Time for some statistics

For the first time in ages, I haven't got any new VMC acquisitions. On the bright side, all of my VMCs that have yet to be read now fit onto one shelf with none lying on top.

Instead, having been doing this challenge for 3.5 months, I thought it was time for some statistics.

Number of posts written: 90.
Number of VMCs posted about (not including acquisitions posts): 106
Number of books read specifically for challenge: 50
Number of books posted about which I had already read: 56
Number of gifts from other bloggers: 2
Number received from publishers: 4
Number of VMC books purchased since start of challenge (15/7): 82 (eek!)
Number of VMC books thrown out since start of challenge: 1
Number of VMC books that I own but have yet to read: 32
Number of guest posts: 1
Number of followers gained on blogger.com: 10

Favourite books so far include:
Pin to see the peepshow

Daddy was a number runner

Novel on yellow paper
The wedding
Family history
One fine day
My brilliant career
The getting of wisdom
The Ha-ha
On the side of angels

That was a difficult list to write as there have been very many books which I have really enjoyed so far, but these are the Must Reads as far as I am concerned.

I'm doing well; I seem to be about nearly a fifth of the way through the challenge which isn't bad going?! I still have a number of books which I read before this challenge which I haven't yet blogged about to "catch-up" on, so that will also help boost my totals.

Thank you to all of you who read and comment on my blog; if you just lurk, please do say hello today to help me celebrate getting this far through. It's lovely to have the comments and involvement of other VMC readers.

The lost lady (Cather) 21

Willa Cather has written a number of Virago modern classics, but I had not read any of them until I picked up The lost lady at the library the other day (I might be on a book-buying ban, but the library at least exists to enable me the pleasure of obtaining different books). It was a slim volume which didn't take too long to read, but one which made me look forward to encountering the rest of her work.

The lost lady of the title is Mrs Forrester, married to Captain Forrester, an ageing man 20 years her senior, who lives in a small American town called Sweet Water in the railroad period. A librarything member (WilfGehlen) writes: "[it] presents the complementary side of prairie life to the "homesteaders and hand-workers" who populate O Pioneers! and My Antonia. This is the story of "the bankers and gentlemen ranchers who came from the Atlantic seaboard to invest money and to 'develop our great West.'"

Mrs Forrester is observed throughout the story by Neils, first as a young boy, and then later as a grown man; he is initially captivated by her vivacity and kindness. She attracts much attention by hosting big dinners for the visiting notables passing through on the railways.

However, Captain Forrester's fortunes, like those of Sweet Water, are hit by the bank crisis and crop failure and Mrs Forrester has to come to terms with living a different sort of life with less and less money.

As Niels grows up his view of Mrs Forrester changes; he sees her having an affair, and mortgaging her property in an attempt to raise money to live the sort of life that she wants. He finds this at odds with his value-sets:

"It was what he most held against Mrs Forrester: that she was not willing to immolate herself, like a widow of all these great men, and die with the pioneer period to which she belonged; that she preferred life on any terms. In the end, Niel went away without bidding her goodbye. He went away with weary contempt for her in his heart."

Has anyone else read any Willa Cather, and if so which ones would you recommend?

Two Virago editions; the original green edition and the edition that I borrowed from the library.

Daddy was a number runner (Meriwether) 434

Another book that I was a little wary of reading was Meriwether's Daddy was a number runner. But my Dad is coming for tea tomorrow, so along with the fact that I had recently enjoyed another book that I felt intimidated by, I thought that was a good reason to get it out. And as with The wedding it paid off. What a wonderful and different book, again introducing me to a place and period of which I knew very little.

Set in Harlem in the 1930s it describes the devastation wrought on the community by the economic depression through the eyes of Francie, a 12 year old girl. Francie's father is a "number runner"; I hadn't heard of number running before this book so I looked it up. In the period, organized crime frequently ran lotteries. Run centrally, they relied on "number runners" to visit the pubs, bars, shops etc to take the people's "picks" or choices of numbers in. Her family is impoverished and much of the book describes their difficulties in living with very little money - living off credit at the grocer's shop, endless worry.

Through Francie we get a wonderful insight into how a 12 year old lived under these circumstances; she sells shopping bags to earn some extra cents which get spent on a hotdog and some strudels; she shares smutty magazines with a classmate in return for borrowing notes to copy for an assignment; she is beaten up by her best friend who also shares her sweets with her; she gains nickels in return for letting the baker grope her in the cinema. She dreams of a different life; she never intends to eat herrings when she is grown up ever again.

There are lots of interesting themes running through the book. One of the most interesting themes for me was the pride of the families and their reluctance to accept the "relief" offered by the government - not because the quality of the food given out was so poor (which it was) but because it meant having to admit to not being able to provide for one's family. It was particularly hard for Francie's father to accept this, and her mother kept quiet the fact that she literally had to beg for more relief after it had been suspended. This made interesting parallels with what I know about English poor relief and the pride of poor families outlined in books such as Round About A Pound A Week.

It's only once been published by Virago, and I think the above cover is truly amazing. It really sums up the all encompassing nature of Harlem for Francie.

Virago haven't published any of Meriwether's other works, but I looked her up and she has written a number of other novels, none unfortunately in my library authority. Definitely worth looking out for.

All passion spent (Sackville-West) 110

All passion spent had quite a lot to live up to when I started it. I had enjoyed Family History very much last week, and according to the introduction this book is reputed to be Sackville-West's best.

All Passion Spent examines the life of a woman, widowed late in life, who seizes the opportunity to do what she wants for the rest of her time. Lady Slane's children expect that she will split her time between them (thus also augmenting their incomes) but she decides to take a house in Hampstead and live privately in the countryside with her long-time servant.

Although she intends to live there in peace and quiet, and to some extent does achieve this, Sackville-West surrounds her with a number of intriguing characters. There is Mr Bucktrout the landlord, who has not let the house for years because he was waiting for the right tenant and who tries to convince her not to upgrade the house to make it more comfortable. There is Mr Gosheron, the undertaker. And there is Mr Fitzgeorge, a character from Lady Slane's past who proves that all her passion is not spent, as he awakens a romantic spark inside her.

So, was it Sackville-West's best novel? Well, I've only read one other so far so it would not be fair to say. I found this extremely well written, but I enjoyed the story in Family History more.

Apparently this was filmed, but the DVD is only available in the US, which is a shame as it has rather interesting reviews on the Internet Movie Database.

Three different Virago modern classics editions, each I suppose trying to evoke Lady Slane. The copy that I own is the bottom one. I am intrigued by the similarities of the photos used in the two later covers; I looked to see where the photo had come from on my book but it is just atributed to the Getty archive.

Ordinary Families (Robertson) 85

I'm not quite sure why, it may be because I enjoyed reading Family History so much the day before, but I didn't enjoy Ordinary Families very much.

The premise was that many families are Ordinary but family life is interesting; however, I'm not sure that I really found this so in Robertson's book. It was a very descriptive novel dealing with the coming of age of Lallie, a member of one of a number of families in the book who go sailing and enjoy the outdoorsy life available to the upper middle classes in the 1930s.

Maybe I will have better luck with the other VMC by Robertson that I own, the intriguingly entitled Four Frightened People. She has written a number of other novels of which only one more is published as a VMC, Cullum.

The wedding (West) 431

One of the great things about the series of Virago Modern Classics is firstly what diverse backgrounds the writers come from and inspire the writing, and secondly how this introduces one to books that one might not otherwise have encountered. With the exception of a couple of Australian novels, my reading for this challenge has thus far been set in England or what I might term "middle-class" America. Until this weekend, I had not yet read anything set in the deep South.

Having attended a wedding on Saturday, I wanted some wedding-themed reading, and since The wedding was on my Virago TBR pile it was natural to pick it up, even though I was apprehensive about reading a book set in a situation that I knew nothing about. Happily, the "risk" of reading it paid off as I greatly enjoyed it.

Set in The Oval, an elite African-American community in Martha's Vineyard, it centres around the impending marriage of Shelby to a struggling white musician. It is a controversial match - some members of her family are for it, hoping that if they continue to marry white people, eventually there will be no trace of their coloured skin in their descendants - others are against it believing that Shelby is betraying her heritage. The book traces other people's lives and issues; Shelby's sister was lost as a child but only found after considerable time had elapsed because everyone was looking for a "coloured" child, perceiving this to be a completely black child with negroid features, rather than one who was essentially white.

Rather than a "story" I felt that this book was an exploration of race and racial prejudice; social standing to this community was much more about the tone of one's skin than money as we are often used to. West draws a number of wonderful characters and reading this book immersed me for a morning in the lives of the Ovalites gaining an insight into a world of which I knew very little.

This book was West's first for fifty years, and I am intrigued to read the other two titles she has written published as VMCs - The living is easy, and The richer, the poorer (this is a volume of memoirs I believe).

Just the one Virago cover, which is the one that I own, above.

This week's acquisitions

Yes, yes, I know that most of you know that I'm on a book-buying ban (and ban on non-essential spending). So why am I posting about new acquisitions? Well, these four Muriel Sparks were kindly sent to me by Sophie from Virago. Virago are quite excited by the VVV and are letting me have some copies of their new books.

I've read some of these before (but can't offhand remember which), but am intending to re-read them as I definitely want to write about Muriel Spark on this blog. I am a big fan of her work.

I apologise for the blurry photo, and I'd like to point you at a post from Paperback Reader's blog earlier this year where she enthuses over these lovely covers.

Have any of you read any Muriel Spark or any of the ones above?