Monday, April 14, 2014

My pre-book sale warmup: A mini Girls Gone B[u]y-ing spree

My mental peregrination distracted me a couple of days ago from reporting on the rest of my pre-book sale warm-up shopping.  But with the big book sale coming up tomorrow night, I figured I should hurry up and share it with you before I have even more book shopping to report on.


So here is the story:

Once upon a time, TurboTax offered a special 5% bonus on any $100 increment of my income tax refund, IF I took it in the form of an Amazon gift certificate.  Now, what book lover could possibly resist such an offer—especially if they weren't expecting a refund to begin with? What is more fun than "found money" used for buying books, and even an extra 5% bonus on top of the found money?

Needless to say (though I am saying it needlessly nevertheless), I accepted the offer.  And then promptly agonized for two months about what to spend my loot on. In the end, my recent researches on and readings of girls' school stories and girls' fiction in general seems to have gotten the best of me, and I found myself plotting how many Girls Gone By books—which I had long coveted but never allowed myself to splurge on before—I could stretch the $105 to cover.

In the end, I concluded I could stretch it to cover six.  I knew one of them had to be Mabel Esther Allan's Margaret Finds a Future.  I've read a couple of Allan's other novels, and have, in fact, been meaning to write about her early work The Return to the West for a long time now.  And as I love atmospheric novels in which weather, especially winter weather, figures prominently, the setting of Margaret in a wintry Norfolk landscape proved irresistible. It's only since I received the book that I discovered that Lyn at I Prefer Reading had written about the book last year—happily, she liked it, so I still feel excited about my acquisition.


The next impossible-to-resist GGB proved to be Gwendoline Courtney's Sally's Family.  About a family of six orphaned children under the care of the 24-year-old oldest daughter, just after the end of World War II, attempting to make a home of a filthy, run-down house while facing rationing, poverty, and the fact that the children have developed widely-varied personalities from having wildly different experiences of the war.  It just screams potential in all sorts of ways, and I promptly gave in to temptation.


Next, a mini-splurge on school stories.  Well, I have been talking about them a lot lately, and apart from a couple of very enjoyable Elinor Brent-Dyers and a fun read of Antonia Forest's Autumn Term, I've had no experience with them at all.  So I figured these purchases could count as research. Right?  A blogger simply must do his research. That's my excuse and I will stick to it.  First, Elsie Oxenham, one of the biggest names in girls' school stories.  I know, I know, The Abbey Girls Go Back to School isn't the first Abbey Girls novel, but it is an early one, and I got a great deal on a used copy, so what can I say?  (And it looks like the copy was in good shapewas, that is, prior to being shipped from England in, basically, a plastic bag.  Suffice it to say it got just a bit mangled, as you can see a bit in the picture, but it is certainly still readable, so I won't complain too much.)


Next, several sources report that Evelyn Smith is considered one of the best of girls' school authors, though her career was tragically cut short by pneumonia.  So how could I resist another good deal on her Val Forrest in the Fifth?  


And then there was Josephine Elder's The Scholarship Girl at Cambridge, another series title (though a short series) that I'll be reading out of order.  No doubt it would be best to start with its precursors, Erica Wins Through and The Scholarship Girl, but ultimately I was just too tempted by a glimpse of what life at Cambridge was like for women in the 1920s.

And yes, I did say I had ordered six GGB titles, but alas a day or two later I got a notification that Elinor Brent-Dyer's The Maids of La Rochelle was out of stock and I had received a refund.  


Drat.  Next time for that one.  But it was okay, because there was one more, non-GGB title, that I had only barely managed to eliminate from the running for a cut of my tax refund shopping dollars. So, I used my refunded credit to nab a copy of Mary K. Harris' Gretel at St. Bride's, the wartime setting of which and the presence of a refugee girl from Nazi Germany had been luring me on since I first read about it.  Plus, honestly, as you all must know by now, I am always prone to be seduced by books that aren't readily available, and this one apparently hasn't been reprinted in ages, unlike my GGB acquisitions. Now I'll get to see if my attraction to it was justified.


And finally, we happened to be taking some book donations to the public library's donation center on Saturday, where we found a small book sale going on, and I picked up the above charming little Penguin paperback for only $1.  Could anyone possibly have resisted such a cover.  I would have paid a dollar for that alone, but I've actually already obtained some important information from it.  For years, I've read novels in which characters lived in bedsitters, and I don't think I ever knew exactly what it meant, so it was an eye-opener to learn from Katharine Whitehorn's introduction that it generally meant, effectively, renting a room.  Usually without a kitchen, and indeed even without access to a kitchen, and even without running water except in a bathroom down the hall.  Somehow, the term bedsitter always conjured up a kind of cozy if not very well-to-do homeyness in my mind, but I now realize that it very likely never conjured up anything of the kind for British readers—or British authors.  Probably more of a sort of depressing form of straitened circumstance instead. Odd how such a misconception should still have lingered even having read hundreds of British novels from the period, and dozens (at least) in which bedsitters figured in some way or another. Perhaps I should branch out in my reading more often, as cookbooks and guides to other homemaking topics could probably teach me as much about British life in my time period as novels can. At any rate, the learning experience was certainly worth a buck!

So there.  That was my warm-up.  Hopefully, my muscles and my credit card are stretched out and ready for tomorrow's exertions.  Wish me luck!

22 comments:

  1. How wonderful! I did enjoy the MEA & I have The Scholarship Girl on my tbr shelves (I have 4 Elders on the tbr shelves, I must read one of them soon). I'm so glad you have your credit card well exercised for the big sale. It would be a shame if you couldn't whip it out fast enough to grab a bargain through lack of exercise! Can't wait to see what you buy.

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    1. I know, Lyn, I was collecting Elders long before I had ever read her, too. I did finally read one and liked it, though, so hopefully that's a good sign for you too!

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  2. Oh my goodness that last book brought back memories. I was actually using it in a bedsitter in the 1960s, and very useful it was too.

    There was a nice interview with Katherine Whitehorn some years back in The Guardian - here it is: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/aug/17/british.vegetablesrecipes

    I'm glad to say she is still around and writing her newspaper columns.

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    1. Eek, apologies to Katharine. How could I misspell her when my own middle name is with an a in the middle rather than an e?

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    2. Fascinating article, Cestina. And to think, I was only attracted by the cover, never thinking I was taking home an iconic book that's famous to this day!

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  3. I discovered Sally's Family a few years ago and it went straight into my top ten of girls' books. It's one of my favourite comfort reads. I envy you reading these books for the first time!

    There's something about Katharine Whitehorn in my journal here. As you will see, she was tremendously influential and you have a real piece of social history there.

    I love reading about other people's shopping, so thank you for sharing yours with us!

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    1. Sadly that link doesn't seem to be working callmemadam. I followed her colums avidly in my younger years. Brilliant woman.
      I read Sally's Family for the first time a couple of weeks ago and am now on the look out for other Courtneys. The Chiltons arrived yesterday and I have just read Elizabeth and the Garret Theatre which I loved.

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    2. Oops! That's because I had the same spelling problem you did and corrected it. Perhaps this is better?

      I love Elizabeth of the Garret Theatre (AKA Stepmother) and also The Farm on the Downs, originally Longbarrow. I've written about Courtney more than once; you need to search the tags.

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    3. Yes, that works, thanks. Fiddlesticks, I see that I spelled columns incorrectly too....I hate that one can't edit posts. I will certainly search the tags :-)

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    4. Oh, I still have so much more to learn from you, callmemadam! And I've read your review of Sally's Family now as well. I'm sure I'm going to love it.

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  4. What a great find with the Cooking in a Bedsitter, Scott! You must have had a grin as wide as anything when you spied that one. There is something ridiculously charming about the word 'gas-ring' that makes me all warm and fuzzy so good thing I wasn't with you at the library...we would have had a tug-of-war.

    Enjoy your book buying spree!

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    1. I actually didn't know what a treasure I had found until I got home and read the highly educational (for a 21st century American, at least) introduction. And the fact that I'm such a lazy cook might mean some of the recipes will be useful for me even today and with a full kitchen!

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  5. Ooo, I'll start by commenting on the last. Cooking in a Bed-sitter. I had just that kind of experience as you did, Scott, when I read that book about a million years ago.

    It was (and I think still is) in my one-time sister-in-law's library, along with many many other intriguing books. Yep, the same kind of eye-opener, since it became clear from reading the book that there was no such thing as a fridge in a bed-sitter, which meant going to the greengorcer every day, on the way home from work, before making supper.

    And you know, sometimes that restriction still comes to mind even today, when I do my weeklyish shopping and toss it all into the fridge.

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    1. Oh, the fridge had still not occurred to me, Susan. I feel sure I would have been eating ramen noodles every night! You have to love the glamorous cover with the perky, buxom brunette cheerfully cooking dinner on her bed. Her date doesn't seem so sure, though...

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  6. Ah, the cover art. Windows onto another life. A life where girls played the game (at sports and life) and had ripping adventures, without boys getting in the way.

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    1. I meant to mention though that the girls on the cover of Gretel at St. Bride's look just a bit like zombies, don't they? The artist clearly had trouble with eyes. Unless there's a subplot I don't know about...

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  7. What lovely, lovely books! And happy shopping tomorrow - hope you find some treasures!!

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    1. Thanks, the book sale was great. Reports on it soon!

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  8. Can I recommend you read 'The L-Shaped Room' by Lynn Reid Banks, which I think you would like? It is a 1960 book, set in a bedsitter. I think it is interesting because it shows the collapse of the 'tea and tennis' type stories of the inter-war years, when the swinging 60s blew them out of the water. Our refined heroine finds herself pregnant and unmarried, and sharing a lodging house with assorted characters, including a black immigrant. I know this sounds a grim kitchen sink drama, but it is actually very affirming. It must have been shocking in its time, but is now quite a nostalgic book, as things have changed so much since then, and very interesting, as it shows the 'provincial lady' coping with the 1960s!

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    1. Oh, yes, thank you MIchelle, that's a great recommendation. I'd never heard of it, and in fact thought Banks only wrote children's books. She even belongs on my list, since her debut was in 1960. And I looked up The L-Shaped Room and it does look fascinating. Thank you for chiming in!

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  9. Many favorite authors above! I have not read that MEA but recommend to you my two favorites: Time to Go Back and Romansgrove. They were both published in the US so I reread them frequently.

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    1. Thanks for your comment and your recommendations. I've had my eye on Time to Go Back for its WWII connection, so I'm glad to know it's a winner!

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