My life's been crazy...
okay, I ALWAYS say that, but what I am implying is that I am not as organized as the rest of you who do manage to keep weekly goals.
My life is crazy, but probably not any crazier than anyone else's.
I feel I haven't been reading like I used to. That fact is bothering me, as I love to read.
Nevertheless...
....here I am again, participating in
hosted at
(which I love very much, I just can't keep up. It's the crazy life you know.)
Every Tuesday you share the first paragraph or (a few) of a book You are reading or thinking about reading soon.
Here is mine:
There could be no wearing of clothes without their laundering, just as surely as there could be no going without clothes, not in Hertfordshire anyway, and not in September. Washday could not be avoided, but the weekly purification of the household's linen was nonetheless a dismal prospect for Sarah.
What do you think? Should I continue on reading it?
So.... the first paragraph doesn't sound too intriguing, but we would all continue reading... ....if we love Jane Austen, that is.
No, this book was not written by her, but by Jo Baker, who does a take on Pride and Prejudice by writing from the maid's point of view.
We just get snippets of what goes on "upstairs."
But, what happens 'downstairs' is very good indeed!
Goodreads says:
• Pride and Prejudice was only half the story •
If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them.
In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice,the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended.
Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s classic—into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars—and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own.
If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats, Sarah often thought, she’d most likely be a sight more careful with them.
In this irresistibly imagined belowstairs answer to Pride and Prejudice,the servants take center stage. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants’ hall threatens to be completely, perhaps irrevocably, upended.
Jo Baker dares to take us beyond the drawing rooms of Jane Austen’s classic—into the often overlooked domain of the stern housekeeper and the starry-eyed kitchen maid, into the gritty daily particulars faced by the lower classes in Regency England during the Napoleonic Wars—and, in doing so, creates a vivid, fascinating, fully realized world that is wholly her own.
5 comments:
I borrowed this from my daughter not too long ago and can't wait to read it. Hope you like it!
I am ashamed to say I never read Pride and Prejudice. But I do like the sounds of this one. Do you think I'd "get it" if I don't have Pride and Prejudice in my background?
I've heard such wonderful things about this book. I would continue reading it. Doing the laundry is an important task, that's for sure!
I enjoyed this book, hope you do as well.
I've heard this one is really good. I'd keep reading. kelley—the road goes ever ever on
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