Georgia

Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O'Keeffe 

by Dawn Tripp
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dawn Tripp was at the NH Book Festival (which was awesome) talking about her new book on Jackie Kennedy. That one sounded really good, but this one was on the shelf at the public library so I decided to read it first. I am so glad I did because it was fabulous! I have had Laurie Lisle's biography of O'Keeffe on my owned-but-not-read shelf for years (maybe decades) and will definitely need to dig it out. 

When I saw her speak Tripp talked about how important it is to her to stick to the historic record in writing her fiction which made this novel even more interesting to me. 

Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz are the center of this story which begins when they met and takes us beyond his death. Along the way we discover how the artists felt about their own work, each other's work, and each other. I couldn't put this book down and I learned a lot. I am anxious to go back and revisit O'Keeffe's paintings now that I know more about why she painted what she did.

This is a novel full of great lines too. I'm not sure if they are Tripp's or O'Keeffe's, but either way they are memorable.

"A life is built of lies and magic, illusions bedded down with dreams. And in the end what haunts us most is the recollection of what we failed to see." (p. 15)

"There are those moments, always, looking back on a life when you can see the points--fully lit in hindsight, real or imagined--where the path split, where you could have made a different choice and the cost of the choice you made." (p. 173)

I am counting this book toward the Historical Fiction Reading challenge.

The Frozen River

The Frozen River 

by Ariel Lawhon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"A gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history." -- publisher's blurb

This was not a book that jumped out at me as something I would be interested in, but it was fabulous! Lawhon brings her readers into the mind of Martha Ballard which is a fascinating place to be. The story includes a lot of hard things, but the narrator is a very practical and sensible woman who's matter-of-fact dealing with what is put in front of her keeps the book from being too harrowing to read. I loved the ending!

This book counts toward the 2024 Historical Fiction reading challenge.  

Among the Mad

Among the Mad 

by Jacqueline Winspear
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I think this was my favorite Maisie Dobbs so far. She is working with Scotland Yard, in a consultant capacity, which opens up possibilities of the plot in a way that the earlier novels lacked. There was a definite thread of sadness in this story, but the kindness and grace of Miss Dobbs keeps the heartbreak at a manageable level.

I am counting this towards the Historical Fiction Challenge as it was written in 2009 and is set at the turn of the year 1932. 

Jamaica Inn

Jamaica Inn 

by Daphne du Maurier
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really liked Rebecca, then I started My Cousin Rachel and couldn't get into it so I was not sure how reading Jamaica Inn would go. I ended up really enjoying it. 

"The coaches avoided Jamaica Inn, hidden in the harsh Cornish moors not far from the coast, for its name was evil, and no man knew what it's dark shutters hid. Yet it was to Jamaica Inn that Mary Yellsn went when her mother died, to join her aunt Patience and the man her aunt had married, Joss Merlyn, the landlord of the Inn. Only too soon was she to learn the full tale of its horror, though she stayed beneath its roof because of her aunt, so lovely once, so battered and haunted now." --Goodreads blurb

Like Rebecca this story has a female narrator who doesn't really understand what is happening around her but figures it out as the book goes along. It also has a similarly dark and gothic tone. The characters, both our heroine and the people around her are complex, interesting people. There were several points where the story took a turn I didn't see coming and it was very skillfully crafted.

After reading the book I watched the 1939 movie which was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and introduced Maureen O'Hara. I thought it was fairly dreadful. The story is much simplified from the one in the novel, characters are added and totally changed,  and all the suspense is sucked right out of the story by beginning the movie with an event that happens about 3/4 of the way into the book. 

Written in the 1930s and set in the 1820s this book is on my Classics Club list and I am also counting it toward the Historical Fiction Challenge and the What's in a Name Challenge (double letters in the title).

Reading Plans 2024

These are my 2024 goals for my reading life:

• Read 10 books from my Classics Club list so I stay on track to complete 50 books within 5 years. 
• Read at least 6 books from my Readers' Advisory Reading List. 
• Read at least 6 of the 35 books on my #nonficnov tbr list before November.
• Complete the 2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge at the Victorian level of 5 books.
• Complete the current Canadian Reading Challenge for which I need to read 10 Canadian titles before July 1.
• Get my owned-but-not-read shelf down to fewer than 100 books. It is currently at 139 titles. I need to both read from this shelf and stop adding to it.
• Read a total of 100 books (my usual GoodReads goal).
• Figure out where I left off with my Century of Books project.
• Continue posting a Book Report the first week of each month.

If there is no overlap at all among my challenges that means that I will need to read 77 books. There are definitely books on my shelves that would fit some of the other goals, so this should be do-able.