November 9, 2011
Still Reading Through the Alphabet: Under Covers
Though I’m drowning in new releases, I am still making my way through the TBR alphabet, currently mired in the unending Ms. And finally got to Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier (who probably doesn’t belong in the Ms, but who’s to say?). I do love that I have a hideous old paperback with Jane Seymour on its cover– Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman! And that my paperback is a TV mini-series tie-in– how often does that happen these days? Who could ever have imagined that the cover would ever be dated too, hmm? Though I supposed that datedness is the object of a trade paperback, to be read to shreds, battered, and relegated to the dustbin. Except that mine overcame the odds and I scooped it up at a used book sale once upon a time. Must say that it’s my least favourite of the DuMaurier’s I’ve read so far– though the ending surprised me, the main character and the backstory had much less substance than Rebecca or My Cousin Rachel. The plot was less compelling, but there were good bits. 
I also read Joyce Maynard’s Labor Day, which everyone is except me has read already. And which everyone has told me is so very, very good, but I didn’t believe them. Partly it was the gross peaches cover (and those hands are all wrong!), the Jodi Picoult blurb (I am not only a snob, but one who once read a book by Jodi Picoult, so I’ve got cred), and the title, which made think that this was a book all about birthing. But it turned out to be completely different than I expected, including really, really good. And perhaps it’s the New England thing, but it read like a book a less-weird John Irving might have written, and someone would have slapped an altogether different cover on that one, don’t you think? Does this look like a book that’s narrated by a teenage boy? But it is, and it’s great, and I’m glad I finally read it, and I’m just sorry that so many other people as prejudiced as I am never will.
