February Books

[slemslempike]

February
The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh
Momentum - Mo Mowlem
40 Years of University Challenge - Peter Gwyn
High Wages - Dorothy Whipple
Never Learn to Type - Margaret Joan Anstee
Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About - Mil Millington
Crossriggs - Jane and Mary Findlater
One for the Money - Janet Evanovich
Mr Starlight - Laurie Graham
Black Hearts in Battersea - Joan Aiken
Further Under the Duvet - Marian Keyes
The Angel Makers - Jessica Gregson

Quite a few from the bookswap - One for the Money was great. I didn't like Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argues About very much, despite enjoying the columns, and I think it's partly because the columns you could see as a snippet from a relationship, and the book made it seem like relentless misery. Crossriggs is a Virago that was described as like Jane Austen, which it really wasn't. Early 1900s, and mostly around a woman who pretty much gives up her life to look after her family but much more cheerful than that. And the whole way through it seemed like she was going to be saved by marriage, but then it turned out that she got left huge amounts of money and went off to New Zealand, which was quite refreshing.

Black Hearts in Battersea I have unaccountably never read before - in fact, I don't think I've read any Joan Aiken before, which is something I am happy to have rectified. I didn't realise they were going to be funny.

Never Learn to Type is the autobiography of the UN's first woman... some kind of director that I've forgotten, but very impressive. It's a really interesting career, but not always a terribly interesting book, as it gets mired down in list-like recounting, but does have a lot of stuff about the barriers she faced because she was a woman.

Comments

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

I adored The Wolves of Willoughby Chase when I was tiny, but it never occurred to me she'd written other books. (That happened a lot, weirdly. Led to a lot of happy discoveries when I grew up and developed a brain.) And then it did, and I love Dido and Simon to tiny little pieces.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase was one of my favourite childhood books. Black Hearts is the follow-up and I found it disappointing.

I also adored Gobbolino the Witch's Cat, all the short story collections (A Necklace of Raindrops and loads more, with beautiful Jan Pienkowski illustrations) and the Arabel and Mortimer stories about a girl and her pet raven.

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

I was a little bit disappointed, but it had been a while since I'd read Wolves, so I was able to get into the swing of Black Hearts (Wolves is filed in a different place in my head from the rest of the series, because it changes so much in Black Hearts and after) reasonably easily.

Arabel and Mortimer I love beyond reason, too.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I am looking forward to reading that, even though I now know the ending. I wish I had more happy discoveries to look forward to.

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

Didn't you say one time you'd never read Swallows and Amazons? You could try them, though I can't tell how well they'd stand up to a first reading as an adult. Nancy is FABULOUS.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I think I've read S&A once a long time ago, but never any of the others. I shall give it another go, and then I can go to the Ransome centre and be knowledgeable.

[jinty]

Some of the later books in that James III series (for instance, Dido and Pa and Is, particularly) are rather grim. Generally speaking, Aiken has got a healthy ability to allow some of her characters to die rather than all of them to be miraculously saved - the baddies in particular often come to very sticky ends - but it gets a bit over the top later on.

I re-read Midnight is a Place recently (not in the James III series) and it is very grim and gritty indeed. Again, a bit off-puttingly so, I thought.