Publicity ~~ from across the pond

I’m so excited…

One of my favorite book blogs is Savidge Reads in England.  Simon Savidge is a major player in the world of book reviewing and book judging over there.  I’ve been following Simon’s blog for several years now. When he raves about a book –  I’m writing it down, when he lost his beloved Gran (another book lover) I sobbed, when he profiles his favorite bookshops I sigh in envy — in short, I’m a big fan.

His blog has a huge following and (gulp) today he’s profiling my bookshelves and this here little ol’ Book Barmy in his segment called Other People’s Bookshelves.

 

See my moment of fame  HERE

Be sure to browse the rest of his blog — it’s wonderful!

The Dipper Defense

You may have noticed my absence here on Book Barmy.  I apologize for neglecting you, but I’m going to plead the “dipper” defense.

This is a Dipper and he hops along a stream dipping in and out of the water, taking little samples of surface bugs and flies.  Never lingering in one place, he has to try every nook and cranny of the stream bed. I’ve been doing the same thing with books.  Dipping in and out of a pile of books that landed in my reading nook.  I’m changing books like a teenage girl changes outfits.

I open one book, read a chapter, then pick up another to taste that one — then skim the back cover of another and before you know it, I’m into that one. Must Focus …

Luckily my dippyness (yup, I just made that up) has recently subsided and I’m almost finished  a couple of these, so proper book reviews will resume shortly.

 

In the meantime, is anyone else really sad to see this series end?

The Good Wife-superb writing and a gasp-inducing storyline involving lawyers, politics and sex – some of the best television ever.

I’m especially going to miss this guy — sighhhhhh.

A Woman of Independent Means by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey

I first read this book back in 1980, just a couple of years after it was published.  Embroiled in graduate school demands and anxieties, I needed a reading escape, but nothing frothy or light.  My brain was working overtime, on all cylinders, and my recreational reading needed to do the same.

As it often is with books, I found A Woman of Independent Means as a beat-up paperback left behind on the student lounge bookshelf.  It turned out to be the exact right book at the exact right time.  Reading the life story of Bess, a woman who never, ever suffered from feelings of inadequacy or low self esteem, was the perfect foil to my own quivering mass of insecurities trying to survive in a often harsh and competitive environment.

In the years since, I have re-read this classic several more times and once again this past month when a new edition (above) entered my library to happily replace my original beat-up paperback, with a truly ugly cover.

 

 

 

 

 

This epistolary novel is comprised of one woman’s correspondence to her family, friends, and others spanning from the turn of the last Century to 1968. Bess is based on the author’s own grandmothers letters and we see Bess live through two world wars, the great depression, the influenza epidemic and the assassination of President Kennedy. She observs horse and buggy days through automobiles and from crossing the ocean by ship to air travel. We see history unfold through her letters.

The author has created a remarkable and complex woman – both ahead of her time and an ambitious, independent thinker.  Bess is outspoken, brash, rebels against convention, and yet, is completely vulnerable.  Through her letters, the reader watches the narcissistic Bess try to manipulate and control her loved ones’ lives — truly unaware she is overstepping and usually hurt and bewildered when they rebel.

Bess suffers financial ruin after the death of her first husband, so becomes financially savvy and sets herself up to be independently wealthy through her second marriage.  As a “women of independent means” she is able to get what she wants – whenever she wants — often with grimace-worthy results:

I am very sorry to hear of my cousin’s illness.  I have not received a letter from her since last summer and I was beginning to wonder what reason I had given her for such a long silence.  When she regains consciousness, please tell her I wrote to express my concern.

If she does not regain consciousness, may I remind you that I am the legal owner of the four-poster bed she now occupies and in the event of her death, it is to be shipped C.O.D. to me here in Texas.                        Cordially,  Bess Alcott Steed.

 

Bess’s Machiavellian actions are in stark contrast to her overwhelming need be loved and admired.  She is constantly confounded by others’ actions and strives to put things right – as she sees it. 

Throughout a series of of personal tragedies, Bess remains relentlessly optimistic.  From the loss of her son, to the burning down of her beloved home,  Bess never feels sorry for herself and is somehow stronger after each (often unbelievable) set-back.

Bess and her married daughter have a predictably difficult relationship which Bess tries to solve by inviting herself to her daughter’s social events and ingratiating herself with her daughter’s best friends.  A heart wrenching letter to her daughter in 1943 is some of the best insight on aging mother/grown daughter relationships I’ve ever read. 

There are many moments when Bess has the clear-sightedness of age and experience.  I stopped to underline several passages such as this one: 

Remember the night you and I talked until dawn with Betsy trying her eight-year-old best to stay awake with us?  The others had long since fallen asleep when she suddenly saw the sun rising and burst into tears, terrified to realize morning would come whether she had slept that night or not.  But better for her to learn early that nature does not ask our consent to continue its inexorable circuit.

Ms. Hailey has brilliantly crafted a complex character who will stick with you long after you close this novel’s pages.  Bess is far from perfect -and I was often exasperated (and sometimes horrified) by her — yet I still shed a few tears with her.  Like all fascinating characters, I was always interested in Bess, never bored by her and actually loved every moment I was allowed to spend in her presence. 

Advance Readers Copies

I revel in receiving Advanced Readers Copies of books from publishers.  These ARCs (sometimes called proofs or galleys) are given to book reviewers and book sellers in exchange for honest reviews and hand-selling the book at their bookstores.  They also ask that you state this fact with your review of the book.

This gift of pre-publication reading means I have often read many bestsellers by the time they are published and being talked about.  These ARC’s come to me in both digital and printed form, and have not gone through the final edit – so you find yourself slowing down at a few typos here and there — not to mention the odd formatting especially with digital editions.  They also sometimes lack cover art — so it is very surprising to see how the real book looks when it hits the shelves. (I find myself imagining the perfect cover as I read).

Quite a few of the ARCs I’ve read are pretty bad and I don’t get beyond the first few chapters, others are just not my type, and some are so horribly formatted (I’m talking digital here) that you can’t make heads or tails of what you’re reading.  But, happily, most are admirable — if not amazing.

I finished one of those simply great ARCs the other evening, and was ready to tell you all about it here.  The back cover says publication in March 2016, but something gnawed at me.  I’m a very minor player in the book review world, but I do keep up with book review publications and I hadn’t seen it on any bookstore “new arrivals” shelves.  (Trust me, I am a pretty major bookstore junkie browser.)

So I did some sleuthing and found out that this wonderful book’s publication has been delayed until October 2016.

Publishers ask that a reviewer NOT review an ARC until 30 days of its publication and I like to wait until it actually is published —  just to be sure.

So I will review another book here on Book Barmy shortly — one I just re-read and loved just as much as the first time I read it – yikes 30 odd years ago.

A most delightful day

So yesterday was my birthday and while I’ve reached an age that still shocks surprises me, I actually feel only 35 years old.  That is, except after a workout or a long hike, then my knees remind me of my legitimate age.

Husband gave me my annual birthday trip/gift to the San Francisco Flower Mart… a most heavenly treat.

Where I was quite restrained

 

 

 

 

And now, I have these gorgeous bouquets to enjoy

I also got a new bicycle! Okay, almost new – refurbished and purchased used from our bike rental and repair shop down on the beach.  I love it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m off to take a bike ride.  So excited, I almost forgot to mention — I  finished a wonderful book last night, more on that later.

Otherwise Normal People by Aurelia Scott

You may remember THIS POST where I shared my obsession love of old garden roses which all started from reading a small book on lost roses.

But this book takes rose love to a whole new level.  These people are truly and certifiably obsessed — this book opens the doors into the quirky world of competitive rose gardening and shows.

In Otherwise Normal People, Aurelia Scott follows Roseaholics as they plan, prepare, and compete in prestigious rose shows — battling high winds, Japanese beetles, and the finicky demands of their precious charges.

There’s a former race-car driver who plants years in advance for each show, a forensic chemist whose collection of hybrid teas and miniature roses tops out at nearly one thousand, and my personal favorite, a genteel woman who traipses through abandoned lots rescuing antique varieties.

We marvel at the ingenuity of one rose gardener who installs wire perches  for the sparrows and trains them to eat Japanese beetles directly from his rose bushes.

We discover the sweetly eccentric:

I have 225 rose plants in my yard and I know every one of them by name.  They are as different from each other as people are.  I holler at them sometimes.  And I talk to them nicely.  They know that my greatest joy has been to get out in the garden with them.

We experience the tolerant love of the rose enthusiast’s partners:

Well, we went to the convention (Pasadena Rose Convention) and I walked into the showroom and said, “Oh my God” I had never seen so many roses in my life.  Kitty saw bouquets of a red-blend hybrid tea named Double Delight, leaned in to sniff its spicy fragrance, and said “I’ve got to have that, and I have got to have that one too”  So that was that. They dug up the yard. Or rather Bob dug up the yard.

Of course, my favorite chapter is entitled The Heady Scent of History which focuses on old roses and the stories behind roses brought out West by settlers, planted by graves of loved ones, and trailing over miners’ shacks in the California gold rush country.

Ms. Scott has written a book which names actual growers, so one would think it would raise eyebrows among the ultra-competitive world of rose showing.  But on the contrary, this is a gentle, happy book celebrating rose shows and the world of exhibition roses, it is not an expose.  The author is remarkably kind and seems in awe of the time spent in gardens, and the work required to keep their beloved roses thriving.

Even if you’re not a rose nerd lover like me, I think you will enjoy this peek into a hobby like any other – a hobby that can take over and become an all-encompassing obsession.  Yes, we’re they’re eccentrics — but they’re such a delight and their stories are equally delightful.

Shameless Plug:  If this book, or my other recommendation, has you at all interested in roses – especially old roses – and you’re in the Bay Area on May 15 – you must attend THIS AMAZING EVENT.

Fallen Land by Taylor Brown

Mini-Review

I’m going to use Mini-Reviews for books I didn’t enjoy and can’t recommend.  This doesn’t mean it isn’t a good, or even a great, book — it just means it wasn’t for me.

Fallen Land opens with an exciting historical adventure set in the final year of the Civil War, as a young couple on horseback flees a dangerous band of marauders who seek a bounty reward.  Callum, Ava, and their horse, Reiver encounter the devastation and insanity of  a war-torn country.

A wonderful premise, strong characters (especially the wonder horse Reiver) and an astounding sense of time and place.  But the unrelenting, and sometimes gratuitous, violence — page after page — chapter after chapter — I just couldn’t stomach it any further.

Guess I’m a wimp.  Takes a stronger reader than I to read and enjoy this book.

A digital review copy was provided by St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley.