Catching Up with Miss Hargreaves, Poppy, and Summer in Cape Cod

Miss Hargreaves (1939) by Frank Baker

This book is a warning to anyone who ever embroidered a story or made something up that seemed hilarious to him (or her) but perhaps not so much to other people.  Norman Huntley and his friend Henry Beddow are on vacation chatting to a sexton when they make up an eccentric older lady called Miss Hargreaves.  Carrying on with their silliness, Norman sends a letter inviting her to visit his family in the Cathedral town of Cornford.  When he gets home, he is horrified to find someone named Hargreaves has sent a telegram stating she will arrive on Monday!  No one believes Norman when he says he doesn't know her and did not invite her, and once she arrives Norman is torn between pride in his creation, embarrassment at her behavior, and a strange affection for her that comes and goes. Miss Hargreaves' visit to Cornford threatens to destroy his life - unless or even if it is Norman who is behaving irrationally.  This is an amusing story, recommended by Simon at Stuck in a Book.

   

Bookshelf Traveling - August 29

Time for another round of Bookshelf Traveling in Insane Times which was created by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness and is currently hosted by Katrina at Pining for the West.   The idea is to share one of your neglected bookshelves or perhaps a new pile of books.  

My guest room has seven bookcases of children’s books, including this shelf which holds the Ellen Confords, three by L.M. Boston, Understood Betsy (which I couldn’t find when I needed it last month for the family read!), the Carol Ryrie Brinks, and my E. Nesbits.

Favorite Reads of 2014 (somewhat belated)

Fiction

Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid (2014)

The Austen Project, in which Jane Austen was retold by 21st-­century authors, was commissioned (I assume) by HarperCollins, and here Northanger Abbey is reimagined in modern-day Scotland during the Edinburgh Festival, which sounds like so much fun.  Young Catherine Morland is obsessed with Twilight and imagines everyone is a vampire, which seemed an inspired tribute to the original character’s gothic imaginings.

Bookshelf Traveling with Patricia Wentworth - August 22

Time for another round of Bookshelf Traveling in Insane Times which was created by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness and now hosted by Katrina at Pining for the West, on opposite sides of the Atlantic.  The idea is to share one (or three) of your neglected bookshelves or perhaps another pile of books.  

Three shelves of Patricia Wentworth!

This is a quick post (or was meant to be) because it is the first weekend of the semester, which means homework in my two classes, Collection Development and Library Management.  And although I was planning to take next week off, I have an overdue grant that must be finished before I can take any vacation from work.  But I swear by Tuesday I will have turned off my alarm and will be sleeping late or reading in the hammock instead of trying to motivate my department from dawn to dusk.   Six months of working from home has been challenging for everyone, and those with children are especially worried about today’s news that Boston schools will both delay the start and conduct classes remotely.

Patricia Wentworth

Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

Title: Wives and Daughters
Author:  Elizabeth Gaskell, called The Unjustly Overlooked Victorian Novelist by the New Yorker

Setting: 1830s England

Publication:  Oxford University Press, trade paper, 1987 (originally published 1864-66 in serial form)

Genre: Literature

Boston's Branch Library System

While every library has a charm all its own, a public library, which serves all, regardless of status, education, or wealth, is a resource that can be transformative to the widest range of users.  The Boston Public Library was the first large free municipal library in the United States.  Many visitors know the beautiful and recently renovated central library in Copley Square.  Designed by McKim Mead & White, it stands across the street from its equally famous neighbor, Trinity Church, the masterpiece of Henry Hobson Richardson, whom I have been studying this summer. 

BPL from the East

Bookshelf Traveling - August 15

Time for another round of Bookshelf Traveling in Insane Times which is being hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness.   The idea is to share one of your neglected bookshelves or perhaps a new pile of books.    

Cult-favorite Tryst by Elswyth Thane (1939)

Title: Tryst
Author: Elswyth Thane

Publication: Aeonian Press, hardcover, 1974 (originally published in 1939)

Genre: Fiction/Romance

Bookshelf Traveling - August 7

Time for another round of Bookshelf Traveling in Insane Times which is being hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness.   The idea is to share one of your neglected bookshelves or perhaps a pile of books on the floor that you keep meaning to read or at least make space for in a bookcase.

(Concluding) Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown, Chapter 13 and 14

Chapter 13      Rip Van Winkle

Naturally, the girls are very excited on the day of the performance for their stage debut.  The trio walks to Winona’s house and Mr. Root drives them downtown in his cutter.   Tib made daily visits to the Melborn Hotel to be coached by Mrs. Poppy (how does she know the part so well?) and since then has been rehearsing with the cast.  Surprisingly, Tib is not a “quick study” but once she learns something she is completely confident without no stage fright.   The girls are told they will cling to the coat-tails of the actor playing Rip.

An Air That Kills, the Lydmouth series launch by Andrew Taylor

Title: An Air That Kills
Author: Andrew Taylor

Publication: St. Martin’s Press, hardcover, 1995 (originally published 1994)

Genre: Mystery

Setting: 1950s Britain

Six Degrees of Separation - From How to Do Nothing to A Tale of Two Cities

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place as other readers, add six books, and see where each ends up.   This month’s starting point is How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell (2019), praised by the New York Times as “[a]n eloquent argument against the cult of efficiency . . . I felt both consoled and invigorated by it.”  It is rare I completely miss hearing about an NYT bestseller but this is not the type of nonfiction I read.