Gentle Reading of Long Ago Times: Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson

I've read this on and off over the last 30 years. My daughter, Hannah, has my copy of this book and I recently remembered that it is gentle reading for troubled times. There is an inexpensive Kindle version which is perfect for occasionally dipping into this soothing, fascinating look at bygone days. 

My original review is below.

===========

This is probably my third time reading this trilogy. I used to keep it in my desk at work for lunchtime reading when there was no one else in the break room.

These three books are chronicles of small village, larger village, and small town life in rural England in the late 1800s. Told with fictionalized names this is nonetheless acknowledged to be a good record of what life was really like back then, from the farming/working class point of view. As such, Thompson didn't populate it with a main story line but centered it on one family (her own, one presumes) and then told all she had observed growing up. We see working habits, tavern stories and songs, pig killing day, and much more. In a sense, I suppose one could call it "Little House" stories for grown ups - set in Britain.

The rhythm of life gently washes over the reader and, if one isn't too worried about driving storylines as I mentioned, then there is a great reward in these books. They are perfect for unforced reading whenever one has a chance.

I was unaware that there was a television series based on these until reading some GoodReads reviews. No wonder many of them were slightly disappointed. There would have to be a great deal of "reading into" to get storylines for the Lark Rise village setting. I've also seen a variety of rather judgmental reviews commenting on sexism, politics, and so forth. Those entirely miss the point of history, for one thing, and of these books, for another.

Here is an excellent overall review of the book for anyone who'd like an overview.

Rereading: The Best Cook in the World by Rick Bragg

A delectable, rollicking food memoir, cookbook, and loving tribute to a region, a vanishing history, a family, and, especially, to his mother.

Margaret Bragg measures in "dabs" and "smidgens" and "tads" and "you know, hon, just some." Her notion of farm-to-table is a flatbed truck. But she can tell you the secrets to perfect mashed potatoes, corn pudding, redeye gravy, pinto beans and hambone, stewed cabbage, short ribs, chicken and dressing, biscuits and butter rolls. The irresistible stories in this audiobook are of long memory -- many of them pre-date the Civil War, handed down skillet by skillet, from one generation of Braggs to the next.

This is much more memoir than recipe book. There are plenty old customs, living through hard times, and personalities in Rick Bragg's family tree. I am not one who likes stories of dysfunctional families and I appreciate that the dysfunctions are smoothed out or merely hinted at because the emphasis is on how the recipe came into the family or how someone learned to cook. By listening to the stories in the kitchen we can take the good with the bad, especially when it comes with a helping of Axhead Soup or Chicken and Dressing.

I recently picked up the Kindle version when my mother was in the hospital and I needed some comfort reading. It more than filled the bill, although I read only a little here and there since I discovered that what I really longed for was author Rick Bragg's narration of the book. Now she's home again and I am still very slowly reading and listening a bit here and there as I find the time to truly savor it. It is as comforting as the food and stories it describes.

And, although I have only read the recipes, I may actually choose one or two to make. Beginning with those beans cooked with ham, a dish I dearly love.

Rereading (again) — The Time of the Dark by Barbara Hambly

I haven't reread this since the last time, which was way back in 2014. This series is the first that Hambly got published and, in my opinion, are still the best she's ever written. That was confirmed again for me this time through.

The great thing about rereading something that you know really well is that you know the big story points but have forgotten enough of the smaller twists that then surprise you with pleased recognition. The last time this happened to me is talked about below.

The first book begins with a wonderful premise. What if you've been having a series of recurring dreams, set in a strange world, where you're in the middle of a panicking crowd all running from an ineffable horror? Then, one night, you wake up and you are in the middle of the city. It's no dream. It's real.

That's what happens to scholar Gil Patterson in The Time of the Dark. Where Barbara Hambly takes the adventure from there is a great ride.

You wouldn't normally think of a comfort book as one where you are fleeing with refugees from amorphous enemies (the Dark) in a parallel universe, where it is always freezing and there is never enough food, where you may never get home again because that might let the Dark into your own world ... but there you go. This is a much loved story that I fell back into last night, thinking "why has it been so long?"

Partly this is because I love Barbara Hambly's early books. Gil, Rudy, Ingold, the Ice Falcon, are all well drawn characters. They are realistic, imperfect heroes, just as the villains are sometimes people we can understand and relate to, despite the fact that one loves to hate them.

My mind is smoothed to the contours of their world and their struggles. I am really enjoying rediscovering the bits I'd forgotten, such as seeing just how Hambly built in the the underlying story logic through tiny details that show up very early int he book.

Overall this is really a great adventure and world to visit. 

Couldn't Put It Down — The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman

More of the books I've been delighted to find I still really enjoy even though I first read it decades ago.

 

Mrs. Pollifax is a widow in her 60s who is extremely bored with her life. When her doctor advises her to try something she always wanted to do, she remembers a youthful longing to be a spy. Showing up at the CIA to apply, she is mistaken for one of their regular couriers and given a simple assignment. That assignment leads to an adventure which takes her to a career in espionage.

This is a bit of a love letter to the first six novels in the Mrs. Pollifax series from 1966-1983. They are that rarest of all creations, the cozy spy novel.

My mother would bring home the latest from the grocery store and it would get passed around. We all enjoyed Mrs. Pollifax's personality and ingenuity, as well as the author's talent for weaving an enjoyable spy novel. There is suspense and mystery but also the light, personal touch that Mrs. Pollifax herself injects into every situation. Of course her lack of experience and training means that she winds up getting deeper into every assignment than her handlers expected. Her interest in the people and situations around her lead to a sort of inspired mayhem resulting from Mrs. Pollifax logically from trying to achieve her goal under circumstances that rapidly spin out of control. 

I'm finding the books also serve as time capsules for living in the days of the Cold War and other political situations that I'd almost forgotten about. It all feels familiar and yet so far away as I read. Dorothy Gilman also took a great deal of care with the geography and culture of these far away places. I didn't realize it so long ago when I was first reading, but they really are a good, if casual, look at the countries Mrs. Pollifax visits.

My favorites are the first six books but there are many more to try.

Couldn't Put It Down — The Street of the Five Moons by Elizabeth Peters

Another of the books I've been delighted to find I still really enjoy even though I first read it decades ago.

What did it all mean? The note with the hieroglyphs was found in the pocket of a man lying dead in an alley. The only other item of interest was a piece of jewelry, a reproduction of the Charlemagne talisman. It was good, so good that Vicky Bliss thought she was being shown the real jewel. The goldwork was done by a master; the jewels weren’t glass but top-quality synthetic stones. What did it mean?

Vicky didn’t know … yet. But on the sunbathed streets and in the moonlit courtyards of Rome, she was going to find out—if the dangerously exciting young Englishman didn’t get in her way…

I've read this many times since Vicky Bliss is my favorite of author Elizabeth Peters' heroines. However, I haven't read it for a long time so when I saw that the Barbara Rosenblat narration was available on Audible, I got ready for an enjoyable reacquaintance. Her narration really did make the book even better.

The Vicky Bliss series is made up of cozy adventure mysteries with a no nonsense heroine who is a curator at an art museum. When she meets up with a charming art thief the combination is quite fun. As with many favorites I've recently reread after a decade or so, I remembered the big surprises but was startled by other plot twists that I did't remember. The setting in Rome and Tivoli, the charming art thief, the eccentric household where Vicky is investigating, and the sheer adventure of the escapades that she gets embroiled in are all enhanced by a nice layer of humor that makes for lighthearted entertainment.

My favorites of the series are this one, Silhouette in Scarlet, and Trojan Gold. Any of them can be read as a standalone, though all build on the relationship between Vicky and the art thief. 

It is fluff but my kind of fluff.

Ransomware and Rereading — The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

At the beginning of May the City of Dallas suffered a citywide ransomware attack. All city services had to learn to operate again without the computer. The police and emergency services went back to the time-honored practice of using radio dispatchers and a pen and paper. The courts have been closed because legal materials for each case were online and now are gone ... or buried in whatever there is left of the system. As far as we can tell, they're having to rebuild the whole system from scratch.

As library users, this has been almost the equivalent of when the pandemic hit. There is no computer access, of course. You can go to a local branch and peruse the materials. But you must just see what that particular branch has. There's no citywide access to the catalog or, for that matter, no catalog to check at all. 

You can check out materials. They enter the info into a Word file which will be reintegrated with the whole system when it is back. I have no idea how they're going to know what everyone already had checked out. They aren't accepting materials back in because they have no way to check them back in.

Of course, we figure the library will be the last system to come back to normal once Dallas systems begin coming back online. They're a pretty low priority in the big picture.

Which is a very long introduction to why I've been rereading so many goldie oldies from our own shelves. (Well, that and the flu.) It's been kind of nice being forced to fall back on our own resources and rediscover so many books I love.

This is the story of Corlath, golden-eyed king of the Free Hillfolk, son of the sons of the Lady Aerin.

And this is the story of Harry Crewe, the Homelander orphan girl who became Harimad-sol, King's Rider, and heir to the Blue Sword, Gonturan, that no woman had wielded since the Lady Aerin herself bore it into battle.

And this is the song of the kelar of the Hillfolk, the magic of the blood, the weaver of destinies...

This another one that I loved when it came out and haven't reread for a long time. Consequently, I remembered the big beats but not a few of the twists toward the end. Likewise, I'd forgotten the many elements that made this compelling. I found it grabbed me by the throat and I couldn't put it down — what a great read!

To quote another review, this is "a near-perfect short fantasy novel" and "an original work fantasy lovers shouldn't overlook."

Couldn't Put It Down — Aunt Dimity's Death by Nancy Atherton

When you're recovering from the flu and rediscover Aunt Dimity's Death jammed behind other books - that's a lovely moment. It's perfect recovery reading. 

Lori Shepherd thought Aunt Dimity was just a character in a bedtime story...

...Until the law firm of Willis & Willis summons her to a reading of the woman's will. Down-on-her-luck Lori learns she's about to inherit a siazable estate--if she can discover the secret hidden in a treasure trove of letters in Dimity's English country cottage. What begins as a fairy tale becomes a mystery--and a ghost story--as Aunt Dimity's indomitable spirit leads Lori on a quest to discover how true love can conquer all.

I'm not a lover of "cozy" mysteries as they are churned out today. However, this 1992 book is a charming mystery from before "cozy" was a category and it is far better than most. What sets it apart is the emphasis on what Lori discovers about herself in the investigation. This review hit the nail on the head:

This book, cleverly disguised as a cosy mystery, takes us into a world of adults looking at childhood memories through grown-up eyes. There are memories sweet and difficult, dark secrets, and finally, a love story or two. There's really not so much of a mystery here, but more a righting of past wrongs.

Certainly, when I was unable to continue reading and my thoughts whirled in flu-ish chaos, musing about this story kept me from focusing on how bad I felt.

Couldn't Put It Down — War for the Oaks by Emma Bull

I picked this book up recently to reread and was riveted all over again. I remembered the broad strokes but not so many that I wasn't surprised by some big plot twists, especially toward the end. I read it at every spare moment, carried it all over the house and just loved it all over again.

So I'm reposting this review from 2008 in the hopes that you'll pick it up and have just as good a time.

Eddi reminded herself that this was not the only bass player in Minneapolis. The ads hadn't even appeared yet. "Ahhhh ... listen," she said at last. "I'm not sure you ... that this is a good idea."

And he raised his eyes from his bass just enough to look at her. His eyes were more fluent than his mouth; they blazed contempt and hostility, they pleaded for her forbearance, her indulgence.

She winced and picked up her own guitar. "Ever heard Bram Tchaikovsky's version of 'I'm a Believer'?" He shook his head, but continued to watch her, his fingers poised over his stings.

"Start it," he mumbled finally, and Eddi shrugged.

The song did kick off with only guitar. Then Carla dropped in after a few measures with a series of snare drum punches, and Dan's synthesizer yowled across it all.

Then, in precisely the right place, the bass came in. It began as if the Rocky Mountains had begun to walk. It sounded like the voice of the magma under the earth's crust, and it picked up the whole song and rolled it forward like water exploding out of a breaking dam. They were suddenly tight, all four of them, as if they were a single animal and that monster heartbeat was their own. Eddi listened wonderingly as they played the complicated stop beats in the chorus with respectable precision. She was dimly aware that she was playing some of the best guitar of her life.

When they were done, Eddi looked around and saw her own amazement on Carla's and Dan's faces. "Well," she said, and, unable to think of anything to add, said it again.

No one declared the newcomer to be the band's bass player. It would have been beside the point. Eddi only wanted to see if they could make other songs sound like that. She had no idea if he could sing; given his willingness to talk, it seemed unlikely. But for bass like that, she could sacrifice a harmony voice.

I have never read any book before that so well made me understand the synergy and energy of a band until I read this book. I would think that probably holds for any band playing any sort of music, on varying levels.

If that were all that there were to War for the Oaks it would be interesting but not worth recommending. Not since Neverwhere by Neill Gaiman have I read such wonderful urban fantasy. The book begins with Eddi who is having a very bad night. She has broken up with her boyfriend, which also means their band is now kaput, and then she finds herself in the dark city streets fleeing a truly terrifying vicious dog ... who suddenly changes into a man. 

Thus begins Eddi's coercion into being the mortal being needed by the Seelie Court of Faerie for their upcoming war with the Unseelie Court. Ostensibly the Seelie Court are the good guys but as these beings all are operating under completely foreign rules it is often difficult to tell the difference. Eddie is left with the dog/man, otherwise known as a phouka, as a bodyguard as she goes about her regular life of forming a band while waiting for the war to begin.

This is all a pale description of a rich story that pulls the reader into the world of Emma Bull's making. We learn about champions, love, truth, honor ... and , of course, musicians.

Highly recommended.

SPOILER
Reader's note for parents of YA readers:
Eddi does have an affair though details are not described. She later has another with an encounter that is a bit more descriptive but not graphic. The first is excused due to undue "faerie" influence and she refuses to resume it based on moral grounds. The second other is from true love. Both are handled well and nothing that makes an adult reader blink twice as part of this genre. This is the sort of book I would have read quite eagerly as a high school student.

Picture Miss Seeton — a delightful, cozy mystery

Picture Miss Seeton
by Heron Carvic

Miss Seeton is a retired, often bemuddled British art teacher with a slight psychic ability for drawing things more accurately than they appear. Picture Miss Seeton, the first in the series, is an absorbing novel in which an elderly and naive drawing mistress, finds herself suddenly involved in the baser side of life, becoming embroiled in a murder and its subsequent mayhem.

This was a delight to reread.

I'd forgotten just what an endearing character Miss Seeton is with her ever-present brolly and continual misunderstanding of what's going on around her. To balance that, though, there is the fact that she was a school mistress and you realize she must have been a good one because she brings that sense of judging people to different situations. If only she understood just what the situations were.

This would go in the "cozy mystery" category as well as the comic category, while still being a very  satisfying mystery.

Here's a bit of the beginning of the book in which Miss Seeton reflects on the opera she just saw.

"L'amour est tum tum

De something..."

So colorful. Not romantic—no, one couldn’t call it that; if anything perhaps a trifle sordid. Carmen, herself, for instance, no better than she should be. In fact, if one were frank, worse. And the other girl, the young one; it was difficult to feel sorry for her. Her fiancé, quite obsessed with his mother—obviously weak and easily influenced—would have made a most unsatisfactory husband in any case. Still, for him to stab Carmen at the end like that—so unnecessary. Almost contrived. Though, of course, one must not forget that foreigners felt differently about these matters. One read that people abroad did frequently get emotional and kill each other. Probably the heat.

Heron Carvic wrote the first five Miss Seeton mysteries. Although the series continued with other authors none of them really rang true. Those first five though are great fun.

What I've Been Reading — Mary Stewart

I have been a fan of Mary Stewart's romantic thrillers since I was in high school, nabbing my mother's copies off the shelves. I haven't picked them up for years but seeing that they are on Kindle for a low price made me go looking for my own paperbacks. Immediately I sank into the pleasure of revisiting much loved characters and settings along with noticing new details. I especially appreciate her combination of beautiful prose, engaging characters, and ability to ratchet up tension until you are reading as fast as possible. This excerpt can't convey all those qualities but it gives an idea of her style.

Further out in the bay, the green and red and golden riding-lights of the bigger ships drowned themselves in long liquid shadows. The ropes looked as fragile and as magical as gossamer.

We stood looking over the sea-wall. A group of sailors, noisily talking and laughing, went past, then a man and a girl, absorbed. Nobody seemed to pay any attention to us, and once again I felt the beginnings of that strangely dreamlike feeling I had experienced before, only this time it was not brought about by weariness, but by something else I could not quite understand. It was as if Richard Byron and I were alone in a bubble of glass, enclosed in its silence, into which nothing could break and out of which we might not go. People, like the dim denizens of some undersea-world in which our bubble was suspended, came and went, floating, soundlessly, amorphous, outside the glass, peering in perhaps, but having no power to intrude upon the silence that enmeshed us. To this day I still remember Marseilles, the noisiest city in the world, as a noiseless background to that meeting with Richard Byron, a silent film flickering on a screen in front of which we two moved and stood and talked, the only living people there.

Madam, Will You Talk?

I hadn't realized until recently that Steward developed the romantic mystery genre for modern times (relatively speaking) with smart heroines who adapt well when they are unexpectedly thrust into dangerous situations. Yet, she is not very well known these days.

She also wrote a celebrated series about Merlin and Arthur which combined historical fiction and fantasy. Those were also good but I always liked her mysteries best.

I'd forgotten how many different settings she used - reportedly always visiting in person to be sure she got the atmosphere and details right. What I did remember is that she writes for the intelligent reader, making it a pleasure to revisit these books recently.

Madam, Will You Talk?

When Charity Selborne  arrived on holiday at Avignon, she had no way of knowing that she was to become the principal player in the last act of a strange and brutal tragedy. Befriending a terrified boy and catching the attention of his enigmatic, possibly murderous father, has inadvertently placed her center stage. And now the killer, with blood enough on his hands, is waiting in the wings.

Danger, intrigue, and romance in a breakneck pursuit through Provence as our heroine protects a child from a murderer's pursuit. As always Mary Stewart's powers of description raise this above the usual romance/thriller story. This was the first of her books that I ever read and I found out that it is her first book. Really top-notch for right out of the gate. It was a lot of fun to reread after all these years although it is not my favorite as it used to be.

Touch Not the Cat

After the tragic death of her father, Bryony returns from abroad to find that his estate is to become the responsibility of her cousin Emory. Her family's estate with its load of debt is no longer her worry. Still, her father's final, dire warning about a terrible family curse haunts her days and her dreams. And there is something odd about her father's sudden death...

This one has an increased sense of terror by the end which is enhanced by the fact that she is in love, but isn't sure of her lover's identity. Yep, it sounds ridiculous but Stewart makes the twist seem totally natural. It's my favorite of her books. For the present anyway.

Nine Coaches Waiting

When lovely Linda Martin first arrives at Chateau Valmy as an English governess to the nine-year-old Count Philippe de Valmy, the opulence and history surrounding her seems like a wondrous, ecstatic dream. But when an accident deep in the woods nearly kills Linda's innocent charge, she begins to wonder if someone has deadly plans for the young count.

 In this tale, Stewart takes us through a modern gothic romance, a la Jane Eyre, but with a twist and in France instead of England.  Although the governess is inexperienced in the ways of the privileged and of love, she holds her own. A very enjoyable take on Cinderella, which is pointed out a few times in the novel, but one without a fairy godmother.  Cinderella solves this mystery on her own.


Wildfire at Midnight

A young crofter's daughter is cruelly and ritually murdered on the the Scottish Isle of Skye.. In the idyllic Camasunary Hotel nearby, beautiful Gianetta Brooke cannot seem to escape her pain or her past. Very soon Gianetta finds herself tangled in a web of rising fear and suspicion. One of her fellow guests, however, is also hiding secrets... and a skill and penchant for murder. 

This echoes the feel of mysteries set in isolated mansions, as tourists in an isolated hotel have a string of sacrificial murders happen in the nearby mountains. I had read this book fewer times than the others so the plot was slightly less familiar, adding a nice bit of tension to my rereading. I especially enjoyed the tidbits of Scottish living that found their way even into a hotel setting.