Sunday, May 10, 2015

Sunday miscellany: two bookish points and a mini-rewiew

I thought I would be spending this weekend with Pioneer Girl, the annotated edition of Laura Ingalls Wilder's unpublished autobiography, which finally (finally) arrived on Friday.  But instead I am reading another autobiography, Benjamin Franklin's.  I was already in the middle of it, and I found that I didn't want to put it aside, even for Laura Ingalls Wilder.  Though every time I look at Pioneer Girl I am sorely tempted.  No one told me there is a picture of Mrs. Boast!  Mrs. Boast!!  For some reason that made me giddier than anything else I've seen in my quick glances.  But I keep going back to Dr. Franklin, because his story is just so interesting. I feel like I've stepped through a door into 18th-century Philadelphia, with a side-trip to London.  Of course, his is a little Penguin paperback, while Pioneer Girl is a massive square hardback, which I will be toting around this week to the detriment of my back.

I nearly took both of them with me to our JASNA Houston meeting yesterday, just to have someone to gloat over Pioneer Girl with me.  The tea was delicious, as always.  It was disappointing that in the end, we didn't have enough people to play whist.  We played a Pride and Prejudice trivia game instead, which is always fun.  However, though the moderator was completely impartial, something was obviously favoring the opposite team.  Actual questions for them: Who did Mr. Collins ask to marry him after Elizabeth Bennet turned him down, and What was one reason that Mr. Collins gave for seeking a wife?  Actual questions for our team: Who did Lydia and Kitty dress up in women's clothes to fool visitors, and How many were supposed to be in Mr. Bingley's party for the assembly ball?   Needless to say, we lost.  (We also missed "How many dances did Bingley dance with Jane at the ball?" and "Who married 'a man of more fashion than fortune'?")  However, we successfully contested one point.  On the question, What was Jane Austen's father's name, after we tried "Mr. Austen," we decided on "George."  The card said "William," which I knew was wrong!  We weren't using our phones, just our wits, but I did have to look that one up.  I should have petitioned for a forfeit at that point.

And finally, a mini-review: after reading and loving Sharon Shinn's The Turning Season, I was very excited to get the first two books in the "Shifting Circle" series.  I had some pretty high expectations for the first, The Shape of Desire, and at first I was disappointed.  Told in the first-person present as well, it is narrated by Maria Devane.  She met shape-shifter Dante Romano in college, and they have been together ever since.  She has adapted her life completely around him, but his time in human form is steadily decreasing, and now she sees him only a few days every month.  This is a darker story than Kara's in the later book.  Maria is more isolated, by choice in order to keep Dante's secrets and her own.  I felt initially like she had lost herself in the relationship, like she was paying too high a price for a few days of manic happiness and sex with her lover, followed by weeks of isolation and depression.  But the story turns out to be more complicated than that, as does their relationship, and I found it increasingly absorbing.  Here again there was a surprise at the end that I did not see coming (though I can see in hindsight that hints were planted), and I found the ending very intriguing.  I would like to check back in on the characters - maybe they will appear in later books?  I don't know if Sharon Shinn will be writing more of this series, but I hope so. I still have one more to read, Still Life with Shape-Shifter, which is connected to the third book.  After I read that, I'm looking forward to exploring her other books, and would welcome any recommendations (Reading the End Jenny already mentioned one that is a take-off from Jane Eyre).

I hope everyone has a good week!  We are supposed to have some terribly wet and stormy weather starting tonight, which will be a great excuse to curl up with tea and cats and autobiographies.  Mrs. Boast, y'all!  And I just opened it randomly, to a picture of the Farmer Boy family!  Back to Ben, and then on to Laura!

13 comments:

  1. And I was certain you'd spend the entire weekend with Pioneer Girl! Sounds like an excellent couple of days anyway... :)

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    1. I know, and after I made such a fuss about *finally* getting it ;) But I am *finally* starting it!!

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  2. A picture of Mrs. Boast and a Pride & Prejudice trivia game? Sounds like a good weekend. Sorry your questions were so unfair. Who would know the answers to those? Have you ever played the Pride & Prejudice board game where you try to get your couple to the church first? It's awesome. Hope you enjoy Pioneer Girl when you finish your Franklin biography! :)

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    1. I've never seen that game, Lark, but it sounds like great fun! Of course, with my luck, I'd draw Charlotte & Mr. Collins :) When we played a trivia game at the Christmas party, I ended up as Lady Catherine de Burgh!

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  3. Ahahaha, I call shenanigans on the obvious bias of the question-assigners! I would have failed so hard at that trivia game -- I do not know anyone's first name, and definitely anything where I had to say a number would be no good at all.

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    1. Thank you! The other team had no sympathy for us, but then they were ahead by 5 points. We are a competitive group - there is definitely some trash-talking around the whist tables.

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  4. I wish I knew who Mrs. Boast was just so I could share in your enthusiasm! I have thumbed through Pioneer Girl at the library and it is quite a chunkster. I hope your back survives the week of toting it around.

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    1. This made me smile, Anbolyn! Mrs. Boast is a character in the later books. She & her husband settle on a claim near Laura's, who help them get settled. She's a young woman, a good friend, and they have fun with her. She's such a bright spot in the books.

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    2. Ooops, near Laura's family, she wasn't of course staking her own claim (tho Almanzo's sister did).

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  5. My JASNA group played whist a few years ago during a meeting focused on games and recreation. It was pretty fun, actually.

    I've been wanting to get Pioneer Girl, but haven't yet. I always loved Mrs. Boast in the books--what a sweetheart! I still have hopes of someday doing a LIW driving tour, but not during tornado season!

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    1. I was surprised at how easy whist is to play. I was thinking it was more like bridge, with bidding, which confuses me no end.

      I have been looking at my Little House guidebook, and thinking I could easily drive up to Rocky Ridge. But I really, really want to get to De Smet.

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  6. I am so envious of whist. Just writing "whist" conjures up great images. I have joined a club whose members play a lot of bridge, and I am encouraged to joint the beginners except they meet during work hours (bah!), but I think that all the counting and remembering isn't really for me. I think I'd be nervous wreck, esp, about stuffing it up for a partner too. But people play bridge in so many of my favourite crime novels. Maybe that's not a good reason to start either!

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    1. I am terrible at bidding, so I've been reluctant to try bridge. I was so pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to learn whist. I grew up playing hearts, and my dad's family were all cribbage fiends. I really miss playing cards. I've talked to people about starting a group to play hearts, or poker - and now whist, but it never gets too far.

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Thank you for taking the time to read, and to comment. I always enjoy hearing different points of view about the books I am reading, even if we disagree!