England and Wales – Day Four

England and Wales - Day Four

October 31, 2009 – Manchester and Northern Snowdonia Wales

We departed Manchester at about 9am and drove toward North Wales in posh car comfort.  I was ready for a drive of about 2-3 hours.  We arrived in Conwy, Wales only 60 minutes after leaving (and this with a short side-trip to view the site of a bronze age copper mine.  That’s some seriously old digging.)   The views along the drive were lovely, much of it drifting toward the seashore.  Most destinations are quite accessible in the UK, no matter what a native might tell you (at least insofar as an American from the Western USA is concerned). 

Conwy Castle is imposing, and hauntingly beautiful in its austere you-will-do-as-I-dictate-ness.  Like its brethren fortified castles that dot the border between Wales and England, it almost bristles with King Edward I’s will to this day.

For now, Andy drove us through Conwy and out the other side.  The railway needed to pass through Conwy Castle in the 19th century, but destruction of the castle itself was to be avoided (thank goodness!) . . . so brilliant British engineers worked out a way to run the railway underneath the castle.  Amazing! 

Emerging from the town into the countryside,  the Snowdonia scenery is gorgeous.  A bit peckish (read: hungry), we stopped at Groes Inn, which was Andy and Ana’s intention all along. 

Groes Inn dates from 1573 and is delightful. 

This is what you see upon stepping inside.  

 

We lunched near the fireplace.  My rustic ham sandwich was yummy, accompanied by a steaming mug of hot chocolate topped with marshmallows.  Alex, Andy, and Ana enjoyed tap-drawn local bitters with their sandwiches.  (My lacking camera skills did not do Ana’s delicate beauty any justice!  . . . Yes, those are my sunglasses on the table.  To Alex’s astonishment, my over-gained peepers find the northern British November sun a bit glare-y.)   

I poked around and took a few more pictures.

The 1614 fireplate.   

A view of the bar from the patron’s side.

Returning to Conwy, Andy dropped us off on Crown Lane and we took a charming tour of Plas Mawr, an Elizabethan Town House near the center of Conwy township while Ana explored the shops.  As luck would have it, we visited on the last day Plas Mawr was open for the season.  That was a fortuitous break. 

I could be very comfortable in a house like this.  Its human scale and delightful rooms would be an easy fit.

The entry hall fireplace is stunning – dating from 1580 (“Shakespeare” – whomever he/they really were – was busily crafting the English cannon at this time.) 

 

This portal from the entry hall into the house proper has seen a few trodding footfalls.   

This is the kitchen.  Charming!  (All of the rooms were step-into – across a 3-4 inch rim spanning each door way at floor level.   This was to keep the rushes on the floor from moving from room to hall.  When the rushes were dirty, they were swept up, removed,  and new rushes were laid in place. )   

Alex is making a 21st century call on his iPhone and he makes a great reference scale while he’s at it.

We are in Wales -and part of the house iconography is a heraldic plaster featuring the severed heads of three Englishmen. Kharma bites back!  (Alex comically lifted his hand to protect his English neck.)

This is a period wood chest.  My grandmother’s English roses bone china would rest comfortably there, with plenty of room for table linens and many other delights.  They can crate up this beauty and send it to me in California!  I promise to take very good care of it.

After Plas Mawr, we backtracked to tromp around the Castle.  We took this shot looking up at a its hem – a tens-of-feet thick curtain wall.  It has remained amazingly robust in spite of its being a ruin since the middle of the 17th century, when it was de-militarized for its roof slate and massive oak beams and timbers. 

My historical training filled in the blanks and I could see the castle much as it once was.  I tried to help Alex and Ana see it, too. 

After exploring the castle for about 45 minutes, we made for the gift shop.  I dropped about 10 pounds sterling there (about $16.50 then), including the purchase of a British Memorial Poppy. 

This view of Conwy township was taken from the castle. Conwy was more than a castle, a small town was protected by 1,400 yards of wall 24 four feet thick, on average.

The bus really shows how narrow these village lanes are. 

We went for a wander along the quayside and found, to my delight, a teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy red and black house tucked into the townskirt’s towering stone wall.  It was – it proclaimed – Great Britain’s Smallest House.

 

Ana treated me to a 1-pound “tour,” and tiny it was!

Measuring only 3.05 metres by 1.8 metres, this tiny two-story house deserves its place in the Guinness Book of Records.

This is a view from the door.  The sitting area built into the wall at left doubles as a firewood/coal storage, but one had to get up, turn around, and lift the seat to remove the log/lump.   

Turn immediately to your right (rather marching band style – totally in-place) and you will see a ladder.  This is the stairway to the second floor (first floor if we’re being properly British).  Upstairs is an equally narrow area with a very slender bed and diminutive bedside table.  This photo gives you a sense of scale. 

The drive back to Manchester was just as quick as it had been in the morning, with no traffic issues.  We all enjoyed a convivial dinner at the Lead Station Restaurant in Chorlton, Manchester – which was once a police station/jail.  After dinner, we took a drive and a short walk to see the house Alex lived in with flatmates while he was earning his MBA at Manchester Business School, which is part of Manchester University.  (Alex bought the house and the flatmates effectively paid the mortgage.  Brilliant, Mr. MBA!).

You may have noticed that I referred to things as British and English in this blog post.  While in Wales one is decidedly NOT in England.  I tried to be mindful of local sensibilities and also hoped to add a little much needed polish to the perception of Americans abroad.     

(Next up Day 5:  Driving to the Lake District and staying in a castle! )

England – Day Three – Part Two

(Continued from “England – Day Three – Part One”)

October 30, 2009 – Manchester

After lunch we searched for the John Rylands Library, a 19th century neo-gothic jewelbox that is now part of the University of Manchester library system.

“The John Rylands Library houses some of the most significant books and manuscripts ever produced. The magnificent neo-gothic building in Manchester’s city centre is a major visitor attraction as well as a research library of world renown.

The collections include exquisite medieval illuminated manuscripts, examples of the earliest forms of European printing including the Gutenberg Bible, as well as the personal papers of distinguished historical figures including Elizabeth Gaskell, John Dalton and John Wesley.”- (from the website link cited above)

It is – in a word – breathtaking!  Alex got a peek inside the historical portion of the library before I did.  He told me to stop, put his hands over my eyes, and lead me into this timeless temple to knowledge.  It is absolutely drop-dead gorgeous!  The woodwork, the leather bindings, the sweep of history, the stained glass windows, the quiet reverence for the uncountable hours of thought and work that went into the collection over centuries.

I was humbled, thrilled, and breathless – at all once! 

The stained glass window is filled with images of great thinkers.

We passed a boisterous group of children engaged in a Halloween activity, stopped in at the library gift shop to pick up a few souvenirs, and made our way to a nearby Blackstone’s bookstore to relax before trekking back via the Altrincham tram to Andy and Ana’s place.  (Reminded in the morning to hold onto to my roundrip tram ticket, I, of course, couldn’t find it when I needed it – and still haven’t found it.  With no way to buy another one-way ticket home, we inquired with the station agent who must have decided I didn’t look much like a serial n’er do well and let me board with a bit of a joke at my expense being the only thing needing paid.  Whew.)

Ana made a delicious pot of Irish stew (she was born and raised in Northern Ireland) and after we tidied up afterward, I asked if I might do a load of laundry.  

Upon looking at the diminuative (by US-huge standards) combination washer and dryer with all manner of unfamiliar instructions, I called out, “Mom, could you help me figure out how to do the wash, please?”  I felt like a 12-year-old  lost in her first foray into laundry land.  Laughing sweet-naturedly, Ana came to my rescue.

We settled in the comfy-cozy lounge to watch a bit of telly while enjoying a glass of white or red.  Andy asked if we’d ever seen or heard of a show called “Benidorm“.  We had not, and were soon treated to a serio-comedic peek into the still extant British class system.  I thought it was more amusing than Alex did.  The commercials were fun, too.

(Next up – Day 4  (aka Halloween) – including a bronze age copper mine, Northern Wales, Conwy Castle and walled town, a Tudor townhouse, the smallest house in Britain, and dinner in an old police station/jail.)

England – Day Three – Part One

October 30, 2009 – Manchester

Armed with Andy’s hand-drawn map of things to see/do and Ana’s sage directions about getting to the Altrincham tram into Manchester, we set out. (By the way, Altrincham is pronounced All-Tring-Hmm.  Go figure.)

The tram ends at St. Peter’s Square.  We explored, heading roughly north, enjoying the Industrial Age architecture and newer additions to the city skyline.   

As lunchtime approached, we searched in earnest for the decidedly recommended Mr. Thomas’ Chop House. 

 

We found it just where it was supposed to be, tucked between two more modern (and wholly lacking) buildings.  Being sandwiched as it was couldn’t diminish its Victorian splendor and we settled into a tidy table for two.  What follows are a look-left and look-right view from where we sat.  The tilework was magnificent!  

Alex ordered the “Mr Thomas’s Famous Home-made Corned Beef Hash
10 days in the making – to our own secret recipe – served with sautéed potatoes & creamed onions.  Finished with a soft-poached egg & Cheshire-smoked dry cure bacon.  £12.95.”   

I ordered the ” Pressed Ham Hock & Potato Terrine  Shredded ham hock & fine-diced potato, carrot & onion set in clarified butter spiced with coarse grain mustard – with mixed baby leaves, home-made piccalilli & toasted soda bread £5.65.” 

 

Mine was good and the picallili was intriguing but Alex’s was truly excellent.  He was a sweetheart and shared with me.  We finished our entree plates and moved on to enjoy our pot of hot tea for two . . .

  . . . and a ”pudding” of Chocolate Cake with whisked Chantilly Custard.  Yummy!

An observation:  our waitress was quite cheerful and is currently featured – with her thousand-watt smile – on the Mr. Thomas’ Chop House website.   She and I are of similar age.  Her skin is absolutely amazing!   I am not kidding when I emphatically declare that her skin is better than most 7-year-olds in California – and this observation is not limited to this exemplar, it can be seen everywhere.  I have decided, by way of empirical evidence, that England is where my skin belongs – the 7/8′s of me that isn’t Sioux/Cherokee anyway.  My skin LOVED being in misty, gently lit England; my skin does not like living in California (I think I heard my epidermis crying on the flight home ).

(Day Three continued in “England – Day Three – Part Two”)

England – Day Two

October 29, 2009 – London/Manchester

Day 2 dawned bright and drizzly (just what I was hoping for at the end of a wicked-hot summer in one of California’s heat-sinks – the Central Valley). 

After a breakfast of croissants and Earl Grey tea, properly brewed, we made for Victoria Coach Station.  Allegedly “adjacent” to Victoria Station proper it’s more afield than adjacent, in my humble opinion (but this could be a hazy memory with luggage talking).  Having been duly (with perfect plum-y British elocution) warned about the real possibility of modern Artful Dodgers via a PA system, we boarded our coach for Manchester on time – with nary a problem and not a minute late.

Before we reached the motorway heading north, our route took us on something of a tour of central London.  A favorite of mine – more so than the Houses of Parliament across the street – was the statue commemorating Queen Boudica of the Iceni .  QB couldn’t beat the conquering Romans outright, but she gave them hell anyway. 

We talked, slept, and read our way north.  Two things struck American-me:  1.  The cows and sheep have so much fresh green grass to eat that many of them simply lay down to rest much of the time.  This is something we don’t often see in the Western USA where green blades of grass are few and far between from May through November.  2.  Endless signs for stop here come ons (e.g. McDonald’s 5 miles ahead on right – ez on an off!) don’t exist.  Every so often there is a something called Motorway Service.  Armed with choices in food, restrooms, a WH Smith book/snack shop, internet kiosk, etcetera, it’s everything the road-weary traveler needs. 

Roundabouts mid-afternoon, our clean, comfortable coach pulled into the Manchester Coach Station.  Alex’s very good friend, Andy, picked us up and we were soon on our way to Andy and Ana’s beautiful modern bi-level penthouse flat by way of solidly Industrial Revolution built Manchester.  Regaled with sardonic-ly expert Mancunian history as gifted by Andy, and in addition to many historical gems, we also passed by that altar to “football” where Manchester United plays soccer.

Ana picked up fish and chips for our convivial shared dinner.  Fish and chips were on my must-do list and these were very tasty (e.g. hot, steaming, flavorful, crispy, tender – wonderful!).  A & A gave us wonderful ideas for things to do in Manchester the following day – complete with directions and inside tips/hints.      

 A relaxing English evening of conversation and wine - including learning more about a 25-years-younger MBA student  Alex – was a lovely way to end the day.

England – Day One

I have dreamed of visiting England since I was about 12 and that’s been a very long wait.  Alex was going home to visit, having been born and raised in Richmond Upon Thames, London.   To celebrate our recent marriage, Alex took me to visit England!  I was thrilled, and still am. 

Alex and I flew into Heathrow Airport near London on Tuesday, October 28, 2009.  It was about 11am local time but felt every minute of 3am to us.  I wasn’t too sleepy to look out the window and see Hampton Court Palace as we were about to land.  It was breathtakingly beautiful and the full sweep of its storied history washed through me.  Be still my English Historian’s heart! 

Alex seemed to kick into home-territory gear straight away as we flew through Heathrow airport with luggage in tow.  Customs was a breeze as we were among the very few non-UK-citizens on the flight from San Francisco, which was a nice surprise. 

Once we made it to the Tube , we boarded the underground bound for Putney, London  where Alex’s stepfather, Granville, lives.  Sadly, I will never meet Alex’s parents as his father died years ago and his mother died in 2008.  Granville is a sweetheart – a bona fide English gentleman from another time who is firmly ensconced in his enduring sense of place. 

On the way into London, we saw the Thames and historic Putney Bridge.  This post is without photos because Alex and I apparently forgot that we had four cameras between we two with nary a snapshot to show for it. 

Granville made us welcome with fresh towels near a huge, deep, scrumptious bathtub.  It felt great to luxuriantly soak after the 10.5 hour flight from San Francisco.      

Later, in his shiny new Prius, Granville took us into Tennis-land (more properly the All England Club at Wimbledon) - one of 35 major centres of London proper.  An Italian dinner was to be enjoyed at La Nonna Italian Restaurant on the high street of Wimbledon.  Alex chose a fish dish and I had a very nice lasagna.  We shared garlic bread, a bottle of red wine, and a dessert of profiteroles and melty-warm chocolate.   

(Next up:  Traveling North to Manchester . . . with photos)

England!

England – day by gleeful day! – is coming soon to Cheerful Serendipity. I am (finally!) to have time to put together 14 days of delicious memories as the academic year sighs, and UC Merced sits back for a well-deserved rest. 

Are you Hemolexiphiliac, too?

Hemolexiphiliac:  One who bleeds words, a condition whose only cure is a daily transfusion via reading books.

It may be a make-believe word – for now – but it is highly evocative and oh-so true!

Thank you to Stephen J. Gertz of www.bookpatrol.net for coming up with this gem.

The Aging Wish List – Early May 2009 Finds

THE AGING BOOK LIST

Simply sublime! 

2.  A Quiet Adjustment (by Benjamin Markovits) Hardcover – list price $24.95.  Aging Book List Find price $5.68 (found via half.com, including s/h).  

“In his “Byron trilogy,” Benjamin Markovits lovingly reinvents the nineteenth-century novel, true to its perfect prose, penetrating insight, and simmering passions. Inspired by the actual biography of Lord Byron”the greatest literary figure and most notorious sex symbol of his age “Markovits re-imagines Byron’s marriage to the capable, intellectual, and tormented Annabella and the scandal that broke open their lives and riveted the world around them: Byron’s incestuous relationship with his impetuous half-sister, Gus. Their very different understandings of love and one’s obligations to society lead them all “and the reader” headlong to a devastating conclusion.

Related Aging Wish List item:  Alfred & Emily by Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing 

“What if World War I never happened?  Lessing invents an alternate history for her war-scarred parents.  

3. Here on Earth (by Alice Hoffman) – Hardcover – list price was (now available in trade paperback only) $23.95.  Aging Book List Find price $3.00 (found at a secondhand bookshop)

“Here on Earth is set in motion when March Murray and her teenage daughter travel from their California home to New England. Their stay is to be brief. Judith Dale, her childhood housekeeper-cum-foster mother, has died, and March must set things to right and get out of gloomy Jenkintown as quickly as possible. “Five days tops,” she reassures her scientist husband. Instead, she is pulled back into the arms of Hollis, her first love–an avaricious, Heathcliff-like individual who radiates sulfur and cruelty. “She left and didn’t come back, not even when he called her, and yet here she is, on this dark night; here and no place else.” In this deep fable of loss and control, love and fear, Alice Hoffman allows us into her characters’ cores and makes us wish their fortunes were happier. Here on Earth is filled with wisdom, what-ifs, and animals who seem, if not to know more than human beings, at least to know how to shy from danger.”

Related Aging Wish List item:  Practical Magic – also by Alice Hoffman

The movie was much fun, I expect the book will be more so.  ’Twould make an eerily fun Halloween read.  

4.  The 19th Wife (by David Ebershoff) – Hardcover – list price $26.00.  Aging Book List Find price $3.00 (found at a secondhand bookshop) 

“Sweeping and lyrical, spellbinding and unforgettable, David Ebershoff’s The 19th Wife combines epic historical fiction with a modern murder mystery to create a brilliant novel of literary suspense. 

It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of a family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife.

Soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds–a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. Jordan Scott, a young man who was thrown out of his fundamentalist sect years earlier, must reenter the world that cast him aside in order to discover the truth behind his father’s death.”

Related Aging Wish List item:  The Heretic’s Daughter by Kathleen Kent

Looks to be an interesting angle on the much-covered Salem witch trials.    

5.  Death Du Jour (by Kathy Reichs) – Hardcover list price $25.00.  Aging Book List Find price $3.00 (found at a secondhand bookshop) 

“Forensic anthropologist Temperance “Tempe” Brennan of the Laboratoire de Me dicine Legale in Montreal makes a triumphant second appearance in Reichs’s powerful followup to her bestselling debut, Deja Dead. The novel opens atmospherically in a frigid church graveyard as Tempe labors to exhume the century-old remains of a nun so that the Church can posthumously declare her a saint. But the bones aren’t where they’re supposed to be according to the graveyard map, and there’s something suspicious about them when they do turn up.”

Related Aging Wish List item:  Deja Dead – also by Kathy Reichs

I have long enjoyed the series “Bones” (I thought it wouldn’t last when it first appeared, because it was too smart and too witty to last, and was happily proven wrong).  I am looking forward to reading some of this well-regarded modern mystery series.  

6.  The Archivist:  A Novel  (by Martha Cooley)   Hardcover list price $22.95.  Aging Book List Find price $3.00 (found at a secondhand bookshop) 

“Matthias Lane is the proud gatekeeper to countless objects of desire, the greatest among them being T.S. Eliot’s letters to Emily Hale. Now in his late 60s and archivist at an unnamed East Coast university, Matthias is–as one of his colleagues tells him–”exceptionally well defended.” He’s intent on keeping the Hale collection equally remote, and when a young poet first seeks access, Matthias rebuffs her with little difficulty. Still, Roberta Spire does remind him of his wife, Judith, who had also written poetry but had committed suicide 20 years earlier. And he is much taken with the student’s self-possession: “Pleading never works with me,” he concedes, “but authentic and angry self-interest does.”"

Related Aging Wish List item: The Secret of Lost Things (by Sheridan Hay)

“Rosemary arrives in New York from Tasmania with little other than her love of books and an eagerness to explore the city. Taking a job at a vast, chaotic emporium of used and rare books called the Arcade, she knows she has found a home. But when Rosemary reads a letter from someone seeking to “place” a lost manuscript by Herman Melville, the bookstore erupts with simmering ambitions and rivalries.”  THE AGING BOOK LIST 

Some books must be deliciously in my hands as soon after publication as possible.  At times these are ordered early, as in pre-ordering, which somehow feels like it is more already a delight of mine.  This is a singular, heightened joy.  

Other books are equally desired, but a lesser sense of immediacy is in play.  These titles land on my aging book list, and, eventually, almost every one comes to me.  This is part bargain hunt, part treasure hunt, and all together fun.  No stone is left unturned.  Second hand bookshops, bargain sections of standard bookstores, thrift stores, library book sales, half.com wish lists, and so on are all mined for literary gold, inasmuch as the budget will allow.  This is a diffused, deepened joy.    

 

Early May, 2009

 

1.  Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages (by Ammon Shea)  Hardcover – list price $21.95.  Aging Book List Find price $5.99 (found via half.com including s/h).  

“An obsessive word lover’s account of reading the entire Oxford English Dictionary, hailed as “the Super Size Me of lexicography.”

“I’m reading the OED so you don’t have to,” says Ammon Shea on his slightly masochistic journey to scale the word lover’s Mount Everest: the Oxford English Dictionary. In 26 chapters filled with sharp wit, sheer delight, and a documentarian’s keen eye, Shea shares his year inside the OED, delivering a hair-pulling, eye-crossing account of reading every word.”

 

Related aging wish list item:  The Oxford English Dictionary (20 Volume Hardcover Set) 

Simply sublime! 

 

 

 

 

2.  A Quiet Adjustment (by Benjamin Markovits) Hardcover – list price $24.95.  Aging Book List Find price $5.68 (found via half.com, including s/h).  

“In his “Byron trilogy,” Benjamin Markovits lovingly reinvents the nineteenth-century novel, true to its perfect prose, penetrating insight, and simmering passions. Inspired by the actual biography of Lord Byron”the greatest literary figure and most notorious sex symbol of his age “Markovits re-imagines Byron’s marriage to the capable, intellectual, and tormented Annabella and the scandal that broke open their lives and riveted the world around them: Byron’s incestuous relationship with his impetuous half-sister, Gus. Their very different understandings of love and one’s obligations to society lead them all “and the reader” headlong to a devastating conclusion.

 

Related Aging Wish List item:  Alfred & Emily by Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing 

“What if World War I never happened?  Lessing invents an alternate history for her war-scarred parents.  

 

 

 

 

3. Here on Earth (by Alice Hoffman) – Hardcover – list price was (now available in trade paperback only) $23.95.  Aging Book List Find price $3.00 (found at a secondhand bookshop)

“Here on Earth is set in motion when March Murray and her teenage daughter travel from their California home to New England. Their stay is to be brief. Judith Dale, her childhood housekeeper-cum-foster mother, has died, and March must set things to right and get out of gloomy Jenkintown as quickly as possible. “Five days tops,” she reassures her scientist husband. Instead, she is pulled back into the arms of Hollis, her first love–an avaricious, Heathcliff-like individual who radiates sulfur and cruelty. “She left and didn’t come back, not even when he called her, and yet here she is, on this dark night; here and no place else.” In this deep fable of loss and control, love and fear, Alice Hoffman allows us into her characters’ cores and makes us wish their fortunes were happier. Here on Earth is filled with wisdom, what-ifs, and animals who seem, if not to know more than human beings, at least to know how to shy from danger.”

 

Related Aging Wish List item:  Practical Magic – also by Alice Hoffman

The movie was much fun, I expect the book will be more so.  ’Twould make an eerily sweet Halloween read.  

 

 

 

 

4.  The 19th Wife (by David Ebershoff) – Hardcover – list price $26.00.  Aging Book List Find price $3.00 (found at a secondhand bookshop) 

“Sweeping and lyrical, spellbinding and unforgettable, David Ebershoff’s The 19th Wife combines epic historical fiction with a modern murder mystery to create a brilliant novel of literary suspense. 

It is 1875, and Ann Eliza Young has recently separated from her powerful husband, Brigham Young, prophet and leader of the Mormon Church. Expelled and an outcast, Ann Eliza embarks on a crusade to end polygamy in the United States. A rich account of a family’s polygamous history is revealed, including how a young woman became a plural wife.

Soon after Ann Eliza’s story begins, a second exquisite narrative unfolds–a tale of murder involving a polygamist family in present-day Utah. “

Related Aging Wish List item:  The Heretic’s Daughter by Kathleen Kent

Looks to be an interesting angle on the much-covered Salem witch trials.    

 

 

 

 

 

5.  Death Du Jour (by Kathy Reichs) – Hardcover list price $25.00.  Aging Book List Find price $3.00 (found at a secondhand bookshop) 

“Forensic anthropologist Temperance “Tempe” Brennan of the Laboratoire de Me dicine Legale in Montreal makes a triumphant second appearance in Reichs’s powerful followup to her bestselling debut, Deja Dead. The novel opens atmospherically in a frigid church graveyard as Tempe labors to exhume the century-old remains of a nun so that the Church can posthumously declare her a saint. But the bones aren’t where they’re supposed to be according to the graveyard map, and there’s something suspicious about them when they do turn up.”

 

Related Aging Wish List item:  Deja Dead – also by Kathy Reichs

I have long enjoyed the series “Bones” (I thought it wouldn’t last when it first appeared, because it was too smart and too witty to last, and was happily proven wrong).  I am looking forward to reading some of this well-regarded modern mystery series.  

 

 

 

 

6.  The Archivist:  A Novel  (by Martha Cooley)   Hardcover list price $22.95.  Aging Book List Find price $3.00 (found at a secondhand bookshop) 

“Matthias Lane is the proud gatekeeper to countless objects of desire, the greatest among them being T.S. Eliot’s letters to Emily Hale. Now in his late 60s and archivist at an unnamed East Coast university, Matthias is–as one of his colleagues tells him–”exceptionally well defended.” He’s intent on keeping the Hale collection equally remote, and when a young poet first seeks access, Matthias rebuffs her with little difficulty. Still, Roberta Spire does remind him of his wife, Judith, who had also written poetry but had committed suicide 20 years earlier. And he is much taken with the student’s self-possession: “Pleading never works with me,” he concedes, “but authentic and angry self-interest does.”"

 

Related Aging Wish List item: The Secret of Lost Things (by Sheridan Hay)

“Rosemary arrives in New York from Tasmania with little other than her love of books and an eagerness to explore the city. Taking a job at a vast, chaotic emporium of used and rare books called the Arcade, she knows she has found a home. But when Rosemary reads a letter from someone seeking to “place” a lost manuscript by Herman Melville, the bookstore erupts with simmering ambitions and rivalries.”

File this one under the “don’t judge a book by its cover” category.  

Susan Boyle auditioned for Britain’s Got Talent (a rough equivalent of American Idol in the UK)

. . . the magic begins at about 2:23.  

Enjoy!  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luRmM1J1sfg

 

(Thank you to The Ninja Scotsman )

I just enjoyed a wonderful documentary on Ovation TV.  Well, it was recorded for my viewing pleasure via Dish Network DVR, but it did originate thusly.

The title of the documentary is “Eloquent Nude” which chronicles some of the career of notable California photographer Edward Weston and Charis Wilson, his young model and muse, the much younger woman who would eventually be his wife.

From the DVD description:  “She was beautiful, smart, and searching. He was an emerging genius in the world of photography. When they met, they fell instantly in love. Setting off across the West with camera and typewriter in the depths of the Great Depression, Charis Wilson and Edward Weston transformed photography, and each other.”

Beautifully drawn, the documentary echoes the singular beauty of the Weston/Wilson photographs.  Charis Wilson, age 90 at filming of the documentary, offers a cogent, serenely haunted bridge back in time. 

It is an illuminating look into a place and time not too distant, yet seemingly worlds away from our own equally brief moments here.