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Books We Read.
A continuation of Bibliophilia and Readings Part 1.
Dear bibliophile friends, any interesting books you're reading? From my lists below, continued from Bibliophilia and Readings (Part 1), can you identify books you have read, books in your shelves, books you're currently reading, books you want to read, books you're letting go, or...?
My letting go of books continues; rereading old ones to find out which need to stay.
August 2, 2024
The Shell Seekers is a 1987 family saga by Rosamunde Pilcher. It follows Penelope Keeling, an independent woman in her 60s living in her English cottage who looks back on her life, family history, and the choices that shaped her. The story moves between London, the rugged Cornish coast, and the Cotswolds. Recovering from a heart attack, she reflects on her bohemian childhood in London and Cornwall, an unhappy wartime marriage, and the one love of her life. A central conflict revolves around a valuable painting titled "The Shell Seekers" created by Penelope's late eccentric artist father, Lawrence Stern. Penelope deals with her three adult children who hold different view on what should happen to her assets and the priceless painting. Two of her children (Noel and Nancy) wants to sell the artwork, while Olivia the middle daughter remains grounded. Penelope is forced to decide how her family will move forward.
Flashback of Penelope's past life: her bohemian childhood in London and Cornwall, her unhappy wartime marriage to naval officer Ambrose Keeling, and her true, a tragic love affair with Richard Lomax, an officer who died during World War II. Penelope navigates her family's demands, and grows close to her gardener, Danus, and Antonia, a teenage daughter of an older man who has a significant romantic relation with Olivia. After she passes away from final heart attack, her will reveals that she distributed her estate to support Antonia and Danus, rather than to the children. The story captures deep themes of ageing, family estrangement, reconciliation, and memories. I find it heartwarming and nostalgic, then and now, rereading it after almost 30 years.
Trivia. Pilcher's novel The Shell Seekers has been adapted into two screen versions: the 1989 TV Movie starring Angela Lansbury as Penelope Keeling, and the 2006 TV Mini-Series with Vanessa Redgrave as Penelope Keeling.
July 10, 2024
Doris Lessing's 1996 novel Love, Again, is the story of Sarah Durham, a 65-year-old widowed theatre manager in London, who falls into a painful, consuming state of romantic passion. She is involved with a theatrical project, a play based on the life of Julie Vairon, a late-19th-century French-Martinican artist and composer who died by suicide in 1912. On the production, she finds herself overwhelmed by turbulent and sexual longing and first falls for Bill, an androgynous American actor, and later, becomes involved with Henry, a married director. The creative and emotional turmoil of the project touches everyone. After the theatrical production ends, Sarah moves past the destructive whirlwind of romantic longing. She does not find a fairy-tale romance, instead, steps in her later years with a clear, unsentimental understanding of human love and herself. The story explores female desires, aging, unrequited love, and how childhood patterns shape adult relationships. It is thought provoking, yes, however, I feel a lack of warmth in the exploration of aging, and unsettled with a seemingly cold dissection of romantic failure.
June 29, 2024
The Snow Queen was published by Michael Cunningham in 2014, succeeding his famous Pulitzer Prize--winning The Hours. It is a character-driven novel set in New York City beginning in November 2004. Loosely inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale of the same name, the story explores mortality, love, art, and search for transcendence. The story revolves around four characters: Barrett Meeks: A gay man in his late 30s who has just endured another painful romantic breakup; Tyler Meeks: Barrett's older brother, a struggling, blocked musician; Beth: Tyler's fiancée, who is facing a terminal cancer; and Liz, Barrett’s older, free-spirited boss and family friend.
The novel opens with Barrett Meeks walking through Central Park after a breakup and looks up to see a mysterious, pale aqua, godlike light hovering in the sky. He is not religious, but the event leaves a deep, and a quiet sense of spiritual awakening in him. In Brooklyn, Barrett moves into the spare room of the cramped Bushwick apartment shared by Tyler and Beth. Tyler is under immense pressure to write a wedding song for Beth before her health fades, but he suffers from severe creative paralysis. As Beth's illness progresses, the characters deal with their fears in different ways. Tyler turns to drugs, convincing himself that mind-altering substances will unlock his creative genius. Barrett, haunted by his Central Park vision, quietly begins exploring Christianity and spiritual meaning. Beth eventually dies. Barrett, Tyler, and Liz meet to scatter her ashes. Barrett and Tyler move out, to different apartments. Spanning several years, the novel tracks the delicate, messy ways the four characters support each other as they confront aging, unfulfilled ambitions, grief over their past, and the harsh fragility of ordinary life. I find it quite sluggish compared to Cunningham's earlier work, I relate to its delicate prose and quiet meditation on midlife, mortality, and love.
May 13 2024
Angel is a 1994 novel by British author Anita Mason. The story is loosely based on the life of Third Reich heroine Hanna Reitsch (1912–1979), a famous female Nazi test pilot caught up in evil, visceral realistic novel. It starts with blonde, blue-eyed Frederika "Freddy" Kurtz, her childhood as she defies her physician father's disapproval to become a pioneering glider and chief test pilot for Hitler's air force. Because of her exceptional abilities, she becomes something of a celebrity in a male-dominated military world, she interacts with top Nazi figures (including Hitler and Himmler) and initially views the regime through the lens of idealistic national regeneration. Freddy thinks she is a man, shuns romance till she realises she prefers her own sex, and has no emotions whatsoever. She tests a piloted version of the V-1 rocket and consorts with top Nazi officials, including a general who commits suicide after his tendered resignation is refused. When a plane she is testing almost crashes, the novel tells nothing of what she feels.
Frederika's perspectives is repelled by the Nazis' brutality when she visits the Russian front and witnesses civilian women stripped naked and gassed to death in an SS van. Realizing she is complicit in evil, she transitions to working as an ambulance driver. Her live-in lesbian love affair with a divorced neighbour ends when the woman, whose communist father was killed in a Nazi prison camp,walks out, fearful of endangering her. As the novel closes, Freddy, whisked away to Hitler's bunker, watches the chaotic days inside the Fuhrer's bunker, Hitler and Eva Braun, during their final, madness-filled days, as she narrowly escapes. The novel is clinical and lacks personal feel for characters. It's stoic. It's impassive. I find it lacking in little details to visualise my reading sensory experience. It's probably meant to be.
1 May 2024
Yesterday I decided to take a rest from my painting brushes to read Hayley Mills' book, Forever Young A Memoir. What a lovely memoir of a
Fourteen-year-old Judith Dunbar is left behind at a British boarding school (Saint Ursula's) when her mother and baby sister move abroad to join her father in Ceylon. At school, Judith befriends the spirited and wealthy Loveday Carey-Lewis and is invited to Nancherrow, the family's grand estate on the Cornish coast. Nancherrow becomes her emotional sanctuary and surrogate home. She grows attached to the estate, and also becomes infatuated with Loveday's brother Edward, forming a deep bond with the family.
As the threat of World War II looms over Europe, the carefree life at Nancherrow is upended. Judith matures into an independent woman and contributes to the war effort—serving as a WREN (Women's Royal Naval Service) and facing the harsh realities of service, losses, and separation across distant fronts brought on by the conflict. The family and estate endure the severe pressures of wartime rationing, the grief of losing loved ones, and the changing social landscape of Britain. The shadow of World War II breaks up the idyllic lifestyle.
The core themes of the story include: tracking Judith's transformation from a lonely, displaced schoolgirl into a resilient, independent woman; exploring the idea that "home" is defined less by a permanent physical location and more by deep emotional ties, stability, and loved ones; and the rich, detailed descriptions of the Cornish landscape, sea, and architecture act as a constant anchor through the turbulence of war.
By the end of the war in 1945, Judith has navigated profound personal trials, romance, and grief. The story concludes with her finding her true sense of identity, resilience, and belonging—returning emotionally and physically to the enduring landscape of Cornwall.
Pilcher's Coming Home is a massive in scope and size, spanning nearly 1,000 pages, functioning as a slow-paced, old-fashioned reading experience, a sprawling coming-of-age and wartime chronicle following a lonely 14-year-old at boarding school through World War II. heroine's. It's mainly for the lengthy size of the novel that I prefer The Shell Seekers, which has a standard, digestible length, a more intimate comfort read. is massive in scope and size, spanning nearly 1,000 pages. It functions as a slow-paced, old-fashioned reading experience that patiently follows its heroine through a decade of turmoil. I appreciate the rich emotional depth, rich narrative of the beautiful Cornwall landscape, and the sweeping coming-of-age story.
The book was adapted into a popular Coming Home TV serial in 1998 starring Keira Knightly, Peter O'Toole, and Joanna Lumley.
31 March 2024
Happy Easter to all my book lover friends! Mea culpa if I haven't any readings to share as I have been busy with my other love: watercolour painting. Soon my friends, soon. As I regularly cull books, it's but natural I re-visit those ones to let go. Last week, eight went, mainly writing books I no longer need. The book I was reading when my watercolour brush pens interrupted me was Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books, edited by Leah Price. Very interesting. Some of them reminded me of me. Why? Simply because personal libraries of some writers mentioned spotlight the same books I've kept through the years. The editor (or interviewer) muses on the history and future of the bookshelf, asking what books can tell us about their owners. Each writer provides a list of top ten favourite titles, offering unique personal histories along with suggestions for every bibliophile. Definitely, Unpacking will remain in my shelf.
16 February 2024
Apollo's Summer Look by British author Kathleen Conlon. Published by Collins, in London (1968). It is summer in a seaside town. Rose and Sally, down from their second academic year are on a working vacation. Also newly emancipated from the apron strings of their families, both friends are anxious for exciting experiences. Unlike 21 year-old Sally who falls in and out of love as regularly as she changes her hair-style, one-year younger Rose deliberately embarks on an affair, confident that by October she'll be able to return to university emotionally intact. The atmosphere is set when 40-ish Philip arrives from London. Philip, whose marriage is in the doldrums, is not averse to a little light amorous delight with so willing a young partner. When summer ends, Sally escapes emotional entanglements, but both Rose and Philip have realised that passion revolves where "no strings attached" is broken as it was made. The story reminds me of the movie, Interlude, starring Oskar Werner and Barbara Ferris (older sister of Pam Ferris). It is an old story told many times, but the author puts a pleasant spin.
11 Bookish Words for Book Lovers. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Accessed February 16, 2024
(c) February 15, 2024. Updated October 16, 2026. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.
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