A Reading Update, a New Book and SNOW!!!!

I know the rest of Canada gets more snow per annum than we do here in the Valley but when we get a dumping, we get a good 'un. We got a good snowfall yesterday, mucho shoveling, then overnight another 5 to 10 cms.

Jo took a couple of videos of the snow out front. Above is the shorter one. 

Bonnie is not happy

The puppies haven't been out as much. I've been sending them into the back yard mostly but they aren't that thrilled about it because I usually end up having to wash their feet when they come in to get the snow off them.

Jo took this photo of Clyde today

Just so he doesn't feel left out, this is the young guy, Clyde, who at this very moment is out in the back yard.. *Sigh* Now to get a bucket of water... 

While we were having lunch today, a huge branch came crashing down onto the deck. I took a video of it. Hope it's not too long.. 😁

Happy Valentine's Day, Jo

Jo and I have had a nice Valentine's Day. She bought me a book I'd been looking at. It looks so interesting. I'll provide the synopsis of it here. I'll also provide a review of a book I finished today and the synopsis of the next book in line.

New Book

1. The Daughters of Yalta by Catherine Grace Katz (2020).

"Tensions during the Yalta Conference in February 1945 threatened to tear apart the wartime alliance among Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin just as victory was close at hand. Catherine Grace Katz uncovers the dramatic story of the three young women who were chosen by their fathers to travel with them to Yalta, each bound by fierce family loyalty, political savvy, and intertwined romances that powerfully colored these crucial days. Kathleen Harriman was a champion skier, war correspondent, and daughter of US ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman. Sarah Churchill, an actress-turned-RAF officer, was devoted to her brilliant father, who depended on her astute political mind. Roosevelt’s only daughter, Anna, chosen instead of her mother Eleanor to accompany the president to Yalta, arrived there as keeper of her father’s most damaging secrets. Situated in the political maelstrom that marked the transition to a post- war world, The Daughters of Yalta is a remarkable story of fathers and daughters whose relationships were tested and strengthened by the history they witnessed and the future they crafted together."

Just Finished

1. A Dram of Poison by Charlotte Armstrong.

"A Dram of Poison by Charlotte Armstrong was originally published in 1956 and was a unique, interesting story. Armstrong's writing reminds me of other female authors I've enjoyed of a similar time-frame; Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Helen MacInnis, Margaret Millar. Different types of stories in some cases but just a similar feel.

I found this a fascinating story. It takes a bit to get going but as the story progresses, it gets more and more interesting. Mr. Gibson is a poetry professor at a small California university. He is a quiet, unassuming man who gets involved in a fascinating story. Attending the funeral of a fellow professor Mr. Gibson takes the professor's daughter under his wing. He helps bring her health back and ultimately he marries her; a kind of bargain that he will help her but not it will be basically a platonic relationship. (Note: the story starts off with Gibson in his friend's office, and he notices that his friends has poisons in stock)

Gibson realizes that he loves Rosemary and they go to celebrate. Returning from the restaurant, they are involved in a car crash that will change their lives. Gibson is invalided (broken leg) so he calls his sister Ethel to come and help. She is one of those people who cause problems and she does. A series of events happen that will involve Gibson and Rosemary making a voyage through the city, gathering up various people in their wake. This is the best part of the story as we meet a great cast of characters who help the two on their search.

The story is basically a voyage of self-discovery; their own qualities, their relationship, their love, all the while trying to find something that could kill the person who might find it. Now I realize that's a bit obtuse, but you need to read the story to find out what. The first half was a bit slow at times, lots of self-doubt, self-rationalization but it really picks up so very much in the 2nd part, getting better and better. Well worth reading. (4.5 stars)"

Currently Reading

1. Shirley by Charlotte Bronte.

"Following the tremendous popular success of Jane Eyre, which earned her lifelong notoriety as a moral revolutionary, Charlotte Brontë vowed to write a sweeping social chronicle that focused on "something real and unromantic as Monday morning." Set in the industrializing England of the Napoleonic wars and Luddite revolts of 1811-12, Shirley (1849) is the story of two contrasting heroines. One is the shy Caroline Helstone, who is trapped in the oppressive atmosphere of a Yorkshire rectory and whose bare life symbolizes the plight of single women in the nineteenth century. The other is the vivacious Shirley Keeldar, who inherits a local estate and whose wealth liberates her from convention.

A work that combines social commentary with the more private preoccupations of Jane Eyre, Shirley demonstrates the full range of Brontë's literary talent. "Shirley is a revolutionary novel," wrote Brontë biographer Lyndall Gordon. "Shirley follows Jane Eyre as a new exemplar but so much a forerunner of the feminist of the later twentieth century that it is hard to believe in her actual existence in 1811-12. She is a theoretic possibility: what a woman might be if she combined independence and means of her own with intellect. Charlotte Brontë imagined a new form of power, equal to that of men, in a confident young woman [whose] extraordinary freedom has accustomed her to think for herself....Shirley [is] Brontë's most feminist novel."

Take care. Enjoy your week. 😷