May in review

So, May is done. The month of #DDMreadingweek, my birthday and some nicer weather starting to creep in.

The beginning of the month was all about #DDMreadingweek for me, I had to start reading in very good time, so I had books ready to review and talk about.

I began the month reading The Doll: short stories by Daphne du Maurier (2011)– a collection of mainly early short stories put together by Virago. They clearly show the writer she would become; she had a fierce storytelling talent right from the start. The title story is particularly memorable.

I then took a break from my DDM reading to read my book group choice on my kindle – The Mad Women’s Ball by Victoria Mas (2019). The Salpêtrière Asylum: Paris, 1885, here the renowned Dr Charcot thrills certain sections of Paris society with his demonstrations of hypnotism on women who have been cast out by society and their families. Women from all sections of society, deemed mad – but really in the main just inconvenient, outspoken, unconventional. Every year a ball is held, the mad women’s ball, where the Paris elite can come and see the mad women dressed up in their finery. An incredibly powerful little novel. All my book group enjoyed it.

 The Glassblowers by Daphne du Maurier (1963) is based on the history of Daphne du Maurier’s own family, it is set in France at the time of the French Revolution. With some fantastic descriptions of the turbulence and fear of those years, it is a brilliantly researched historical novel. I found myself learning quite a lot about the French Revolution.

Next I read one of the books I got for my birthday, A Well Full of Leaves by Elizabeth Myers (1943) one of the newer issued Persephone books. It is always a treat to read a Persephone book. While I can see this might be a novel that divides people, I enjoyed it. This is the story of a childhood, the growth of four siblings to maturity following their bleak and terrible childhood. Narrated by Laura Valley, the third of four siblings, as the novel opens she is thirteen, she has an older sister Anda, an older brother Robert and a younger brother Steve. They live in a horrible little house, in a horrible street with fairly horrible parents. Their father is mainly pathetic, he bets on the horses and loses, drinks a lot, and has been completley dominated by his terrible, bullying wife. Their mother is possibly the worst mother I have come across in fiction. Unsurprisingly there are no happy endings here, but Laura’s relationship with, and the descriptions of the natural world are wonderful.

Mrs Mohr Goes Missing by Maryla Szymiczkowa (2015) is the first book in an entertaining mystery series, two book have so far been translated from the Polish. This novel is more than just a mystery story though, it is also a wry glimpse into turn of the century Polish manners. Set towards the end of the nineteenth century, a time when Poland didn’t exist as an independent country it was partitioned by three empires. Cracow, 1893. Zofia Turbotyńska is a bored housewife, married to Professor Ignacy Turbotyńska of the medical faculty at the university. Zofia goes into full investigative mode when she gets herself drawn in to two deaths at a local retirement home.

Strange Journey by Maud Cairnes (1935) is one of the most recent offerings from the British Library Women Writers series. This was great fun, I seem to love novels like this, not sure how to categorise them. Whimsical, and highly entertaining it is a 1930s body swap comedy. It also has some wry observances of class, manners and relationships.

The Unspeakable Skipton by Pamela Hansford Johnson (1959) – my edition, a first edition that I bought several years ago. It is the first book in the Dorothy Merlin series – PHJ writes several trilogies. A witty satire, this novel follows the fortunes of Daniel Skipton, an Englishman in 1950s Bruges – who sees an opportunity to make some much needed money out of a group of English tourists. I very much enjoy Pamela Hansford Johnson’s writing.

So, that completed my May reading, I did read about a hundred pages of another book on the last day of May, but that can go into June’s pile. Not sure how we have got to June already!

I have no special reading plans for June really. My book group will be reading The Braid by Laetitia Colombani translated from French by Louise Rogers Lalaurie. Other than that, I shall continue to see where the mood takes me. Perhaps I shall read one or two of my newer acquisitions I talked about recently, or go for something I have had for years, like that Pamela Hansford Johnson I just read.

Tell me – What brilliant things did you read in May?

I am currently away for a few days, so I shan’t get any more blog posts out before next week (and I am horribly behind in blog reading too sorry). I hope all of you here in the UK has good bank holiday whatever you’re doing.