Category: Reading

Tidy Tidbits: TV, Novel, & Meal

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RECENT VIEWING

FLUFF FOR FUN

Love and Gelato (Netflix)

Lina promises her dying mother that she will spend the summer before college in Rome.  In this bonbon to Italy, she falls in love with the city and the people.  Along the way, she has several romantic interests while being under the protective care of Francesca, her mother’s longtime friend.  It is a summer of firsts for Lina as she wonders about her unknown father.  The movie is based on a young adult novel of the same name.   I happened on this when I was looking for some treadmill viewing.  It’s cute and sweet, and less predictable than I expected.  

LASTING TRAUMA OF WAR

Causeway (Apple+)

James and Lynsey in Causeway (Slant Magazine)

I had just read a review of this new movie starring Jennifer Lawrence when the Chief Penguin and I were settling in to watch something else and up popped a link to Causeway.  It’s a slow measured film about returning Afghanistan vet Lynsey who suffered a brain injury from an exploding IED.  

Returning home after rehabilitation, she struggles to put a life back together.  She meets car mechanic James who lost a leg in a car accident, and the two hesitantly gravitate toward spending time together.  They are about as dissimilar as can be, one white, one Black, one straight, one gay, but both broken in some way.  The performances are moving, Brian Tyree Henry’s as much as Lawrence’s.  It’s painful viewing at points, but a meaningful film.  

UNUSUAL HEROINE

The English (Amazon Prime)

Blunt in The English (FilmBook)

Emily Blunt stars and is an executive producer of this western set in 1890 on the plains in Kansas and Oklahoma.  Based on the review I read, I was predisposed to like it, but I’m finding it hard going. 

Blunt is Lady Cornelia Locke, an English woman bent on revenge for the killing of her young son.  On her journey, she encounters and is rescued by Sgt. Eli Whipp, a now retired Pawnee scout, played by Chaske Spencer.  His goal is to file a land claim for an allotment in Nebraska.  They are an unlikely pair, but slowly they begin to accept each other, and a fragile trust is born.  It’s a lawless time out west with every man out for himself.  

The scenery is stunning, the violence gruesome and gory, and the pace is deliberate and slow.  I’ve watched almost three episodes of the six while on the treadmill, but it’s so slow, that I may return to it when I am not moving. 

NEW FICTION

FAMILY SAGA

French Braid by Anne Tyler

Tyler at 80 (Sydney Morning Herald)

Tyler’s most recent novel, French Braid, was my book group’s pick for November.  While I didn’t love this book, most of the group didn’t care for it at all.  We grappled with whether Mercy, the mother, was the focal point and if she was a typical woman of the 1950’s and 60’s, frustrated in middle age in her attempts to have a career. 

Over 60 years, the book follows the Garrett family of Mercy, her husband Robin, and their three children, Lily, Alice, and David. It begins with their first family vacation in 1959 through the children’s marriages, Robin and Mercy’s 50th wedding anniversary, and the arrival of several grandchildren.  They are a diffuse collective who are often detached and aloof from one another.  

Mercy, an aspiring artist and unfulfilled mother, effectively leaves her husband for her art, but neither she nor the other family members publicly acknowledge that fact.  David, the youngest child, seldom communicates with his parents or sisters and quietly marries a work colleague.  In later years, a grandson doesn’t socialize with relatives believing they are unaware that he is gay and has a partner.  

Tyler’s writing is always engaging even if you don’t care for the characters.  You can appreciate what she is doing and how she demonstrates that common personality traits or actual gestures persist through the generations. They connect these seemingly disparate individuals like the kinked strands of hair in a French braid.  (~JWFarrington)

DINING OUT

Scuderia Italian Cuisine, Bradenton

Located next to the Oakmont Theater on Cortez Road West, Scuderia is a new addition to Bradenton’s dining scene.  It specializes in pizzas and pasta in an open space with an industrial feel to it.

We dined here recently with friends and found the service friendly and welcoming and the food very good.  The portions are generous, and several of us had some to take home for the next day’s lunch.  Among us, we sampled the penne pasta with meatballs, clams with linguini, and several of the chicken dishes.  I thought the chicken franchaise with spinach was particularly good.  Side salads came with a wide choice of dressings.  Good for casual dining.  Next time, we should try a pizza.

Note: Header photo is a scene from the film, Love and Gelato (Netflix Life).

Tidy Tidbits: Reading & Watching

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Although it is still warm and summery in Florida, November ushers in a season for looking inward and spending time inside. With that in mind, here are thoughts on some of my recent reading and viewing.

RECENT READING

SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC

Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout

If you’ve read other novels by Mainer Elizabeth Strout, you may be acquainted with Lucy Barton.  She was introduced in My Name is Lucy Barton, and readers learned about her marriage to first husband William in the most recent work, Oh, William.  I’m a big fan of Strout’s work and have read almost all her novels.

Illustration from The New Yorker

This one, I found especially poignant and meaningful.  Lucy by the Sea takes place from the beginning of the pandemic until the vaccines become available.  The first part is hard to read; it brings back so many memories of the uncertainty and then fear, many of us felt about this deadly new virus.

Lucy’s second husband David has died, and William comes to New York to take Lucy to Maine—initially she thinks for just a few weeks.  They are in a rented house by the water and the changing weather, and the roll of the seasons, play a role in the story.  Lucy is a novelist but also a fearful person, whose deprived and neglected childhood has made her feel inferior and not special.  

The novel is told primarily through Lucy’s voice.  It’s a strong voice on the page as she muses about William’s quirks and lacks, reflects on past events in her two marriages, and worries about her grown daughters, Chrissy and Becka.  Given that she and William are in lockdown away from all but a few new friends, it’s a time for contemplation and assessing one’s life.  

For me, this book was a meditation on love of all sorts: marital, maternal, friendship—and on grief.  Grief over the losses of spouse and friends and grief over the troubles and trials of her daughters’ marriages.  It’s a beautiful novel, and I highly recommend it! (~JWFarrington)

RELIGION IN AN ENGLISH COUNTRY HOUSE

Ashton Hall by Lauren Belfer

Lauren Belfer came onto the scene in 1999 with her wonderful historical novel, City of Light.  Subsequent books include A Fierce Radiance about the invention of penicillin and After the Fire, a quest to learn about a long-hidden music manuscript.  I thoroughly enjoyed all three novels. Her latest novel, Ashton Hall, is set in the present, but in an old English country house with secrets in its attic.  

As usual, Belfer’s latest work is thoroughly researched, so much so that at times I felt the history she wanted to share slowed down the narrative.  One of the contemporary characters is a boy who suffers from autism.  His behavior is challenging and yet, he is the one who uncovers the initial secret.  Creating this character and making him a focus were obviously important to Belfer.  I read the novel through to the end, but overall was disappointed.  There was too much going on and too many disparate strands for it to be a satisfying whole.  

VIEWING

CRIME OFF SCOTLAND

Shetland Season 7 (Amazon Prime)

Jimmy (Henshall) & Tosh (Alison O’Donnell) (The Sun)

This is Douglas Henshall’s last season as detective Jimmy Perez, and it’s an excellent season.  A young man, a graphic novelist, is reported missing.  His mother is distraught and his father, an ex-policeman, has skeletons in his past.  When there seem to be possible links to eco-terrorism, the search for Connor becomes more complex, and there are more bodies.  

Perez is dedicated to his job, but the strain of it is beginning to tell.  He is both burying and fighting his feelings for Meg, a nurse.  Meanwhile, his team of Tosh, Sandy, and Billy, are as engaging and effective as ever, making for some great ensemble acting.  There are seven episodes encompassing one overarching storyline.  Highly recommended for fans of complex crime series! Season 8 with a new, yet-to-be-named lead will be filmed and released in 2023.

CROSS CULTURAL LOVE STORY

From Scratch (Netflix)

Lino & Amy (BuzzFeed)

From Scratch, a Netflix original series, is the story of what happens when a young Black artist from Texas goes to Florence and meets an aspiring chef from Sicily.  Against her parents’, particularly her father’s, wishes, Amy leaves home to take a painting course in Italy.  Lino, estranged from his farmer father, is working as a cook in a Florentine restaurant.  They both have dreams of greater success, and they resolve to make a life together.  Initially, it seems that bringing their respective families to acceptance of their relationship will be the greatest challenge.  But not so.

I thought the first few episodes were overwritten and overplayed in terms of racial and cultural stereotypes.  Amy’s father was particularly egregious.  Later episodes are tamer, and I’ve stuck with the series (eight episodes), having become fully immersed in Amy and Lino’s story.  It’s a passionate, at times heartrending, drama, based on Tempi Locke’s memoir of the same name published in 2019.  

Note: Cover photo of a November sunset ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved.)

Tidy Tidbits: Book Notes

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FEEDBACK FROM MY READERS

Here are several titles my readers especially enjoyed this summer. Plus two mystery series they recommended that I didn’t know about. Fun!

SUMMER FAVORITES

Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark (Kathy & Alice)

Leaving Coy’s Hill by Katherine A. Sherbrooke (Sally)

Mercury Pictures Present by Anthony Marra (Claudia)

RECOMMENDED MYSTERY SERIES

Elly Griffiths (author interviews.co.uk)

English archaeology professor Ruth Galloway, whose expertise is bones, works with the police in a series by Elly Griffiths.  First book is: The Crossing Places which I’ve now read and enjoyed.  Set in a salt marsh, it’s atmospheric with myth and legends too. Now I’m into #2 in the series.  (Thanks to Claudia for this suggestion.)

Fred Vargas (fantastic fiction.com)

Commissaire Adamsberg is the detective in a French series by historian and archaeologist Fred Vargas.  Her books were recommended to me by Ed, and I have the first one, The Chalk Circle Man, waiting on my Kindle.  It was published in 1991, but only recently became available in English.

Both of these are long-running series with 9 titles in this series and fourteen in the Galloway one.

RECENT READING—LIBRARIANS & MORE MAINE

The Librarian Spy by Madeline Martin

(madelinemartin.com)

In the continuing spate of books about bookstores, libraries, and librarians, Madeline Martin’s entry, The Librarian Spy, is a gripping story that may haunt your dreams.  Based on actual events with fictional characters inspired by real people, this novel of WWII is set simultaneously in Lisbon and Lyon.  Although Portugal was neutral, refugees and spies were numerous and the Portuguese secret police to be feared.

Ava Harper, a rare book librarian at the Library of Congress is sent to Lisbon to work for the government collecting newspapers and magazines to be microfilmed and sent back to Washington.  Her daily work is important, but seemingly routine until she becomes involved in trying to get refugees safe passage out of Europe to the States.  Over in France, housewife Elaine, volunteers for a Resistance group printing and distributing anti-Nazi newspapers.  These clandestine activities put her and her colleagues at frequent risk of arrest and imprisonment or worse.  Unknown to each other, she and Ava exchange coded messages while working to assist those in danger.  

Many of the characters are based on historical figures.  And the IDC (Interdepartmental Committee for the Acquisition of Foreign Publications) for which Ava worked, was a real organization, but did not have any female operatives.  Martin’s novel is a compelling addition to the literature about WWII.  (~JWFarrington)

Vacationland by Meg Mitchell Moore

Meg Moore (rjjulia.com)

Consider this domestic novel a last gasp of summer.  Louisa, a professor, is spending the summer with her three children at her parent’s house on the coast of Maine.  She loves this place, and it has a strong hold on her emotions.  While struggling to write a book on deadline, she must deal with her children’s various issues, her father’s declining health, and the fact that her husband seems content to stay back in Brooklyn working on his start-up. 

Enter Kristie, a young woman with a sad past, lots of baggage, and a secret she wants to explore.  Her interactions with Louisa and her family disrupt summer’s idyll.  Both Kristie and Louisa must face the consequences of their own and others’ actions. 

I thought this novel was excellent in its depiction of daily life with three active children, but, for me, Louisa was undisciplined and too whiny.  I also enjoyed the setting near Camden and references to places I know. (~JWFarrington)

Note: Header photo is interior of Scuppernong Books in Greensboro.

Summer Reading Recap & Reviews

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With Labor Day upon us, it’s time to review and recap the books I’ve read this summer.  Some from my June summer reading list for sure, but many others discovered along the way.  Here’s a list of titles followed by notes on three recent reads, each one featuring strong women who served their countries during wartime.

MYSTERIES

Missing Presumed by Susie Steiner

The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz

Something to Hide by Elizabeth George

HISTORICAL NOVELS

American Duchess by Karen Harper [Consuelo Vanderbilt & NY society]

Last Garden in England by Julia Kelly

The Magnolia Palace by Fiona Davis [Frick family & museum]

The Paris Library by Janet Skeslien Charles

The Postmistress of Paris by Meg Waite Clayton

OTHER NOVELS

Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark. [set in Maine]

Haven Point by Virginia Hume [Maine colony]

The Midcoast by Adam White [Damariscotta, Maine]

Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce

One Night on the Island by Josie Silver

What Remains of Love by Susan Trauth

RECENT READING:  LAFAYETTE, MITFORDS, & SNIPERS

Women Active in Wartime

The Women of Chateau Lafayette by Stephanie Dray

Stephanie Dray specializes in long historical novels about fascinating women.  Patsy Jefferson, the president’s daughter was one subject and Eliza Schuyler Hamilton another in a novel called My Dear Hamilton.  I read and really enjoyed the latter one and was prompted by that to read The Women of Chateau Lafayette.

It’s set in three different time periods and focuses on three women, each of whom has a connection to Chateau de Chavaniac, Gilbert Lafayette’s home.  While American schoolchildren learn early on that Lafayette was a key figure in the American Revolution, few, I would wager, have any idea of how active and dedicated his wife Adrienne was both to him and to the cause of liberty.  

Beatrice Chanler (br.pinterest.com)

During WWI, American socialite Beatrice Chanler, trapped in marriage to politically connected wealthy Willie, surpasses him in her efforts for peace and American involvement in the war.  She shuttled between Paris and Chavaniac to assist sick children being housed and cared for there. 

Lastly, Marthe Simone, a French teacher and aspiring artist, becomes deeply involved in protecting and harboring children at Chavaniac during the 1940’s in Nazi-occupied France. 

It’s clear from the author’s end note that she did prodigious amounts of research to re-create the lives of these three courageous women, their spouses, families, and friends.  Adrienne Lafayette and Beatrice Chanler and some supporting characters were real people.   It’s a riveting novel with much about the French Revolution I did not know! (~JWFarrington)

For Book Lovers

The Mayfair Bookshop by Eliza Knight

Interior of Heywood Hill (nytimes.com)

My blog readers know I’m a big fan of bookstores, particularly well curated independent ones.  This novel about Nancy Mitford is set in London around WWII and in the present day.  The bookstore in question, Heywood Hill, still exists today and is charming and inviting.  It’s a place I frequented quite often when the Chief Penguin and I lived in London.  During the war years, Nancy Mitford worked there and was invaluable in Heywood Hill becoming a literary salon and a haven for soldiers home on leave. 

N. Mitford (English-heritage.org.uk)

Based on Mitford and her wildly diverse and even infamous siblings, the novel brings to life Nancy’s layered life as novelist, aristocrat, and war volunteer.  Unhappy and bereft in her marriage to Peter Rood, she enjoys a host of friendships with others of her class, writers including Evelyn Waugh, and an especially close relationship with Sophie Gordon (aka Iris), another war volunteer.  All the while, she seeks someone to love her for herself.

Paired with Nancy’s story, is a contemporary story about young bibliophile Lucy St. Clair, on assignment to Heywood Hill from her job in the U. S.  Lucy is a fan of Mitford’s writing and is determined to identify Mitford’s friend Iris.    

The Nancy chapters are full of reflections on her pursuit of love and the notoriety brought about by her siblings.  This is done partly through letters to a few friends.  For me, they resulted in a portrait of a complex individual.  

The Lucy chapters provide a framework for locating the fictional Iris and, while pleasant, are thin in comparison.  Nonetheless, I found this an engaging and perceptive look at one slice of life in England from 1937 to 1945. (~JWFarrington)

Sharp Shooters

The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn

Mila Pavlichenko (reddit.com)

If you’re looking for a gripping, suspenseful historical novel about WWII, The Diamond Eye could be it!  I’ve read and enjoyed several of Kate Quinn’s earlier novels, but this one really grabbed me.  It’s the story of Mila Pavlichenko a Ukrainian woman who became a crack sniper for the Soviet Red Army.  In battles against the Nazis, she logged more than 300 official kills!  Working with a partner and later training and leading a small band of snipers, she gained a reputation and the nickname Lady Death.  

The novel opens with her visit to Washington, DC to meet Eleanor Roosevelt and the president.  She’s part of a delegation whose goal is to push the U.S. to enter the war.  In flashbacks, the reader sees her in battle and learns about the precise calculations required to be successful in taking another human life. 

But Mila was much more than her expertise and her heroics with a rifle.  She was a book-loving woman and a mother who was studying to become a historian when she joined the army.  

Quinn’s author’s note at the end explains her research, provides more detail about the principals, and shares where she has created fictional characters and situations.  Highly recommended! (~JWFarrington)

Note: The header photo of children reading books in little boats is a whimsical touch, source unknown.