Our Winter Shelf

Just in time for the Winter Solstice on December 21, here are the books you suggested for Our Winter Shelf.

Many of you chimed in with The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, especially The Long Winter, and Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Both perfect choices.

Here are more:

Joyce F:
An entire shelf of cozy mystery suggestions - M.C. Beaton (Agatha Raisin, Hamish MacBeth), Mary Daheim (Alpine series), Jeanne M. Dams (Dorothy Martin or Hilda Johannson books), Diane Mott (Goldy Bear caterer), and Jo Dereske (Miss Zukas).

Lark:
Winter Solstice or any other by Rosamund Pilcher.
Nine Coaches Waiting and Thornyhold by Mary Stewart.
Jane Austen - take your pick.

Penny:
The Agatha Raisin books - here's one appropriate title, Kissing Christmas Goodbye.

Agatha Christie  - I found these two titles that fit our theme - Hercule Poirot's Christmas and The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (short story mysteries).

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff.

From the irrepressible Tullik:

The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys (I wrote about this splendid book here).

Winter: Five Windows on the Season by Adam Gopnik - a series of lectures given on the impact of winter on art, culture, polar exploration, etc.

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann - Tullik suggests that if nothing else, read the chapter 'Snow'.

Orlando by Virginia Woolf for the frozen Thames chapter.

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens for its chapter 'Christmas at Dingley Dell'.

Christmas Day - tongue in cheek poem by Irish poet Paul Durcan.

The Ice Palace - a short novel by Tarjei Vesass who was Norwegian and should know something about winter. I found an Amazon Kindle edition for 99 cents.

My thought for the Winter Shelf was for it to hold books I already owned and wanted to reread. That way, I wouldn't have to leave my house and brave the snow and ice and cold to get to the library or bookstore.

So here are my choices, many of which I have written about before on Belle, Book, and Candle and I have included links to those posts.

I had Little Women in mind when I started thinking about this list and have an edition (see the photo at the top of the post) that is inscribed in my grandmother's handwriting to my mother - Christmas 1932.

The Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink - just in case I want to spend a little time in the Florida sun (here).

A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas - my parents gave me this little book with woodcut illustrations and I reread it every year.

Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols - I'll save this one for the approach of spring to get me in the mood to think about the garden.

Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg - I read this suspense novel a long time ago and remember that Smilla, a Greenlander now living in Copenhagen, surely knows her way around snow and ice.

Essays by E.B. White - almost anything written by him brings me comfort.

Endangered Pleasures by Barbara Holland - its subtitle says it all - In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity, and Other Indulgences (here).

And finally,

Simple Pleasures: Little Things That Make Life Worth Living - a collection of essays by various British writers published by The National Trust (here).

So there you have it. Plump up the pillows in your reading chair, gather a warm, soft throw and your favorite cup of tea, and settle in for a long winter's read. Enjoy!

In Which I Make a Plan to Keep My Spirits Up

My Happy Pile

This past year I have been disappointed in my reading. I spent way too much time perusing 'stuff' online leaving my once robust reading routine in tatters.

On the upside, I did attend many author events in 2016 - more than I wrote about - and am grateful to my library for inviting so many outstanding writers to speak here. At least I brushed against some fine writing. 

I rarely seek out new books anymore although I do occasionally stumble across one that piques my interest.  I am especially put off by book reviews that use words such as 'sweeping', 'saga', 'multi-generational', 'dark', 'violent', 'tragic', 'downfall', or 'dystopian'. And it seems as if most reviews do. 

Sigh. I do believe I am in a grand reading funk.

Maybe this is what "a certain age" looks like. I long for the comfort of a book I know is well written, entertaining, and if it makes me laugh all the better. 

To combat my despair - not only about my reading but other things as well - I made a plan to read books that will Keep My Spirits Up. (OK, I know it should be Keep Up My Spirits but it sounds better with the preposition at the end.)

So, to make it easy to grab one, I have created My Happy Pile of books that I know will make my spirits soar:

Merry Hall trilogy by Beverley Nichols - One cannot be blue when in the company of Mr. Nichols, his cats, and his house and garden restoration schemes.

One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson - A book I bought when it was first published but has languished on the shelf. Mr. Bryson is guaranteed to make me laugh out loud.

Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne - What could be more pleasant than spending time in the Hundred Acre Wood.

Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield - I feel my spirits brightening just thinking about this delightful book.

My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber - Things that go bump in the night are sure to bring on a smile or two.

Endangered Pleasures by Barbara Holland - A refreshing defense of naps, bacon, martinis, and other indulgences.

Simple Pleasures - British writers look at 'the little things that make life worth living' - published by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Of course there will be the gentle mystery or comic crime caper at bedtime.

In case my choices leave you cold, I have received responses to my call to bloggers and commenters with suggestions for their own Happy Pile and will be putting them together for you next week. 

Let's all hang tight and Keep Our Spirits Up.

Simple Pleasures edited by Ivo Dawnay

Here is a simple pleasure for you:

The temperature is 75 degrees and I am sitting in the black wicker chair on my front porch reading Simple Pleasures. A cool breeze whispers across my shoulders, a couple of little brown sparrows take sips from the bird bath, and a neighbor strolls across the street to catch up for a few minutes before she goes back to pulling weeds from her garden. I go back to my reading.

Not bad after weeks of dry, 100-degree days with not a whiff of air. Whew.

Since my post yesterday on my picks for National Book Lover's Day - a list of ten books from my shelves that I wouldn't want to be without - I realized that only one book is fiction. Well, one and a half if you consider James Thurber's humorous essays/stories/memories of growing up in Columbus, Ohio. He may just have taken a few literary liberties with the events of his early life, but perhaps not as many as one might think.

Anyway, I had pulled out the collection of essays, Simple Pleasures, (#5 on the list) to double check its editor and it was still sitting by my reading chair. I picked it up and was once again lost in the Little Things That Make Life Worth Living: knitting with author and knitwear designer Sally Muir; the pleasures of a good log fire with former MP Ann Widdiecombe; foraging for mushrooms with journalist and war correspondent Sam Kiley.

Perhaps my favorite this reading is being stuck on a train "in that mythic realm of the British transport system, the middle of nowhere" with novelist Gilbert Adair.  Oh, to be in England.

The essays in this diminutive book published by the British National Trust, it only measures about 5 inches by 7 inches, are broken into categories: A Sense of Place, Home and Hearth, Creature Comforts, The Great Outdoors, Pleasures of the Table, Talking and Ruminating, and Final Thoughts.

At just under 200 pages, it can be gulped down along with a lemonade on a particularly spectacular cool summer's day or taken bite by bite at your pleasure. Highly recommended either way.