WWW Wednesday – January 25, 2023

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Dr. Livingstone, I presume?

Currently Reading

When I visited the Royal Geographic Society Library and Archives in June, my class was given a wonderful tour by its principal librarian, Eugene Rae. He is a wonderful storyteller and I was mesmerized by the items he showed us from their collection; in particular, the hats that Henry Stanley and David Livingstone were wearing at their famous meeting in 1871.

He was particularly eloquent about how hard life was for the wives of explorers, often left for years, sometimes in financial distress, and how some of them fought successfully for expeditions to find out what had happened to those who did not return.  He recommended Widows of the Ice: The Women that Scott’s Antarctic Expedition Left Behind by Anne Fletcher (he must have read a review copy because I don’t think it came out until later in the summer). I am enjoying it and plan to recommend it to my professor for this year’s class.

Recently Finished

Have you read The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman?  I enjoyed it in 2020 and finally got around to the sequel, The Man Who Died Twice, as an audiobook. I liked it even more than the first one (which ended very confusingly). What wonderful characters! However, I wonder if I would find it quite so funny if I were in my 80s?

I got Melissa Clark’s new cookbook, Dinner in One: Exceptional & Easy One-Pan Meals from the library because several of the delicious things my sister Andrea makes originate from her NYT column. The pictures make everything look easy and delicious (a likely story). I like the look of Cheesy Baked Pasta with Tomato, Sausage and Ricotta and Parmesan White Beans and Kale. Well, not sure I want that much Kale in my life, to be truthful. Alas, the book is due and can’t be renewed so I need to take one last look to see if worth photocopying a recipe or two.

Read Christie 2023 was doing Sad Cypress in January, so I joined in.

Up Next

When I was in junior high, I went through a phase of reading light romantic suspense novels by Emilie Loring (1866-1951). Over thirty-seven million copies of her books have been sold, in more than a dozen languages. She was also a local author from Wellesley, MA so my libraries were full of them but because she wasn’t in any reference books, I didn’t realize that after she died, her sons had 20 books ghost-written (allegedly) from notes she had left behind.* 

I liked her gallant and intelligent brunette heroines and read them all. I was interested to learn recently that Patti Bender, an educator who, like me, read Loring’s books at a young age, began a labor of love after her teaching career to write a book about Emily Loring. Happy Landings: Emilie Loring’s Life, Writing, and Wisdom will be published in March 2023. Patti was kind enough to send me a review copy, which I am looking forward to reading next month, but I decided I wanted to reread one or two books first.

In Times Like These, published by Little, Brown in 1968, is one of the books written after her death but is fairly typical. Vance Cooper is trying to stop a security link at an electronics company that threatens national security. Page Wilburn, down on her luck after her father’s death, pretends to be his girlfriend to provide cover. Unexpected danger brings them closer together. I didn’t remember this book specifically until I got to a page where a new character appeared and I thought, “Oh, yes, I remember, the villain in this book is a Dartmouth football player!”

Vance’s Aunt Jane is an active member of the League of Women Voters and perhaps Emilie Loring herself belonged to the same chapter as my friend Marlene:

“I believe every woman should be an informed citizen as well as be trained to handle money and earn it,” Aunt Jane said. “Women struggled hard to get the vote, to have equality with men. Now they ought to make sure they understand the issues, know about their candidates, and carry out their duties as citizens.”

Not bad from an author born just after the Civil War!  Except that she didn't write this book, her ghostwriter did!  We'll see what Patti has to say about that whole process.  

* When I worked at Bantam Books, there were many jokes about the manuscripts that Louis L’Amour’s family kept “finding” in the attic years after his death but no one asked too many questions and we went on publishing them.