Best Reads of 2011

Here is a list of my favorite reads from 2011:

10. The Beach Club

9. Captain's Courageous

8. Picture of Dorian Gray

7. My Day: The Best of Eleanor Roosevelt's Acclaimed Newspaper Columns, 1936-1962

6. The Grapes of Wrath

5. A Foreign Affair

4. Our Mutual Friend

3. The Blind Contessa's New Machine

2. The Help

1. Rules of Civility

The Provincial Lady in America

Finished The Provincial Lady in America by E. M. Delafield. This is the third book in the series. The Provincial Lady embarks on a North American book tour, visiting New York City, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Toronto, Washington D.C. and Boston. She is whirled through literary and high society, visits the Chicago World's Fair, is befriended by Alexander Wolcott and insists on visiting Louisa May Alcott's home in Concord, MA. I adored this book and laughed aloud on almost every page. Long live the Provincial Lady!

Happy Yoga

Finished Happy Yoga: 7 Reasons Why There's Nothing to Worry About by Steve Ross. I was a dedicated follower of Steve's yoga show, Inhale when it aired on Oxygyn TV. The most attractive thing about Steve as a teacher and writer is his sense of humor. This carries over very nicely into the book. I took my time reading it, savoring it with breakfast each morning, to start my day on a bright note. I expect to refer back to it often on my journey to a more balanced and relaxed existence.

A Glass of Blessings

Finished A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym. A wonderfully funny book with Pym's usual cast of clergy, archaeologists and old maids. However, this one is told from the perspective of a married woman. Cameo appearances by characters from her previous novels take place, including one by Prudence from Jane and Prudence. I always look forward to my next Pym read.

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Finished Tiding of Comfort and Joy, this year's Christmas read, by Davis Bunn. It consists of two plot lines, one set in the U.S. in the present, the other set in an English village just after the end of World War II. In the present, fourteen year old Marissa is left with her grandmother to recuperate from a serious illness while the rest of her family vacations in Hawaii. Marissa is resentful of the situation and begins her visit on a very negative note. Her grandmother understands her completely though, and to help cheer her up she begins to tell her the story of the Christmas she lost just after the war. This is the English story line, where her grandmother, Emily, is a young woman who travels to London to marry her dashing fiancee, who sadly leaves her in the lurch. While trying to recover from this disappointment, Emily becomes involved in the village's effort to house and feed three hundred war orphans from all over Europe. This effort takes Emily out of her sorrow and helps her to form some of the most important relationships of her life. The English story line is by far the most interesting one. This was a cozy, comfortable holiday read.

The Language of Light

Finished The Language of Light by Meg Waite Clayton. Young widow and mother of two young sons, Nelly Grace, moves to the Maryland countryside into her father's family's former farm. A lost and disillusioned person, Nelly tries to rebuild her life in this new setting. She attempts to rekindle her dreams of being a photo journalist, like her father. She is influenced by her older, daring and beautiful neighbor Emma. As the story unfolds, Nelly discovers that her father and Emma were once lovers. While her friendships with Emma and Emma's son Dac grow, she fails to realize how controlling and manipulative Emma is of those around her. Vague references to infidelity and possible incest haunt Nelly and the reader as well. Some of these seem never to be quite proved or disproved. This was a good read with credible characters.

Five Children and It

Finished Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit. Originally published in 1902, it is the story of five children in England who find a sand fairy in a gravel pit who will grant them one wish a day. Each thing that they wish for somehow goes awry. Luckily the effects of these wishes only last until sundown. While perhaps charming in it's day, I found this book a bit tiresome. It has taken me quite a while to finish it. This was a surprise to me since I enjoyed Nesbit's The Railway Children so much when I read it.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Finished The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy. I've wanted to begin reading Russian literature, so starting with this novella seemed like a good idea. As the title suggests it's the story of a man's journey towards his own death. It begins with a simple physical accident and ends with an epiphany. Tolstoy's examination of this journey and it's stages is genuine and methodical. At times it reminded me of the film version of Wit, based on a play by Margaret Edson.

A Foreign Affair

Finished A Foreign Affair by Caro Peacock. I picked this up last month at Aunt Agatha's. It's the first book in a series based around the character of Liberty Lane. Set in Victorian England, this book was fun and fast paced. Liberty goes undercover as a governess in the house of a tyrant to help solve the mystery of her beloved father's death and uncovers a plot to unseat Young Queen Victoria from the throne. I very much look forward to reading more books in this series.

Ella Minnow Pea

Finished Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable by Mark Dunn. The island of Nollop is named for Nevin Nollop, the creator of the phrase "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," which employs all 26 letters of the alphabet. It's inhabitants are devoted to a love of language. Theirs is a quaint and peaceful world until one day when one of the letters of this famous phrase falls off of the statute of Nollop. Community leaders puzzle over the meaning of this occurrence and decide that it is a sign from Nollop himself that the letter should be omitted from daily use. The rule is strict and penalties are harsh. As more letters fall and a totalitarian government emerges, the novel becomes tense and even terrifying. Not only are these letters banned from use, they also disappear from the novel itself. There were moments when I was reminded of 1984 and Brave New World. A quick and deliciously clever read.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Finished The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. Was there ever a cartoon that scared the pants off you more when you were a kid than Disney's version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow? My nineteen year old daughter still grabs my arm when we watch it every Halloween. Surprisingly enough, Disney stayed pretty close to the text. The version I read was illustrated by Arthur Rackham which was of course, an added treat. The story originally appears in a collection entitled, The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, as did Rip Van Winkle

The Picture of Doian Gray

Finished The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. This was my Halloween read for this year. I wish Wilde had written other novels. His prose is such a delight. Dorian's friend Lord Henry Wotten, a.k.a. Harry, is the key to Dorian's demise. Throughout the novel I saw him as a representation of the devil himself, hence "Harry." Also, towards the end, when Dorian is turning over a new leaf, he tells Harry of a young village maid named Hetty who he had planned to run away with, but instead leaves untouched. This immediately made me think of Hetty in Adam Bebe.

The novel is funny, exciting and gruesome at points. I enjoyed it very much. There were times when it reminded me of Hawthorne's story Rappaccini's Daughter, since nearly everything the beautiful Dorian comes into contact with is destroyed.

Salting Roses

Finished Salting Roses by Lorelle Marinello. A young woman who was raised by her "uncle" after he finds her as a baby in a coal bucket on his front porch, learns that she is the kidnapped daughter of wealthy man and is now heiress to a fortune. She's not too happy about this turn of events. She struggles to grasp the idea that everything she believed about her family and origins is false.

Gracie is a twenty-five year old tomboy who works at the grocery store in her small hometown and looks after her uncles Ben and Artie and her Aunt Alice, all of whom raised her, and all of whom are growing old. The shock of learning the truth about her past sends Gracie into a tailspin, as does the handsome Northerner who acts as liaison between her and her various relatives who begin to arrive to influence her decision of whether or not to accept the fortune. Some of the regional southern dialog is amusing, as are many of the characters. A decent read if you enjoy chick lit.

The Oriental Wife

Finished The Oriental Wife by Evelyn Toynton. The title may be a bit misleading until you garner it's relevance a little ways into the novel. In the end it makes complete sense. What does not is the summary on the inside jacket flap, which is also used as the description on Amazon,

"The Oriental Wife is the story of two assimilated Jewish children from Nuremberg who flee Hitler’s Germany and struggle to put down roots elsewhere. When they meet up again in New York, they fall in love both with each other and with America, believing they have found a permanent refuge. But just when it looks as though nothing can ever touch them again, their lives are shattered by a freakish accident and a betrayal that will reverberate into the life of their American daughter. In its portrait of the immigrant experience, and of the tragic gulf between generations, The Oriental Wife illuminates the collision of American ideals of freedom and happiness with certain sterner old world virtues."

The characters are not children when they leave Germany, nor do they flee, although their parents try to later. I don't see the thing that shatters their lives as a "freakish accident." This description seems ill informed and written in haste, as if gleaned from cliff notes. It does not begin to touch on the deep feeling of the characters, their very human flaws or the poignancy of this story. In essence I think it negates the weight and significance of the work.

That being said, the book is weighty with sorrow, but it's sorrow that needs to be known. One character, who emigrates to New York grieves daily of the small sorrows in the newspaper, a young mother of two who throws herself in front of a train, the death of a panda at the zoo. This is transference of grief that he cannot possibly express, for people he loved who were murdered in the Holocaust.

I was struck by how the main character Louisa, a German Jew, attended boarding school in Switzerland in the thirties, living amongst German, French, English and even Japanese girls her age, just a few years before World War II.

Ultimately this book is about misplaced loyalties and their consequences. A melancholy, but very rich read.

South of Superior

Finished South of Superior by Ellen Airgood. I requested it from my local library and was number 82 on the list. I thought it would be months until I would have it in my hands, but it was only a few weeks. My library ordered 30 copies of it! Set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it is the story of several lost people who find a place for themselves in the tight knit town of McAllaster. Here the residents know everything about everyone. There is a very strong sense of community, and while one person may not like another, they'll be there to lend a hand if it's needed.

Madeline Stone moves from Chicago to McAllaster to live with two elderly sisters and to help take care of one of them. In this small place she uncovers her own past as a cast off child and her future as a painter and business owner. There are many quirky characters, which I always enjoy. These people exude stubbornness, thrift, wisdom and grit. The characters are far from typical and a real pleasure to know. I enjoyed this book.