Elizabeth von Arnim
Crowdsourced: More Books with a Difference – Fiction
You asked, Moonlight Reader? To quote from one of my additional entries below: “As you wish …” Without any further ado: Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies When Lillelara added A Place of Greater Safety to her list, I could have kicked myself — because Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell books were definitely among […]
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My Personal Literary Canon, Part 2: “Veteran” Readership
24 Festive Tasks, Door 5, Task 3: Tell us: What author’s books would you consider yourself a veteran of (i.e., by author have you read particularly many books – or maybe even all of them)? The authors by whom I’ve read the most books don’t coincide exactly, but substantially with those that I’d also consider […]
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My Favorite Books of 2018
24 Festive Tasks: Door 9 – Thanksgiving, Task 1: List the 3 books you’ve read this year you’re most “thankful” for (your favs) or the one book you’ve ever read that changed your life for the better. 2018 was an excellent reading year for me, both in terms of quantity and quality — yet, […]
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Book Rescue, Book-Related Places of Pilgrimage … and My Personal Literary Canon, Part 1
24 Festive Tasks: Door 7 – Mawlid, Task 2: The Five Pillars of Islam almsgiving and the pilgrimage to Mekka. Tell us: Have you ever donated books or rescued them from (horror of horrors) being trashed? Alternatively: Is there a book-related place that is a place of pilgrimage to you? If I donate books, I […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer
A largely autobiographical ode to reading and to the peace and quiet of a summer garden … with more than an occasional sidelight on early 20th century Prussian country life and mores. Reading progress updates: 3 / 190 pages 9 / 190 pages 14 / 190 pages 22 / 190 pages 30 / 190 pages […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 147 of 190 Pages
“A man once made it a reproach that I should be so happy, and told me everybody has crosses, and that we live in a vale of woe. I mentioned moles as my principal cross, and pointed to the huge black mounds with which they had decorated the tennis-court, but I could not agree to […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 140 of 190 Pages
“All those maxims about judging others by yourself, and putting yourself in another person’s place, are not, I am afraid, reliable. I had them dinned into me constantly as a child, and I was constantly trying to obey them, and constantly was astonished at the unexpected results I arrived at; and now I know that […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 133 of 190 Pages
“I am frightened once more at the solitariness in which we each of us live. I have, it is true, a great many friends — people with whom it is pleasant to spend an afternoon if such afternoons are not repeated often, and if you are careful not to stir more than the surface of […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 131 of 190 Pages
Lupins! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Summary post HERE. Further reading progress updates: 3 / 190 pages 9 / 190 pages 14 / 190 pages 22 / 190 pages 30 / 190 pages 41 / 190 pages 46 / 190 pages 55 / 190 pages 62 / 190 pages 65 / 190 pages 67 / 190 pages 69 / […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 126 of 190 Pages
“I walked out of the village and through the fir wood and the meadow as quickly as I could, opened the gate into my garden, went down the most sheltered path, flung myself on the grass in a quiet nook, and said aloud “Ugh!” It is a well-known exclamation of disgust, and is thus inadequately […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 110 of 190 Pages
Back to Solitary Summer, and to anybody who thinks this is just fluffy garden talk, I’d heartily recommend to read the section on the disastrous intersection of poverty, prejudice and ignorance in the village, particularly insofar as it concerned the children. “There is a great wall of ignorance and prejudice dividing us from the people […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 106 of 190 Pages
Hooray — and once more, Elizabeth is decades ahead of her time, in not (at least not at heart) joining the local clergyman’s and the city population’s uproar over the rural custom of “prefacing” a marriage by its consummation … and the inevitable consequences! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Summary post HERE. Further reading progress updates: 3 / 190 […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 95 of 190 Pages
Ugh. Those four-families-to-one-building cottages, with a single room per family, shared kitchens and looking out on a pig sty if you’re unlucky … I’d say humanity has advanced just a bit since Elizabeth’s day. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Summary post HERE. Further reading progress updates: 3 / 190 pages 9 / 190 pages 14 / 190 pages 22 […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 93 of 190 Pages
More baby talk about the hereafter, occasioned by the “June baby”‘s insistence that she doesn’t want to go to paradies because there’s nothing there for her to play with, which prompts this response by her sisters and her mother: “‘Why, she can play at ball there with all the Sternleins if she likes!’ The idea […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 89 of 190 Pages
“The Man of Wrath says all women love churchyards. He is fond of sweeping assertions, and is sometimes curiously feminine in his tendency to infer a general principle from a particular instance.” Hah! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Summary post HERE. Further reading progress updates: 3 / 190 pages 9 / 190 pages 14 / 190 pages 22 / […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 87 of 190 Pages
After one of her daughter’s had fallen into a neighbor’s slimy green pond: “It was no use sending for the doctor because there is no doctor within reach; a fact which simplifies life amazingly when you ave children. During the time we lived in town the doctor was never out of the house. Hardly a […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 83 of 190 Pages
So Elizabeth loves sweet peas! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Summary post HERE. Further reading progress updates: 3 / 190 pages 9 / 190 pages 14 / 190 pages 22 / 190 pages 30 / 190 pages 41 / 190 pages 46 / 190 pages 55 / 190 pages 62 / 190 pages 65 / 190 pages 67 / […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 69 of 190 Pages
Fatal objections to the candidacy of new parsons for the living becoming vacant on the estate: “One was too old, another not old enough; another had twelve children, and the parsonage only allows for eight; one had a shrewish wife, and another was of Liberal tendencies in politics — a fatal objection; one was in […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 67 of 190 Pages
“But what dreariness can equal the dreariness of a cold gale at midsummer? I have been chilly and dejected all day, shut up behind the streaming window-panes, and not liking to have a fire because of its dissipated appearance in the scorching intervals of sunshine. Once or twice my hand was on the bell and […]
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Elizabeth von Arnim: The Solitary Summer – Reading Progress Update: 65 of 190 Pages
“… twenty degrees of frost Réaumur …” Interesting, I had no idea they used this. That’s really cold indeed … -25°C (or -13F). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Summary post HERE. Further reading progress updates: 3 / 190 pages 9 / 190 pages 14 / 190 pages 22 / 190 pages 30 / 190 pages 41 / 190 pages […]
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