Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby. I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book. Here are my reads for April, 2020…

Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, by Elizabeth Taylor – First off, this is Elizabeth Taylor the Important British Writer, not Elizabeth Taylor the Hollywood Ingenue.  Okay!  That disclaimer done and dusted, I really enjoyed Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont.  The titular character, Mrs Palfrey, widowed and well-off but generally ignored by her family, moves into the Claremont Hotel, London, to spend her golden years surrounded by a cast of other cast-offs, where she befriends a young writer.  This is one of those books in which not much happens, plot-wise, but it’s beautifully written and the characters are superb.  It’s a moving portrait of aging and inter-generational friendship.

Heidi, by Joanna Spyri – I was looking for some comfort reading, and picked up Heidi for the first time since I was a child.  I was immediately immersed in the world of the Swiss Alps – surrounded by craggy snow-covered peaks, mountain wildflowers, and bleating goats.  It was a lovely respite, and made me crave a trip to Switzerland.

Lodestars Anthology: Switzerland, by Various Authors – Not ready to say goodbye to Switzerland after turning the last page of Heidi, I picked up the Lodestars Anthology issue featuring the country and spent a blissful evening reading all about the travel and cultural experiences on offer there (interspersed with stunning photographs).  It was such a treat, but it made the wanderlust even more intense.

Elizabeth and Her German Garden, by Elizabeth von Arnim – This was a re-read for me.  I adore Elizabeth von Arnim’s work and I’ve been slowly collecting early editions of many of her books, including her Elizabeth trilogy.  When I first read Elizabeth and Her German Garden a few years ago, I loved it but was saddened by her description of her husband, the Man of Wrath.  This time, I found he didn’t feature as prominently as I’d thought he did, and I got the sense that Elizabeth was rolling her eyes at some of his pompous pronouncements and that he was indulging her in turn.

The Solitary Summer, by Elizabeth von Arnim – Elizabeth and the Man of Wrath make a bet: she claims that if she is given a summer to be completely solitary in her garden, she will not get lonely.  He thinks she won’t last a week.  (Elizabeth is a Baroness, so “completely solitary” doesn’t actually mean completely solitary; there is a staff of gardeners, house servants, her three daughters – the April Baby, the May Baby and the June Baby, also sometimes just known as April, May and June – and their nanny.  And she occasionally has to do her duty by visiting the villagers and billeting a soldier.)  Who wins the bet?  Well, you’ll have to read and see if Elizabeth gets lonely.  The garden and nature writing is gorgeous, and I want to be friends with Elizabeth.

The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen, by Elizabeth von Arnim – Elizabeth takes it into her head to walk the circumference of Rugen, a German island in the Baltic Sea, where you can (apparently?) swim with luminescent starfish and jellies.  Unfortunately, being a Proper German Woman, she can’t just wander off alone, and none of her friends will sign on to a multi-day hike.  (Call me, Elizabeth!)  So Elizabeth ends up taking along her placid servant, Gertrud, and an excitable carriage-driver, August, and hijinks ensue.  Midway through the trip, she bumps into a relative and even more hijinks ensue.  This was the funniest of the Elizabeth books – I was shaking with laughter during the scene in which Elizabeth and Gertrud fall out of the carriage and August drives off pell-mell, not realizing that his horses are pulling an empty carriage.  And it also caused me to lose an evening to reading travel guides to Rugen and planning yet another trip.

The Man in the Queue (Inspector Alan Grant #1), by Josephine Tey – Let’s get this out of the way first: there are no dinosaurs.  I know, you’d think Alan Grant…  Okay, I can’t keep that up.  The Man in the Queue is the introductory book in a series featuring Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard.  Inspector Grant is tapped to investigate the murder of a man standing in a theatre queue.  The man, who has no identification, was stabbed in the back in the midst of a crowd of potential witnesses, yet no one saw the crime.  How do you track an invisible murderer of a nameless man?  So – I enjoyed this, but I found it hard going at times (blame the pandemic); I think I’ll like Tey’s other works even more.

To War with Whitaker, by Hermione, Countess Ranfurly – Dan and Hermione Ranfurly had been married a year when World War II broke out.  Dan, the Earl of Ranfurly, was a member of a Yeomanry unit, and His Majesty’s Army had an odd rule that regular Army wives could follow their husbands to war, but Yeomanry wives could not.  Mothers, grannies, sisters, aunts, and servants – all welcome, but wives, no.  (And that’s where the title To War with Whitaker comes in.  Whitaker was Lord Ranfurly’s portly valet, who accompanied him to the war.  When Dan announces that they would be joining his unit, Whitaker responds: “To the war, my Lord?  Very good, my Lord.”)  Lady Ranfurly, 25, adventurous, and madly in love with her husband, decides that she’s not staying home, and she essentially bandits the war – and To War with Whitaker is her diary recording the experience.  There’s a lot more to be said about this wonderful book; I will be writing a full review here because I loved every word and am not ready to say goodbye to Hermione, Dan, Whitaker or any of their friends.

A Shropshire Lad, by A. E. Housman – What I thought I would be reading: 63 poems about nature and the changing of the seasons in a classic English region.  What I actually read: 63 poems about death, murder, executions and war.  All very accomplished, no doubt.  But not what I was really looking for.  I knew there was going to be some death, but I also thought there would be more… I don’t know, cricket with the Vicar?  Clearly the fault lies with me, but if this is on your list, maybe wait for less anxious times.

Wicked Autumn (Max Tudor #1), by G. M. Malliet – Nether Monkslip is the quintessential English village, the kind that you’d do well to avoid according to Crime Reads.  So it should be no surprise that the unpopular head of the local Women’s Institute is murdered in the Village Hall at the “Harvest Fayre.”  The death looks like an accident, but Max Tudor – the handsome Vicar of the village church and ex-MI5 agent – knows better.  So!  I didn’t actually guess the killer on this one, but I got 85% of the way there and I probably would have figured it out had I been reading this book with more than 30% of my attention.  I did like it, and will definitely continue with the series.  The village was a complete cliche, and I loved that.

Well, that does it for another month of quarantine reading.  Despite my plans to read through my Classics Club list, I have not actually dug into many weighty tomes during this time, and I’ve felt decidedly blah about reading in general – I think to the point that I might be experiencing a reading slump.  I’m in good company, I know.  The fact that there are so many books on this list is a testament to how little TV I watch (and that, at least this month, was largely because we only have one TV and someone else is always monopolizing it).  I’m sad that, while there are so many wonderful books on this list, I struggled to pick them up.  It’s always nice to visit with Elizabeth von Arnim, of course, and To War with Whitaker is destined to be one of my favorites of the year.  But this has really been a little bit of a half-hearted month of reading.

What did you read in April?