Getting back in the Swim as A Reader

After several months of not keeping track of what I've been reading, I'm back. I'll probably post just once or twice a week, depending on what else is going on in my life.

Life Skills by Katie Fforde. 1999, Random. 343 pp. Fiction

Julia quits her job, dumps her fiancé Oscar, and takes a job as a crewman on a canal boat. Just your average chick lit, but Fforde has a way with words that makes you want to know more about Julia, her new boss Suzy, Fergus, and even Julia’s bossy mother. The characters may be stereotypes--Suzy is the classic ditzy society girl, Oscar the dumb as a post fiance who refuses to stay dumped, but it all works. I don’t know how I managed to miss this one when it came out. Send me more Katie Fforde for when I just can't face another earnest book with a heavy handed message.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. 2008, Random. 270 pp. Fiction

Olive Kitteridge is the school teacher, wife, and mother who figures in these thirteen stories. Some of them she is one of the main figures; in others she has just a cameo role. We see her life from middle age onward as it moves through disappointments, small satisfactions, and grief. It is hard to be very sympathetic toward her most of the time, but the interest is in how she moves through her world. I found this a very satisfying read.

On Kingdom Mountain by Howard Frank Mosher. 2007, Houghton, Mifflin. 274 pp. Fiction

Miss Jane Hubbell Kinneson, lives on Kingdom Mountain in northern Vermont in the 1930s. She is a feisty fifty-year old who relies on her razor-sharp tongue, over-under shotgun, and a few drams of Who Shot Sam to aid her fight against the proposed highway across "her" mountain. Then she befriends stunt pilot weathermaker Henry Satterfield who is looking for a long lost stash of Confederate gold. I enjoyed this book a lot, although the story moves slowly. I think it could even be a fun movie if they could find someone like Katherine Hepburn to play the part of Miss Jane.

The Seven Sisters by Margaret Drabble. 2002, Harcourt. 307 pp. Fiction

Candida confides her story of rejection, divorce, and alienation to her computer. Her struggles with her health club, her problems with people nearly defeat her, but she keeps bobbing back. She reminds me in a way of A. A. Milne’s Eeyore. But this book is not depressing. Margaret Drabble’s books are not for the faint hearted. Not that they are filled with violence, smut, or foul language. Quite the opposite. Her books are very literate, often wry, and thought provoking. They are not quick reads with interchangeable plots and characters. Don’t let it put you off, though, because she is worth reading.

The War Against Miss Winter by Kathryn Miller Haines. 2007, HarperCollins 317 pp. Mystery

This "soft-boiled" mystery is set in 1940’s New York City. Miss Winter is an aspiring actress who lives in the George Bernard Shaw House "for wayward actresses", but her day job is filing at Jim McCain’s detective agency. Things get dicey when McCain is murdered and she becomes involved with police, society dames, mobsters, and fellow thespians. A good choice for people who don’t like their hard boiled mysteries too gory or gritty. A sequel, The Winter of Her Discontent, follows, but I haven’t read it yet.

The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig. 2006, Harcourt. 345 pp. Fiction

"Can’t cook, but doesn’t bite." What a great start to a position wanted ad and an adventure in living in 1909 Montana. Rose is an unexpected housekeeper for the three motherless Milliron boys and their father Oliver. She and her brother Morrie bring sunshine, life, and learning to the rural community. A paean to an earlier way of life, The Whistling Season reads fast and lively.