Betty Barbara here-- Oh, more happy sighs. I just love this one. And it won't feel overly weird reading a Christmas story at this time of year, as our weather is not being very Spring-like. (You just can't trust the groundhog! Early Spring, he said---Pfui!!)
A couple of days ago, a little kid at the grocery store was singing O Tannenbaum. It is cold out and it is snowing. Again! So reading Christmas stories does not feel "overly weird" to me either. I still have a stack of unread Christmas novels. The day before yesterday, I decided to tackle the first book of the heap, a Regency Christmas anthology and was looking forward to a quiet evening (or what was left of it) at home reading romantic little stories. Romantic? Plot? What's that? Unbelievably shameless heroines on the shortest and most explicit way to Brighton. — Pfui!!
I agree. It felt just right reading this one this week. So glad I've been able to keep up. One a week is more my speed.
Don't ya just wanna cry about what they've done to the regency! I collected hundreds of older ones for Betty Megan. And I keep looking for more. And of course we have our Betty's.
Just finished James Taylor's Irish Country Courtship (Irish Country Doctor # 6 in the series.) With the one coming out in October there's now 8 books. The time periods shift back and forth between books the first few are the 60's, then they start skipping around to the 30's and 40's and 50's. There's a GP in his 50's and a younger new doctor. But the sad thing is, despite the mores of the times, not many of the characters are very chaste. And the language is awful. I don't mind the vulgarity, but the blasphemy is too much. I try to change it in my mind, but really, it's hard. He explains in the beginning that he has to be true to the characters and this is how they speak. Really! I grew up in the 50's and no one spoke like that around me.
But I'm enjoying the village life as he describes it, I can picture my relatives in these people. He writes well. He's Irish/Canadian and lives in both places, and became a Doctor in Ireland, so it's authentic.
I have just read the first pages of An Irish Country Courtship, I think I'll order it next time I go to the bookstore. I did not grow up in the 50's, but in my "environment" everybody was well brought up. And well behaved. Mostly. I did not know any really bad words until I was in my thirties when I aquired that particular addition to my vocabulary while watching private television stations. And not much later I heard those words uttered by little kids... Years ago, I did a course, and let me tell you, stepping into that classroom was like stepping into another world – several levels below the world known to me until that time. I joined the class about a month late. Everybody was really nice to me, no complaints there, they were a very friendly lot. (Er, friendly to me but not towards the new teacher who started the same day as I. They were downright rude to him. And not necessarily friendly towards each other. Imagine two grown women, both in their thirties, both several weeks pregnant, openly hating each other, exchanging animosities, and then suddenly one of them charging the other. If a dear boy had not literally thrown himself between them...) What really bothered me a lot was the language of the other students. Vulgar, obscene remarks were the norm not the exception. Ugh! (The Happy End: Long after the course was finished the fighting "ladies" were friends again...)
Betty Barbara here--
ReplyDeleteOh, more happy sighs. I just love this one. And it won't feel overly weird reading a Christmas story at this time of year, as our weather is not being very Spring-like.
(You just can't trust the groundhog! Early Spring, he said---Pfui!!)
A couple of days ago, a little kid at the grocery store was singing O Tannenbaum. It is cold out and it is snowing. Again! So reading Christmas stories does not feel "overly weird" to me either. I still have a stack of unread Christmas novels. The day before yesterday, I decided to tackle the first book of the heap, a Regency Christmas anthology and was looking forward to a quiet evening (or what was left of it) at home reading romantic little stories. Romantic? Plot? What's that? Unbelievably shameless heroines on the shortest and most explicit way to Brighton. — Pfui!!
DeleteI agree. It felt just right reading this one this week. So glad I've been able to keep up. One a week is more my speed.
ReplyDeleteDon't ya just wanna cry about what they've done to the regency! I collected hundreds of older ones for Betty Megan. And I keep looking for more. And of course we have our Betty's.
Just finished James Taylor's Irish Country Courtship (Irish Country Doctor # 6 in the series.) With the one coming out in October there's now 8 books. The time periods shift back and forth between books the first few are the 60's, then they start skipping around to the 30's and 40's and 50's. There's a GP in his 50's and a younger new doctor. But the sad thing is, despite the mores of the times, not many of the characters are very chaste. And the language is awful. I don't mind the vulgarity, but the blasphemy is too much. I try to change it in my mind, but really, it's hard. He explains in the beginning that he has to be true to the characters and this is how they speak. Really!
I grew up in the 50's and no one spoke like that around me.
But I'm enjoying the village life as he describes it, I can picture my relatives in these people. He writes well. He's Irish/Canadian and lives in both places, and became a Doctor in Ireland, so it's authentic.
I have just read the first pages of An Irish Country Courtship, I think I'll order it next time I go to the bookstore.
ReplyDeleteI did not grow up in the 50's, but in my "environment" everybody was well brought up. And well behaved. Mostly. I did not know any really bad words until I was in my thirties when I aquired that particular addition to my vocabulary while watching private television stations. And not much later I heard those words uttered by little kids...
Years ago, I did a course, and let me tell you, stepping into that classroom was like stepping into another world – several levels below the world known to me until that time. I joined the class about a month late. Everybody was really nice to me, no complaints there, they were a very friendly lot. (Er, friendly to me but not towards the new teacher who started the same day as I. They were downright rude to him. And not necessarily friendly towards each other. Imagine two grown women, both in their thirties, both several weeks pregnant, openly hating each other, exchanging animosities, and then suddenly one of them charging the other. If a dear boy had not literally thrown himself between them...) What really bothered me a lot was the language of the other students. Vulgar, obscene remarks were the norm not the exception. Ugh! (The Happy End: Long after the course was finished the fighting "ladies" were friends again...)