A reading addiction 01-24-23

What do I do all day?  Beside keeping KoKo walked, fed, excercised, and petted, I read.  It is a life long addiction, but much worse since Covid slowed the world down.  I have so many projects in progress or in my mind, but instead I read.  Other than Sci-Fi and fantasy I read just about anything.  There are some series that I especially enjoy, this is the latest in one of those.  . 

This is the sixteenth volume following Maisie Dobbs, an English investigator, from before WWI to 1942 in the midst of WWII.  I have missed the last two volumes, so I will have to read those.  I don't think Ms. Winspear is a terrific writer, sometimes she is wordy and sometimes simplistic, but she has a good story line and her research is valid as far as I can tell.   This book focuses on the ATA (Air Transport Auxiliary) in which women piloted war planes from factories and air bases to the forward bases for the guys to fly into battle.  In the USA we had the WASPs (Women Airforce Service Pilots) doing the same job.  [For Surfside QGuild readers this is the service that our late friend Bette Bradley participated in during WWII]

Not a series, but I recently re-read "The World According to Garp" by John Irving.  I had enjoyed reading it in 1979 and always remember that my husband asked me not to read it in bed at night because my laughing woke him up, so I always have that it was humorous.  WRONG!  It is rather a downer with only a very few funny bits.  One of them being the son who hear "undertow" at the beach as "under Toad" and thus look for the toad whenever they were at the shore.  But Irving is a very good writer and I think I have read all of his books sometime in the past. 

This month the Book Group is reading "REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES". By Shelby Van Pelt.  I understand it is about octopi and how smart they are.  I will wait to read it closer to the meeting the third Wednesday of February, so I can remember enough to participate in the discussion!  

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Friday Feet 04-12-13

If I were doing a sit down author's talk it would not occur to me that my feet would be at the eye level of the audience.    But sitting in the front row, although not directly in front of the author, that is what I kept focusing on.  Since I "came of age" in the 1950's I cannot adjust to wearing shoes, especially high heels, without stockings.  I know it is the acceptable thing now and I even saw a "review" of the clothing worn by actresses at the Oscars that bad mouthed someone because she wore hose.  That certainly put me in the fuddy-duddy class.   We wore anklets through high school and then graduated to hose with seams that had to be kept straight up the back of one's legs and were held up with garter belts. Then in 1959 pantyhose were invented - Hallelujah.  Here is a page that tells that story:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/50-Years-of-Pantyhose.html


Jacqueline Winspear has pretty decent legs and feet and she can wear whatever she likes!  I wear knee highs with my slacks.  Can't help myself.  

Author Jacqueline Winspear 04-06-13

Yorba Linda, which adjoins Placentia to the northeast, participates in the One Book, One City program and the current book is "Maisie Dobbs" by Jacqueline Winspear.  I have read all nine of the series and now own the latest, published last week, " Leaving Everything Most Loved".  Today Jacqueline did a "Meet the Author" program at the Yorba Linda Library and had a full house.  Liz and I went early because I have heard that these events are popular.  Since we were early we had front row seats which is a good place to sit and not have distractions from other members of the audience. 


The current book was for sale, thanks to Barnes and Noble, although it is only hardback.  Soft cover will take a few months.
 

The librarian had a list of questions and Jacqueline was very good at answering them, and those submitted by audience members.

She didn't talk much about her private life, but was very articulate about the way she does research and about what she has learned about the era the books are set it - immediately after the" Great War" - 1918 and continuing. We think of it as WWI, but the British have an entirely different take on that event and the resulting massive changes in their society. The "Great War" is still a part of the curriculum in their schools, whereas I doubt that there is more than a sentence or two in schools here in the USA.
 

I especially enjoyed her story about the first time she decided she would be a writer, when she was about six years old and already an avid reader.  With her mother she regularly rode a double decked bus along the same route.  Sitting so high she could look down into the houses along the way.  One in particular was near a bus stop and the room she could see was lined with books and had a black manual typewriter on a table, along with paper and books and sometimes a cup and saucer.  She asked her mother who lived in that house and her mother suggested it might be a writer.  Jacquelyn decided she wanted a room like that so she would have to become a writer.  She didn't start writing until later in her life after a career in education.  And then it was because she was recuperating from an injury and couldn't be active.  She is a good story teller and a good story writer.  Her character Maisie Dobbs is someone I have gotten to know and like, almost like a friend I can visit only every year or so.   Some of you may have also met her in your reading journey.