ALL VIRAGO/ALL AUGUST

I know it is early yet, but I am getting excited and thought perhaps others were as well.

Do we have many coming to play this year?

I think I feel a yen to read Daphne du Maurier and Eudora Welty seems to be calling out to me as well. I don't yet know who else I will be reading other than Elizabeth Taylor of course.

How about the rest of you?

hugs to all,
belva

Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) I didn't do this last year - and really wished I had. I have so many Viragos to choose from. I will be busy compiling my list to read over August from now on. I am off work all of August -as I work in a school - so theoretically could read more than usual. Exciting!!

Ooooh! I'm glad to jump in. I have a whole stack of VMCs in ye olde TBR Mountain that are begging to be read. Can't wait!

Wow! Love the enthusiasm!~! Ali and Kas, you two are really ready to go. I hope I can keep up.
When you have some idea of what you want to read, would you share with us?
hugs,
belva

Well, I have a lot to choose from (59 unreads in all)! That might be the hardest part of trying to read AVAA (not all of the am actually Virago editions, however).

I have quite a few Virago books that are Penguin, Dial, etc editions. I don't tend to be a purist so I take what I can get and am dog-gone happy to have them. I love the Virago Green but it is not a must have. The book, however, is. :-)

I've been on a bit of a Harriet Martineau jag lately (I'm just finishing up Deborah Logan's The Hour and the Woman), and the two-volume Virago of Harriet Martineau's Autobiography (green covers) just came in the mail today, so I'll probably start with that. And continuing along the Brontëan line (Charlotte and Martineau were erstwhile friends until Martineau's unfavorable review of Villette), I've really got to get to Daphne Du Maurier's The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë.

Now let's see, for something I can cross-post to Fantasy Fans I'll go with Angela Carter's The Second Virago Book of Fairy Tales (green cover).

For some more Victorian literary biography, I've added Jenny Uglow's George Eliot to my list. (I've also got Uglow's Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories, but my copy's a really nice hardcover rather than Virago, so that would be cheating.)

And I'm also awaiting Elizabeth Taylor's Complete Short Stories (Virago Modern Classics) in the mail

So that gives me two volumes of Martineau, Du Maurier's Brontë, Carter's Second Fairy Tales, Uglow's George Eliot, and Taylor's Stories for a start.

I've also got a couple or more Virago piles I've got to get sorted and indexed, greens and blacks that I've picked up in the past few months at The Title Page and House of Our Own. It'll be nice to get a complete list so I can carry it with me and not wind up with future duplications.

And maybe I'm due for a re-read of Antonia White's Strangers, which I've got in both hardcover (with a really nice dust jacket) and Virago. (ETA: I've also got to get around to White's The Hound and the Falcon, but that would be a cheat since my copy's a hardcover with nice dust jacket, not the VMC.)

Sorry to post on here with a technical question but my LT groups page has gone haywire and is making me look at every post ever put on the Virago group, rather than posting just the latest messages. Does anyone know how I get it back to normal?

Wow! Mike, it looks like you have your whole month pretty much planned out. Such organization. I am impressed.
And no cheats............The Hound and the Falcon is a Virago even if the edition you have is not a Virago Press. So you can count it. I will be looking forward to what you have to say about that one.
hugs,
belva

Barb, you know me.........pretty much brain dead when it comes to computers. I would suggest Laura or Jill offhand and I am sure there are a lot of others who can help you.
That is just weird!~!
Ask on the Summer thread perhaps. Sorry I am of no help.
blub u

I know Belva - I had to come on this one as I had to scroll down for something on the list that I knew was current. I am currently being presented with every thread (and every message) from the year dot.

Ho ho - just pressed every button and got it all back as it should be. So ignore me!

>12 romain:: whew! 'cause I was baffled!

I had to press last message to get rid of all the others.

I'm ready to join in this year. I've started to put together a stack, which so far includes:
The orchid house
The stone angel
Pirates at play
Mad Puppetstown
and the Elizabeth Taylor August title for the group read.

Next year I'll join in! This year I have too much to read for my thesis, sadly.

>14 romain:: aha, OK. Yes, basically you can click on any of the headings at the top of the list of messages (topics, unread messages, last message) and it will sort the messages in order based on that column. I always sort by last message too, so the newest stuff is at the top.

Count me in! I've drifted a bit from my all-Virago year, so this will be an excellent rebound. Plus, it sorta gives me permission to continue drifting a few weeks longer.....

Happy for you Barb. I was totally discombobulated.

Sorry Simon. We will miss you but will be happy to see you next year. Good luck with your thesis man.

Looks like you are at the ready Saker and you too truffler. Good to see you here, both of you.

I will join in this partially but I have so many books on my TBR pile I don't know that I will be able to ready entirely Virago. Having said that, a lot of them are nice green volumes so maybe I will manage it!

I will join in, I'm sure I will have some Viragoes in my next batch of reading!

Yep, I'm in. Haven't decided yet, but I'll try to catch up on some Taylor I missed, maybe one Maggie Keane, a Sackville-West, and I don't know....

Oh dear oh dear oh dear......... I have the world's most wonderful stacks of unread VMCs, and I'll get to one, I expect. And I expect that it will be In a Summer Season. Then I'll have to see. (I get myself so entangled in my lofty ambition that I end up not reading anything.... I'm hoping to be tutored through The Fabric of the Cosmos in August {!} and I don't know what I'll have left for regular good stuff.)

I'm in Belva but I will be reading only stuff I want to read, so no promises how many I'll get to. But I also have a massive pile of unreads so really should try for half a dozen.

@ romain:
Why on earth (excepting for uni) would you read 'stuff' that you don't want to read? Life is way too short for that Barbara! Do please, read only those book that you have a yen for at the moment. That is how my best plans go awry............I plan what I am going to read and then something else looks/sounds better so I read it. Or my mind goes to a place that needs comfort, peace and tranquility so I grab that. "I does what I needs to" my dear, and blessings on you.
hugs,
belva

25> "Why on earth (excepting for uni) would you read 'stuff' that you don't want to read?"

Oh, I don't know. Sometimes I go on these obsessive-compulsive kicks. Right now I've got a project of finally reading Dickens (who I think is mawkishly sentimental) straight on through before I get too much older. :-0 I'm using the Oxford Illustrated, with all the Phiz and Cruikshank illustrations; I've gotten through The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist; and I'm now on Nicholas Nickleby (having so far omitted Sketches by Boz). I'll have to lay off of Dickens for August, though!

Belva - I am just not in the mood for any bummers at the moment. I just want to be entertained. I looked on my shelves this afternoon and I think I can find a few unread Viragos that will hit the spot. My problem is that I have read ALL the Viragos in my collection that appealed and I am now left with all the ones I didn't like the look of in the first place - ICB, Angela Carter, and things like The Gooseboy, which looks truly horrible! Has anyone read it?

I do have a Barbara Pym and a couple of DuMauriers however and I would be interested to hear from anyone who can recommend something funny.

Haha, I identify #27 - I have a huge pile of unread VMCs that Just. Don't. Appeal.

I shall be taking part but there are quite a few on my shelves that didn't appeal last year (or since) and probably won't this year! But I still can't resist a Virago that I don't have...

I'm in. I've been reading too much junk lately.

Barbara - I have an omnibus which includes The Gooseboy and after reading the description on the back cover, I pretty much decided to skip that one. I have yet to get more than two or three pages into ICB. As for something funny, I would recommend The Little Ottleys.

Barbara, what on earth does NOT appeal to you about Angela Carter?

My dear, really.......................................

@ #25:
Mike, I see your point. And duh!.........I do even do it myself. Such as having to read every Steinbeck, Woolf, Hemingway, Hoffman and yes, Dickens, etc. ever written. I always open my mouth before I think. hee hee

I no longer feel obligated to read the complete works of "great" writers I don't like. (I'm looking at you, Ernest Hemingway!) I used to, but now I feel if I've read a couple of their best works and still don't like them, why bother?

I went through my TBR bin this evening and Invitation to the Waltz and The Vicar's Daughter by E. H. Young made the short list. May Sinclair, Ann Bridge, and Dorothy Canfield are also on deck.

I'm still making my list. I usually read somewhere between 9 and 11 books in a month - so as I will be on holiday from work I am going to put 12 Viragos aside to read in August whether I will get to them all will be the challenge as one or two of the ones I am considering are thickish. So I am thinking about reading books by Elizabeth Taylor for our readalong - (I may read August's book and read The Soul of Kindness early as I am hosting it in September.) also considering things by Molly Keane Nina Bawden EH Young Rebecca West Dorothy Canfield Eudora Welty and Capel Boake.
Will finalise my list nearer the time.

Added Conversation Piece to the stack of potential AV/AA reads. And I'm thinking that I should have another go at The Crowded Street. I got a couple chapters in, then I got sidetracked and never went back to it.

Leseratte - Unfortunately I have read all three Little Ottleys. I am looking for something similar. Belva, Belva, Belva - I'll get you for that!

How about Emily Eden?

Dear Barbara;
Don't make promises you can't keep. I am runnin' scared. lol!~!
Ohhhhhhhh sometimes I just crack myself up. hee hee

@ #33:
Andrew, Andrew, Andrew; you don't love Hemingway? Well even though I do, I know a lot of people who find him the equal to my Melville whom I detest reading by the entire volume.
I rather like the the list you have going on there. I read my first Ann Bridge this year, Peking Picnic, and found it so beautifully done. I have yet to read her 'biggie', Illyrian Spring. I am really looking forward to it.

Ali,
You have certainly set yourself a lofty goal of Virago for the month. But I have no doubts you can do it. I am very fond of most of your author choices although I have yet to read anything by Capel Boake. I do have her Painted Clay. Perhaps I shall grab that for the month as well along with du Maurier, Welty and Elizabeth Taylor.

And if I hadn't given them away, I might perchance try Angela Carter. ☻

@ romain;
I have not yet read the Little Ottleys, but I find a great deal of humor in the books of Elizabeth von Arnim.

I think I have worked up a list of the Virago I wish to read in August and it goes something like this:

In a Summer Season by Elizabeth Taylor

The Ponder Heart by Eudora Welty
Losing Battles by Eudora Welty
The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier
The Doll: The Lost Short Stories by Daphne du Maurier
As Once in May by Antonia White
Illyrian Spring by Ann Bridge
The Little Ottleys by Ada Leverson

I had written a message about Painted Clay and then saw people's mention of it. When I had highlighted the book I found that there were no reviews of it nor any conversations about it. I wonder if anyone has read it as I'm thinking of buying it.

@39: Well, Belva, I almost kinda sorta liked The Sun Also Rises. Disliked A Farewell to Arms. To Have and Have Not was just plain dull (a rare instance where the movie was better). I couldn't even finish For Whom the Bell Tolls. At which point I decided that the three strikes rule applied and it was adiós, Ernesto. Thanks for playing, now go out and kill something, you big, manly brute, you.

@ # 45;
So you have tried or read his door-stoppers. But what about The Old Man and the Sea, A Moveable Feast, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories & perhaps The Garden of Eden? I love his short stories. And The Old Man and the Sea is one of my all time favorite books.

Wrong touchstone for The Garden of Eden and I am unable to correct it.

Okay, for you, Belva, I will read The Old Man and the Sea. We'll call it Ernie's Last Stand. If it fails to convert me, am I absolved?

Nooooo! Don't read The Old Man and the Sea. It is a HORRIBLE book about killing and quite the worst thing he ever wrote. That said, I like Hemingway very much and I also love his short stories, so not in total disagreement with Belva.

Belva dahling! You must read The Little Ottleys. It is hilarious. I would also advise you not to read all the Wests in a row. Too much! Space them out. Read Illyrian Spring instead and while you are LOVING it, think of me searching amongst my boring Viragos for something I can stand to read.

Perhaps we can start the collected works of Angela Carter once we are through with Taylor. Of course I won't be taking part, having hanged myself in the woodshed, but you might like it.

Nooooooooooo way Barbara. I will be hanging in the woodshed right beside you but Andrew might like it. lol!~!

AND THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA IS A WONDERFUL, THOUGHT PROVOKING STORY. QUITE THE BEST THING HE EVER WROTE! And it is a short story so there!

I must find The Little Ottleys series books numbers 1 through 3 as the one named is the only one I have and is # 4 so I cannot begin with that one. I am off shortly to find the other 3. Because I do respect 'most' of your advice regards literature.

And I will think of you whilst reading Illyrian Spring.

hugs,
belva

And Andrew, if The Old Man and the Sea does not convert you to at least his short stories, yes, you are off the proverbial hook. If 'Ernie's Last Stand' doesn't work for you all is forgiven and you are definitely absolved. We can't all like the same books. I love the diversity here on L.T. If we all liked the same books, what boring discussions there would be.
hugs,

#49 In there series information The Little Ottleys is labelled as an omnibus of the the three books: Love's Shadow Tenterhooks and Love at Second Sight, so perhaps you have them already, Belva.

I was telling a work friend about my decision to give Hemingway one last go. Her comment: "Friends don't make friends read Hemingway." The Old Man and the Sea was one of the many books in high school which I refused to read - Moby Dick and Cry, the Beloved Country were two others. And The Magus. I read as far as the reference to the heroine's "oxymoronic eyes" and thought "Screw this, I'm going back to Oscar Wilde." I was an awful teen.

Your friend is exactly right. Friends do not 'make' friends read anything. So take her/his advice and please don't read it until you 'want' to. The Moby Dick thing I totally get as well. Have attempted that read so many times I have lost count. I really like the way it is written but I just have a block there. Cry, the Beloved Country is another of my very favorite heart felt books. So perhaps you should not read The Old Man and the Sea. And perhaps I should attempt Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only one I've read and I have read it several times beginning in Junior High when it was required reading. I still love it.
I am sorry that I rather 'insisted' that you read more Hemingway. A friend would and should not do that. Thinking about it, encouraging someone to try a book that you read and thought they may like is very different than insisting that they try one of your favorite authors AGAIN still yet! In fact that is kind of a bitchy thing to do.



most humbly,

Belva, please, no apologies, I only mentioned mentioned that because I thought it was funny.

But I just insisted Belva read Illyrian Spring for her own good! (In George Costanza's voice) 'Was that wrong?'

Andrew - your friend's comment was funny. I'd rather hang myself in the woodshed than read another Angela Carter... Thomas Hardy... Joseph Conrad. And I insist I am right about all 3.

No hanging oneself in the woodshed, please. Unless, of course, said woodshed is on a deserted isle and the only books on the shelves are Danielle Steele novels and German translations of Henry James.

LOL!~!
Barbara, you can do no wrong. You know that.
And Andrew, I appreciate you sharing that comment with me, humor or not. It gave me food for thought. There is a big difference between suggesting/referring and shoving down one's throat.
I cannot begin to imagine German trans of Henry James; rather gives me the creepies....................

So, after much agonizing, I've worked out a list of possibilities for August:

Peking Picnic by Ann Bridge
The Brimming Cup by Dorothy Canfield
Conversation Piece by M. J. Farrell
The Tortoise and the Hare by Elizabeth Jenkins
A Pin to See the Peepshow by F. Tennyson Jesse
Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann
One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes
The Three Sisters by May Sinclair
A View of the Harbor by Elizabeth Taylor
Beyond the Glass by Antonia White
The Vicar’s Daughter by E. H. Young

There's a German bookstore near the Centre Pompidou close to the apt. I rented in Paris. They had a copy of The Wings of the Dove (Die Flügel der Taube) and of course I had to check it out. Henry James in German is every bit as horrific as you might imagine. Needless to say I did not buy it.

Of your list Leseratte2, I have loved every single one of them that I have read thus far. I hope you do as well. I have added Ann Bridge's Illyrian Spring to my list (encouraged by an L.T. member) and having loved Peking Picnic so very much. Bridge is such a treat.

Only three of the authors on my list are new to me - Bridge, Jenkins, and Panter-Downes. With Rosamond Lehmann week approaching I will probably read Invitation to the Waltz next. Since Ann Bridge gets such consistently good reviews here, I may officially start AV/AA with Peking Picnic.

@ # 51:
Kerry;
You were just too right my dear. My The Little Ottleys is the omnibus though it doesn't indicate so excepting listing all three stories in the Table of Contents. I am jazzed as so many of you seem to like this one. Thank you so much for your input. I love our Virago group. One gets so much help and encouragement here. A very good place to call 'home'.

@ romain;
Thank you my dear for giving me the 'eye-worm' so to speak. With Kerry's help I am adding The Little Ottleys to my August listing.

hugs ladies,

@ # 44:
kayclifton;

I did find this single review of Painted Clay. I hope it helps you to decide.

"First published in 1917. Set in Melbourne, which is lovingly described. After a sad and restrictive upbringing, Helen Somerset gains her independence. Women's lives were hard, their only choices marriage or menial, underpaid work. The story was entertaining, and I hoped that life would work out well for Helen, but the pictures of the city and the lives of working women were what held my interest."
And the reader did give it 4 stars I believe.

Has anyone else out there read Painted Clay and can help kay out with any info or descriptiveness on the book?

You will not be disappointed by The Little Ottleys, I am sure, Belva. All three novels are delightful. I enjoyed them so much that I hunted down Leverson's other three novels.

Oh, these sound good. Just right for good summer reads. I can hardly wait for August to arrive. Thank you.

Aha - looks like I might hit the lovely hardback of The Tortoise and the Hare in August and, if I read a LOT, I might get to a little nest of Viragoes from my Stratford trip with dear Elaine.

Belva, I did myself a good turn, too. When looking for a (hopefully, free) edition for my kindle I searched for The Little Ottleys and found nothing, but searching for the individual titles has got them for me. I'd still like a Virago copy but I shall be able to read the story during August.

Ah, LyzzyBee, you are just so fortunate to be able to spend time with our inveterate & indubitable Elaine. Enjoy your 'little nest of Viragoes'.

CD, how very clever of you. I never would have thought to do that. Lovely that you will get to read the book you chose for AV/AA.

I have finalised my list and written a little blog post about AVAA.

http://heavenali.wordpress.com/2012/07/21/looking-ahead-all-viragoall-august/

I still don't exactly know what Virago is, but looking at the Wiki I see at least 4 titles I may be able to read in August:

Pat Barker - Union Street
Daphne du Maurier - Rebecca
Winifred Holtby - South Riding
Rebecca West - The Return of the Soldier

69: I really enjoyed reading your blog post, Alison and loved the montage at the top.

70: Joyce, Virago really only means the book has been published by them though we often also use it as shorthand for Virago Modern Classics which are (mostly) written by women. Many were previously out-of-print before being re-discovered by Virago and some of these are out-of-print again after being picked up by and then dropped by Virago!

Your choices look great. Enjoy!

61: I'm wondering why I didn't enjoy The Little Ottleys trilogy as much as everyone else. It had all the ingredients of a book I usually love!

62: I'm sure I read something on LT about Painted Clay which made me order my copy from Amazon market place but I can't find it now! Maybe I'll read it this August and let you all know what I think. The only other book I've sort of decided on is A Pin to See the Peepshow after reading Heather and Karen's reviews.

Ooh, I know this isn't really the right thread to report this in but Mr Dragon has just this very minute returned from a car boot sale brandishing a shiny green VMC in excellent condition which I don't already have! Closer inspection has revealed it to be None Turn Back by Storm Jameson. Hmm, interesting that this should turn up the very moment I am considering which Viragos to read. Should I be reading Storm Jameson in August? Do I really want to?!

Oddly enough, I was considering the Storm Jameson trilogy for August myself - I got one of the books in lovely condition from a local charity shop so of course I had to track down the other two! I hope you love A Pin to See The Peepshow - I think it's one of the best books I've ever read.

(Glad you have Mr. Dragon trained in the art of Spotting the Right Books to Buy At A Sale!)

I have nothing set aside but will be dipping into the bookcase. Joyce - I have Liza's England by Pat Barker still on my shelves and last year I read Blow Your House Down as part of AV/AA. Pat Barker's not often mentioned on this site but - for the uninitiated - she did win the Booker for the third book of the Regeneration Trilogy.

Soup - you will love Pin, but you will need tissues.

70,73>> And Union Street, if you're not aware, was made into the Fonda-DeNiro movie Stanley and Iris. (Great performances, but the movie itself was marred by a pie-in-the-sky ending. I don't know whether that was the fault of the screenplay or whether it came from the novel, which I haven't read.)

I think I read that Pat Barker said that Stanley and Iris was not much of a representation of her book. I do remember liking the movie but, having read the Regeneration trilogy, I realize pie in the sky has nothing to do with her style. I also read that it was very difficult for her to get Union Street published becaused it is realistic look at working class women. Sounds like my kind of book.

75>> That's reassuring. It's a shame what happened with the movie, because I think it was one of Fonda's Oscar-worthy performances -- worth a nomination anyway -- and also a great performance by DeNiro (whom I don't ordinarily care for). Actually, the Fonda movie-from-book I've really got to read (and I've started it once or twice but both times gotten distracted, and that's nothing against the book) is Harriette Arnow's The Dollmaker, but that's not Virago. I have the impression that the movie may have given The Dollmaker a bit happier (or at least more hopeful) of an ending, though.

71: Please do read A Pin to See the Peepshow Dee. I loved it when I was sixteen, and I'm re-reading it now and finding that it is still extraordinary.

#75 Oh that's really interesting - I have a copy of Union Street but I had no idea what it was about. That's another one for my Virago shortlist next month then.

It's been years since I read Union Street which I remember finding very grim. I did look forward to the movie and was wondering how Fonda and DeNiro were going to master the British accents. Of course it was set elsewhere and was so different to the book I wondered why they even gave Barker credit.

I'm getting a jumpstart on AV/AA and reading Winter Sonata. I think that My Brilliant Career might be next.

Virago August sounds like such a good idea. Have a few I've been considering --

Deerbrook by Harriet Martineau
Miss Mole by E.H. Young

And a few Mrs. Oliphant titles:

Salem Chapel
Hester
Perpetual Curate
Phoebe Junior
Rector and the Doctor's Family

I would like it to feel summery -- looks like maybe Deerbrook would be a good match.....Don't know that I'd get to read even more than one, so if someone recognizes a good "summery read" on the list please do tell!

81>> Let me caution you away from Deerbrook. It's an important novel in terms of its literary influence on the "domestic life" novels of Gaskell, Eliot, and the Brontes (especially, I think, on Charlotte's Shirley), but it's a really tedious read.

"The book is deficient in story," wrote Florence Fenwick Miller, Martineau's contemporary admirer and biographer. I don't want to post Fenwick Miller's entire critique to this thread because of its length, but go to the Gutenberg text of the biography and word-search Deerbrook.

I might add that I had difficulty with the Deerbrook Virago's type-face and switched over midstream to the Kindle version which let me adjust font-size and line-spacing, but that may just have been my eyes (or that I found the book tedious).

If you're reading Deerbrook for its literary influence, great, because it is an important novel historically, which is why I read it, but if you're looking for an enjoyable "summery read" I think you're going to be disappointed. And incidentally, I've got the two-volume Virago of Martineau's Autobiography near the top of my AV/AA list, and I adore (and have to get around to writing a 5***** review of) Deborah Anna Logan's critical biography The Hour and the Woman, so I'm not pooh-poohing Martineau. It's just that I think Deerbrook's interest is purely one of literary history, and Logan herself barely touches on Deerbrook in The Hour and the Woman, which should be a further caution.

EDIT to fix link.

I'm not sure if I will be able to stick only to Viragos but I am going to try and read a lot of them from my tbr:

Storm Jameson - None turn Back, Love in Winter, Company Parade
Barbara Comyns - Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead
Elizabeth Hardwick - Sleepless Nights
Ruth Adam - I'm Not Complaining

(There is a picture here: http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/all-viragoall-august-wel...

One day I will work out how to put a picture in here!!)

>82 CurrerBell: Thanks for the advice, and maybe I'll hold on to it until I can give it better attention, not when I'm looking for escapist reading! Appreciate it!

I will either start with Thank Heaven Fasting or my last Pat Barker, Liza's England.

Summery reads? Hmmmnnn. May I suggest:

Trooper to the Southern Cross
Illyrian Spring
Peking Picnic
Enchanted April
I Capture the Castle
Daphne DuMaurier
Celia Fremlin
Mary Hocking
Edith Wharton

all of whom you have probably read...

All of my Viragos are currently piled on the dining room table as the bookshelf that held them is in a room about to be painted. I'll have to peruse the piles and see what appeals for August.

Wow, going through the list of VMCs I got way too excited and planned all of these for the month:
Agnes Grey - Anne Bronte Audiobook
Blow Your House Down - Pat Barker
Delta wedding - Eudora Welty Audiobook
The Judge - Rebecca West Nook
Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister - Aphra Benn Nook
Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier Audiobook
The Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West Nook
South Riding - Winifred Holtby
The Stone Angel - Margaret Laurence
Union Street - Pat Barker
The Vet's Daughter - Barbara Comyns (my only actual Virago edition)

Who knows how many I'll finish.

You're a brave woman, tackling Aphra Behn. That's about 500 pp. of Baroque prose.

Oh, I didn't know the book was that long. Possibly I'll save it for the end of the month and see if I still have time for it then.

A good bet for Aphra Behn is Oronooko which is not very long and is one of the first books to sympathetically look at the plight of slaves in the new world -- though I'm not sure if it's a Virago or not.

>90 janeajones: Alas, it's not listed as a Virago.

>85 romain: I have only read two, but alas, don't have the other three. Will keep eyes out for them....

But maybe rereading I Capture the Castle would count? Such a wonderful book, it is worth reading again! Is there a rereading policy for AVAA? ;)

It wasn't on my original reading list, but after Invitation to the Waltz I'm in the mood for something lighter, so I'm going to give Diary of a Provincial Lady a try.

Thank you all for jumping in and making this thread so wonderfully informative and delightful. I have a very ill brother and the round trip to see him is over 3 hours so I am waylaid but I want and need to be there. His name is Joseph and he was 8 when I was born. My mother nursed me but he changed me and rocked me to sleep and was nearly literally my mother so we are very bonded yet at 73 & 65. Now it is my turn to rock him to sleep and help him exit as he helped me to enter. A wonderful brother. He took a lot of lumps protecting we younger 5 siblings from a 7th older and very mean brother.
Anyway, I so appreciate that you are all just moving along.
We shall have a wonderful Virago month yet.
hugs,
belva

Socks - all popular authors and most are in my local county library in non-Virago editions. May I also add The Wedding by Dorothy West, individual Nina Bawdens, and non-Viragos by Virago authors such as Ann Bridge (the Julia books) and Olivia Manning. Have you read The Balkan Trilogy? Sorry if you know them all well. Nothing worse than well-meaning people recommending books, when you're not in the mood for any of them.

Belva - thinking of you. Thanks for starting this thread. Is this year 3?

Started Liza's England last night and am finding it very easy to read. Like Socks I am looking for Virago-Lite and although Barker cannot be described as Lite, this is meeting the bill.

I am constantly amazed at the challenges the wonderful participants on the message board have faced. What life stories we could write! (Here's looking at you, Belva!) And so many others.... Plus there is the younger generation like Verity and Maren who have done so much good in such a short time. I salute you all!

My Virago list is really long

The Edwardians
A Pin to See the Peepshow
I Will Not Serve ...short
Sisters by the River ..short
Travel Light ...short
Plagued by the Nightingale ...short
Phoenix Fled
In a Summer Season
A Saturday Life
plus Taylor catch-ups

And I have to take a break because Jeremy just informed me that I won an ER copy of City of Women, a 400 pager about 1943 Berlin.

August is looking to be a very satisfactory, if challenging, month.

Belva -- a lovely tribute to your brother and your love for each other. Sending hugs your way.

Best wishes, Belva. Keep us posted when you have a chance and feel free to cry on us if you want.

Aw, Belva ... (((HUG)))

My thoughts are with you Belva. I lost my older brother 2 years ago. He was not always protective, in fact he was the source of woe for my sister and me frequently (he stole all the date cookies and wouldn't let us have any), but he grew out of that. He was so smart and brave, and the last thing he ate was a cookie.

Joyce, what a wonderful story. Was it a date cookie? I do hope so.

Thank you all for your thoughts and good wishes. The Big Plan isn't always our plan but we muddle through.

This is year three Barbara. I hope that all of you are enjoying it as much as I do. I read when Joseph rests as he can't always talk so I will get some Virago in.

Love your list Elaine as I do everything else that I know of you.

I wish I had a laptop but I don't. However I will at least be reading the posts and posting when I can. Enjoy your tomorrow.

hugs all round,
belva

Take care on your trip -- our thoughts are with you.

Best wishes, Belva.

Well, it's past midnight now, so I'm off to it. I just pulled, perhaps a bit randomly from one of the piles, Rebecca West's The Judge (Virago black).

Off and on, I'll probably take in a few stories at a time from the new Elizabeth Taylor anthology. I've got it in Virago, but I'm also going to get it from the Kindle store, because the Virago is quite oversized and won't be that comfortable a read, and I'll also have to crack the spine which I don't like to do.

Incidentally, the last book I just finished at a few minutes past midnight is Rachel Ferguson's False Goddesses (1923)(non-Virago), her first book, coming right before The Brontes Went to Woolworths (1931), which I plan to re-read for AV/AA. False Goddesses is a great 4**** read, the story of a teenage wannabe working in small-bit theatrical parts and dreaming dreams, which sometimes come to ironic, tragi-comic ends. I don't want to say more to avoid SPOILER, so I'll just observe that it does have some of the flavor of The Brontes, though perhaps a little more mournful than comic.

I had to buy a print-on-demand copy of False Goddesses, because that's absolutely all I can find anywhere, on Abe or BookFinder or Alibris or Amazon or anywhere else. At least, though, it's a pretty good facsimile and there's no text missing.

ETA: Oh, and this isn't a SPOILER or at least not very much of one, but False Goddesses does include some Boston errm ... relationships? ... "marriages" definitely isn't the word, but suitably portrayed to avoid the censorship.

//Belva, no it wasn't a date cookie. My mother's date cookies were her secret recipe, and like many of my mother's secrets, they remained secret.//

I don't know how well I'm going to do on Rebecca. So far reading it is like nails on a chalk board. I think of all the ridicule I've heaped on poor Bella Swan from the Twilight series, and it looks like we have the same character here, but everyone seems to think quite highly of her. She's driving me nuts, and Max is no better than Bella's Edward. The only characters do far I'm interested in are Mrs. Danvers and Max's sister. It's going to be a long uncomfortable read for me, I'm afraid.

I have a lot of commitments this month, but I have two Viragos that will definitely get read: Mad Puppetstown by M. J. Farrell (Molly Keane) and Plagued By The Nightingale by Kay Boyle. I'd like to say The Loving Spirit by Daphne du Maurier, too, but I don't think I'll get to it.

Was The Loving Spirit ever a green cover? I can only find it in black.

Eta: While there is talk of Rachel Ferguson, possibly a stupid question: is Sara Skelton: The Autobiography Of A Famous Actress actually an autobiography, or a work of fiction?

106> Liz, not a "stupid question" at all. It was stupid of me to say that The Brontes was Ferguson's second book. I was just going on a quickie Wikipedia check without doing my homework, and I see Sara Skelton isn't even listed in Wikipedia.

Checking my copy of Sara Skelton, I see it has a publishing date of MCMXXIX so it in fact predates The Brontes by two years! I've been planning to do a "straight through" read of Ferguson, so I'll have to take in Sara Skelton in September.

From CHAPTER I (My Family--The Lyons Mail--The Tragedy of Lucy):

It was either the (then) speaker of the House of Commons or the President of the Royal Academy who suggested to me that I should write my stage reminiscences. I think it was the latter, Sir Chaffery Titfinch, that splendidly handsome old man, whose incomparable studies of insect life have so influenced my own.
***
Certainly the Skeltons were an uncompromising lot--there was a "Singe-the-Devil Skelton" in the time of Henry the Eighth who was put down with the monasteries by that monarch, and subsequently put to death after taking refuge in an oak chest in Ghilliegaff Castle, when the phrase "a Skelton in the cupboard" became famous. It is currency to this day.

I think was can safely say, "spoof."

Ferguson also wrote another autobiography of sorts, memoirs of a fir-tree: the life of Elsa Tannenbaum, which seems to have been a popular reading "For those of Riper, Half-ripe and Over-ripe years" since Elsa's first appearance from her primordial forest on that One Thousand Nine Hundred Forty Sixth anniversary of a certain Bethlehemic birth. Given its late date in the Ferguson calendar, a "straight through" reading of our author might place my reading of Elsa's memoir in the solsticean season next upcoming. Else, for Elsa, an exception in the order of reading might need be made that she may accompany Tiny Tim on his elfin circuit.

The impression I get is that Sara Skelton is often left out of the lists of Ferguson's novels because people think it is non-fiction; I posted that question here because the information out there is contradictory at best. And thank you for your comprehensive response! :)

Almost finished Liza's England but waylaid by women's gymnastics at the Olympics.

Diary of a Privincial Lady had me laughing out loud on the bus this morning.

"Meet lady B., who says the servant difficulty, in reality, is non-existant. She has no trouble. It is a question of knowing how to treat them. Firmness, she says, but at the same time one must be human. Am I human? she asks. Do I understand that they want occasional diversion, just as I do myself? I lose my head and reply No, that it is my custom to keep my servants chained up in the cellar when their work is done. This flight of satire rather spoilt by Lady B. laughing heartily, and saying that I am always so amusing."

108> I'll fill you in more once I get around to reading it. And Wikipedia lists Elsa under Memoirs and Biographies!

>94 rainpebble:

A bit belated but my thoughts are also with you, Belva. I lost my elder brother tragically when he was 24 and I was 20.

I'm glad that you're able to be with Joseph in his last days. Take care of yourself.

I'm back from a month of canoeing a half a mile to the coffee shop each morning and gorging myself on Hilary Mantel and Thomas Cromwell, and after a long hiatus I'm ready for a month of Viragos. I'm halfway through A Favourite of the Gods, and then I may haul Mrs. Humphrey Ward's Marcella off the shelf to fill out the balance of the month.

I have been thinking about your brother Belva. My oldest brother had an enormous positive influence on me and a similar age difference to you and yours. He is in poor health at the moment, but not life threatening. But so much shared history, it doesn't bear thinking about.

Welcome back Rob. We've missed you.

Finished Liza's England which was excellent and very reminiscent of my own family saga, although my mob were East Enders rather than Northerners. A very easy read, and I looked forward to getting back to it.

Watching the Olympics and reading during the boring bits and commercial breaks. Started my first Storm Jameson, which I plucked randomly off the shelves. 50 pages in and enjoying it.

Which Storm Jameson are you reading?

Thinking of you, Belva. I have no siblings and it has brought home to me the huge losses as well as gains in having those family relationships. My thoughts are with you.

And I'm reading In a Summer Season but struggling with it a little ...

Best wished to you and your brother, Belva. I hope that you are able to make the most of your remaining time together.

My first book for the month is Rumour of heaven, which wasn't on my original stack, but jumped the queue after I saw the Beatrix Lehmann post on the VMC facebook page. The first section, which I read on the train this morning, is a portrayal of madness that puts me in mind of The yellow wallpaper. Which is a good thing (for me as the reader!)

118> I love the Virago cover of The Yellow Wallpaper, with the face looking out from the flowered wallpaper. Quite unusual.

And I'll have to check out Rumour of Heaven, which I don't have.

Currently reading Eliot Bliss's Saraband and loving it. It got turned off on Rebecca West's The Judge (>>104 CurrerBell:), at least for the moment, by its length. I'm sure I'll get back to it before month's end, but Saraband seems better for starting out. I was attracted by its back-cover description comparing it to Frost in May, though at least so far I wouldn't put Bliss anywhere near Antonia White (but that's no offense to Bliss).

>119 CurrerBell:: That is an excellent cover! The narrative style of Rumour of heaven and The yellow wallpaper are totally different; it was the symptoms described - the need to hide oneself away, to fade into the background for safety - that made me connect the two. I think the bulk of the novel will be about the next generation of characters though.

I enjoyed Saraband when I read it, but the use of "she" instead of her name when the narrative referred to Louie got annoying. (I had the same problem with Wolf hall, which does the same thing for Thomas Cromwell.)

Women Against Men Andrew. The first section has one of the best descriptions of the grief one feels when cheated on that I have read. I do not, however, like the lack of conversations. I'll let you know more when I finish it.

Currer - I have not read The Judge because it was judged unreadable by some of the people on this site. Can't remember why, but I do know I steadfastly ignore it when perusing the shelves.

I have read The Judge, but wouldn't recommend it as I found very bleak and depressing and likely to give mothers a bad reputation.

Started The Rector and the Doctor's Family last evening because it's short, so seemed doable. Interesting characterizations have emerged already, just three pages in! Maybe this will start off a Mrs. Oliphant jag.

107> Love hearing about Rachel Ferguson -- books are hard to come by. Thanks for sharing such good information -- will be on the lookout for more of her work -- had Brontes Went to Woolworths and a friend found me Stag at Bay and Late Widow Twankey a few years ago -- no touchstones for that title....

Best wishes to you Belva and your family.

I read In a summer season as my first book for AVAA as well as the ET readalong. I'll be starting Devoted Ladies by Molly Keane a little later.

After getting into a sixteenth-century frame of mind with Hilary Mantel, I'm also thinking about reading Kate O'Brien's That Lady, set in sixteenth-century Spain. I also just found this promo for a documentary about Kate O'Brien.

Barbara - Women Against Men was my intro to Storm Jameson as well. I liked it pretty well although I read it so long ago (at least 20 years) that I don't remember any specifics. Diary of a Provincial Lady keeps me laughing, which is good, because my Good Morning, Midnight glossary project does the exact opposite.

I stumbled at my first Virago of AVAA. The Getting of Wisdom just wasn't doing it for me. I realized about 80 pages in that I really didn't care what happened to the protagonist. :(

But I'm LOVING Full House. M. J. Farrell isn't perfect, but, like E. H. Young and Elizabeth von Arnim, I will read anything of hers. They're my three favorite Virago authors.

>126 rbhardy3rd: thank you for sharing the link to a Kate O'Brien FILM!!! Will watch for more about that!!

Just finished Saraband and gave it 4½****. I was attracted to it by its back-cover comparison with Frost in May, and my main reluctance at giving it 5***** is that it would put Bliss on equality with White, which I'm not willing to do.

I've seen some criticism of Bliss's use of the third person pronoun she instead of the name Louie, but I think this was the right tone for Bliss to take. While it did make it a little more difficult to read, or at least certainly forced the reader to play closer attention to who was being referred to, it gave a certain vagueness to the character of Louie, and that's precisely what her character was (until the climax with Barty, regarding which no more to avoid SPOILER).

On to Our Spoons Came from Woolworths. I've seen some cautioning against this one -- that the title may be more intriguing than the book -- but I've got to do it for Rachel Ferguson's sake! Anyway, it only a little over two hundred pages, so I should get it finished before the weekend's up.

I just finished The Return of the Soldier, my first Rebecca West and give it 5 stars. It's a perfect little story about life and what is important with no black and white view on anything. I liked it so much I dove right into The Judge and am so far not at all finding it unreadable. Speaking of the 17 year old main character, a budding suffragette, West writes: It was seventeen years since she had first taken up her seat in the world's hall (and it was none too comfortable a seat), but there was still no sign of the concert beginning. I'm only on page 17, maybe the unreadable part is coming.

I'm still suffering through Rebecca and finally, on the 9th CD of 13, it's getting good. If I hadn't heard that so many people whose opinion I trust really like it, I don't know if I could have forced myself past the wimpiness of the main character. Another problem is that, being a US citizen, I have a real difficult time with the British class system. In theory we are a classless society. Of course that theory isn't valid, as evidenced by our current presidential contender, but I think we like to value the idea of equality. I have a great deal of trouble with the view of an inherited upper class who own mansions that are visited by the public, who own great swaths of the countryside that they may or may not allow the public to access, yet they can't even seem to dress themselves or make themselves a cup of tea. I guess I'm just being chauvinistic. Well, at least I've stayed with it long enough to get to what I think it is people like about it.

I'm reading Rebecca for the first time, have no idea why it took me so long. What can I say? I love it

Joyce - You are supposed to read Rebecca as a teen and then re-read it as a guilty pleasure. I read it at 15 and had no problems with any of it. I re-read it a few years ago and still enjoyed it, while seeing everything you mention.

However, we had a similar debate on this site a few months ago about Gone With The Wind - a book I adored as a younger person but now find offensive. And last year I was the one hold-out against South Riding because the heroine, a supposed left wing activist, compromised her principles for love. It ruined the book for me. But Rebecca I can just read as escapism.

Supposedly, I've read Rebecca but i have no real recollection of it. Oops.

After finishing Full House last night , I started Violet Trefusis's memoir, Don't Look Back. It's Virago-adjacent, right? I'm loving it. I've already read Hunt the Slipper and found it a delight. What a character!

I continued with The Rector this evening explaining that it is All Virago All August.

"Viraugust?" queried dear husband.

Catchy -- thought I'd share it!

It's now after midnight here in the UK and I just had to pop in to say I just finished Devoted Ladies by Molly Keane and I absolutely loved it. Will review it sometime tomorrow.

"Viraugust" is great!!!

I finished Women Against Men this morning in bed. The book consists of 3 novellas. 2 were great, one not so much. The first two stories were both about adultery - 'sexual jealousy as animal pain' - the first from the point of view of the wronged wife, the second from the perspective of the lovers. Jameson writes with such brutal honesty they were, at times, difficult to read. Nevertheless I look forward to more from this author.

I finished Rebecca, no more Daphne du Maurier for me. I've started Union Street, and it really is grim but so far very good. It contains stories of several different girls and women. So far I haven't got to the one about Stanley and Iris.

139>> Thanks for posting about Union Street! I'd always just assumed it was a single novel/story. With the different stories, it might be something to read off-and-on along with something heavy like the two-volume of Harriet Martineau's Autobiography (or maybe Rebecca?).

I just ordered a copy on Abe, a book-club edition that also includes Blow Your House Down so I get a two-fer. Good price, hardcover w/dj, apparently published in cooperation with Virago. From a UK seller, though, so it won't come for a little while but maybe before the end of AV/AA.

My thoughts are with you and your brother Belva.

I've started Viraugust gently with Elizabeth von Arnim's The Solitary Summer which I've been enjoying so far. I have a long list of titles to try and get to this month including The Return of the Soldier, Union Street, Frost in May and In a Summer Season.

117: I struggled with In a Summer Season too-but I've enjoyed some of ET's other novels, so I guess it's a hit or miss for me.

119: Saraband is excellent.

128: Molly Keane is also one of my favorite authors! I'm thinking about reading Young Entry next after my current read.

Currently reading Bobbin Up, the second Australia-themed Virago I've read this month (after My Brilliant Career). Interesting to see how two novels set in the same county and featuring characters of the same socioeconomic class but 60 years apart can be so similar but so different at the same time.

Love the idea of "Viraugust!"

Just finished Our Spoons Came from Woolworths for a definite 5***** and posted a review.

I'm reading Elizabeth Taylor's Complete Short Stories off-and-on (using Kindle for an easier read than the somewhat cumbersome, oversized Virago), and I'll have to see what else I'm going to get on to. Maybe Antonia White's The Hound and the Falcon (not the Virago edition but a nice hardcover w/dj, previously owned by some Irish convent), or I might get started on Harriet Martineau's Autobiography: Volume 1 (Virago green).

ETA: Actually, the Kindle edition of Taylor's stories is also Virago-published, just electronic rather than paper.

I started and abandoned an audiobook of Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty. I saw one review compare her to Virginia Woolfe. Oh, dear, if that's true I'll never get through Woolfe because Delta Wedding was putting me into a coma. I've started an audiobook of Agnes Grey and liking it much better. I'm still going along through The Judge. Maybe Rebecca with the narrator's prolonged bouts of fantasy was worth something after all. I'm able to kind of zip through the fantasies of several characters to get on with the present tense of the book and like what I'm reading so far.

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I got a bit frenzied at the weekend because my Viragos were all over the place and had a bit of a tidy - post here:

http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/the-bookshelf-crisis/

and if this works, here is a picture of the newly organised shelf!:

(Yippee - I managed to post a picture!!!!!!)

NB - Note that Simon's sketch gets pride of place!

Great photo. It's always lovely to organise one's green spines isn't it?! I enlarged the photo on your blog so I could see Simon's sketch and spot what the titles were!

It is nice to put all the green ones together, although I have conflicting organisational wishes - I want to keep authors together but when they've got e.g. one Virago like Colette or Katherine Mansfield, I've split them up and put them with the green spines - I can feel myself getting a little ocd about this!

Between getting up this morning and getting to work, I'v managed to read the first five chapters of Good Behaviour which (obviously) I'm liking very much. I think I will add this to the list of VMC's I'm giving to my work friend as part of my campaign to convert her.

147 - how lovely, Karen! I feel all warm inside :)

Well, it just seemed so apt!

I've finished Rumour of heaven. While an interesting read, I have to agree that Beatrix was not as good a novelist as her sister. The strongest part of the book for me was the opening, which describes the mother's descent into madness and the family's retreat to a remote country house. After that, the action skips ahead some years to when the children are in their teens, and outsiders come to invade their sanctuary. For me, Lehmann is at her strongest when describing the lonely countryside and the changing seasons which provide a vivid background to the story. But Rosamond better portrayed the legacy of madness in The ballad and the source. Still, I'll rate Rumour with 3 1/2 stars.

Now on to In a summer season.

>150 Leseratte2:: I *loved* Good Behaviour, it was my second Molly Keane and convinced me I need to read everything I have by her.

Now reading Luminous Isle. i should probably be writing reviews of the Viragos I've been reading but I haven't had the time (trans: lazy).

>154 lauralkeet:: I am well on my way to *loving* Good Behaviour as well. I'm already 1/3 of the way through. This one is darker than her earlier works - almost in Barbara Comyns territory. I like it *much* better than the three earlier novels I've read, and I liked all of them very much.

I have to admit I am struggling - the first book of 2012 I am considering giving up on. Nearly 200 pages in (of 436) but Losing Battles seems aptly named as I feel I am fighting a losing battle with it. It just seems relentlessly tedious - am I wrong? Should I call it a day or carry on? I'm even thinking of taking a break with AVAA and reading something totally different. Oh what to do?

If it were me, I'd have abandoned it before now. As I get older, I feel I have less time to waste! So if I'm not enjoying it, I don't read it. Sometimes it's just the wrong time to read a book - I tried to start the Storm Jamesons but they just didn't click so I read a non-fiction instead, followed by a Golden Age crime which I couldn't get on with last time I tried but this time I flew through. I think a lot of is to do with mood, what you fancy etc. I'm trying to do AV/AA but I haven't been able to stick to it, I'm afraid!

It's not going to be All Virago All August for me either as I have some library book and reading group commitments but I'm hoping to read a few. Actually I'm kind of cheating and including A Note of Music even though I started it for Rosamond Lehmann week as I didn't finish it until August 1st. I've recently started this month's Taylor A Summer Season and am enjoying it a lot so far.

Next might be Blue Skies and Jack and Jill. It's one from my Bookbarn haul which will just get forgotten unless I read it soon and I see Christina has listed it on a TIOLI challenge. I would also like to read A Pin to see The Peepshow after all the good things I've heard about it.

Oh, definitely try to read A Pin - it's wonderful! And lucky you going to Bookbarn - it looks so fab from the website!!

I am a couple of chapters into Thank Heaven Fasting, along with everything else I am reading. I see AV/AA as a chance to prioritize my Viragos rather than read them exclusively. I am also too damned old to waste time on any book I am not enjoying. I read The Optimist's Daughter by Welty and did not like it enough to read another of hers. But, as Kaggsy says, it has everything to do with mood, circumstances, emotions. A couple of years ago almost everything I read for AV/AA seemed to be a book of cosmic significance, last year I read things like The Sheik and some of the VMC murder mysteries. It is what it is...

Well I have ditched Losing Battles and have taken up a Persephone instead as I have a gloriously high Persephone TBR, now reading Greenbanks will be back to some more Virago later in the month.

I think you have to be in the right mood and space for Losing Battles -- I read it when I was at a family reunion, and all the familial interaction really resonated -- although my family is Yankee (and Swedish), not from Mississippi. I loved it.

I'm afraid I'm having a hard time with AVAA, too. I've stumbled at several already, and can only hope it's because I've made a conscious decision to leave the ones I think will be best for later. I'm trying to work through the ones I bought solely for their green spines, regardless of subject or style. I'm just so afraid of the day when I realize there are no more Keanes or von Arnims left. I haven't even touched my growing stash of Holtbys.

Union Street was absolute gold. Wikipedia says that Pat Barker shopped this novel around to publishers for 10 years and was rejected by all until she finally sent it to Virago, so I'd say this was a pretty fitting read for the month. I think the other publishers rejected it because the women and girls in these inter connected stories don't act the way publishers assume we want them to act. A case in point is Iris, who I guess is the character on whom the movie Stanley and Iris is based, but very loosely. This is one tough cookie. She has a couple of the most quotable lines in the book. First comes this one when she finds she can earn her own money instead of relying on her pig of a husband But that first pay packet, it was wonderful. They needn't starve, now. Whatever Ted did there would be some money in the house. 'You think on it,' she'd said to her two older girls when they got married. 'It's nice to have a good husband but it's a hell of a lot nicer to have your own money. A fiver you've earned is worth ten of anybody else's. You can do what you want with it."
and regarding her habit of helping those in need
All this was meat and drink to her. She loved life. She loved to feel life bubbling and quickening all around her, and took it for granted that life included old age, suffering and death. Lest that make her sound like the Jane Fonda character, I assure you she's not. She has a strong violent side. In fact Iris; Kelly Brown, the young girl who starts the book; and Blonde Dinah, the old prostitute are probably the reason publishers didn't want to take a chance on these harsh, surprising and realistic stories.
I also finished Agnes Grey and have renewed respect for the Brontes, Anne this time and her ability to show that the way one treats animals and all classes of people reflects on one's character.
Now I'm reading Loitering With Intent and have fallen in love with Muriel Spark's acerbic wit.

165 - Loitering With Intent remains my favourite Spark, and Agnes Grey is my favourite novel by any of the Brontes

Just finished Thank Heaven Fasting by E M Delafield. I expected this to be a funny book. It wasn't. I can't remember who read this a while ago and gave it a lukewarm review. Andrew perhaps? I can see that the subject matter (the unmarried woman as social pariah) might seem preposterous to much younger readers but this attitude was still alive and well right into the 60s when I was a teen. Not my favorite Delafield but well worth a look.

I read Thank Heaven Fasting almost exactly two years ago (I finished it 8/05/09, according to my book journal). I liked it but didn't love it. My main objection was the ending; I saw it coming but kept hoping that I'd be wrong.

But then, people doing what they're expected to do is pretty much the theme of it, right? :)

Yes, I would say so. I'm sure that Monica's story was fairly common at that time, and given her character, the time, and circumstances, there were only two realistic outcomes. I thought the book was quite good overall, though.

I also liked it but didn't love it, Andrew. I remember your review/comment because you didn't state why you 'disliked' it, just that you did. What Delafield described well was Monica's mounting desperation. Forget love, for many women marriage was a matter of long term financial survival. In Monica's case, however, it was a matter of social survival. I also read things into the Carol Anderson character that perhaps Delafield didn't intend. The social pressure of that era must have been horrendous.

If I remember correctly, I didn't want to go into detail about what I disliked because it would have spoiled the ending for others. And I also read things into Carol Anderson's character that Delafield may or may not have intended. Ending aside, the only other thing I remember actively disliking were certain repetitions in her descriptions of the characters - Pelham's prawn-like eyes, for example.

I just finished A Pin to See the Peepshow and, even though I was familiar with the actual murder case from the British Trial series, I was devastated by the last quarter of the book. The closer I came to the end the more I had to force myself to read. It was that painful. Definitely a five-star novel.

I can never do ALL Virago even for August although one year I may make it. But I am finally enjoying In a Summer Season. It won't be my favorite ET by a long shot, but it has the hallmarks that I look for when I read her.
This is a dangerous thread. Thanks to Karen's newly organized shelves, I just ordered a copy of Women of the Left Bank and one of Union Street because of Joyce. Yay!

Mmmph. Just finished Harriet Martineau's Autobiography: v. 1 (3½***), which I'll have to get around to reviewing in the next day or so. It was sometimes awfully tedious and as Martineau moved into her thirties and her life in London there began an awful lot of name-dropping. Some of the discussions were really wonderful (the Brownings and especially Carlyle), but some were awfully tedious (anyone here ever hear of Lord Brougham?) so it required some occasional reference to Wikipedia.

One nice result, though, was her discussion of Joanna Baillie, whom I'd never heard of. I checked her out on Wikipedia, then did a quick browse of AbeBooks, and discovered a local bookstore in Philly (Whodunit?) that carried a copy, in real nice condition @ $8, of the Everyman ppb Female Playwrights of the Nineteenth Century, which I just bought this afternoon.

Martineau's Autobiography: v. 2 should be more interesting, with a good bit on her American tour and her abolitionism. I'll probably get to it sometime next week, but I need to take a break on something a little shorter and (I hope) lighter for the weekend. I'm reading Angela Carter's Second Virago Book of Fairy Tales and Elizabeth Taylor's Complete Short Stories, both off-and-on, but I think I'll get started on Helen Hodgman's Blue Skies & Jack and Jill.

I hope you'll like Union Street as much as I did, Lizzie.
>166 Stuck-in-a-Book: Stuck in a Book, I agree, Loitering With Intent is the best Muriel Spark. The most delightful book I've read in a long time.
I finished and greatly enjoyed A Virtuous Woman by Kaye Gibbons and was going to go right on to Sights Unseen, but I noticed there's an Alice Hoffman on the VMC list. Being rather overburdened with Southern depression at the time (I'm also reading some Flannery O'Connor stories) I'm happy to have begun Seventh Heaven.

174: Sorry - I won't post any more pictures!! ;)

On the subject of Pat Barker, eldest child was clearing out his Uni books today and found he had a Virago copy of Blow Your House Down so I've course I nobbled it for my collection. I've already had The Life and Death of Harriet Frean from the same source!

Just started Rosamond Lehmann's The Ballad and the Source after finishing Excellent Women and not liking it. I'm late trying to join AV/AA but hope that I can restrict myself to Viragos for the rest of the month. I have Love in Winter lined up for my next read.

After 3 good books I guess it was in the cards that I would then pick up a stinker. But what a stinker! The Last Magician by Janette Turner Hospital. I had previously read The Tiger in the Tiger Pit by her and liked it but this was so awful I abandoned it after 7 chapters. 86 pages in and the book had totally failed to launch, so I skipped to the last couple of chapters hoping to discover what the point had been and she was by then in wind down mode. So I have no clue what the book was actually about.

In the bits I read a university educated girl has taken to the streets to make her living. Having read Pat Barker's description of life on the streets in Blow Your House Down I guffawed as Hospital's heroine claims to get through sex with her clients with 'the silent mastication of Milton'. Like, really? Barker's women were thinking about whether they had enough money to buy fish and chips to take home to their kids.

Onwards and upwards...

HELP!!! Anyone on here know anything about Helen Hodgman's Blue Skies? I just finished it, and I'm going to go on now to Jack and Jill since they're combined in a twofer in Blue Skies & Jack and Jill, and I do want to finish the entire book, especially since it's so short. But Blue Skies leaves me confused.

The back-cover description for the Virago green has this for Blue Skies:

The Tasmanian sun flashes upon weather-boarded houses and a holiday-brochure beach. Early-morning hoovering gives way to empty afternoons when the clock always says three and women and children huddle together in steaming heaps by the sea. But this stagnation will be shattered -- by incest, suicide and murder.

Now that's where I'm left confused. Adultery, yes, but where's the incest? I don't mean that I started reading this for the sake of an incest story, but I'm confused and wondering if I've missed some blood or marriage relationship between two of the characters. I'm wondering if Virago made a mistake and the back-cover description should read "adultery, suicide and murder"?

Anyway, Blue Skies was definitely worth a read for Hodgman's well-written language, especially some of the metaphors her narrator uses, and it's not so long as to get tedious. I'll give it 3½*** but I might rate it higher if I weren't so confused (and that may be the fault of Virago's back-cover description that includes "incest").

And I really love this Virago's cover-painting.

I finished Alice Hoffman's lovely Seventh Heaven set in a 1950's Stepford community of apple pie baking stay at home moms and fathers who are the kings of their castles a divorcee with two young boys buys a falling down house and changes the community. The first thing she does when they move in is to bake a batch of cookies. Can you imagine that being your first step on moving in to a new house, before you unpack anything else? Nora's quite the renegade.
Now I'm back to Southern crazy with Sights Unseen. If you have to be bi-polar life is easier if you marry into the Barnes family and manage to captivate the patriarch. Of course, life isn't too easy for anyone else who has to relate to him.

180: I plan to read Blue Skies this month so will let you know my thoughts! Will on the alert for any blood ties between characters that might go unnoticed but from what you say, it's sound like a mistake was made with the blurb!

177: I love it when new VMCs turn up in your own home!

179: I haven't read any Janette Turner Hospital but I have a VMC copy of Borderline which looks quite daunting and I've never felt a real urge to make a start on it. Feel even less inclined now!

181: I enjoyed Seventh Heaven too when I read it some years ago.

Currer - I went all through my books yesterday trying to find something that attracted me and I read the back cover of Blue Skies and then put it back. I wasn't in the mood for incest, suicide and murder. Plus I have found Viragos that are short, with several novellas, have been quite disappointing.

Joyce - Every time I go to a thrift store there are a zillion Hoffman's but never Seventh Heaven, in any edition. I've read most of Kaye Gibbons's books and liked them all.

I settled, in the end, for A Little Love, A Little Learning by Nina Bawden. I figured after Janette Turner Hospital I deserved something light. Even the reviews of The Last Magician were daunting.

eg: Turner Hospital uses The Last Magician to issue a call to readers to recognise that the representation of power which she uses as her base-line, is just that: a representation, a fabrication which has been endorsed for so long that it has become a naturalised reality which legitimises exclusion and refuses recognition, relegating difference to an underground existence.

Huh?

The only book by Turner Hospital that I've read is Oyster, which I enjoyed, although it was disturbing. I loved the depiction of the isolated outback town.

I've finished In a summer season, and loved it. Some of my thoughts are on the dedicated thread for the novel.

Now I'm reading The stone angel, which I've wanted to read for a while. It is not disappointing me :)

The Stone Angel was a surprise hit for me, too.

I finished Sights Unseen. Kaye Gibbons does a great job describing bi-polar illness and its affects on the family and also the South's sort of feudal view of life in the 1950's and 60's.

I have just finished Vera by Elizabeth Von Arnim I really liked it but it is very dark, more so than Rebecca I thought which has similar themes. Left feeling a bit sad.

I've just finished The stone angel and loved it. Hagar is such a compelling character, despite being stubborn, antagonistic and very hard on those around her. Her fight to remain independent and dignified despite the betrayals of her aging body is so well described, as is the frustration of her son and daughter-in-law who are all too aware of the physical limitations Hagar refuses to accept. I see that the amazon rating of this book has been dragged down by the reviews of students who must have been forced to read this book for school. I thought it was a masterpiece, but to be honest I can't see the average 16-18 year-old getting much out of it (not sure I would have done at that age), and it is a shame that they have probably been turned off the book for life.

Back to my pile to choose the next book - possibly The orchid house.

>188 Sakerfalcon:: I couldn't agree with you more about The Stone Angel!

Just finished A Little Love, A Little Learning by Nina Bawden. I have read half a dozen Bawdens. Some are better than others; a couple have been excellent. This was just such a one. Written in 1965, it is set in the early 50's, and centers on three girls who inadvertently bring their stepfather 'to the edge of ruin and disgrace'. Shades of A View of the Harbour in its descriptions of post war Britain, and The Greengage Summer in its description of teen girls. Not as good as either of those books, but well worth reading.

Recently jumped Mrs. Oliphant's ship, comfortable as it was, to read Travel Light, so generously sent to me by the kind kdcdavis. I had had trouble ekeing out time to read in this busy gearing-up-for-a-busy-fall August, but it pulled me in quickly and I have fallen under its spell. It's a remarkable read. I'm not much of a fantasy reader, but the delicate balance of symbolic resonances, believable characters in unbelievable circumstances, and a light touch of humor has won me over.

Mitchison has proved hit-and-miss for this reader -- loved Lobsters on the Agenda but couldn't get through Bull Calves -- maybe it will leave me in a better position to attempt Corn King and Spring Queen. I have just to finish this one first, though....likely to happen super soon!

#191 I adored Travel Light. It and Kate O'Brien's The Land of Spices may be my two favorite Viragos.

Another fan of Travel light here! The year I read it, everyone got a copy for Christmas!

Glad to see so many people like Travel Light, as I bought it a little while ago.

I have a VERY nice copy of Travel Light recently received from Deb via PBS. However, I hate hate hate fantasy. On the other hand, I need a book for AV/AA and it is also VERY short. :)

I enjoyed Travel Light and The Land of Spices is but wonderful and yes, one of my favorites Virago as well # 192.

I'm really enjoying Fenny. Her prose style isn't anything special, but she's telling a very compelling story, with a compelling protagonist. Though, you do want to shake her a bit, and say, "GET OUT!"

I've finished Elizabeth and her German Garden (don't remember if I've mentioned it) and I'm now reading Mary O'Grady. Good, but my is the MC a joykill.

Waiting in for a man to come and fix something. Of course he has not arrived so I am reading Travel Light. I fear I am not equal to it.

Waited over 6 hours for the repairman and finished Travel Light. The historical aspects interested me but my dislike of fantasy meant that I started (and finished) the book with an inbuilt prejudice against it. Each to his own, I guess...

I am ashamed to say that I am still reading my first Eudora Welty, Losing Battles and I am loving it. I find the dialogue to be very real for the times. But I am just not having much reading time as of recent. Just when I go to bed so it will have to do.
You all are doing wonderfully well and reading so many that I have yet not read. I have quite enjoyed your posts.
Thank you for carrying on and read on.....................

I have two Persephones to read (which almost count, right?!) and then I have a Virago again ...

Perhaps we could count Persphones as Honorary Viragos for this month!

I've just finished Mr. Fortune's Maggot which I unexpectedly loved and will review soon.

Yes, that would be handy! I'm on The Children Who Lived in a Barn and then have Miss Buncle Married (should have read Miss Buncle's Book in my Month of Re-Reading, shouldn't I ...) before The Tortoise and the Hare.

>204 LyzzyBee: what a lovely line up Liz.

I am loving reading Katherine Mansfield short stories at the moment - they nearly count as Virago too surely? Then I'll be a getting a jump on the next Elizabeth Taylor as I'm hosting in September.

Kaggsy - I also unexpectedly loved Mr Fortune's Maggot which I read a couple of years ago. I thought it beautiful and really moving.

Lyzzy and Ali - I am in the same position. I have thousands of unread Persephones :) We should start a separate month for them. I have read 6 Viragos so far this month and really liked 4 and without AV/AA, or with the added temptation of Persephones, I would not have discovered those 4.

206>> A separate month for Persephone? But one of my unread Persephones is A Very Great Profession! Do you realize how many new books I'm going to be buying after I've started on that???

And OUCH!!! Now I see A Very Great Profession was originally published by Virago so I could be reading it this month. Look, I can't do that. I've got thirty three hundred in school taxes to get paid by August 31.

I've already wound up buying four new books (two Viragos and two not) as at least an indirect result of Harriet Martineau's Autobiography and I'm not even finished it yet. I'll post about that financial catastrophe as soon as I'm finished Martineau.

Oh well, thank heavens LT gives us a Wish List option.

I finished The Judge and think it was an excellent study of Marion, whom some would say was a bad mother, but she was very complex. West gives many reasons for her acting and thinking as she does. No one was harder on her than herself. Her failing, and that of Ellen the youngest character, was that they were mired in romantic thinking (and the restrictions of a sexually repressive society). Everything that didn't exemplify perfect love was second rate. Rebecca West keeps having Richard, the Greek god love interest, say how intellectual the Scots are, and Ellen certainly got the most pleasure in life from thought and fantasy. She also, at the age of 17, 18, 19 didn't know what sex was - not that she hadn't experienced it, but that she didn't know how babies were made, thinking it might involve some kind of tender kiss. Kind of a strange concept. Marion, on the other hand, was very sensual, in fact too sensual when she lost the love of her life and had to devote herself to loving only her son. Who was The Judge? Everyone, including the reader. This is a great psychological and sociological study that I'm glad I read. All the characters grab the reader's attention, and when she wants to depict a person as repulsive, she does a fine enough job to make anyone reject the poor lad, and feel sorry for him while doing it.

205: KM is a Virago author so *of course* they count!!

Okay, I finally finished the second volume of Harriet Martineau's Autobiography and gave it 4**** (having given the first volume 3½***). Much of it was awfully tedious, though the second volume less so than the first, where she was doing so much name-dropping of early 19th century British political figures.

There was a lot of name-dropping in the second volume too, but it tended more to be of literary figures (though Carlyle does show up in the first volume). Also, the second volume included her American tour and her support for the American abolitionists, so it's a subject that Americans will be more familiar with.

Martineau's Autobiography overall is something that you don't want to be reading but, when you're finished, you're glad to have read it. Aside from the Bronte, Carlyle, and Wordsworth passages, I've picked up on writers I never heard of, notably Joanna Baillie (leading me to buy Female Playwrights of the Nineteenth Century) and Catherine Maria Sedgwick (prompting me to buy Hope Leslie).

I've also got to get around to reading Bleak House. I've had a Dickens project going to trying to read him in order this year, but I'm only up to The Old Curiosity Shop so I may jump ahead to Bleak House. Dickens supposedly, so I've read, poked fun at Martineau in the character of Mrs. Jellyby, and I've got to see this! She really could be awfully priggish.

Take the case of the contractor who built her house in the Lake District. She was very much satisfied with his work, and he very much liked her prompt periodic payments, so when she decided to build a cottage and cow-stable

he came to get the servants to help to get the job for him,—complimenting my mode of payment. I mention this because the poor man, whom I greatly esteemed, got his head turned with subsequent building speculations, fell into drinking habits, and died of a fever thus brought on,—leaving debts to the amount of £1,000: and I wish it to be clearly understood that I was in no degree connected with his misfortune.

There are some other humorous passages here and there which you might think were deliberately deadpan, but after reading that one you've just got to figure that Martineau could sometimes be one of the most self-righteous idiots ever (as she demonstrated in her less-than-favorable review of Villette and her attempt in her autobiography to gloss over and self-justify the ill feelings this engendered in Charlotte, who had stuck by Martineau when Martineau had come under attack for atheism).

For anyone interested in Victorian women's literature (and Victorian literature in general), Martineau's autobiography is probably a must-read, but it's going to take some patience, though it's nowhere near as tedious as Deerbrook (another must-read for its influence on the Brontes, Gaskell, and George Eliot, especially on Charlotte Bronte's Shirley).

A good intro to Martineau, though, is Deborah Anna Logan's 5***** The Hour and the Woman, though Logan approaches her subject more from the viewpoint of women's studies than of literature and her discussion of the literary influence of Deerbrook is quite scant. Also, Martineau died in 1876 and her autobiography runs up only to 1855, when she thought she was about to die from heart failure, so it's missing the last twenty years of her life, which are covered in Logan's critical biography.

Just finished Union Street for 5*****, reminding me a bit of Dubliners. It also reminds me of The Country of the Pointed Firs, with Iris King as the Almira Todd character.

Since my Union Street volume is actually a two-fer in a Union Street & Blow Your House Down hardcover, I'll probably get on to BYHD next or else go on to finish Helen Hodgman's Jack and Jill in the two-fer volume of Blue Skies & Jack and Jill. (I've already read Blue Skies.)

I'll be reading Blow Your House Down sometime in the next week or so. I stated Minding Frankie as kind of a respectful tip of the hat to Maeve Binchy and it was going fine until one of the characters starts making absolutely stupid decisions about men. I mean stupid, blind decisions. Lets hope I can eke my way through the inevitable disaster and into the rest of the story.

I've just switched over to The Hound and the Falcon for the time being and I think I'll stick with it now to its conclusion since it's really not all that long. It's turning out to be a lot more interesting than I thought it would be (considering I'm an ex-Catholic with no interest whatsoever in reconversion).

The letters were written in 1940-41, after Frost in May but before the other three novels and also shortly before Antonia White's own reconversion. Already, after just about twenty pages, it's starting to throw some light on her development into the "Clara Batchelor trilogy" and it also contains three of her poems in an appendix.

I read the first 50 pages of I'll Never be Young Again by Daphne DuMaurier without bonding to anyone. So I have abandoned it. Shame that, as I had expected to enjoy it.

Sat out on the deck to sunbathe with a good book. Took Hunt the Slipper only to discover that I have already read it. Don't know where, don't know when, but I do remember enjoying it a lot. So why didn't I remember it until a chapter in? :) My back-up book was The Country Life by Rachel Cusk which I was expecting to be a basic chick lit thing but which turned out to be much more Anita Brookner. Abandoned that. Moved on to The Brontes Went to Woolworth which, 67 pages in, is proving very entertaining.

^ Your post made me think of the old Vera Lynn tune - "We'll meet again/Don't know where/Don't know when/But I know we'll meet again some sunny day..." Before your time, I'm sure....

lol!~! Barbara wrote that tune. Did you not know? In between her Angela Carters. ;-)

I've just finished In a Summer Season as my second Virago for AVAA. Now reading Wharton's The House of Mirth.

I read The orchid house this week, which transported me to lush, humid Dominica. Allfrey was born on the island and lived there for much of her life, and her knowledge of the landscape and its people shines through in the book. The main story of three sisters returning from abroad to their childhood home and re-encountering the man they all loved had me rolling my eyes as each woman swoons and dotes on him when he is clearly a self-centred spoilt brat. Even though he is suffering from TB I felt no sympathy for him or patience with the sisters in their adoration. That said, in other ways they, and most other characters, were interestingly portrayed with their individual facets and flaws, and the interactions and relationships between characters of different races, social and economic status seemed convincing for the period. But for me the island itself was the main character.

Now I've started The vet's daughter, which features the Vet From Hell! I would not let animals near him. Clearly he is no better with people either . . .

I finished last night, and have just reviwed Devil by the Sea by Nina Bawden who of course died this week. Later - when I have finished cleaning and run to the shops I am looking forward to starting William by E H Young - I have so enjoyed the others of her novels that I have read so far.

Andrew - Belva is right, I not only wrote that song, I sang it. Yes, I AM Vera Lynn! It's why I am so attached to interwar novels. And probably why I am forgetting whole novels I now suspect I read during last year's AV/AA.

On a lighter note, was it you who watches Project Runway? In previous years I have watched it avidly but this year forgot. (Oh dear!) Anyway, I was channel surfing last night and there it was. So addicting.

Sak - My reaction to The Orchid House too. Loved the locale, heat and lush foliage. Hated the love interest.

//>221 romain: Totally off topic. Romain, you picked the right episode of Project Runway to surf to in which the designer who seems destined to win whined the whole time about having to design for a fat woman. Poor him, and he wasted no opportunity to tell the client how fat she was - a woman with 4 kids, a stay at home dad, a full time job, and a 4 hour commute who was finally going to get something for herself for a change. For once I had to agree with the evilest character on the show, I lost all respect for him. He also didn't see the irony that his aversion to fat doesn't seem to extend to his own body.//

Sorry, had to get that out of my system. Now I'm back to Blow Your House Down which has convinced me that the next time I need a little spare money I probably won't try to make it as a prostitute. What a life!

Joyce - I was astounded when he wasn't sent packing. But thinking about it logically, the young man who lost was probably going to lose in the next week or two anyway and the fat guy will be kept on because he makes for great television. The outfit he put that poor woman in was so horrible I was embarrassed for everyone involved. I think every woman has at some time been picked on for being too fat, too thin, too ugly etc. but to have it happen on national tv has to be the worst. I would love to have seen her say NO! You will not speak to me like that and I will not wear that horrible outfit! Now that would've been great television.

^ Vera, yes, I am the PR addict and I just finished watching that episode. I completely agree with you and Joyce. I didn't agree with this week's challenge winner, though. I think Comrade Snape was robbed (again). And before I forget, can I have your autograph?

A Pin to see the Peepshow is moving into high gear. I am almost done with Book Three and something bad is going to happen very soon. I know what, of course, but I'm dreading it all the same.

I just finished Pat Barker's Blow Your House Down (1984), but I read it in the 1996 book club edition Union Street & Blow Your House Down. After checking the Wikipedia article, though, I'm wondering if my 1996 edition includes a revised text?

I'm being careful to avoid SPOILERS....

The Wikipedia article, writing about the 1984 novel, indicates that the novel is written in three parts. My version, though, includes a (fairly short) fourth part centered around a woman who works in the chicken factory. Is this an addition that Barker made subsequent to the original 1984 edition?

I definitely give Union Street 5*****. As I've posted earlier, it reminds me of Jewett's The Country of the Pointed Firs: a collection of vignettes, short stories, episodic chapters, whatever, all united around a strong woman who may appear only sporadically in some of the episodes but centers the entire book around herself. (Another example would be Elizabeth Strout's recent Olive Kitteridge.)

I'm uncomfortable with Blow Your House Down, though. I give it 4**** for its grittiness and its character descriptions, but there seems to be something centrifugal about the story. There's no single unifying character, which by itself I could find acceptable, but it's that fourth part, centered around the chicken-factory worker, that tends to deflate the story of the prostitutes and converts the novel, at the last minute, from a story about the prostitutes into a more generalized story of the neighborhood.

That's why I'm wondering whether that fourth part is an addition that Barker made subsequent to the original 1984 version. If it is, then I think it substantially weakened the novel, which should have ended with part three.

I also just finished Blow Your House Down and thought Part 4 weakened the effect of the first 3 parts. When I thought about it more though I thought there was one unifying character, Brenda, who'd tried working at the chicken factory. I thought the detailed descriptions of work at both the factory and as a prostitute showed there was little difference in quality between the two. The difference was that chicken factory workers could be perceived by their neighbors as "good" women, also they had the safety that prostitutes didn't. Maggie showed that just by virtue of being attacked by a man she was first thought to be a prostitute by the police, then lost respect of the rest of the neighborhood. I thought that was pretty ingenious of Barker, and I'm wondering when she gets her Nobel Prize.
Now I'll start The Vet's Daughter in paper and Diary of a Provincial Lady on Nook

>226 Citizenjoyce:: I've just finished The vet's daughter and enjoyed it, finding it macabre, bizarre and poignant - typical qualities of the Comyns novels that I've read.

I think Joyce got that 4th part right. It was to show that the respectable job was no better than working the streets. I read Blow Your House Down last year and thought it revealed much about prostitution, including how women drift into it for a variety of reasons, from pure greed to pure need, but sometimes because it is better and easier than the chicken factory. What it said about their customers was as, if not more, interesting.

Andrew - Send me a $50 bill and I'll send you the autograph by return postage. At the risk of hijacking this thread - I missed enough of PR this year and didn't know that the fat guy is usually a good designer. And Comrade Snape is the broody Russian? I preferred the adorable blond who put the bubbly middleaged woman in the Shimmy Shimmy Ko-Ko Pop dress. (Now you know how old I really am!)

I recently received my copy of Blow Your House Down and with all the discussion here I am bumping it up to Mt. TBR. It also sounds like something my office mate might like. I'm a bit disappointed that she abandonned The Vet's Daughter halfway through (but at least that was becuase she wanted to read the Jean Rhys I gave her), however, she is now immersed in Daddy Was a Number Runner so she may become a Viragoite yet.

And yes, by Comrade Snape I mean Dmitry, the Belorusan ex-ballroom ballroom dancer. I like most of what he makes, which means he won't win.

226,228>> Good point. I see what you mean. And I'm assuming you both read the Virago edition, so part four wasn't just an "add on" to my later (1996) BCA edition that was published in some kind of collaboration with Virago. After I'd finished Blow Your House Down I wanted to get some on-line commentary and I stumbled across the Wikipedia article that only mentioned three parts, which really had me confused and wondering if part four was added later since it did seem at first to be a weakening ending.

I think I'll up my rating of my Union Street & Blow Your House Down two-fer edition to 5***** by letting Blow Your House Down have 4½ along with Union Street's original 5.

But sorry, Joyce, I can't give Barker the Nobel yet. I've got your namesake, Joyce Carol Oates, shortlisted for that!

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

SPOILER

Of course, with that interpretation of part four, it leaves the ending of part three much more ambiguous, as to whether the killing at the end of part three was "successful" in its purpose. But of course what happened to Maggie could then have been just another consequence of the "mean streets," considering that Maggie wasn't injured in the same MO that the prostitutes were killed.

Right. Much as I like books that tie all the loose ends, I also like Barker's way of not doing so.

As for Joyce Carol Oates, those Nobel people need to get on the stick.

Am reading Storm Jameson. I read first Love in Winter the second book of a trilogy and now am going back to the first book Company Parade and so far like it as much as I loved the other book. She follows many different character's lives but I very much like her protagonist and her story is woven through the books.

After an odd week with a non-existent attention span when I read nothing at all and then a couple of days struggling with the short, well-written but unpleasant The Day of the Locust for a RL reading group, I have finally got around to a Virago Modern Classic!

I am reading Blue Skies by Helen Hodgman which is a rather coolly written account of a young housewife's boredom and affairs. It was first published in 1976 and is maybe a feminist comment on the limitations of domestic life for women at the time. I can apprecate the writing but looking forward to moving on to more of a page turner and getting my reading mojo back ;)

I finished The House of Mirth and loved it - now trying to restrain myself from ordering all the other Edith Wharton Viragoes at once. Not sure what I'll read next: my short list is The Return of the Soldier, Union Street or No Fond Return of Love.

I've not yet read Union Street but No Fond Return of Love was a 3 1/2 * read for me and I loved The Return of the Soldier. I hope you love whichever one you pick soul.

I finished the subtly weird and dreamlike The Vet's Daughter (my only actual Virago edition). You know how in a dream something happens that's totally impossible but your dreaming self says, "Oh well, I guess that sort of thing is possible after all?" That's how Barbara Comyns writes. Things are both matter of fact and bizarre at the same time.
Now I've started The Stone Angel and find I'm very much attracted to Margaret Laurence's style.
Unfortunately on Nook I've started Diary of a Provincial Lady and am not finding it to be quite as humorous as I've heard. There was a good description of a party with literary people that made me chuckle, but all in all, she doesn't seem my kind of woman. If I saw the movie and it starred Claudette Colbert, I'm sure I'd enjoy it, but reading the story isn't grabbing me.

I gave Diary of a Provincial Lady another 1/2 hour of my time, but no more, it's gone to the abandoned pile. I'm on to An Unsocial Socialist by George Bernard Shaw.

I started my seventh (I think) read of Diary of a Provincial Lady lady last night, coincidentally! I needed some reading I knew I'd love :)

I finished William by E H Young earlier today - oh my what a lovely book.

Finished The Brontes Went to Woolworths this afternoon. Wonderful book. Having read DuMaurier's book about Branwell last year I knew that the Brontes lived in a shared imaginary world for most of their growing up years. Most people, as A S Byatt, points out in her introduction have individual fantasies but, like the Brontes, the Carnes have a family fantasy that includes actors and other public figures they have never met in the flesh. Into this mix, Rachel Ferguson throws two of the Bronte sisters, manifested by the Carnes during an evening of table turning. Lovely! 5 stars.

240 - isn't it brilliant?

>237 Citizenjoyce:: I agree with your comments about The vet's daughter; all of Comyns' books that I've read have that quality. Events that are just bizarre and should cause uproar are handled in such a deadpan manner by the characters that for a moment you wonder, "Is it me that's weird?" Given the horrors of her life Alice should come across as a total victim, yet I think she would be surprised to be seen as such.

I'm now reading Pirates at play, which is a lot of fun so far.

I have yet to read any Comyns other than her Sisters by a River which I loved and thought quite brilliant. But the way you, (Joyce and Saker), describe The Vet's Daughter makes it sound like my cup of tea. I generally only read in bed and in doing so frequently fall asleep with my book on my chest and dream about the story. My dreams always begin where I fell asleep but continue on in the most strange manner and when I waken I remember them quite clearly to the point that when I begin reading again I often find myself quietly laughing because the story carries on so differently than my dream. So I found your comments quite interesting.

I'm so looking forward to that one. In fact, it just occurred to me yesterday to give myself a new "challenge." I have accumulated a LOT of books from Simon's list, and I thought, "Stuck in September." I could concentrate on the Viragos, so as to keep my Year in Virago (somewhat) on track. Wheee!

"Stuck in September": I LOVE IT!!

Ditto here. Crack me up and so 'Spot On'!

Wonderful idea! After setting myself to blitz modern literature in 2012, and- in the main- keeping to it, I've decided to wind down now, read the library books I have, then immerse myself in Viragos, Persephones and the like for the forseeable future!

I like the idea of "Stuck in September" as well! Are you starting to feel like a rock star, Simon?

I'm sure I won't finish An Unsocial Socialist this month, and I'm also sure I will continue reading it into September.

I am five stories into The Bread and Butter Stories by Mary Norton. Should finish it before the end of the month as they are her short stores published in women's magazines in the 1950s. Well written and amusing but definitely more Rosamunde Pilcher than Virginia Woolf.

I finished The Hound and the Falcon some days ago and have been starting into Jane Dunn's Antonia White: A Life, which I doubt I'll get finished by month's end -- both Virago-published, though I've got the original hardcovers. Off and on I'm finishing up The Second Virago Book of Fairy Tales and doing some Kindle reading from Elizabeth Taylor's Complete Short Stories.

The Hound and the Falcon might be fascinating if I wanted to re-convert to Catholicism, but at least it's a nice intro to Dunn's biography and does include some interesting side comments by White on her thoughts on modernism, her daughters (in the early 40s, so they were still quite young), and the like. I gave it (maybe a bit parsimoniously) 2**, but still it's a useful intro to the biography.

Sat out on my deck today and finished the Mary Norton so here is my official list of Viragos read during AV/AA.

Liza's England - Pat Barker 4*
Women Against Men - Storm Jameson 4*
Thank Heaven Fasting - E M Delafield 4*
The Last Magician - Janette Turner Hospital - abandoned after 80 pages
Travel Light - Naomi Mitchison 2*
A Little Love, A Little Learning - Nina Bawden 4*
I'll Never Be Young Again - Daphne DuMaurier - abandoned after 50 pages.
The Brontes Went to Woolworths - Rachel Ferguson 5*
The Bread and Butter Stories - Mary Norton 2*

Thank God for the impetus of AV/AA or I might never have read any of them.

Here's my list:

The Edwardians loved it
Phoenix Fled very interesting and worth the read
Pin to See the Peepshow couldn't put it down
Plagued by the Nightingale disliked it intensely and hope everyone dies of food poisoning at one of their awful dinners
Loving and Giving another great Keane

And playing catch-up with Taylor

Game of Hide and Seek
In a summer Season
Angel

Thanks, Belva, for sponsoring this thread!

My list is quite short:

Invitation to the Waltz 3.5* - moved at a leisurely pace, but did not disappoint
Diary of a Provincial Lady 3* - light, amusing, snarkier than expected
Good Behaviour 4.5* - loved this, tied for top honors with
A Pin to See the Peepshow 4.5* - I finished this in line at the market this evening; I'm still bowled over

I have only managed a few:

I will not Serve - short and sad and sweet
Mr. Fortune's Maggot - beautifully written and unexpectedly loved it
Who was Changed and Who Was Dead - wonderful book, quirky and individual

However, I started Mrs. Miniver last night, so it's a race to see if I finish it before midnight!!

I managed to read:
Rumour of Heaven 3.5*
In a summer season 4.5*
The stone angel 4.5*
The orchid house 3.5*
Pirates at play 4*
The vet's daughter 4*
The ha-ha 4*
The hearing trumpet 4.5.*

I was going to try and read all Viragos - but I didn't - I kept getting distracted by other things.

So AV/AA reads were:
In a Summer season by Elizabeth Taylor
Devoted Ladies by Molly Keane
Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
(then read almost 200 pages of Losing Battles by Eudora Welty and has dubious honor of being the only book so far in 2012 that I have given up on)
The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
Vera by Elizabeth Von Arnim
The Soul of Kindness by Elizabeth Taylor
Devil by the Sea by Nina Bawden
William by E H Young
and The New House by Lettice Cooper which I am claiming although I read the Persephone edition

I also read Bliss and other stories by Katherine Mansfield which isn't a VMC - but she is a Virago author - so she sort of counts doesn't she?

Also read Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple another almost counts surely : )

My non Virago reads for August were
Why be happy when you could be Normal by Jeanette Winterson
The Maul and the Pear tree by PD James and TA Critchley
The other Elizabeth Taylor by Nicola Beauman
and The Lighthouse by Alison Moore

Yes 15 books completed and half of one I didn't finish - and several short stories in Elizabeth Taylor Complete short stories which I am loving picking up at odd moments. I love August - being off work the whole month means I read loads more than usual.

Well done Ali - what a stupendous month of reading.

I guess you are dreading next week like me ;)

#259 - resigned I suppose - I hadn't realised - are you a teacher Karen? I'm a TA in primary school.

Well, as far as AVAA has gone, I've had a rotten August. I've read one Virago - Gone to Earth - and that was a free download on my Kindle so it wasn't even a real Virago. And it was a bit of a struggle. Unlike Simon, I can cope with dialect but the prose was definitely purple in large patches and the overall message seemed to be that a woman who doesn't know her own mind when it comes to choosing a man just need a bit of light raping to help her decide. Not a book I could recommend.

My only other attempt at a Virago was A note in Music. I started that prompted by the Rosamond Lehmann week, read two chapters and lost it. I'm sure a good tidy-up will bring it to light but I shall have to start again.

Wow, I'm impressed with everyone's progress! I didn't even attempt AVAA and read only one. Great job everybody!

" ...the overall message seemed to be that a woman who doesn't know her own mind when it comes to choosing a man just need a bit of light raping to help her decide. Not a book I could recommend."

That sums up what I took away from that novel. I was rather appalled by the idea.

260: I work in a school office! Like you, I've been enjoying the reading time this summer....

I am so impressed. You have all done so well this month. I really fell down on my reading. Real life and all that, you know. I only read two Virago and those were:
The Ponder Heart (4 1/2 *) and
Losing Battles (4*), both by Eudora Welty.
I really liked both of them and want to read more of her works.
I also read The Sleeping Night by Barbara Samuel. An ARC/ER which I loved and rated at 4 1/2 *. I will be racing to the library to get more of her work. It being a romance I didn't anticipate enjoying it nearly as much as I did. But it is of the WWII era and a bi-racial romance in Texas right after the war. Not really a lot of romance, but it's a constant undercurrent throughout the book.

Anyway Good Job Everyone! Thank you so much for joining the little party. I will be back next August and hope to see some or all of you then.

hugs & bugs,
belva

BTW: all of your names will be going in a hat and the one drawn will receive a little parcel. Haven't decided what as of yet...... :-)

My completed reading, so far (but there's still some ten or more hours to go):

Harriet Martineau, Autobiography: v. 1 -- 3½***
Harriet Martineau, Autobiography: Vol. 2 -- 4****
Pat Barker, Union Street & Blow Your House Down -- 5*****
Angela Carter, The Second Virago Book of Fairy Tales -- 3***
Eliot Bliss, Saraband -- 4½****
Barbara Comyns, Our Spoons Came from Woolworths -- 5*****
Antonia White, The Hound and the Falcon -- 2**
Helen Hodgman, Blue Skies & Jack and Jill -- 4½****

Others:

Elizabeth Taylor, Complete Short Stories (dipping into it here and there on Kindle)
Elizabeth Taylor, The Devastating Boys -- 4½**** (almost completed, but I'll read the Complete Short Stories instead)
Jane Dunn, Antonia White: A Life (barely started)

I can't believe that some of you read so many books in a month. I've gotten into the habit of reading aloud when I should be doing it silently and it really slows me down, yet I can't break myself of it. That said, I have only read Love in Winter and am nearly finished Company Parade and not sure if I'll even finish that before the first of September. I think that I'll continue with the Viragos into September as I borrowed from the library Stevie Smith's The Holiday and George Gissing's The Odd Women.

I just finished my last Virago, The Stone Angel, what a wonder. In spite of the fact that Hagar is not someone I would want to have in my life, her aging was perfectly written. 5 stars from me. So these are the books attempted and read for the month - thanks so much, Belva for introducting me to them.
Agnes Grey - Anne Bronte Audiobook
Blow Your House Down - Pat Barker
Abandoned -Diary of a Provincial Lady - E. M. Delafield
Abandoned -Delta wedding - Eudora Welty Audiobook
The Judge - Rebecca West Nook
Loitering With Intent - Muriel Spark
Removed- Love Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister - Aphra Benn Nook
Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier Audiobook
The Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West Nook
Seventh Heaven - Alice Hoffman Audiobook
Sights Unseen - Kaye Gibbons Audiobook
Removed - South Riding - Winifred Holtby
The Stone Angel - Margaret Laurence
Removed - An Unsocial Socialist - George Bernard Shaw Nook (but I will be finishing it in the next week or so)
Union Street - Pat Barker
The Vet's Daughter - Barbara Comyns (my only actual Virago edition
A Virtuous Woman - Kaye Gibbons Audiobook

Managed to finish Mrs. Miniver before midnight and loved it - thank you again Kerry!

I didn't manage an all Virago August but I managed 3 Viragoes which was more than last year so I'm happy.

They were:

The Solitary Summer by Elizabeth von Arnim - 4*
In a Summer Season by Elizabeth Taylor - 3.8*
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton - 4.5*

I also read a Persephone, Good Evening, Mrs Craven by Mollie Panter-Downes - 4.5*

I am in awe of the reads this year. So many of you got a lot in. I thank you all for taking part and keeping the thread alive. I have scratched down quite a few recs for my winter reading and I thank you also for those.

So many Virago lovers are also lovers of the Persephone and I am thinking we should perhaps include those next year. Any thoughts?

Also a name for 'our month' has been suggested. outrageoussocks' dear hubby came up with a catchy bender: "Viraugust" or VirAugust. Any thoughts on this or anything else you would like to see happen in 'our Virago month?

hugs all round,
belva

I wouldn't mind including Persephones. Most of them would fit right into the Virago canon.

I messed up and only managed In a Summer Season - I had an awful lot of work to do plus workmen around the house, so didn't carve out much reading time at all, and ended up taking mainly BookCrossing books on holiday so I could leave them there!

I think it's a very good idea to include Persephones - especially as they've republished some of the Viragos! And I love the title VirAugust too!

I would accept Persephones being included as I have many to read, BUT if there are Persephones I will read them in preference to the Viragos and it is the Viragos I NEED to read. You see I want to read the Persephones and I don't want to read the Viragos. I have reached the point with the Viragos where I am down to the dregs. AV/AA forces me to read them and find out that many are not the dregs (although some definitely are!) If you look at my list this month there were a couple of absolute stinkers but most were 4* and 5* once I forced myself to open them. So I am all for keeping the month as is.

I've been reading VMC's on and off for longer than I care to say, but I've encountered maybe half a dozen "absolute stinkers". Which I think is an excellent track record. Several times I've picked up a VMC with the attitude "Well, I bought it, I really should try to read it to justify the purchase." And once into the novel in question, I discovered that I'd picked a winner. Crossriggs, Winter Sonata, William, and Novel on Yellow Paper are a few examples. The duds included The Lifted Veil, Four Frightened People, and The Constant Sinner.

Scheesch!~! Am I the only one who really, really liked The Lifted Veil? I anxiously await the day I can reread it.

Could be, Belva. And (Romola and The Lifted Veil aside) I love George Eliot. Middlemarch is one of my all-time favorite Victorian novels. But for me, Veil was a weird, failed experiment.

It's so interesting to me to see how opinions vary on books and authors. I hated Novel on yellow paper, but it's one of Andrew's favourites. Joyce couldn't finish the Eudora Welty novel she tried, but Belva loved hers and wants to read more. Clearly, one person's dud is another's treasure!

Re Novel on Yellow Paper, I think it helped that I'd already read (and loved) The Shutter of Snow; I might not have been as receptive to its non-linear, bouncing-off-every-wall style otherwise.

Oh Andrew; The Shutter of Snow was a five star read for me. I loved it. I've yet to read Novel on Yellow Paper.

My review for The Shutter of Snow (Dec 30, 2010) :

It felt as if it had been two years. Snow and ice a constant out beyond the windows and doors; when I came and still yet now as I am leaving. So I think it has been more like 2 months. Was there ever really a baby? They tell me I am mad, but all of these others are mad and I am Jesus Christ. They will know one day. One of them is just a skeleton. And one of them is just a loooooooooong face. They are all so peculiar. I don't remember the baby but I think there was one. Where is my baby? And why won't my husband let me touch him and hug him and kiss him? He doesn't seem comfortable with me. I want to go home. They tell me I cannot yet; that I must be good for a time. But they don't know the Power I have. They put me in the tubs but I can get out of the wrap and slide my head down under the cover and into the warm water. That frightens them and they cut me out of the tub so fast because they fear me drowning. They are weaklings and I am Jesus Christ.

>280 Leseratte2:, 281: I have yet to read The shutter of snow, but as I enjoy (if that's the right word) fiction about mental health issues, I've been looking forward to it a lot. I'm not sure if the style was the problem I had with Novel on yellow paper; Pompey's ramblings just seemed so trivial and boring to me. I doubt Shutter will seem trivial!

281>> Thanks for the description, Belva. I've really got to read The Shutter of Snow. I had an experience like that during June of 2011. I had a near fatal heart attack the day after Memorial Day, wound up in a cardiac care unit, and got ICU psychosis (fortunately, only for a couple weeks) from all the drugs I was being pumped up with.

I reconverted to Catholicism for about a week. My Presbyterian friends just looked at themselves, shook their heads and said "This isn't Mike," but got the Catholic chaplain in for me. (We're a very open-minded congregation.)

I also thought I was in a reality TV show. There was one nurse I particularly liked and I decided it would improve her ratings if I would kick her in the face! So now you can figure what they did with me.

Once they weaned me off all those drugs I was as sane as always -- whatever that says! -- in a day or so, but I was hospitalized for the rest of June, which is another story altogether.

I can understand how this could happen. I definitely remember voices talking to me from out of the sky, and then angel-choirs singing, so I'm really going to get hold of The Shutter of Snow.

ETA: I just ordered a Virago edition in what's advertised as fairly nice condition from AbeBooks at under $10 even with shipping.

>#283;
I don't think you will be disappointed. I do however, realize that there is a good possibility that this book is not for everyone.
I suffered a nervous breakdown nearly four years ago and ended up on the Psyche Ward for a week or so. I was very fortunate that with my evaluation and their observations, my initial meds suited my condition perfectly. I had lost 4 family members and my best friend in 2 1/2 years. I thought I was coping fine until one day I began to cry and I cried day and night for three days. Just went round the bend I guess.
So I really relate to books of this sort and I think that is why, when so many thought it quite poor, I thought highly of The Lifted Veil and looked at it from quite a different perspective than most who had read it.
At any rate, I hope you appreciate The Shutter of Snow when you read it.

My father was mentally ill for a good portion of his life. My first memory of him is coming home from his first hospitalization and then a number of years later going from a bout of alcoholism into full blown schizophrenia. Hearing voices and fearing that someone was trying to kill him. It was very frightening for me as a young person to witness. He died at age 54.

I have suffered from life long depression and live in dread of a total breakdown but luckily am in intensive therapy. It's good to read people honestly talking about these problems. I feel less alone.

I started to read The Shutter of Snow but it was too much for me, probably too close to the bone.

Kay, a couple of years ago on this Virago site we talked about our individual problems. Turns out that many of us have been emotionally wobbly at one time or another. Personally I think it goes hand in hand with being a very nice, sensitive, person, don't you? :)

I just finished my last Virago, An Unsocial Socialist. G. B. Shaw must have had a gold star mental health rating, because he was about as far from being a nice, sensitive person as one could get. He has some very interesting things to say about politics, but art and humanity seemed to be pretty low on his list of necessities, or at least low on the main character's list. Can one be an artist and have a low opinion of art? I've wish listed The Shutter of Snow, as many of you are, I'm very interested in books about mental illness.

Reading wrap-up for August (it really was all Viragos!)

My Brilliant Career
Bobbin Up
Luminous Isle
Mary O'Grady
Young Entry
The Lost Traveller
Elizabeth and Her German Garden