My June 2022 Reads

I have had no uninterrupted time to write about my trip to Cornwall (I will tease you with one picture) but I did manage to read several books while I was meant to be studying in London. I am paying for it now: my term paper is due on Friday and is only half done!  My favorite book of the month was From a Distance, a library discard I picked up for 20p.

Daphne du Maurier's private beach

Fiction

A Rural Affair by Catherine Alliott (2011). Poppy Shilling may have fantasized about her boring husband slipping on ice on his way to get the paper or contracting malaria from a mosquito bite, but she never imagined Phil would actually have a freak accident and die, leaving her a widow with two children.

Day 13 – Visiting Green Knowe

It was my friend Kathy Baxter who told me she had visited the house upon which The Children of Green Knowe is based and if I had fully grasped how close it is to Cambridge, my mother and I could have gone there four years ago. After rereading the book in August, I was determined to make the Manor at Hemingford Grey part of this trip. I felt shy about writing to Diana Boston, who is the daughter-in-law of author L.M. Boston (1892-1990) and has lived in the house since she moved in to help Lucy after a stroke, but she responded to my email quickly and invited me to come on Saturday, June 18th when she had two tours already scheduled.

The Children of Green Knowe by L.M. Boston #1954Club

Title: The Children of Green Knowe
Author: L.M. Boston
Illustrator: Peter Boston
Publication: Harcourt, paperback, originally published in 1954
Genre: Children’s fantasy
Setting: 20th century Cambridgeshire

Description: As the story begins, Toseland is on a train (alone at 7 years old; times have certainly changed) going to visit his great-grandmother after the autumn term at school. It is December and there is flooding at the station: he is picked up by taxi but then taken by boat by the family retainer, Boggis, to a manor house that is lit up against the darkness.

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.