How the Penguins saved Veronica - Hazel Prior
                   Newest on TBR

#OUABC - June (fun gifts)

Delightful story about Veronica, 85 years young, who goes to Antarctica to visit penguins and falls in love with a baby penguin. (So did I )   She also talks about her past, her estranged family ,& why she has closed herself off from everyone.

Goodreads says:
Eighty-five-year-old Veronica McCreedy is estranged from her family and wants to find a worthwhile cause to leave her fortune to. When she sees a documentary about penguins being studied in Antarctica, she tells the scientists she’s coming to visit—and won’t take no for an answer. Shortly after arriving, she convinces the reluctant team to rescue an orphaned baby penguin. He becomes part of life at the base, and Veronica's closed heart starts to open.

  The Aviator's Wife - Melanie Benjamin
                     Historical Fiction

Interesting read about Anne Morrow Lindbergh.  Her life and marriage to the American hero , Charles Lindbergh.  Their lack of privacy, her expectations from her husband and the American public and the kidnapping and murder of her first born child.

Goodreads:
 When Anne Morrow, a shy college senior with hidden literary aspirations, travels to Mexico City to spend Christmas with her family, she meets Colonel Charles Lindbergh, fresh off his celebrated 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic. Enthralled by Charles’s assurance and fame, Anne is certain the aviator has scarcely noticed her. But she is wrong. Charles sees in Anne a kindred spirit, a fellow adventurer, and her world will be changed forever. The two marry in a headline-making wedding. In the years that follow, Anne becomes the first licensed female glider pilot in the United States. But despite this and other major achievements, she is viewed merely as the aviator’s wife. The fairy-tale life she once longed for will bring heartbreak and hardships, ultimately pushing her to reconcile her need for love and her desire for independence, and to embrace, at last, life’s infinite possibilities for change and happiness.
               

  The Big Over Easy - Jasper Fforde
            Oldest on TBR

Just a fun, quirky book about the fall of Humpty Dumpty.  Detective Jack Spratt and Mary Mary from the Nursery Crime Division, are on the case.
Did Mr. Dumpty fall or was it something more sinister?? 
Detective Spratt has a bit of a reputation as he helped catch the psycho serial killer, The Gingerbread Man.
As I said it is a bit quirky, but it got tiring near the end.  I will read the second in the series (thank goodness there are only 2 in the Nursery crime series) titled The Fourth Bear. 

Goodreads:

It's Easter in Reading—a bad time for eggs—and no one can remember the last sunny day. Ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III, minor baronet, ex-convict, and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. All the evidence points to his ex-wife, who has conveniently shot herself.

But Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant Mary Mary remain unconvinced, a sentiment not shared with their superiors at the Reading Police Department, who are still smarting over their failure to convict the Three Pigs of murdering Mr. Wolff. Before long Jack and Mary find themselves grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, bullion smuggling, problems with beanstalks, titans seeking asylum, and the cut and thrust world of international chiropody.

 A Brush with Shadows - Anna Lee Huber
              Series

Ah, It is so nice to visit with old friends!
Lady Darby and Sebastian Gage!!
This is the 6th in this delightful series. We travel to Ireland and learn more about Sebastian's past.

Goodreads:

Sebastian Gage returns home to battle the ghosts of his past and prevent them from destroying his future with Kiera in the latest exciting installment in this national bestselling series.

July 1831. It's been fifteen years since Sebastian Gage has set foot in Langstone Manor. Though he has shared little with his wife, Lady Kiera Darby, about his past, she knows that he planned never to return to the place of so many unhappy childhood memories. But when an urgent letter from his grandfather reaches them in Dublin, Ireland, and begs Gage to visit, Kiera convinces him to go.

    The Mothers - Brit Bennett
               Debut

Oh, Nadia, Nadia.!
 My heart hurt for you when your mother committed suicide and you were only 17.  Then I was rooting for you when you went off to college, but you disappointed me in your late 20's.

Having said all that, I still did not feel connected to any of the characters and ALL of their drama.  Another in the Domestic Fiction Genre.
I do look forward to reading "The Vanishing Half" by Ms. Bennett.

Goodreads:
It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance—and the subsequent cover-up—will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. As Nadia hides her secret from everyone, including Aubrey, her God-fearing best friend, the years move quickly. Soon, Nadia, Luke, and Aubrey are full-fledged adults and still living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully maneuver, and dogged by the constant, nagging question: What if they had chosen differently? The possibilities of the road not taken are a relentless haunt.

    The Day the World came to Town - Jim Defede

#monthlykeywordchallenge - June

What awesome people live in Gander , Newfoundland and the surrounding towns.  When 911 happened, 38 planes were forced to land in Gander. The townspeople welcomed them with open arms, fed them, clothed them, and even invited some of these strangers into there homes. 

I hope to see the musical that is inspired by this book.

Goodreads :
"For the better part of a week, nearly every man, woman, and child in Gander and the surrounding smaller towns stopped what they were doing so they could help. They placed their lives on hold for a group of strangers and asked for nothing in return. They affirmed the basic goodness of man at a time when it was easy to doubt such humanity still existed.

       The Family Next Door- Sally Hepworth

                         New Author

If you like the idea of living in suburbia on a cul-de-sac and knowing everything about your neighbors then this book is for you.  Except ,  the neighbors only let you now what they want you to know. Especially not their secrets and they all have secrets,  dark, dark secrets.

I am really hit or miss with this Domestic Fiction Genre and this one just didn't do it for me.

Goodreads says::

The small suburb of Pleasant Court lives up to its name. It's the kind of place where everyone knows their neighbours, and children play in the street.

Isabelle Heatherington doesn't fit into this picture of family paradise. Husbandless and childless, she soon catches the attention of three Pleasant Court mothers.

But Ange, Fran and Essie have their own secrets to hide. Like the reason behind Ange's compulsion to control every aspect of her life. Or why Fran won't let her sweet, gentle husband near her new baby. Or why, three years ago, Essie took her daughter to the park - and returned home without her.

As their obsession with their new neighbour grows, the secrets of these three women begin to spread - and they'll soon find out that when you look at something too closely, you see things you never wanted to see.

Shylock is My Name by Howard Jacobson

An adaptation follow-up to the Merchant of Venice. I spent much of the time confused as all get out! There was a Shylock, who ironically gives a mercy speech; a Simon Strulovitch who was the portrayal of Shylock; a Beatrice who is a character in a completely different Shakespearean play and references to Lorenzo, Antonio, Tubal from the play that this Shylock interacted with but weren't actually in this novel, but wait was Shylock actually Tubal to Strulovitch??

And don't get me started on the penises! I learned more about circumcision than I EVER wanted to know!

I did mark some quotes that I appreciated despite the novel being a bust for me.

Quotes: "'Their argument with us is whatever will serve their purpose at any given moment. They don't know what it is they can't abide, only that they can't.'"

"...in the outrage of loss, objects and people lose their delineation. The robbed commonly speak of violation, feeling the theft of things as keenly as an attack on their person."

"'The habit of conscientiousness in itself ministers to goodness.'"

"...when she can bring her new boyfriend round for me to vet. To vet? You get to examine him like a dog?'"

"'...there's no violence a man is not capable of when he believes he is acting as God would have him act.'"

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare Project 2020

I believe this may have been my very first Shakespeare play back in high school. I'm not sure I was a fan of it then, and it doesn't rank up there with my top choices even today.

This is listed as a comedy not because its funny but because it doesn't fit into the histories or tragedies (no one dies!) And it is a controversial play with scholars debating whether it is antisemitic or not. One must remember that antisemitism was common at that time (Jewish people had been expelled from England in 1290 and were not permitted to return until 1657). And while Shylock is not a likeable character, he isn't any worse than the others and he can be depicted as a sympathetic character.

There are some famous lines that come out of this play:

II.7

Prince of Morocco (reading from a scroll): "All that glisters is not gold." 

III.1

Shylock: "...I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs,

dimensions, senses, affections, passions, fed with the same

food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same

diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by

the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick

us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?

If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us,

shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we

will resemble you in that...."

IV.1

Portia:"The quality of mercy is not strain'd;

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes."

And then some not so famous lines that I enjoyed:

I.1

Antonio: "In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.

It wearies me; you say it wearies you;

But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,

What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,

I am to learn;..."

I.1

Bassanio: "Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing,...

...His reasons are as two grains

of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day

ere you find them, and when you have them they are not 

worth the search."

I.2

Portia:"...It is a good divine that follows his own

instructions; I can easier teach twenty what were good to

be done than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own

teaching...."

I.3

Antonio:"...The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

An evil soul producing holy witness

Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,

A goodly apple rotten at the heart."

III.3

Shylock:"...Thou call'dst me dog before thou hadst a cause,

But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs:..."

III.5

Lorenzo:"...Go in sirrah; bid them prepare for dinner."

Launcelot:"That is done, sir; they have all stomachs."

IV.1

Shylock (in response to him not showing mercy to Antonio): 

"...You have among you many a purchas'd slave,

Which, like your asses and your dogs and mules,

You use in abject and in slavish parts,

Because you bought them; shall I say to you

'Let them be free, marry them to your heirs - 

Why sweat they under burdens? - let their beds

Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates

Be season'd with such viands'? You will answer

'The slaves are ours.'...

V.1

Gratiano: "Why this is like the mending of highways

In summer, where the ways are fair enough."

I appreciate the courtroom scene and Portia sticking to the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law to avoid Antonio having to pay back his bond with his flesh:

IV.1

Portia:"...This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood:

The words expressly are 'a pound of flesh'

Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;"

Even though Shylock's life was spared and he was given back 1/2 his goods by the mercy of the Duke and Antonio, I thought the final punishment to Shylock was unduly harsh:

IV.1

Antonio:"...He presently become a Christian;..."

There's a lot to unpack in this play, so while its not my favorite and can be problematic, I did enjoy revisiting it!

The Last Letter from Juliet by Melanie Hudson

2020 Keyword Challenge - July (Boy, Last, Day, Into, Dear, Summer)
Once Upon a Book Club - January 2020
New Author

I desperately wanted to like this book. I've read some other historical fiction about female pilots in WWII and they are some amazingly brave and badass women! And I did enjoy the character of Juliet who was inspired by real life spitfire, Mary Ellis. But, there were a lot, A LOT of typographical and grammatical errors (that would have easily been found in a spellcheck or a good proofreader) that proved to be way too distracting for me.
Then of course there was some cheesy romance which I'm not a fan of: "..who, within less than an hour of meeting [    ], had fallen madly in love with her." Oh, come on!!!!

For those who enjoy a chick-lit romance, who can skim over poor editing, this may be the book for you. Sadly, I will probably not read Ms. Hudson again.

Summary from Goodreads: Inspired by the brave women of WWII, this is a moving and powerful novel of friendship, love and resilience.  A daring WWII pilot who grew up among the clouds, Juliet Caron’s life was one of courage, adventure – and a love torn apart by war. Every nook of her Cornish cottage is alive with memories just waiting to be discovered. Katherine Henderson has escaped to Cornwall for Christmas, but she soon finds there is more to her holiday cottage than meets the eye. And on the eve of Juliet’s 100th birthday, Katherine is enlisted to make an old lady’s final Christmas wish come true…

Quotes: "...remember that the first throws of love are nothing more than obsession...And never let a man know how deeply you love him, because once he has the upper hand, he will break your heart in a single moment and not even pause as he steps over your broken body to move onto the next."

"I realized that it was time to start looking forward rather than constantly glancing over my shoulder trying to keep focused view of the past in sight."

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare Project 2020

I've visited the Athens' woods of Midsummer on more than one occasion and enjoy it every time I'm there!

Rereading/listening to a familiar play with new insight allows you to discover something new each time. The Shakespeare Project introduction to Midsummer alerted the reader to be aware of character's consent or lack thereof throughout the play. (With everyone's eyes doused with love juice how can there be consent?)

From the beginning, Hermia is not permitted to marry Lysander, whom she loves as she is her father's property:

I.1.

Egeus: "As she is mine I may dispose of her;

Which shall be either to this gentleman [Demetrius]

Or to her death, according to our law.."

Lysander tells Hermia not to worry with one of the Bard's most famous lines:

I.1.

Lysander: "The course of true love never did run smooth;"

The fairies (Titania & Oberon) lament the human mortals and climate change:

II.1.

Titania: "Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,

As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea

Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land,

Hath every pelting river made so proud

That they have overborne their continents.

***

Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,

Pale in her anger, washes all the air,

That rheumatic disease do abound.

And thorough this distemperature we see

The season alter: hoary-headed frosts

Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose;

And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown

An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds

Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,

The childing autumn, angry winter, change

Their wonted liveries; and the mazed world

By their increase, now knows not which is which."

Helena meanwhile is pursuing a disinterested Demetrius:

II.2.

Helena: "The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.

Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me,

Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,

Unworthy has I am, to follow you."

And the insults, whew! They were fast and furious:

III.2.

Lysander: "thou cat, thou burr; vile thing, let loose,...

Out, tawny Tartar, out!

Out, loathed med'cine! O hated potion, hence!"

Hermia: "...you juggler! you cankerblossom!

You thief of love!...

thou painted maypole"

Lysander: "Get you gone, you dwarf;

You minimus, of hind'ring knot-grass made;

You bead, you acorn."

Theseus sums up what we've been discovering all along (and as Bottom says to Titania:III.1. "reason and love keep little company together now-a-days")

V.1

Theseus: "Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,

Are of imagination all compact.

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;

That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic

Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt.

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; 

And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's' pen

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

Such tricks hath strong imagination

That, if it would but apprehend some joy,

It comprehends some bringer of that joy;

Or in the night, imaging some fear,

How easy is a bush suppos'd a bear?"

A Lover's Complaint and

The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare Project 2020

 

I definitely prefer the Bard's plays over his sonnets and poems, but I am devoted to this year long project, so I ventured on to meet the Lover and the Pilgrim.

A Lover's Complaint is a fairly short narrative poem about a young woman lamenting that she was seduced and then abandoned by a lover, yet if he returned with his charms she would fall for him again.

Play or poem, I still do fall for the language charms of 'ole Will:

"Some beauty peeped through lattice of seared age."

"And comely-distant sits he by her side." (Ah, social distancing of the 1600's)

"Loved lacked a dwelling and made him her place

And when in his fair parts she did abide,

She was new lodged and newly deified."

"O, that infected moisture of his eye,

O, that false fire which in his cheek so glowed,

O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly,

O, that sad breath his spongy, lungs bestowed,

O' all that borrowed motion seeming owed,

Would yet again betray the fore-betrayed

And new pervert a reconciled maid."

***********************************************************************************

The Passionate Pilgrim is a series of poems, similar to the sonnets (only 20 this time) though they were not all authored by Shakespeare.

One in particular appears here in a brief form but has been attributed and published separately by Christopher Marlowe

#19

"Live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove."

A common theme in Shakespeare's plays appears here - lies and love.

#1

"When my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her, though I know she lies,

***

Therefore I'll lie with love and love with me,

Since that our faults in love thus smothered be."

And why is the bad angel the woman??

#2

"My better angel is a man right fair,

My worser spirit a woman coloured ill,

To win me soon to hell, my female evil

Tempteth my better angel from my side."

And yet again a disappointing lover (though this may not be the Bard's work)

#7

"Fair is my love but not so fair as fickle,

Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty.

Brighter than glass and yet as glass is brittle,

Softer than wax and yet as iron rusty:

***

She burnt with love as straw with fire flameth,

She burnt out love as soon as straw out-burneth:

She framed the love and yet she foiled the framing,

She bade love last and yet she fell a-turning,

Was this a lover or a lecher, whether

Bad in the best, though excellent in neither."

Lamenting youth (again, unknown if Will's work)

#12

"Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather,

Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare.

Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short,

Youth is nimble, age is lame;

Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold,

Youth is wild and age is tame."

Beauty is fleeting (Will? Who knows?)

#13

"Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good,

A shining glass that fadeth suddenly,

A flower that dies when first it 'gins to bud,

A brittle glass that's broken presently,

A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,

Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour."

#20 is most likely by Richard Barnfield about friendship

"Every one that flatters thee

Is no friend in misery.

Words are easy like the wind,

Faithful friends are hard to find:

Every man will be thy friend

Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend,

***

But if Fortune once do frown,

Then farewell his great renown:

They that fawned on him before

Use his company no more.

He that is thy friend indeed,

He will help thee in thy need:

***

These are certain signs to know

Faithful friend from flatt'ring foe."

Dunbar by Edward St. Aubyn

Another Hogarth Shakespeare, this time the adaptation of King Lear. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. The main characters were there - dad, the 3 daughters, the loyal servant, the fool. There was not  the plucking of eyeballs, but there were other acts of violence and there was definite madness: both in Dunbar and comically and sadly displayed by Peter Walker.

Dunbar (the Lear of this novel) gives his business empire to his two daughters so there were aspects of stock takeovers, trusts, etc. that I got mired in.

All in all I appreciate the adaptation for that but not sure I would recommend the book to anyone other than a Shakespeare fan.

Summary from Goodreads: Henry Dunbar, the once all-powerful head of a global media corporation, is not having a good day. In his dotage he hands over care of the corporation to his two eldest daughters, Abby and Megan, but as relations sour he starts to doubt the wisdom of past decisions. [This is] an excoriating novel for and of our times - an examination of power, money and the value of forgiveness.