Love in a Mist by Susan Scarlett #DeanStreetDecember

This is one of 12 light-hearted novels that Noel Streatfeild wrote for adults under a pseudonym, and the only one I’ve read that wasn’t a romance. Instead, this is more of a Tring family story, a grocery business in its fourth generation as backdrop, and the gentle dictatorship of Dad-Tring and Mum-Tring over their adult sons, especially the two who work for their father. George, the eldest, is a solicitor, married to Anna, who believes she married beneath her and feels she is not sufficiently valued in the community. Andrew, the youngest, is married to Doris, who attended the London School of Economics and could have had a promising career.

The #1970Club – some books I have enjoyed as recommendations for next week

On Monday, October 14th, Karen and Simon will launch the #1970Club, a week-long celebration of books first published in 1970. It is very entertaining to see what everyone comes up with and when I started to consider what to read, I saw that I had already reviewed some of the best books published that year. Some of these might appeal to anyone still looking for the right book to read this weekend!

Babbacombe's by Susan Scarlett aka Noel Streatfeild #DeanStreetDecember23

Title: Babbacombe’s
Author: Susan Scarlett
Publication: Dean Street Press, paperback, 2022 (originally published in 1941)
Genre: Fiction
Setting: London

Description: On her last day of school, Beth Carson hears her headmistress saying the school will be the poorer without her, and she knows she will miss it but steadies her shoulders to enter the adult world. A job awaits her at Babbacombe’s, the highly-regarded department store where her father has worked for years.

Six Degrees of Separation – from Time Shelter to Memory Man

It’s time for #6degrees, inspired by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. We all start at the same place, add six books, and see where we end up. This month’s starting point is Time Shelter by Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov and translated by Angela Rodel. According to the Guardian, “A mysterious therapist, Gaustine, founds a clinic that treats patients with Alzheimer's by recreating the pasts in which they felt most secure.”

A Final Post for Dean Street December

This month, Liz of Adventures in Reading, Running and Working from Home has been hosting Dean Street December. As I have not finished my current book, I thought I would highlight some of my reading from Dean Street Press:

My October 2022 Reads

I read several entertaining books for the 1929 Club but the novel that most captured my interest last month was Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. It is a mesmerizing story of friendship and collaboration spanning three decades, starting when the two protagonists meet in a hospital as teenagers, then reconnect when attending college in Cambridge and starting a venture together. As I was listening to the audio, I found myself telling everyone I encountered about this book, which I picked up because of Nancy Pearl’s recommendation.

Five Things

• The New England Betsy-Tacy Group gathered on Sunday to make bookmarks for a December exhibit at the Arlington Public Library.  Some colored the illustrations, some cut rectangles of colored cards, some glued the pictures onto card stock, and some attached ribbons.  Our hostess will gently recolor any bookmark in which someone accidentally mis-colored a character's hair as we wouldn't want to mislead a future reader!  Everyone nibbled caramel cashew squares, cream cheese brownies, popovers, and potato chips with dip as we worked.  

Clothes-Pegs by Susan Scarlett

Title: Clothes-Pegs
Author: Susan Scarlett (aka Noel Streatfeild)
Publication: Furrowed Middlebrow/Dean Street Press, paperback, originally published in 1939
Genre: Fiction/Romance
Setting: London

Description: Annabel Brown is the eldest of the four Brown children and works as a seamstress at Bertna’s, an upscale dress shop in London’s Hanover Square.

My Year in Books – 2021

These memes were popular last year so I am recycling one I liked. Links go to my reviews.

Rules: Using only books you have read during the year (2021), answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title. Let me know, below, if you did a version of this too.

Describe yourself:

How do you feel:  Yours Cheerfully or Do Not Disturb, depending on my mood

Describe where you currently live: A Place to Hang the Moon

August 2021 Reads

Some thoughts on my August reading:

Mystery and Suspense

City of the Lost (Rockton #1) by Kelley Armstrong

A Darkness Absolute (Rockton #2) by Kelley Armstrong

This Fallen Prey (Rockton #3) by Kelley Armstrong – These Rockton books are a seven-book series about Casey Butler, a homicide detective living in an isolated town in the Yukon where people go who don’t want to be found.   I am enjoying them, so long as I don’t have to go live there!  I recommended the first book to my sister around August 5th and she is already on book 5!

Thursday's Child by Noel Streatfeild – the first of her books I owned and still a favorite

Title: Thursday’s Child
Author: Noel Streatfeild
Illustrator: Peggy Fortnum
Publication: Random House, hardcover, 1970
Genre: Juvenile historical fiction
Setting: Early 20th century England

Description: Margaret Thursday is no ordinary foundling.  She was left on the church steps in a basket with three of everything, all of the best quality. 

Do you ever wonder if your favorite authors knew each other?

I was reading Angela Bull's biography of Noel Streatfeild and was amused to come across this passage:

Not caring for flying, [Noel] preferred to cross the Atlantic in the comfort of a liner.  A glimpse of her on board the Queen Mary came from another writer of ballet stories, Mabel Esther Allan, who happened to see Noel's name on the passenger list, and sent her a note suggesting they should meet for drinks.

Mabel Esther Allan

WWW Wednesday – August 18, 2021

WWW Wednesday is run 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?

I am currently reading Noel Streatfeild: A Biography by Angela Bull, a respected author in her own right. This is for a project I am working on about Streatfeild’s orphans and their ambitions.

Dancing Shoes by Noel Streatfeild (aka Wintle's Wonders)

Title: Dancing Shoes
Author: Noel Streatfeild
Illustrator: Richard Floethe
Publication: Yearling paperback, 1980 (originally published in 1957)
Genre: Juvenile fiction
Setting: 20th century London

Description: As Rachel and Hilary’s mother is dying, she urges Rachel to make sure talented Hilary continues with her ballet. Once orphaned, the ten-year-olds are given a home by Rachel’s father’s brother Tom and his wife, Cora. Cora runs a theatrical school, Wintle’s Wonders, and does not initially plan to give a home to Hilary, "only" an adopted niece, until she sees Hilary dance and recognizes she has potential – although she does not think Hilary is as gifted as her own daughter, Dulcie, destined for stardom.

July 2021 Reads

July was full of a variety of books and yet I have barely made a dent in my library books or other TBR piles. How is your summer reading going?

The Children on the Top Floor by Noel Streatfeild - orphans galore on Christmas Day!

Title: The Children on the Top Floor
Author: Noel Streatfeild
Illustrator: Jillian Willett
Publication: Collins, hardcover, 1964
Genre: Juvenile fiction
Setting: 20th century London

US edition which was in my library

Description: On his Christmas Eve broadcast, television personality Malcom Master told his audience that as a bachelor he envied the Christmas mornings they would have with the patter of little feet and the sound of children opening their stockings. The next morning, his one-time nanny/now housekeeper finds four babies left on the doorstep to rectify the nonexistent hole in his life.

The Illustrated Dust Jacket, 1920-1970 by Martin Salisbury

Title: The Illustrated Dust Jacket, 1920-1970
Author: Martin Salisbury
Publication: Thames & Hudson, hardcover, 2017
Genre: Nonfiction/Books about Books/Art

Description: This book describes the history of the dust jacket, beginning in the 1920s, as an illustrated art form that is decorative and promotional, rather than merely providing protection.

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild - who is your favorite Fossil?

Title: Ballet Shoes
Author: Noel Streatfeild
Illustrator: Richard Floethe
Publication: Random House, hardcover, 1937 (originally published in 1936)
Genre: Children’s fiction

The 1936 Club is hosted by Simon from Stuck in a Book and Karen from Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings.

Plot: Great Uncle Matthew (known as Gum) was a noted collector of fossils and lived in a large house on London’s Cromwell Road with his niece Sylvia, and her childhood nurse, Nana. One day he brings home an orphaned baby who Sylvia and Nana name Pauline. Soon there are two more, Petrova and Posy.  

Noel Streatfeild's overlooked series about child actress Gemma Bow

Titles: Gemma, Gemma and Sisters
Author: Noel Streatfield
Publication: Dell Yearling, paperbacks (originally published in 1968)
Genre: Juvenile fiction/series
Setting: 20th century England

Description: Gemma is a child film star, daughter of actress Rowena Bow, but as she approaches adolescence there have been no parts for a while, which frightens her. When her mother is offered a part in America, Gemma is sent to live with cousins she has never met, 150 miles from London.

WWW Wednesday - February 3, 2021

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?

Right now I am reading Secret Places by Janice Elliott (1981), set during World War II, in which teenage Patience Mackenzie befriends Laura Meister, a refugee from Germany, who joins her girls' day school in England.  There is also a movie with Jenny Agutter in the cast; here is the beginning.