The Pink and Green Libraries

My eldest daughter, L., has followed in her parents’ footsteps as a serious bookworm, and I’ve mentioned before how much I enjoy seeing her read books that I loved as a child.

Because we’re a bilingual family,  L. has had a similar experience reading books in French that her father read as a child, many of which I wasn’t familiar with or which are French translations of English books. There are two popular children’s “libraries” (in this case, collections of books) which are found throughout France and which date back to the 1850′s (for the Pink Library) and the 1920′s (for the Green Library).

The Pink Library (La Bibliothèque Rose) includes “humerous, emotional, and magical” stories, and some of the classic titles in this collection include books by the Comtesse de Ségur and various series, including Fântomette, the Black Stallion, and the Club des Cinq–otherwise known as The Famous Five–by Enid Blyton. The Green Library (La Bibliothèque Verte) includes “action and adventure” novels, the most popular of which is the Alice series, aka Nancy Drew.

At first I didn’t like the idea of L. reading translated versions of English books, but you find them everywhere here and they are hugely popular. Personally, I never read Blyton as a child, but you’d be hard pressed to find a French person who didn’t. I hope she’ll decide to read the Nancy Drew books in English one day, but it’s nice that she’s able to experience the versions her father read, too.

So if you’re ever in France and get a chance to browse the stalls of a bouquiniste, keep your eye out for the Pink and Green Libraries. Because they’ve been around for so many years, it’s still easy to find beautiful vintage copies of some of the classics of French childhood.

Classics Club: May Meme

The Classics Club has put up their monthly meme question:

Tell us about the classic book(s) you’re reading this month. You can post about what you’re looking forward to reading in May, or post thoughts-in-progress on your current read(s).

I’m reading (or about to start) three classic books this month: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston, The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells, and Villette by Charlotte Brontë.

1. Their Eyes Were Watching God – I’m reading this one for the Classics Club Sync Read, and although I’m enjoying it, I’m finding it pretty slow going. The text itself is not particularly difficult, but there is a lot of dialect which I have to sound out in my head to be able to process, and it tends to disrupt the flow of my reading. Otherwise, I’m enjoying the story and the character of Janie in particular. I don’t feel like I have a really coherent opinion of it yet, but hopefully that will change by the time I’ve finished the book.

2. The Island of Dr. Moreau – I started listening to this one on audio during a recent road trip with my husband, and it’s a lot of fun so far. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, as I’d never read any H.G. Wells before, but the language is very accessible and the story is interesting if a bit predictable so far. I’m still trying to figure out exactly what is meant by “vivisection”, though. Is this like surgery with no anesthesia?

3. Villette – I’m getting ready to start this one on Sunday for my Villette readalong. This will be my first time hosting a readalong, so I’m really looking forward to it! I’m also looking forward to finally reading this book that has been sitting on my shelf for years (as had Their Eyes Were Watching God).

What classic books are you reading this month?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?  is a weekly meme hosted by The Book Journey, and it’s a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well.

I’ve been on a bit of a series splurge this past week, reading the next two books in the Emperor’s Edge fantasy series by Lindsay Buroker. These books are really fun and I’ve been getting into the potential romance between two of the characters, so I just keep reading more. I think I’m on the next to last book that she’s written (for now), so I may need to slow down a bit to make them last longer.

I also started to read Questions of Travel by  Michelle de Kretser this week, but I’m having a hard time getting into it. It contains lots of very short vignettes and jumps back and forth in time and between characters, and to be honest I feel like I’m retaining nothing of what I read. Has anyone else read this one? Does it get better?

My husband and I took a short road trip this weekend and we started listening to The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells. It’s a fun audio, particularly when it gets to the point of the beasts starting to talk. The version we listened to has a great narrator, and we kept repeating lines to each other for the rest of the day–”It IS a man!” I’m hoping to finish this one during my commute time this week. This will also count as a Classics Club book.

And speaking of the Classics Club, I’m planning a readalong of Villette by Charlotte Brontë for this month. If you’re interested in reading along with me, the sign-up post is here.

What about you? What are you reading this week?

Readalong: Villette by Charlotte Brontë

I’m getting ready to read Villette by Charlotte Brontë this month, and because it’s a rather long book–my version is around 600 pages–I was thinking it would be nice to have some friends reading along at the same time with whom I could chat about the book and to help me stay motivated. So I’m officially announcing a readalong.

From Goodreads:

Arguably Brontë’s most refined and deeply felt work, Villette draws on her profound loneliness following the deaths of her three siblings. Lucy Snowe, the narrator of Villette, flees from an unhappy past in England to begin a new life as a teacher at a French boarding school in the great cosmopolitan capital of Villette. Soon Lucy’s struggle for independence is overshadowed by both her friendship with a worldly English doctor and her feelings for an autocratic schoolmaster. Brontë’s strikingly modern heroine must decide if there is any man in her society with whom she can live and still be free.

If you’re interested in joining in, here’s how I plan to break up the reading:

Week 1 (May 12th-19th) – Volume I

Week 2 (May 20th-26th) – Volume II

Week 3 (May 27th-June 2nd) – Volume III

If you can’t start right away, no worries–just jump in whenever. I’ll put up my thoughts on the week’s reading in a Sunday post, and then I’ll do a wrap-up at the end of the month. If you want to chat about it on twitter, we’ll use the hashtag #villettealong.

And if you need more enticement…

“Villette! Villette! Have you read it?” exclaimed George Eliot when Charlotte Brontë’s final novel appeared in 1853. “It is a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre. There is something almost preternatural in its power.”

It’s going to be Villette-tastic!

Amity & Sorrow by Peggy Riley

Format: E-book galley

Length: 240 pages

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Source: NetGalley

From the publisher:

A mother and her daughters drive for days without sleep until they crash their car in rural Oklahoma. The mother, Amaranth, is desperate to get away from someone she’s convinced will follow them wherever they go–her husband. The girls, Amity and Sorrow, can’t imagine what the world holds outside their father’s polygamous compound. Rescue comes in the unlikely form of Bradley, a farmer grieving the loss of his wife. At first unwelcoming to these strange, prayerful women, Bradley’s abiding tolerance gets the best of him, and they become a new kind of family. An unforgettable story of belief and redemption, AMITY & SORROW is about the influence of community and learning to stand on your own.

Here’s what I thought:

Lots of bloggers have been talking about this book, and I can now chime in that I really enjoyed it, too. At its heart it is a story of family, the ties the bind us to other people (both literally and figuratively), and how hard it can be to break those ties–even when it is the right thing to do. It’s a sad book, fascinating even as it is heartbreaking, but I found it to be ultimately hopeful despite its dark subject matter.

Amaranth and her two daughters, Amity and Sorrow, have escaped from the polygamous cult where they lived and which has been raided by the local police. They travel across the country to escape their husband and father, Zachariah, a charismatic preacher whose shadow seems to follow them no matter how far they run. The story alternates between the present time and the past, and it’s told through the alternating narration of Amaranth and Amity. The reader never gets Sorrow’s point of view, which must have been intentional on the part of the author to keep her a mysterious and unpredictable character.

Amaranth has lived in the “real world” and knows that many of the rules that have become so second nature to them are not really relevant outside of their cult. She has an easier time adjusting to the outside world, even as she struggles with the aftereffects of her brainwashing. Her daughters, however, have never known anything but the world of their family–which for them includes one father, fifty mothers, and many brothers and sisters. They have a much harder time adapting, in particular Sorrow, who is older and has been more traumatized as a result of her experiences.

Sorrow persists in wanting to return to their home and their father, even as her mother tries to convince her that their former way of life was not a healthy one. While Amaranth and Amity begin to form ties to their new family of Bradley, Dust, and the grandfather, Sorrow remains turned inward, rejecting even the support and care of her mother and sister.

As the novel progresses, we learn more about their experiences in the cult, and I could understand the appeal of a supportive, nurturing group of women who live off the land and revel in a strong relationship with their God and each other. There is almost a utopian quality to it, at least in its early days, but it becomes warped and wrong at the hands of Zachariah. By the end of the novel, it is evident that the cult has descended to such lows as to be evocative of hell itself.

While the ending is very disturbing, I did find there to be a ray of hope for some of the characters, and ultimately I found the book very moving. Recommended.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for providing me with a copy of this book.

Buy from The Book Depository*

*THIS IS AN AFFILIATE LINK, SO IF YOU PURCHASE AN ITEM USING IT, I WILL BE PAID A SMALL PERCENTAGE OF THE PURCHASE PRICE.

The April Wrap-Up

Happy May Day! Here in France we offer sprigs of lily of the valley as a good luck charm to friends and family, so consider this a virtual bouquet for you all.

As of this morning, I’m officially one-third of the way to my goal of reading 75 books this year, which puts me right on track. More importantly, I’ve been reading a lot of good stuff and generally enjoying myself.  In April, I finished 6 books:

Head Over Heels by Jill Shalvis

Hopeless by Colleen Hoover

Someone Else’s Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson

A Spear of Summer Grass by Deanna Raybourn

The House at Belle Fontaine by Lily Tuck

Amity & Sorrow by Peggy Riley (review coming soon!)

I’ve realized lately that I read a LOT of female authors–maybe something that I need to work to correct. I may have a slight prejudice, however unintentional.

I also participated in a few blogging events during the month of April, including The Estella Society’s #EstellaGram photo-a-day project and, of course, Dewey’s Read-a-thon last weekend. For the former, I didn’t take as many photos as I did in March, but I still managed to get a few good shots. And they’re doing it again this month, so feel free to join in on the instagram fun!

Another May event I’m looking forward to is Trish’s Pin It and Do It Challenge, which I participated in several times last year. I’m hoping to step up my game this time and do more than just cooking pins.

Reading-wise, I have some good books lined up for this month. I wish I could insert one of those lovely pile o’ books shots in here, but since most of what I read is in electronic format, that won’t really work. However, I do have one particular book in mind that will fulfill (yes, finally!) THREE of my challenge goals for the month in one well-written swoop. This one will count towards the Around the World in 12 Books challenge (the country for May is Belgium), the TBR Pile challenge, and it’s on my Classics Club list. That book is [insert drumroll here]:

Anybody want to read Villette with me? This is the kind of book where a readalong would be nice to keep up my motivation, considering that it’s 600 pages long…If I were a more organized person I would have planned one.

Hope your month of May is a lovely one, and I’ll leave you with a little tribute to the first of May via The Bee Gees. Happy listening.

A Spear of Summer Grass by Deanna Raybourn

Format: E-book galley

Length:  384 pages

Publisher: Harlequin MIRA

Publication Date: April 30, 2013

From the publisher:

Paris, 1923

The daughter of a scandalous mother, Delilah Drummond is already notorious, even among Paris society. But her latest scandal is big enough to make even her oft-married mother blanch. Delilah is exiled to Kenya and her favorite stepfather’s savanna manor house until gossip subsides.

Fairlight is the crumbling, sun-bleached skeleton of a faded African dream, a world where dissolute expats are bolstered by gin and jazz records, cigarettes and safaris. As mistress of this wasted estate, Delilah falls into the decadent pleasures of society.

Against the frivolity of her peers, Ryder White stands in sharp contrast. As foreign to Delilah as Africa, Ryder becomes her guide to the complex beauty of this unknown world. Giraffes, buffalo, lions and elephants roam the shores of Lake Wanyama amid swirls of red dust. Here, life is lush and teeming-yet fleeting and often cheap.

Amidst the wonders-and dangers-of Africa, Delilah awakes to a land out of all proportion: extremes of heat, darkness, beauty and joy that cut to her very heart. Only when this sacred place is profaned by bloodshed does Delilah discover what is truly worth fighting for-and what she can no longer live without.

Here’s what I thought:

I’ve read and liked most of Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Grey mystery series, but this was her first standalone book for me. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I got caught up in the story right away. The setting of 1920′s Kenya is just perfect–I was drawn right in and didn’t want to leave it behind when the book was finished.

Delilah Drummond is an absolutely fascinating heroine, strong-willed and daring, and although she comes off as a bit spoiled in the early scenes in Paris, that impression was soon corrected for me when the story shifts to Kenya. There, Delilah manages to pull an abandoned farm back together, slide effortlessly into her role as caretaker of the local tribe of Kikuyu, and keep up a completely guilt-free affair with a local artist on the side.

Although there are themes running throughout about the place of women in society, colonialism, race relations, and the political issues of the day, the book is mainly a showcase for the development of Delilah as a character.  The more I got to know her, the more interesting I found her to be. As the story progresses we learn more about Delilah’s past and how it has made her into the woman that she is–someone who doesn’t pass up a chance to drink, smoke and dance even when her world is crumbling around her.

The relationship between Delilah and Ryder is just delicious, and although I’m not a big fan of the alpha male character in general, I loved Ryder. I also truly appreciated Delilah’s refreshingly uncomplicated attitude towards sex. She doesn’t spend her time pining away for a man who isn’t hers, but she doesn’t throw herself at every man she sees, either. She makes choices and isn’t ashamed of them, and she never for a moment wavers in her sense of self-worth.

The overriding relationship that is developed through the course of the book, however, is Delilah’s relationship with her new country. Although a mystery is introduced and solved by the end of the book, the real resolution for me came when Delilah decides whether or not to stay in Kenya. Her feelings for the land and its people are as important as those she develops for her romantic interest, and the ending of the book interweaves the two nicely.

If I had one complaint, it would be the numerous nods to Out of Africa that I noticed throughout the book. Although I love the movie, it jarred me out of this story to keep being reminded of a different one and took away from my reading experience slightly. It’s understandable that there would be similar references and images with both stories taking place in the same time and location, but sometimes they were just too alike for me (for example, the scene with the servant wearing white gloves and some of the conversations between Delilah and Gideon).

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed the story and recommend it to fans of historical fiction with strong characters and a dash of romance.

Note: Raybourn has a prequel novella out now entitled Far in the Wilds and featuring Ryder White. It’s free at the moment on Amazon, so if you’re not sure if this book is for you, it may be a good chance to check out one of the main characters before you buy.

Thanks so much to Edelweiss and Harlequin MIRA for providing me with a copy of this book.

Buy from The Book Depository*

*THIS IS AN AFFILIATE LINK, SO IF YOU PURCHASE AN ITEM USING IT, I WILL BE PAID A SMALL PERCENTAGE OF THE PURCHASE PRICE.

Dewey’s 24-Hour Read-a-thon

This is going to be interesting! As I mentioned in my preview post a few days ago, I’m participating long-distance and so I don’t have my computer this weekend. Instead, I’m typing this update on my kindle. Apologies in advance for any weird typos or formatting issues. You can tell I am very determined not to miss out on the read-a-thon experience!

To save my fingers (and my sanity), here are just the answers to the opening meme questions:

1. St. Etienne, France (my mother-in-law’s house, to be exact)
2. The one I’ve already started–Dark Currents by Lindsay Buroker
3. Belated birthday cake!
4. My fingers are tired….
5. I’m hoping to get more reading done this time, as I obviously will be less distracted by the computer

Happy read-a-thoning, all! I’ll try and check in here from time to time.

UPDATE: As you can see, I did not update my reading progress here–my technical limitations proved to be too great. Oh, well. I did get some good reading done, but nothing read-a-thon worthy. Hopefully in October I’ll be able to give it a better shot. Congrats to all those who stuck it out and I hope you enjoyed your read-a-thon weekend!

Read-a-thon Weekend Ahead!

Anybody else getting excited about Dewey’s Read-a-thon this weekend? Last time, I was a cheerleader and had so much fun but I didn’t actually get a lot of reading done. This time, I’ll be gone the entire weekend due to family commitments, but I’m determined to still try to get some reading done here and there. I probably won’t be online too much, but I’ll be sneaking away as often as I can to read in a quiet corner of my in-law’s house–that’s the plan, anyway.

What will I be reading? Well, I’ve learned from past read-a-thon experiences that I need to pick shorter works that are fun and help keep my motivation level high. Potential choices so far include:

The Wanderer by Robyn Carr

Selected Stories by Katherine Mansfield

Dark Currents by Lindsay Buroker

Fast Times in Palestine by Pamela J. Olson

Paris to the Pyranees by David Downie

Austenland by Shannon Hale

Are you planning to join in the Read-a-thon? Hope to see some of you around!

The House at Belle Fontaine by Lily Tuck

Format: E-book galley

Length:  160 pages

Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press

Source: NetGalley & Edelweiss

From the publisher:

The elegantly conceived, intimate stories of The House at Belle Fontaine span the better part of the twentieth century and almost every continent, revealing apprehensions, passions, secrets, and tragedies among lovers, spouses, landlords and tenants, and lifelong friends. In her crisp and penetrating prose, Tuck delicately probes at the lives of her characters as they navigate exotic locales and their own hearts: an artist learns that her deceased husband had an affair with their young houseguest; a retired couple strains to hold together their forty-year-old marriage on a ship bound for Antarctica; and a French family flees to Lima in the 1940s with devastating consequences for their daughter’s young nanny.

Here’s what I thought:

I enjoy short story collections and I’d heard a lot about Lily Tuck’s novel News From Paraguay, so I was interested to pick up her latest work, The House at Belle Fontaine. It’s a quick read comprised of 10 stories. Generally I like to read short stories independently of one another, but because of the short length of the stories in the collection, I ended up reading several at each sitting.

Although every story is different, there is a similar tone throughout the book that lends a sameness to the stories, too. Almost every story takes place in a foreign locale–France, Antarctica, Thailand, Peru–and feature characters who have experienced some kind of personal loss or dissatisfaction. There are no successful relationships in any of the stories, no personal triumphs, and although I could appreciate Tuck’s writing I found myself being weighed down by the feeling of ennui that the stories evoked.

I also would have liked at least a couple of the stories to be longer, so that I had a chance to get invested in the characters to a greater extent. My favorites were “Lucky”, “The Riding Teacher”, and “Pérou”, but in each case I finished them feeling unsatisfied by the lack of closure, and each ends with sadness or tragedy. I think I might prefer reading one of Tuck’s longer works, provided there was some hope or growth for the characters.

I enjoyed the writing in The House at Belle Fontaine, but I ultimately found it to be a depressing reading experience and I’m not sure I was the best audience for this book.

Thanks so much to NetGalley, Edelweiss and Atlantic Monthly Press for providing me with a copy of this book.

Buy from The Book Depository*

*THIS IS AN AFFILIATE LINK, SO IF YOU PURCHASE AN ITEM USING IT, I WILL BE PAID A SMALL PERCENTAGE OF THE PURCHASE PRICE.