April and May

The Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West
Set in England during WW1, this was (unintentionally) hilarious. The absolute horror with which the wife and cousin of Captain Baldry regard the woman he was in love with as a young man (because she's poor) is all the more farcical because it's so seriously meant. They almost can't bear to look at her because her purse is a poor quality material. Evenually the cousin comes to feel sorry for her because the poor thing has had to live her whole life with a man who wears carpet slippers in the house. Actually quite a good story, well written and I really enjoyed it. I just find all that delicate feminine sensibility stuff so bizarre.
I'd recommend this one.

Before Green Gables - Budge Wilson
The Anne of Green Gables series were my favourite books as a child so I was half delighted, half horrified to find they were getting some Canadian writer I'd never heard of to write a prequel to celebrate Anne's centenary. But it was lovely. It refered to all the characters mentioned in connection with Anne's past in the series and gave them all their own stories.
A must for Anne fans.


Moominland Midwinter - Tove Jansson
Another Moomin adventure. These have got to be the best kids books ever.








The Post Office Girl - Stefan Zweig
This unpublished novel was found among the authors papers after his death (a suicide pact with his wife). It's set in Austria just after the first world war and was written during the second world war before the author was driven out of Germany. It's like a cinderella story but with the real life tragic ending. Beautifully written, especially for something he never intended to publish. I'd give this one a star.



Librarianship An Introduction - G Chowdhury
This one took up most of the month. Mainly because it was so boring I had to read it about 6 times to take anything in. And I'm not used to having to finish books that bore me.
There were other text books too but I'm too bored even thinking about them to go into detail.



Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister - Gregory Maguire
The true story of Cinderella, from the point of view of the Ugly Stepsister. This wasn't quite as good as Wicked but pretty enjoyable all the same.