With all the snowfalls we’ve had this winter, there were lots of "curl-up-in-front-of-the-fire-to-read" times. Certain books just read better at certain times of the year.
By:Arlene Bice
Since March often dumps one last, but not lasting, snowfall on us, consider reading "Don’t Stop the Carnival," a novel by Herman Wouk.
I read it when it was first published in 1965 and I took it with me whenever I moved. I recently re-read it because I was yearning for tropical weather and relaxation.
Norman Paperman is a middle-aged New Yorker fed up with climbing prices, crowds, dirt, gloomy weather and everything else that goes with New York winters.
He is enchanted with a vacation in the Caribbean and decides to buy a charming hotel in an area where it doesn’t even rain in the rainy season. Norman is going to earn a living the laid back, easy way.
Right! This is where the tourist discovers the real life behind the enticing advertisements.
Of course, everything that can go wrong, does. This was in the days before the big-money hotel chains, an excess of concrete, and modern conveniences. It’s a very funny book because it has such a thread, no, rope, of truth running through it.
A paperback book published in 1999 titled "A City of Light" by Lauren Belfer is a fictionalized account of Buffalo, N.Y., at the turn of the last century.
The falls of Niagara are being used to make electricity. At this time in Europe, electricity is considered a public service. But big money lives here in Buffalo and with it are the gentlemen who want to control everything that touches their lives and some things that don’t.
This is a fascinating book of murder, mystery, discovery, politics, education and the intricacies between men and women. In 1900 the social "rules" that guided men and women were strict and were to be followed without question.
Louisa Barrett is the 35-year-old headmistress of the local private girls’ school. She is accepted in the "ruling class" as an equal. Their secrets are safe with her, including unknown arrangements of various kinds.
Richard Watson Gilder, editor of Century magazine, and one-time resident of Bordentown City, is mentioned several times. He is not necessarily represented favorably in a situation involving Grover Cleveland.
This is a page turner with lots of backstairs innuendo and references to many names that are familiar to you. It gives the reader the same peek into the lives of the very wealthy, lawmakers and breakers that the maids and butlers had in the beginning of the 20th century.
Back in 1994, the well-known author, Rita Mae Brown, wrote a novel, "Dolley," about one of America’s best-loved and courageous first ladies, Dolley Madison.
She was hostess in the White House for 16 years first, for the widowed Thomas Jefferson, president for eight years, then for her own husband, James Madison.
The bulk of this story is centered on the time period of war with the British, again, although this time the people who lived here were Americans, not British subjects.
Brown paints the background of 1814 Washington, D.C., full of intrigue, rumors and self-serving politicians. (Some things never change.)
In the middle of all this, there is loyal, smart, charming Dolley Madison with her favorite fat cat, King George.
Dolley was well known for setting fashion precedents and serving new cuisine at her table. She was definitely the trend setter of the day. But by the time the War of 1812 ended, she also was known as the woman who saved the full-length Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington and many important government documents. She wept as she watched the British burn the White House.
This was definitely not a first lady who looked around for a cause to promote. Dolley loved her country and put her life on the line to prove it. She was quite a hero.
"One Coffee With …" by Margaret Maron is the first in a series of eight mystery novels that first came out in 1981 and ran through 1995.
Lieutenant Sigrid Harald is a taller-than-average female police officer in New York City. She commands respect from her fellow officers, not because of her height, but because of her deduction talents and thorough practices. In other words, she’s a darn good detective.
Her father once wore the blue uniform for the same department and was killed in the line of duty. Her mother is a photo-journalist. Both figure more prominently into later books in the series.
In this story, a murder has been committed at a New York City college. A deadly cup of coffee goes to a colleague in the art department and the lieutenant has to find out how, why and who. She has several different personalities who were at the crime scene.
Maron creates a personal life for her lead character that ebbs and flows throughout the entire series, and it just increases the joy in reading this set of mysteries.
For the younger reader, "Girl Scouts in the Redwoods" by Lillian Elizabeth Roy was published in 1926.
Members of the Dandelion Troop of Girl Scouts of Elmertown, N.J., enjoy camping out in the woods in the summertime. It was not a common event for girls to enjoy this type of outdoor adventure in 1926. (One woman from the neighborhood was shocked to hear the girls wore short knee pants.)
The troop, which includes a set of twins, earns money by writing of their adventures and having them published in the Sunday magazine of a newspaper and then a monthly magazine.
On this adventure, they travel through the Panama Canal and up into California. This is light, airy, fun reading of a time long passed.
"Buddy and the Secret Cave," by Howard R. Garis, also is about a summer vacation. This story was written in 1934.
Buddy, the red-haired boy, and his friend, Tom, are going to Buddy’s grandfather’s place at Blue Hill Farm. They go up Tumble Mountain, search for a gypsy camp, stumble onto chicken thieves, meet a hermit, and find a legendary secret cave. Indeed, their summer is full of adventure.
A whole series of Buddy books was printed with Buddy finding adventure wherever he went.
Enjoy!
