Bookish Things: World Book Night, Jane Austen Earrings, etc

Y'all, I'm in that weird reading phase again for work, where I'm reading the first 50-100 pages of about a dozen books to evaluate them as selections for our signed First Editions Club -- which means I've not completed any books lately to write a full-on review.  It's not bad, because I've really liked all of the books I've been sampling, but it's a little frustrating to be forever starting new books and not having the time to finish them because I need to start in on the next one.  Thus this week you are treated to this post of Bookish Things.

April 23 of last week was World Book Night.  If you're reading my bookish blog posts, then I assume that you are pro-book and pro-reading.  If you've not already participated in World Book Night, then what on earth are you waiting for?  It's just about the best thing in the history of 21st century bookish things.  A committee composed of authors, publishers, booksellers, and librarians choose 25+ titles each year that they think will have a wide range of potential readership.  Then people like you and me can pick a book from that list and give copies of it away to non-readers.  For free.  It's an amazing program and this is the third year that I participated in it.  Join their email list NOW so that you can be notified when the giving process opens to applicants again in the fall for 2015 WBN.

I picked Peter Heller's novel The Dog Stars, one of the most gorgeously-wrought post-apocalyptic novels I've ever read, as my giveaway book. I go on and on about it here, but the short version for why I chose it is because it demonstrates that there is no story so bleak that it cannot benefit from a sense of humor and from inventive, poetic prose. My only problem was that at the time I picked this book, I had Wednesday nights off and had planned to give it away on the street corner like I did this year.  But about a month ago, my work schedule changed and now I work Wednesday nights, so what to do?

The young women of The Care Center

I joined up with Joan, my friend & colleague, to give books away on Wednesday morning at a place called The Care Center, a local nonprofit alternative learning program for pregnant and parenting teens to continue their education.  It's cool, because it offers health services and day care, too, to these young girls and women. While I cannot say that I would have chosen The Dog Stars with these readers in mind, some of them were pretty excited about it.  We also took copies of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Zora & Me,  and Code Name Verity, all of which were more age appropriate for these folks.  You can read a little more about it here on the MassLive website, including a short interview with two of the girls.

Check out those beauties.  Last year for my birthday, one of my lovely and generous co-workers gave me this pair of Jane Austen earrings.  I love that they're almost as lovely on the reverse side as they are on the front, and I like the mis-matched, old-fashioned typewriter keys that are part of the design.  I wear them all the time, but it's only recently that I've started getting lots of comments about them because I just lobbed about 8" off of my hair and now they're more visible.  I wore them to work today along with my Austen sweatshirt from Out of Print Clothing company and every customer I interacted with complimented me on them.

Book Review: Longbourn by Jo Baker

Most books that tout themselves as "This" meets "That" inevitably disappoint the fans of "This" and/or "That."  So when I heard that Longbourn was a book where Pride and Prejudice meets Downton Abbey, I sure was skeptical. "Read this," said my sales rep.  "Maybe," replied I. But I dutifully tucked it into my book bag and took it home with me. About one week later, when I was floundering between books, I decided to take Longbourn to bed and two hours later I had devoured half of the book. I reckon my sales rep was right.

I should say right now that if you're simply looking for more Mr. Darcy, this is definitely not the book for you.  While it's true that much of the action of this book mirrors the drama of Pride and Prejudice, it's strictly the backstage version of that great story.  We see almost as little of the Bennet family in this book as we see of the Bennet family's servants in Pride and Prejudice. And when this book is compared to Downton Abbey, it's solely the below-stairs part of that great show that invites the comparison.

The third person narration centers around Sarah, a maid in the Bennet household who is treated decently by both the family and by Mr. & Mr. Hill, the primary servants. The prose makes a good effort at passing for period writing, which means the reader gets the best of both worlds: a more linear and straightforward sentence structure of modern narrative, combined with all of the charming archaic language not commonly found outside of Regency novels. In other words, there is nothing glaringly contemporary about the writing, which is one of the greatest downfalls of historical fiction, in my considerable estimation.

Beyond that, the writing is actually quite good.  Not necessarily of the "I want to read these passages over and over for their sheer beauty" persuasion, but of the more subtle "this writing is carrying me along quite beautifully through the story without jarring me out of it with any language missteps" variety. It is consistent, occasionally elegant, and always imbued with the flavour of the period.

There's also an earthiness about the book lacking in Austen, for poor Sarah must deal with those things in life with which the Bennet girls would never sully their minds or hands. One instance rendered quite well in the book, pertains to that famous scene where Elizabeth Bennet walks to Netherfield across muddy fields, dirtying her petticoats and earning the admiration of Mr. Darcy: "If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often though, she'd most likely be a sight more careful with them." Indeed.

Still, life is generally good for Sarah: she has a position in a modest country home, and though her mind fantasizes about escaping, she is realistic enough to know that striking out on her own for London could be the ruination of her, for how little she knows in the way of the world.  And so she toils on, guiding young Polly the scullery maid in the ways of the household, and forming her mind by borrowing books from Mr. Bennet's library, when one day a mysterious young man blows in seemingly on the wind.  In a place where most young men without fortune have been conscripted for the Napoleonic wars, James stands out, and Sarah takes it upon herself to discover the enigmatic past of the new footman and learn why the Bennets might hire him without a reference.

To say much more would be spoilerific, but I will say this: Mr. Bennet harbors a dark secret from his past, George Wickham plays not just the rake but a sadistic and pedophilic one,  and Sarah has miles to go before she sleeps.  If you are any kind of reader of historical fiction, this book should land on top of your To Be Read pile, regardless of your feelings about Pride and Prejudice. I prefer to think of Longbourn as a terrific companion piece to all of Austen's novel, showing the behind-the-scenes drudgery of daily life for all of those people not fortunate enough to have been born above stairs.

NB: I think this book is poised to be a big book for the fall publishing season here in the US.  It's already been published to great acclaim in the UK and Knopf will bring out the American edition in October.  

Literary Blog Hop: Dinner Party Decisions...

Engraved by my DH, used with his permission

 This week's Literary Blog Hop, sponsored by the good folks at The Blue Bookcase, have asked us to name the three literary figures from different eras we would like to invite to Sunday dinner.  A few months ago, I was the lucky person profiled in Algonquin Book's Booksellers Rock monthly series and they asked a similar question, and I think my answer still stands, although arguably two of my three choices are from the same era, since they're both 20th century American writers.  But perhaps I can argue that they were such vastly different products of their very different ages that their books are wildly and widely divergent:

1. Jane Austen.  Because she is the first adult writer I fell in love with.  Because she has such a sharp wit (usually held in check) that I would love to see released on my #2 choice

2. Jim Harrison.  Because he's a great storyteller (I've been privileged enough to meet him a few times in my bookselling career) and he's led an exciting and full and possibly tawdry life, but he lacks the ego and misogyny of, say, Hemingway. 

3. Miss Eudora Welty. Because she was the first writer I read who made me proud of my home state of Mississippi.  She's genteel and gently funny, but beneath that exterior lay a will of steel, unafraid to write of what she saw around her without excuse or embellishment. If you can read Miss Welty without seeing her profound compassion for the people she writes about or her subtle cries for social justice, then you're blind. 

Literary Blog Hop: Can literature be funny?

This week's Literary Blog Hop question, sponsored each week by The Blue Bookcase, asks whether literature can be funny.

I, for one, think the answer is a resounding yes.  I posted before that I think it's more difficult to write literary humor than literary drama and therefore it's a more precious commodity.  I think Jane Austen tempers her books very well with humor, with Pride and Prejudice and Emma being the funniest.  Dickens is frequently funny, though perhaps the funniest of the ones I've read is The Pickwick Papers.  P. G. Wodehouse's works are outrageously funny, but I'm not sure how many readers think he qualifies as literary.

Of more modern selections, I'd mention Jonathan Tropper's This Is Where I Leave You, Nicholson Baker's The Anthologist, any of Jim Harrison's Brown Dog stories, about half of Eudora Welty's short stories (with "Why I Live at the PO being the most famously funny), the forthcoming The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson, and the travel writer/memoirist Bill Bryson.

Book Reviews in Brief: The Annotated Pride & Prejudice and The Distant Hours

The Annotated Pride and Prejudice  by Jane Austen.  As with many of her fans, P&P is my favorite Austen novel, one which I revisit almost every year for the sheer reading pleasure she provides.  Picking up this sumptuous version, however, made me feel like I was getting an entirely new reading experience!  The color plates, the annotated text, the heavy acid-free paper, and beautiful design all contrive to make this book a must-have for every Austen fan.  And at $35 for a coffee-table sized format, this book really is an affordable luxury.  Take a look at this gorgeous new offering from Harvard University Press/Belknap, edited by Patricia Meyer Spacks. I bought a copy of this book for myself. 

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton. This lush novel interweaves three separate stories which span most of the 20th century.  All of the factors for a great English mood novel are present: a castle, a family whose creative streak is matched only by its madness, three spinster sisters, a quaint village, mysterious disappearances, ancient secrets, tragic misunderstandings, and a young publisher trying to sort fact from fiction in the local lore.  The stories meander at a deliberate (other readers might say slow) pace, converging all in the last chapter in a very satisfying way.  This book is perfect for those readers who want to sink their teeth into an atmospheric novel that will make them want to curl up for hours with a pot o' tea. Published by Atria, a division of Simon & Schuster.  My terrific sales rep, John Muse, provided me with the ARC of this book to read. 

Pamela Aidan is da bomb...

...if you like Jane Austen fanfiction, that is. Her peerless Mr.Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman trilogy, which tells the story of Pride and Prejudice from Darcy's point of view, is the best Austen fanfic I've ever read. And believe you me, I've read a ton of it since I've been back at the Odyssey.

Admittedly, the middle tome, Duty and Desire is skippable, as there's very little Lizzy/Darcy interaction. Aidan has basically created an entire Ann Radcliffesque gothic tale of mystery and madness that takes place during that time between Darcy's taking leave of Netherfield and his arrival at Rosings Park. Besides a few touching interludes with Miss Georgiana and a breakout role for Darcy's valet, Fletcher, there's not enough of the P&P story to make one linger over it for very long. (Not that it's bad. It's just not the story I was longing to read.)

Not so for the first and third books in the trilogy, however. In An Assembly Such as This and These Three Remain, Aidan manages the balance between a modern writer's sensibilities and the original Regency setting marvelously. It's all appropriate and right and fitting and after completing the trilogy the reader is left with the feeling that she knows Mr. Darcy quite intimately.

Not too intimately, of course. Aidan is never coarse as so many fanfic writers are, throwing Darcy & Lizzy into bed every 5 pages or so. I actually read one sequel to P&P that was pretty much all sex, all the time. No, really. The author said she set out to write about the year following their wedding but ended up only writing about the first three months because Lizzy and Darcy were heading for the boudoir a few times every chapter. And it wasn't even the good kind of smut. More of the "his loins were on fire for her" and "she yearned to be as one with him" nonsense. I mean honestly...Either make with the sexy talk or delicately allude to their newly awakened physical awareness of each other. But don't do it halfway and expect either type of reader to be satisfied. I'm just sayin'.

So I digressed a little bit. But for all of you out there who love P&P and want just a little bit more of the story, Aidan's books are the way to go. They're the most satisfying of the 100 or so various sequels and novels inspired by Austen's works that I've read.