be Fia’s, without Annie’s voice we would not truly understand Fia. And seeing both past and present unfold at the same time makes the narrative more compelling than if the story were told in chronological order. There is writerly craft here from the “deaths” that bookend the story and the many ways that White plays with notions of seeing and reading and feeling.

As I finished and reflected, I found much to like and much that could be discussed with teens about choices and control. Plus, I’m glad I read it close to the release of the sequel since there is much still to discover.

Perhaps, in the mean time, I’ll start working on Anne of Green Gables and Zombies ;-)

Just posted this to my blog In One Place

I tend to be a fast reader, getting in the story but not always stopping for the writing. This year, however, I’ve determined to read more slowly and appreciate the craft. Two books, in particular, have helped me keep that resolution.

Charlotte Bronte’s Villette is full of molten prose, thick and flowing across the page. A compelling story lives in the lava as well but I found myself rereading passages to appreciate how effortlessly Bronte made it seem. Here’s a quick example from the early pages when Lucy Snowe comes to the school where she will begin her career as a nanny:

After the “Priere du soir,” Madame herself came to have another look at me. She desired me to follow her upstairs. Through a series of the queerest little dormitories–which, I heard afterwards, had once been nuns’ cells; for the premises were in parts of ancient date–and through the oratory–a long, low, gloomy room, where a crucifix hung, pale, against the wall, and two tapers kept dim vigils–she conducted me to an apartment where three children were asleep in three tiny beds. A heated stove made the air of this room oppressive; and, to mend matters, it was scented with an odour rather strong than delicate, a perfume, indeed, altogether surprising and unexpected under the circumstances, being like the combination of smoke with some spiritous essence–a smell, in short, of whisky. (p. 56)

That “in short” appears other places in the novel, a momentary break to make sure the reader is clear on what she is trying to say. But it also serves as a marker for the reader that what has gone before deserves a review.

I am currently reading Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz. It is a thick book, over 500 pages, but the prose just pulls you along. Spitz is a master of voice, weaving narrative with quotes in a way that makes it seem as though Julia herself is speaking. Not to mention the descriptions of food that have my mouth watering. Here’s just one example from a book where people and food just leap off every page. This is the moment when Julia meets French food in the form of fish:

She smelled it before she saw it. For an instant, there was sweetness of a kind she had never experienced before–butter perhaps, but more full-bodied, like a butter bomb, with a smoky, scorched tang. An instant later, the sea–probably a briny fish fume with a splash of white win. Wait! A faint lemony whiff drifting by…now gone. The ensemble of smeels was impossible to contain. Second later, a waiter set a large oval platter on the table, and all the aromas shot off like Chinese fireworks. But the scents refused to sync with the sight. The presentation was ridiculously simple: a fish on a plate, with a sprinkling of parsley. From the sides, tipped inward at an angle, a stream of molten gold pooled around the fish. Otherwise, there was nothing unusual about it , nothing to suggest the explosion of smells. She leaned over and inhaled with conviction. A delirious rush of pleasure filled her lungs. Wave upon wave: the aromas began to overlap and coalesce. The butter brought a richness to the fresh saltwater fish. By adding some wine to the sauce, the richness took on a honeyed brightness. Each ingredient influencing the aggregate…A meal was about to change Julia Child’s life.

This was the Sole Meuniere–Sole of God–that was Julia’s first meal in France and propelled her into the icon she became. Like Bronte, Spitz has amazing control over language. This is the introduction to the chapter of coming to France and from these opening paragraphs, he moves us backwards to provide an overview to France after the war, the beginnings of the Child’s marriage and the move to France. Only after another 5 pages do we return to that famous lunch.

And, like Bronte, Spitz mediates the way his prose lays out on the page. From those long sentences describing the fish, he provides a door stop similar to Bronte’s “in short.” That sentence: “A meal was about to change Julia Child’s life.”

I’ve been savoring Spitz’s book one chapter at a time, and when I finish, As Always, Julia, the book of letters between Julia and Avis DeVoto that covers her time in France and Germany as she works on what became Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

He's an advanced reader and I don't censor what he reads, (well, no Mein Kampf or Turner Diariers ets) so he's gone through the hunger games, a Song of Fire and Ice, etc. i'm a terrible mother, but this sounds right up his alley. Thanks

You are NOT a terrible mother! If he's read Game of Thrones then this will be fine for him and I think, as I said in the review, there's a lot to talk about in terms of the girls and their choices. The sequel comes out tomorrow.

it's interesting to look at how different parents handle their children's reading. I have cousins whose kids aren't allowed to read Harry Potter, (satan worship, don't you know) Hunger Games, and really a whole lot of everything else for various reasons, and then there's me, I've just let him run amok in my books. Thanks for the review.

Karen, enjoying your reading experiences and the extracts form the books that you are posting.

I still remember my first meal in France; It was a coq-au-vin and it started my love affair with most things French. Bob Spitz's description of the Sole Meuniere had me salivating.

baswood You should definitely read Spitz's bio...his descriptions of food were amazing. I can't wait to get home to dig out Mastering the Art of French Cooking! I've made the beef bourguignon and followed her roasted chicken recipe but I need to explore further. I read Julia's memoir My Life in France in 2009 and it was also very food-oriented, as you can imagine!

yolana My parents were similarly lenient and I turned out OK...I think the only time my mother took a book away was a pretty steamy romance with one of *those* pictures on the front. I had checked it out of the library because it was about history not realizing what I was getting into.

>17 witchyrichy: I loved As Always, Julia--I can't wait to hear what you think.

I have started dabbling in the TIOLI challenges as part of the 75 Books Challenge for 2014. For February, I read The Red Tent as part of Challenge #1: Read a book from the library of the LT member with the greatest weighted number of books which match your own. The book had been lurking on my shelf for many years and I'm determined to clean off some of these dusty purchases this year.

The Red Tent is the expanded story of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob who was abducted and raped by Shalem a royal prince of Canaan. Diamant rewrites and expands the narrative to tell the story of one of the daughters of Jacob, a story that includes her mother, aunts and grandmother. These are the women who often get overlooked in the Biblical tradition.

The prose of the book has a liturgical feel, as though Diamant is writing her own book of Dinah, a book that celebrates the rituals and lives of Old Testament women. I found it difficult to get into the flow of the language at first but eventually settled into its rhythms.

March Reading Plan:

I usually just read around, but that means I also tend to read the newer books as they are more in evidence on the shelves. When February's challenge had me digging into the back to pull out The Red Tent, I saw how the challenges could encourage me to explore the archives.

For March, I've signed up for four challenges:

All the King's Men has a red title.
Reflex has a mostly green cover.
A Soldier of the Great War is about someone who served in WW I.
Team of Rivals is clunkier that I usually read.

I would love to finish all these books in the next month! I will need to read a chapter a day of Team of Rivals to finish it. I've just started Reflex so think I'll read that in tandem with the Kearns Goodwin book before moving on to the other two. Two books at a time is usually what I can handle. This plan seems pretty challenging to me but I have been making more time to read these days.

Team of Rivals is a surprisingly quick read. Or maybe I should say quicker than you would think based upon the size of it. I think that Goodwin's writing is very readable, and the story is engrossing.

I am finding the same thing, NanaCC! The chapters go by quickly.

I finished Reflex this morning. Once I got into it, I found that it was not just a good mystery but also a fascinating look at photography in the "old days" and the science behind creating a photo in the dark room. I also loved the focus on photography and how we use it to record our lives. Long before anyone thought of taking a photo a day, Phillip Nore was already doing it. Clair comments on how he has captured a whole life and allowed her to see things through him. She is able to understand his life because of his photographs.

I think I'll start All the King's Men next since it's analog. I like to read a paper book in bed at night and keep the ereader for during the day. We don't have a TV in our bedroom anymore so I am also avoiding other electronic devices as well.

In between Team of Rivals and All the King's Men, I read Grasshopper Jungle, suggested by a Facebook group. It was slightly reminiscent of The Perks of Being a Wallflower as the whole book had a sense of breathlessness, the just on the edge of being out of control world of a teenager. It is meant for young adults and deals openly with issues related to sexuality and sexual identity. But all that is wrapped into a futuristic dystopian story that draws from science fiction and super hero genres. Funny, poignant, full of amazingly, but sometimes frustrating, prose. The narration can be startling in its frankness but sweet in its portrait of friendship in a crazy world.
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