August Books

[slemslempike]

August
I'm Charlotte Simmons - Tom Wolfe
Love's Shadow - Ada Leverson
Tenterhooks - Ada Leverson
Love at Second Sight - Ada Leverson
Madam Mary-Mary - Joan G. Robinson
The Cricket Term - Antonia Forest
Nobody's Perfect - Jacqueline Wilson
Mostly Mary - Gwynedd Rae
Two Fair Plaits - Malcolm Saville
Gladys Reunited - Sandi Toksvig
Including Alice - Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
The More the Merrier - Anne Fine
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
Mapp and Lucia - EF Benson
Lucia's Progress - EF Benson
Trouble for Lucia - EF Benson
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
Judy and Punch - Ethel Turner
Little Mother Meg - Ethel Turner
The Ruby in the Smoke - Philip Pullman
A Fine Old Conflict - Jessica Mitford
Caddy Ever After - Hilary McKay
Phyllida in Form III - Evelyn Smith

I was looking to see what I read last year, and last year was my in-between-employment month, and week of holiday with my family, so I read loads. This year I went to Berlin for a week, but that was seeing people I wanted to, not hiding from people I didn't.

I didn't think very much of I'm Charlotte Simmons. Tom Wolfe kept putting in "the way that girls do" whenever he clearly didn't know what girls did. And it was clearly about how Charlotte functioned for other people, and I was interested in her journey, which got shunted to one side. The Ada Leverson trilogy was excellent. They're about a family where the wife is clever and the husband thinks he is but is actually rather silly, and how she has to manage this. Very funny. They were a softer bit of the Lucia books in places - and now I am terribly sad that I've come to the end of them, although I still have Miss Mapp which I haven't read. Pity the Tom Holt sequels aren't easy to come by. I liked The Eyre Affair, though found Thursday rather remote and not quite believable, but not enough to matter.

My sister made me read The Ruby in the Smoke, which I really enjoyed. She said she'd liked it much more than the Northern Lights trilogy, which I wasn't overly impressed with, so I thought I'd try it. According to Amazon, Caddy Ever After wasn't due out until the end of September, but I found it in a Borders at the very end of August and squeaked. I felt cheated that Rose's Flying Feeling was included - I want new Cassons, not recycled. I also wasn't very taken with the first person narrative, but I think that's just because it wasn't the same. It was still excellent, and I want more and more and more. The Ethel Turners I'd borrowed from wonderlanded ages ago, and not got around to reading. I read Family at Misrule a few months back, and missed Judy from the family, and wasn't very taken with it. But Judy and Punch was a wonderful school story (if a little too much of the honourable schoolgirl in a scrape because she won't tell tales that aren't even tales), and rather devastating at the end. And then in Little Mother Meg Poppet wanted to take care of Meg, and gave her vegetables, and then Bunty bought Poppet a bike. Pip was rightfully ashamed, the selfish £20 bike boy.

I picked up A Fine Old Conflict almost accidentally in London, for not much at all, and in addition to being a cracking read, has one of my professors from Santa Cruz listed in the acknowledgements. She'd talked about growing up in a communist household and knowing that the phones were monitored, but I hadn't twigged that she might have known Decca. Plus, this professor wrote that it was a pleasure to work with me, and was effusive about my paper, and I am now claiming this as practically being BFF with the Mitfords in my head.

Comments

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I must look out for Ada Leverson, whom I've never read.
E F Benson. There is More Miss Mapp in Desirable Residences. The Tom Holt books are worth getting if you see them. I don't usually like sequels but these are good.
I love Two Fair PLaits for the London atmosphere. Does it do anything for someone who didn't know London when the docks still worked? And what did you think of Nobody's Perfect? I've picked up a few early Jacqueline Wilsons and it's interesting to see how she changed her style but not her themes.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

The name rang a bell when I picked the book up (a Virago three-in-one), but I don't really know why. She was a friend of Oscar Wilde.

I will look out for Desirable Residences, which seems much easier to get hold of than the others. I've read Lucia in Wartime ages and ages ago, but never Lucia Triumphant.

I'm not really a Saville person, but I did enjoy it. I probably wouldn't reread it, but it was an interesting and fairly gripping read. The docks part reminded me of Thursday's Child, with Margaret on the boat.

I've read several of JW's earlier books - The Power of the Shade was one of my favourites. I liked Nobody's Perfect, the friendship between the protagonist (I'm bad with remembering things I'm not this second reading) and they boy was lovely. It's interesting that they seem to get wiped out when people think about her; the two bibliographies I found online don't mention any of her work before Gubbyslime.

JW

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I especially like Deep Blue, which came out after Tracy Beaker but is in her earlier, longer style.

I loved the Sally Lockhart books: read RITS in one sitting ISTR whereas I dislike the Northern Lights trilogy.

I won't be druv tho' I am willing, good morrow my love said the pig of tilling

[stellanova.livejournal.com]

Did you know Decca's letters are coming out at the end of October? I can't wait!

Miss Mapp (as quoted in my comment subject) is great - I feel a Tilling re-read coming on. And I too much, much prefered Philip Pullman's Sally Lockheart novels to the His Dark Materials trilogy.

Re: I won't be druv tho' I am willing, good morrow my love said the pig of tilling

[wonderlanded.livejournal.com]

Oh oh oh I din't know that! Hurrah!

Re: I won't be druv tho' I am willing, good morrow my love said the pig of tilling

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I did! I am just about to move them from my wishlist to pre-order. So very good indeed. Have you read the Unity biography? I'm trying to decide whether to buy or borrow it. I got a free copy of Noblesse Oblige, and read that on the train, but I was rather hmmm about it, though I did enjoy Nancy's piece.

The Sally books felt less to me that they were trying to be great. And Sally's a lovely character to read about.

[wonderlanded.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you liked Judy and Punch. Judy is an utter idiot but it's so completely in character for her about giving her word etc that I think I can forgive it. Judy never was terribly practical. And you know how I feel about the twelve-year-old Poppet.

I think Thursday comes into her own in the third book if you can battle through -- I like the Fforde books for the fun quotient.

How exciting about your professor! That is madly cool -- are you still in touch with her at all?

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

She's a lovely idiot, and that part works out well, anyway. But she should have stayed on the train! Thank you for lending them to me, I did like them.

I do intend to read the rest of the Thursday books when I can find them - I like seeing the references, and then looking online to see what I missed. I was looking at the Chicklit thread for the names and giggling.

I'm not in touch with her, and I doubt she remembers me. I was lucky enough to be in a smallish class she led, about women's culture. The paper she liked was all about girls' fiction - I used Nancy Drew, SVH, The Babysitters Club, Anne Digby and the Chalet School. And I read from A World of Girls (Rosemary Auchmuty, not LT Meade) in class. I just found out that she has an autobiography coming out next month - it looks as though it'll be fascinating. I'm pre-ordering it with Decca's letters. I might muster up the courage to email her after I've read her book.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Oh, and have you read the Unity biography?

[wonderlanded.livejournal.com]

Years ago -- I remember being reasonably interested in it, but not enought to buy it myself. I wouldn't mind reading it again, I think, to see if my thoughts of it have changed over the years.