Elisabeth Grace Foley

Historical Fiction Author

Favorite TV Episode Blogathon: The Waltons, “The Book”

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After watching several seasons of a TV show and seeing your favorite episodes several times, you begin to pinpoint certain episodes that stand out because of the quality of the writing. While some are just adequate, there are some episodes where everything “clicks”—every line of dialogue counts, all the elements of the story fit smoothly together. The Waltons Season 3 episode “The Book” is one of those. It neatly balances the show’s ongoing theme of John-Boy Walton’s literary ambitions and his recurring adventures at college with his family relationships and the background of everyday occurrences at the Walton home.

It’s probably the best episode built around John-Boy’s college experiences. Much could be written about the theme of John-Boy and college, an aspect of the show I’ve always found mildly irritating. John-Boy goes about devouring and quoting from and enthusing about books and poetry by great authors from all walks of life and varying degrees of formal education, yet he still clings religiously to the belief that if he doesn’t make it through college, he can never be a writer himself. Though this is stated explicitly often enough, the show itself ironically and perhaps unintentionally tells another story. John-Boy clearly draws his creative life from Walton’s Mountain, from his home and family, from the beauty of nature, and from his observance of human nature in neighbors and friends and interesting strangers he meets. He’s happiest when up in his room or wandering the woods scribbling away with pencil and pad. College, on the other hand, is mainly a place for him to struggle with chemistry and geometry, feel inferior beside more well-off classmates, and get into difficulties over lecture tickets, codes of etiquette and dance dates. “The Book” is really one of the only times we see him engaged in any meaningful literary activity at college. [Read more…]

Top Ten Books Read in 2016

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This is always one of my favorite yearly posts to put together—though it can be a challenge, too! By the end of November I had a pretty good idea what eight of the titles on this list were going to be, but had a crowd of runners-up from which I needed to pick numbers nine and ten—I wondered if I might end up having to draw them out of a hat. But then another favorite came along late, and when it came time to actually put the list together the tenth title fell into place. Here they are in order read, not the order of favorites:

The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers

I’ve mentioned this one before. An intriguing and thought-provoking study of the idea that man, being created in the image of God, shares the characteristics of God as Creator, and has a natural instinct to create and craft works of his own. There’s a lot to chew over, and I’m sure I’ll be reading this one again.

Saturday’s Child by Kathleen Thompson Norris

I often have a hard time distilling into a review my thoughts on the books that make the most impression on me. That was the case with this, my favorite read of the year. It follows the fortunes of a young woman earning her living in turn-of-the-century San Francisco, her struggles to reconcile poverty and family obligations with dreams of wealth and luxury; and her attempts to find a purpose for her life when it appears that romance and marriage are not in her future. I’ve always enjoyed Norris’s books, but I really think this the best yet: both characters and story are more complex and more real.

Little Ship, Big War: The Saga of DE-343 by Edward P. Stafford

Easily the best book I’ve read so far for novel research. The account of one destroyer escort’s operations during World War II, from building to decommissioning, it’s packed with technical detail, and yet also memorably captures the experiences of the men who served on her, perhaps best of any WWII history book I’ve read yet. Full review here.

The American Home Front 1941 – 1942 by Alistair Cooke

A truly fascinating record of an English journalist’s road-trip tour across the United States in the early 1940s. The specific focus is wartime conditions, but beyond that, it’s an amazing time capsule of what American life in general looked like during this period. Read my full review here.

Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope

Trollope’s Chronicles of Barsetshire just keep getting better and better, and Doctor Thorne, third in the series (which I’ve been reading in order) is my favorite yet. This year officially cemented Trollope as a new favorite author. Read my brief review here.

Greyfriars Bobby by Eleanor Atkinson

This was perhaps the sweetest surprise on my list—a heartwarming story of a faithful little dog, filled with lively, engaging characters and a beautifully-written evocation of mid-Victorian era Edinburgh. Brief review here.

Rest and Be Thankful by Helen MacInnes

I never got around to reviewing this one either. In the late 1940s, two well-to-do women with literary inclinations impulsively buy a Wyoming ranch to host a retreat for unpublished writers. Most of the latter are struggling with personal issues and failures of their own, but can’t help but be influenced by the beauty and simpler lifestyle of the ranch and their interactions with the straightforward locals. Perhaps not brilliant art, this, but somehow a very pleasant and satisfying novel.

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers

This one started out a bit challenging to follow, introducing a ton of characters without a lot of description to differentiate them (rather surprising, since I’d never found that issue with Sayers before), but I kept reading, and by the end was totally engrossed in a highly complex mystery laced with razor-sharp satire on the advertising industry. I finished by saying, “If only I could write mysteries like that!” (The cricket scene was utter Greek to me, but entertaining Greek.)

The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield

I’d seen this title mentioned many times in connection with other English writers I’ve enjoyed, but somehow took a long time getting to it. It’s a hoot—the semi-autobiographical journal of an average Englishwoman living in the country in the 1930s, chronicling everyday incidents and mishaps with a wry wit that makes them hilarious. Review here.

The Santa Claus Man by Alex Palmer

This is how history is fun. The tale of how an ambitious publicity man founded an initially charming organization to answer poor children’s letters to Santa, but eventually was unable to resist turning it—and a variety of other shady operations—to his own profit. Woven throughout against the milieu of burgeoning early 20th-century New York City is an exploration of the often surprising roles that New York and New Yorkers played in the development of American Christmas traditions.

Half of these titles were library borrows: The Mind of the Maker (which hadn’t been checked out since the 1960s!); Little Ship, Big War; Rest and Be Thankful; Murder Must Advertise; and The Santa Claus Man. The other half were Kindle reads—Saturday’s Child, Doctor Thorne and Greyfriars Bobby are all in the public domain.

Previous years’ lists: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Best Book-to-Movie Adaptations

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This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is a movie-themed freebie, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity to do a post I’d been contemplating ever since Eva did something similar: top ten book-to-movie adaptations. Now, these aren’t necessarily my favorite movies adapted from books, because there’s plenty of movies I love that don’t follow their books exactly; these are the ten I think are the most faithful and accurate adaptations of their source material. For the purposes of this post, I’m counting out miniseries and movies based on plays.

Goodbye, My Lady (1956) – book by James H. Street

This lovely underrated film is literally almost word for word and scene for scene with the novel, and all the characters are just about perfectly cast. I suppose a book with such a small cast of characters and so much of the story conveyed through dialogue lends itself particularly well to adaptation. In any case, it’s excellently done. [Read more…]