Bookshelf Journeys

Celebrating books, television, and movies

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The Land of Green Ginger (1927) by Winifred Holtby. This is the story of Joanna Leigh, a wife and mother, whose is challenged by a struggling farm, a chronically ill husband, and village gossip. She struggles valiantly and copes by imagining fictional characters and the exotic places where she dreams of visiting. There is a secondary story of Paul Szermai, a forester from Hungary with a tragic past, who lodges with Joanna and her husband. The characterization is very good, but I felt that Joanna was too passive and accommodating and wasn’t compelling enough for a central character. I rated it 2/5. South Riding is the author’s masterpiece, and I would recommend it over this earlier work.

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I favor small hardcover books, because they can be easily held with one hand, and they are more durable than paperbacks.

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“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again." - Andre Gide

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Help! My boyfriend doesn’t read — Dazed

Many people, especially young women dating young men, find themselves reading more than their partner. But a lack of shared interests doesn’

A partner that doesn’t read doesn’t rule out a healthy relationship, but I think it limits the depth of one’s relationship.

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I started reading Lark Rise (1945), the first of a trilogy of memoirs of the author’s upbringing in rural Victorian England on the Oxfordshire-Northamptonshire border. It’s an interesting primary source of the author’s agrarian way of life and rural customs. The author mentions occasional historical events of the period and sometimes uses archaic words and expressions, and I was glad to have an annotated copy to explain these. The work is loosely organized and is something that can be picked up periodically. I am looking for more drama at the moment and will pause at page 87.

To be continued.

Excerpts:

P34 Their notable virtue of endurance; not flinching .

P36 Field burning: and fill the air with the light blue haze, and the scent that can haunt for a lifetime.

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Reading Warlock (1958) by Oakley Hall. It’s a story about America’s hard bitten southwestern frontier of the late 19th century including the events surrounding the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Warlock was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1958 and is included in Library of America’s collection of classic Westerns of the 40s and 50s. I got to page 124. Much of the story is told in the third person, so it is short on interiority, and the story wasn’t to my taste initially. However, I gradually gained an appreciation for its brooding atmosphere and exploration of the contest between the evil and good elements of American society. The lines between the two sides become blurred by moral and legal ambiguities.

I got to p236 (48%). The miners are mad that their salaries have been reduced, and they unsuccessfully tried to lynch Tom Morgan if the Glass Slipper for killing a fellow miner. Curley Burne has just killed Deputy Carl Schroeder.

From the author’s preface: “The fabric of the story, too, is made up of actual events interwoven with invented ones; by combining what did happen with what might have happened, I have tried to show what should have happened…The pursuit of truth, not of facts, is the business of fiction.”

Excerpts:

But Clay Blaisdell is not the rock upon which we are divided, he is only a symptom. We do not break so simply as something into the two camps of townsmen and Cowboys. We break into camps of those wildly inclined, and those soberly, those irresponsible, and those responsible, those peace-loving, and those outlaw and riotous by nature; further, into camps of respect, and of fear – I mean for oneself, and for all decent things besides. These are the poles between which we vibrate, and Blaisdell has only emphasized the distance between them. It is too simple, perhaps to say that those who fear themselves and fear their fellow men, fear, and hate (Marshal) Blaisedell, while those who respect themselves, and man, respect him. Yet I hold that this is true in a broad sense. p172-3

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Reading Cry, The Beloved Country (1948) by Alan Paton. Stephen Kumalo is an old pastor who journeys from his remote village to the great city of Johannesburg to find his sister, her son, and his own son who have gone missing. Like many poor native South Africans, they lack opportunities and succumb to a life of poverty, promiscuity, and crime. There is a great deal of fear, foreboding, and sadness in Reverend Kumalo’s journey as he discovers that his son has been accused of murdering a white man. This takes takes the reader through Book 1.

Book 2 takes the perspective of the victim’s family. We learn that the victim, Arthur Jarvis, was a devoted advocate for native South Africans. To be continued…

Excerpts:

P70 The corrupting nature of power.

P105 There are times, no doubt, when God seems no more to be about the world.

P178 it is not permissible to add to one’s possessions if these things can only be done at the cost of other men. Such development has only one true name, and that is exploitation. It might’ve been permissible in the early days of our country, before we became aware of its cost, in the disintegration of native community life, in the deterioration of native family, life, in poverty, slums, and crime. But now that the cost is known, it is no longer permissible.

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Yorkshire Authors Poets and Playwrights | Yorkshire Inspiration

I’m looking forward to visiting Yorkshire where some of my favorite authors were from and the setting of some of my favorite stories.

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Echoes of Classics

Oakley Hall published Warlock in 1958 and it was nominated for the Pulitzer. It didn't win, and it didn't become the household name it des

Sounds intriguing.

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My current top 10 novels in English in no particular order:

1. The Mill on the Floss

2. Romola

3. Tess of the d’Urbervilles

4. Middlemarch

5. The Return of the Native

6. Villette

7. Vanity Fair

8.Jane Eyre

9. Moby Dick

10. Blood Meridian

My current other avorite novels written in English:

11 Of Human Bondage

12. The Grapes of Wrath

13. The Enchanted April

14. Precious Bane

15. Gone to Earth

16. Far From the Madding Crowd

17. The Way We live Now

18. Jude the Obscure

19. The Mayor of Casterbridge

20. Moon Tiger

21. The Remains of the Day

22. A View from the Harbour

23. Hotel du Lac

24. The English Patient

25. The Village

26. Excellent Women

27. Death Comes for the Archbishop

28. The Sea

29. Disgrace

30. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

31. The Power and the Glory

32. The Human Factor

33. The Heart of the Matter

34. The Quiet American

35. The Comedians

36. The End of the Affair

37. The Burnt Out Case

38. Our Man in Havana

39. Right Ho Jeeves

40. Code of the Woosters

41. Joy in the Morning

42. The Road

43. The Sheltering Sky

44. Lucky Jim

45. Miss Mole

44-49 Novels of Jane Austen

50. The Untouchable

51. A Death in the Family

52. The Handmaid’s Tale

53. Fahrenheit 451

54. The Scarlet Letter

55. 1984

56. Island

57. A High Wind in Jamaica

58. Possession

59. Breakfast at Tiffany’s

60. The Grass Harp

61. A Wreath of Roses

62. Cider House Rules

63.Cakes and Ale

64. Lolita

65. The Defense

66-68. The Border Trilogy

69. The Centaur

70. Love in a Cold Climate

71. The Pursuit of Love

72-75. The Rabbit Tetralogy

76-81. The Barchester series

82. Cranford

83. North and South

84. Mary Barton

85. Sylvia’s Lovers

86. Silas Marner

87. Adam Bede

88. Daniel Deronda

89. Two on a Tower

89. The Woman in White

89. No Name

90. The Moonstone

91. Brideshead Revisited

92. The History of Pendennis

93, Great Expectations

94. Bleak House

95. David Copperfield

96. Agnes Grey

97. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

98. A Dog of the South

99. Cold Mountain

100. Rebecca

101. Deliverance

102. House of Sand and Fog

103. The Sea, The Sea

104. A Room with a View

105. Faith Fox

106. A Kestrel for a Knave

107. The Gamekeeper

108. Never Let Me Go

109. We Have Always Lived in the Castle

110. The Haunting of Hill House

111. My Ántonia

112. O Pioneers

133-115 Old Filth trilogy

116. Lincoln in the Bardo

117. Children of Men

118. Atonement

119. On Chesil Beach

120. The Confessions of Nat Turner

121. Sophie’s Choice

122.The Accidental Tourist

123. Father

124. Elmer Gantry

125. Arrowsmith

126. The House of Mirth

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The Story of Winifred Holtby and the Yorkshire Wolds

Many have heard of the Bronte’s, but are you familiar with Winifred Holtby, one of Yorkshire’s lesser-known literary daughters?

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Search the Hull History Centre catalog which contains information and descriptions to over 330,000 items in the archives and local studies c

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Discovering Winfred Holtby at the Hull History Centre

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Women and a a changing Civilization (1935) by Winifred Holtby. Finished chapter one which summarizes the history of women’s subjugation. Paused at p41 (start of chapter two).

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I’m building my Winifred Holtby collection. I can’t help but love an author who not only wrote so movingly about progressive and humanistic principles but also championed these causes outside of her books. Her life was tragically short, but she gave us much in the time she had. I hope one day to pay her my respects at All Saints Churchyard, Rudston, UK where she is buried.❤️

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What books are you having trouble finding in print? For example I’d like to read more Elizabeth von Arnim, but The Benefactress, The Pastor’s Wife, and The Jasmine Farm are scarce in the states. I may have to look for them in electronic form, but I prefer traditional books. I’ve noticed print on demand copies, but I’m unfamiliar with them.

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122K views · 5.1K reactions | In today’s “New to You,” Ann talks about her nightmare Jeopardy question and throws in a little Parnassus Book

In today’s “New to You,” Ann talks about her nightmare Jeopardy question and throws in a little Parnassus Books history. Have you read any I

Ann Patchett’s recommends her favorite novel, Independent People by Halldor Laxness.