A mixed bag of Oldies

Sometime you have to go back and do some catching up on books you missed when they first came out. I read some older books this weekend that I enjoyed. Most of them have been on various lists of good books for years, but I'd always managed to miss them. It's a new book if you've never read it, no matter when it was published!

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. 1984, Vintage. 110 pp Fiction

Esperanza Cordero tells us about her home, her family, and her neighborhood in Chicago's Latino section. She can be funny, wise, and achingly hopeful. This is a deceptively simple book--short book, short chapters, short sentences. But there is a lot packed in here about growing up. The book has been on a number of high school reading lists for years, but I'm just now getting around to reading it.

The King's Brat by Constance Gluyas. 1972, Prentice-Hall. 363 pp Historical fiction
Set in England at the start of the reign of Charles II, we start in the slums of London with Angel Dawson, friend of Nellie Gwynne, being pick up and thrown in Newgate prison fore theft. While there she meets a young woman there with amnesia who recovers just before dying and asks Angel to tell her brother Nicholas what happened to her. Nicholas just happens to be Earl of Benbrook, the new King's best friend. He decides to clean the beautiful Angel up, educate her, and turn her into a lady. Can you say Pygmalion? He's been scarred by a promiscuous mother, so true love does not run smooth. Oh, and did I mention the Plague? And the amorous King? We miss the Great Fire in this one, but that's about all.

The Last English King by Julian Rathbone. 1999, St. Martin's Press. 381 pp Historical fiction
The events leading up to the Battle of Hastings is told in flashback by Walt, King Harold's only surviving bodyguard, who is suffering from remorse at being alive. The characters of Edward the Confessor (who really needed to), the Godwinson family, William, the Conqueror to be, and a cast of thousands make the few years leading up to 1066 really come alive. I can truthfully say that I have never read a book about these people that was quite so lively. Those Anglo Saxons were a rowdy bunch.

The Past Is Another Country by Lois Battle. 1990, Viking. 392 pp. Fiction
After the end of their schooling life is different for classmates Megan Hanlon and Greta Papandreou, but their lives still intertwine in unexpected ways. Megan works in film, Greta marries a surgeon. The third woman is one of the nuns who taught them. All three have issues with relationships that crisscross past and present, that probe who they were and who they are. A better book than I expected.

Your Blue Ain't Like Mine by Bebe Moore Campbell. 1992, Ballantine. 332 pp. Fiction
The ache of cultural change and chance encounters. The pain of growing up and being black. The agony of parenting in a world you can't control. The rawness of life where ever you go and learning to live in the skin you've been given. This book aches with the need to be read to the background of a low bluesy saxophones and a gravel-voiced singer.