Rose City Reader

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Spring Fever by P. G. Wodehouse -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on Fridays, where we share the opening sentences (or so) from the books we are reading this week. You can also share from a book you want to highlight, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Spring had come to New York, the eight-fifteen train from Great Neck had come to the Pennsylvania terminus, and G. Ellery Cobbold, that stout economic royalist, had come to his downtown office, all set to prise another wad of currency out of the common people.

-- from Spring Fever by P. G. Wodehouse.

Spring Fever is a stand alone novel for Wodehouse, so no Bertie Wooster or his butler Jeeves, no Blandings Castle, not even a Psmith. But since I have spring fever right now, it seemed like a good choice for my Book Beginning this week.

My copy has this cover, with the sort of illustrated covers by "Ionicus" that I love. Joshua Armitage used the pen name Ionicus to illustrate more than 400 book covers, including 58 Penguin editions of Wodehouse books in the 1970s and ‘80s. I've collected about a dozen, nowhere near all 58, but wouldn’t that be cool?

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your book beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings.

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THE FRIDAY 56

Freda at Freda's Voice hosts another teaser event on Fridays. Participants share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of the book they are reading -- or from 56% of the way through the audiobook or ebook. Please visit Freda's Voice for details and to leave a link to your post.

MY FRIDAY 56

From Spring Fever:

What a great day that was when she came back into my life; on the hoof, as it were, and not merely as a golden, insubstantial memory. It happened quite by chance, and at a moment, oddly enough, when I was not thinking of her but of chump chops, Brussels sprouts and French fried potatoes.

A fluffy farce by Wodehouse always puts me in a good mood.

Friday, March 24, 2023

He Said He Would be Late by Justine Sullivan -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Yikes! I'm still off my game after my hip replacement surgery. This was my first week back in the office after surgery and it threw me off of my schedule with everything else. I didn't even think about it being Friday until just a minute ago, let alone remember to put up my Book Beginnings post early last evening. Sorry. I'll try to get my head back into the game as things get back to normal.

Thank you for joining me for this late Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please share the opening sentence (or so) from the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book you want to highlight, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Our kitchen, like everything else in our house, is white.

-- From He Said He Would be Late by Justine Sullivan. I like that opening sentence because you get a pretty good idea of what their life is like from just those few words. What do you think?

He Said He Would be Late is Justine Sullivan's debut novel about a young wife and new mother who goes into a tailspin when she sees a suspicious text with a kissy-face emoji on her husband's phone. I just got a copy from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program and it looks like a fun domestic thriller.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your book beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings.

THE FRIDAY 56

I turn off the engine and feed a handful of dusty quarters into the meter, marveling at how old-fashioned so many aspects of greater Boston are: parking, transportation, the public parks. The fact that there are no happy hours.

Thursday, March 16, 2023

The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Welcome to Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please join me to share the opening sentence (or so) from the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Now it is the autumn again; the people are all coming back. The recess of summer is over, when holidays are taken, newspapers shrink, history itself seems momentarily to falter and stop.

-- From The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury. I love campus novels and Malcolm Bradbury wrote some of the best of them, including his first novel, Eating People is Wrong.

The History Man was published in 1972 and is a spot-on period piece describing radical campus life in the late '60s and early '70s. The "history man" of the title is Professor Howard Kirk, a sociologist and dynamo of academic vacuity. He waltzes through history, reflecting every cultural, political, and sexual fad. It is dark satire at its best.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your book beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings.

THE FRIDAY 56

From The History Man:

Well, to understand it, as Howard, always a keen explainer, always explains, you need to know a little Marx, a little Freud, and a little social history; admittedly, with Howard, you need to know all this to explain anything. You need to know the time, the place, the milieu, the substructure and the superstructure, the state of and the determinants of consciousness, and the human capacity of consciousness to expand and explode.

It's not a book for the faint hearted, but it is trenchant and very funny.

Friday, March 10, 2023

Rule Britannia by Daphne du Maurier -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Well, this post is certainly late! I had hip replacement surgery last week and thought I had prescheduled a post for this week, but apparently I forgot. Now I really feel like an old lady! Senility and an arthritic hip!

Thank you for waiting for me for this week's Book Beginnings on Fridays. Please join me to share the opening sentence (or so) from the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Emma awoke to the sound of planes passing overhead, but she was not fully conscious, and the sound merged with her dream.

-- from Rule Britannia by Daphne du Maurier. I'm reading this as a buddy read on Instagram. A small group of us have been reading one du Maurier book a month since last November and this is our sixth.

Rule Britannia is du Maurier's last novel, published in 1972. It's a wild romp through alternate history, but with an eerily prescient edge. It's set in the 1970s, shortly after the UK withdrew from Europe, which caused economic difficulties. What is billed as a stronger alliance with the United States is quickly revealed to be a takeover of Britain by its former colony. What a page turner!

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your book beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings.

THE FRIDAY 56

From Rule Britannia:

But one can't exactly treat it as phony while the marines occupy the stable-block, there are barricades on the main road and the telephone is cut. The thing you can do is to sit glued to the television and hope something will happen in between the succession of old American and British films.

I'm racing through to the end because this is such a ripping yarn, and I do love a good yarn.

Thursday, March 2, 2023

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

Thank you for joining me on Book Beginnings on Fridays to share the opening sentence (or so) from the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

First, I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch, and they've always given me that much: the worst of the job was up to me, my mother being let's just say out of it.

-- from Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.

The first sentence is terrific. But I went ahead and included the second, just to give more of a flavor for the terrific book. I love it so much!

In Kingsolver's newest book, she sets out to rewrite David Copperfield, but set in modern day Appalachia instead of Victorian England. David Copperfield is my favorite Charles Dickens book, so I caught the thread right away. But I lost it pretty quickly. Maybe I'll pick it up again, but it doesn't matter. The story is so engrossing and the narrator so charming, that it stands on its own.

Have you read this one? I hope it wins the Pulitzer Prize or the National Book Award, although I have no idea if it is even in the running.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your book beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the hashtag #bookbeginnings.

THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.

MY FRIDAY 56

From Demon Copperhead:

Then Stoner came out of the house. For a split second I wondered what he would think of me having a new dad, and then I got it.

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