Monthly Roundup - January 2012

The best month of reading I've had for a long time! It makes all the brow-beating and soul-searching I did at the end of last year worthwhile and the changes I made going into 2012 are proving to be the right ones. Let's hope it continues.

Books Read in January = 12
 Italics are from my bookshelf or on my Kindle

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn Man by Claire Tomalin
Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather
The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett
Five Red Herrings by Dorothy Sayers
The End of Everything by Megan Abbott
Sister by Rosamund Lupton
11/22/63 by Stephen King
The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill
The House of Lanyon by Valerie Anand 
Howard's End is on the Landing by Susan Hill
The Beckoning Lady by Margery Allingham
  
Clarissa in January - progress update for the year-long group read.

Fiction = 10
Non-Fiction = 2
Library Books = 6
E-books = 2
Off my Shelf = 4
Added to Shelf = 1 - Middlemarch by George Eliot

DNF - 2
Midwinter Sacrifice by Mons Kallentoft - 50p of a suspense thriller that wasn't generating the slightest bit of 'thrill' so I gave up.
Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio - Ugh! Didn't read much of it but didn't like this at all!

Kerrie @ Mysteries in Paradise is introducing a new meme for bloggers who post a monthly review to add a Crime Fiction Pick of the Month. I read 5 books that fall into this genre ( I didn't include 11/22/63) and my pick for this month .......

The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill

First rate British crime - the link will take you to my post.


What's ahead in February.......I've just started reading

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman

On the horizon but subject to change depending on my mood and what I find at the library:

O Pioneers by Willa Cather

The Grand Babylon Hotel by Arnold Bennett

Mad Dogs and Englishmen by Ranulph Fiennes

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal

The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh

The Book of Lost Fragrances by M J Rose

Literary Giveaway Blog Hop

Hosted by Judith @ Leeswammes' Blog. I took part in this event last year and it was lots of fun.........great giveaways and new blogs to discover. You have until Feb 15 to signup.

Have a great February!

Clarissa in January

JoAnn @ Lakeside Musing and Terri @ Tip of the Iceberg are hosting a year long group read of Clarissa by Samuel Richardson.
Clarissa is an epistolary novel composed of 537 letters dated from January 10th through to December 18th. The plan is to read the letters around their corresponding dates.   

 Clarissa,

or,

The History of

a

Young Lady :

Comprehending The Most Important Concerns of Private Life. And particularly showing, The Distresses that may attend the Misconduct Both of Parents and Children , in Relation to Marriage.

A very long title for a very long book (1500 pages). I began reading on January 10th with the expectation that its length combined with the 18th century language style and its tendency towards wordiness would mean a slow start and I would need some patience through the early pages. I was in for a surprise!
The first letter is written by Miss Anne Howe to her dear friend Clarissa Harlowe and begins.....

"I am extremely concerned, my dearest friend, for the disturbance that have happened in your family. I know how it must hurt you to become the subject of the public talk:.............I long to have the particulars from yourself. "

From the opening sentences the reader is thrust into the midst of a family drama that has become the subject of gossip and scandal. What Anne knows is what she has heard secondhand and she wants the true facts from her friend so she can defend her honestly. This letter leaves one in the same state of anticipation.....and having to wait three days before reading Clarissa's response.

The other five letters for January are all written by Clarissa to Anne over a period of a week and are really one long and very detailed account of the events which began at the time Robert Lovelace was introduced as a suitor to her sister, Arabella, leading to the confrontation between Lovelace and Clarissa's brother and poor Clarissa becoming the scapegoat and out of favour with her family. 

Clarissa is seen by others as a natural beauty and a 'paragon of virtue' but her letters reveal she is also young woman who is intelligent, well-read and with a sharp wit. In the intimacy of close friendship she doesn't hesitate to say exactly what she thinks about her parents and siblings and their behaviour. In her final letter she has been granted permission to accept an invitation to spend a few days staying with Anne. Which means no more correspondence until she returns and we must wait patiently until Feb 20! 

It does take some self-discipline to not read ahead so instead I reread each letter several times. I'm enjoying this because it helps in becoming used to the different language flow, I can check unfamiliar words in the dictionary and then focus on the story. One of my favourite parts is Clarissa's account of the 'courtship' between Lovelace and Arabella - it's very, very funny. 

A Quote I Liked: 

" Such a profound respect he seemed to shew her! A perfect reverence, she (Arabella) thought: she loved dearly that a man in courtship would shew a reverence to his mistress -- So indeed we all do, I believe: and with reason; since, if I may judge from what I have seen in many families, there is little enough of it shewn afterwards."  

Very entertaining and looking forward to more!

The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett

I had never heard of this author until this month when I read the post on her at Old English Rose Reads for A Classics Challenge. It sounded like something I'd enjoy so I downloaded it immediately and what a little gem it has proved to be. 


Set in the late 1800s the narrator is a young author who comes to the small fishing village of Dunnet Landing on the coast of Maine for the summer. She boards with an elderly widow, Almira Todd, who grows herbs in her garden and mixes up healing potions for the villagers and with whom she forms a close friendship. Gradually she becomes accepted into the community, attending funerals and family reunions, visiting the small outer islands and taking afternoon tea with old fishermen until even these normally quiet and taciturn menfolk begin to tell her their stories.

There is no plot - The Country of the Pointed Firs has been described as a series of sketches of a place and its people and it's the perfect description. In simple and beautiful prose the author paints pictures so vivid you can almost hear the sea, smell the fragrant herbs and see the white painted cottages set beneath the tall green firs . Landscapes....

" The gray ledges of the rocky shore were well-covered with sod in most places, and the pasture bayberry and wild roses grew thick among them. I could see the higher inland country and the scattered farms. On the brink of the hill stood a little white schoolhouse, which was a landmark to seagoing folk; from its door there was most beautiful view of the sea and shore."

.....and portraits . The retired octogenarian , Captain Littlepage, spinning tales of his seafaring days and bemoaning the loss of the way things used to be.

"I see a change for the worse even in our own town here; full of loafers now, small and poor as 'tis, who once would have followed the sea, every lazy soul of them.......................a community narrows down and grows dreadful ignorant when it is shut up in its own affairs, and gets no  knowledge of the outside world except from a cheap, unprincipled newspaper."

There is the story of Joanna who, disappointed in love, removes herself to an island and spends the rest of her days as a hermit and the moving account of the old fisherman, Elijah Tilley, who spends his days mourning the loss of 'poor dear', his wife.

It's a book about the bonds of family and friendship in a lonely, isolated place ruled by nature and her elements. Where most of the graves in the churchyard are those of women because the men are lost at sea or in wars. 

 "....we are each the unaccompanied hermit and recluse of an hour or a day.."

When I feel like that, when I need to find the peace of my inner Dunnet Landing this is the book I will take with me. 
Brilliant!! I loved every word.

11/22/63 by Stephen King

Stephen King and I are contemporaries. Our relationship goes back a long way to the days when as  a very young working mum in the 70's I could be found lugging his tomes around the house in order to grasp every reading moment. He was the author who put compulsive in front of reading and I loved all his early books. Then he went in a direction that wasn't so much to my taste and we drifted apart and it's been a while since I've read any of his work.
But I did like the sound of this story of Jake Epping, a young man who steps through a portal to a day in 1958 and eventually on a mission to change the course of history and prevent the assassination of John Kennedy. Several very positive reviews from bloggers convinced me to give it a try.

The Verdict?.........I loved it!

For readers of my generation it is less about time travel and more about a walk down memory lane. Back in the 60's New Zealand wasn't so influenced by the USA and I did have some initial doubts that references to American life would go over my head but I needn't have worried. The times when doors were left unlocked and milk came in bottles, the music , the dances.......ah,nostalgia! Younger readers may find the ordinary day to day 60's life of Jake a bit slow and drawn out but I loved it.
And deju vu! I wasn't expecting to find myself back in Derry and the horror of It......the atmosphere of evil still creating shivers down my spine.  Only one of several reappearances from earlier books and I probably missed some too after all this time.  

From there to Jodie, Texas where Jake takes up a teaching position  meets and falls in love with the delightful Sadie, and becomes such a part of the community he begins to question whether he ever wants to go back to his own time. 

If I wasn't so interested in the Lee Oswald events it was only because I've read books on him and the conspiracy theories over the years .

I'd forgotten what an amazing storyteller Stephen King is.  I love the attention he gives to even the most minor characters so even days after the book was finished they're still vivid in my mind. And the way he transports the reader right into the story so you feel a part of it and sharing every experience.

Awesome! Now I'm thinking I might have missed other more recent titles - Lisey's Story and Duma Key - that I'd like. This could turn out to be a Stephen King year!


11/22/63 was my first read for The Stephen King Project hosted by Natalie & Kathleen


 What's In A Name 5 - something on a calendar

Library Loot - 25 Jan

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Marg @ The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader and Claire @ The Captive Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they have checked out from the library.
Only three again this week!

Mad Dogs & Englishmen by Ranulph Fiennes - a six hundred year, twenty-one generation expedition through the history of the unconventional, exceptional Fiennes family.

Howard's End is on the Landing by Susan Hill - the author takes a year-long voyage through the books she owns. 

Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman - the story of Richard I and the second in the trilogy about the children of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. I'd planned on reading this later in the year but when I saw it - had to have it!

 What's in your loot this week? 

The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill

Wolf Hadda's life has been a fairytale. From humble origins as a Cumbrian woodcutter's son, he has risen to become a hugely successful entrepreneur, happily married to the girl of his dreams.
A knock on the door early morning ends it all. Universally reviled, thrown into prison while protesting his innocence, abandoned by friends and family, Wolf retreats into silence. Seven years later prison psychiatrist Alva Ozigbo makes the breakthrough. Wolf begins to talk and under her guidance gets parole, and returns to his rundown family home in rural Cumbria.


All those times I picked up this book at the library and then decided not to take it home and I never knew what I was missing!

The Woodcutter is first-rate British literary crime fiction, a standalone novel from an author better known for the Dalziel & Pascoe series.

The story begins with two short chapters: one from 1963 and the other from 1989 with unnamed characters and seemingly no connection except you know at some point they must have which has the effect of keeping one alert right from the the start. With several narrators and moving effortlessly between the present and several past time periods the story of Wolf's life unfolds with several twists and surprises to keep the reader guessing to the end. A very likeable character who I decided early on must be innocent but then, you never know and the 'did he, didn't he' question still hovers. Some great secondary characters, including a dog, and I really enjoyed his humorous relationship with the local vicar but  don't think the story needed the romantic interest with Alva. 

Hard to put down it was perfect reading for a quiet weekend.
Loved it!
  

A Classics Challenge - January Prompt 2 & 3

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

January Prompt - Level 2

The Author - What do you think of their writing style? What do you like about it? or what would have made you more inclined to like it? Is there a particular quote that stood out to you? 

I loved Thomas Hardy's writing style. The story of Bathsheba and Gabriel is Victorian Romantic - intense and emotional - it's both a comedy and a tragedy filled with passion and pathos. His descriptions of the rural countryside and the customs of the agricultural workers are what I liked best because it gave me the background I was wanting for my family history research and having been a farmer's wife most of my life were very easy to relate to. I don't have any particular quote that stood out but I've chosen two excerpts from the same page that show how well Thomas Hardy weaves together the practical and the poetic.......Chapter XIX - The Sheepwashing.

" To the north of the mead were trees, the leaves of which were new, soft, moist, not yet having stiffened and darkened under summer sun and drought, their colour being yellow beside a green - green beside a yellow. From the recesses of this knot of foliage the loud notes of three cuckoos were resounding through the still air"

  "Flagons of cider were rolling about upon the green. The meek sheep were pushed into the pool by Coggan and Matthew Moon, who stood by the lower hatch, immersed to their waists; then Gabriel, who stood on the brink, thrust them under as they swam along, with an instrument like a crutch, formed for the purpose, and also for assisting the exhausted animals when the wool became saturated and they began to sink."

 January Prompt - Level 3 

 Why do you think they wrote this novel? 
  
Thomas Hardy preferred to think of himself as a poet and once remarked of having to write novels because 'one has got to live.' He was a gentle, sensitive man and I think he wrote also them as a way of expressing his feelings. He had suffered himself from having been born into a lower class, he had great concern about social injustices and the effects of rapid industrialization on the countryside and rural communities. 

How did their contemporaries view both the author and their novel?

Far From the Madding Crowd was Hardy's fourth novel and first major literary success. It appeared anonymously in serial form for Cornhill Magazine in 1874 and later the same year as a book, receiving a wide readership and much critical acclaim. 

January Prompt - Level 1
A Classics Challenge is hosted by Katherine @ November's Autumn

Under a Blood Red Sky by Kate Furnivall

Under a Blood Red Sky was my January choice for the Read Your Own Books Challenge for which the book must have been on the shelf for over six months. I bought it about this time last year after being tempted by a 'buy 3 for less' offer. Problem was , despite the huge discount, I only wanted one of the books on offer and it wasn't this one. When is a bargain not a bargain?


It's about: The story begins in the Davinsky Labour Camp in 1933. Sofia Morosova knows she has to escape. All that sustains her through the bitter cold and hard labour are the stories told by her friend Anna, beguiling tales of a charmed upbringing in Petrogard - and of Anna's fervent love for a passionate reolutionary, Vasily.
So when Anna falls gravely ill, Sofia makes a promise to escape the camp and find Vasily. But Russia, gripped by the iron fist of Communism, is no longer the country of her friend's childhood. Sofia's perilous search takes from industrial factories to remote villages, where she discovers a web of secrecy and lies - and an overwhelming love!


 An historical romance - love and danger with a touch of magic but although the background is atmospheric and gives a glimpse of the horrors of Stalin's rule I found the the story too improbable to take seriously .  I read the first 100 pages and skimmed the rest. Not the sort of book I'm in the mood for reading but at least it can now be removed from the bookshelf.

Library Loot - Jan 18

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Marg at The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader and Claire at The Captive Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library.
Yesterday I was choosing books for light and easy reading as next week I've planned for a break from classics, challenges and readalongs. Read and relax time!
 

The End of Everything by Megan Abbott - " When you're 13 and your best friend goes missing, only one thing is certain: your life will never be the same again". I've seen this one mentioned several times by bloggers so when I saw it on the shelf I thought it was time to read for myself.


The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill - a standalone psychological crime novel which has been on my TBR for quite a while.


Icy Sparks by Gwyn Hyman Rubio -" a funny, sad, and transcendent story of a young girl's growing up in Appalachia." This is an older book first published in 1998 - strange how a book can be in the library for so long without me noticing it but when I picked it up the beautiful cover had me hooked immediately.

Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather

First published in 1912 Alexander's Bridge was Willa Cather's first novel, although at only 152 pages it is only a novella. In later years she distanced herself from this work, stating in a preface to the 1922 edition it was...

"....immature and forced, a first venture into long fiction that did not deal with subject matter close to her heart or experience."

It is the story of Bartley Alexander, an American engineer world-renowned for building bridges. A man who appears to have it all, a successful business life and a loving wife, Winifred. His work takes him frequently to London and on one trip he meets up again with Hilda Borgoyne, an Irish actress he had loved as a young man. Renewing their relationship forces Alexander to confront the discontent he has been feeling towards his perfect life and he eventually finds himself torn between the two women and struggling to maintain a double life.


I haven't read anything of Willa Cather's before which I feel was an advantage because I couldn't judge this book by comparing it with those that came after and I'm glad it was short enough that I was happy to read it twice. On the first reading I liked the simple writing style very much and there are some lovely passages of decriptive imagery and perceptive insights but I didn't care for the unoriginal storyline and at times was bored by what seemed just another 'mid life crisis' tale. It reminded me of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence although Willa Cather is kinder to her characters. Alexander loves his work and his wife but ........

" He found himself living exactly the kind of life he had determined to escape. 'What' he asked himself ' did he want with these genial honours and substantial comforts?' Hardships and difficulties he had carried lightly: overwork had not exhausted him: but this dead calm of the middle life which confronted him - of that he was afraid. It was like being buried alive."

Hilda not only reignites memories of his lost youth but holds the potential for a more exciting future. 
By the time I turned the final page I'd come to realize how important the symbolism of the bridge was and so I read it again with more attention to the bridge metaphors . In this excerpt Winifred is speaking of Alexander's first Canadian bridge.

" We were married as soon as it was finished, and you will laugh when I tell you that it always has a rather bridal look to me. It is over the wildest river, with mists and clouds always battling about it, and it is as delicate as a cobweb hanging in the sky. It really was a bridge into the future."

 The struggle to 'span' the opposing forces in life - in oneself, in relationships, between work and home, society's expectations and one's own desires - is what Alexander's Bridge is about and I thought Willa Cather explored these issues very well. It leaves me looking forward to reading more.


I read Alexander's Bridge for The Willa Cather Challenge hosted by Chris @ WildmooBooks. The link leads to her post for commenting on January's book and there are questions posted for further discussion.

Weekend Cooking - At Willa Cather's Tables

I've been reading Willa Cather and as I was googling around looking for background information I came across this lovely cookbook. Edited by Ann Romines - At Willa Cather's Tables: The Cather Foundation Cookbook brings together recipes from her books and tells of her friends, family and the places she lived complete with wonderful illustrations.  

Alexander's Bridge is the novel I've been reading and in the story Alexander's mistress , Hilda Burgoyne, serves up an elegant French dinner to her lover. 


" It was a wonderful little dinner. There was watercress soup, and sole,  

 

and a delightful omelette stuffed with mushrooms and truffles, and two small rare ducklings, and artichokes, and a dry yellow Rhone wine of which Barley had always been very fond." 

Truffles aside it all sounds very simple and tasty although I failed to find any images for whole ducklings so perhaps they are no longer culinary fashionable. Having spent weeks watching mother ducks rear their babies around our pond I doubt I could bring myself to eat them anyway and would be quite happy to settle for a more anonymous duck breast.

Weekend Cooking hosted at Beth Fish Reads is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs

Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L Sayers

Vintage Mystery Challenge - Lethal Locations!

Galloway, Scotland

 "If one lives in Galloway, one either fishes or paints. 'Either' is perhaps misleading, for most painters are fishers also in their spare time. To be neither of these things is considered odd and almost eccentric." 

   

Despite being a 'southron' Lord Peter Wimsey is received affectionately into the community at Kirkcudbright because he doesn't pretend to paint and throws a respectable cast. It's while he is here on holiday that the body of Sandy Campbell, artist and quarrelsome drunkard is found face down in a stream. Presumed at first to be an accident Wimsey discovers an inconsistency at the scene which suggests murder. Six people did not regret Campbell's death......five are red herrings. 

Although the reader is told there is a clue at the scene it is left to them to work it out. I never did and if I had I doubt it would have made any difference amidst the confusion of lies and alibis, bicycles everywhere , train timetables and railway stations. I left it to the experts and sat back and enjoyed what was a cleverly plotted, very humorous and entertaining mystery.

  

The Location: Galloway is in the south-west of Scotland and the story is centred in and around the town of Kirkcudbright. For over 200 years the beauty of the surrounding countryside has attracted landscape painters and a thriving artist's colony still exists there today.

Kirkcudbright 1920

Dorothy Sayers was obviously very familiar with this part of Scotland and includes passages of vivid imagery describing the landscape.

Wigton Coast

".....climbed up beneath the grim blackness of Cardoness Castle, drank in for the thousandth time the strange Japanese beauty of Mossyard Farm, set like a red jewel under its tufted trees on the blue sea's rim, and the Italian loveliness of Kirkdale, with it's fringe of thin and twisted trees and the blue Wigtonshire coast gleaming across the bay". 

 Also adding to the Scottish atmosphere (and the humour) was the use of dialect by the locals , particularly the police who Wimsey was helping. 

" I canna credit that any gentleman wad murder anither for twa-three words aboot a bit picture, or for a wee difference of opeenion consairnin' a game o' gowf......" 

I didn't have any problem interpreting it and the dialogue was extremely funny at times. 


 Great reading and I'm looking forward to more vintage mysteries.


Five Red Herrings by Dorothy Sayers was first published in 1931.

Library loot

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Marg at The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader and Claire at The Captive Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. 

 Only three books this week as I'm sticking to my intention not to overload myself with huge piles of books waiting to be read.

Midwinter Sacrifice by Mons Kallentoft......another new Scandinavian crime writer .......very creepy cover!


11/22/63 by Stephen King.....receiving a lot of positive reviews so want to read for myself.

Thomas Hardy - The Time-Torn Man by Claire Tomalin.....biography - all the googling and researching I've been doing on TH for the Classics Challenge has inspired me to want to read more about him.

Sister by Rosamund Lupton

When Beatrice hears that her little sister Tess is missing, she returns home to London on the first available flight. But Bee is unprepared for the terrifying truths she must face about her younger sibling when Tess's broken body is discovered in the snow.
The police, Bee's friends, her fiance and even her mother accept the fact that Tess committed suicide. But nobody knows a sister like a sister, and Bee is convinced that something more sinister is responsible for for Tess's untimely death. She embarks on a dangerous journey to discover the truth.


Two months after Tess's death Bee begins a letter to her...

"Why am I writing this to you?" Bee asks the sister who is no longer there. "I need to talk you" she says. "It's a one-way conversation, but one that I could have only with you...I'll tell you one step at a time, as I found out myself, with no reflecting hindsight."

The letter follows Bee's investigations but also becomes a painful soul-searching as she struggles to come to terms with her loss by looking back over the life she and her sister shared. The love and friendship, the quarrels and misunderstandings are confronted with a great deal of guilt and self-recrimination but she emerges with a deeper understanding, not only of herself but also her mother whose actions in Bee's childhood had left Bee with emotional wounds. 
I think Rosamund Lupton's greatest strength is her ability to write of relationships under stress with amazing insight and the added intimacy of the letter format makes for emotional reading . 


I also enjoyed the secondary themes that were woven into the story. The trials for a cure for cystic fibrosis in babies and the plight of Tess's immigrant friend, pregnant and in an abusive relationship touch gently on other social issues.

The suspense is built through Bee's lone investigations , the danger she is exposing herself to and wondering what is going to happen to her and an unexpected little twist in the final pages made for a great ending.

Excellent pyschological suspense and I enjoyed it very much.


I Want More Challenge 

The Week That Was - Jan 1 - 7

After a quiet Christmas and New Year the first week of 2012 has been more eventful .......the highlight being bringing home our new baby yesterday!

 

 This is Murphy - 7 weeks old and the cutest little boy ever. Our last little dog died a month before our retirement move and although we've often talked about another dog in the three years since then talking was as far as we got. I do believe things happen when the time right and this small puppy needing a home seems meant for us. 
Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce @ At Home With Books


Earlier in the week we had a visit from Son 2 and his family which was lovely and on Thursday a trip through to the optician, long overdue. I've needed new glasses for quite a while and am looking forward to reading and blogging without suffering headaches caused by eyestrain.

Reading this week has been wonderful and I hope it's an indication of how it will continue through 2012. I've been loving every word of Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd and nearing the end with regret although I plan to reread parts this week as I sort out my next post for A Classics Challenge. Really enjoying reading everyone's posts - lots of fun and lots of new blogs being fed into Google Reader. Also read and will be posting on -
Sister by Rosamund Lupton
Alexander's Bridge by Willa Cather 

Today I've started The Five Red Herrings by Dorothy Sayers and then I have Stephen King's 11/22/63 waiting ......and on Tuesday the year-long group read of Clarissa by Samuel Richardson begins . Hopefully another great week of reading!


Happy reading!

The Dressmaker by Kate Alcott

I chose to read to read The Dressmaker because I was interested in reading about the scandal surrounding Lady Lucile Duff Gordon, a well known fashion designer married into the aristocracy, and her behaviour following the sinking of the Titanic.

The congressional inquiry into the tragedy and the accounts from crew and passengers was fascinating enough to keep me reading but the central theme is a romance involving fictional characters in which I wasn't particularly interested.


Tired of being a servant, Tess Collins, an aspiring seamstress leaves her employment and is lucky enough to be hired by Lady Lucile as her personal maid on the Titanic's doomed voyage. Once on board Tess catches the eye of two men, one a roughly-hewn but kind sailor and the other and enigmatic Chicago millionaire.

 Not hard to guess who is going to win the heart of the fair maiden! It's all too predictable and I never felt the necessary connection to any member of the 'love triangle' to really care what happened to them.

 Light, pleasant reading that will appeal to readers who enjoy historical romances and anyone interested in the story of the Titanic and its aftermath.

 Publisher: Doubleday, 2012
Source: Netgalley

A Classics Challenge - January Prompt

Katherine @ November's Autumn has posted the January prompts for A Classics Challenge. There are three levels and I plan to do each one separately through the month. I'm reading Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy.

Level 1 - The Author......Who is the author? What do they like? When where they born? Where did they live? What does their handwriting look like? What are some of the other novels they've written? What is an interesting and random fact about their life?

Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928)

Portait by William Strang 1893

Thomas Hardy was born on the 2 June,1840 at Higher Bockhampton, a small hamlet east of Dorchester in the parish of Stinsford, Dorset.The cottage that was his birthplace had been built by his grandfather and it was where, in 1874, he would write Far From the Madding Crowd.

At 16 he was apprenticed to a local architect and six years later moved to London where he continued as an assistant architect until the success of Far From the Madding Crowd enabled him to leave his career and focus on his writing.

After a succession of moves, in 1885 Hardy and his wife settled at Max Gate, the home he designed and had built by his brother, and where he would spend the rest of his life.

Max Gate

Other novels by Thomas Hardy include

• The Return of the Native (1878)
• The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
• Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)
• Jude the Obscure (1895)

Thomas Hardy's handwriting

Following his death in 1928 there was controversy about where he would be laid to rest. His family wanted to follow his wish to be buried at Stinsford while his executor insisted he be interred in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. A compromise was reached and his ashes placed in the Abbey while his heart was buried with his first wife, Emma, at Stinsford.

January Prompt - Level 2 & 3