It’s 1850s England and Pell cannot stomach the thought of marrying Birdie. Although the two have been inseparable for years and are now betrothed, Pell is adamant that she will not live the life of her mother — constantly pregnant and spiritless. To avoid certain "imprisonment," she makes her escape under the mask of darkness.

Everything would have gone according to plan had not Bean, her mute younger brother, caught her in the act. When he refuses to return to the safety of home, Pell has no choice but to scoop the child up and bring him along. Given the time period, it’s highly unusual for a woman and young child to be traveling unescorted. The two skirt the surrounding local villages to avoid arousing suspicion.

With very little food and even less money, her first order of business is to locate work. An accomplished farrier with a "magical" ability to calm even the most skittish of horses, Pell makes a beeline for Salisbury Fair. She’s buoyed by the prospect of earning five pounds to help a gentleman ferret out and purchase six desirable horses. Keeping her end of the bargain, she’s crushed when her temporary employer leaves without paying her. Even more devastating, Pell learns that both Bean and her horse Jack have simply vanished. Against overwhelming odds, Pell vows to reunite her small family.

The Bride’s Farewell tells the story of someone struggling against the narrow definition of the nineteenth-century woman, someone who bucks tradition — yet in following a different path — finds happiness and life fulfillment.

Fritzi Newton – Miller Branch

Clatterford, written by Jennifer Saunders, centers on the members of the Women’s Guild in the fictional west-country town of Clatterford St. Mary. This is ambitious television — both funny and tragic at the same time. Saunders and her cast manage to simultaneously celebrate and lampoon English rural life, and carry the audience along as they swing from comedy to drama and back again.

Clatterford stars Sue Johnston as Sal, the local family practice nurse, whose life changes when her husband, the town’s doctor, passes away. Pauline McLynn plays her colleague and best friend Tippi. It is through their friendship that we meet the other residents of Clatterford and the members of the Clatterford St. Mary Women’s Guild. Sal’s daughter Tash is back in town and drifting through life. Meanwhile, her son James and his squeamish wife Yasmeen have taken over the medical practice, pushing her aside and making her life even more difficult. As an escape from the family drama, Sal finally decides to accept a long-standing invitation to join the Women’s Guild, an institution that she’s always considered out of touch, stuffy, and ridiculous.

Saunders has assembled a great cast, including long-standing collaborators Dawn French and Joanna Lumley, and there’s a part for everyone. Watch in particular for Lumley’s unexpected and hysterical cameos as tricycle-riding Delilah Stagg, and for Saunders‘ own performance as rock star mother Caroline, who visits Madonna’s country estate for the weekend and has breakfast with the latest bands.

Clatterford defies pigeonholing as a sitcom or drama, crossing between the two, scene by scene. The tone of the show is set perfectly by the theme music, Kate Rusby’s version of The Kinks’ The Village Green Preservation Society — which you can find as track 12 on Rusby’s excellent 2007 release Awkward Annie. 

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

The Girl in the Cafe is another great example of Richard Curtis’ signature matching of two people who wouldn’t meet under normal circumstances. In the comedy-romance Notting Hill, the lives of bookstore owner Will and movie megastar Anna Scott become entangled. Here — in a higher stakes but lower key example of the mismatch — Lawrence, a senior economist in the British treasury department, finds himself smitten with Gina, the girl in the cafe.

The movie works because Bill Nighy turns in an incredible performance as Lawrence. He’s professionally competent, but cringingly obsequious. He’s fabulous with numbers, but terrible with people. He’s completely unstrung when Gina (Kelly MacDonald) consents first to sit opposite him in the cafe, then agrees to lunch, and finally to dinner. He lurches from indifference to infatuation with no emotional pauses in between.

Lawrence is a workaholic whose narrow and professional view of the world can’t help him interact with Gina. Baffled by romance, he extends to her the only compliment he can think of — inviting her to accompany him to the G8 conference in Iceland. Here then, another mismatch emerges, as Gina (about whom neither Laurence nor the audience knows too much) finds herself in the company of the Chancellor of the Exchequer (a brilliantly volatile Ken Stott) and eventually, the Prime Minister (Corin Redgrave). Who is Gina? What drives her?  By the time we realize, along with Lawrence, that we hardly know Gina, it may be too late for their relationship and, perhaps, for his job. The Girl in the Cafe focuses in detail on two central characters, playing out an intensely personal and moving story against the backdrop of international politics.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

Sarah Waters‘ The Little Stranger combines the intricate social class structure of post World War II Britain with elements of the unknown — the resulting effect is unsettling for the once-wealthy Ayres family. If you can imagine a cross between Wuthering Heights and Emma, as told by Alfred Hitchcock, you can grasp the experience of reading The Little Stranger. One thing you don’t have to fear, however, is the length of this novel; it is a well-written page-turner.

The Little Stranger is narrated by Dr. Faraday, who has risen above his class, complicating both his personal and professional lives. By coincidence Faraday is called to Hundreds Hall, the once magnificent home to the Ayres family. As he treats Roderick Ayres, who has not escaped the war unscathed either mentally or physically, the Ayres learn that this is not Faraday’s first visit to their home. His mother was formerly a maid in the mansion, a place he so coveted as a child that he broke off a piece of ornamental plaster to keep.

Dr. Faraday’s life becomes increasingly entwined with Roderick, the "spinster" Caroline, their mother, and Hundreds Hall — now a shadow of its former glory. Strange things begin to occur at Hundreds Hall, convincing the family that they may not be its only residents.

I confess that I am not a fan of the ambiguous ending, but in the case of The Little Stranger, Waters provides enough clues that I spent an evening re-tracing my steps to solve the mystery. I hope that you enjoy the book enough to do the same.

Andrea Misner – Administration

Travel nearly 25,000 miles with Karen Trennepohl on her amazing journey that includes Botswana, Zimbabwe, Egypt, and Cyprus, with quick stops in Qatar, South Africa, England, and Ireland.  Experience the excitement of safari, excursions to Victoria Falls, Cairo’s pyramids, and antiquities of Cyprus.

Join us for A Trip of a Lifetime at Central Library on Tuesday, May 19 at 2:00 pm. Register online or by calling 410.313.7860.
 
Elaine Johnson – Central Library

There are many authors who successfully capture a sense of place alongside their creation of character. James Herriot is one such author. Herriot’s Yorkshire Dales are as well-rendered as the Brontes’ Yorkshire Moors or Dickensian London. Herriot, a British country vet from the 1940s on, recounts his professional experience in four remarkable volumes of biographical anecdotes, of which All Creatures Great and Small is the first.

Herriot was clearly a good vet, but found his true calling as a storyteller. At the outset, his is a world of cold and dark, muck and effort, and of veterinary medicine little changed for generations. Horses had only recently been superseded by tractors. Roads were narrow and unlit. Animals were often kept in outbuildings a long distance from the farmhouse itself. Herriot’s daily work was frequently a struggle with the elements, the animals, and the limitations of veterinary science at the time. These stories range widely in scope. Herriot worked with pets, as well as farm animals, so he shifts easily from the cow-byre to Mrs Pumphrey’s drawing room, where her dog, Tricky-Woo, demands attention.

Herriot draws his human characters as comprehensively as the animals — we get to know his wife Helen; his colleagues, Siegfried and Tristan; and his hard-partying friend Granville Bennett as they collaborate on cases, compete for the attention of Darrowby’s young ladies, and live side-by-side in Skeldale House. The third book of the quartet, All Things Wise and Wonderful, details Herriot’s World War Two service in the Royal Air Force, as well as includes many of his classic vet stories and some life-changing family moments.

Audio versions of the books are available, many read by Christopher Timothy, who played Herriot in the long-running BBC television series, All Creatures Great and Small. Check out All Creatures Great and Small today, and take a trip to the Yorkshire Dales of the mid-twentieth century in the company of James Herriot.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

Chuck Culpepper 

Why do we like sports so much? What is real underneath all the money, scandal, glamor, gossip, and steroids? Even assuming there’s something substantial, how do you find it? Sports writer Chuck Culpepper shows the way in Bloody Confused, the story of his first year living in the British Isles, and his first season as a supporter of the Portsmouth Football Club (PFC).

Turning to a new sport in a new country, Culpepper rediscovers the joy of the game, and revels in the traditions of the franchise he chooses to follow. Drawing stark contrasts with the media circus that surrounded the sports he covered in the United States, Pulitzer Prize winner Culpepper starts from the ground up as he develops an appreciation for soccer. Culpepper criss-crosses the country to enjoy matches as, coincidentally, Harry’s Blue and White Army (PFC) has their best season in years.

Culpepper does a great job of introducing English soccer to the reader, explaining the various league and cup competitions, along with their significance. He eventually finds drama, of course — much of it deriving from money and fame in the same way sports scandals tend to do here. Culpepper’s criticism, though, is warm and affectionate as he points out the contradictions in the game. He does much to rehabilitate the image of the English Soccer fan, as he spends time in the company of a Portsmouth fan who attends both home and away games in a bear costume.

The author maintains a fascination with the concepts of “relegation” and “promotion,” as the most successful team from a lower league and the least successful from the higher league switch places for the following season. He also pays close attention to the endless variations of stadium chants –  sophisticated and less so — with which the fans express their emotions. His ten page description of a Portsmouth vs. Manchester United clash build spectacular tension and leave the reader wishing they could have been there to share the experience.

No matter what sport you enjoy, you’ll become a fan though fresh eyes after reading Chuck Culpepper’s Bloody Confused.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

Alexander Masters

Alexander Masters’ biography of Stuart Shorter details his experiences with alcohol and drug abuse, homelessness, and crime. The triumph of Stuart: A Life Backwards is that Masters never loses sight of Shorter’s humanity, even when describing the most horrific moments of his very challenging life. As depicted by Masters, Stuart Shorter is not a victim of the system, a criminal, or a one-dimensional caricature, but rather a person who has been repeatedly pushed to society’s margins, and has tried to cope by using the limited means available.

Masters leads the reader into the story through his friendship with Stuart, and authentically renders his subject’s voice and unique perspective. Episodes from Stuart’s past are interwoven with discussions with Masters about writing the book, and with broader discussions of the social policy and system that repeatedly fails Stuart. The two even collaborate in activism to draw attention to the plight of the homeless, and to the circumstances surrounding Cambridge’s Wintercomfort shelter in particular.

By reversing the timeline of his story, Masters reduces the emphasis on the event that would have concluded any conventional biography, and adds weight to the earlier events that defined Stuart, limiting his options and choices even in childhood. I recommend Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters as a deft look at the difficult topics of homelessness, mental illness and addiction.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch

Will in the World is far from a standard biography of William Shakespeare. Stephen Greenblatt takes a great approach to his subject, looking at Shakespeare’s life experiences and cultural exposure to make educated guesses about how his plays were inspired. There’s a lot that we don’t know about Shakespeare, since he left no personal papers other than a will, and there are times when he’s invisible in the historical record. Much of what we do know has been inferred from Shakespeare’s plays, and Greenblatt structures his chapters to suggest parallels between the plays and the playwright’s personal situation. There is some supposition on the part of the author, but the background information is comprehensive enough to make even Greenblatt’s speculative conclusions intriguing.

Against a background of the bubonic plague and the religious disagreements that convulsed England in the late Tudor period, Greenblatt reconstructs Will’s early life and suggests reasons that he might have moved from Stratford to London via Lancashire. One popular story has Shakespeare overstepping his bounds by poaching a deer from local landholder Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote. Greenblatt suggests that Shakespeare’s Catholicism and the deterioration of his father’s social standing may be a more likely motivator for Will’s relocation.

Greenblatt’s chapters are dense and rich with information, but remain accessible. There’s lots of interesting stuff here about Shakespeare the businessman, first as a shareholder in the company of players, and later as a part owner of the theater where they performed. In later life, Shakespeare also invested heavily in land in and around his native Stratford, attempting to secure a stable future for his children. His relationship with his wife, however, was unusual and provides Greenblatt with some of his best material, including Shakespeare’s oddly insignificant bequest to Anne Hathaway of “my second best bed with the furniture,” while the bulk of his lands and wealth were shared with his daughters.

This is a lively and comprehensive effort to re-create the cultural milieu of the late sixteenth century. Many of the prevailing cultural references, concerns and activities are remote for us today, but Greenblatt brings them to life with anecdotes, examples, and multiple references to Shakespeare’s own works. We are provided with a systematic tour of Shakespeare’s intellectual sphere, and a look at how he was able to synthesize life experiences, existing literature and wider cultural influences into plays that remain relevant four hundred years after they were first written. To experience a creative and new take on the works and world of Shakespeare, take a look at Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World.

John Jewitt – Savage Branch