This was my second time reading Orlando and I liked it even better this time. The story opens in the later Elizabethan era, where we are introduced to Orlando: a young man scribbling poetic in the attic of his family's grand manor. Soon Orlando is invited to the Royal Court; he falls in love with a fickle Russian noblewoman, serves through three successive monarchs and is eventually sent as an ambassador to Istanbul. It is there, in the midst of a revolution, that the turning point comes in Orlando's life: he wakes in the morning to find he is now a woman. This is a book were the story and the writing style are both so equally rich and strange that they build up on each other in waves. Woolf wrote this book as a love letter to Vita Sackville-West, and it reads like a love letter not just to a person but also to language.

I was tickled and entertained by this fast-paced account of Eric Idle's life, mainly focusing on his creative projects both solo and with Monty Python, as well as some key creative friendships he cultivated over the years. Idle was very close with George Harrison, David Bowie, and Robin Williams among others and each of those friendships gets explored in its own chapter. If you are interested in the interconnected development of British and American comedy in the Sixties, Seventies, and Eighties this is a very fun account, and just manages to stay on this side of annoying in regards to name dropping and the fabulous party life styles of the 1%. Idle is a very good writer, and this book is full of jokes, anecdotes, and moments of genuine reflection.

Set in the early 1950s, this book follows about three years in the life of Eilish Lacy, born and raised in Enniscorthy, Ireland. She has a head for numbers and an interest in bookkeeping and accounting, but can't find a job in the rough post-war economy. Her three brothers have all left home to find jobs in England, leaving her, her older sister Rose, and her mother in their family home. Without really discussing it with Eilish, Rose and her mother set in motion a plan for Eilish to emigrate to America- specifically, into the parish of Father Flood, an Irish priest living and working in Brooklyn. Eilish sets out on the week-long Atlantic sea crossing alone. In America, she lives in a boarding house filled with contentious roommates, works long hours in a department store, and lies awake heavy with homesickness every night. Slowly life improves: she enrolls in night classes at Brooklyn college and meets a charming Italian-American boy at a dance, who she is soon seeing three times a week. She writes many letters home, but the one things she is unable to say is how she really feels. When a family emergency calls her back to Ireland, Eilish has to make a choice- where will she spent the rest of her life? I listened to this as an audiobook and it made a long drive feel short.

I had very mixed feelings about this book. There were aspects of it I really liked and others I didn't like at all. The first 40 pages were a struggle, in which a character I didn't yet care about was forced to suffer in somewhat irritating ways, with consequences I didn't yet understand. I might have given it up at that point except so many people told me they love this book. After page 40, the middle section suddenly unfolded in a strange, whimsical, and intriguing way. I came to really appreciate the two sisters (Constance and Merricat) who have lived in the Blackwood family home with their uncle since the entire rest of their family died. Pages 40-100 were really enjoyable. Then the last 40 pages (it's a short book) were once again difficult to read, but this time because characters that I cared for were suffering.

This book swept me away. Set in Victorian England, it tells the story of a small town on the Essex coast which is haunted by the rumor of a deadly sea serpent. It is also the story of Cora Seabourne, who's abusive husband has recently died, leaving her a happy window finally free to pursue her interests in science and natural history. She believes the Essex Serpent may be a prehistoric beast which has survived to modern times. It is also the story of Cora's circle of friends- two doctors, a union organizer for the working class, a member of government, a county parson and his wife- who are all, to some extent or another, in love which each other's minds, or bodies, or both. Feelings intersect with clashes of ideals, often argued about on long walks through a richly described landscape- bare branches against a soft grey sky, vivid green moss covering leaf mold and dark soil. Whether or not the Serpent exists, every character is tangled in it's coils.