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A No for the New Year
We’re already half way through January and I’ve been missing, but for good reasons.
We had a busy, fun-filled holiday with beloved friends coming to visit from near and far. It was a wonderful whirlwind, but I did remember to pause and look around to remember these moments with those I love.
But now it’s a new year and so far, not so good. I’m sure many of you feel the same.
I like this quote:
I don’t need a New Year’s resolution. It’s the year’s turn to be better.
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My Christmas Wish
I don’t need, or want any presents.
My only Christmas wish is that those I love and cherish are happy, safe and healthy — and that includes all of you lovely Book Barmy followers.
If you need me, I’ll be here. My favorite week of the year is coming up…between Christmas and the New Year. Enjoy – stay warm – read a good book or two.
Merry Christmas.
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Christmas Advertising
It’s time for the annual Book Barmy collection of the best Christmas ads from around the world. As always, the UK seems to dominate our list with beautifully produced and magical holiday stories. As with the current marketing landscape, AI and social media-first storytelling play a strong role. But it doesn’t seem to diminish these sometimes corny, often nostalgic, and yet magic stories of the holiday season.
Grab a cup of something warm, and be sure to click on full screen and turn up your volume.
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The Christmas Chronicles by Nigel Slater
Each November, I used to check this book out of my local library and browse through its lovely pages. But alas, before I could get through – it had to be returned. I did this for three consecutive years, until this year – finally – I found a used copy at my favorite book store .
The Christmas Chronicles takes the reader from November through January and covers everything most-British-holiday.
Each day of the season, Mr. Slater writes about food and its preparation sensuously and lovingly, but also gardening, practical tips, and decorating his home. He delves into childhood memories and fascinating insights into Christmas traditions and their origins.
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Christmas Shopping
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The Trespasser by Tana French
The Trespasser is the last in the Dublin Murder Squad series, and I am a big fan of the previous installments. You can read more HERE.
In each of these series, Ms. French uses a different member, or outlier, of the Dublin Murder Squad and tells the investigation from this new point of view.
In The Trespasser, Detective Antoinette Conway (formerly with the Missing Persons Unit) is a new member of the elite Murder squad and has not been welcomed kindly. So far, she has been stuck with thankless cases and has been the victim of vicious pranks, not to mention actual harassment.
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Bedtime Stories Edited by Diana Secker Tesdell
We’ve been rearranging our guest room in preparation for some lovely visitors coming over the holidays. Found some some nice bedside tables and got rid of a bookcase that was much too large for the small room.
In clearing out the books from that bookcase, I found this lovely little volume, which I kept near the bed for guests. It’s from the Everyman’s Library Pocket Classics Series which was founded in 1906 by the famous Joseph Dent, a visionary publisher. He promised ‘infinite riches in a little room’. Lovely to hold, these little books have sewn bindings (quite rare), come with attached bookmark ribbons (love those) and beautiful covers. And each comes with the famous archaic quote
Everyman,
I will go with thee,
and be thy guide,
In thy most need, to go by thy side
But enough about the printing publication, what about the book itself?
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The Sequel by Jean Hanff Korelitz
The Sequel is aptly named, as it is truly the sequel to The Plot.
I’ll start with commenting on The Plot which is the first book in this series. You must read it first, so you’ll understand Anna’s story as a whole. Jake is a novelist who experienced early modest acclaim, but he hasn’t been able to replicate that success in his subsequent books.
He is now a writing instructor at small, second-rate writing program in Vermont. Jake borrows a plot idea from a student and expects no one would ever notice. But someone does and begins sending him notes threatening him. The anonymous notes torments him and he perpetually worried that he would be exposed. His wife, Anna has steps in to take care of things for Jacob. And in the end, laid to rest those anonymous accusations of plagiarism that so tormented him. But there is so much more to this book than this simple recap. My full review HERE
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Letters from Yellowstone by Diane Smith
Once I finished The Correspondent, I was reminded of another epistolary novel which I once started but never finished. So, I unearthed Letters from Yellowstone and finished it over the next two evenings.
In the spring of 1898, A. E. (Alexandria) Bartram—a spirited young woman with a love for botany—is invited to join a field study in Yellowstone National Park. The study’s leader, a mild-mannered professor from Montana, is less than pleased to discover that A.E. is actually a woman.
Once he and the other scientists overcome their shock, they forge ahead on a summer of research and adventure. They move from Mammoth Hot Springs to a camp high in the back country. They struggle with weather, rugged terrain and each other. As they make their way collecting amid Yellowstone’s beauty, the group is conflicted by differing views on science, nature, and economics.
This compelling story of a woman botanist and the assorted characters she meets during her Yellowstone summer drew me in from the beginning. And while some of the letters do slow down the pace, Ms. Smith does an admirable job with the epistolary format, language and manners of that time period,
Letters from Yellowstone contains bits of humor and much excitement, but most interestingly, it’s also a love letter to the joys of botanical discovery, as well as a thoughtful reflection on environmentalism, Native American displacement, and feminism at the dawn of a new century.
N.B.: The book does a wonderful job introducing non scientific readers to the wild flowers, plants, trees and wildlife of Yellowstone ~~ which can be viewed online at the National Parks Service websites.
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The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
Everyone, and I mean everyone, in the book world has been talking about The Correspondent. So when my reserve came through from my library, I raced over to get it and set aside my current books to dive right in.
Book Barmy readers know I adore epistolary novels — those written in the form of letters and/or emails. They can be tricky and often clunky, but Ms. Evans has masterfully nailed this one.
The Correspondent is centered on Sybil van Antwerp, aged 72 when we begin reading her letters, she’s crotchety and outspoken, intelligent and well read, independent and set in her ways. She lives alone and has just found out she will be losing her sight gradually over the next few years.
I was immediately pulled in to this uncompromising catalog of letters that through small reveals unfolds Sybil’s life, loves, regrets, guilt, and culpability. She’s made a few horrendous and life altering mistakes in her time, for which she has gut wrenching guilt. Sybil makes amends where she can, but that’s not always possible. In short, she lives just as we all do, trying the best she knows how.
Learning about her complexities, as well as her backstory was one of those wonderful reading experiences which I call the “book tingle”. (She often mentions the books she’s reading — her tastes are very similar to mine – could she be my new best friend?)
She maintains a correspondence with several writers including Ann Patchett, Joan Didion, who she calls a friend, and George Lucas among others. Sybil maintains because she writes physical letters, sent through the mail – attention must be paid, and she inevitably gets replies.
Sybil’s letter to Larry McMurtry after re-reading Lonesome Dove for the third time – left me choked up and nodding in agreement as it’s one of my all time favorite books:
“I am an old woman and my life has been some strange balance of miraculous and mundane.” Regarding the ending of Lonesome Dove and the bitter disappointment of the characters: “What I had seen those years ago as a lack of mercy became to me a presence of courage — to hurt them! To leave them in dismay! It was courageous because it was unbearable but it was true.”
I devoured this novel in two days and got lost in her life story where nothing was ever black or white, but always varying shades of grey.
Sadly I must return this copy to the library, but plan to purchase The Correspondent, not only to re-read but to add my collection of beloved epistolary novels. It will be happy alongside 84 Charing Cross Road, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, and Love and Saffron.
Please treat yourself to this moving, funny and exquisitely written novel.
Here are some of my favorite quotes from The Correspondent- (which I am sure to underline once I have my own copy):
I didn’t know it was happiness at the time, because it felt like busyness and exhaustion and financial stress and self doubt.
Remember: words, especially those written, are immortal. [the] simpler value of the written letter, which is, namely, that reaching out in correspondence is really one of the original forms of civility in the world
I have found it to be absolutely astounding, all the trouble living has turned out to be. Things nobody ever warned me about.
I wish someone would have thought to say to me, earlier on, ‘Sybil, over and over again serpents will emerge from the bottom of the sea and grab you by the feet.’ Of course I didn’t say anything of the sort to my own children, and I probably never would.
