Shelf Control: The Last Duel by Eric Jager

 Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Literary Potpourri to discuss unread books sitting in our to-be-read piles.

The Last Duel by Eric Jager

I was gifted this book by my good friend Deb years and years ago. Subtitled "A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France", it is so exactly my kind of book.  And yet, it's been sitting there unread for an embarrassing amount of time!  I need to bump it up on my nonfiction tbr, without a doubt!  (Have you read it?)

Shelf Control: Trains and Buttered Toast

Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Literary Potpourri to discuss unread books sitting in our to-be-read piles.

I saw this one someone's Bookstagram account (my account is here) back in 2019 and fell for the title. I had never read anything by Betjeman (Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death in 1984), so wasn't sure what to expect.   Turns out, he was also an influential broadcaster, and this is a collection of broadcasts that he made from the 1930s to the 1950s. 

I've yet to read it, but do intend to. With my Anglophilia and my love of that time period, I think it would be right down my alley!

Shelf Control: A Passage to India

Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Literary Potpourri to discuss unread books sitting in our to-be-read piles.

I'm ashamed to admit this, but, as much as I love Room with a View and Howard's End, I have never read A Passage to India!  I own it, I've intended to read it, I even started the audio version once, but. . . . I'm intimidated by it.

According to Wikipedia:

A Passage to India is a 1924 novel by English author E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s

and includes a situation that 

brings to a boil common racial tensions and prejudices between Indians and the British during the colonial era.

If you've read it, let me know how it stacks up to my favorite Forster novels and if it's worth reading.  I feel like I'm probably missing out, but the subject matter just appears heavy and makes me hesitant to start!

Shelf Control: To the Letter

Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Literary Potpourri to discuss unread books sitting in our to-be-read piles.

 

To the Letter: A Celebration of the Lost Art of Letter Writing 

Simon Garfield

2013

I found this one at the Dollar Tree a few years ago, before they (or at least our region) stopped carrying adult books.  I was immediately caught by the subtitle, as I am both a lover of social history and a letter writer, myself.  Apparently, the author gives a history of the art, discusses epistolary novels, and introduces famous letter writers, among other things.  It has mostly good reviews on Goodreads, and though rather lengthy, appears to be easy to read and entertaining.  I'm thinking I need to bump this up one up on the to-be-read pile.

Shelf Control: Two by MacDonald

  Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Literary Potpourri to discuss unread books sitting in our to-be-read piles.

  

Mom discovered George MacDonald (1824-1905) when I was in high school, through reading C.S. Lewis, who was greatly influenced by MacDonald's writing and Christianity.  At that time, the 1980s, MacDonald's romantic fiction was being republished in an abridged form for the modern reader by Michael Phillips.*  I devoured all that she could get her hands on, and they sparked my love of Victorian melodrama, though I didn't know that at the time.

While MacDonald is quite talented at that genre, his true genius lies in fantasy.  Lilith (my review) and Phantastes (my review) are phenomenal, and his fairy tales are justly praised.  These works influenced Tolkien and Madeline L'Engle as well as Lewis.  Chesterton and Mark Twain were fans, as well. Furthermore, MacDonald's example, encouragement, and mentorship caused Lewis Carroll to publish Alice's Adventures.

I have read a good deal of MacDonald's novels and sermons, own many of his books in print (some of which are the stunning volumes from Johannesen Printing and Publishing, see below) and all of his works in e-book format.  Despite that, I've never read his popular fantasy duology for children: The Princess and the Goblin and The Princess and Curdie! There they sit, on my shelf, waiting to be read.

Have you read any of MacDonald's books, fantasy or otherwise?  And how about these two in particular -- am I missing a real treat?

*The reasons for the abridgement were that MacDonald, a Scotsman, often had his characters speak in Scots dialect which can be difficult to figure out, as well as the fact that, in typical Victorian manner, these novels were quite lengthy, which could be off-putting for late twentieth-century readers.

One of Johannesen's gorgeous editions.

Shelf Control: Penelope Fitzgerald

  Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Literary Potpourri to discuss unread books sitting in our to-be-read piles.

For today's Shelf Control, I'm featuring my matched set of six of Penelope Fitzgerald's novels. Fitzgerald (1916-2000) was a well-respected English novelist.  She was nominated for the Booker Prize for The Bookshop, and later won for Offshore.   She was also given the Golden PEN Award for "a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature" in 1999. 

Many years ago, I read The Bookshop, and I remember thinking it to be an excellent, if somewhat sad, character study. When I saw these at our local used bookstore last year, I recognized her name and was struck by the beautiful copies, so I grabbed them.  I've been planning on rereading The Bookshop first but have yet to do so.

Reviews of The Bookshop are somewhat mixed on Goodreads so I'm interested to see what I think of it now, some twenty years after my first reading.  Have any of you read a novel by Fitzgerald?  Would you recommend it? 

Shelf Control: Alva, That Vanderbilt-Belmont Woman

 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?

Shelf Control: Green Mansions

Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Literary Potpourri to discuss unread books sitting in our to-be-read piles.

  

My Shelf Control book this week is Green Mansions: A Romance of the Tropical Forest by W.H. Hudson*. It was a favorite of my Mom when she was a teen and she still regards it fondly.  She tried to get me to read it time and again when I was younger, but it never struck my fancy because I found it slow to start.  I tried it again, not too long ago, on audiobook, but the narrator was absolutely terrible, so I abandoned it after about an hour.  I'd like to read it, though, for several reasons:  one, because Mom recommends it; two, because it's an Edwardian-era adventure (a genre I truly enjoy); and three, because after researching Hudson, he seems like quite an interesting fellow. 

William Henry Hudson (1841-1922) was born to British settlers in Argentina, where he lived until he emigrated to England at the age of 33.  He wrote a slew of nonfiction books, including a popular memoir, as well as several novels, with the best known being Green Mansions (1904).  In addition to his literary talent, he was a recognized ornithologist and naturalist; several towns and other public places are named in his honor in his native Argentina (where he is known as Guillermo Enrique Hudson)

I own a copy, which I found in the free bin at our local used book store a few years ago.  Now that I know more about it (particularly the appealing fact it's a turn-of-the-twentieth-century publication) and that Hudson was actually familiar with South America (goodness knows he wouldn't have been the first Victorian or Edwardian author to write about something exotic and completely alien), I'm really keen to give it another go.

What about you?  Have you read Green Mansions?  (It can be read or downloaded for free at the magnificent Project Gutenberg.)  What interesting book do you have on your TBR?

*Goodreads link

Shelf Control: Kon-Tiki

edit: Oh the embarrassment!  I was so excited to share this story, that I published it a day early.  Shelf Control is a Wednesday feature by Literary Potpourri; I'll get it right next week!

Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Literary Potpourri to discuss unread books sitting in our to-be-read piles.

One spring, when I was a young teen, I borrowed Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl* from my teacher's classroom library.  Kon-Tiki is the recounting of the 1947 journey taken by Heyerdahl and five companions, as they travelled across the Pacific Ocean on a balsa log raft.  Their trip from Peru to the Polynesian island of Puka Puka took them 4,300 nautical miles and three months. (insert astonished verbalizations here)

I packed this most promising read in a basket along with a snack and a throw rug, and took off through the woods across from my house, ending in the meadow.  I sat down on the rug, ate my snack, and enjoyed the sunshine.  Then, packed everything up -- book unopened -- went back home and promptly forgot about the book in the basket.

At the end of the school year, I was stunned to get a note from the teacher addressed to Mom, saying that I had never returned Kon-Tiki and must either do so or pay for the replacement.  I had no clue where the book was, had forgotten it's very existence, and cried hard over the horror of a lost book.  Mom paid up, no problem there, and the incident was dismissed.

Until, that is, I got out that basket over summer break, and discovered the missing book.  Imagine my shock, embarrassment, and dismay.

This same copy (see below) has been on my shelves for over thirty years now, waiting to be read.  Maybe it's time?

What about you?  Have you read Kon-Tiki?  Got any books on your TBR with interesting stories?

*Goodreads link