Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Books finished in February 2017

After carefully keeping track of the books I read in January, I thought I'd keep that up in February, but didn't write them straight down here and am even less sure that I got them all. I rather hope not, because I don't like to think that I truly only finished six books in the whole month! Again, unusually, all of those listed are ones I read for the first time.

Shadows of the Workhouse, Jennifer Worth  A friend from church saw my post of the books I had read in January and offered to lend me this, a sequel to Call the Midwife, which I of course gratefully accepted. This was likewise very good, although sometimes difficult (emotionally) reading.

Come Rain or Come Shine, Jan Karon  I have the first half dozen or so of Jan Karon's Mitford Series, but have been able to borrow all the others one by one as my friend Sue acquires them. I enjoyed this very much, especially following on the heels of a somewhat depressing book set in post-war London. There were a couple of incidents that were a bit difficult to believe, but I can't think of how to mention them without giving away something rather startling, so I won't!

A Vicarage Family, Noel Streatfeild After enjoying Tea by the Nursery Fire, a fictionalized (but categorized as non-fiction) account of Noel Streatfield's father's nanny, I very much looked forward to this book, the first of the three that are essentially autobiographical. The only thing that annoyed me a bit was that a few characters were completely changed. Yes, I realize that both books are fictionalized, and I know that it can be difficult to remember some details one has made up, but the essential characters of Noel's paternal grandparents are completely the opposite of who they are in the first book, so I wonder which is closer to the truth or if they're both completely fictional. In both cases, they play fairly major roles, so it seems odd! Also, a detail about the nanny's life is completely opposite in the two books, again, a fairly major point in my opinion.

Beyond the Vicarage, Noel Streatfeild This is the third of Noel Streatfeild's autobiographical books, and seemed rather disjointed. It was much more a set of rambling memoirs of an older lady than the first one. (I can't compare to the second one, as Sue, from whom I borrowed both, doesn't have the second one, and when I looked it up on amazon and couldn't find it for less than £28, I decided I wasn't buying it myself, either!) It felt very odd to have some things fictional (for example, the main character is called Victoria Strangeway), but then for the actual titles of the books that Noel Streatfeild wrote to be listed and talked about one by one. Sentences like "Victoria had not read that book since it was published until she re-read it 40 years later while writing this book" when referring to a book, by its correct title, written by Noel, of course, seemed totally out of place. I like memoirs and can ramble just fine on my own, but I suspect that this was published at all mainly on the strength of it being a sequel and being by a well-known author.

The Girl from Venice, Martin Cruz Smith Jörn bought this book at the airport in London and read it in a relatively short time (especially for one who virtually never reads fiction) and talked me into reading it. It took me forever to get through it and I still don't know if I "liked" it. In general, historical fiction is my favorite genre, and specifically, I particularly appreciate World War II historical fiction. But the drama between brothers and not trusting the author to keep certain people alive (he did, after all, except one that he killed off turned out to be alive and then he killed him off anyway...) and the suspense were all things that were not on my list of enjoyable reading. Also, it's set at the beginning of 1945 and I always, very unreasonably, have a hard time not getting annoyed with the characters for not realizing that the war is nearly over anyway...

Past Mischief, Victoria Clayton I read this book in two days, the day I finished it including getting up at 5:00 a.m. and reading until 9:30 (with a short break for a shower, and eating breakfast while reading), having about 10 pages left. I took it with me to church and read another two or three pages before the service started, much to my husband's disapproval (LOL), but actually waited until I got home to finish it completely. It was a very satisfying book, for the most part, with some very surprising twists and finishing with the right number of ends tied up neatly, but not too perfectly to be believable.


I'm of course still reading to the children every day (as I have been doing for 19 1/2 years, and did plenty before that with borrowed children ;-) ), but will only mention that we did read two more Narnia books:

The Horse and His Boy and The Magician's Nephew, C.S. Lewis Again, these were supposedly being read to Helen and Elisabeth, but my husband wouldn't let us read them without him. We managed to finish just before he left for Israel, then had to wait a week to start The Last Battle.