Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Literary Potpourri to discuss unread books sitting in our to-be-read piles.
I grew up in Asheville, North Carolina, the home of George Vanderbilt's castle, the Biltmore House. History interested me at an early age, as did the fairy tale aspect of Biltmore, so I loved visiting and learning about it from preteen age and up. In my mid-twenties, my workplace was a few minutes away, so I kept a season pass and on my lunch break would spend twenty minutes driving the three mile Approach Road (landscaped by Fredrick Law Olmstead), past the house, and back out, while eating my sandwich and just soaking in the atmosphere.
On one of my many trips to the Estate shops, sometime back in the late 90s, I bought Alva, That Vanderbilt-Belmont Woman: Her Story as She Might Have Told It, about Vanderbilt's sister-in-law. I don't know much about Alva (1853-1933), other than that she was both a multi-millionaire and a women's suffrage advocate, that she divorced William Vanderbilt on the grounds of adultery at a time when divorce was scandalous, and that she was apparently a strong-minded, opinionated, and out-spoken woman. She seems so interesting that I was quite looking forward to learning more.
The book cover calls it the "first biography of one of America's richest and most powerful women", so I bought it expecting a true biography, and was disappointed to discover later that it's written in the first-person, and therefore actually fiction.
So the question is, will I ever read it? I don't know. The Goodreads reviews are mixed, it's over 300 pages long, it's not a actually a biography, and life is short -- so probably not. Regardless, it's full of photos which makes it interesting to browse.
How about you? What books of interest are on your TBR?
I like the idea of having a season pass to a beautiful place like that where you can just go to take walks or something!
ReplyDeleteI've not been in over ten years now, so I don't know what it would be like these days, but it was wonderful then. The House itself can be really crowded, so I didn't go in often, but it really is a pleasant place for a walk in the gardens!
DeleteHope you enjoy the pictures whether or not you read the book; how disappointing that it isn't an actual biography. With such a personal connection to the place, it would have made for very enjoyable reading.
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