Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring meme (details here).

Marie at Burton Book Review is hosting in June.  Please stop by her beautiful blog where she is "Leafing through history one page at a time."

I was in lovely Missoula, Montana for work last week and stopped by the Missoula Public Library, where they have a very impressive Friends' sale section. It isn't a whole store, but it is a whole aisle of books, with an excellent selection. I found a couple of gems:



City of the Mind by Penelope Lively (a favorite of mine, even if I haven't read a lot of her books yet -- I loved Moon Tiger)



The Crofter and the Laird by John McPhee (years ago, I really enjoyed The Survival of the Bark Canoe and want to read more of his work)



The Vicar of Nibbleswicke by Roald Dahl, with illustrations by Quentin Blake (I couldn't resist)




The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie (I am on a vintage mystery roll)

I also got a LibraryThing Early Reviewer book:



Mission to Paris by Alan Furst (I am listening to the audio edition of Spies of the Balkans now, so am looking forward to this one)

Happy Father's Day!

I love my dad! This has always been my favorite picture of him. I was only a toddler when it was taken, so I don't remember the occasion. But I love the combination of toga and penny loafers. 

Opening Sentence: Witness

Beloved children, I am sitting in the kitchen of the little house at Medfield, our second farm which is cut off by the ridge and a quarter-mile across the fields from our home place, where you are.

-- Witness by Whittaker Chambers.

I have been meaning to read this forever.  But it's hard for me to crack an 800-page doorstop.

I am so glad I finally did!  Witness is Chambers' soul-baring autobiography of his years as a loyal member of the American Communist party (including writing for the Daily Worker), his time as a Soviet spy, his ultimate break with the party and denunciation of communism, and his involvement in breaking up the Soviet spy network in Washington, including his infamous participation in the two Alger Hiss criminal trials. 

It is an amazing story and it reads like the best Cold War spy thriller.  Well, sort of an egg-heady spy thriller, although it is more exciting and flows better than most Le Carre novels. 

Book Beginnings: The Wet Engine

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

Leave a link to your post. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

My son Liam was born nine years ago.

-- The Wet Engine: Exploring Mad Wild Miracle of the Heart by Brian Doyle, published by OSU Press.

Doyle is a prolific author with a magpie's interest in all sorts of subjects.  His book The Grail (reviewed here) recounts his year spent at a winery in Oregon.  His debut novel, Mink River, is a charming story about the quirks and magic of life in a small coastal village. 

The Wet Engine is something different altogether.  It is Doyle's very personal, ruminative account of his son, born with a heart defect, and the surgeon who saved his life.

Review: Glittering Images

 

Glittering Images is the first book in Susan Howatch's Starbridge Series, a fictional account of the Church of England in the 20th Century set in the Salisbury–like diocese of Starbridge. Glittering Images takes place in the 1930s, during the Anglican Church's debate over modernizing English divorce laws.

The Reverend Dr. Charles Ashworth is a polished Cambridge academic who prefers writing about medieval Christian theological disputes to active ministry. His mentor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, sends him to secretly investigate the Archbishop's rival, the charismatic Bishop of Starbridge, to determine if the Bishop's alternative household arrangements are as innocent as they appear or a sleazy ménage à trois sure to bring scandal on the Church.

Ashworth's integration into the Bishop's household culminates in his own traumatic breakdown – a major plot transition Howatch handles masterfully, gradually turning the story inside out. Only when Ashworth (with guiding counsel from an astute Anglican monk) untangles his own psycho-spiritual mess is he able to solve the mystery of Starbridge.

Howatch turned to the religious themes explored in Glittering Images after experiencing her own spiritual epiphany. The book is certainly Christian in outlook and subject matter, but in execution bears all the marks of Howatch's earlier pop-fiction family sagas. The fast-turning pages are full of gothic suspense, moody imagery, sex, scandal, and drama. May the rest of the Starbridge Series be this good.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this book, of any of Susan Howatch's books, listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

NOTES

This counts as one of my two 450 to 500 page books for the Chunkster Challenge, as well as one of my choices for the Mt. TBR and Off the Shelf Challenges.