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ExUrbanis

Urban Leaving to Country Living

Afternoon Sighting: Vigilant Llama

July13

The less-than-rich soil and shorter growing season along Nova Scotia’s North Shore means that most of the farmland around is used in woodlot, wild blueberries, hayfields, beef & dairy herds, and sheep – lots and lots of sheep. While many of the area farmers still use dogs to herd and protect their flocks–border collies and Bernese mountain dogs being a couple of the favorites–more and more are turning to the use of llamas.

Llamas are relatively friendly, curious and a great asset in keeping the local sheep from the local coyotes. You can read about their guard qualities here.

Yesterday afternoon, we passed a large flock of baa-ing ewes and lambs (what a marvelous sound!) and caught their protector in the middle of a grassy mouthful.

llama,Jul 2011

I thought you’d enjoy seeing this, too.

Should I Finish These Books: a Spinster, Found Letters, & Parallel Lives?

July10

Maybe I’m becoming more discriminating in my reading tastes – or maybe I’m just getting cranky in my old age. Over the last week, I’ve started three books that I didn’t finish.
question marks
Taking a page from Jackie over at Farm Lane Books, I’m throwing this out to you, my dear readers. Is there some compelling reason I should finish any of these books? Do you agree with my decision that my reading time is better spent elsewhere? I’d love to hear from you either way.

1. The Magnificent Spinster: A Novel by May Sarton

The Magnificent Spinster,May SartonSarton published over a score of novels and nearly four dozen collections of poems between 1938 and her death in 1995, including The Magnificent Spinster in 1985. I found the premise of a “novel within a novel” intriguing and enjoyed reading this for a while. But at about page 200, the exploits of Jane Reid began to feel mundane. At page 220, just over half-way through this book, I quit.

So tell me, is there a plot twist – or even just a plot? It’s going to take more than just well-expressed prose and the rest of the “fifty-year friendship between two women” to keep me reading the last 160 pages.

P.S. This book did yield one of the best cat names I’ve ever heard: Snoozle. Love it!
.
2. The Other Life by Ellen Meister

The Other Life,Ellen MeisterQuinn Braverman has “two lives that run in parallel lines, like highways on either side of a mountain. On one side, the Quinn who stayed with [an ex-boyfriend] is speeding through her high-drama, childless life in Manhattan. On the other, the Quinn who married Lewis lives in the suburbs, drives a Volvo, and has an adorable young son and another baby on the way.”

Although I don’t read anything to do with the paranormal, I can very occasionally be tempted by science fiction that plays into everyday life. Since I enjoyed the movie Sliding Doors starring Gwyneth Paltrow, I was intrigued by the premise of this book.

In the movie, the Paltrow character finds herself in one of her two parallel lives when the doors of the subway train slide open, with no control over which she happens upon. In The Other Life, Quinn finds ‘portals’ behind the Sliding doors,Gwyneth Paltrow antique ironing board in her basement, and at the bottom of the green beans bin in her local supermarket (!) – and who knows where else in the pages I didn’t read, and the choice seems to be hers to make. A ‘high-anxiety’ day for Quinn, one that might cause her to make the decision to ‘slip away’ into her other life is one in which her toddler has a runny nose (which her husband offers to take care of), and she can’t find a comfortable shirt to wear without resorting to ironing or wearing maternity clothes (which she’ll probably be doing in a couple of weeks anyway). Get a life – (pun perhaps intended)!

So, is there anything in this book that digs down into the nitty-gritty of human emotions? That would cause me to really agonize with Quinn about her ‘choices’? That would be worth spending a day or two reading The Other Life? Let me know.

3. The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark

The Sandalwood Tree,Elle NewmarkI love letters, and books that are based on, or include letters. I’ve been intrigued lately books about India. I love reading about the middle decades of the twentieth century. And I love mysteries. So what could go wrong with a book that promises “A sweeping novel that brings to life two love stories, ninety years apart, set against the rich backdrop of war-torn India…In 1947… Martin and Evie find themselves stranded in a colonial bungalow in the Himalayas due to violence surrounding the partition of India between Hindus and Muslims. In that house, hidden behind a brick wall, Evie discovers a packet of old letters, which tell a strange and compelling story of love and war involving two young Englishwomen who lived in the same house in 1857.”

I should have looked more closely at the genre classification for this, because I DO NOT like romance novels, and this is without a doubt a romance novel. I didn’t get beyond the first chapter before the overly-sweet names, abundant co-incidences and cloying prose stopped me cold.

So, what do you think? Can the power of India overcome the romance premise of this story? Is there depth to any of the emotion felt by either Evie OR Felicity?

There you have it, dear readers: three non-finishers . Should I change my mind on any of them?

Links for my Canadian readers:

The Magnificent Spinster

The Other Life

Sliding Doors / Les Portes du Destin

The Sandalwood Tree

Books Read in June 2011

July4


Remember how our mothers and grandmothers used to “spring-clean”? It’s not much mentioned these days, it seems. But I learned when I moved to the country and started to heat with a wood furnace, just why Grandma did it – to wash away the wood soot that ends up on everything.

Between cleaning and getting into the garden on the few non-rainy days we had this past month, I ended up spending less time reading. Here’s the eight books I managed to get through.

1. Agnes Warner and the Nursing Sisters of the Great War by Shawna M. Quinn
Agnes Warner & the Nursing Sisters of the Great WarAgnes Warner of Saint John, New Brunswick served as a nurse in WWI in France & Belgium. She sent letters home, which her friends there bound into a small book to sell to raise funds for Warner to carry out further relief work. That booklet forms the core of this well-researched book about Agnes Warner, her work, and the role of nurses, particularly Canadian ones, in the War (that was supposed) to End All Wars.
4.5 star rating

2. Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth by Lisa Napoli
Napoli, who works in American radio in Los Angeles, spent several months helping Bhutan’s youths to launch and refine their own radio station. You can read my review of her account here.
4 star rating

3. In the Shadow of the Glacier by Vicki Delaney
First in the Constable Molly Smith mystery series, set in fictional Trafalgar, British Columbia (near non-fictional Nelson). The mystery was decent and I enjoyed the Canadian setting, but the surprise ending that came out of nowhere yet was there all along, elevated this book to above average.
4 star rating

4. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
Published in 1942, this fictional account of gentry-class girls growing up in 1920s and 1930s England is wickedly funny.
4 star rating

5. Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
The second in the ‘Fanny’ trilogy, this one is still funny, but a little more outrageous as the “lumping Colonial” (from Nova Scotia!) who is to inherit Hampton Court turns out to be Cedric, a swishy “Little Lord Fauntleroy” who becomes the life of 1930 London society.
3.5 star rating

6. The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley
The Go-Between,L.P. HartleyPublished in 1952 and set in the summer of 1900. The jacket says: “While visiting the country estate of a classmate, Leo becomes the charmed and innocent carrier of messages between the beautiful daughter of the house and her lover, a handsome tenant farmer. It is a secret known only by the three, the deeper meaning of which is not perceived by the youngster. Then one terrible night, a sudden and agonizing glimpse into adulthood seals forever Leo’s blighted fate.”
3.5 star rating

7. The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives by Lola Shoneyin
Set in modern-day Nigeria, in Baba Segi’s polygamous family. An interesting study of personalities, and a culture and a social situation unknown to me. The family dynamic was both foreign and familiar. The secret of the title is easy to discern, though, and seems anti-climatic when it is finally revealed to Baba Segi. The presentation of the subject matter can be a tad raunchy, which detracted from my enjoyment of the book.
3 star rating

8. Tabloid City: A Novel by Pete Hamill
Highly billed, this low-key thriller started out promisingly but built to several anti-climaxes. Set in NYC, a city I love to visit but don’t know as well as I’d like, it may have been more interesting to me if I could have pictured the exact locations cited as each character’s situation was documented. Some foul language, which seemed mostly unnecessary.
3 star rating

Links for my Canadian readers:

Agnes Warner and the Nursing Sisters of the Great War

Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth

In the Shadow of the Glacier

The Pursuit Of Love

Love In A Cold Climate

The Go-between

The Secret Lives Of Baba Segi’s Wives: A Novel

Tabloid City: A Novel



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