Category: Fiction

Katherine

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Seton, Anya. Katherine. Houghton Mifflin, 1954

Reason read: I needed a book with a name in its title for the Portland Public Library reading challenge. Katherine was next in line.

This is a love story. A fourteenth century story to be exact. Katherine Swynford has loved John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster ever since she first laid eyes on him as a young girl of thirteen. As a commoner, predestined to marry a lowly knight, Katherine’s standing in society is, at best, only to be a lady-in-waiting for the Duchess of Lancaster. That is as close as she can get to the man of her dreams. Yet, meeting the duke has sealed her fate. The saga that follows spans three generations of life and love. Seton does a fantastic job weaving true history with a fabricated backstory of romance. If you get the chance, listen to the audio version. It’s fantastic.

Author fact: Seton also wrote Green Darkness which is on my challenge list.

Book trivia: the 14th century of England is accurately portrayed in Katherine.

Audio trivia: I don’t think I have ever heard someone pronounce “joust” as “juiced.”

Setlist: there were lots of songs sung, but not many by name. “Here We Come a Wassailing” was the only one.

Nancy said: Pearl said Katherine is a good example of Seton’s ability to combine fact and fiction in her work.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the odd chapter called “Romance Novels: Our Love Is Here to Stay” (p 203). I would have thought it would be in a chapter about history.

Heart of Darkness

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Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Penguin Classics, 1987.

Reason read: I needed a short book for the Portland Public Library reading challenge. This us under 150 pages.

We begin with two rivers of contradiction, the Thames and the Congo. Marlow’s journey begins and ends on the Thames.
After reading Heart of Darkness did you ask yourself, “what is the definition of civilized?” I know I did.
Also, I found myself paying attention to light and dark imagery throughout Heart of Darkness. There were contradiction of light and darkness – the sun setting versus the lighthouse’s beam and the glare of the stars. Light needs the dark in order to be its brightest. Night falling has an impact on people and places. All in all, the plot was slow and plodding. I kept waiting for something drastic to happen because I knew the horror could jump out and gnash its teeth any second. The pages leading up to the grand finale seemed nothing more than a vain attempt to rattle the nerves.
I know many people who couldn’t stand Heart of Darkness, but I have to offer this as an alternative. Why? Why is it so hated? I can remember reading a book about a woman working up the courage to commit suicide. I cared to little for the character that by the end of the book I was wishing she would just get it over with! I wanted her kill herself. Instead of saying I hated the book because I wanted the main character dead, I applauded the author. The power of the writing forced me to feel that strongly about a character. Maybe, just maybe, Conrad was forcing his audience to hate much in the same way.

Quotes to quote, “One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same” (p 29), “Black shadows of disease and starvation” (p 44), “Your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others” (p 31),

Author fact: I was shocked to learn, according to Paul O’Prey’s introduction, that Conrad, distraught over debts and other failings, shot himself in the chest. What the what? A nicer fact is that Conrad was influenced by Henry James.

Book trivia: I didn’t realize the movie Apocalypse Now was based on Heart of Darkness.

As an aside, you know I have to make connections to my favorite singer, Natalie Merchant. I couldn’t help but think of “Hateful Hate” when I read in the introduction about the white man’s greed for ivory. To be fair, “Hateful Hate” is a 10,000 Maniacs song, but it’s Natalie’s voice I hear when she sings about spotted skins and ivory and that hateful hate.
Confessional: somehow I missed reading this in high school, college, grad school and beyond.

Nancy said: You can always tell when Pearl likes a book. She includes it in more than one Lust chapter and/or includes it in more than one Lust book. It was mentioned four times in Book Lust. Her most meaningful comments include Heart of Darkness is the story all other African novels are measured against and Heart of Darkness should be read along side The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Having read Kingsolver and Achebe earlier in the challenge, I did not get to enjoy this grouping.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapters called “Africa: Today and Yesterday” (p 10), “African Colonialism: Fiction” (p 14), “Companion Reads” (p 63), and “100 Good Reads, Decade By Decade: 1900s” (p 175). Also, in Book Lust To Go in the simple chapter “Nigeria” (p 156). To be fair, Heart of Darkness should not have been indexed in Book Lust To Go. Pearl only mentions it because Chinua Achebe wrote an essay about racism in Heart of Darkness.

Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast

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Richardson, Bill. Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast. St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

Reason read: April is the month people start planning their holiday get aways to B&Bs.

Confessional: I hate it when I read a book too fast and I don’t start a blog to take notes. I feel like I have a great deal of catching up to do. In a nutshell, Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast is exactly that, a slim volume about two aging twin brothers who run a bed and breakfast on an island off the coast of British Columbia. Neither has ever married or had children, although one brother is dating. Their bed and breakfast is popular despite never being advertised. Guests share their experiences in alternating chapters, while the brothers share reading lists (Top 10 Authors, Books When Feeling Low, and Authors for the Bath), recipes, and stories of their mother who has since passed. In a word, Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast is charming. Many reviewers have stated they wouldn’t mind staying a night or two with the brothers. With only ten guests at a time, I have to agree.

Author fact: Richardson has written quite a few books. I am only reading Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast, Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast Pillow Book, and Waiting for Gertrude for the Lust Challenge.

Book trivia: Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour.

Nancy said: the only thing Pearl mentioned about Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast is that she wished the B&B was a real place. I think we all do.

Connection to my own life: the Morris Dancers used to come to Monhegan every summer. I can remember walking by an open field and watching a group of people bouncing around with bells around their knees, waving hankies to and fro.

Setlist: “Allegra Ma Non Troppo”, “Auld Lang Syne”, “Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms”, “English Countryside”, “Flow Gently Sweet Afternoon”, “Frosty the Snowman”, “Jingle Bells”, “June is Busting Out All Over”, “Just Wild About Harry”, “La Cucaracha”, “La Donna E Mobile”, Liberace, “Love’s Old Sweet Song”, “Moon River”, “Muzetta’s Waltz”, “O Susanna”, “Pachebel Cannon”, “She’s Like the Swallow”, “Shuffle Off To Buffalo”, “Sky Boat song”, “Summertime”, “The Swan”, “Voi Che Supete”, “William Tell Overture”, Edith Pilaf, Debussy, Joan Baez, Saint Saens, Vivaldi,

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Gallivanting in the Graveyard” (p 96). In truth, I am not sure why this book and it’s companion, Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast Pillow Book, are included in this chapter. There is not enough ghostly activity for either book to be considered ghost stories. There is a separate chapter in Book Book Lust about parrots. Bachelor Brothers’ Bed and Breakfast is not included, but should be because Mrs. Rochester is a prominent character in both Bachelor Brothers books.

Year of the French

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Flanagan, Thomas. Year of the French. Henry Holt & Company, 1979.

1798. Ireland. It all starts when a school teacher is asked to write a letter to a landlord. Arthur Vincent Broome offers a narrative of the events that followed. Malcolm Elliot writes a memoir. Sean MacKenna shares a diary. Characters from every angle share a voice in the telling. Thus begins a long and tumultuous history of Ireland, starting with the Rebellion of 1798. As with any war, the Rebellion is violent tide that sweeps up anyone in its path, be they Protestant, Catholic, Papist, landowner, landless, landlord, farmer, soldier, blacksmith, teacher, poet, peasant, gentry, French, English, Irish, man, woman, or child. Narratives come from all of the above and readers are cautioned to read carefully, to concentrate on the voices. Flanagan puts you into the plot so well that at any given moment you are either on the side of the Protestants or Catholics. Either the French or the English welcomed you into their camps. Year of the French describes war maneuvers as well as personal rifts between families, struggles in marriages and livelihoods.
As an aside, I felt like Year of the French was half written in a foreign language. Words like boreen, kernes and omadhaun kept me diving into Google for answers.

Line I liked, “I have never broken the law when sober” (p 92). Amen to that. Here’s another from the diary of Sean MacKenna, “There are some pf these fellows who don’t know that the world is round, and for all they knew, they were being marched off to the edge of it” (p 260).

Confessional: I always keep a running biography list of characters whenever I see there are too many to keep track of. For example, Citizen Wolfe Tone is the founder of the Society of United Irishmen. Donal Hennessey has a handsome wife and is the father of two sons. Malachi Duggan is a unicorn in Ireland because he doesn’t drink. Matthew Quigley owns the tavern where Duggan doesn’t take drink.

Orbital information: I love it when one part of my life informs another. In Year of the French Flanagan writes the words “the parting glass.” If I wasn’t listening to an Irishman’s music, I wouldn’t know “The Parting Glass” is a funeral song (and a very beautiful one at that).

Book trivia: Year of the French is book one in Flanagan’s trilogy about the history of Ireland. I am reading all three.

Author fact: Amherst College holds Professor Flanagan’s papers. Too cool.

Nancy said: Pearl called Year of the French magnificent.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Historical Fiction Around the World” (p 113).

Portrait of a Lady

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James, Henry. The Portrait of a Lady. Random House, 1951.
James, Henry. The Portrait of a Lady. Read by Elizabeth McGovern. Naxos Audio, 2006.

Reason read: James celebrates a birthday in April. Read in his honor.

Did you ever meet a character so charming and fun that you wished you knew them in real life? I would have liked to pal around with Isabel Archer, American heiress and orphan. When her father dies, Isabel makes the journey to visit her aunt, Mrs. Touchett. Despite being outspoken and extremely independent, Isabel makes fast friends with her European cousin, Ralph, an older woman named Mrs. Merle and a few eligible bachelors who express an interest in Isabel. Everyone bores Isabel until she meets dashing suitor, Gilbert Osmond. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what she saw in him. Ignoring the warnings of her family and friends, Isabel throws caution to the wind and marries Mr. Osmond, only to discover he control over her is fueled by jealousy and greed. When he forbids her to see her dying cousin, I just about lost my mind. Who does that? Obviously, this is not the end of the story, but The Portrait of a Lady is a classic so you know what happens next.

Quotes I liked, “Ralph smokingly considered” (p 211). I don’t know what that means.

Author fact: James is lauded as one of the great American-British authors.

Book trivia: Portrait of a Lady is in two volumes with seamless chapter continuation.
Audio trivia: music plays between the chapters.

Nancy said: Pearl said that novels about female Americans abroad own a debt to Henry James for Isabel Archer.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “American Girls” (p 18).

Cities of the Plain

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Proust, Marcel. Remembrance of Things Past. “Cities of the Plain” Translated by C.K. Scott Montcrieff. Chatto and Windus, 1961.

Reason read: to continue the series started in honor of Proust’s birth month.

All of the usual suspects are back in volume seven of Remembrance of Things Past. Swann, Guermantes, Gilberte, and Albertine are alive and well. Proust delves deeper into human emotions and behaviors in Cities of the Plain. This time he explores sexual deception in the form of homosexuality as a pact sealed with Gomorrah. A great deal of the action takes place at Guermantes’ party. The narrator is not even sure he wants to go to the shindig, but he’s also not sure he has been invited. A certain snobbery permeates the narration. Words like scandal, society, position, connexion (sp), privilege, exclusivity, eminence, aristocracy, class, glamour, regal, and influence pepper the pages.
As an aside, I am growing weary of Proust’s long-winded-ness. The man can go on and on. Here is just one example, “It is with these professional organisations that the mind contrasts the taste of the solitaries and in one respect without straining the points of difference, since it is doing no more than copy the solitaries themselves who imagine that nothing differs more widely from organised vice than what appears to them to be a misunderstood love, but with some strain nevertheless, for these different classes correspond, no less than to diverse physiological types, to successive stages, in a pathological or merely social evolution” (p 27).
His obsession with sleep and memory continues. I do adore the illustrations by Philippe Jullian.

Best line of the book, “Everybody becomes different upon entering another person’s house” (p 207).

Author fact: according to the web, Proust was influenced by Flaubert.

Book trivia: Sodom and Gomorrah is the French title for Cities of the Plain.

Playlist: Beethoven

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anything specific about Cities of the Plain because she only mentions Remembrance of Things Past.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Romans-Fleuves” (p 208).

Of Bees and Mist

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Setiawan, Erick. Of Bees and Mist. Read by Marguerite Gavin. Blackstone Audio, 2009.

Reason read: Read in honor of Indonesia’s Day of Silence in March, but Of Bees and Mist has nothing to do with Indonesia except that the author is Indonesian.

Meridia defies death as a newborn barely minutes old. This is how Of Bees and Mist begins. Such a near tragedy doesn’t explain why her father is verbally and sometimes physically abusive, or how her mother can’t seem to remember Meridia even exists. Ghosts in the mirror are misconstrued as fragments of leftover dreams. The color of the mist outside the family door matters: yellow, ivory, or blue. There was a time before the ghosts and mists, but no one can remember it. All Meridia wants to do is get away from her heartless and cruel family. At sixteen she gets that chance when she meets handsome and charming Daniel. Within a year they are married, but like all good fairytales, Meridia soon finds out she has traded in one horror show for another. This time, her evil step-monster mother performs all the torturing. Helped by an army of fantastical fireflies and bees, Eva manages to make Meridia’s life a living hell even worse than when she lived with her parents. Eva acts as a modern day Iago, letting her vicious tongue as her deadliest weapon destroy those around her. No one is safe from her vile talk. Rumors and lies spew like poison. However, as Meridia matures she finds the strength and fortitude to fight back even if that means giving up everything she loves. Mother and daughter-in-law engage in an interesting dance of push and pull for supremacy in the household. There seems to be no end to the animosities.
As an aside, I always love finding connections to Natalie Merchant. This time I thought of “Planned Obsolescence” when I read about the mystics, prophets, exorcists, spiritualists, and fortune tellers at the town square.

Best quote, “the realization hurt less than she had anticipated, for by that time she had embraced the belief that people would pass from her life in the manner of shadows sliding over a room” (p 42).

Author fact: Of Bees and Mist is Setiawan’s only novel in LibraryThing. It is also the only book on the Challenge list.

Book trivia: this should be a movie.

Nancy said: Pearl said readers shouldn’t miss Of Bees and Mist.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Indicative of Indonesia” (p 103). As an aside, Of Bees and Mist does not necessarily take place in Indonesia. I have read it doesn’t take place anywhere you can readily find on a map. Setiawan, however, is from Jakarta, Indonesia.

Blue Diary

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Hoffman, Alice. Blue Diary. Berkley Trade, 2002.

Reason read: in honor of Alice Hoffman’s birth month I chose Blue Diary.

Ethan and Jorie are the perfect couple. From the outside looking in they have everything. Ethan Ford. Let us start with him. What’s not to love about Ethan? He’s a first-rate carpenter, a volunteer fireman who has saved many people from various burning buildings, an excellent little league coach, he’s extremely good looking, generous and kind, married to Jorie and father to sixth grader, Collie. This is a tight knot community in Massachusetts. Everyone knows everyone. Jorie, Charlotte, Trisha, Mark, Barney and Dave all went to high school together. Ethan is the odd man out. That’s the way he likes it.
Blue Diary bounces from third person perspective to the first person narrative of Kat, Collie Ford’s best friend. They will share devastation in common. Kat lost her father to suicide, Collie will lose his to incarceration. This is a story about perception.
Interestingly, everyone seems to be pining for someone else. Jorie’s best friend, Charlotte, has a deep crush on Ethan (but then again, who doesn’t?). Barney has the hots for Charlotte. Confessional: I didn’t like many of the characters so I had a hard time rooting for anyone.
As an aside, Hoffman likes to write in color so when I started reading Blue Diary I started to take note of everything described as blue: blue air, brilliant and blue, blue eyes, shimmering blue, blue ice, blue shadows (2), blue images, blue ponds, blue shapes, blue jays (several), blue blur, blue, blue skies, still blue, pinched and blue, blue flickering, Blue tint, blue silk, written in blue, China blue, blue frock, inkberry blue, blue skies, blue circles, blue dress, blue dusk, blue binding, blueberry, blue leatherette, wash blue, bluer still, frozen and blue, sweet blue, bluebirds, blue diary, milky blue, now blue, and the variations of blue, indigo and cobalt.

As an another aside. Usually, when an event as big as the arrest of a neighborhood’s favorite man, reporters are on the front lawn of the accused before it’s even on the evening news. In Blue diary it’s backwards.

Author fact: Hoffman is a New Yorker.

Book trivia: This is not a spoiler alert. While the title of the book is Blue Diary you never get to read the diary. The little key to the diary is literally the key to everything.

Playlist: “All You Need Is Love”

Nancy said: Pearl said something along the lines of if you want to see the evolution of Hoffman’s writing, read Blue Diary.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “A…is for Alice” (p 1).

Little Bee

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Cleave, Chris. Little Bee. Narrated by Anne Flosnik. Tantor Media, 2009.

Reason read: Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s outgoing president was elected in March of 2015. Read in his honor.

Oh, the decisions we make. Have you ever been in a situation where you make a blunder and in an hurried attempt to remedy the situation you make more mistakes? I think of it as stepping in dog sh-t. You are so panicked and embarrassed by the smell emanating from your foot that you don’t think about the most efficient way to clean it off and instead track it around and around looking for a suitable way to wipe it off. This is Sarah’s plight. Upon making a huge marital mistake Sarah tries to remedy it with a quick and careless solution: run away from the problem by taking a free holiday. The trouble only multiplies and multiples until Sarah is faced with dead ends and deep regret. Told from the perspective of Sarah and a Nigerian girl Sarah meets on holiday named Little Bee. Little Bee’s story of trauma will wrap around Sarah until they are forever melded together.

I cannot get over the imagery of Cleve’s writing. Take this combination of words, for example: “butterflies drowning in honey”. What the what?

Author fact: While Cleave has written other books, I am only reading Little Bee for the Challenge. This is his second novel.

Book trivia: Little Bee is published elsewhere as The Other Hand.

Playlist: “One” by U2 and “We Are the Champions” by Queen.

Nancy said: Pearl said a great deal about Little Bee. She called it unforgettable and perfect for book groups. I completely agree because there are so many different themes to ponder and argue about.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter simply called “Nigeria” (p 156).

Fear Itself

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Mosely, Walter. Fear Itself. Read by Don Cheadle. Hachett Book Group, 2003.

Reason read: to finish the series started in January in honor of Mosely’s birth month.

Fearless Jones is at it again, getting his friend Paris Minton in trouble. Since we last saw Minton he was trying to rebuild his life after his bookstore was burned to the ground and he was beaten and shot at in Fearless Jones. Now, in Fear Itself Minton has been able to rebuild his bookstore and get back to a quiet life, thanks to a settlement from the last book. He still doesn’t want trouble, but yet Fearless soon finds a way to get Paris in the thick of it. This time, the wealthiest woman in Los Angeles is missing her nephew. She tricks Fearless into looking for him and Fearless pulls Minton into the mystery. You will meet a whole host of strange characters in Fear Itself. There are so many plot twists I almost needed a flow chart to keep everything straight.
Confessional: I want to sit across from Paris Minton and have him tell me stories about his collection of books.

Line I liked, “When you come right down to it, there’s nothing like a fire for putting the spunk back into a body” (p 41).

Author fact: I think Mosely’s other series featuring Easy Rawlins is more popular.

Playlist: Beethoven’s 5th.

Book trivia: This is actually trivia about the audio version – audio not only includes music, but the characters belch like a real performance.

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anything specific about the Fearless series other than to say is was something Mosely wrote.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Walter Mosely: Too Good To Miss” (p 168).

Lungfish

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Gillis, Meghan. Lungfish. Catapult, 2022.

Reason read: This was a Christmas gift from my sister. I read everything she sends my way.

Have you ever seen a race horse struggle to restrain its awesome power? Or a runner who can easily put the pedal to the metal, but has hold back in an effort to race smart? This is the way I felt reading Lungfish. Deceptively simple passages in incredibly short chapters made me want to speed-read; to buzz through the sentences at a hundred pages a minute. To do that would be to miss the scenery of gorgeous language flashing by. To not slow down and savor the smart language would be to deprive myself of one of the best books of the year. Yes, I know it’s only early 2023. But. But! But, that’s my prediction and I’m sticking with it.
Lungfish oozes mystery. There is a hinting of things. What is wrong with Paul? The use of the word “better” implies there is something worse. You shouldn’t think of the word ‘trickery’ that could at play, yet you do. You do. Is the narrator asking Paul to improve a behavior? Be a better person? Or is it his health? The possibility he could be better at something hangs heavy. Especially when a word like perfunctory is used to describe a kiss between two people in a relationship. Then consider the act of hiding from the law. Questioning what happens when the executor arrives. What is that all about? The narrative does not speak in linear terms, only winding and twisting innuendo, slippery as seaweed newly exposed by the outgoing tide. Early on there is an unexplained sadness that permeates the entire story, the way a thick fog will dampen a wool sweater to a newfound heaviness. You want the fog to lift, the sunshine to come streaming in, and loud laughter to break the silence.
Instead, we as readers circle the plot in a strange swaying dance, like a slow moving game of musical chairs. Only when the song comes to an abrupt halt, we grab for the final sentence and wait for the silence to end so we can read on. Careful not to slip on the seaweed of secrets.

Lines I loved, “He puts his hands on my shoulders, from behind, and I sit like a stone” (p 123). Unmoving. Unfeeling, Cold, Hard. Colorless. These are the words of a stone. Here’s another, “The box contained three sets and I’d used them all, in part because I didn’t trust the way I peed on them” (p 165). O can relate to the permeation of doubt that becomes pervasive.

Playlist: “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by the Rolling Stones.

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold

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le Carre, John. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. Ballantine Books, 1963.

Reason read: while The Spy Who Came In from the Cold didn’t win an Academy Award, Richard Burton was nominated for his role as Alec Leamas. The Oscars are usually presented in March.

I had heard a lot of great things about John le Carre’s novels. Growing up, I can remember one or two titles floating around the house. I definitely think The Spy Who Came In from the Cold was one of them.
You know the story: someone is very close to retiring, getting out of the game, but there is one last job they need to do. After they complete this one final task, whatever it is, then they are out. Fini. Except, you know that’s not how it ends up. The job is always more complicated and/or dangerous. Something always goes sideways and the end is horribly wrong. The spy Who Came In from the Cold is no different. Alec Leamas is nearing the end of his career as a British agent. He wants out but die to a fabricated “problem” with his pension, he has one last mission in East Germany. All he has to do is spread rumors about an East German intelligence officer. After that, he can “get out of the cold” comfortably. Of course, nothing goes to plan. I knew this book was going to be trouble when, within 15 pages four people would die in quick succession.
Heads up: keep in mind this was written in a time when men were allowed to be sexist. It never occurs to Leamas that he might have to work for a woman.

As an aside, I love when books give me a connection to Monhegan however small. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold mentions the Morris Dancers. They performed on Monhegan every summer for years and years.

Line that made me think, “At first his colleagues treated him with indulgence, perhaps his decline served them in the same way as we are scared by cripples, beggars and invalids because we fear we could ourselves become them; but in the end his neglect, his brutal, unreasoning malice, isolated him” (p 23).

Author fact: le Carre died in 2020 and according to his Wiki page, his death was unrelated to Covid-19.

Book trivia: The Spy Who Came In from the Cold is the sequel to Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality. I only have the former title on my Challenge list, but once again I have read these books out of order. Ugh.

Playlist: “On Ilkley Moor bat t’ at”

Nancy said: Pearl mentioned le Carre as someone to read if you are into spy novels. She also called The spy Who Came In from the Cold remarkable.

BookLust Twist: from a few places. First, Book Lust in the chapters called “100 Good Reads, Decade By Decade: 1960” (p 175) and “Spies and Spymasters: the Really Real Unreal World of Intelligence” (p 223). Second, in Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Berlin” (p 36).

Outlander

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Gabaldon, Diana. Outlander. Read by Divina Porter. Recorded Books, 1997.

Reason read: Valentine’s Day is in February. Outlander is somewhat of a romance.

Modern day is 1945. War is afoot. Claire Randall is on holiday with her newly reunited husband, Frank. Both have been involved in the war, he as a soldier, she as a nurse. Scotland is a chance for them to reconnect, a second honeymoon of sorts. The couple finds useful ways to spend their time, him researching information on family ancestry and she looking for herbs and medicinal plants. While wandering around the Inverness countryside, Claire hears a tiny humming noise emanating from Scotland’s version of Stonehenge. Upon touching a buzzing stone, Claire faints then reawakens in 1743. So begins the journey of Claire Beauchamp that everyone knows so well. the burning question on everyone’s mind is how will she get back to modern day history professor and husband, Frank?
The real question to me is, after tangling with her husband’s ancestors, would she change her own present day life? On the heels of reading Kindred by Octavia Butler, I couldn’t help but make comparisons between the two time-travel novels. Butler’s Californian heroine, Dana, not only accepted her situation readily, but understood her purpose for being sent back to slave-era Maryland. Gabaldon’s English heroine, Claire, barely questions her jump back in time and seems to integrate herself into 1743 seamlessly. Dana finds a way to take her husband back in time with her while Claire not only leaves her modern day husband behind, but falls in love and marries a 1743 Scotsman. Claire’s main purpose, after some time, seemed to be her usefulness as a nurse and her knowledge of events in the future to save the clan who took her in. Neither Dana or Claire seem too anxious to return to their original place in time.

As an aside, when I mentioned to a friend that I had started Outlander her eyes lit up as if I had just handed her a million dollars. “Oh, I love that book” she gushed. I could tell she wanted to say more , but I hushed her with a “nope, nope. nope.”

Author fact: Gabaldon, at the time of publication, was also a professor. cool.

Book trivia: There is a certain craze surrounding Outlander. My husband cannot wait for me to watch the series. Even though there is a movie of the same name, they are not one and the same.

Playlist: “Up Among the Heather”.

Nancy said: Pearl classified Outlander as paranormal. She also calls it the best of the five (at the time) books in the series.

BookLust Twist: Pearl favored this one. From More Book Lust in the obvious chapter of “Time Travel” and again in Book Lust in the chapter “Romance Novels: Our Love is Here to Stay” (p 203) and “Romans-Fleuves” (p 208).

Travels of Jaimie McPheeters

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Taylor, Robert Lewis. The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters. Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1958.

Reason read: February is national history month and Travels of Jaimie McPheeters is a historical fiction.

Although The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters is grounded in fiction its bibliography indicates Taylor made extensive use of letters, memorandums, maps, memoirs, guidebooks, journals, and sermons to give the novel sincere authenticity. In a nutshell, it is the adventures of young Jaimie McPheeters as he journeyed with his father to seek gold in the mid 1800s. [As an aside, I could not help but think of Natalie Merchant’s song “Gold Rush Brides” when I read The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters.] The story has everything: clashes with Indian tribes (including kidnapping, torture and murder), gambling, religion (Mormonism and the question of polygamy), humor, weather, and the hardships of the trail. This was the wild west; a time when at plate passing someone could offer a live rattlesnake in lieu of money. Confessional: I didn’t know if I liked audacious Jaimie McPheeters when I first met him. My favorite parts were the interactions he had with his father. The interesting conversation about Latin and who killed the dead language was one of my favorites. Taylor has an interesting way of using words. The words ‘pranced’ and ‘shotgun’ usually do not go together in the same sentence.
A word of warning: speaking of language, it is a bit dated with derogatory and racist words.

Line I liked, “When one set of sense lies down on the job, another reports in and takes over” (p 18). This quote hit a little too close to home, “It went along very much like a dentist trying to pry out a wisdom tooth that had got wrapped around the jawbone” (p 101). I have a wisdom tooth that is sitting too close to my jaw bone.

Author fact: Taylor was first a journalist before becoming a Pulitzer winning author.

Book trivia: It is my personal opinion that The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters would have benefitted from a few maps, but it won a Pulitzer without them.

Nancy said: Pearl said she would buy The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters for a history buff in her family.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “A Holiday List” (p 114).

Guermantes Way

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Proust, Marcel. “The Guermantes Way.” Remembrance of Things Past: In Search of Lost Time. Vol. 5 Reanslated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff. Illustrated by Philippe Jullian. Chatto & Windos, 1960.

Reason read: to continue the series started in November in memory of Proust’s death month. Obviously, I skipped a month.

As Proust’s narrator grows up his narrative becomes drier and less whimsical. There is a larger focus on French society and the titles within it. We move beyond intimate portraits of individuals, but Proust is careful to let his narrator grow through the people he meets and the obsessions he develops. TI was struck by the genius of lines well delivered. For example, “Perhaps another winter would level her with the dust” (p 275). In the end I found myself asking, how do you cope with a love that is held only by the games one plays? Is this a form of emotional hostage-taking? What will become of one so enamored with another?

Author fact: Proust spent a year in the army.

Book trivia: I have to admit even though I am three books into the Remembrance of Things Past series, I get confused about the different published titles. Someone said Guermantes Way is also called In Search of Lost Time: Finding Time Again. What the what?

Nancy said: Pearl did not mention Guermantes Way specifically.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Romans-Fleuves” (p 208). In all fairness, the individual titles of Remembrance of Things Past were not mentioned at all.