Sunday Bookends: Giving up on Mansfield Park and James Herriot is in my dreams

/ Lisa R. Howeler

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

Happy early birthday to my brother from Transmissions From The Northern Outpost who will be 65 tomorrow. Okay, I’m kidding. He won’t be 65, but his birthday is tomorrow. If you know him, wish him a happy one.

I talked about our week yesterday in my Saturday Afternoon Chat, if you would like to check it out.

I talked mainly about VBS with Little Miss and our final homeschool evaluation for The Boy.

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are still holding Drop-In Crafternoons once or twice a month.

We will be holding another one Saturday, June 21 at 1 p.m.

The crafternoons are events where we gather on Zoom and craft at our respective homes and chat while we work on various projects. There is one woman who creates with beads, another who colors, I sometimes draw or color, and Erin has been embroidering lately. We are calling them drop-in crafternoons because you can drop in and out during the time we are on. No need to stay the whole time if you can’t. Come late if you want or leave early.

If you want to join in, email Erin at crackcrumblife@gmail.com and she will add you to the mailing list.

I gave up on Mansfield Park. At least for now. I just can’t get into it – don’t really care about these people and their visits to each others houses where they sit and talk about each other and don’t do much else. Plus, I know the direction the romance is going, and it makes me queasy. Just – yeah – no.  The British and their weird ideas back then about who was okay to marry and who wasn’t … and yet they have the gall to make comments about our rednecks. (This is all said in jest so I hope I don’t offend my British or redneck readers. *wink*).

***SPOILER ALERT***

I sent this to my friend Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs this morning:

I can’t invest myself in a book where she hooks up with her first cousin. (I know where this is going.)

Plus – it’s sooooo boring

These people literally had no lives — they just kept going to each others houses and talked down to each other and connived and that’s like their whole lives.

I think I may just have to admit that I am not a Jane Austen fan, other than the movies. I have, of course, heard that Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are easier to read so I will probably try them later this summer. Like I think I might swap out Mansfield Park for Sense and Sensibility on my 15 Books for Summer challenge.

I am still reading All Things Wise and Wonderful.

I cannot believe how long this James Herriot book is. I feel like I might never finish it! The book is made up of individual stories in each chapter, with the underlying theme being James’s time in the RAF. I am really enjoying the stories, but I feel like I’ve been reading this book forever. I’ve taken a lot of breaks to read other books in between so I have actually been reading it a long time. Maybe I’ll have it done this week, maybe not.

I know one thing — I need to finish it soon because I am literally having dreams about James Herriot now. Of course, he looks like Nicholas Ralph from the new series in my dreams. And no..it was not a romantic dream. Just a weird one. Ha!

I’m also reading A Midnight Dance by Julia Davidson Politano. This is my first by her and I am enjoying it but it is quite a serious book so I will have to read something less serious when I am done with it. The writing is great so don’t take the words “serious book” as any kind of complaint.

I just started The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie to cleanse my pallet from the dullness of Mansfield Park and the drama of A Midnight Dance, but then I got so swept up in A Midnight Dance, I put The Pale Horse aside for now.

Up next to read after I finish A Midnight Dance will be Summer of Yes by Courtney Walsh. That will be my happy read, from what I understand about Courtney’s books. It should be a lighter read anyhow.

I added a couple of new books to my TBR over the last couple of weeks, including a Nancy Drew Mystery called The Clue of The Velvet Mask and a Louis L’Amour short story collection With These Hands. A few weeks ago I added a number of Mildred Wirt books from Project Gutenberg. She was the first “Carolyn Keene” and wrote around 28 of the first 30 Nancy Drew books. These are “juvenile” fiction but the plots and dialogue is better than some adult fiction.

I just started Travels with Agatha Christie & Sir David Suchet on Britbox. David traveled to South Africa for the first episode. The show made me love David even more. Oh gosh..he’s such a sweet man. I wanted to reach into the screen and give him a big hug at one point.

This past week I watched a couple Murder She Wrote episodes, a Brokenwood Mysteries episode, a couple episodes of the Father Dowling Mysteries, and Just A Few Acres Farm (Youtube Channel).

On the blog this week I shared:

Some fun from the gram this week:

From YouTube this week:

Random Saturday: It’s a Small World by Cat’s Wire.

I always have fun with Cat’s blog posts. She has so much interesting stuff.

The Building Our Hive blog chose my book to recommend for their summer reading list!!!!! I found this by accident and I was so giddy and almost cried!!

New Booklist by Building Our Hive

When People Say Thoughtless Things from Stray Thoughts had me thinking about how we sometimes upset people when we mean well, but also how I can give people grace when they say things that upset me.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at  Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, The Sunday Salon with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date. Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.

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22 thoughts on “Sunday Bookends: Giving up on Mansfield Park and James Herriot is in my dreams”

  1. I am going to have to find that travel documentary with David Suchet! It sounds like something I would enjoy!

    I listened to Pride and Prejudice this year. I think it helped me enjoy it more than I might otherwise have done.

    Have a great week.

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  2. Ok, so I can now finally admit I am not a Jane Austen fan…phew! That is a load off my shoulders. I just find her so verbose (says the woman who uses forty words when she can use four). I loved all the James Herriott books. I think it was because I was still young and thinking it would be cool to be a vet, and they were like short stories so I could put it down and pick it up whenever I wanted.

    I’m currently reading The Women by Kristin Hannah which is about the Vietnam War. I remember that as if it were yesterday and usually stay away. But, this book just grabs you. Then, a book came in on my Libby that I’d been on hold for months so I stopped the good book to read this rather mediocre one.

    Happy birthday to your brother! Mine really will be 65 on his next birthday but not until next March!

    https://marshainthemiddle.com/

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  3. Mr is currently on a work call, so I am having to sit very quietly in the office while absolutely cackling on the inside, re: your MP comments 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

    S&S is fun, although Marianne’s dramatics wore thinner this last reread (due, I am certain, to other things going on in real life). But the secondary characters are so wildly bizarre at times, it made up for her 😉 Northanger Abbey is such a tongue-in-cheek take on the Gothic novel craze (and JJ Feild makes the best Henry Tilney on screen!), and of course Darcy & Elizabeth… Really, it’s just MP that is … well … awful 🤣 Even Persuasion is readable, as much as I want to shake Anne Elliot, lol

    Anywho … I’m sorry MP got the better of you, after your optimistic start. But you are definitely not alone 😉 I’m already psyching myself up to try again in July …

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    • After conversing back and forth with Liz (above), I think I’ll push through MP by reading a chapter or two a day through June. In July or August I think I’ll try Sense and Sensibilty.

      And I am picturing you trying not to laugh – even though I don’t know what you look like.. lol That is making me laugh.

      I saw the Persuasion movie and have to agree about Anne Elliot!

      I really do like the writing in MP, even if I don’t like the characters or story. Miss Crawford … dang…what a snot so far.

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      • I love Jane’s writing. I love so many of the classics’ writing…

        I’ve got a book that I won (literally) years ago called “Murder at Mansfield Park” wherein the story is tweaked and Fanny is murdered… I’ve not read it yet because I wanted to read the original first, so I keep promising myself that’s my reward for pushing through 😂😂😂

        The new Claudia Gray/Mr Darcy & Miss Tilney mystery coming out next week also takes place in the realm of MP, so… I’m shamelessly bribing myself ahead of the reading 🙃

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  4. Congratulations on being on the booklist!

    I never tried “Mansfield Park”, but “Emma” was the one not working for me. Maybe I was in the wrong mood, but they all annoyed me. I should probably try again. I did “Pride and Prejudice” and liked it a lot, actually I have it both in English and German.
    I’m still on vintage crime at the moment, jumping between authors, and add rereads from my children’s book collection.

    Thank you so much for the shout out! I’m glad to hear you enjoy my trips to weird rabbit holes 😉

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    • I’ve heard horrible things about Emma so that will be the last one I will try. I am missing my crime fiction and vintage crime so I will have to continue with Agatha this week. I also have a Margery Allingham to read in my Kindle.

      I absolutely love your “weird” rabbit holes. I go down similar ones at times, but I don’t always write about them. Sometimes I do and I don’t care if people think I am weird. 🙂

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  6. I think you have to keep in practice to enjoy Austen – books from that period have such a different pace and are very wordy (and yes, we don’t marry our cousins so much any more!). It can take a bit of time to work into them. I wouldn’t necessarily say P&P or S&S are a lot easier than MP. Personally, I love Northanger Abbey, and I’ve always found that more accessible because it’s so funny and if you’ve read anything dark or creepy you can understand why she looks for scary stuff everywhere she goes, you don’t have to know the Gothic Novel inside-out. I mean, I find it really hard to read poetry and I know if I read more of that I’d probably slip back into it more easily, if you see what I mean.

    I’m busy reading my 20 Books of Summer – I’ve finished one about post-war reconstruction and concrete in the UK and now I’m reading one about camp! Also quite a heavy book about health policy so feeling the need for some light fiction soon …

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    • You know, I was actually surprised that the language and style of writing was not that difficult for me. I was worried about that because I’m not somebody that reads classic literature very often. But I actually was able to follow along and understand the story well. I don’t know if I should’ve declared fully that I am done with the book because I might actually pick it up again and finish it before the summer is out. I don’t like leaving things unfinished. Plus I do want to know where the story goes in some ways. I already know the ending because I already could tell where that was going And I did double check that was where it was going by peeking at the end. That’s uncomfortable for me, but she’s not doing it in a salacious or creepy manner so I think I can push through that. But … it is still sort of creepy to me because they were raised as siblings and he calls her his sister. 🤢

      And of course, I know that it isn’t only the British that married their first cousins.😂😂 that’s been something that has happened in our country as well. And still does I am sure. My aunt was cheated on by her husband and it was with his first cousin. 🤢

      I’m not going to give up on finishing a Jane Austen book! I will survive one!!

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      • It is a bit of a tricky one, there have been a few cousin-marriages in other books I’ve read not set in the UK or US so I’ve just gone with it like you go with the fact all women in JA have to wear a million layers of skirts, etc., just a cultural thing we go along with. I do have to remember though that MP is not actually most people’s favourite JA novel, as I’ve always been very fond of it! I feel similarly with Dickens: I can understand him but I just do not like him so I have read a few but none for decades!

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        • Yes, this totally makes sense. It makes me a little less weirded out to just think about it as a cultural thing actually. I do know that Mansfield Park isn’t a favorite of many Austen fans which is why I chose it. I am a rebel! 😂 I wanted to find out why. I was listening to this book on audible earlier in the year and I just realized I am a lot further in it than I thought. I actually might pick it up again and finish it.

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  8. I have not found a Jane Austen book I enjoy either. I have tried! I have A Midnight Dance on my TBR, thanks for the warning it’s a little heavier. I didn’t love The Summer of Yes, it’s one that has gotten mixed reviews. I typically love Courtney’s books though. Have a great week!

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