Monthly Roundup/May & a Week Off

I know things have been quiet here on the blog but I'm resigned now to the fact that is how it's going to be until the middle of August. In July we're going travelling, a long anticipated trip to my niece's wedding in the UK and with the mounting excitement as this year flies by and the necessary organisation I cannot settle to writing posts. 
I had planned on participating in the Barbara Pym Week but this week we are, unexpectedly, going to visit our daughter and her family so I will miss it unfortunately.

Books read in April = 13
Italics are from my bookshelf or on my Kindle. 

Classics

Parades End by Ford Madox Ford - books 1 & 2  - 440/744p
Middlemarch by George Eliot - almost finished Book 5 - 570/960p
The Unrest Cure and other stories by Saki

Non- Fiction

The Deadly Sisterhood by Leonie Frieda
Wave by Sonali Deraniya
Love From Nancy - the letters of Nancy Mitford
Uncommon Arrangements by Katie Roiphe

Fiction

The Sea by John Banville
The Book of Secrets by Fiona Kidman
The Summer School Mystery by Josephine Bell
Part of the Spell by Rachel Heath
The First Rule of Swimming by Courtney Angela Brkic
A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor
A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym
Snow White Must Die by Nele Neuhaus
Sea Escape by Lynne Griffin

DNF = 1

Hide Me in the Grave by Tim Powers 

Fiction = 7
Non-Fiction = 4
Library Books = 9
E-books = 3
Off my Shelf - 1

Added to my bookshelf  = 4

From Netgalley

From the library sales shelf:

The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Woolf

The Passionate Friends by H.G.Wells

The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman by H.G.Wells

Happy reading in June!

No More Parades!

Harvest of Battle by C.R.W.Nevinson - source

" All these men given into the hands of the most cynically carefree intriguers in long corridors who made plots that harrowed the hearts of the world. All these men toys: all these agonies mere occasions for picturesque phrases to be put into politicians' speeches without heart or even intelligence. Hundreds and thousands of men tossed here and there in that sordid and gigantic mud-brownness of midwinter...By God, exactly as if they were nuts wilfully picked up and thrown over the shoulder by magpies...But men. Not just populations. Men you worried over there. Each man with a backbone, knees, breeches, braces, a rifle, a home, passions, fornications, drunks, pals, some scheme of the universe, corns, inherited diseases, a greengrocer's business, a milk walk, a paper stall, brats, a slut of a wife...The Men: the Other Ranks! And the poor --- little officers. God help them."

From No More Parades - Bk 2 of Parades End by Ford Madox Ford

The First Rule of Swimming by Courtney Angela Brkic

A woman must leave her island home to search for her missing sister - and confront the haunted history of her family.

Magdalena does not panic when she learns that her younger sister, Jadranka, has disappeared. But when weeks pass with no word, Magdalena leaves the isolated Croatian island where their family has always lived and sets off for New York to find her sister. her search begins to unspool the dark history of their family , reaching back  three generations to a country torn by war.

Magdalena and Jadranka were raised on the island of Rosmina by their grandparents, knowing little about the family members who had moved to the mainland or emigrated to America.

For Magdalena, Rosmina is home, the place she loves and never wants to leave. Jadranka has a more restless spirit and frequently comes and goes but never fails to stay in contact with her sister. Her last journey took her to New York where she stayed with cousin Katarina until her mysterious disappearance.

I don't recall ever reading a book set in Croatia before and loved the beautiful descriptions of the island, the people's close connection with the sea and the traditional way of life. The story spans the years from WWII, through Tito's regime and the civil war - years of hardship and suffering which took it's toll on Magdalena's family and left dark secrets buried in its wake.

Secrets that are slowly revealed as different narrators share their stories. Confusing at times as the narrative often jumps between people and time periods with little warning.

The First Rule of Swimming is a quiet and rather slow moving story  of love and loss and the bonds that tie people to family and homeland. Of those who prefer to stay in the security of the dear and familiar and those who find it confining and restrictive and choose, or are forced , to leave.

Not for those who like action and a strong plot but I enjoyed the gentle pace and evocative writing very much.

Thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Library Loot

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Marg @ The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader and Claire @ The Captive Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they have checked out from the library.

I limited myself to two books this week as I have a couple of classics half-read that I really need to finish. One of which is Middlemarch so I decided I'm far enough along to enjoy the DVD without it spoiling the story.

Sea Escape by Lynne Griffin - ' an emotional, beautifully imagined story inspired by the author's family letters about the ties that bind mothers and daughters.' Not a title I've heard of before but it sounds as if it might be rather good.

Snow White Must Die by Nele Neuhaus - ' In a small town in Germany a boy is accused of murdering his beautiful girlfriend. But this no fairy story..' A murder mystery.

What's in your loot this week?

Bloglovin

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Classics Club Spin winner is..

#6

Westwood by Stella Gibbons

The spin has been kind to me as I was hoping for one of  'the English ladies'. I bought Westwood in 2011 after reading, and loving, Cold Comfort Farm, finally put it on my reading pile for April but still never got to it.........now is the time!

I hope the spin has been as kind to all my fellow spinners!

Spinning again with The Classics Club

Time for another game of chance from the The Classics Club - to make a list of twenty unread titles from our list and on the 20th May one number will be chosen. The challenge is to read the book that corresponds to the number by July 1.

My Spin List

Four I want to read the most because other bloggers keep telling me how good they are.

1. Possession by A S Byatt

2. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

3. Germinal by Emile Zola

4. South Riding by Winifred Holtby

Six English lady authors 

5. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

6. Westwood by Stella Gibbons

7. Emma by Jane Austen

8. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte

9. Good Behaviour by Molly Keane

10. All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West

Five male authors 

11. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

12. Washington Square by Henry James

13. No Name by Wilkie Collins

14. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

15. Dr Thorne by Anthony Trollope

Five by authors I haven't read before

16. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
17. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
18. The Odd Women by George Gissing
19. Helen by Maria Edgeworth
20. A House for Mr Biswas by V S Naipal

Let the wheel spin!