Catch-up again

I seem to be reading a lot at the moment, in a not very analytical way.

Daphne du Maurier's House on the Strand for the third time. One of thse slip through time books, this time with the aid of a drug and the added attraction of falling in love with someone who has been dead for 600 years. Same kind of magic as Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley which I read over and over again at the age of 10 or so.



Carol Shields' The Box Garden - a basically upbeat book - Charleen Forrest returns to the house where she was brought up for her widowed mother's wedding to a man she met at the oncology clinic. During the story we learn of her marriage and divorce, her new relationship with an orthodontist, her lovely son, Seth, and her relationship with her sister. She also has a talent for poetry, and writes letters to a mysterious monk, Brother Adam.

The Glass-Blowers - Daphne du Maurier

I picked this up in the pile of secondhand books sold for charity at my local Co-op.


It's a fictionalised account of the life of du Maurier's own French ancestors around the time of the French Revolution. Must look up the newish biography of D du M.

The central character is sister to a master-craftsman glass-blower, and married to another. They become involved in the new revolutionary politics, dispossessing the old aristocracy and later end up being attacked in their turn, when the political wheel moved round. An absorbing story, full of warmth, and strong characters. I used to think that such inhumanity to others in times of economic hardship belonged to the dark ages, but now the story has too many resonances with what we see daily in news bulletins.

More on this I hope, when I have time.