...to take us to lands away", said Emily Dickinson. I am a great fan of Emily. She can express the profound in so few words, which is a rare gift. Talking of books, my 'sister' who lives in St Paul-Minneapolis reminded me in an email that I had failed to post the list of books my bookclub had chosen in February and which I had promised in a previous blog post. We have now had our March get-together and I am reminded again to share our latest reading. In February we chose: Ghost by Robert Harris; Homecomings by Bernard Mendel and The book thief by Martin Zusak. This month it was the latest Ian McEwan novel (who wrote Atonement). I am currently reading The Quiet Girl by Peter Hoeg (who wrote Miss Smilla's Sense of Snow). It is rather a strange read so I am being seriously challenged. And this week my finds from the university library's New Books shelf were: The book of lost things (Don't you love that title!) by John Connolly; The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davis and The song before it is sung (That title!!) by Justin Cartwright. The beauty of being university staff is that our loans only have to be returned by September, unless someone else requests them. So these treasures can remain on my To be read shelf until I am ready.
My favourite recent read was Missing Mom by Joyce Carol Oates, who seems to produce another amazing book every year. Books about mothers and daughers and the complexities of their relationships resonate with me. Most of us vacillate between wanting to be like our mothers or wanting to be the exact opposite. I love the way the narrator in the novel came to appreciate her mother and her quirky ways after her death and how she discovered that the most ordinary mom has actually had the most extraordinary life.
5 comments:
How lovely to know another voracious reader. Oh my, what would we do without novels....I just would be a lost soul I'm sure.
Alexandra
Reading books truly continues to be a wonderful way to spend our free time. Your photo is very appealing.
I have a stack of books next to my bed which I dip into each evening as I go to bed, leaving time for some reading before sleep. If I awake during the night, I often reach for a book until my eyelids get heavy again.
Carrie
What a beautiful picture! "What we Keep," by Elizabeth Berg is an interesting book that deals with mother/daughter relationships...it is an easy, but entertaining novel. I've enjoyed finding your site via Kari and Kijsa and can't wait to read more!
What a pretty table setting you make to sit for a spell and enjoy a good read.
Your blog has such cheeriness and makes thatchwick cottage feel so inviting that I wish I could just stop in and share some tea with you! Really wish I could pop on over and smell those roses! Our roses are not yet blooming, being the end of winter here in California.
How odd, the last three books I have read also explore the relationship between mothers and daughters! The titles are, roughly, The Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Five Sections of the Orange, and The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf.
Post a Comment