I count George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss as one of my all-time favorites, so I was eager to start Scenes of Clerical Life as my Spin #38 pick for Classics Club Challenge. I was also fortunate to find the Librivox Recording by Bruce Pirie (available in Podcast formats too) and it was so good — highly recommended!
Scenes of Clerical Life has 3 stories, each one progressively longer and more impactful.
Several months ago, I had decided to participate in the Classics Club Challenge and signed up with a bucket list of 100 classic literature books that I wanted to read. Occasionally, a random number is also generated by by the hosts at The Classics Club, and you can play along by reading that entry number from your chosen list. Rules are here.
This is my first CC Spin, and the Lucky Spin Number this time around is …
On my list, entry #17 is Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot (1857). If I remember correctly, I chose this book because Eliot seems to have had a difficult relationship with her father and she has reflected some of that tension in this book. Plus, Eliot is one of my favorite all-time authors.
Not a very promising book cover, that. But let’s see…
Are you participating in CC Spin #38, or generally in the Classics Club Challenge this year?
Three great December reads — all mysteries, all within this month, and all pretty good! I am already adding some of them to my Best of 2023 list.
Phenomenally well-written, terse suspense. Astronomer Vivvy Bouchet also has unsettling psychic insight and gets pulled into looking for a missing girl by cops. Is she a quack or is it real – nobody can make up their mind about it. As a narrator, Vivvy is unusually talkative but also just a bit unreliable, and this makes her a supremely interesting character. Equally interesting is her public fight with a cult-ish conspiracy podcaster Bubba Guns.
The tense pacing of the first half dwindles later, but Heaberlin still manages a very decent wrap-up at the end. I hear the book’s already up for TV adaptation. And with a title like that, how can you possibly ignore this book? Highly recommended!
Another solid thriller from Armstrong. Recently divorced single mother Aubrey Finch believes she has spotted a kidnapping, but nobody wants to believe her. But Finch has other ghosts from her past, which compel her to pursue the case and in the process, reveal her own ghosts to the public eye. The pacing is excellent. If you can ignore the fact that most of Armstrong’s heroines seem very alike, you will like this one — not as much as the Rockton series, but still quite engrossing.
“SHOPMAN: “You may have your choice — penny plain or twopence coloured.”
SOLEMN SMALL BOY: “Penny plain, please. It’s better value for the money.”
Penny Plain by O. Douglas was a cozy, charming find (thanks to Elisabeth’s recommendation from last year). It’s set in the small town of Priorsford in Scotland, in the 1920s just after WWI.
Young Jean Jardine, barely twenty four, has been taking care of her three younger brothers since a long time. The Jardines have lived on meager means since their parents passed away, but they are an optimistic, good-hearted lot. There’s young rascal Mhor and his dog Peter, Jock who detests sentimentality because he’s at that teenage of life, David who got a scholarship to Oxford and just wants to improve things for his sister. They make do with what they have, possessing a secret of happiness that certainly the rich don’t. Oh, and they read lot, and quote Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott and lots of wonderful poetry.
It’s time for #6degrees. Start with the monthly read, add six books, and see where you end up. Inspired by the 6 Degrees of Separation Meme hosted every month at Books are my Favorite and Best.
February 2021’s book is Redhead By the Side of the Road by Anne Tyler. is about a “Tech Hermit”, Micah Mortimer, whose neat, routined life goes topsy-turvy when guests appear uninvited at his door. This made me think of various house guest experiences, especially for some of the more reclusive literary characters.
What if the Gods were alien invaders on another planet? What if they jealously guarded treasures of the advanced technological variety from the non-Gods? And, what if one day, someone decided to open up those treasure vaults to the rest of the world? That’s the theme of L by Roger Zelazny.
is a 1967 science fiction book and is my first book for the Vintage Science Fiction Month (not a reading challenge) of January 2021.
The Friday Face Off meme was created by Books by Proxy and hosted by Lynn. For each week’s theme, we select a matching book and compare its different book covers across editions. Perfect for a visual fix!
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Theme for Friday Face Off #1 is:
In Wilkie Collins’ , there is literally a character dressed in white, a mysterious figure at the heart of this classic Gothic mystery from 1859. A gallery of a few of its book covers below:
My own personal favorite from these is the Vintage Collins edition in the middle row, to the left. I think that cover captures the theme of the mysterious lady seen at night, dressed in all white, very well indeed. This has been a fun Friday Face Off!
