This spring I am toting a 600-page classic in my bike pannier. It has long been my custom to pedal with a book on board for emergency. There was the time my husband’s derailleur broke, and we walked five miles, he carrying his bike on his shoulder, to a depot where I sat and read while he pedaled back on my bike to retrieve the car. I sat… and sat… and sat… and read most of Cathy Marie Buchanan’s stunning historical novel, The Day the Falls Stood Still. What an enjoyable book! It is the perfect pannier novel!
What is my spring pannier book? It is Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters. We have had a premature spring, with temps in the 60s and 70s, and I’ve been out so many times that I’m up to page 175. I consider this Elizabeth Gaskell’s coziest book, even more so than Cranford.
I love Gaskell’s sharply honed, vigorous style. One falls into the story because her language is sharp, the dialogue pitch-perfect, the class demarcations brilliantly etched, and the pacing perfect. It begins as a portrait of an idyllic father-daughter relationship between Molly Gibson and her gruff but affectionate father, Mr. Gibson, a doctor and a widower. Unfortunately, while Molly is on a long visit to Mrs. Hamley, her father falls in love with, or at least decides to marry, Mrs. Kirkpatrick, an insincere, parasitical widow and former governess whom Molly has met and disliked.
This is far from my favorite book by Gaskell. That would be North and South. But Wives and Daughters makes for pleasant reading. And it’s the kind of book you can tuck into your purse or book bag and read in bits and pieces without losing track of the plot.
A pannier full of books
KAT’S PANNIER PICKS SPRING 2024
City, by Clifford D. Simak. This gentle, poignant science fiction novel is a masterpiecee. Genetically altered talking dogs are left in charge of the human archives when human beings leave Earth for a more habitable planet. The dogs miss the humans and hope they will return, but we instinctively know that the dogs are more loyal than the human race. The intelligent robots, however, are good friends to the lonely dogs.
Pillars of Gold, by Alice Thomas Ellis. This neglected novel, published in 1992, is a tour de force written mostly in dialogue. Two neighbors, Scarlet and Constance, are constantly in and out of each other’s houses in North London, gossiping, complaining, eating, drinking, and dissecting the female experience. When Scarlet reads in the newspaper that the corpse of a woman has washed up in the nearby canal, she wonders if it could be their neighbor Barbs, who hasn’t been around lately. Constance admits it’s possible, and they consider telling the police, but Constance doesn’t like dealing with the police, and they decide it is better to mind their own business. You can read the rest of my review here.
One Year’s Time, by Angela Milne. This charming novel is published in the British Library Women’s Series, which is curated by Simon Thomas, who writes the blog Stuck in a Book. From the jacket copy: “Single girl Liza leaps into an exciting new relationship with Walter after the couple meet at a New Year’s party.” Published in 1942, this reminds me of 1960s women’s novels by the likes of Edna O’Brien, Margaret Drabble, and and Mary McCarthy. By the way, Angela Milne is A. A. Milne’s niece. I’ve only read 50 pages but am enjoying it.
If you’re looking for something modern, why not choose a book from the Women’s Prize longlist? This year the longlist includes several that are available in the U.S.
- Hangman by Maya Binyam, published by ONE, Pushkin Press
- In Defence of the Act by Effie Black, published by époque press
- And Then She Fell by Alicia Elliott, published by Allen & Unwin
- The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright, published by Jonathan Cape
- The Maiden by Kate Foster, published by Mantle
- Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan, published by Viking
- Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville, published by Canongate Books
- Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad, published by Jonathan Cape
- Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy, published by Faber & Faber
- 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee, published by Virago
- The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord, published by Gollancz
- Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, published by Picador
- Nightbloom by Peace Adzo Medie, published by Oneworld
- Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan, published by Jonathan Cape
- River East, River West by Aube Rey Lescure, published by Duckworth Books
- A Trace of Sun by Pam Williams, published by Legend Press
What are you carrying in your book bag/pannier/purse this spring?