Ingalls Wilder, Laura "Little House Books"

Ingalls Wilder, Laura "Little House Books" 1932-1971
Little House in the Big Woods (1932)
Farmer Boy (1933)
Little House on the Prairie (1935)
On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937)
By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939)
The Long Winter (1940)
Little Town on the Prairie (1941)
These Happy Golden Years (1943)
On the Way Home (1962, published posthumously)
The First Four Years (1971)

"Laura Ingalls's story begins in 1871 in a little log cabin on the edge of the Big Woods of Wisconsin. Four-year-old Laura lives in the little house with her Pa, her Ma, her sisters Mary and Carrie, and their trusty dog, Jack.
Pioneer life is sometimes hard, since the family must grow or catch all their own food as they get ready for the cold winter. But it is also exciting as Laura and her folks celebrate Christmas with homemade toys and treats, do the spring planting, bring in the harvest, and make their first trip into town. And every night they are safe and warm in their little house, with the happy sound of Pa's fiddle sending Laura and her sisters off to sleep.
And so begins Laura Ingalls Wilder's beloved story of a pioneer girl and her family. The nine Little House books have been cherished by generations of readers as both a unique glimpse into America's frontier past and a heartwarming, unforgettable story."

What can I say about the "Little House" stories that hasn't been said already? What a wonderful story (not only) for children about how it was growing up in the pioneer years. Laura and her sisters moved around North America from one unsettled piece of land to the next. We learn what it means to really stand on your own, having to produce all the food and shelter for your family. Amazing. In her later books, Laura tells us more about her struggles of her later years but the first ones seem all so happy.

My favourites among her novels, definitely "The Long Winter" and "Farmer Boy" about her husband's childhood on a farm in New York. But they are all great. All kids should read it and if you haven't done so as a kid, you should do so now. I read them as an adult because they were not very well known in Germany when I was little and they were among the first books I read in English (besides those I had to read when in school).

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Little House in the Big Woods
Wolves and panthers and bears roam the deep Wisconsin woods in the late 1870's. In those same woods, Laura lives with Pa and Ma, and her sisters, Mary and Baby Carrie, in a snug little house built of logs. Pa hunts and traps. Ma makes her own cheese and butter. All night long, the wind howls lonesomely, but Pa plays the fiddle and sings, keeping the family safe and cozy.

Little House on the Prairie
Pa Ingalls decides to sell the little log house, and the family sets out for Indian country! They travel from Wisconsin to Kansas, and there, finally, Pa builds their little house on the prairie. Sometimes farm life is difficult, even dangerous, but Laura and her family are kept busy and are happy with the promise of their new life on the prairie.

Farmer Boy
While Laura Ingalls grows up in a little house on the western prairie, Almanzo Wilder is living on a big farm in New York State. Almanzo and his brother and sisters work at their chores from dawn to supper most days -- no matter what the weather. There is still time for fun, though, especially with the horses, which Almanzo loves more than anything.

On the Banks of Plum Creek
Laura's family's first home in Minnesota is made of sod, but Pa builds a clean new house made of sawed lumber beside Plum Creek. The money for materials will come from their first wheat crop. Then, just before the wheat is ready to harvest, a strange glittering cloud fills the sky, blocking out the sun. Soon millions of grasshoppers cover the field and everything on the farm. In a week's time, there is no wheat crop left at all.

By the Shores of Silver Lake
Pa Ingalls heads west to the unsettled wilderness of the Dakota Territory. When Ma, Mary, Laura, Carrie, and baby Grace join him, they become the first settlers in the town of De Smet. And Pa begins work on the first building in what will soon be a brand-new town on the shores of Silver Lake.

The Long Winter
The first terrible storm comes to the barren prairie in October. Then it snows almost without stopping until April. Snow has reached the rooftops, and no trains can get through with food or coal. The people of De Smet are starving, including Laura's family, who wonder how they're going to make it through this terrible winter. It is young Almanzo Wilder who finally understands what needs to be done. He must save the town, even if it means risking his own life.

Little Town on the Prairie
The long winter is over. With spring come socials, parties, and "Literaries." There is also work to be done. Laura spends many hours each day sewing shirts to help send Mary to a college for the blind. But in the evenings, Laura makes time for a new caller, Almanzo Wilder.

These Happy Golden Years
Laura is teaching school, and it's terrifying! Most of the students are taller than she is, and she must sleep away from home for the first time. Laura is miserable, but the money is needed to keep Mary in a college for the blind. And every Friday -- no matter what the weather -- Almanzo Wilder arrives to take Laura home to her family for the weekend. Laura and Almanzo are courting, and even though she's not yet sixteen, she knows that this is a time for new beginnings.

The First Four Years
Laura and Almanzo Wilder have just been married! Their life on a small prairie homestead begins with high hopes. But each year seems to bring unexpected disasters -- storms, sickness, fire, and unpaid debts. These first four years call for courage, strength, and a great deal of determination. Always, though, there is love, especially for the newest member of the family -- baby Rose."

There are some wonderful pages on the web that are worth visiting:
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura Ingalls Wilder - Frontier Girl
The Little House Book

If you like her stories, you might want to read the "sequel", based on her memoirs, as well:
"Old Town in the Green Groves: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Lost Little House Years" by Cynthia Rylant

If you want a more grown-up version, try "These is my words", "Sarah's Quilt" and "The Star Garden" by Nancy E. Turner. If you enjoyed the "Little House" stories, you will love these, too.

Wilde, Oscar "The Importance of Being Earnest"

Wilde, Oscar "The Importance of Being Earnest" - 1895

What a wonderful, humorous play. A hilarious satire. Jack pretends his name is Ernest, so he can be anonymous in town. All sorts of mix-ups evolve from this, one funny scene follows the other. I love it!

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Oscar Wilde's madcap farce about mistaken identities, secret engagements, and lovers entanglements still delights readers more than a century after its 1895 publication and premiere performance. The rapid-fire wit and eccentric characters of 'The Importance of Being Earnest' have made it a mainstay of the high school curriculum for decades."

Read also "The Picture of Dorian Gray", "A Woman of No Importance", "The Nightingale and the Rose" and the interesting biography about his wife "Constance".

Osorio, Elsa "My Name is Light"

Osorio, Elsa "My Name is Light" (Spanish: A veinte años, Luz) - 1998

A highly interesting novel about something that didn't happen that long ago, yet is not so widely published. Of course, everyone knows there were a lot of problems in Argentina but I have not read a novel where it was described this well. A deeply moving story that was awarded the Amnesty International literary prize. So worth reading.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Twenty-year-old Luz, an Argentinean, is on holiday in Madrid with her husband and new-born son. But secretly she has a mission - to find her real father. Carlos was a 'desaparecido' - one of the many political activists in Argentina who literally 'disappeared' during the country's brutal military dictatorship in the seventies - while her mother, a political prisoner, was killed trying to flee the country. As a baby, Luz was secretly adopted by a wealthy couple, unaware of her true origins. My Name is Light is a gripping, emotionally charged book, a powerful story about a young girl's quest to find her identity and to uncover the deadly secrets of one of Argentina's darkest periods."

Kneale, Matthew "English Passengers"

Kneale, Matthew "English Passengers" - 2000

"A big, ambitious novel with a rich historical sweep and a host of narrative voices. Its subject is a vicar's ludicrous expedition in 1857 to the Garden of Eden in Tasmania, [as] meanwhile, in Tasmania itself, the British settlers are alternately trying to civilise and eliminate the Aboriginal population ... The sort of novel that few contemporary writers have either the imagination or the stamina to sustain."

How the sailors from the Isle of Man who just wanted to smuggle a little alcohol, end up in Tasmania, I don't remember that very well. I do remember though, how they landed there and the effect they had on the people living there already, the native Australians.

Quite a weird book at times. I liked the part of the aboriginals and what you could learn about their lives. I do like historical novels, so it was interesting to learn more about that. But I didn't like the priest and all the Europeans and the story that led to their "discovery". The novel did get quite boring at times.

It's been quite a while that I read it (with my previous book club). It had just received the Whitbread Award and it didn't encourage me to read any more books from their lists even though I had liked the runner up which I had read before ("White Teeth" by Zadie Smith).

We read this in our Dutch International Women's Book Club in 2000/2001.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

Book Description:

"It is 1857 and the Reverend Geoffrey Wilson has set out for Tasmania, hoping to find the true site of the Garden of Eden. But the journey is turning out to be less than straightforward – dissent is growing between him and sinister racial-theorist Dr Potter, and, unknown to both, the ship they have hurriedly chartered is in fact a Manx smuggling vessel, fleeing British customs. In Tasmania the aboriginal people have been fighting a desperate battle against British invaders, and, as the passengers will discover, the island is now far from being an earthly paradise ..."

Matthew Kneale was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for "English Passengers" in 2000.

Brown, Rita Mae - The Hunsenmeir Trilogy

Brown, Rita Mae - The Hunsenmeir Trilogy

"Six of One" - 1978
A story about two elderly ladies, the Hunsenmeir sisters, and the Lesbian daughter of one of them. They live in Runnymede, Maryland, a small town with all its nosiness and gossip. A totally hilarious story, great for a good laugh. Time to re-read, I think.

From the back cover:
"Perched right on the Mason-Dixon line, tiny Runnymede, Maryland, is ripe with a history almost as colorful as the women who live there - from Celeste Chalfonte, headstrong and aristocratic, who murders for principle and steals her brother’s wife, to Fannie Jump Creighton, who runs a speakeasy right in her own home when hard times come knocking. Then of course, there’re Louise and Julia, the boldly eccentric Hunsenmeir sisters. Wheezie and Juts spend their whole lives in Runnymede, cheerfully quibbling about everything from men to child-rearing to how to drive a car. But they never let small-town life keep them from chasing their biggest dreams - or from being true to who they really are. Sparkling with a perfect combination of sisterhood and sass, Six of One is a richly textured Southern canvas - Rita Mae Brown 'at her winning, fondest best'."

"Bingo" - 1988
From the back cover:
"In the sequel to her beloved Six of One, Rita Mae Brown returns with another witty tale of passion and rivalry in the small Southern town of Runnymede, Maryland. Newspaper editor Nickel Smith is scrambling to save the local paper from corporate extinction, even as she is engaged in an affair that would shock the town as much as it amazes Nickel herself. Meanwhile, her mother, Julia, and her aunt Louise, the infamous Hunsenmeir sisters, who've set the town on its ears for decades, keep an eagle eye on Nickel. No matter that she's a grown woman and that they're going on ninety; they need someone to gossip about! Not even the town's weekly bingo games can keep Louise and Julia out of trouble when Ed Tutweiler Walters, an eligible newcomer, arrives in town--and has the sisters fighting over him like schoolgirls. A telling look at the foibles of modern relationships, Bingo is full of wisdom about the comforts, trials, and absurdities of small-town life and especially of our own nearest and dearest."

"Loose Lips" - 1999

From the back cover:
"If you crossed Mitford, North Carolina, with Peyton Place, you might come up with Runnymede, Maryland, the most beguiling of Southern towns. In Loose Lips, Rita Mae Brown revisits Runnymede and the beloved characters introduced in Six of One and Bingo, serving up an exuberant portrayal of small-town sins and Southern mores, set against a backdrop of homefront life during World War II.

"I'm afraid life is passing me by," Louise told her sister.

"No, it's not," Juts said. "Life can't pass us by. We are life."

In the picturesque town of Runnymede, everyone knows everyone else's business, and the madcap antics of the battling Hunsenmeir sisters, Julia (Juts) and Louise, have kept the whole town agog ever since they were children. Now, in the fateful year of 1941, with America headed for war, the sisters are inching toward forty...and Juts is unwise enough to mention that unspeakable reality to her sister.

The result is a huge brawl that litters Cadwalder's soda fountain with four hundred dollars' worth of broken glass. To pay the debt, the sisters choose a surprisingly new direction. Suddenly they are joint owners of The Curl 'n' Twirl beauty salon, where discriminating ladies meet to be primped, permed, and pampered while dishing the town's latest dirt.

As Juts and Louise become Runnymede's most unlikely new career women, each faces her share of obstacles. Restless Juts can't shake her longing for a baby, while holier-than-thou Louise is fit to be tied over her teenage daughter's headlong rush toward scandal. As usual, the sisters rarely see eye to eye, and there are plenty of opinions to go around. Even the common bond of patriotic duty brings wildly unexpected results when the twosome joins the Civil Air Patrol, watching the night sky for German Stukas. But loose lips can sink even the closest relationships, and Juts and Louise are about to discover that some things are best left unsaid.

Spanning a decade in the lives of Louise, Juts, and their nearest and dearest, including the incomparable Celeste Chalfonte, Loose Lips is an unforgettable tale of love and loss and the way life can always throw you a curveball. By turns poignant and hilarious, it is deepened by Rita Mae Brown's unerring insight into the human heart."

By the way, when I read the books, the titles were not half as colourful.  

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

Fontane, Theodor "Effi Briest"

Fontane, Theodor "Effi Briest" (German: Effi Briest) - 1894

I re-read this book a while ago because I love to read classics and it had been a while.

Fontane managed the description of the society of the late 19th century excellently (not that I know from personal experience 😉), we just have to be lucky to live today. But is it so much easier today than it was back then? Some things have changed, life has not become easier that way.

The whole situation Effi - Instetten - Crampas - is doomed to failure, of course. Although Instetten has his doubts in between whether he is doing the right thing, he feels obliged to keep up appearances.

I really liked the phrase of Geheimrätin (Privvy Councillor) Zwicker: "Why are there stoves and fireplaces?" Well, it would never come to this story in that case. And that would have been a pity.

Fontane is one of the best German writers of the time. He gives us a good insight into a society that seems strange to us but which we still can not get enough of.

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

From the back cover:

"Unworldly young Effi Briest is married off to Baron von Innstetten, an austere and ambitious civil servant twice her age, who has little time for his new wife. Isolated and bored, Effi finds comfort and distraction in a brief liaison with Major Crampas, a married man with a dangerous reputation. But years later, when Effi has almost forgotten her affair, the secret returns to haunt her, with fatal consequences. Considered to be Fontane's greatest novel, Effi Briest is a humane, unsentimental portrait of a young woman torn between her duties as a wife and mother and the instincts of her heart."

Irving, John "A Widow for One Year"

Irving, John "A Widow for One Year" - 1998

The story of Ruth, a "difficult woman" from toddler into middle age, from Long Island to
Amsterdam. The story of a disturbed childhood and a troubled mind.

This is definitely a book I would not have read if it wasn't for my book club. I still don't know whether I liked it or not. It certainly is a book that makes you think about a lot of things.

We read this in our Dutch International Women's Book Club in 2000/2001.

Book Description:

"This is the story of Ruth Cole. It is told in three parts: on Long Island, in the summer of 1958, when she is only four; in 1990, when she is an unmarried woman whose personal life is not nearly as successful as her literary career; and in the autumn of 1995, when Ruth Cole is a forty-one-year-old widow and mother. She's also about to fall in love for the first time..."