Literary Wives - The Marriage Plot

The wives:

Becky from Sydney of Aidanvale
Kate from Melbourne of booksaremyfavoriteandbest
Naomi from Canada of Consumed By Ink
Rebecca from Maryland, USA of Bookish Beck
Kay from Washington State, USA of What? Me Read?
and now me.

The other day, I finished a book (Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus) and was led to the Literary Wives page by one of my blogger friends who had reviewed it before. They read four books a year with regards to wives in the book. I have read a few of them already. And I have more on my list that would be great to discuss with these ladies. So, I decided to join them.

The books:
This is the list of books they read so far, and I am going to add the other books that we are going to read. But you can always find the links to all the comments on the main page: Literary Wives (the links on this one here only get you to my page).

October 2013: Ahab’s Wife: or, The Star-Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund
December 2013:  The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress by Ariel Lawhon
February 2014: The Inquisitor’s Wife by Jeanne Kalogridis
April 2014: The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman
June 2014: The Crane Wife by Patrick Ness
August 2014: The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy
October 2014: Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon
December 2014: The Shoemaker’s Wife by Adriana Trigiani
February 2015: The Last Wife of Henry VIII by Carolly Erickson
April 2015: The Bishop’s Wife by Mette Ivie Harrison
June 2015: My Father’s Wives by Mike Greenberg
August 2015: The Astronaut Wives Club by Melanie Benjamin
October 2015: The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison
December 2015: The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan
February 2016: A Circle of Wives by Alice LaPlante
April 2016: The Happy Marriage by Tahar Ben Jelloun
June 2016: The Disobedient Wife by Annika Milisic-Stanley
August 2016: How to Be a Good Wife by Emma Chapman
October 2016: American Housewife by Helen Ellis
December 2016: Mrs. Hemingway by Naomi Wood
February 2017: The Wife by Meg Wolitzer
April 2017: Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Theresa Fowler
June 2017: The Awakening by Kate Chopin
August 2017: On Beauty by Zadie Smith - 2005
October 2017: Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
December 2017: A Lady and Her Husband by Amber Reeves
February 2018: The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt
April 2018: The Headmaster’s Wife by Thomas Christopher Green
June 2018: Stay With Me by Ayòbámi Adébáyò
August 2018: First Love by Gwendolyn Riley
October 2018: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
December 2018: The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve
February 2019: They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple
April 2019: Wait for Me, Jack by Addison Jones
June 2019:  A Separation by Katie Kitamura
August 2019: Ties by Domenico Starnone
October 2019: Happenstance by Carol Shields
December 2019: The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
March 2020: War of the Wives by Tamar Cohen
June 2020: The Dutch House by Ann Patchett - 2019
September 2020: Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen
December 2020: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
March 2021: Every Note Played by Lisa Genova
June 2021: Monogamy by Sue Miller
September 2021: The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler
December 2021: The Summer Wives by Beatriz Williams
March 2022: I’m Fine and Neither Are You by Camille Pagán
June 2022: The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
September 2022: Red Island House by Andrea Lee
December 2022: State of the Union by Nick Hornby 
March 2023: His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
June 2023: The Harpy by Megan Hunter
September 2023: Sea Wife by Amity Gaige
December 2023: Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell - 2020
March 2024: Mrs. March by Virginia Feito
June 2024: Recipe for a Perfect Wife by Karma Brown
September 2024: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
December 2024: Euphoria by Elin Culhed
March 2025: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus - 2020
June 2025: The Constant Wife by W. Somerset Maugham
September 2025: Novel about My Wife by Emily Perkins
December 2025: The Soul of Kindness by Elizabeth Taylor
March 2026: Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell
June 2026: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri - 1999 (Literary Wives) 
September 2026: Family Family by Laurie Frankel - 2024
December 2026: The Eden Test by Adam Sternbergh
March 2027: Wedded Wife by Rachel Lennon - 2023
June 2027: Liars by Sarah Manguso - 2024
September 2027: Brick Lane by Monica Ali - 2003
December 2027: Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages by Phyllis Rose - 1983
March 2028: The Course of Love by Alain de Botton - 2016
June 2028: My Husband (Mon Mari) by Maud Ventura - 2021

I also read the following books with "wife" in the title:
Buck, Pearl S. "The First Wife and Other Stories" - 1933
Hay, Ashley "The Railwayman's Wife" - 2013
Joinson, Suzanne "The Photographer's Wife" - 2016
McLain, Paula "The Paris Wife" - 2012
Shalev, Zeruya "Husband and Wife" (Hebr: בעל ואישה) - 2000
I will probably add one or the other to this list later.

There is also a Facebook page here.

Baldursdóttir, Kristín Marja "Karitas untitled"

Baldursdóttir, Kristín Marja "Karitas untitled" (Icelandic: Karitas án titils) - 2004

None of us had read many books from Iceland before, so we decided to choose this one for our book club.

Iceland 100 years ago. A widow with six children. That's certainly not easy even today, but a hundred years ago it was incredibly difficult everywhere. But Steinunn Olafsdóttir not only manages to raise her children during those hard times, she also provides them all with an education, even the girls, which was very unusual back then. Of course, everyone has to pitch in, otherwise it wouldn't be possible.

The youngest daughter, Karitas, even becomes a painter; she has great talent and is given the opportunity to study in Denmark. But even she can't escape the customs of the time.

A highly interesting novel about a life we ​​know very little about.

It was nice that there was a map of Iceland in the book. It wasn't so nice that the places mentioned in the book are hardly ever shown on the map.

We had a really nice discussion about this book, even though we all basically agreed. But everyone was able to take something different away from it or noticed something different, which greatly contributed to our understanding.

Personally, the scenes with elves and ghosts bothered me a little, but one member suggested that they were partly hallucinations of the protagonist. That's quite possible, and I'm glad someone saw it from a different perspective.

We also really liked that there was a matching drawing by the "ice painter" (German title) for each chapter.

We discussed this book in our local book club in February 2026.

Book Description:

"A portrait of an artist trapped by convention and expectations but longing for the chaos that can set her free. Growing up on a farm in early twentieth-century rural Iceland, Karitas Jónsdóttir, one of six siblings, yearns for a new life. An artist, Karitas has a powerful calling and is determined to never let go of her true being, one unsuited for the conventional. But she is powerless against the fateful turns of real life and all its expectations of women. Pulled back time and again by design and by chance to the Icelandic countryside―as dutiful daughter, loving mother, and fisherman’s wife―she struggles to thrive, to be what she was meant to be. Spanning decades and set against a breathtaking historical canvas, Karitas Untitled , an award-winning classic of Icelandic literature, is a complex and immersive portrait of an artist’s conflict with love, family, nature, and a country unaccustomed to an untraditional woman―but most of all, with herself and the creative instincts she has no choice but to follow."

Chevalier, Tracy "The Glassmaker"

Chevalier, Tracy "The Glassmaker" - 2024

I have read quite a few novels by Tracy Chevalier and they were all highly interesting, always about different people in different areas at different times.

But this was special. From the descriptions, I first thought this was a little like the stories by Edward Rutherfurd who guides us through centuries by introducing several people from several families. Well, this was a little different. The story starts in 1494 Orsola Rossa, the protagonist, lives in Murano with her family of glassmakers. After 500 years, she is in her sixties and has lived through a plague, several wars, many changes in the lives of people, especially women.

While I was first a little dismayed by this way of telling the story, I really loved the people in Murano and Venice. Not all, but most of them. And the story of the family and how they got through all the upheavals, was also fantastic. 

You can tell, that Tracy Chevalier put a lot of time and effort into the research. I especially loved to learn about all the details of glassmaking. Well done.

I doubt I will ever get to see Venice but this is a good substitute.

From the back cover:

"Across the lagoon lies Murano. Time flows differently here – like the glass the island’s maestros spend their lives perfecting.

In secret, Orsola Rosso learns to craft glass. As a woman, she must flout convention to save her family from ruin. We follow her through hundreds of years of war and plague, tragedy and triumph, love and loss.

Skipping like a stone across the centuries, The Glassmaker is a virtuoso portrait of a woman, a family and a city that are as everlasting as glass."

Garmus, Bonnie "Lessons in Chemistry"

Garmus, Bonnie "Lessons in Chemistry" - 2022

A member of my German book club had suggested this book  but despite everyone agreeing to it at first, it wasn't chosen in the end. But I had already ordered the book, so I wanted to read it.

It certainly would have been a good choice to discuss. I doubt I would have chosen it, had I only seen the cover. On the other hand, I suppose those people who are looking for a romantic chick lit, might be disappointed.

It's hard to describe this book. I would probably declare it as chick-lit though it has some deeper meanings. However, I did like the protagonist a lot, I wish I would have had an Elizabeth Zott in my life when growing up. Even though I am certainly about a decade younger than her, all those obstacles that were placed in the way of women were still around. And there was nobody, absolutely nobody who supported me in my education, not my parents and definitely not my teachers (except for the one in elementary school but he wasn't there anymore later). On the contrary, all I heard was "you will get married and don't need a job". And my boss got a guy in from outside instead of promoting me. For the same reason.

Same as Elizabeth, I had the feeling my whole life that I worked for men less intelligent than me.

The books is described as humorous and there are certain aspects of humour in it, but overal, the sadness is more important and stays more in our memories.

Maybe this story speaks more to a younger audience, it just brought too many bad memories for me. (Although that speaks in favour of the book.) I wouldn't say I disliked the book completly, but it brought me back to a time I'd rather forget. I would have loved to discuss it with my book club and hear what the other women have to say about it.

And last, but not least, some things have changed but not enough. What do you think???

From the back cover:

"Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing.

But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute take a very unscientific view of equality. Forced to resign, she reluctantly signs on as the host of a cooking show, Supper at Six. But her revolutionary approach to cooking, fuelled by scientific and rational commentary, grabs the attention of a nation. Soon, a legion of overlooked housewives find themselves daring to change the status quo. One molecule at a time."

"Lessons in Chemistry" has been chosen favourite book of the year 2022 by the German Indepent Book Shops.

Larsen, Nella "Passing"

Larsen, Nella "Passing" - 1929

I had never heard the expression "passing" in this sense. A "black" woman who is white enough to be considered "white" and "passes" as "white". While I totally understand that in such a racist world, a women (or a man) would do that, I don't see the need why they should have to. First of all, to me it really shouldn't matter what skin colour someone has. But, if you distinguish between "black" and "white", shouldn't someone who looks "white" be considered "white". There is something I don't get. Or rather, that I really don't want to get. In what kind of world are we living???

Anyway, I found this book because it was mentioned in "The Vanishing Half" by Britt Bennett where a similar situation is described.

As we can read in the book description, the novel is about two different women, both light-skinned, both considered "black". But, whereas one of the women lives officially as a black woman, the other one didn't even tell her husband about her ancestry. He is extremely racist. Which is another thing, why do you marry someone like that? Oh, right, some people marry for money. And, as most characters, who do that, they have to pay the price at some point.

The author has used a lot of material from her own life, apparently.

This rather short novella could have been longer for my taste but we have been given a lot of food for thought here. Great book.

From the book cover:

"This Signet Classics edition of Passing includes an Introduction by Brit Bennett, the bestselling author of The Vanishing Half.

Irene Redfield is a Black woman living an affluent, comfortable life with her husband and children in the thriving neighborhood of Harlem in the 1920s. When she reconnects with her childhood friend Clare Kendry, who is similarly light-skinned, Irene discovers that Clare has been passing for a white woman after severing ties to her past--even hiding the truth from her racist husband.

Clare finds herself drawn to Irene's sense of ease and security with her Black identity and longs for the community (and, increasingly, the woman) she lost. Irene is both riveted and repulsed by Clare and her dangerous secret, as Clare begins to insert herself--and her deception--into every part of Irene's stable existence. First published in 1929, Larsen's brilliant examination of the various ways in which we all seek to 'pass,' is as timely as ever."

Bennett, Brit "The Vanishing Half" - 2020

Bennett, Brit "The Vanishing Half" - 2020 

"You can escape a town, but you cannot escape blood …"

I wasn't too sure about this book when I first saw it. It was a present by one of my sons and they usually know what I would like. This one won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2021 (and several other book prizes), and they are usually quite good. But the cover. Too pink, too "sweet" for my usual liking. And then the mentioned hymns of praise by authors whose books I haven't enjoyed much. Not a good outlook.

And the beginning was a little like that. Too many stereotypes. But the story keeps growing until, in the end, we get a pretty decent book about the life or women, the problems with racism, bringing up children, etc.

Is this going to be my favourite book of the year or even the month. No.

Will I read another book by the author? Probably also not. There are far better authors around. I saw her compared to Toni Morrison. In my opinion, the only things they have in common is that they are women, their skin colour and they published books.

From the back cover:

"Stella and Desiree are identical twins, growing up together in a small, Southern black community. Until, at age sixteen, they run away…

Years later, everything about their lives is different: their families, communities and racial identities. One sister lives with her black daughter in the same Southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her husband knows nothing of her past. Still, separated by many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen in the next generation, when their own daughters’ storylines intersect?"

Harris, Kamala "107 Days"

Harris, Kamala "107 Days" - 2025

This is one of the great women of our time, the great people of our time. If she were a man, she would have won, I am sure of that.

Whenever I see an article of Kamala Harris or see her on TV or on the internet, she always has something important to say. She is so smart and caring.

What a shame she came against such an ignoramus, someone who isn't just uneducated and, well, everything but smart. He said it himself, he loves the uneducated. And he does everything so that the rest of the nation stays like that so they will carry on voting for him.

Obviously, you can get really mad when you learn about the tactics with which he convinced uninformed people.

Well, enough about that guy. Let's get on to the subject of this book, Kamala Harris.

I just imagine what this world would have looked like if they had real elections in the States and nothing of this gerrymandering and "popular" votes etc. If she had won fair and square.

One thing is sure: this world would be such a better place if there were more Kamalas and fewer Donalds. I hope many young women will read this and find encouragement and inspiration in her doings.

Book Description:

"For the first time, and with surprising and revealing insights, Kamala Harris tells the story of one of the wildest and most consequential presidential campaigns in American history.

Your Secret Service code name is Pioneer.

You are the first woman in history to be elected vice president of the United States.

On July 21, 2024, your running mate, Joe Biden, announces that he will not be seeking reelection.

The presidential election will occur on November 5, 2024.

You have 107 days.

Written with candor, a unique perspective, and the pace of a page-turning novel, 107 Days takes you inside the race for the presidency as no one has ever done before."

This was a present from my son who knows how much I love her.

Murrin, Alan "The Coast Road"

Murrin, Alan "The Coast Road" - 2024

A friend had read this book and lent it to me. It sounded quite interesting, stories about Ireland often are. But, this story really could have taken place almost everywhere. There are people like that in every village. I grew up in a Catholic village in the sixties and seventies, and life there was almost like that. Actually, there are still people around who act similar. However, these characters didn't come across very likely and likeable.

So, an easy read for anyone who is looking for that. Since I usually don't, I didn't enjoy this book that much. Not my thing.

From the back cover:

"It's 1994 in County Donegal, Ireland, and everyone is talking about Colette Crowley - the writer, the bohemian, the woman who left her husband and sons to pursue a relationship with a married man in Dublin. But now Colette is back, and nobody knows why.

Returning to the community to try and reclaim her old life, Colette quickly learns that they are unwilling to give it back to her. The man to whom she is still married is denying her access to her children, and while the legalisation of divorce might be just around the corner, Colette finds herself caught between her old life and the freedom for which she risked everything. Desperate to see her children, she enlists the help of Izzy, a housewife and mother of two, and the women forge a friendship that will send them on a spiralling journey - one toward a path of self-discovery, and the other toward tragedy."

Adkins, Roy & Lesley "Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England"

Adkins, Roy & Lesley "Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England: How our ancestors lived two centuries ago" (aka "Jane Austen's England) - 2013

Part of my #Reading Austen project is to read a book by the author in the uneven months and a book about the author and/or her books in the even ones. This is my October read.

And it was a very interesting and detailed book. We get several maps right at the beginning where we cannot just see where Jane Austen lived during her lifetime but also some other contemporary characters with a similar background. Something that always adds to the explanations in any book, fiction or non-fiction.

But it's not only that. They explain how the pounds, shillings and pennies were divided, how the weights and measurements were calculated, all those nitty-gritty bits that are in the books of that time but not explained because the readers would have known what it was. The same as what it meant when someone had £10,000 pounds a year. 

They tell us everything about weddings at the time, about the aristocracy and who was who, education was as much talked about as what was going on in home and kitchen. The fashion of the time (of which we read a lot in Jane's books) is described, the religion, work and hobbies, crimes, illnesses, just everything that was important to the people of the 19th century.

So, if you want to know more about Jane's life, this is the book for you.

From the back cover:

"Jane Austen, arguably the greatest novelist of the English language, lived from 1775 to 1817. Her fiction focuses on the gentry and aristocracy, and her heroines are young women looking for love. Yet the comfortable, tranquil country that she brilliantly devised is a complete contrast to the England in which she actually lived. For twenty-nine of Jane Austen's forty-one years, the country was embroiled in war.

Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England explores the real England of that time. Roy and Lesley Adkins vividly portray fascinating aspects of the daily lives of ordinary people, from forced marriages and the sale of wives in marketplaces to boys and girls working down mines or as chimney sweeps, this book eavesdrops on the daily chore of fetching water, the horror of ghosts and witches, Saint Monday, bull baiting, sedan chairs, highwaymen, the stench of corpses swinging on roadside gibbets and the horrors of surgery without anaesthetics.

Giving a voice to these forgotten people and revealing how they worked, played and struggled to survive, Eavesdropping on Jane Austen's England is an authoritative and gripping account that is sometimes humorous, often shocking, but always entertaining."

Vreeland, Susan "The Passion of Artemisia"

Vreeland, Susan "The Passion of Artemisia" - 2002

I read "Girl in Hyacinth Blue" by this author a couple of years ago and really loved it. I always wanted to read something else by her. Now, I came across this book and it's about a female paper from the Baroque period. I had never heard of Artemisia Gentileschi even though I love art. Typical, women are never acknowledged much.

To start, I really like the note by the author. She mentioned that any work of fiction about history or a historical character ist still a work of imagination, not of reality. Based on known evidence, she spins her story. She used actual works of the artist and actual occurrences. I loved that.

Her style or writing is very vivid. Her descriptions are very detailed. We could see how people at the time lived, what were their hopes and fears. How did the church impact their lives?

Through this novel, I got to know a wonderful woman, a keen and gifted painter who struggled with the constrictions of the time but who nonetheless created some beautiful art.

I will look for more books by Susan Vreeland. Let me know if you've read one.

From the back cover:

"From extraordinary highs - patronage by the Medicis, friendship with Galileo and, most importantly of all, beautiful and outstandingly original paintings - to rape by her father's colleague, torture by the Inquisition, life-long struggles for acceptance by the artistic Establishment, and betrayal by the men she loved, Artemisia was a bold and brilliant woman who lived as she wanted, and paid a high price."

Ephron, Nora "Crazy Salad"

Ephron, Nora "Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women" - 1975

I absolutely love Nora Ephron. Shes was a fantastic author as well as a fantastic human being. Everything she says is close to my heart and I felt nodding along, no matter what I was reading about. If you ever felt like the odd one out, as if nothing you did would be acknowledged by others and they would always find a new excuse why, this is the book for you.

Of course, this book was written in the Seventies, at a time where we had no internet and not as much information about what was going on across the pond as it is now. I remember a game I played with some American friends  about thirty years ago where we had to guess celebrities and I had never heard of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. She just wasn't in our news until then. Neither were many of the women in Nora Ephron's book, some of them I read about in the meantime (Gloria Steinem, for example) but others I had never heard about. So, I had a lot of extra reading to do but that was alright because it gave me a larger insight into the US of A of the time.

So, whether you are American or not, if you are a fan of "When Harry Met Sally", you would want to read this.

Book Description:

"The classic Crazy Salad by screenwriting legend and novelist Nora Ephron, is an extremely funny, deceptively light look at a generation of women (and men) who helped shape the way we live now. In this distinctive, engaging, and simply hilarious view of a period of great upheaval in America, Ephron turns her keen eye and wonderful sense of humor to the media, politics, beauty products, and women's bodies. In the famous A Few Words About Breasts, for example, she tells us: 'If I had had them, I would have been a completely different person. I honestly believe that.' Ephron brings her sharp pen to bear on the notable women of the time, and to a series of events ranging from Watergate to the Pillsbury Bake-Off. When it first appeared in 1975, Crazy Salad helped to illuminate a new American era - and helped us to laugh at our times and ourselves. This new edition will delight a fresh generation of readers."

Sullivan, Margaret C. "The Jane Austen Handbook"

Sullivan, Margaret C. "The Jane Austen Handbook. A Sensible Yet Elegant Guide to Her World" - 2007

Part of my #Reading Austen project is to read a book by the author in the uneven months and a book about the author and/or her books in the even ones. This month, it was a book about her time with a lot of background information to why some characters acted the way they did. There were a lot of lovely illustrations and even more funny allusions to the novels.

I can heartily recommend this little book to any Jane Austen fan. Whether you have read her books or watched them on TV or in the cinemas (hopefully both), you will be delighted by this. And if time travelling was a thing, you could even learn how to behave in Regency times without anyone noticing you're from the future.

From the back cover:

"Jane Austen published her first novel in 1811, but today she's more popular than ever. Film adaptations of her books are nominated for Academy Awards. Chick lit bestsellers are based on her plots. And a new biopic of Austen herself Becoming Jane arrives in theaters this spring.

For all those readers who dream about living in Regency England, The Jane Austen Handbook offers step-by-step instructions for proper comportment in the early nineteenth century. You'll discover:

How to Become an Accomplished Lady
How to Run a Great House
How to Indicate Interest in a Gentleman Without Seeming Forward
How to Throw a Dinner Party
How to Choose and Buy Clothing

Full of practical directions for navigating the travails of Regency life, this charming illustrated book also serves as a companion for present-day readers, explaining the English class system, currency, dress, and the nuances of graceful living."

Pierce, Patricia "Jurassic Mary"

Pierce, Patricia "Jurassic Mary: Mary Anning and the primeval monsters" - 2006

Ever since I read "Remarkable Creatures" by Tracy Chevalier, I've been interested in the life of Mary Anning who lived from 1799 to 1847 and was the first person who discovered dinosaur bones.

And this was on my wishlist, so my son bought it for me. It was just as nice as I had hoped.

A thorough account of the life of a young girl who would become one of the most important figure in discovering dinosaurs. But, because she was only a woman, she didn't have a lot to say. Even though there were some men who acknowledged her, most of them only used her findings for their won. She didn't really get any recognition. What else is new?

From the back cover:

"Spinster Mary Anning, uneducated and poor, was of the wrong sex, wrong class and wrong religion, but fate decreed that she was exactly the right person in the right place and time to pioneer the emerging science of palaeontology, the study of fossils. Born in Lyme Regis in 1799, Mary learned to collect fossils with her cabinet-maker father. The unstable cliffs and stealthy sea made the task dangerous but after her father died the sale of fossils sustained her family. Mary’s fame started as an infant when she survived a lightning strike that killed the three adults around her. Then, aged twelve, she caught the public’s attention when she unearthed the skeleton of a ‘fish lizard’ or Ichthyosaurus. She later found the first Plesiosaurus giganteus, with its extraordinary long neck associated with the Loch Ness monster, and, dramatically, she unearthed the first, still rare, Dimorphodon macronyx, a frightening ‘flying dragon’ with hand claws and teeth.Yet her many discoveries were announced to the world by male geologists like the irrepressible William Buckland and Sir Henry De La Beche and they often received the credit. In Jurassic Mary Patricia Pierce redresses this imbalance, bringing to life the extraordinary, little-known story of this determined and pioneering woman."

Aristophanes "Lysistrata and Other Plays"

Aristophanes "Lysistrata and Other Plays" (Greek: Lysistrátē/Λυσιστράτη) - 411 BC

For the Classics Spin #41, we received #11 and this was my novel.

I had found this book a while ago in a used book sale. I am grateful for that because that way, I only paid €1 for it.

My edition included not just "Lysistrata" but also "The Acharnians" (Acharnes) and "The Clouds" (Nephelai).

As you can see in the description, they praise the author's "ribald humour". Ribald it was indeed but I couldn't find humour in that, it was far too rough, coarse and crude. Probably the times. I wouldn't be surprised if this book was on the banned book list in the States.

But the stories itself also weren't too interesting. I think one must see this and not read it. Someone told me that the play is indeed hilarious and that the costumes added a lot to that. Well, Aristophanes didn't explain that. LOL

Book Description:

"Writing at the time of political and social crisis in Athens, Aristophanes was an eloquent yet bawdy challenger to the demagogue and the sophist. The Achanians is a plea for peace set against the background of the long war with Sparta. In Lysistrata a band of women tap into the awesome power of sex in order to end a war. The darker comedy of The Clouds satirizes Athenian philosophers, Socrates in particular, and reflects the uncertainties of a generation in which all traditional religious and ethical beliefs were being challenged.

For this edition Alan Sommerstein has completely revised his translation of these three plays, bringing out the full nuances of Aristophanes’ ribald humour and intricate word play, with a new introduction explaining the historical and cultural background to the plays."

Here are all the books on my original Classics Club list.
And here is a list of all the books I read with the Classics Spin.

Groff, Lauren "Matrix"

Groff, Lauren "Matrix" - 2021

A member of our book club tried to convince us that this would be the best novel for our next book choice. But some members were not really convinced that they wanted to read it. So I "took pity" (LOL) and volunteered to be a guinea pig.

I love reading historical novels, especially about women and their fights against the prejudices of their times. So, I expected something really interesting. Many girls were sent to nunneries against their wishes and a few were quite successful in that world.

I tried to read more about the protagonist and found that the book is not really based on anything known from reality. It is what it says: pure fiction.

I thought I could learn more about the history of a person that was important in her lifetime. Unfortunately, I didn't. If you are looking for a novel without being interested in the background or whether that person existed, you might like this better. I was disappointed.

Overall, the novel was too superficial for me.

There are no footnotes or links to research pages that might support at least some of the stories.

From the back cover:

"Seventeen-year-old Marie, too wild for courtly life, is thrown to the dogs one winter morning, expelled from the royal court to become the prioress of an abbey. Marie is strange - tall, a giantess, her elbows and knees stick out, ungainly.

At first taken aback by life at the abbey, Marie finds purpose and passion among her mercurial sisters. Yet she deeply misses her secret lover Cecily and queen Eleanor.

Born last in a long line of women warriors and crusaders, women who flew across the countryside with their sword fighting and dagger work, Marie decides to chart a bold new course for the women she now leads and protects. She will bring herself, and her sisters, out of the darkness, into riches and power.

MATRIX is a bold vision of female love, devotion and desire from one of the most adventurous writers at work today."

Hornby, Gill "Miss Austen"

Hornby, Gill "Miss Austen" - 2020

As I mentioned before, as part of the commemoration of Jane Austen's 250th birthday, the Classics Club has started a #Reading Austen project. We are reading a book by her every other month, and I want to do read something Austen-related by her in between.

In April, I read a German book by Catherine Bell, "Jane Austen und die Kunst der Worte" [Jane Austen and the Art of Words].  I was not impressed, I probably read too much about Jane Austen before and this one could have been written by any Jane Austen fan without doing any more research. Such a pity.

Mind you, "Miss Austen" wasn't all that much better, only a little. The Miss Austen mentioned in the title is not Jane but her sister Cassandra. We hear about her last self-given task, the intention to destroy the letters her sister had written that contained something Cassandra didn't want anyone to know, that would look bad on her sister's legacy. But, since those letters were destroyed, we don't know what it contained and the author just invented them.

I don't like people writing a sequel to a book where the original author died. I never did and I doubt I ever will. So, I guess my next book about Jane Austen (in August) will be a non-fiction again.

From the back cover:

"1840 : Cassandra Austen returns to the village of Kintbury.

She knows that, in some corner of the vicarage where she is staying, there is a cache of letters written by her sister Jane.

As Cassandra recalls her youth, she pieces together buried truths about Jane's history - and her own ; secrets which should not be revealed.

And she faces a stark choice : should she act to protect Jane's reputation?

Or leave the letters unguarded to shape her legacy..."

Nguyễn, Phan Quế Mai "Dust Child"

Nguyễn, Phan Quế Mai "Dust Child" - 2023

An interesting topic. I've read books about soldiers' children before, and they weren't welcomed anywhere. In Germany, these were mostly children of black fathers during World War II; with the others, it wasn't so noticeable unless you lived in a village and everyone knew about it.

This is about the children of Vietnamese women and American soldiers. Regardless of whether the fathers were black or white, it was immediately noticeable. And the children suffered greatly. In this book, they not only grew up with the certainty of having a foreign father but also that their mother didn't want them and they had to grow up in an orphanage with no family to support them.

It was good to learn more about the topic, but I wasn't entirely thrilled with the book and the writing style. Again and again, she switches to Vietnamese, often translating it afterwards, but not always. And even in the former case, it disrupts the flow. Overall, the writing isn't very fluid; many things remain completely unclear. Sometimes you don't know what she's even talking about. It's nice to learn something about Vietnamese culture, but she assumes too much. Perhaps it's clear to people who speak Vietnamese or know Vietnam, but for others, it's still very confusing.

There are also several errors in the book that a native English speaker should have filtered out. A shame.

On Goodreads, someone recommends also reading Bao Ninh's book "The Sorrow of War" (Goodreads), the story of the war from the perspective of a Vietnamese soldier. And the author's first book "The Mountains Sing" (Goodreads) which takes place during the war.

Although I've often read that the first book is much better than this one, I'm not sure if I want to read another book by Phan Quế Mai Nguyễn anytime soon.

The quote she gives on page 267 is also not exactly correct:

"We are the unwilling
Led by the unqualified
Doing the unnecessary
For the ungrateful."

This is the correct one:

"We the unwilling 
Led by the unknowing
Are doing the impossible
For the ungrateful
We have done so much
For so long, with so little
We are now qualified to do
Anything with nothing,
Forever."
Konstantin Josef Jireček

However, most members of our book club enjoyed the book quite a bit, especially because they learned something about the people of Vietnam and the impact of the war on their lives. We also discussed the different perspectives held by people in Asia and Western Europe.

I read this with my German book club in May 2025

From the back cover:

"It is 1969, and sisters Trang and Quynh watch helplessly as their rural village is transformed by the outbreak of war. Desperate to help their impoverished parents, they head to the thronging city of Sai Gon and join the women working as 'bar girls', paid to flirt with American GIs. What follows will test their sisterhood in ways they could never have foreseen.

Decades later Viet Nam is thriving, successfully emerging out of the shadow of war. But Dan and Phong, two men whose lives were transformed by their experiences on different sides of the conflict, are struggling to leave the past behind.

But what happens when these four characters unexpectedly come together once more, and each is forced to grapple with the legacy of decisions made in the past – decisions that continue to reverberate through all their lives

Dust Child is their unforgettable story."

Brooks, Geraldine "Year of Wonders"

Brooks, Geraldine "Year of Wonders" - 2001

My goodness, what a story! I have read several books about the plague before or novels that had the plague in their book. But this one was one just about the plague. Well, up until the last couple of pages where another book was more or less forced into just one chapter.

Still, I loved this book about a village that struggled during the plague, that had the idea to shut themselves off from the rest of the world in order not to bring this horrible disease to others. The village existed, the people in the book were based on real people from that time. But it was still a novel.

Apparently, this was Geraldine Brooks' first book. I think she learned not to add such a quick end but I still loved it very much. The author is such a great writer. And I think the Covid-19 pandemic brought the story even closer to us.

From the back cover:

"Spring 1666: when the Great Plague reaches the quiet Derbyshire village of Eyam, the villagers make an extraordinary decision. They elect to isolate themselves in a fateful quarantine. So begins the Year of Wonders, seen through eighteen-year-old Anna Frith’s eyes as she confronts the loss of her family, the disintegration of her community, and the lure of a dangerous and illicit love. Based on a true story, this novel explores love and learning, fear and fanaticism, and the struggles of seventeenth-century science and religion to interpret the world at the cusp of the modern era."

Weir, Alison "Katharine Parr. The Sixth Wife"

Weir, Alison "Katharine Parr. The Sixth Wife" (Six Tudor Queens #6) - 2021

The sixth wife of Henry VIII. And the sixth book in the Tudor Queens series by Alison Weir.

I think I knew far too little about Katharine Parr. She was Henry's last wife. She survived him. She had two husbands before him. She married again when he died only to die herself in childbed. That's about all I knew.

Of course, this is a novel based on the life of the queens. However, there is a lot in it that is history and where we can learn about that time in England.

We see through the eyes of Katharine Parr that women were just a commodity, and not worth a lot for that. At her first marriage, she doesn't even know the husband. Then she has to look for another one because otherwise a woman has no means to live. When she falls in love with Thomas Seymour, she has to marry the king who also wants her. What a life!

In any case, Alison Weir has brought the Tudor queens to life in a way no history book could ever have done. For that, I thank her profoundly.

From the back cover:

"Two husbands dead; a life marred by sadness. And now Katharine is in love for the first time in her life.

The eye of an ageing and dangerous king falls upon her. She cannot refuse him. She must stifle her feelings and never betray that she wanted another.

And now she is the sixth wife. Her queenship is a holy mission yet, fearfully, she dreams of the tragic parade of women who went before her. She cherishes the secret beliefs that could send her to the fire. And still the King loves and trusts her.

Now her enemies are closing in. She must fight for her very life.

KATHARINE PARR – the last of Henry’s queens.

Alison Weir recounts the extraordinary story of a woman forced into a perilous situation and rising heroically to the challenge. Katharine is a delightful woman, a warm and kindly heroine – and yet she will be betrayed by those she loves and trusts most.

Too late, the truth will dawn on her."

Worsley, Lucy "Jane Austen at Home"

Worsley, Lucy "Jane Austen at Home" - 2017

My favourite book of the month. As part of the commemoration of Jane Austen's 250th birthday, the Classics Club has started a #Reading Austen project. We are reading a book by her every other month, last month it was "Pride & Prejudice", next month will be "Sense & Sensibility". When it fits in with my other reading "duties" (book clubs and challenges), I want to do read something Austen-related by her in between.

This was a fabulous biography. Lucy Worsley really "visited" Jane Austen at home and accompanied her on all her visits to friends and family. It was so nice to read what she and her family, especially her sister Cassandra had been up to. You hear about the relationship between them and also any other person of their lifetime. Also, the way they lived. We all know that they had money problems but it is different today, at least in our countries. Also, the things Jane did for female authors and women in general are not to be underestimated.

After reading this book, I feel I got to know Jane Austen better, almost personally. I would love to have all biographies written like this. I think I love the author even more than I did before.

There are so many quotes I could mention but I leave it at this one  about my favourite novel: "Persuasion was … set precisely in the period of peace between the months June 1814 and February 1815, when Britian's naval officers were on shore leave." It shows how her novels relate to the time she lived in.

From the back cover:

"Historian Lucy Worsley visits Jane Austen at home, exploring the author's life through the places which meant the most to her.

On the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's death, historian Lucy Worsley leads us into the rooms from which our best-loved novelist quietly changed the world.

This new telling of the story of Jane's life shows us how and why she lived as she did, examining the places and spaces that mattered to her. It wasn't all country houses and ballrooms, but a life that was often a painful struggle. Jane famously lived a 'life without incident', but with new research and insights Lucy Worsley reveals a passionate woman who fought for her freedom. A woman who far from being a lonely spinster in fact had at least five marriage prospects, but who in the end refused to settle for anything less than Mr Darcy."

The book also contains some interesting pictures that relate to Jane Austen's life.