Top 10 Books of 2014

Happy New Year everyone. Here's to another year full of health, happiness & lots of reading time.

This time last year, I was looking at this pile of books on my desk & vowing to read at least some of them in 2014. Well, I read five of them - that's it, only five. So, the other day, I had a clearing of the decks & shelved what was left (there were another two piles of books behind these that I was going to read "next" but of course, I didn't). I also shelved the pile of books & magazines sitting on the table beside my reading chair. This year I'm going to have only the books & magazines I'm currently reading on that table. It was a wonderful feeling to see my desk almost clear, apart from library books. It also gave me time to listen to two episodes of In Our Time (on Tennyson's In Memoriam & the Restoration of Charles II) with Melvyn & guests as it took me ages to rejig the overflowing tbr shelves to fit them in to their appropriate places. See this post here if you'd like to see how I organise the tbr shelves).

Looking at that post of reading resolutions from last year I did manage to read more from the tbr shelves, including those middlebrow authors I love. I read fewer books though than I have for years - only 95 & only 3 rereads. I think I've been rereading less because I still feel I need to post regularly & I don't usually review a book if I've already written about it. I bought 181 books last year (another useful, or scary, aspect of Library Thing is that I can see when I added books) & I've read 42 of them. This sounds quite good until I confess that some of the books I bought were duplicate copies of books I already own (for the justification for that little habit, read this post). I also added 56 books to my Kindle, quite a few of them were free downloads & that doesn't include the books I bought from elsewhere such as Delphi Classics.

So, finally, here it is, my Top 10 list for 2014. It wasn't difficult to come up with the list, I knew as soon as I read most of these books that they would be on my Top 10 for the year. The books are in no particular order & the links are to my reviews.

The Far Country - Nevil Shute. As Thomas from My Porch says, Shute is D E Stevenson for boys. I loved this story of a refugee doctor who emigrates to Australia after WWII & the new life he makes for himself here.

Kirkham's Find - Mary Gaunt. A book I'd had on the tbr shelves since 1988. Another Australian story about an independent woman overcoming the disapproval of her family to make a life for herself.

The Prime Minister & The Duke's Children - Anthony Trollope. I'm going to cheat with two of my choices because I read pairs of books that go together. I finally got around to reading the last two Palliser novels this year as I watched the wonderful BBC TV series. You can't beat Trollope for an absorbing story & I loved reading about the lives of Plantagenet Palliser, Glencora & Phineas Finn, their families & friends.

Campaigning for the Vote : Kate Parry Frye's Suffrage Diary & Kate Parry Frye : the Long Life of an Edwardian Actress and Suffragette - Elizabeth Crawford. My other cheat involves the two books I read about Kate Parry Frye. I think Kate was the person I enjoyed meeting the most this year through her diary & through the excellent biography by Elizabeth Crawford. I was so moved by Kate's long life, the challenges she overcame & her courage in her later years, caring for her husband, John.

The English Air - D E Stevenson. I read 9 books by DES this year, spurred on by discovering Open Library & by the reprints of her work that seem to be coming thick & fast. The English Air was reprinted by Greyladies a couple of months ago. This was my favourite, set during WWII it's the story of a young German who visits English relatives in the years leading up to the war & experiences a new way of life that changes all his ideas.

Invisible - Christine Poulson. I haven't read many mysteries or thrillers this year at all but I did love this one. The story of a man who has secrets in his past & the woman who loves him & is drawn into danger when he disappears. I read the last half in one sitting, I just couldn't put it down.

One of Ours - Willa Cather. Another author I read when I was young is Willa Cather. I rediscovered her this year & look forward to reading more of her books & the Selected Letters in 2015. I loved the story of Claude Wheeler, his life on the family farm in Nebraska & his search for something to give his life meaning. The Great War gives him his opportunity to make a difference.

Four Sisters - Helen Rappaport. I couldn't have a Top 10 list without a couple of history books. The story of the daughters of the last Tsar was beautifully told by Helen Rappaport with such sensitivity. I especially enjoyed reading about the Grand Duchesses work as nurses in the Great War & the discovery of previously unknown letters from Anastasia to a friend when the family were in exile. A tragic story well told.

A Lifelong Passion - ed Andrei Maylunas & Sergei Mironenko. Leading on from Four Sisters, this is the story of the last Romanovs told through their letters, diaries & memoirs. Fascinating to read the story in their own words & to read the many familiar extracts & quotes in context.

Moby-Dick or, the Whale - Herman Melville. My last book of the year was one of the best. I listened to it on audio & the wonderful performance by William Hootkins made this one of the most memorable books I've ever read.

There it is, my Top 10. I'm looking forward to reading other lists from my favourite bloggers or just leave a list in the Comments.

Kate Parry Frye : the long life of an Edwardian actress and suffragette - Elizabeth Crawford

After reading Kate Parry Frye's suffrage diary, Campaigning for the Vote, last month, I was keen to discover more about her life. So, I was very happy to discover that Elizabeth Crawford, the editor of Kate's diary, had written a biography of Kate to tie in with the ITV series The Great War : The People's Story. Kate, played by Romola Garai, featured in one of the episodes.

The epigraph for this book quotes the beautiful final words of Middlemarch, "To all those women down the ages who, in the words of George Eliot, have 'lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs'." This quote is so perfect for Kate. I came to feel so much affection for her & her husband, John, & let's face it, there are so many more of us living ordinary, hidden lives than there are living famous lives. I loved finding out more about Kate.

I described Kate's early life & her years as a suffrage campaigner in my review of her diary so I'm going to concentrate on her life after WWI & some of the things that struck me as I read the book.  Kate's work as a suffrage organiser was crucial not only for her own support, but also to help her mother, Jenny, & sister, Agnes, after the death of Kate's father, Frederick. Frederick Frye & his family had come down in the world. His successful grocery business had failed & the family spent the last years of his life moving from one house to the next, trying to survive on a very limited income. Without the help of relatives, their lives would have been extremely difficult.

Kate & John Collins were married in January 1915, on Kate's 37th birthday, after a long engagement of eleven years. John was an unsuccessful actor & they never had enough money to marry on. Once war was declared, Kate was determined to marry, no matter what their financial situation. She had £50 a year from a cousin as well as what she earned & John had his salary so decided to go ahead as Kate despaired of every marrying at all if they didn't just do it. They shopped for a wedding ring on a damp day in London,

It didn't dampen our ardour and we were in holiday mood. First to the Army & Navy Stores - to buy the wedding ring. I asked in a most careless tone as if I was in the habit of buying them daily. We got one at length - 26/- - off a dignified gentleman who grew very friendly under our influence. Then we decided to have lunch and decided on the 2/- menu but our Waiter took such a fancy to us he gave us all sorts of extras and we laughed till we cried.

John Collins had been in the Territorial Army before the war & served in the Essex and Suffolk Royal Garrison Artillery. He served in France & was awarded the Military Cross. John & Kate managed to enjoy themselves on the few times he had leave but parting was always hard, especially in December 1916, when they had been married less than two years but had spent most of that time apart.

We woke up fairly early but when we were called at 7.30 it seemed like the death knell. I was the first to get out of bed as soon as John would let me go and we both dressed and had breakfast together. I cut sandwiches and stowed them in his knapsack... I stood talking to John and stood quietly apart when the train came in - a special - at 10 minutes to 1 - full of soldiers - another Battery. The Commandant was there to see them off, I walked right up to the train when John had found his whereabouts and carriage and stood talking... He got in and kissed me and the train moved off. He looked at me - then turned his head - I suppose he could not bear any more. But I smiled at him - then the train went faster. I just moved down the platform to avoid the official group and waved until he was out of sight. I think I had a great feeling of thankfulness that it was over and that I had come through such a terrible ordeal.

After the war, money was often short. John attempted to go back to the stage & had some short-term engagements. He had more luck as an Assistant Stage Manager & Kate even had a couple of walk-on roles. John was very involved with several voluntary organisations, including St Johns Ambulance & during WWII, was an ARP warden. John inherited a house in Knaresborough from an aunt &, in 1921, they were eventually able to buy some cottages from Kate's Gilbey relations, which gave them a home for themselves as well as Kate's mother & sister, as well as the rent from the other tenants. Nevertheless, they were never really well-off.

The story of Kate's sister, Agnes, is incredibly sad. Kate often writes that Agnes's life was wasted. She never worked, never married, suffered from depression & unspecified ill health most of her life. Kate never seemed to feel ill when she had work to do & I wanted Agnes to find something worthwhile to do with her life. She died in 1937, on her 63rd birthday,

She died just before 8.30. Very, very slowly running down and out and away. I was so glad to be there, but it was terrible. Our 60 years of companionship has ended. Have left Agnes safely in The Old Cottage with glorious flowers all around her.

Agnes's life was wasted. She had nothing to occupy her mind but money worries & bickering with her mother. She didn't have Kate's energy or sense of purpose. I felt desperately sad reading about Agnes's life & wondering how many other women had led lives like hers where they were expected to do nothing but marry &, when they didn't marry, what happened to them? At least Agnes had her mother & Kate to care for her. I was reminded of novels like Consequences by E M Delafield & Alas, Poor Lady by Rachel Ferguson (both reprinted by Persephone) about girls who didn't marry & the sad fate awaiting them.

Kate's passion for the theatre is evident all her life. She wrote plays & she & John set up a little theatre in their home where they put on plays with local volunteers. She was still going to the theatre in the final months of her life, over seventy years of theatre going. Kate & John's marriage was very happy until John began to suffer from increasing frailty & dementia in the last years of his life. This is one of the saddest parts of the story. Kate looked after John at home for as long as possible but eventually he was certified insane & committed to an asylum, as no nursing home would take him & they couldn't afford the fees of a private home. Movingly she describes him as "a Prisoner of War in his own cell and I cannot get to him or give him any help." When Kate visited him, his confusion & distress were painful to see. All that seemed to have survived was his overwhelming love for her, which had been there from the beginning of their relationship.

I sometimes feel half alive - brain and body. I don't actually feel lonely only I don't think I quite take it in. And what must be missing is the continual reminder of his abiding love as it was - and still is. I have always thought that no one could be quite so much loved for so long as I have been by John. Once or twice in this terrible illness he has said something that I could not believe he would ever say - just when he was at his most mental upset. And then next minute he was, as ever, crying out for me and saying how he loved me that there had never been anyone like me in all the world and that I was his own 'dear dear Mussie'. And now I seem to have forsaken him and left him to this awful doom.

John died in 1958. Kate lived on in their home with the help of her kind neighbours. The final entry in Kate's diary is on October 1st that year. She died four months later, at the age of 81, in a nursing home in Beaconsfield. The cause of death was cerebral thrombosis & Elizabeth Crawford surmises that she may have had a stroke not long after she wrote that final entry & was in the nursing home for those last few months.

Kate's story is so involving because, in many ways, it is such an ordinary life. The wonder is that she kept her diary for over seventy years, and then, that Elizabeth Crawford discovered the diaries, damp & mildewed, fifty years after Kate's death. Kate was an energetic & determined woman, becoming an actress in a period when women, especially comfortable middle-class women, didn't go on the stage & becoming involved with the suffrage campaign when it attracted a lot of ridicule & disapproval. Kate was a doer, she got on with what needed to be done, whether it was putting up with dirty conditions & outdoor toilets (one of her pet hates) when she was a suffrage organiser or looking after her mother & sister after her father's death. There's so much I haven't mentioned. I've always loved reading diaries & Kate & John's experiences during WWII were fascinating as I love Home Front stories. I loved learning more about her life & the many extracts from the diaries allowed Kate's voice to be heard again. I grew so fond of her that I was distressed by John's illness & then, Kate's final months after he died, having outlived all her family & close relatives. Kate wanted to be remembered &, through her diary, & Elizabeth Crawford's determination to tell her story, she won't be forgotten. There's lots more about Kate, including many photos of her, John & her family, at Elizabeth's website, Woman and Her Sphere. Kate's story is available as a Kindle ebook.

Campaigning for the Vote : Kate Parry Frye's Suffrage Diary - ed Elizabeth Crawford

Kate Parry Frye worked as an organiser for the New Constitutional Society for Women's Suffrage (NCS). In 1911, when the diary begins, Kate was 33 years old. She came from a family whose fortunes had declined. Her father, Frederick, was the owner of a chain of grocery stores & a Liberal MP in the 1890s. Kate's mother, Jane, was connected by marriage to the famous Gilbey family of wine & spirits fame. This connection was useful for Mr Frye's grocery business but, unfortunately, by 1911, the business had all but failed. The family gradually retreated to their home at Bourne End, called The Plat. Eventually they had to rent The Plat out & lived in rented houses until, by 1913, they were forced to sell.

Kate had grown up in a secure middle-class family. She had little formal education, but loved the theatre & took lessons in singing, dancing & recitation. She became an actress & had some limited success, touring in a production of J M Barrie's Quality Street. It was on this tour in 1903 that she met John Collins, & they became engaged. Kate often seems rather lukewarm about John, who was very much in love with Kate although she doesn't seem to care for him nearly as much. Certainly in the diary, she mentions her infatuation with at least one other man. John was a fairly unsuccessful actor & they had a long engagement as they couldn't afford to marry. Kate's family supported her theatrical ambitions &, later, her interest in suffragism. She began as a volunteer for the NCS but was glad to accept a paid position as an organiser in 1913 as the family fortunes declined.

The NCS was one of several organisations dedicated to extending the franchise to women. The most famous was the Women's Social & Political Union (WSPU) founded by the Pankhursts & notorious for their militancy. As the name suggests, the NCS wanted a constitutional solution to the problem & worked on spreading the word & trying to influence politicians to introduce a Parliamentary Bill for women's suffrage. They also canvassed against anti-suffrage politicians. Kate first became interested in suffrage through attending meetings of the Actresses' Franchise League in 1909, the year before the NCS was founded. Kate's job was to travel around England, mostly Kent, Norfolk & Essex, organising meetings, gathering speakers & canvassing for women's suffrage.

Most of Kate's work involved setting up meetings & canvassing & her diary certainly depicts a relentless struggle to gather support. The work involved was considerable as Kate would arrive in a new town, have to find lodgings for herself & maybe speakers, make contact with supporters, find a venue for the meeting, deal with printers producing posters & handbills, find someone to chair the meeting & drum up an audience. She often describes hours spent canvassing but finding few people at home or meeting an unsympathetic response. Sometimes her lodgings are uncomfortable & her colleagues uncongenial. The meetings could be an outstanding success with interesting speakers & a good turnout or dismal failures with insufficient support from the locals or a rowdy crowd of hecklers. Kate is usually optimistic but this outburst, after a meeting at a rich woman's house where the guests only came for the food, is heartfelt,

I am clean off this campaign. Then home to my pic-nic existence with a mood on me one could have cut off in chunks. I suppose it's a mixture of fatigue and homesickness and disappointment. If the work would only go well I would not mind and it would help me put up with my lot. Why must I live in horrid rooms amongst other people's hideous possessions. What am I paying for, shall I ever have done paying - if only something would come out of it, if only I could justify my existence somehow!!!!
Friday October 25th 1912 - Folkestone 33 Coolinge Road

As well as the day to day work of an organiser, Kate took part in some of the great set pieces of the suffrage movement. She marched in the Women's Coronation Procession organised by the WSPU as a demonstration of women's solidarity. It was the biggest such demonstration ever held & was timed for a few days before the coronation of George V. Kate marched with the Actresses' Franchise League & had a wonderful day, culminating in a meeting at the Royal Albert Hall addressed by Mrs Pankhurst. She was a Group Captain & very proud of the honour.

I was the 3rd section behind the third Floral Arch - very pretty it all looked but some of the walkers of the AFL looked very dowdy. But it was all simply magnificent - 70,000 of us, five abreast, and some of the Sections were just wonderful - a real pageant and I enjoyed myself tremendously. ... The end had not left the Embankment before we started the meeting at 8.30 - 7 miles, 1,000 banners 70 bands. We were just behind one and it was quite lovely marching to it. We kept time to it and at least walked well. Several of the onlookers I heard say that ours was the Smartest Section.
Saturday June 17th 1911

Kate also witnessed the funeral procession for Emily Wilding Davison, who was killed when she ran in front of the King's horse at Epsom on Derby Day 1913.

We saw it splendidly at the start until we were driven away from our position and then could not see for the crowds and then we walked right down Buckingham Palace Rd and joined in the procession at the end. It was really most wonderful - the really organised part - groups of women in black with white lilies - in white and in purple - and lots of clergymen and special sort of pall bearers each side of the coffin. She gave her life publicly to make known to the public the demand of Votes for Women - it was only fitting she should be honoured publicly by the comrades.
Saturday June 14th 1913

John Collins had joined the Territorial Army & was in the Essex and Suffolk Royal Garrison Artillery & so was mobilised with his unit on the outbreak of WWI. He & Kate were married on her 37th birthday in January 1915. She resigned from the NCS in 1916 & the remaining diary entries in the book are on suffrage matters - the granting of the franchise in 1918, the first time she voted in 1924 & attending Mrs Pankhurst's funeral in 1928.

Elizabeth Crawford made the decision to edit the diary severely to only include information about Kate's suffrage activities. While I can understand that the book needed a focus, I would have liked a bit more about Kate's personal life outside the movement. Crawford writes linking passages between entries when Kate is on holidays or visiting family but restricts the entries to Kate's activities as an organiser.

Elizabeth Crawford's blog, Woman and her Sphere, is a great resource for information about the suffrage movement. There are links to all the entries she has written about Kate & other suffrage stories as well. Kate (played by Romola Garai) is going to be featured in the ITV series, The Great War, the People's Story.

Elizabeth Crawford has also written a biography of Kate to be published as an ebook in early August (today, in fact), Kate Parry Frye – The Long Life of an Edwardian Actress and Suffragette, which I'm looking forward to reading to find out what happened to Kate after the struggle for women's suffrage was over.
Edited to add : and here it is, just downloaded this very minute!