Well, hello! The three books above are the ones I really wanted to share with you today (very low spoiler). They're three very different sorts of books but I enjoyed all three. I read a lot of books in March, including Radium Girls, Women and Power by Mary Beard, and a graphic novel about James Joyce's daughter, as well as a play called The Women by Clare Boothe Luce. What are you reading these days? And is it spring in your part of the world, yet? Our snow is finally melting and the birds are singing this morning. 😊
I have continued with my Patricia Wentworth reading, but also read The Secret Garden and The Wind in the Willows for the first time, thanks to Miranda Mill's March recommendations (last year's and this year's). I liked both of the latter two, and am sorry I didn't get through them sooner. I have begun The Wind in the Willows a few times, over the years. So many great themes through both the books; one can see why they've lasted through so many generations of readers.
I agree with you that The Secret Garden's intro is pretty terrible. I don't think it can be defended as being "of its time." Not everyone in that time thought and acted as she did. The book would be much improved if the the main character could have been clearly shown to have left her racism behind, as she did her snobbery toward those of other social and economic classes. I think one would have to have some serious conversations around the issue, if giving the book to a child. I did have to love the depiction of the healing power of nature, the passage through grief, and the story of the handicapped boy gaining mobility, agency, humility, happiness, and a father.
Sorry, maybe a comment I'm responding to was hidden. P.S. I don't set myself above a writer who's made an error; we are blind to our own faults, and lack the virtue of a person we judge. A reader won't get far in literature until s/he comes to the view of Solzhenitzen: "It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good… Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either-but right through every human heart-and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains… an unuprooted small corner of evil. "
@@Homeward_Pilgrim Nope, I wouldn’t hide a comment! But I wonder when I was editing a typo if I pushed the wrong button on my cell phone because I don’t see my response now, darn it. I find your quote interesting because it ties in perfectly with the book that I’m currently reading! Guilt, sin, evil, good, and religious concepts, etc. in this case in a Catholic context. Thanks for posting.
I just recommended the Fox Wife to someone because of your review and the fact that she has liked Choo's past books! We had snow again yesterday, but it didn't stick. Today is Bright and Clear but COLD! 😂 No flowers yet. Wonderful to spend some time with you, Celeste!
I thoroughly enjoyed the Chinese Shawl which was my introduction to the Miss Silver Mysteries. Poison in the Pen, The Clock Strikes Twelve and Miss Silver Come to Stay rank among my favourites.
The Fox Wife sounds great! A friend sent me a copy of the mammoth nonfiction autobiography, "They Called Us White Chinese" by Robert N. Tharp. He grew up in Manchuria and was born there in 1913. Sounds like they would be a good fiction/nonfiction pairing.
I’ll bet it would make a great pairing! It was interesting to watch Michael Wood’s History of China and understand the events of the last empire. On a related note, I never realized how treacherous the British empire was in the Opium Wars. ( The Opium Wars were not depicted in The Fox Wife, but I learned about them as a tangent.) Now when I see Sherlock Holmes in an Opium den in London I’ll have a lot better context for how things got that way. Yikes.
I love how deep you dive into your reviews and summations of these books. I think you are spot on in your critique of Kristin Hannah. I haven’t read The Women but I did read The Nightingale when it came out. To me it felt as if she put every atrocity of WWII into a stew pot along with the two main characters and stirred it all up. For me, it lost believability because so many bad things happened to these sisters. And you have me wanting to give Patricia Wentworth a try though maybe I won’t start with the first book.
Thank you! I do try to edit reviews down to the essential points but brevity is not my strong suit, hee hee! 🤓 Glad to hear you agree about Kristen Hannah. The book is “good,” but yes, she does embrace a few cliches. It would be nice if her stories were more nuanced. Like, it’s okay to start off with a cliche, but only if she ultimately ends up delivering a unique story.
Reading new releases is also a goal of mine! I decided to choose one per season. But you are right - it's always a bit of a risk. I was looking at The Fox Wife but for whatever reason went with The Fury, which is ok...but still trying to finish it! Now I want to read The Fox Wife! Oh, I didn't know 'The Women' was connected to Coronado Island! Interesting! I love your idea of putting a book away for a month and reconsidering the ending. Lovely reading wrap-up!!! Enjoyed it with my hot cocoa!🌷
Hi Heather, It’s slow moving for the first half but I think it’s so evocative and beautiful. The Audible version is great, too. The author’s narration really brings it to life. ☺️
You’ve intrigued me with “ The Fox Wife”. I adore foxes and when I was feeding a feral cat colony a mother fox and her three kits appeared one night. Mom had found a site for herself and her little family. I loved watching her and how she kept her babies in line. So foxes are dear to me so this book I’ll be looking for at the library. Concerning Kristin Hannah.. and well, no thank you. I’ve read two of her books and I found her writing mediocre at best.I don’t want to sound snobby but I don’t have time to waste anymore at my age on ho him predictable writing. As far as I’m concerned, she’s a writer for profit and is driven by money more than pride in her supposed craft. I was gifted “ The Covenant of Water” by Abraham Verghese and I’ll probably be reading it next. I read his other title “ Cutting for Stone@. He’s an excellent writer and produces a book about every ten years. This book is set in India so it may work in your Book Voyage. So enjoy your reviews… you’ve become my favorite book tuber because of your discerning taste and also because you expose me to many authors I had not read or heard of before.
Awe, thank you, Barbara! What a great memory of foxes! Hmmm...The Fox Wife is a quiet historical drama with a bit of mystery and romance in it and some folk legend shapeshifting. The Foxes are spirits in the bodies of humans. It's a very unusual book. I have heard of a book called Fox and I by Catharine Raven which sounds interesting, about a woman who buys a property and a foxy shows up there every afternoon. It's about her relationship getting to know the fox and fox behavior. Maybe a good one? Ha, I understand about the Hannah books; although I'm glad she's started a trend to write about women in that war.
I really enjoyed the first Grey Mask! I also read Lonesome Road?! and The Catherine Wheel which is a “locked room” mystery, I think. I actually like Miss Silver a little better than Miss Marple. 😂🫣🤫
@@amyofhearthridge Ha! 😉 Well, I admit I didn't get on with it... But I really enjoyed Lonesome Road. I'll keep The Catherine Wheel in mind. Thanks! I know people compare Miss Silver to Miss Marple, but I think they are very different from each other. Both brilliant, though, right?!
I have to say I didn't enjoy the one or two books by Kristin Hannah I've read. I was in a book club, years ago, with a few of her fans. My memory of her writing is that I thought it emotionally manipulative. One of the local library staff recommended her books to me a year or so ago; this is a library that has zero Trollope books on the shelf, and maybe two or three by Austen. Our tax levy funds at work. Oh, well. I found The Grey Mask pretty awful, too, and would not recommend anyone pick it up as their first exposure to Patricia Wentworth. Very weird. It is useful to read later, because there are certain motifs that run through her work that begin to show up there, and the patterns can be interesting. I just read The Lonesome Road, because it was cheap for the Kindle. I can enjoy it as a mid-series reader, but don't know if I would have been very impressed if I had read it as one of the first of hers. I don't think I've ever read an author who depended so much on the architecture of large old houses to play a central role in her plots. She also uses the landscapes (and weather) almost as characters or co-creators in her plots. She gives such interesting descriptions of women's clothing, and the rituals around food--preparing, eating, taking tea, etc. Once I'd read a few, I felt she had really been engaged in world building, but it was so similar and parallel to the real one, that it took awhile to realize she had been doing it. Some of the endgames of her plots are so fantastical, and melodramatic, that the reader is just taken along for a wild ride. Once you become a fan, you just enjoy it for the rollercoaster ride that it is. They are really inventive. She is always thinking up new variations on her plot trajectories. She must have been quite a person to meet in real life. ☺
The Nightingale is definitely a better book. Actually The Women is my least favorite book of Kristen Hannah’s. I was hoping for a much better piece of work about the nurses of the Viet Nam war. I’m a child of the 50’s, and a retired E.R. trauma nurse. The friendships of the main character Frankie were over the top unrealistic. Almost a yuck factor. Until this one every book I’ve read of Hannah’s I thoroughly enjoyed.
Hi- thanks for watching! That’s good to hear about Kristen Hannah’s other books. I’ll check out The Nightingale. And thank you for your work as a trauma nurse. ❤
Well, hello! The three books above are the ones I really wanted to share with you today (very low spoiler). They're three very different sorts of books but I enjoyed all three. I read a lot of books in March, including Radium Girls, Women and Power by Mary Beard, and a graphic novel about James Joyce's daughter, as well as a play called The Women by Clare Boothe Luce. What are you reading these days? And is it spring in your part of the world, yet? Our snow is finally melting and the birds are singing this morning. 😊
I have continued with my Patricia Wentworth reading, but also read The Secret Garden and The Wind in the Willows for the first time, thanks to Miranda Mill's March recommendations (last year's and this year's). I liked both of the latter two, and am sorry I didn't get through them sooner. I have begun The Wind in the Willows a few times, over the years. So many great themes through both the books; one can see why they've lasted through so many generations of readers.
I agree with you that The Secret Garden's intro is pretty terrible. I don't think it can be defended as being "of its time." Not everyone in that time thought and acted as she did. The book would be much improved if the the main character could have been clearly shown to have left her racism behind, as she did her snobbery toward those of other social and economic classes. I think one would have to have some serious conversations around the issue, if giving the book to a child. I did have to love the depiction of the healing power of nature, the passage through grief, and the story of the handicapped boy gaining mobility, agency, humility, happiness, and a father.
Sorry, maybe a comment I'm responding to was hidden. P.S. I don't set myself above a writer who's made an error; we are blind to our own faults, and lack the virtue of a person we judge. A reader won't get far in literature until s/he comes to the view of Solzhenitzen:
"It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good…
Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either-but right through every human heart-and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains… an unuprooted small corner of evil. "
@@Homeward_Pilgrim Nope, I wouldn’t hide a comment! But I wonder when I was editing a typo if I pushed the wrong button on my cell phone because I don’t see my response now, darn it. I find your quote interesting because it ties in perfectly with the book that I’m currently reading! Guilt, sin, evil, good, and religious concepts, etc. in this case in a Catholic context. Thanks for posting.
@@areadersalmanacwithceleste1366 Ha ha. The internet wins again. Oh well. You're welcome. Heavy thoughts for Holy Week (in the West, at least).
The Fox Wife has been on my TBR for a little while and I’m glad you liked it. I may have to move this up in my pile.
Hope you enjoy it!
I just recommended the Fox Wife to someone because of your review and the fact that she has liked Choo's past books!
We had snow again yesterday, but it didn't stick. Today is Bright and Clear but COLD! 😂 No flowers yet.
Wonderful to spend some time with you, Celeste!
Thanks, Deea! I plan on reading The Night Tiger next. Our snow didn’t stick either but it is still chilly. Just saw a tulip though! 🤓
It also has my enthusiastic thumbs up, Deea, as an audiobook!
So for March Mystery 6 year old granddaughter who lives in the UK and I read Nancy Drew and The Secret of the Old Clock together 😊
That's marvelous! Carrying on the tradition to another generation. : )
I thoroughly enjoyed the Chinese Shawl which was my introduction to the Miss Silver Mysteries. Poison in the Pen, The Clock Strikes Twelve and Miss Silver Come to Stay rank among my favourites.
Ooh, thanks! I have The Clock Strikes Twelve but haven’t read it yet!
The Fox Wife sounds great! A friend sent me a copy of the mammoth nonfiction autobiography, "They Called Us White Chinese" by Robert N. Tharp. He grew up in Manchuria and was born there in 1913. Sounds like they would be a good fiction/nonfiction pairing.
I’ll bet it would make a great pairing! It was interesting to watch Michael Wood’s History of China and understand the events of the last empire. On a related note, I never realized how treacherous the British empire was in the Opium Wars. ( The Opium Wars were not depicted in The Fox Wife, but I learned about them as a tangent.) Now when I see Sherlock Holmes in an Opium den in London I’ll have a lot better context for how things got that way. Yikes.
I love how deep you dive into your reviews and summations of these books. I think you are spot on in your critique of Kristin Hannah. I haven’t read The Women but I did read The Nightingale when it came out. To me it felt as if she put every atrocity of WWII into a stew pot along with the two main characters and stirred it all up. For me, it lost believability because so many bad things happened to these sisters.
And you have me wanting to give Patricia Wentworth a try though maybe I won’t start with the first book.
Thank you! I do try to edit reviews down to the essential points but brevity is not my strong suit, hee hee! 🤓 Glad to hear you agree about Kristen Hannah. The book is “good,” but yes, she does embrace a few cliches. It would be nice if her stories were more nuanced. Like, it’s okay to start off with a cliche, but only if she ultimately ends up delivering a unique story.
Lovely video, Celeste! The Fox Wife is intriguing! Loved hearing your thoughts on The Women. I hope to read it sometime.
Thanks. It’s a story worth telling.
Reading new releases is also a goal of mine! I decided to choose one per season. But you are right - it's always a bit of a risk. I was looking at The Fox Wife but for whatever reason went with The Fury, which is ok...but still trying to finish it! Now I want to read The Fox Wife! Oh, I didn't know 'The Women' was connected to Coronado Island! Interesting! I love your idea of putting a book away for a month and reconsidering the ending. Lovely reading wrap-up!!! Enjoyed it with my hot cocoa!🌷
Hi Heather, It’s slow moving for the first half but I think it’s so evocative and beautiful. The Audible version is great, too. The author’s narration really brings it to life. ☺️
I happened to read The Chinese Shawl last year and thought it was rather good. 🤗Like a good Golden Age now and then.
Me too!
I just finished Tom Lake and The Fox Wife is up next!
Wasn't the Fox Wife so good! I enjoyed the audio a lot 🥰
Yes! The audio was great!
You’ve intrigued me with “ The Fox Wife”. I adore foxes and when I was feeding a feral cat colony a mother fox and her three kits appeared one night. Mom had found a site for herself and her little family. I loved watching her and how she kept her babies in line. So foxes are dear to me so this book I’ll be looking for at the library. Concerning Kristin Hannah.. and well, no thank you. I’ve read two of her books and I found her writing mediocre at best.I don’t want to sound snobby but I don’t have time to waste anymore at my age on ho him predictable writing. As far as I’m concerned, she’s a writer for profit and is driven by money more than pride in her supposed craft. I was gifted “ The Covenant of Water” by Abraham Verghese and I’ll probably be reading it next. I read his other title “ Cutting for Stone@. He’s an excellent writer and produces a book about every ten years. This book is set in India so it may work in your Book Voyage. So enjoy your reviews… you’ve become my favorite book tuber because of your discerning taste and also because you expose me to many authors I had not read or heard of before.
Awe, thank you, Barbara! What a great memory of foxes! Hmmm...The Fox Wife is a quiet historical drama with a bit of mystery and romance in it and some folk legend shapeshifting. The Foxes are spirits in the bodies of humans. It's a very unusual book. I have heard of a book called Fox and I by Catharine Raven which sounds interesting, about a woman who buys a property and a foxy shows up there every afternoon. It's about her relationship getting to know the fox and fox behavior. Maybe a good one? Ha, I understand about the Hannah books; although I'm glad she's started a trend to write about women in that war.
Has anyone read Miss Silver? If so, what would be a good one to read next?
I really enjoyed the first Grey Mask! I also read Lonesome Road?! and The Catherine Wheel which is a “locked room” mystery, I think. I actually like Miss Silver a little better than Miss Marple. 😂🫣🤫
Ooops! I read your comment before hearing you didn’t like The Grey Mask! 😂
@@amyofhearthridge Ha! 😉 Well, I admit I didn't get on with it... But I really enjoyed Lonesome Road. I'll keep The Catherine Wheel in mind. Thanks! I know people compare Miss Silver to Miss Marple, but I think they are very different from each other. Both brilliant, though, right?!
LibraryLyn listed your reviews as one she liked (she's dropping bookstore for the time being)
She will be missed! ❤️
I have to say I didn't enjoy the one or two books by Kristin Hannah I've read. I was in a book club, years ago, with a few of her fans. My memory of her writing is that I thought it emotionally manipulative. One of the local library staff recommended her books to me a year or so ago; this is a library that has zero Trollope books on the shelf, and maybe two or three by Austen. Our tax levy funds at work. Oh, well.
I found The Grey Mask pretty awful, too, and would not recommend anyone pick it up as their first exposure to Patricia Wentworth. Very weird. It is useful to read later, because there are certain motifs that run through her work that begin to show up there, and the patterns can be interesting. I just read The Lonesome Road, because it was cheap for the Kindle. I can enjoy it as a mid-series reader, but don't know if I would have been very impressed if I had read it as one of the first of hers.
I don't think I've ever read an author who depended so much on the architecture of large old houses to play a central role in her plots. She also uses the landscapes (and weather) almost as characters or co-creators in her plots. She gives such interesting descriptions of women's clothing, and the rituals around food--preparing, eating, taking tea, etc. Once I'd read a few, I felt she had really been engaged in world building, but it was so similar and parallel to the real one, that it took awhile to realize she had been doing it.
Some of the endgames of her plots are so fantastical, and melodramatic, that the reader is just taken along for a wild ride. Once you become a fan, you just enjoy it for the rollercoaster ride that it is. They are really inventive. She is always thinking up new variations on her plot trajectories. She must have been quite a person to meet in real life. ☺
Yes, they're very inventive! - and I loved the relationship between Laura and Carey in The Chinese Shawl.
@@areadersalmanacwithceleste1366 Yes, she always has a little romance going on. 🙂
The Nightingale is definitely a better book. Actually The Women is my least favorite book of Kristen Hannah’s. I was hoping for a much better piece of work about the nurses of the Viet Nam war. I’m a child of the 50’s, and a retired E.R. trauma nurse. The friendships of the main character Frankie were over the top unrealistic. Almost a yuck factor. Until this one every book I’ve read of Hannah’s I thoroughly enjoyed.
Hi- thanks for watching! That’s good to hear about Kristen Hannah’s other books. I’ll check out The Nightingale. And thank you for your work as a trauma nurse. ❤