Those of you who follow my blog
regularly—yes, both of you—might have noticed I’ve missed a week or two in
posting something new. That’s because I’ve been in the Great Northwest—the damp and rainy Great Northwest—visiting family.
Whenever I travel to Springfield, OR, one of my favorite activities is
visiting my niece Amanda Bird’s Book Nest, which features “Fine Books, Good
Reading.” Amy (family's name for her) has a wonderful selection of quality secondhand books and collectible
volumes, and I always find way more books there than I can possibly afford to
buy or find time to read.
On this trip, I narrowed my choices
to two books, one of which was Maeve Binchy’s Minding Frankie. I agree with Kirkus
Review’s assessment that Minding
Frankie is “cheerful, read-by-the-fire comfort.” There is also plenty of
laughing out loud. And I’m as much a fan of Binchy’s style as I am her content.
The author is a genius at revealing characters through their actions. Talk
about “show and don’t tell,” Binchy has the art mastered. In the past, several
of my friends have suggested I read Binchy,
but you know how it goes—so many good books, so little time. I never quite made
it around to giving her a try. But the upside of rain and damp on a vacation is that it provides a lot of downtime--time to read. Now I’m hooked on Binchy and will be reading more of her work.
The second book I chose was Letters to Alice on first reading Jane
Austen, written by Fay Weldon and published in 1983. While based on a fictional
premise—Weldon isn’t really writing to her niece and, in fact, doesn’t even
have a niece named Alice—this book is mainly non-fiction. In a collection of
essays, Weldon shares her thoughts on writing and
on reading literature—many works of
great literature, not just Jane Austen’s. In a review in The London Times, Fiona McCarthy wrote, “...the belief that books
can actually change us, have the power to improve us, animate this work...” If
you are a Jane Austen devotee, an aspiring writer, or a bibliophile in general, I know you will enjoy her witty and insightful comments. Like Binchy, she also provides many laugh-out-loud moments. And you’re in luck. It can be ordered on Amazon!
I sat down to write this post, fully intending
to grouse about how a blog is not a taskmaster, how I’m not going to be a slave
to it, how I do have a life....in
short, making excuses about why I haven’t blogged. But I enjoyed these books so
much, I just had to share. Don't despair. The grousing will come later.
If you’ve read either of these authors, I’d
love to read your input about them...kind of an on-line book club meeting!
