Book Review: The Postmistress

Like hundreds of other book clubs across America, Sarah Blake's The Postmistress was our June book club pick. Normally I would never pick a book with a cover like this one, as it cries out "cheesy romance novel!" A faded rose atop a letter---ugh. But I had read several reviews of the novel that sounded quite positive, so we chose not to judge the book by its cover.

As usual, we didn't actually discuss the book much during book club. Only half of us had read it anyway (as usual). Book club is really about the friends, food and wine anyway. But those of us who did read it really liked it. One book club member especially enjoyed the steamy sections, although they were few and far between.

This WW2-era novel focuses on the lives of three women: Iris, the postmistress of a tiny New England town; Emma, the doctor's new wife; and Frankie, a war correspondent in London. The stories were all a bit disjointed, especially at the beginning. There were too many winding trails before getting to the actual story. However, once I got on solid footing, I found the stories interesting. I especially loved Frankie's sections, from her reports of the bombings in London to her train journey trying to figure out what was going on with the Jews.

The real meat in this novel lies in the disparity between what is going on in Europe—what Frankie sees—and what is happening in the lives of Iris and Emma in their quiet New England town. Frankie reports on lives that are falling apart, lives lost and about to be lost, while Iris and Emma maintain a tenuous hold on simple routines that are about to crash.

This is definitely worth a read, especially if you enjoy reading around the outskirts of WW2—those unknown stories, the little snippets of lives changed forever.

Linked up on the Saturday Review of Books

The Sunday Salon: April and May in Review

Now that summer's here, I'm trying to get back on track with regular book blogging. I've got a bit of catch-up to do with reviewing, but I'm getting there…

Books Read in April and May (click for my reviews)

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (re-read)
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Comes a Time for Burning by Steven Havill
A Far Country by Daniel Mason
March by Geraldine Brooks
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (re-read)
Nanny Returns by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira
The Postmistress by Sarah Blake

Favorite Book of the Months

April: March by Geraldine Brooks
May: My Name Is Mary Sutter
Both of these are absolutely fantastic. They'll absolutely be on my Top 10 list of the year.

Books Read to the Kids

The Princess and the Goblin by George Macdonald
Lots of books about the Titanic

Currently Reading

Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatramen

Up Next

Alice in Wonderland (re-read)

Added to my TBR List

An Atlas of Impossible Longing by Anuradha Roy (Reviewed by S. Krishna)
The Bride's House by Sandra Dallas
Dreams of Joy by Lisa See
The Ninth Wife by Amy Stolls
Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya-Gowda (reviewed at S. Krishna's Books)
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
The Story of a Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon
The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump by Sandra Hempel

Book Review: Pride and Prejudice

It’s been decades since I last visited Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy between the pages of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I believe I was in my early 20s when last I read it, and I haven’t even watched any of the Pride and Prejudice movies, I confess. It’s not that I didn’t love the book or Jane Austen, it’s just that I read so very much of Austen, the Brontës, and the like at a particular season of my life that I hadn’t the energy to return.

But I do have fond memories of all of them. I’m going to be teaching Pride and Prejudice in the upcoming year during British Literature, so I thought I’d better reacquaint myself with it. Vacation is a wonderful time to read classics. I had ample time to get lost in the story without interruption, especially on an 11-hour car trip.I love re-reading a novel and having it seem completely new. I really hardly remembered any of the story at all.

But what can be said about Pride and Prejudice that hasn't been said before? But I am curious: which film adaptation is best? I'd also welcome any awesome project/lesson plan ideas for teaching Pride and Prejudice.

Book Review: The Remains of the Day (Kazuo Ishiguro)

The Remains of the Day is my second Kazuo Ishiguro novel, and it is utterly different than Never Let Me Go. Or is it?

The latter is set some time in the future; Remains of the Day dwells in the past. But both focus on people whose sole job it is to serve others, even when it means sacrificing—or not being allowed to have—a life of one’s own.

Mr. Stevens is a butler who has taken tremendous pride in his job—well, his life’s work. For him, there is no higher ambition than to serve his master perfectly. To be invisible at just the right moment, and visible at just right moment. To see a need before it is spoken, to flawlessly manage a household, to be prepared for any request at any moment. His own wants and desires are never considered, and he can’t imagine why any servant would want more than this life.

For 30 years Stevens served Lord Darlington until the master died and his estate was purchased by an American. Stevens can’t quite figure out his new master. He is unlike an English gentlemen and has a curious method of dealing with Stevens, who struggles to learn the art of bantering.

His American master suggests that Stevens needs a vacation and insists that he take a week or drive around the country. Stevens, though reluctant at first, obliges, and his adventures begin. His journey, though, gives him ample time to reflect upon his years of service, to question his motivations and decisions, and to perhaps concede that his master was, after all, terribly flawed—and Stevens as well.

I absolutely loved this book. We want to shake Stevens into seeing what is before him. I put the movie on my Netflix queue immediately and can hardly wait to see it.

Other Reviews of The Remains of the Day

• Book Lady's Blog
• Caroline Hooten
• Distant Heartbeats
• Bibliofreak
• My Book Club Reviews

Linked up with The Saturday Review of Books

Book Review: Comes a Time for Burning (Steven Havill)

Cholera strikes the people of Port McKinney, Washington, in 1892. Drs. Parks and Hardy, both New Englanders fairly new to the West Coast, race to stop the disease before it wipes out the entire town.

The writing itself isn’t great— somewhat choppy. The characters are flat and rather stock, with stories hinted at but not revealed. But I still enjoyed the book for its historical perspective. I’m fascinated by epidemics, by all those grave markers in various cemeteries we’ve visited where whole families are buried, taken by cholera or some other disease.

The author did a great job of detailing the disease itself; I’m sure I felt twinges in my stomach a few times when he described the smells of cholera. The techniques used by the doctors were also fascinating. I'm putting The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump on my TBR list. Its description reads: "In this gripping book, Sandra Hempel tells the story of John Snow, a reclusive doctor without money or social position, who--alone and unrecognized--had the genius to look beyond the conventional wisdom of his day and uncover the truth behind the pandemic. She describes how Snow discovered that cholera was spread through drinking water and how this subsequently laid the foundations for the modern, scientific investigation of today's fatal plagues." Sounds fascinating!

Linked up with Semicolon's Saturday Review of Books

Book Review: A Far Country

I picked up this book by Daniel Mason on a whim at the library, based really on the cover and the possibilities described on the jacket. I'm glad I did. This isn't a cheery novel. It has somewhat of a post-apocalyptic feel to it, although it certainly isn't post-apocalyptic.

Isabel and her family live in an unknown third world country in an unknown time, which gives the book its post-apocalyptic feel, and they are desperately poor. Their country is ravaged by droughts. Isabel's beloved older brother Isaias sets off for the city to find work. The next year, Isabel's parents send her off to the city to take care of her cousin's baby. At 14, she is terrified but determined: her only goal is to find Isaias. Over the course of the next several months, she drags the baby over the city in search of Isaias. All she knows is that Isaias, a musician, plays in a band, somewhere.

Mason's description of life among the poor in the Settlements, the slums of the city, is vivid and heartwrenching. Isabel is desperate to find her brother, yet she begins to make a life for herself in the Settlements. She has no hopes of ever getting out of the slums, and she seems content with her place in life—if only she can find Isaias.

Will she find him? I'm not telling. Read the book. Mason's writing is beautiful, and while the novel isn't the slightest bit happy, the journey with Isabel is worth taking.

Other Reviews
Life Wordsmith
The Observer
Powell's Books

Book Review: March (Geraldine Brooks)

Geraldine Brooks continues to amaze me: Year of Wonders, People of the Book, and now March. I am so happy that I have her newest, Caleb's Crossing, to look forward to.

I must admit I wasn't terribly enthused about the idea of March. I knew that the story was about Mr. March, father of Little Women's Meg, Jo, Amy, and Beth. Somehow that just didn't excite me, perhaps because I was a huge Little Women fan as a girl. But March jumped out at me on my last library visit, so I grabbed it.

I loved it. Recently I reviewed Chris Bohjalian's The Double Bind, which I really liked largely because he wove a contemporary story in with the fictional The Great Gatsby, treating the characters in Gatsby as if they had actually lived. Although March isn't a contemporary story, Brooks uses the same device of expanding on a famous novel by giving marginal characters new life in their own story.

I haven't read Little Women in its entirety in probably 30 years, although I have read an abridged version and watched both the movie and a play in the past five years or so. But I read it multiple times as a tween/teen, and the story is quite vivid for me. But Mr. March was always a shadowy character, the father-at-war.

In March, we read his side of the story: the ugliness of war, the devastation, horror, and degradation he faces, all while putting on a pretty face in his letters back home. We also hear about his youth and courtship with Mrs. March, which includes some wonderful scenes with Emerson and Thoreau. These scenes are based on the journals and letters of Bronson Alcott, Louisa May's father, and brilliantly done.

Who is the real Mr. March? A devout minister, a coward, an adulterer, a doting father? Ultimately he is not the man his wife or daughters think he is, but he's also not the man he thinks he is.

There's a reason Geraldine Brooks won the Pulitzer for March. Highly recommended, even if you've never read Little Women. But you'll probably want to when you finish.

Other Bloggers Review March
Scrappy Cat
Fat Books and Thin Women
One Librarian's Book Reviews
The Blue Bookcase