I hope you all have some good books planned for the weekend.
My chosen poem for today is by the English poet and author Marguerite Antonia Radclyffe Hall (1880-19430). Hall is best known for her novel The Well of Loneliness.
On the Hill-Side
A Memory
You lay so still in the sunshine, So still in that hot sweet hour - That the timid things of the forest land Came close; a butterfly lit on your head, Mistaking it for a flower.
You scarecly breathed in your slumber, So dreamless it was, so deep - While the warm air stirred in my veins like wine, The air that had blown through a jasmine vine, But you slept-and I let you sleep.
I hope everyone is having a good week so far. I meant to do this post at the beginning of the month but I completely forgot.
I have been really trying to read the books on my list of 24 Books in 2024 with the aim of reducing my TBR list. Here is the post with the original list.
I have so far managed to read a total of 5 books off the list which is behind on where I would like to be but I am hoping to catch up. Reading hasn’t been going very well this year but I live in hope it will improve!
I hope everyone has had a good week so far. I have had a lovely day where I have been for a glorious walk in the woods in the sunshine and I have managed a good amount of reading for a change.
My chosen quote this week is by one of my favourite authors Louisa May Alcott.
“I ask not for any crown But that which all may win; Nor try to conquer any world Except the one within.”
Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.
Happy Monday Everyone!
I hope everyone has had a good start to the week. My day has been jam packed with teaching so not much reading has happened but I’m hoping to get more in tomorrow.
My chosen book to feature this week is another one that I have recently added to my Goodreads TBR. I am really enjoying reading George R. R. Martin’s books outside of The Song of Ice and Fire series, especially his science fiction.
From the multiple award-winning, best-selling author of The Song of Ice and Fire Haviland Tuf is an honest space-trader who likes cats. So how is it that, in competition with the worst villains the universe has to offer, he’s become the proud owner of the last seedship of Earth’s legendary Ecological Engineering Corps? Never mind, just be thankful that the most powerful weapon in human space is in good hands-hands which now control cellular material for thousands of outlandish creatures. With his unique equipment, Tuf is set to tackle the problems human settlers have created in colonizing far-flung hosts of hostile monsters, a population hooked on procreation, a dictator who unleashes plagues to get his own way… and in every case the only thing that stands between the colonists and disaster is Tuf’s ingenuity-and his reputation as an honest dealer in a universe of rogues… Tuf Voyaging interior illustrations by Janet Aulisio. Included will be her original eight illustrations, along with 28 newly commissioned ones.
Please drop me a link with your Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit.
Stacking The Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Marlene of Reading Reality. It is all about sharing the books that you have recently added to your bookshelves. These books can be physical books, ebooks and of course audiobooks.
Hello!
I am really not doing well on the book buying at the moment. My resolution this year was to not buy too many books and this month I just haven’t been able to stop.
I went to Ironbridge this week and visited the second hand bookshop there and found a book that has been on my wish list for a long time. I have wanted to read this book for ages so now I have no excuse because I own a copy. It is also one of the books on my Classics Club list.
I hope you all have some fab plans for the weekend. I’m hoping to get some reading done this weekend as I haven’t managed much this week.
My chosen poem this week is by the British writer of poetry and prose Philip Edward Thomas (1878-1917).
Tall Nettles
Tall nettles cover up, as they have done These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough Long worn out, and the roller made of stone: Only the elm butt tops the nettles now. This corner of the farmyard I like most: As well as any bloom upon a flower I like the dust on the nettles, never lost Except to prove the sweetness of a shower.
I thought it was high time for a post about my escapades outside of reading. The Easter school holidays was rather busy for me as I took some time off teaching and went on some adventures.
Bath
We usually go to Bath at least once a year, usually more but we have never gone at this time of year so we thought we would see what it was like. It was busier than we are used to but it was still a fab little break. It also involved quite a bit of book buying.
It wasn’t all book buying though. We also had a lovely afternoon tea at the Pump Rooms, we visited the Ladybird exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery and we went to Dyrham Park just outside of Bath. We also did lots of walking and eating out.
Cambridge
I also visited Cambridge for the first time. I met up with my best friends and we had a good little explore. The weather was terrible so we had to do a lot of ducking out of the rain but we did manage some book shopping and we visited a very interesting museum. We also had great fun spotting all the giraffes!
Croft Castle and the Ironbridge Museum of the Gorge
We have also been doing some visiting closer to home. A couple of weeks ago we visited one of our favourites which is Croft Castle and today we visited a new place which was the Ironbride Museum of the Gorge. The Museum of the Gorge has only just recently reopened which is why we have never visited as we like to visit Ironbride. I also did a tiny bit of book shopping!
The setting for this, the third novel by Dorothy Whipple Persephone have published, is Saunby Priory, a large house somewhere in England which has seen better times. We are shown the two Marwood girls, who are nearly grown-up, their father, the widower Major Marwood, and their aunt; then, as soon as their lives have been described, the Major proposes marriage to a woman much younger than himself – and many changes begin.
Review
This is my first book by Dorothy Whipple and I was not disappointed, in fact I went to Persephone Books and bought three more books by Whipple so I can read more of her work.
At the beginning of the book we are introduced to Saunby Priory which is owned by the cricket obsessed Major Marwood. Major Marwood has two daughters living with him who he chooses to ignore most of the time and his spinster sister who he does nothing but moan about. Due to the Major’s love of cricket and despair about how his sister runs the house during his cricket weeks he decides to marry Anthea. Anthea is much younger than the Major but he thinks she will be perfect for taking over the running of the house and making things better during his cricket weeks.
The book soon moves from the Major’s point of view and his relationship with the Priory to Anthea’s. Anthea has always wanted to be happy and she thinks her way to happiness lies with the Major but then she realises that things are not as she dreamed about. We then begin to see the relationship Anthea has with the Priory and how she desperately seeks a friend.
This book really is all about relationships and the big relationship is the characters’ relationship with the Priory. Even when Christine gets married and moves away she is always drawn back to her beloved Priory. Penelope however has very different feelings about the Priory. The Priory is the centre of this book and every character we meet has some connection to it even if it is only fleeting.
There are so many things I love about this book; the Major’s quirks, especially his love of the telephone, the descriptions of the beautiful land around the Priory, how the events of the Priory seem to be reflected in the slow collapse of the scarecrow, the subtle humour, and I could go on and on. I could not put this book down and give it a big 5 out of 5 Dragons.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
About the author
Born in 1893, DOROTHY WHIPPLE (nee Stirrup) had an intensely happy childhood in Blackburn as part of the large family of a local architect. Her close friend George Owen having been killed in the first week of the war, for three years she worked as secretary to Henry Whipple, an educational administrator who was a widower twenty-four years her senior and whom she married in 1917. Their life was mostly spent in Nottingham; here she wrote Young Anne (1927), the first of nine extremely successful novels which included Greenbanks (1932) and The Priory (1939). Almost all her books were Book Society Choices or Recommendations and two of them, They Knew Mr Knight (1934) and They were Sisters (1943), were made into films. She also wrote short stories and two volumes of memoirs. Someone at a Distance (1953) was her last novel. Returning in her last years to Blackburn, Dorothy Whipple died there in 1966.
Lady Book Dragon 