March & April Book Report

My reading has slowed down…partly due to April’s wacky schedule, but also Souls for Sale may not be the book to get me over my reading hump.

Souls for Sale by Rupert Hughes
I’m halfway into this…when I’m reading it, I like it, but I’m not excited to pick it up. I will report back in May, unless I give up on it.

As it Was & A World Without End by Helen Thomas
These two memoirs…just beautiful, and perfect for spring. It is Helen Thomas’s telling of her marriage to poet and writer Edward Thomas who struggled with depression and died in World War I. Helen and Edward had three children and lived in poverty most of the time, since Edward was something of a struggling writer. He was also a nature lover, so their explorations of the wilderness and the descriptions of flowers and birds and the forests are gorgeous. He may have been a published writer, but her talents for writing are extraordinary.

The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner
This was our April pick for book club. The writing was beautiful and there was a lot of marital strife and family drama. (The book is semi-autobiographical so that made it even more interesting because it was as if Stegner was working out his childhood trauma in the book.) It wasn’t an easy read, but everyone in book group appreciated it.

The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright
Written in between Native Son and Black Boy, The Man Who Lived Underground was just published last year. I read both of those books and a lot more Wright in college so I was really interested in this one that Wright called one of his best. We read it for book club in March. Wright is a very effective writer, and this book could have been written this year, sadly. I can’t say I enjoyed it–it was definitely a tense read with a sad ending, but I’m glad we read it. If you’ve never read Richard Wright, I would suggest this as a good place to start.

Spring Came On Forever by Bess Streeter Aldrich
This was my first Streeter Aldrich but hopefully not my last! This one was written in 1935 and follows two families moving from Illinois to settle Nebraska. It’s a family saga that covers three generations of both families. There’s love and heartbreak, pioneer struggles, marital strife, and beautiful descriptions of scenery in this book–it was a good spring read that I stayed up way too late to finish.

My April was bananas with Easter at work and a ton of volunteer stuff to manage. I am hoping I can slow down in May and get back into my habit of dinner reading and doing more things for myself this month.

Our Pleasant Homes Book Club Turns 20

February was our book club’s 20th anniversary. Because of Covid numbers, we waited to celebrate together in March with a 1920s party. (You can read more about why we chose a 1920’s theme on this post that talks more about the history of the group.) Sadly we were missing Virginia, who is only one of two original members still with the group, but we had a great time and really landed the theme!

Susan decorated the table with many old copies of books we’ve read. It was so fun to reminisce about each book–it’s also amazing how many we forget reading! We ate tea sandwiches, Waldorf salad, stuffed celery, relishes, deviled eggs, pineapple upside down cake, chocolate phosphates, and Southside cocktails.

We read Richard Wright’s The Man Who Lived Underground, which was written in between his novels Native Son and Black Boy in the 1940s, but not printed until last year. It was a really good, but really tough book.

I’m so thankful for this group and for a chance to talk about old books.

February 2022 Books

February flew by and so did its books!

If Winter Comes by A.S.M. Hutchinson
This was our book club pick for our 20th anniversary. It was the #1 best seller in 1922 and for most of the book, you are kind of left wondering why. Not much happens, except you watch an unhappy marriage slowly fall apart. But in the last section, all the drama hits the ceiling and then you understand why it sold so well. I personally love a book with some marital strife so I loved this book, from start to finish. Reviews in our group were mixed.

The Cocktail Party by T.S. Eilliot
This is a play about an unhappy marriage. (Fun accidental theme for February?!) There are eccentric characters, therapy sessions, lots of cocktails and conversation. I loved it.

How to Carry Water by Lucille Clifton
This was my introduction to Clifton and I loved her work. Some of my favorites were “note to myself,” “new year,” “cigarettes,” “shapeshifter poems,” and “November 1, 1975.” I don’t read enough poetry.

All the Days and Nights by William Maxwell
I still have a couple of stories to finish but I had to return it to the library, so stay tuned for a final review when I get the book back. I have been trying to go through these stories slowly. Sometimes I tend to rush short stories and then I miss out on the enjoyment they can bring. Maxwell’s stories and books are made for lingering…so that’s what I’ll do.

Month by Month Gardening in Illinois
This was supposed to motivate me to plant some seeds and get a grow light set up in the basement. So far, it hasn’t worked. I did, however, buy a bunch of seeds and tubers to plant as soon as the threats of snow and frost are over…which at this rate, will be May.

March was a slower reading month for me, so expect a full report on that soon…ish! Tell me what you’ve been reading!

Book Club Christmas Tea 2021

Book club has been a wild ride through the pandemic. We met on zoom for all of 2020, and finally reunited in person in May for a rainy meeting in my back yard. Through the summer, we were lucky to have good weather for outdoor meetings. Even in November, we met around our fire pit with blankets and winter coats. We’ve really made the most of being together.

Last month, before Omicron and the latest surge, we decided we would do our annual Christmas tea in person. We are all vaccinated and boosted, so we all geared up for a back-to-normal kind of party again. But…things changed so rapidly, and we decided to modify our plans at the last minute.

We still met in person, but we decided to do our toast out on Susan’s porch in the open air. We all masked when we weren’t actively drinking and we wore our winter coats to stay cozy. There were only six of us–two members were traveling, one member wasn’t feeling well, and one member had a close call with Covid so decided to opt out–so we spread out in Susan’s spacious living and dining room to eat and then put our masks back on for the book discussion. We ate chicken salad sandwiches, radish and sandwiches, sausage rolls, scones, grape salad, and lots of Christmas cookies. Susan made a spiced ginger Prosecco cocktail that was warm and festive.

It was super cozy eating and chatting by the fire. We read Miss Read’s Village Christmas which is a short, sweet book from the 1960s about two spinster sisters and a Christmas adventure with their new neighbors. If you’ve never read Miss Read, her books are just delightful.

In 2022, we will celebrate our 20th anniversary as a group. Who knows what that celebration will look like, but I’m so grateful for this group of ladies who share my love of old books!

December Books

After going strong all year, I kind of fizzled out of the reading habit by December. I barely finished my book club book in time for the discussion and then I found myself cramming one last book into my suitcase so I could achieve my goal of fifty books for the year.

The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

This was our book for book club. I didn’t love it, which put me in the minority. (It was widely loved by the group.) I think I didn’t love it because I tried to read it in too short of a time. A book club friend compared it to a really sweet dessert; it’s best enjoyed in small tastes. So, I think I need to give ol’ P.G. another try sometime.

for a flower album by Colette

This is a really lovely book. Colette writes exquisitely about flowers and her beautiful prose sits alongside simple, sweet watercolor illustrations. She weaves vignettes of her life into the floral descriptions. There’s no real plot, but it’s the kind of book you can revisit over time and still enjoy it. Hmmm…maybe it’s similar to Jeeves in that way!

Book Club Christmas Tea 2019

Last weekend was our annual book club Christmas tea and it was delightful, as usual. We had four kinds of sandwiches (egg salad, shrimp salad, roast beef with provolone, and cilantro chicken salad,) two kinds of scones (cranberry-orange and bacon cheddar,) Christmas cake, grape salad, and Christmas punch. I love a good tea sandwich so I ate way too many and also floated away from all the tea. Stasia brought corsages for everyone so it felt especially fancy. I think corsages are under-utilized and I’m going to demand one for every birthday from now on. We read PG Wodehouse which was enjoyable, but I read it all in a couple days so I was sort of Wodehoused out by the end. The writing is really charming though so hopefully I’ll be ready to tackle a short story here and there in the future. We always have party poppers with crowns, mustaches, and jokes. Reading the jokes and guessing the riddles is always my favorite part of the day. Three cheers for good book discussions in 2019!

November Books

November was a weird reading month, with Halloween and Christmas book-ending a Midwestern coming-of-age story.

“The Giant Wisteria” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I love “The Yellow Wallpaper” so I was excited to read this one, which is sort of a ghost story inside a feminist story. I can’t say more without major spoilers, but there is an unwed mother and a haunted wisteria involved…

Carmilla by J Sheridan Le Fanu

One of our friends was going to see a movie based on this book and when he told me about it, I ordered it from the library and put down The Sundial to make time for vampires. Carmilla predates Dracula by a quarter of a century and is one of the first novels published with lesbian love scenes. It’s provocative and really good! Put it on your list for next Halloween!

The Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter

This was our book club read, chosen because it was referenced in Not Without Laughter last month. It reminded me a lot of Anne of Green Gables (which to me, is the gold standard of old coming of age books.) Maybe that’s why I didn’t love this…the main character was too perfect. Anne is so lovable because she is flawed and has some very relateable embarrassing moments. Elnora is so perfect that she’s kind of boring, even though her adventures in the limberlost were interesting to read about. (I had no idea there used to be a lot of swampland in Indiana!) Oh and there’s a love triangle that reminds me of a Hallmark movie, which just does not work in the same way as it does on the Hallmark channel.

Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck

This is a sweet Christmas short story. It’s a super quick read and it warms the heart more than a hot cup of cider.

A Kidnapped Santa Claus by L Frank Baum

This one is so weird, and I loved it. Santa gets kidnapped by some cave daemons and his virtues are tested. It’s a simple moral story but I really enjoyed it, especially the illustrations by Richard Rosenblum. I’ve never read The Wizard of Oz and now I kind of want to…

That’s all for November. So far, I haven’t read anything this month, even though I have a book of Christmas murder mysteries and our book club book to read…I’m two books away from finishing fifty books/stories this year, so I better get a move on so I can meet my goal!

 

October Books

After reading NOTHING in September (who AM I?) it felt good to get back into my reading groove again, especially since October means scary stories and Halloween reads.

The Crown Derby Plate by Marjorie Bowen

It’s so hard to talk about short stories because, well, they’re short and giving away a little sometimes gives away it all. But this one is about a china collector (I can relate!) who revisits a home where (30 years before) she bought an entire collection of Crown Derby china. She returns to recover the one missing plate for her collection. She encounters the woman of the home and admires the woman’s china displayed lovingly in the home…and things happen. I’d say this is a 6/10 on the creepy scale but it was a fun read nonetheless. I’d like to read more of Bowen’s work!

“The Diary of Mr. Poynter” by M.R. James

This one was weird. It was basically about…haunted curtains. Yes, haunted curtains. There was a scary moment, but that’s about it. I give it a 3/10 on the creepy scale.

“The Signalman” by Charles Dickens

This one stayed with me for a bit. It was about a train signalman who kept seeing signs of danger while he was stationed at work. Anything else would ruin the ending so, I’ll just say, it was haunting. 7/10 on the creepy scale.

“The One Who Saw” by A.M. Burrage

The buildup was better than the payoff but maybe that is the point. It’s about a man staying at a hotel in Paris and his encounters with a mysterious woman in the courtyard. I think it’s a 5/10 on the creepy scale.

Inner Witch by Gabriela Herstik

A friend and I were talking about witches and herbs and the moon one day and we decided to start a little group for all things witchy. There were about ten of us who met at a local bar to chat about Inner Witch. It was a good introduction because it provides a nice overview of witchiness and it does a good job covering the connections to the seasons (which is the thing I’m most interested in.) In some cases, the author kind of glosses over the cultural appropriation involved in witchery, and in others (ahem, smudging,) she doesn’t even acknowledge it. So, read at your own risk…

Not Without Laughter by Langston Hughes

We read this for book group and I loved it. It’s a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story about a black boy growing up in Kansas with his mom and his grandma, and also two aunts. The first chapter opens with a tornado scene that is just spectacular and some of this other descriptions (of a dance, of his first day at an integrated school, of Chicago) are amazing as well. I’ve read a few coming-of-age books this year and it was nice to read one from another perspective. It got equally good ratings from almost everyone else in book group.

The Dollhouse Murders by Betty Ren Wright

Someone mentioned this on Instagram and I’d remembered reading it so I thought it would be fun to revisit it. It holds up after all these years but I’m clearly not as easily spooked as I was back in grade school.

The Sundial by Shirley Jackson

I’m still making my way through this one. I kept putting it down for book club and short stories so maybe it’s a sign I should give up? I love the premise and I always find Shirley Jackson slow in an intentional way but for some reason this isn’t grabbing me like all of her other books have…I’ll report back next month if I continue on!

Are you reading anything good lately? I have one hundred pages to go in my book club book for tomorrow so today after work, I’ll be hunkering down with The Girl of the Limberlost and a cup of tea. Have a good weekend!

August Books

August was a slowwww reading month. I didn’t pick up a book until I had to start reading for book club and I filled the rest of the month with short stories and an art book.

The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway 

This was our book club read for August. It was well-received by the group. It’s a memoir of a woman who had spinal tuberculosis and spent ten years as a child flat on her back. The treatment was supposed to minimize the curvature of her spine. Sadly, her spine was still affected and she lived the rest of her life hunched over, her head lower than her shoulders. Somehow, she ends up living a mostly “normal” life, not really feeling like an outcast and working her way through college and buying a house on her own. The story is heartbreaking, and fascinating, and inspiring, especially because at the end you learn that she has two love affairs with Japanese men and gets married to another man (which isn’t a spoiler because she does have two last names.) There is a collection of her journals and letters which I’m perusing now. I thought her childhood/early adult memoir was interesting, but I’m more interested in her adult life, which she spends among artists in New York and Paris.

The Heavenly Tenants by William Maxwell

This is a children’s book that Maxwell wrote in 1946. It’s a fantasy about a farming family who enjoys stargazing and the zodiac comes to life. It was the runner-up for the Newberry Medal and the illustrations are fantastic. It was a little weird but as usual, he handles the human connections so perfectly.

Gelli Plate Printing by Joan Bess

Obviously this was more for research than enjoyment but I wanted to learn a little bit more about the different stencils and layering techniques involved with gel plate printing. I found this to be a good resource, but I have another book coming so maybe next month I can compare the two.

“Bliss” & “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield

“Bliss” has it all: a dinner party hosted by a happy wife, major symbolism, a lovely tree that has multiple meanings, adultery… It asks the question, is it better to live with the truth or in ignorant bliss? (I think I’m a bitter truth person, how about you?)

Like Dandelion Wine, “The Garden Party” was a coming-of-age, discovering death story…it’s weird that the same themes are accidentally coming up in some of my reading this summer. The descriptions of the party preparations were delicious and were the perfect contrast to the more serious parts of the story.

I’m having a hard time getting into my next book. I think my mind is too distracted for reading right now, but that just means I really need to be reading! Have you read anything great lately?

July Books

I had a very good reading month in July, which is great because I haven’t read anything since! Yikes!

“The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood

This short story was recommended as one of the scariest stories ever, and as you know, I love a scary book. I found “The Willows” to be really intense and a really great read. There is looming doom through the whole book. Definitely one to read in October if you have a chance. I am going to request this collection again this fall to see if I like any of his other “weird” short stories.

Howard’s End by E.M. Forster

This is supposedly Forster’s “masterpiece” but…I didn’t love this. Maybe it was over-hyped? While I appreciate Forster’s writing and I liked the story, it wasn’t a book that I was eager to pick up every day. I appreciate the social commentary–a modern, bohemian woman married to the conservative older man, and refusing to adapt to his old ideas–but this book just didn’t grab me the way that A Room with a View did. I do wonder if I would like it better after a book club discussion. (Fun fact: most of our book club reviews get better after the discussions!)

Stationery Fever by John Komurki

I borrowed this for the eye candy and ended up reading it. It’s full of pictures of vintage and new stationery, divided by topic. At the end of each chapter, there are a few pages highlighting stationery shops around the world. It was a good overview of the history of the most useful stationery supplies, and delves into classic companies that make them. It left me wanting more…not in a bad way…in a I’ve had a taste, now I want more details kind of way. Also, now I want to travel the world seeing the best stationery shops.

Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett 

This was for book group. If you don’t know, Hammett wrote The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man Series which were turned into some of my favorite old movies. In our group, the book got mixed reviews. It is about a detective hired to clean up a town that is out of control with corruption. The characters and alliances are very confusing…I actually made a character map to try to figure things out. As someone in book club said, once you give up trying to figure things out, it’s an enjoyable read. Hammett is a really sharp writer and there were so many quotes that I marked as perfect descriptions or things that made me laugh. I really love Film Noir and this book made me feel like I was reading an old movie. Supposedly The Glass Key is one of his best, so I’ve added that to my list for later this year.

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury 

I can’t remember ever reading Bradbury before. This one came up in a discussion as a great summer read and I love a seasonal book so… It was really lovely. I just notice the library stickered it as Science Fiction, but it wasn’t sci-fi at all. It was a coming-of-age story (How many of those have I read this year?) about a boy growing up in a small town in Illinois. Basically, he realizes his mortality this summer and learns to appreciate the moments of life, especially the making of dandelion wine with his grandfather. The wine will be enjoyed over the winter and remind them all of specific happenings on these summer days. Supposedly the book is semi-autobiographical. Dandelion Wine was just a beautiful summer reading experience.

Bright Center of Heaven by William Maxwell

Have I mentioned how much I love William Maxwell? This was his first novel, and it definitely wasn’t as developed as Time Will Darken It or Song of the Lark or The Folded Leaf, but Maxwell already had honed his perfect ways in describing relationships and feelings. The story revolves around artistic guests and the lonely owner of a boarding house in the early 1930s. It takes awhile to get to the “conflict” which is the tension between the black lecturer who was invited to stay at the boarding house and the other guests, but even though the conflict is imperfect, the rest of the story is engaging and beautifully written. (But I may be biased…) I have one more Maxwell to read and then I’ll be finished with his novels…it feels bittersweet. I might save it as a Christmas present to myself.

This Saturday is book club and we’re reading an autobiography…looking forward to finishing my first book for August!