Joy Enough - Sarah McColl

This was a book written from grief, a slow unfolding of the relationship between a dying mother and daughter and that daughter and her own soon to be divorced husband.  I got an advanced copy at the Nashville Festival of Books 2018.  It is reflective and dreamlike, struggling to stay afloat while the anchors of her life a set adrift.

Quotes: 

"Our marriage, in the end, had echoed with loneliness.  How many times had we been restaurant silent, the couple that dines wordlessly, then beams up into the server's face at the offer of more water and dessert?  To feel the absence of affection between us where once there had been so much, florid and overflowing - that was lonely.  This was just being alone."

Published:  2018  Read: November 2018  Genre: Memoir

Mrs Keppel and her Daughter - Diana Souhami

I picked this up on our wanderings in Alaska this past summer.  It's the story of Alice Edmonstone Keppel and her daughter, Violet Keppel Trefusis.  Alice was the mistress of King Edward VII, the great grandfather of the current Queen Elizabeth.  In an interesting twist, Alice's other daughter, Sonia, is the grandmother of Camilla, the mistress (and now wife) of Queen Elizabeth's son, Charles. 

It was valuable to me as an example of the Victorian era and the mores of that society.  Anglophiles would enjoy.

Published:   Read: September 2018  Genre: Biography