Bookshelf Traveling - July 25, 2020

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.   

After traveling with Eva Ibbotson last week, I reread her Magic Flutes and then decided I had never read The Star of Kazan so began that one.  Do you know sometimes you are so familiar with an author or genre so well that you recognize what is going to happen and then you think, wait, have I already read this?   It happens to me with Elizabeth Cadell and D.E. Stevenson’s books, most but not all of which I read years ago, and is definitely happening with The Star of Kazan.   We’ll see if I am right.  As it is an audiobook, I now realize I should have been pronouncing Eva as “Ava.”

This week I am looking at the right-hand side of the Ibbotson shelf, which is quite a hodge-podge, starting with Ashenden, a classic I picked up when I was at Penguin, based on the author’s espionage during WWI.  Maid for Murder and Birdsong are also books I picked up while at Penguin.  Actually, most of these books came from my publishing days, which means they have survived several moves.  And as anyone knows, when you have to pay for many heavy boxes of books to be moved, you become ruthless.  I may be less ruthless than most!

 

On the far right are six books by Jennifer Crusie, whose books are funny, fast paced-contemporary romance, sometimes with a little suspense thrown in.  A former colleague named Peggy sent me several of Crusie’s books when I was (briefly) a romance editor at Penguin, and I loved them, especially one called Getting Rid of Bradley (I guess the paperbacks are shelved elsewhere).  I reached out and asked her to write some “big books” and we hit it off on the phone.   However, once she got an agent and shopped the books around, they went to talented Jennifer Enderlin at St. Martin’s, who helped make her a New York Times bestseller.   I don’t think I ever met Crusie in person but I remained a big fan of her books and was disappointed that she stopped writing several years ago.  It is very difficult to write humor and many who think they can do it are just not funny at all. 

I think Tami Hoag was the first author I met when I started working in publishing in 1989.  She was doing an event at the large B.Dalton in the lobby of the Bantam Doubleday Dell building, 666 Fifth Avenue, for her Loveswept books, and later segued into romantic suspense, as many of those authors did.  She has written 30 books but the series I like best is about Sam Kovac, a hard-boiled police detective, and his sarcastic partner Nikki Liska, set in Minneapolis.   That B.Dalton was its flagship store; you can imagine how stressful for its staff to have two publishing companies in the building (BDD and Warner Books), always coming in to check on inventory and most likely to criticize.

Lois Battle is a hard author to describe.  Some of her books were historical fiction and some were contemporary, with a Southern setting, well written and not necessarily with happy endings.  Storyville, set in early 20th century New Orleans was the most disturbing and memorable.  I have more than one book by Heather Graham but this one is autographed so is special.   She is a prolific author and a lovely person.  I got to know her and her husband Dennis when I was at Penguin.

The Old House at Mount Munecarthur was written by Jennifer Genat, a friend in Australia, and, although written for adults, reminds me of some of the lesser-known L.M. Montgomery titles like The Blue Castle and Kilmeny of the Orchard.  I have not heard from her for a long time but I remember being so touched when she got her son to help her call me in New York after 9/11 to see if I was all right. 

South Lies the Valley is a historical epic set in Australia, a sub-genre I have always enjoyed. I wrote my college thesis on Thomas Wyatt so cannot bring myself to give away any of those books although am unlikely to ever look at them more than fleetingly again.  Still, who doesn’t like this sonnet, allegedly written about Anne Boleyn? 

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,

But as for me, hélas, I may no more.

The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,

I am of them that farthest cometh behind.

Yet may I by no means my wearied mind

Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore

Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,

Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.

Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,

As well as I may spend his time in vain.

And graven with diamonds in letters plain

There is written, her fair neck round about:

Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,

And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

Off the Blog:  My brother’s affectionate Labradoodle has come to stay this week.   She is very energetic so we spend a lot of time walking.  However, since my friend Gail told me her dog needs neck surgery because of pulling on the leash too hard, I have been worried that Chloe, who is always in a hurry, might also be vulnerable.  Today it is so hot she actually seemed to tire of our walk before I did.

The challenge with black dogs is they
blend with the background!