This is not Doris

Please don’t eat the daisies, Jean Kerr,1954
**
I discovered this book a small used book store at the beach in North Carolina.  I am a big Doris Day fan, so I thought, “How cute!  Its the book that the movie was based on.”  Well, it is the book that the movie was based on, but that is where all similarity ends.  In fact the book is pretty saucy compared to the movie which features Doris Day as a housewife and mother of 4 rowdy boys.

Please don’t eat the daisies is a collection of essays by Jean Kerr about her life as a playwright, mother and wife in the early 50’s.  She writes frankly that her goal in life had always been to sleep late, so she married and found a career that enabled her to do just that.  I am really interested in vintage books, but rarely do I come across anything so frank from a woman’s perspective.  I highly recommend this collection of essays if you ever come across it.  I don’t have kids, but I found what Jean Kerr says about her own pretty funny.  She survives her 4 boys  and juggles home and work with wit and brazen style.  Or at least, she writes that she does.

Don’t expect the Doris Day version, the real thing is so much more.

chocolat chocolate yum

Chocolat, Joanne Harris
*
I will admit that I stocked some nice dark chocolate for this read.    If you are about to read this novel, I recommend stocking up yourself.  Splurge and get the good kind.  Some hot cocoa or a mocha would be in theme too.   It seems that the townspeople of Lansquenet are always eating and drinking chocolat. Perhaps you have seen the movie…I confess to watching the movie before reading the book.  I saw it when it first came out.  And it was good, but as usual, the book is better with less romance and more character.  Chocolat is a fairy tale and an ordinary tale all in one.  I liked that the novel’s romance unfolds within each person rather than as affairs.  It is far more important that the characters come to enjoy who they are individually, only then can they see others beauty.I wasn’t as impressed with the darker aspects of the novel as being scary but the character of the priest is rich.  Father Reynaud is a caricature of himself.   And it is his fault that he falls into the stereotypical bad guy.   Harris creates him to be the antithesis of Vianne Rocher.  The interesting aspect of this is that he has the potential to be so wonderfully human, but he must constantly flatten himself with piety and martyrdom.  He resists the reality of himself.  I believe that this character struggle is the moving force within Chocolat. 

the way the crow flies

the way the crow flies, Ann-Marie MacDonald
**

This novel is different from what I expected from the book jacket description.  Most notably because the majority of the book takes place in the main character’s childhood.  It is not as much an adult quest for truth as a revelation of the whole truth.  In looking back, what was forgotten or overlooked by Madeleine and those around her and what wasn’t, becomes the poignancy of this book.

I liked this novel because it dealt with being a military family.  Growing up as an army brat, I related to much of the main characters’ lives.  I also enjoyed the brutal honesty that is laid out for the reader to see, yet the characters just stumble around it.

the way the crow flies is not a lovely book or a happy one.  But it is sensitively written,  and Ann-Marie MacDonald gives the most ordinary cleaning rag rich color with her words.  This novel is definitely worth reading.  It may just make you look at your personal life events differently.

The Shadow of the Wind

The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Translated by Lucia Graves
****

The Cemetary of Forgotton Books. 
It sounds intriguing doesn’t it?  It is.  And that is just the first page.  Trust me, this book is more intriguing than any other you will find on your mysterious shelves.  For it combines mystery, romance, history, tales of war and a gothic creepiness that just seeps into you.  It is about a book, it’s author and the entangled destruction of beauty, words and people.  I refuse to give you even a character’s name, for I feel that you should step into The Shadow of the Wind clean of any details.

Take a chance.  It’s a lovely jump into Barcelona.  I will tell you that it is set in Barcelona. 

If you must know more, please read the description. 

Miniatures

Miniatures, a Novel by Norah Labiner

I am writing about this book before I finish reading it.  It is a horrible struggle to get through each chapter.  I am a reader, but I find myself flipping TV channels while I eye the book, trying to decide if I want to attempt it again.  George Eliot’s Middle March was easier to get into.

Miniatures is a babble of beautiful words and then more repitition of that babble.  But out of an ocean of chaotic phrases meandering through each chapter, there comes a gem of thought.  A single sentence that sums up some random idea that you never realized could be expressed in such a concise and honest way.  These bits of brilliance are what propels me forward, and entices me to pick up this book again.  That and the determination not to give up on a Award winning book. 

I do hope to eventually figure out why the American Library Association chose Miniatures to be a “Notable Book.”  I don’t believe that either the gems of thought or the narrator’s unusual voice warrant an overall book award, but I hope that by the end of the book I change my mind.  The female narrator, also a character, pulls you, the reader, in and almost makes you an accomplice.  She assigns emotions and opinions to the reader and this is intriguing.  I think it is a voice style that has been done before, but without the ring of forced participation that Norah Labiner manages to give her readers.

Despite all these wonderful traits, I am still reluctant to pick Miniatures up again and am unsure as to when I will finish it.  I will add my final opinion when I do.

The Thirteenth Tale…one of my favorites

The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield, 2006.
****

I first came upon this book in a wonderful bookshop in Maine.  I was on vacation at the time, and couldn’t justify the hardback price, but the dustjacket description stuck with me.  I forgot the title by the time I got home, and searched book stores in vain for months.  I stumbled upon it online, and firmly believe that it was fate.

If you love books… if you love the feel of a hardback in your hands as you turn each softly textured page… then this one is a treasure.  The Thirteenth Tale is a mystery revolving around two women that slowly unfolds in a gothic manor.  It sounds so Jane Eyre, but its not.  Yes, there are dark corridors and pregnant silences.  There are also libraries and gardens, and people who seem to be coincedental but evolve into being the whole reason behind everything.  It is a story within multiple stories wrapped up with a story.

I feel that I cannot say more without rubbing away the beauty of this book.  I will be honest and say that if you want give yourself a gift.  Give yourself this book.