Book - The Postmaster's Daughter

The Postmaster's Daugter
Louis Tracy
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Book Description

John Menzies Grant, having breakfasted, filled his pipe, lit it, and strolled out bare-headed into the garden. The month was June, that glorious rose-month which gladdened England before war-clouds darkened the summer sky. As the hour was nine o'clock, it is highly probable that many thousands of men were then strolling out into many thousands of gardens in precisely similar conditions; but, given youth, good health, leisure, and a fair amount of money, it is even more probable that few among the smaller number thus roundly favored by fortune looked so perplexed as Grant. Moreover, his actions were eloquent as words. A spacious French window had been cut bodily out of the wall of an old-fashioned room, and was now thrown wide to admit the flower-scented breeze. Between this window and the right-hand angle of the room was a smaller window, square-paned, high above the ground level, and deeply recessed - in fact just the sort of window which one might expect to find in a farm-house built two centuries ago, when light and air were rigorously excluded from interiors.

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There was a phase in my life when I liked all these "someone-or-whoever's Daughter/Son/Mother/Father" titled books. This one didn't let me down, but it wasn't what I expected.

An interesting mystery that kept me thinking a lot, too. Because of the old English used, sometimes I wasn't sure if the conversation was actually meant to be funny or if it was just me finding it funny.

Wally surely was an interesting chap. Loved the two London detectives too.

I would have thought the Postmaster's Daughter would have a more prominent role in the book - as in, searching throught letters or telegrams to help solve the case, but alas, no.

The English could take a little time to get used to, but overall not a bad read!

Book - Klondike House

Klondike House
John Dwyer
Amazon Product Link

Product description
In Klondike House, John Dwyer recounts his memories of growing up on the remote but beautiful Beara Peninsula in West Cork, Ireland. The author's vivid and colorful stories describe his hard but happy life as part of an isolated but close-knit community, such as:

• His early school days spent in a building with no running water or electricity
• An encounter with a violent sheep that literally turned his world upside down
• The days spent cutting the turf and saving the hay by hand
• An Irish Christmas where nearly everything on the table was sourced from the farm
• His exciting family history that brought his relations to the Klondike Gold Rush in Canada
• Complemented by a collection of evocative photographs, each chapter recounts a way of life that has now largely disappeared.
• Sprinkled with a selection of fitting works by some of Ireland's best-known poets such as Seamus Heaney and Patrick Kavanagh, this gem of a book is a chronicle of the simple but happy life of an Irish farmer boy.

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I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed this book immensely.

As I read the book, images of farmlife just flooded my mind and reminded me of the stories of my father's youth and the holidays I spent in Austria with my grandparents there.

I may have an evil touch in me as I cackled at the humorous (but possibly dangerous?) tale of The Beast and that of the Strawberry Cow.

Christmas in such a faraway land sounded similar to my christmasses as a child (except for the snow and the turkey story).

This book has effectively given me the "country" bug... I want to go visit my family in countryside Austria now!