Readerly Rambles: 06/20/12

What I've Read:  My last two reads -- A World of Love by Elizabeth Bowen and The Soul of Kindness by Elizabeth Taylor -- have been very similar.  A World of Love concerns a group of tense relations living in an Irish countryside manor and there connection to a dead man.  That sounds really dramatic and suspenseful and it isn't... this is a plot wherein everyone acts seemly proper and friendly despite old animosities.  A young woman Jane finds her some love letters in the attic and that is the catalyst for the shift in family dynamics.  The Soul of Kindness by Elizabeth Taylor is similar in that it too has a character driven plot where nothing happens externally, but internally things change and shift for the characters involved.  Flora is a beautiful, peaceful, spoiled young woman.  She has the perfect marriage, a perfect baby, and she is simply a blessing to everyone she meets...or so she thinks.  There is nothing nefarious about Flora, she truly believes herself to be kind and know what's best but truly she ends up patronizing everyone around her and she is utterly blind to the wishes and desires of the people she loves.  Flora dispenses advice and makes matches (much like Jane Austen's Emma) without realizing that she is clueless; for example, she tries to set her gay friend with her straight female friend from childhood and she encourages one young man to pursue an acting career when in fact he can't act at all.  Her benevolent advice often yields disastrous results.  Out of both books I will say I preferred Taylor's.  I adore Bowen, but A World of Love fell a little flat for me.  It is a novella and those are tricky.  I love Bowen's short stories and her longer novels, but I felt that A World of Love either needed to be a shorter story or a longer, more fleshed-out novel.  

What I'm Reading:  I'm still pursuing my reread of The Collected Stories of Elizabeth Bowen.  I'm hoping to finish that up this week.  It is still just as good the second time around.  I think this is my most favorite short story collection and easily ranks in my top 10 books list.

What's up Next:  In addition to my short story reading I plan on beginning F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise.  I haven't read Fitzgerald in ages.

 I hope everyone has a readerly week! 

Readerly Rambles: 06/06/12

My blogcation lasted a bit longer than I intended.  The brief rundown:  I went out of town for a library training on Wednesday, returned on Thursday, stayed late at work on Friday, cleaned house on Saturday, grocery shopped and worked over 8 hours on Sunday, and then worked on Monday and Tuesday.  We have a new employee who started this week and she got my old office and I moved to a cubicle.  I had the biggest office, but I gladly gave it up.  The new employee, Amy, is an administrative assistant and she will be doing ALL THE BILLING, ACCOUNTS, AND ORDERING!  I hated the secretarial aspects of my job; now I can concentrate full-time on my library work and specifically interlibrary loan.  I'm stoked.

Despite the crazy busyness of the last week or so I have managed to have a delightfully bookish time.  In addition to finishing Hilary Mantel's Bring up the Bodies -- expect a review early next week -- I increased my book pile.  I went with three librarians (I'm a paraprofessional) to Chattanooga for a training.  The training started at 9am on Thursday and is about a 3 hour drive away so we went up the night before.  We had a chance hit up McKay Used Books, CDs, Movies, & More which came highly recommended by a fellow booknerd (thanks, Rachel)!  We spent roughly 2 hours in the shop -- until they closed -- and I didn't even make it to the second floor to look at music.  I shopped mostly with my booknerd friend Melissa and we continually had bookgasm after bookgasm.  She was thrilled to find a copy of The Wide, Wide World (a novel Jo March read in Little Women).  I was pretty thrilled with my finds; here are my spoils:

•  A World of Love by Elizabeth Bowen
• Dolly by Anita Brookner
• The New House by Lettice Cooper (Virago!)
• Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
• The Queen of Subtleties by Susannah Dunn (I didn't realize this was large print, but it was only a $1)
• Taking Chances by M.J. Farrell (Virago!)
• An Elizabethan trilogy by Patricia Finney (Firedrake's Eye, Unicorn's Blood, and Gloriana's Torch)
• The Virgin in the Garden by A.S. Byatt
• The Ship of Widows by I. Grekova (Virago!)
• The New York Stories of Henry James (NYRB!)
• The Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison 
• The Third Miss Symons by F.M. Mayor
• The Bell by Iris Murdoch
• A Message to the Planet by Iris Murdoch
• A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym
• Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
• The Children of Henry the VIII by Alison Weir

I only spent $37!!!

19 books for less than $40.  It was pure heaven.

Over the weekend I realized that even my wee bedroom bookshelf was overwhelmed with books to read.  I selected seven books to concentrate on in June.  I've finished the Mantel novel and I'm still plugging through the Bowen stories.

Other books in the June TBR pile:

• This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Soul of Kindness by Elizabeth Taylor
• A World of Love by Elizabeth Bowen
• My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier (a re-read)
• The Music at Long Verney by Sylvia Townsend Warner

I'm pleased as punch with the bookish direction my summer is going.  I have a few vacation days in June and I planning on devoting a chunk of the time to reading.

I'm hopeful I'll make a dent in this book pile by next Wednesday!

Things I'm Loving...

1.  Bright green, thrifted cords

2.  Exciting Rumer Godden news from Virago (Thanks, Verity, for keeping us up to date!)

3.  Baking with apples.  I cannot get enough baked apples and I know I will be making some apple butter soon! 

4.  This autumn cowl (I'm starting it this weekend!)

5.  This be-cupcaked face:

6.  Easy birdfeeders!  

7.  A tattoo-idea.... This vintage owl embroidery pattern on my leg and the ink looking like embroidery stitches.  Whatcha think? 

8.  Made these pumpkin pancakes this week and they were FABULOUS!

9.  Super huge book sale!  I took a peek last night, but I plan on spending tomorrow hunting through thousands of books! 

10.  Lana Del Rey.  Lovin' her!