There are nights when I go to bed and only want a gentle book to read, almost nursery food books. Those are the nights I turn to the old authors on my shelves like the old Cape Cod books of Sara Ware Bassett that I posted about this summer at the Window. Right now I'm turning to my shelf of books by Lida Larrimore with her comforting domestic details.
1932's Robin Hill
The dining-room was charming with its ivory-paneled walls, its mahogany rubbed to the dark shining of ox-heart cherries, its rug patterned in soft shades of rose and amber and blue. The rain was falling steadily. She drew the curtains across the windows. There! The room was perfect.
Lee had thought that she wouldn't care about Christmas. But she found, surprisingly, that she did. She hung the holly wreathes in the windows and helped Susie to make cookies, small fat ones bursting with citron and raisins and nuts, crisp ones cut into star and crescent shapes and sprinkled over with sugar.
1933's Jonathan's Daughter
Chapter 1: The rosewood sofa hadn't been sold! It stood in the window of the small, rather dingy shop on Eighth street surrounded by an assortment of undistinguished objects. The sofa had distinction. A skillful craftsman had fashioned its graceful frame. The wood delicately carved, shone with a dull luster. The upholstery was of damask, almond-green, dimly patterned with apricot flowers and small gold leaves. There was in the rosewood sofa a blending of character and frivolity, of extravagance and enduring charm. Standing in the clutter of objects in the window, it had the air of a gentle aristocrat reduced to common neighbors.
I could easily type paragraph after paragraph of this book but you can see what I mean, why a Larrimore book lulls me into sleep, not from boredom but from an all's well with the world mind. Not a bad way to end the day in 2020.
My next post, the final one of this week of reading pleasures, will be about what's on my bed table now.
Happy reading, everyone!
