Destination: London

Book: Comfort and Joy (NEW October 2011) by India Knight

Cheeky!  The little book Comfort and Joy just elbowed its way up in front of a stack of other books waiting to be reviewed.  I could not resist the cheerful red cover festooned with Christmas lights, so after reading a few more serious books, I picked it up, hoping for the best.

In moments, I was laughing out loud and within a few more moments, I knew I must share it with you in time for you to get copies for your own travel library and as gifts for all your female BFFs–before the Christmas rush sets in.  Because if there is one thing women need in the midst of holiday madness, it is some relief from the performance pressure.

London Christmas Shopping

Author India Knight‘s main character, Clara (whom Knight says closely resembles herself), think as she is doing her last-minute shopping,

It’s about love, and family, and, like I said, redemption.  If I didn’t want to run the risk of sounding like the king of the wankers, I’d say Christmas was about hope.  Yeah.  Hope.  And optimism.  It’s like the fairy tales in the window: for families, every Christmas is a new opportunity for Happy Ever After. [And then she adds, to herself,] “No pressure, then.”

Right. No pressure.  Clara, a 40-year-old writer and mum, shares three consecutive Christmases (or Christmi, as her sister says) with us.  She feels personally responsible for creating a magical holiday experience for her extended family–and, one suspects–frantic to live up to her own fantasy Christmas.  That 40-yr-old part bothers her when she sees an attractive man and realizes she is wearing tights (and flesh-colored Pants of Steel)–not see-through stockings.

The problem is, I wasn’t always a person of the flesh-colored pants variety.  There was a time, many centuries ago, when triceratopses frolicked playfully across the plains with diplodocuses, when I was acquainted with the woman in the stockings…..Happily for me I don’t find that many people attractive, plus my propensity for bad behavior has been napalmed into extinction by years and years of marriage, children, supermarkets, laundry, bills, school, work, all of that stuff.

So she gets back to searching for the perfect present and cooking and decorating herself into a tizzy for her children, her ex-husbands, in-laws, sisters and their families, a best friend and her mother–who is a dead ringer for Auntie Mame. Her daughters call her Kate–never Mum.

Part of the fun for an American reading this books is the introduction of a very English family and their Christmas culture–not terribly unlike our own, since we stole most of it once the Puritans loosened up.  On the one hand, the story is all familiar–the musings on relations between the sexes and the family dynamics.  On the other hand, there are those distinctly English bits like the class consciousness and a relentless cuteness in talking about bodily functions, and there are a few English usages that take some getting used to.  You need to learn the difference between liking someone and fancying someone, for instance.

Despite the fact that from time to time I felt left out by mentions of brands or store names I didn’t know and TV shows that have not made it to the U.S. via public TV–I totally got it.  Like, for instance, although we might not say “bits and bobs” when describing the last-minute gifts we are buying,

London Oxford Street

The book starts in this headlong rush in  crowded Oxford street on 23 December  2009, as Clara shops for the bits and bobs and ponders why pigeons walk beside her instead of flying.  The head long rush rarely lets up.

The book, of course, is not really about Christmas.  Christmas is just the setting.  It is about relationships.  Here’s Clara, describing her husband and contemplating how the hot blood of a romance cools with the arrival of children and duty.

He’s fit, in both senses.  He is extremely attractive. But you see, even with that–I lie in bed and watch him getting dressed and I think, “He’s extremely attractive,” but I think it like one might think, “He’s a sweet dog,” or, “I really like what the Browns have done to their spare room,”  It’s become objective.  I would prefer it if I had the thought and then felt compelled to remove his pants with my teeth.

Nothing of the 21st century life escapes skewering here–child rearing theories, trendy foods, conspicuous consumption, political correctness, Facebook, texting. (Clara loves “the attractive man” because he uses punctuation in a text message. As in, Happy Christmas, Clara.)

But if this is a sociological study, enroll me in sociology.  I haven’t had this much fun in years.

The publisher, Penguin Books, sent me a review copy, and while I appreciate the opportunity, they know that does not guarantee a good review. In this case, I REALLY hope that you will buy a few copies, and as usual, would be extra happy if you are shopping at Amazon, if you’d get there by clicking on a link from A Traveler’s Library. That way, although it costs you no more, I earn a few cents to keep the blog going. And thanks to the Flickr photographers who make their photos available through Creative Commons for these shots of London.

You can follow India Knight on Twitter @indiaknight

How do you get through the frictions and bits and bobs of Christmas? Are you the keeper of the flame in your family?

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Destination: England

Book: Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear (2003)

It’s a cozy, or is it?  A mystery novel that sidesteps blood and merciless beatings for a more measured and intellectual approach to solving crimes is called a cozy.  Maisie Dobbs, the first in a series of (so far) seven novels written by Jacqueline Winspear,  introduces us to the English woman whose business placard reads “psychologist and investigator.” Cozies generally feature women, but their content may not be quite as fraught with meaning as Maisie Dobbs.

Maisie tracks a criminal, but the leisurely pursuit occupies less than half of a fairly short book.  The rest provides us with most of Maisie’s unconventional life story. Winspear recreates the time preceding, during and after World War I and the effect that horrors of that war had on a whole generation.

End of World War I, 1918, London

The fledgling investigator sets up her office in 1929 London with the help of a wealthy woman she used to work for as a maid.   When a man asks Maisie to find out if his wife is cheating on him, she uncovers a scheme to take advantage of wounded veterans.  Working on discovering the truth draws her back through a lengthy flashback to her own growth from household servant to the grueling work as a battlefield nurse in France during the war. Winspear skillfully introduces the upstairs-downstairs world of Ladies and their servants and then the realities of World War I. In fact, all of her books are set in the period of the Great War, and in this first book, she acknowledges the stories of her Grandfather for setting her on that path.
With the exception of a bit of suspenseful action toward the end, the pace is slow and deliberate…fitting Maisie’s training by her mentor Maurice Blanc.  Some of his teachings–which always come to mind when she needs them, include meditation, although it is not called that. She also practices body mirroring to feel through another’s stance what they are feeling, and trusts her instincts along with logic.

The most unusual characteristic of Maisie in comparison to other sleuths you have known is her insistence that she has a duty to make people better–to help them heal.  Most fictional detectives have a deep understanding of human nature, but most are more focused on punishment and revenge than on healing.  And certainly the detectives we have talked about here at A Traveler’s Library view the world with a good deal more skepticism than Maisie. Take Phillip Marlowe and Spenser, for instance.

Sissinghurst in Kent, UK

So how does this mystery novel help the traveler?  Set in London and in the countryside of Sussex and Kent in the teens and twenties of the 20th century, it describes a bygone age.  And yet, please forgive me English friends, I tend to picture England and particularly London, in the early twentieth century anyhow.  This even though I’ve been there and know about the Millennium Bridge and the Eye and the bustles of the modern world. It is still the Mews and the Beefeaters and the venerable government buildings that come to mind. Furthermore, Winspear shows us a class system that is definitely altered by the advent of “The Great War,” but cannot be avoided even today in a country with a Queen and titled landowners.

Westminster Bridge over the Thames, London, early morning

Maisie likes to take walks, and as we follow her, we see London:

She entered Palace Road from Royal Street, and turned right to walk toward Westminster Bridge.  She loved to watch the Thames first thing in the morning.  Those Londoners who lived just South of the river always said they “were going over the water” when they crossed the Thames, never referring to the river by name unless they were speaking to a stranger.

And Winspear drops little tidbits that read like guidebook entries, like this about Mecklenburg Square which is very little changed since Maisie walked there in 1929, and Virginia Woolf lived there in 1939:

Named in honor of Charlotte of Mecklinburgh-Strelitz who became queen consort upon her marriage to George III of England, the gracious Georgian houses of the square were set around a garden protected by a wrought-iron fence secured with a locked gate.

As Maisie loves the countryside (out of the smoke, as her father says), we also are introduced to other areas of England.

In France, she had dreamed of Kent, of apple orchards in full blossom, primroses and bluebells carpeting the woodland, and the soft countryside stretching out before her.

Because of her skillful presentation of life as it was in the period of the war, and because the detailed descriptions allow the reader to see London and see the countryside, this is a fine book to add to the traveler’s Library.

Links to book titles provide you with a convenient way to purchase the book, and when you buy anything at Amazon after clicking on links from A Traveler’s Library, I earn a few cents to help pay the rent on the site. Thanks.

I would like to thank the photographers who share their pictures via Creative Commons License at Flickr for these amazingly appropriate pictures. You can thank them by clicking on the image to learn more. And a special thank you to regular readers Colleen Alley and Lorrie McCallum who both recommended that I read Winspear, and start with the first book, Maisie Dobbs.

Are you a reader of “cozies?”  Would you classify Maisie Dobbs as a cozy?

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Book Cover

Destination: Jersey Island, the Channel Islands, Great Britain

Book: War on the Margins (2009, PB August 2010) by Libby Cone

I read War on the Margins as I sat at my dining room table eating a sandwich made of leftover Thanksgiving turkey and cranberry sauce. Marlene and Peter sat in a farm shed on a piece of canvas and contemplated killing a rat for food.

I read War on the Margins as I sat propped up with pillows on my sofa, drinking a cup of tea. Lucy and Suzanne had long run out of real tea, and made a drink of parsnips.

Hunger pervades the story of precarious survival on the Island of Jersey in the English Channel during World War II.  But there are other horrors as well, which the Libby Cone has made clear in War on the Margins not only with poetic descriptions but also by reprinting actual documents from the Germans–orders regarding Jews, mostly. As a researcher, I am always fascinated when I see original documents, but in the midst of this novel, they sometimes seemed unnecessary and intrusive.

As readers, we sit with the British citizens of Jersey as they try to learn something from their crystal sets and wonder why no one is coming to the aid of the Channel Islands. We are with them when the BBC broadcasts a poem, by Verlaine (probably chosen because his name starts with “V” the symbol of the resistance.

“The long sobbing of the violins of Autumn,

Molasses tomorrow will spurt froth cognac,

Sabine…”

Several years ago, I visited the Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.  They have fascinating displays of espionage and deceit dating back to ancient times, but nothing was more moving than to hear a recording of the actual radio broadcast from the BBC on the day preceding the D-Day invasion of the Normandy beaches. Following the opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth (which spell V in Morse Code–dot-dot-dot-dash), the announcer started the news, but then read the poem before going back to mundane weather reports.

I could only imagine what joy must have welled up in the hearts of the people on the continent as they heard the hidden message. The invasion is on.

The horror felt by the citizens of Jersey when they were abandoned by their country, are now transferred to the German soldiers stranded inside British territory as a defeated army. I admire that Libby Cone does not take the easy way out and paint a sharp line between the good guys and the bad guys. Everyone faces moral dilemmas. Everyone in war is a victim.  People make decisions under stress that violate principles they thought were inviolable. Sometimes they are forced to take actions that they don’t approve of and cannot forgive themselves for.

This year, when we were in France, we heard about the hundreds of acts of resistance and thousands of communiques of intelligence to the Alliest helped make D-Day a success. According to a British history site, organized resistance to the Allies in France in 1944 included 100,000 people. Between January and September there were more than 500 successful acts of resistance.

War on the Margins, based on scholarly research done for a dissertation, focuses on the plight of Jews, or people defined by the Nazis as Jews, but clearly all the people living in the Channel Islands faced devastating circumstances.  While the best seller, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, serves up a witty tale of survival, War on the Margins presents a nearly unmittingly grim picture of life on the island. The reader spirals downward along with the characters, and begans to lose hope even though she know the real outcome of the war.

Claude and Lucille (Suzanne and Lucy), surrealist artists active in the resistance, befriend Marlene, a shy misfit who thinks of herself as an old maid.  It would be hard to imagine more interesting characters than the lesbian surrealist artists, Lucy and Suzanne– proving once again that fact is stranger than fiction. Libby Cone uses actual correspondence between the two when they were imprisoned by the Germans.

The non-German characters in the novel seemed never to doubt what the outcome would be–Britain would triumph–anything else was untinkable. However, the question is, which of them will be able to hang on until the end?

You can learn more about the occupation of Jersey at this Jersey Heritage web site , wherel you can see photographs of Jersey during occupation.

Yes, between The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society and War on the Margins, I definitely want to visit the Channel Islands. How about you?

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Book Cover

Destination: Mostly England

Book: George Eliot in Love by Brenda Maddox (NEW September 28, 2010)

Ugly. George Eliot (Mary Ann or Marian Evans) was beyond plain. Everyone noted her over-sized nose, prominent jaw and long chin. But her charm and brilliance saved the day. Furthermore, she is one of the best English novelists ever.

When I was in high school, our assigned reading included Silas Marner and like so many ill-planned high school assignments, forcing me to plow through this book because it was “Good Literature” turned me against the author for a very long time. (I had a similar experience with arguably the best book to come from America, Moby Dick.)

Thank goodness a few years ago I belonged to a book group that read Middlemarch (Oxford World’s Classics).  Expecting to be bored by a musty old book, I found instead a lively, compassionate story about timeless problems faced by an interesting array of characters. And such a crystal clear depiction of time and place!

Evans/Eliot constantly fretted that she could not write well enough–that no one would like her work–that no one would like her. And as Brenda Maddox shows in  George Eliot in Love, Eliot was not as impervious to the mores of the day as one might think.  Despite her daring use of a man’s name (a la George Sand), and despite her more than thirty years of unwedded bliss, she was not what we would consider a liberated woman. This book introduces some surprises, such as the fact that George Eliot did not support women’s suffrage.

George Eliot in Love reminds us that despite the fact that she ran in an intellectual and liberal-minded crowd, this was still the time that Jane Austin wrote about.  A woman’s main task was to marry–or at least to find a man to look after her. The young Mary Anne/Marian Evans had numerous affairs, some sexual, falling in love at the drop of a hat.

George Eliot

The long nose and masculine features took second place to her intellect and her soft-spoken, attentive manner.  Henry James, the great skeptic, described her as “deliciously hideous” but went on to say,

Now in this vast ugliness resides a most powerful beauty which, in a very few minutes steals forth and charms the mind so that you end as I ended in falling in love with her.  Yes, behold me literally in love with this great horse-faced blue-stocking.

After many disappointments, she fell in love for keeps with a man who doted on her and managed her career. George Lewes was even responsible for masking the female writer behind a masculine name when she wrote her first novel, Adam Bede, in 1857. She was 38 years old. Although the couple kept her identity hidden through several more books, people eventually knew George Eliot.

However, even when George Lewes died after they had lived together for 24 years, some people were shocked to find he had never divorced his first wife, and the happy couple, George and George, had never wed.

This is a brief book, focused on personal life, although synopses of the important novels sneak in, somewhat unnecessarily. The author also crammed the first few chapters of George Eliot in Love with details of her early life that struck me as not essential to the later story. Mary Ann Evan’s life before she became George Eliot lacks strong direction.  However when she partners with Lewes, writes a string of successful novels and becomes a celebrity, the book moves swiftly with fascinating glimpses into her life.

The array of characters in the social circle of the two Georges, included the intelligentsia of London and beyond. Luminaries mentioned include Thackeray, Dickens, Jane Austin, Lizt, Darwin, Spencer (the first to posit evolutionary theory), Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, T. H. Huxley and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

If you are an avid reader of biographies, you may have run into Brenda Maddox before, since she has won numerous awards for her biographies. In this Google excerpt, she talks about some of her philosophy. The stimulating world of ideas in this book, combined with George Eliot’s magnificent capture of the Midlands where she grew up–in Warwickshire– in her novels, makes her an essential for the traveler’s library. (Although she traveled widely, England was her subject.) George Eliot in Love provides an interesting view of the life of the great writer.

For more at A Traveler’s Library about British writers who capture England, see Jane Austin, an Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes Movie, and Bill Bryson,

I invite you to follow the links to Amazon and take a look at Middlemarch or George Eliot in Love, and share your thoughts on Eliot below.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

St. Peter Port bus station, Guernsey

DESTINATION: Guernsey, the Channel Islands, Great Britain

BOOK: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2008) by Mary Anne Shaeffer and Annie Barrows

A GUEST POST by Anne-Sophie Redisch

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society is a lovely book, written entirely in the form of letters, mostly between the main character Juliet Ashton, a young author in 1940s Britain – and numerous pen friends.

One day, Juliet receives a letter from Dawsey Adams, a Guernsey farmer, who owns a book with Juliet’s name and address written in it, that once belonged to her. And thus begins an engaging correspondence between the two.

Through his letters, Dawsey paints a lively picture of everyday life in German-occupied Guernsey (the Channel Islands were the only part of the British Isles occupied during World War II).

Guernsey War Time Street in the German Occupation Museum

Things To Do

He relates stories of meetings in the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a club originally set up as a front by a group of islanders needing to hide a pig from the Nazi occupiers. Oddly, the Germans seemed to tolerate intellectually oriented gatherings. During their meetings, the colourful members of the Society talked and ate – and for a few hours each week, forgot the horrors of the war.

Our protagonist, Juliet, finds herself increasingly drawn in by Dawsey’s depictions of Guernsey life and all its wonderful characters. And one day, to the outspoken dismay of her rich, self-satisfied businessman boyfriend, she sets off for Guernsey. Naturally, her relationship with the smug millionaire is doomed.

The book was written by Mary Anne Shaffer, who after being stranded in Guernsey in 1980, was inspired to write a story set here. During the book’s final phases, she became ill and she left it to her niece to finish work with the editors. Sadly, she died and so, this is her only book. I would have liked to read more by this author. She depicts characters, village life, the atmosphere so brilliantly and I was immediately drawn to Guernsey. (Ed. note: and she writes about her visit in her blog).

Guernsey, St. Peter Port

My daughters and I arrived by sea – and, like Juliet, we first spotted the island, as “the sun broke beneath the clouds and set the cliffs shimmering into silver”. I would have liked to travel in time as well, but a visit to 1946 Guernsey was out of the question. To get an idea of how it might have been, though, we visited the German Occupation Museum, showcasing among other WWII relics and memorabilia, a war-time street in St Peter Port.

Luckily, the quaintly named Guernsey capital hasn’t completely changed. Many of the buildings still stand. The narrow passages, stairways and the cobbled streets are the same. Charming, individual little shops remain. My only gripe with Guernsey turned out to be the traffic. The narrow country lanes aren’t built for the sheer number of cars, too many of them large SUVs. But even so, it wasn’t difficult to shut out the noise and stress of the present-day traffic and picture horse drawn carts and a few 1940s cars rambling across the streets of St Peter Port.

For an even better sense of history, we hopped on a ferry to the neighbouring little island Herm. With gravel roads, it’s completely car free. And completely adorable. In fact, I wonder if Juliet ever went to Herm. She was curious, an explorer. I like to think she did.

Sophie and Cat

Anne-Sophie Redisch is a bilingual writer who loves hopping off a train in a new city. Her two daughters often come along, enlivening the travel experience. She has lived in the USA, New Zealand and Norway, and her work appears regularly in in-flight magazines and various Scandinavian and English media. She blogs at Sophie’s World and tweets as SophieR.

Anne-Sophie not only wrote this terrific review–which makes ME want to go to Guernsey–how about you?  But she also supplied the photographs that accompany the review. Be sure to visit her lovely blog, particularly the article linked above about her trip to the Channel Islands. Thanks Sophie!! To show your appreciation for introducing us to the Channel Islands, how about hitting one of those sharing buttons below??

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Tower Bridge is one of the most iconic landmarks in London.

Destination: England

Book: Watching the English (2008) by Kate Fox

A GUEST POST by Julie, The Lady From London

Julie writes a London travel blog, works as travel consultant to help people plan trips throughout the world, and runs a Europe travel website with information for independent travelers. She is a California native who resides in London when she is not traveling throughout the world.

Three years ago I quit my job in San Francisco and decided to move to London. I had spent time visiting England before, but had not stayed for a significant amount of time in the country, let alone its capital city.

St Paul's Cathedral was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in the 17th century. The dome can be seen from all over London.

I did not experience a huge amount culture shock when I first arrived in London. It was the little differences that caught my attention. The most memorable of these was the habit of passers-by on the street running into me without offering an apology or even a glance of recognition.

A month into my time in London, I was starting to notice other differences, too. People weren’t as open and outgoing as they were in California, and the estate agent from whom I rented my flat seemed oddly untrustworthy. I discussed these things with an American friend that had studied in England, and she recommended that I read Watching the English. The book was a study of English culture by an Oxford anthropologist named Kate Fox. I later learned that it was also the de facto expat bible for understanding English culture.

Watching the English takes a deep look into why the English are the way they are. From the unspoken social rules about talking to strangers (discussing the weather is the best way to go) to the English propensity to cheer for the underdog, Fox sheds light on various facets of English culture that are foreign to foreigners (pun intended. As she explains, the English love them).

As I read the book, I started to notice all of Fox’s observations coming true in my everyday life in London. When I went to the pub, I followed her rule to stand close to the bar if I wanted to mingle, and to order my food and drinks at the counter. As Fox assured me, the English did the same, but the foreigners all sat in random places and wondered why the server had not come by yet.

Over time I witnessed more of the book’s findings, from the way English people dress, to the way they speak, to the way they furnish their homes. Sure, many of them were small things, but it was interesting to observe the little details.

Three years on I still find myself witnessing the culture that I read about in Watching the English. So far everything I read in the book has proven true except for one thing. My very first observation of people bumping into me without so much as a nod contradicts Fox’s finding that the English always apologize after running into someone. Maybe American expats just aren’t extended the same courtesy as their native counterparts. I’ll assume it’s just a cultural difference.

Julie supplied the pictures that go with this article. I am so happy to be able to present this first person experience that verifies what a valuable book this is. Thanks, Julie, and continue to enjoy your encounters with otherness in England.

Readers, have you found other guides to cultures in other countries that helped you adapt to a foreign country? I am particularly interested in what people outside the U.S. should read to help them understand America. Or are we just too inscrutable?

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.

Destination: England

Book: Lady Vernon and her Daughter, by Jane Rubino and Caitlen Rubino-Bradway

Today we will be lured to England, with the reminder that today is the birthday of Miss Jane Austen.

What would Jane think? say? do? has much occupied the minds of a mother and daughter, who, when not searching for the perfect husband (comely, wealthy, and amusing) for the latter, have been enlarging upon a short piece of fiction left unfinished by Miss Austen.

They base the faux Jane Austen novel,Lady Vernon and Her Daughter: A Novel of Jane Austen’s Lady Susan, on a short and rather unsatisfactory novel by Austen called Lady Susan.

Jane Rubino has written a series of mysteries set in New Jersey and also fleshed out a Sherlock Holmes collection of tales merely mentioned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in Knight Errant. So I began by asking if her idea of riffing on Jane Austen came from her experience with duplicating Conan Doyle’s style.

Authors Jane Rubino and Her Daughter, Caitlen

Jane: No. It really came out of the mystery series set in New Jesey. Austen is  the last name of my detective—a rabid Austen fanatic—and she has a daughter named Jane Austen.

I was going to write historical fiction using the characters in the story (Lady Susan).  I invited Cait and we talked about it together and started to write a few chapters. But then we thought we wouldn’t do justice to it to do it as history. We then started writing in the style of Austen. It started more as a historical mystery. (They originally focused on the suspicious death of Susan’s husband, but eventually downplayed that.)

ATL:  When did you start reading her novels?

Caitlen: Actually, a little too young to appreciate it. I really got into it in college. I took an intensive Austen seminar. (But) I first read Pride and Prejudice when I was 10 or 11. You don’t appreciate the nuance at that age, but I was reading way above my level.

ATL: Do the characters resemble your mother- daughter relationship in any way?

Caitlen: I think they do in that we get along, and I was shy when I was younger.

Jane: Every mother does have the anxiety about finding the right husband to live up to their standards. In the original she (Lady Susan Vernon) is not very maternal (very cool). We adapted the story and brought it more into Jane Austen’s genre. The focus is on the need to marry well.

ATL: The original is totally composed of letters. Your novel contains letters, but is a standard novel. Did you use the letters ‘as is’ from Lady Susan in Lady Vernon and Her Daughter?

Jane:  We used some letters as is. We used some where we changed the writer. For instance I remember we changed from Lady Susan to Eliza.

Caitlen: We switched from letters sometimes.  When we couldn’t use them as letters, we changed the lines to dialogue or exposition.

ATL: What  literature might have ever  inspired you to travel?

Jane: To be frank, I do not have a passport. I have traveled to the Caribbean and to Canada and across the country—it is a beautiful country. I love South Florida, the Carolinas, and coastal Georgia. When I saw (the movie) “Enchanted in April,” it made me want to see (Italy) in person, but I was almost afraid to go because it wouldn’t be as beautiful (as it was in the movie).

Caitlen: I read Austen or Bronte and I think I would love to go to England. I like to read food and wine books. Bacchus and Me: Wine country in Oregon.

We parted company at this point and I retired to the library to read Lady Vernon and Her Daughter, (which was sent to me by the publisher for review). I can highly recommend it to the lover of Austen and to the traveler to England. The writing is worthy of Jane Austen, with sly humor on every page and as many quotable lines as Miss Austen herself might have penned. And as a side light, their web site is equally amusing, Janetility.

You can see a wonderful book trailer for Lady Vernon and her Daughter at Amazon.

This content is a post from: A Traveler's Library To comment on this post or search for related information, click on the link to A Traveler's Library. We'll leave a light on for you.

©2012 A Traveler's Library. All Rights Reserved.