Sunday Caught My Interest

Another week of baking, track and not much reading – I am feeling behind in what I want to read including a week behind the reading of The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch for a read-a-long with Iris on Books Three days of track with the weather steadily improving each day. By the end of Thursday afternoon’s meet, himself and I were under a wool blanket and a heavy quilt, Friday saw us just in coats and yesterday I was actually able to wear shorts. Youngest has run well but his last high school run will most likely be this Thursday so I am feeling nostalgic about it all – he will have completed 8 seasons of running (not counting winter and summer training), earning 8 varsity letters. We are fortunate that he has had great coaching and been with such a nice group of boys for those years. The grass is greening up in the backyard and we actually have some tulips showing. Unfortunately it is pouring rain today so youngest is dividing his time between Infinite Jest and doing a jigsaw (with AP tests out of the way and just a few projects left – youngest can coast until graduation) and himself went off to play with trees.

Here is what caught my interest this week and added to an overly large “To Read” pile:

Rachel of Book Snob caught my interest last week with William Maxwell’s So Long, See You Tomorrow does it to me again with Maxwell’s They Came Like Swallows, the story of two young boys and the death of their mother and is set just after WWI and at the onset of the Spanish Influenza. I am listening to the Last Town on Earth which is also about the Spanish Influenza and am intrigued to read more – it will be interesting to contrast two separate approaches to this subject. The influenza had a small impact on my family in the number of men available for my grandmother to marry and who she eventually chose.

In March I read Johan Theorin’s Echos from the Dead set on Sweden’s Orland Island and found it to be a good read. So when I stumbled upon Kimbofo’s review of The Darkest Room I was pleased to find that not only is Gerloff, the retired fishing captain who was such a prominent person in Theorin’s first book, appears in this one as well. And the two books are part of a planned quartet. The Darkest Room is about a young Swedish couple who move to Orland Island with their two children. They live in an old house by the sea and and start to wonder if the house is haunted. When the wife drowns in the sea, the speculation continues and as answers are sought the author explores the history of the island, Swedish folklore, and the secrets of the various characters.

Simon of Stuck in A Book is currently reading Patrick Hamilton’s The Slaves of Solitude, originally published in 1943. I only know of Hamilton through his plays Rope and Gaslight but after reading a synposis of The Slaves, I think I will put it on the list. Set during WWII, a middle-aged spinster moves out of London and into a small suburban boarding house. The synopsis goes on to say, “Recounting an epic battle of wills in the claustrophobic confines of the boarding house, Patrick Hamilton’s The Slaves of Solitude, with a delightfully improbable heroine, is one of the finest and funniest books ever written about the trials of a lonely heart. ”

There are some movies that just stick in your mind becoming icons and one such movie for me is The Third Man. It turns out Graham Greene wrote the screenplay for that movie and later adapted it into a novel.  Turns out he also wrote a short novel called The Tenth Man which Juxtabook reviews. During WWII, the Germans, in a retaliatory measure, decide to kill some prisoners with the prisoners having to determine who will be killed. They draw lots but one of the men chosen is very wealthy and he offers his fortune to be spared. Another man takes his place. After the War, the formerly wealthy man returns to his home which is now occupied by the relatives of the slain prisoner. He takes a position there as a servant. If Greene is able to bring the same tension to this short novel as he brought to The Third Man as well as explore the idea of cowardice (shades of The Four Feathers), I definately want to read it. Luckily the college has a copy so it goes on the list for himself to pick-up.

Teresa and Jenny from Shelf Love discuss White is for Witching, an unusual novel by Helen Oyeyemi which starts off with a series of questions answered by three different narrators (one of which seems to be an address). The questions concern a young woman named Miranda. Teresa writes, “Miranda, as it turns out, is a young woman who recently disappeared without a trace, and Lily Silver is her mother. Ore, Miranda’s friend; Eliot, Miranda’s brother; and 29 Barton Road, Miranda’s home, share the task of telling Miranda’s strange story. There are whiffs of madness and magic, and nothing seems quite right. Who to believe? What is real?” I went and read the first few pages and it was enough to whet my appetite. It may be a challenging read but it also sounds worthwhile.

Hope there is more sunshine than rain in your week and lots of good reads.