Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner

Title: Bloomsbury Girls
Author: Natalie Jenner
Publication: St. Martin’s, hardcover, 2022
Genre: Historical Fiction
Setting: London, 1950

Description: In this companion novel to The Jane Austen Society, three women encroach on the male world of bookselling at a shop in the Bloomsbury section of London.

Day 3 – Channeling Harry Potter and more

Wednesday was a research day and several of us decided to go to a coffee shop to work on our homework, then do some sightseeing. Amanda (Elmira, NY), Erin (Newport News, VA), Desiree (San Francisco), and I walked down Baker Street to a place called Gail’s where they let us monopolize a table for several hours. I was happy with tea and a ham and cheese croissant. Keeping a blog is part of the course assignment so those creating one for the first time were trying to come up with clever names for them.

Much Ado About You by Samantha Young (bookstore wish fulfillment and more)

Title: Much Ado About You
Author: Samantha Young
Publication: Berkley, trade paperback, 2021
Genre: Chick Lit
Setting: Present-day Chicago and England

Description: Evie is humiliated and fed up with the dating scene in Chicago and equally infuriated by the sexism at work where she has done her boss’ job for years without credit or a promotion.

A few hours in Concord . . . a glimpse of Little Women

On my vacation day, I wanted to visit the Concord Bookshop, one of my favorites, and you can't go to Concord without visiting Orchard House, where Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) wrote Little Women!   Although Orchard House is currently closed to the public, the parking lot was busy with literary pilgrims pulling up and strolling around the grounds (avoiding a distinctly non-19th century landscaping company removing a tree).

LMA wrote Little Women here in 1868 

Currently closed to the public

Cucumber plant decor at Main Streets
Market & Cafe, where we had
a yummy lunch!

Plaid and Plagiarism (Book Review)

Title: Plaid and Plagiarism: Book 1 in the Highland Bookshop Mystery Series
Author: Molly MacRae
Publication: Pegasus, Hardcover, 2016
Genre: Mystery

Description: Janet, a middle-aged librarian from Illinois, her friend Christine, Janet’s daughter Tallie, and Tallie’s friend Summer, have moved to Inversgail in Scotland to run a bookstore, Ye Bonnie Books.

Heyer

It was a pleasure to meet a fellow Georgette Heyer fan, Jeannine Pellerin, on a recent trip to Montreal. We met for breakfast and, of course, talked books. I was interested to hear that she first came across Heyer when she was living in Victoria, British Columbia, and found These Old Shades in the laundry room of her apartment building. Although her native language is French, she read Heyer in English, embracing Regency slang, and moving on to other historical romance once she'd read the Heyer oeuvre. I brought her a copy of one of my favorite books, Sabrina, by Madeleine Polland, and was delighted when she reported back that she had enjoyed it and shared with a friend (I even heard about a tea shop near that very friend in Markham, Ontario that made me want to plan my next road trip). We visited a used bookstore and found a book or three before I returned to my family. As always, it is a pleasure to meet a Heyer friend in person and discuss one of my favorite authors!

State of Wonder (review)

Title: State of Wonder
Author: Ann Patchett
Publication Information: HarperCollins 2011
Genre: Fiction
Plot: Dr. Marina Singh, a research scientist for Vogel, a pharmaceutical company in Minnesota, is sent to Brazil following the mysterious death there of her research partner and friend, Dr. Anders Eckman. Anders had gone to investigate the fertility work Dr. Annick Swenson has been conducting in the Amazon for their employer, as her failure to report back regularly concerned Vogel management.

Marina has several secrets, not simply an affair with Mr. Fox, the CEO of Vogel, but also a mistake she made during her long ago residency in obstetrics (when she was Dr. Swenson’s Chief Resident) that injured a child, and drove her to the comparative safety of a research lab (on Grey’s Anatomy her angst would have lasted only a few episodes). She has no desire to go to the Amazon and childhood trips to India left her with nightmarish reactions to the malaria medication required for either destination, but she is unable to resist the entreaties of Anders’ widow.

What I liked: The book was extremely readable and the characters fairly memorable, particularly Easter, a small deaf boy who becomes close to Marina. The Bovenders, a feckless couple, living at Vogel’s expense in Dr. Swenson’s apartment in Manaus while she is in the jungle are vivid and convincing. Patchett does a great job of conveying the nightmarish quality of the jungle; the reader experiences the oppresiveness and it doesn't matter how much is real and how much due to Marina's fevers. Dr. Swenson is single-minded in her pursuit of science (regarding Anders’ death as an inconvenience) and pushes Marina to discard her research-lab passivity and practice medicine after 13 years. By saving a life or two, she is able to come to terms with the long ago tragedy. Although Marina’s instinctive reaction when confronted by her old professor is to revert into a passive role, she displays strength and determination (but rarely wins an argument with Dr. Swenson). Their relationship is central to the story.

What I disliked: I found the plot somewhat tedious, the setting unappealing, and was so grossed out by the non-stop description of insects I wanted to stop reading. I understood why Marina was driven to find Dr. Swenson and investigate Anders’ death and recognize she felt impelled to stay so she could rehabilitate herself in the eyes of her former professor. However, she had very little personality and after a while I did not really care what happened to her. I never understood what she saw in Mr. Fox either (her trip cures her of that attachment). In Bel Canto, the author’s best known work, there was a lyrical sense of music throughout the novel that united several appealing characters. Here, there is no lyricism other than the (alleged) hypnotic appeal of the jungle. Marina goes to the opera in Manaus (Orfeo ed Euridice – themes of loss and death and of Marina following Anders blindly), perhaps a tease to readers expecting more, but she is too unnerved by Dr. Swenson’s unexpected appearance to appreciate or enjoy the music.

Perhaps the jungle setting was just too real for me – I did not see the beauty, only the misery. Eva Ibbotson makes the Amazon seem appealing and I recommend Journey to the River Sea and A Company of Swans to those who like a romanticized image of the Amazon. Sadly, I suspect Patchett’s version is closer to the truth. I gather the book is in part a tribute to or inspired by Heart of Darkness which I never read.

Source: There were over 500 people ahead of me on the reserve list in the Minuteman System; luckily, the Waltham Library had a copy in its “Speed Read” section. I did consider buying the book to support the author’s recent plan to buy/operate a bookstore in Nashville but shelf space is at a premium in my new home.

The Pride & Prejudice room does not come with your own Mr. Darcy

Bestselling author Nora Roberts must have incredible energy as well as imagination as she writes books faster than the normal person finishes a sentence, but now she has taken on an interesting project - that of innkeeper! I have always wanted to visit her bookstore in MD and now I'd like to visit this inn and stay in the Pride & Prejudice room . . . My geography is terrible - until I looked at the map I didn't realize how close Nora lives to the Pennsylvania border. Those of us who only know Baltimore and Route 95 need to explore the state sometime!

A Book Lovers Road Trip!

Baker Books, in Southeastern Mass., is sponsoring a one day trip to NYC to spend a delicious day in Greenwich Village visiting bookstores, including the Strand. How fun!

I know New York well enough so I would rather do that trip on my own but I am convinced I am missing out on a lot of bookstores on Cape Cod, and would welcome suggestions where to go there. I did find some books in the basement of (I believe it was) the Centerville Library but haven't been to any used bookstores.

Today I took a break from work to go to a library book sale in Dedham, MA, where I found little for myself but quite a few things for my nephews, when they are a little older (it was $4/bag so there was no reason to put anything back, except a juvenile version of Gideon's Trumpet, which I couldn't imagine anyone reading although I did hesitate, having just been to hear Anthony Lewis speak). I have always dismissed Dedham because the public schools are weak, but I drove by beautiful homes, both very historic in the downtown area near the library and court house, and large, more modern ones between on High and Common Street as I headed for Route 128. Of course, one errand led to another and yet another, and I never made it to the gym...