Browsing the Book Blog Bookshelves

I am running behind myself and have yet to catch up. I spent the morning browsing what some of my favorite readers have been reading this past week (as I have not had a moment to read anything myself!) Here are some books that caught my eye. Click on the links to see the original posts. Thanks to you all for letting me share your picks!

Cornflower wrote about Meeting the English (2013) by Kate Clanchy. This is a tale of Struan Robertson, a fellow from a small Scottish town who is hired to tend to Phillip Prys, a Welsh writer who has had a stroke and whose family doesn't care to care for him. Robertson is thrown into an oddball family not to mention a country where "they do things differently." It all takes place in 1989 in Hampstead. Cornflower writes that it is a well-written, funny, comedy of manners. (I don't think it is available yet in the U.S. but maybe I will be caught up with my other reading by the time it hits our shores.)

Shelf Love introduced me to K.C. Constantine and his series of mysteries the second of which is The Man Who Liked to Look at Himself (1973). The action all takes place in Rocksburg, Penn-sylvania and stars police chief Mario Balzic. Nothing quirky here. Just good, honest police work solves the crime. There are 16 books in this series and Constantine is another mystery writer to add to my list. 

Captive Reader reminded me that last week was Barbara Pym Reading Week (which I totally missed) and posted a delightful picture from the cover of the 1990s edition of Quartet in Autumn.

Stuck in a Book has returned to nature with Four Hedges (1935) by Claire Leighton which not only is a paean to gardens with their attendant weeds and wildlife, but also is illustrated with the author's woodcuts. A delightful summer read and I just ordered a used copy from Luminaria Books.

As I recently returned from a jaunt to the Midwest, I was happy to see a tribute to that part of the country on mirabile dictu and this entry featuring John Mellencamp who sings about small town life and disappearing family farms. This music video, "Rain on the Scarecrow," is an appropriate one considering all the storms that part of the country has been suffering through lately.

And finally, A Work in Progress informs me that June is International Crime Month and features a wonderful pile of mysteries just waiting to be investigated. Also noted is The New Yorker's summer fiction edition entitled "Crimes and Misdemeanors" which features short stories and true crime pieces.  Looks to be just the magazine to carry with me on a summer picnic.

Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym

The nicest thing about reading a Barbara Pym novel is that everyone is so sensible...even when they fall in love. Oh, a character might lose his or her senses for a moment and briefly make a rash decision, but a cool head reigns as rational thoughts creep in to turn what could become a scandalous situation into one that never quite becomes as daring as one might think.

With all the would-be lovers, and in Crampton Hodnet there are so many (who knew that North Oxford was such a hotbed of romance?), it is such a pleasure to watch Ms. Pym's characters fall in and out of love without having to read protracted descriptions of thrashing among the bedclothes as one might find in current novels. The most the reader gets is a chaste peck on the cheek, a touch on the arm, a whispered "I love you" in the middle of the British Museum. 

A distinguished married don develops a crush on a beautiful undergraduate; a handsome curate proposes marriage to someone he 'esteems and respects' but does not love; a young man with aspirations of becoming Prime Minister doesn't quite feel the same intense passion for a young woman as she does for him. 

Of course there are the nosy, gossipy women, and men too, who love to stir up things that really don't need to be stirred up. But then what else is one to talk about over the endless cups of tea?

All the action here takes place within a year - from October to October - so we see the seasons change and see the changes that the seasons bring not only to the gardens of Oxford but its residents as well.

This book was written about 1940 but wasn't published until 1985 after Ms. Pym's death. Crampton Hodnet is the name of a fictitious village mentioned in the book although no action takes place there. Actually, Hodnet is a real village in the county of Shropshire where Ms. Pym was born and Crampton is her middle name. 

Being with the witty Ms. Pym and her astute observations on love, marriage, and attitudes toward a variety of things from the carelessness of servants to the intrusiveness of fellow train passengers, is a splendid way to spend a snowy, wet Sunday afternoon. Or any afternoon for that matter. Just be sure you have the kettle on.

A Book-filled Weekend

Woman Reading
by
John Keaton

This will be short and sweet as I am trying to carve time out to actually read this weekend. I have four books going:

Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym - Not as engaging as the first-person narrative of A Glass of Blessings which I just finished, but many cups of tea will be enjoyed I am sure.  The two main characters, the elderly and bossy Miss Doggett and her companion the younger and very plain Miss Morrow, have taken in as a renter the new curate, the handsome, red-haired Reverend Stephen Latimer. Love in sure to follow.

My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop - I have just read the entries on the five or six bookstores I have visited myself. Next I think I will read by state what these eight-four writers have to say about their favorite places to find a good book. 

Sacré Bleu by Christopher Moore - This is a mystery about the supposed murder of Vincent Van Gogh investigated in nineteenth century France by an aspiring painter, Lucien Lessard, and his friend Henri Toulouse-Lautrec.

A Fatal Winter by G.M. Malliet - This is the second by the author in her Max Tudor mysteries. This one concerns the murder of a wealthy, bitter old man. The suspects number many as Oscar, the victim, had called all of his family to his castle for Christmas.

A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym

I love being in Barbara Pym's world. The women and men are so civilized, the vicars are usually handsome, the cups of tea are so delicious.

Not much happens in A Glass of Blessings (1958) but on the other hand so much happens. 

Immediately we meet the narrator, thirty-three-year-old Wilmet Forsyth sitting in St. Luke's Church on her birthday.  It is October 18, the feast day of St. Luke. 

Before her next birthday, Wilmet will have had two mild flirtations - one with the husband of Rowena, her best friend, and one with Rowena's brother, Piers. Nothing like keeping it all in the family.

She will have made the acquaintance of Mary Beamish, a rather dowdy woman whose life revolves around her rather censorious elderly mother and Good Works. Mary, of course, will fall in love with the handsome new vicar at St. Luke's, Mr. Ransome.

Then there is Wilmet's husband Rodney, who works at some unnamed Ministry and her mother-in-law Sybil. They all live in Sybil's house on a leafy square in London and enjoy lunches and dinners prepared by cook and housekeeper Rhoda. Quite comfortable. 

She will come to know the aging Father Thames and perky Father Bode of St. Luke's who live in the clergy house and are tended to by a Mr. Bason who likes to surprise the fathers with gourmet suppers and who loves 'beautiful things' especially Father Thames's bejeweled Fabergé egg.

Wilmet will take walks, enjoy lunches and dinners, put on hats and jewelry to match her outfits, take classes in Portuguese (from the above-named Piers who, as it turns out, is gay), and solve the mystery of the Fabergé egg. She will drink many, many cups of tea. 

Within the year, although she has had a disappointment or two, she will come to appreciate that her life, comfortable and secure as it is, is a glass of blessings.

I so enjoyed following along with Wilmet as she attended church services, toured the clergy house, went shopping with Mary, had luncheon dates with Rowena, sipped glasses of sherry, and visited her hairdresser Monsieur Jacques.  

This is one of the two books by Ms. Pym that I picked up recently at the Book Cellar, the used book store run by the Friends of the Library in Lexington. Ms. Pym has a wonderful eye for details that certainly puts the reader in the scene. Her characters carry on interesting and witty conversations and make astute observations about people and life. I am quite ready to dive back into her world with the other book of hers that I purchased, Crampton Hodnet.

Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym

It was a wet Sunday afternoon in North Oxford at the beginning of October. The laurel bushes which bordered the path leading to Leamington Lodge, Banbury Road, were dripping with rain. A few sodden chrysanthemums, dahlias and zinnias drooped in the flower beds on the lawn. The house had been built in the sixties of the last century, of yellowish brick, with a gabled roof and narrow Gothic windows set in frames of ornamental stonework. A long red and blue stained-glass window looked into a landing halfway up the pitch-pine staircase, and there were panels of the same glass let into the front door, giving an ecclesiastical effect, so that, except for a glimpse of unlikely lace curtains, the house might have been a theological college. It seemed very quiet now at twenty past three, and upstairs in her big front bedroom Miss Maude Doggett was having her usual rest. There was still half an hour before her heavy step would be heard on the stairs and her loud, firm voice calling to her companion, Miss Morrow.

How can one resist this opening paragraph of Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym. I am ready to follow Miss Doggett and Miss Morrow anywhere.

Ever the sly one, Barbara Mary Crampton Pym used one of her own names in the title of this novel which was completed in 1940 but was not published until 1985. It is one of four novels published after Ms. Pym's death in 1980.

There are thirteen published novels in all and also her diaries published in 1985 under the title A Very Private Eye.

Ms. Pym and Mr. Mayle

Books by Peter Mayle and Barbara Pym

It's always a good day when I can take a little road trip, visit an art exhibit, and buy books. 

Which is what I did today. The destination was the Lexington Public Library. It is a wonderful open space with an atrium and four floors full of books. On the main floor are the new books and an art gallery that was showing very pleasing watercolors of small Appalachian towns. The scenes featured courthouses, main streets, shops and traffic lights. Very nice indeed.

On the lower level is a used book cellar run by the Friends of the Library. This, of course, is what we really came to see. The man at the sales counter said that the shop had earned over $2 million for the library. Quite impressive. 

It was well organized and neat - and very well stocked. Although my traveling companion Rose and I were getting hungry and were ready for lunch, I managed to snag a couple of volumes before I fainted.

Toujours Provence by Peter Mayle - A very clean hardcover edition complete with pen and ink sketches. It is the sequel to A Year in Provence which I remember enjoying very much. I may have already read TP but who cares. I love anything about France.

Crampton Hodnet and A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym - I have been wanting to get back to reading some of Ms. Pym (it has been far too long since I have visited her world) and the book shop had both of these. I snatched them right up. 

I love the colorful covers. So Pymish, don't you know.