Where did you go, June?
I will slip these in now and hope for a more timely book post at the end of July. These were my recreational reading choices for June.
A Summer Place by Sloan Wilson
Pine Island, Maine, thrust itself out of the sea like a medieval castle. There it stood, the only island in sight, with its Gothic cliffs defying the combers rolling in across the North Atlantic....
No one on the island penetrated the disguise of Sylvia's beauty, no one except Ken Jorgenson, who, for a little while at least, had an instinctive understanding of her. She was frightened. The Islanders seemed hostile and superior to her. Her parents did not dress correctly, she was sure; they did not speak properly.
I ordered this book simply because I love the 1959 sweet movie based loosely on it, A Summer Place, mainly featuring Troy Donohue and Sandra Dee. I was a sophomore in high school when I saw the movie and what 16 year old girl of the late 1950s could resist the beautiful couple.
The book focuses more on their parents than them, which is just fine with me now. Troy's film mother, played by Dorothy McGuire is a favorite of mine but the Sylvia of the book was much more believable than McGuire's portrayal of her. Basically, the characters in the book were much more real than those of the movie. We find that happens a lot when a movie is made of a book.
I liked this book so much that I'm set to read all of Sloan Wilson's books now, except for his war novels, will skip them. But another book of his is a hands-down favorite movie of mine, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit starring Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones. I expect I'll love that book more than the movie, too.
One piece of trivia: the movie song, "A Summer Place," still holds Billboard's record #1 running for an instrumental song.
Lunch in Paris, A Love Story, with Recipes by Elizabeth Bard
A French conversation starter is more subtle. Work is considered boring, money is out of the question, politics comes later and only in like-minded company. Vacation is a safe bet--it's no exaggeration to say that French people are always going on, returning from, or planning a holiday. But more often than not, social class in France is judged by your relationship to culture.I enjoyed all of this book, the true romance story of the author and her French husband, details of an American adapting to life in France, how she fit in with her new French family, her struggle to find meaningful work there, and especially her food stories.
Four of her recipes I know will become regulars for me: her Better Than French Onion Soup, Pork Tenderloin with Apples, Wild Salmon with dill and cucumber salad, and her Coconut Macaroons.
I want to read her Dinner Chez Moi and Picnic in Provence sometime.
The next three books are the first three in Alexander McCall Smith's Isabel Dalhousie Mysteries. And this is probably my fourth time to read the series. They have become my relaxing, going to sleep books to be read in bed before lights out. You can't say that about many mystery series.
I've tried to choose a quote from each book that represents the true essence of Isabel, a philosopher from Edinburgh, Scotland.
It was so easy, thought Isabel. It was so easy dealing with people who were well-mannered. They knew how to exchange those courtesies which made life go smoothly, which was what manners were all about.
from The Sunday Philosophy Club
Scottish clothes are soft, a bit crumpled, lived-in, like Scottish people themselves really....
She looked at her wardrobe, and felt, for a brief moment, despair. There were word people--idea people--and then there were clothes people--fashion people. She knew which group she belonged to.
from The Right Attitude to Rain
A man who has had a recent heart transplant asks Isabel to lunch to discuss something that has been frightening him:
I've had a heart transplant, and I have fairly strict instructions from my doctor. Salads, sardines, and so on....I enjoy a conversation which goes beyond the superficial. Most of the time we exchange banalities with other people. And here you are launching into linguistics, or should I say philosophical speculation. All over a plate of salad and a sardine. I like that.
from Friends, Lovers, Chocolate
That's my Isabel, a woman whose life is thinking, who savors her life in the large village that Edinburgh is to someone who has grown up there, who makes omelets with chanterelle mushrooms and reads week old Italian newspapers at her man-crazy niece's delicatessen, art connoisseur and admirer of Brother Fox who lives in her garden.
One last fact about Isabel. She's in her early 40s and falls in love with a symphony bassoonist who is handsome and fourteen years younger than her. Go Isabel!
And finally, there was Gardenista, a fabulous birthday gift from a sister by Michelle Slatalla. RH and I both are enjoying this beautiful book and adding ideas to our wish list of garden plans.
For example, will white iceberg roses thrive here? I hope so. Our only rose now is a large wild lovely pink one that grows in the wild roadside hedge. When I saw this picture and read these words...
...white iceberg roses...will bloom from April to October. [with deadheading]...clumps of chives and oak-leaf hydrangeas.
I love it! I want it!
We want it, don't we, James Mason? Yes we do!
