1) Remember a month ago I reported having gathered 52 unread or partially read books into one place from every cranny in my house? So of course it’s more like 54, but here’s an update:
1a) This Crazy Thing Called Love: The Golden World and Fatal Marriage of Ann and Billy Woodward, by Susan Braudy. Provenance: Montague Book Mill, purchase in September, 2023. Status: Finished! A poignant, sympathetic, but unsparing look at the accidental 1955 killing of Society scion Billy Woodward by his other-side-of-the-tracks wife Ann, and the icy vengeance of her mother-in-law, backed by all of Society with a capital S. Difficult to put down, but I was so glad when it was over. Bonus mention of Cleveland Amory, who actually mentions the killing in his Who Killed Society? Now shelved in the High Society section of my library.
1b) The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life, by Tom Reiss. Provenance: Montague Book Mill, purchase in September, 2023. Status: Finished! Genuinely absorbing biography of Essad Bey, a popular “Eastern” author in Fascist Europe, born Lev Nussimbaum in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1905, son of a Jewish oil tycoon. Lev spent a lot of his life refugeeing and reinventing himself, writing prodigiously, including a couple best-sellers. It didn’t stop him from dying of a rare form of gangrene in Positano during World War II (spoiler alert: you will never read this book, so I have no qualms sharing the end.) I admire the audacity of anyone who can pass off a steamship ticket as an American passport.
1c) The Age of Decadence: A History of Britain 1880-1914, by Simon Heffer. Provenance: Used bookstore purchase sometime during the pandemic (Time no longer has any meaning). Status: Still plugging away. Finally up to page 303 of 826 after reading bits here and there over the last year. I first got interested in this since Heffer also edited the diaries of Chips Channon (the first two volumes are fabulous). I am learning a lot of Not Very Nice Things about Imperial Britain, particularly around the second Boer War, and now Ireland and Parnell.
1d) I Heard the Owl Call My Name, by Margaret Craven. Provenance: My parent’s house. Status: Just past halfway through. Last night I needed a book small enough to fit in a pocket to read on the T (The Age of Decadence is about two inches thick), and I had wanted to pick this up for awhile. Which bookcase was this on in Mother and Daddy’s house? Or was it on Mother’s table with her devotional books? The story of a young priest sent to remote coast British Columbia by his bishop (who has concealed the knowledge that the young priest has a fatal disease that will kill him in two years), it’s an interesting meditation on life and death, and a beautiful evocation of a remote part of the world and its people. Given that it was first published in 1967, part of me wonders how life there has changed since then.
1e) Our Last Best Act: Planning for the End of Our Lives to Protect the People and Places We Love, by Mallory McDuff. Provenance: Papercuts JP, purchase this year. Status: Not quite 1/4 through. One of the books I forgot in the initial roundup, as it was with my devotional books. I ordered a copy after reading about it in The New York Times. A personal and sometimes moving account of how to prepare for The End in an environmentally friendly way. I’ll admit there’s a whiff of Stuff White People Like: The Unique Taste of Millions about it, but its wisdom and (for me) fresh perspective, provide a lot of helpful information. And having just crossed to a new decade, that’s important to have.
1f) In the last couple days I have been sidetracked by Robert Massie’s Catherine the Great (to reread her coup d’état against her insane husband) and Little Me: The Intimate Memoirs of that Famous Star of Stage, Screen and Television, Belle Poitrine, as told to Patrick Dennis (with 150 Photographs by Cris Alexander), because of course — but I’m getting back on track now.
2) Seven weeks left of the year, and three Great Feasts (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s) plus Repeal Day December 1. Sweet mercy goodness!
3) Birthday Week seems to have derailed my diet, which is Not At All Good.