Below Stairs shows girl power before girl power existed

It was mere days after I had finished watching the second season of Downton Abbey when I found Below Stairs by Margaret Powell. The book is Powell’s candid memoirs of being a kitchen maid in the 1920′s – think Daisy from Downton.

Below Stairs is something of a legend. The producers of both Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey consulted it in order to get the details correct. But what really makes this an AMAZING read is Powell’s honesty and humour. She grew up dirt poor but she was happy. Being a kitchen maid meant never being hungry but cooks and employers were tough.

But Powell is no pushover. She’s as tough as nails and feisty as hell. Here are some of my favourite quotes from the book:

“I remember when we hadn’t anything left to use for warmth and no money to get coal. I said to Mum, “Get all the wood down. Let’s have a fire with wood.” She took ever single shelf there was in the rooms and she even took the banister from the stairs. Things like this make you hard.”

“It was my job to make the mayonnaise sauce. And what a job it was too. I never thought I’d get it right.”

“I used to think how incongruous it was when the Reverend used to say morning prayers and just before they were over he’d say, “Now let us all count our blessings.” I thought, well it would take a lot longer to count yours than it would ours.“

“A lot of inane remarks from the men and a lot of giggles from us, a few kisses and further promises to be sure to meet them at the same time next week, but neither Gladys nor I had any intention of having permanent dates with such ill-paid escorts.“

Below Stairs is a sure hit for any fans of Downton Abbey and hardcore foodies! As a kitchen maid and cook in the 20′s, Powell makes everything from scratch. From mayonnaise to great stories.

Related Penguins: The World of Downton Abbey, The American Heiress is a frivolously good read

Photo credits: dailyrecord.co.uk, pbs.org

Timing is all off for The Bellwether Revivals

Thank you to McClelland & Stewart for sending me a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This is part of the Red House Books NetGalley Reading Challenge.

While the storyline for The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood seemed intriguing enough, it was hard for me to get through. It begins with a boy named Oscar outside the Bellwether Estate remembering where a past love had died. The story rewinds to tell the story of how Oscar, a nurse at Cedarbrooke retirement home, wanders into a church on the grounds of Oxford. An atheist at heart, he is lured in by a moving performance on the organ. From there, he meets Iris Bellwether and they instantly hit it off.

Iris’s brother, Eden Bellwether, happens to be the one playing the organ. As Oscar gets closer to Iris and her friends and family, he begins to learn about Eden’s erratic behaviour and delusions about being to heal people through his music. You’re left wondering for yourself if Eden is a genius or just plain crazy.

Of course, it’s a fine line between genius and insanity. I loved the plot of this story but I had trouble placing when the story was taking place. Wood places so much emphasis on social classes, it seemed like it was taking place in the very distant past. But someone mentions CDs or e-mails or Silicon Valley and I’d realize that this is happening in the not so distant past or maybe even present day.

Photo by Mierswa Kluska

I was also itching to learn more about the eccentric characters. There’s Oscar, who’s as dull as a doorknob. Iris is witty, sarcastic and beautiful but you get limited access to her thoughts. There’s also Herbert Crest, a dying psychologist whose specialty is Narcissistic Personality Disorder but he doesn’t talk much. Perhaps the only character Wood did justice was Eden who is horribly obsessed with himself (the kind of guy my friends like to date).

The book was a slow read for me. You could blame the beautiful weather I got in Toronto but the last few chapters sped up when the characters see more action. While I wasn’t over-the-moon about The Bellwether Revivals, I would keep an eye out for debut writer, Benjamin Wood, for his awesome plotlines.

Photo by Mierswa Kluska

Photo credits: thisiscolossal.com

Beautiful Book Sighting: The World of Downton Abbey

If you haven’t seen the British TV show, Downtown Abbey, you must go out immediately and find it. It’s a beautifully done and takes place in an English country home just before WWI. This is the world of rich aristocrats and housemaids. And if you’ve already seen the show, then you’re probably waiting for the next season to come out on DVD.

Unless you’re in the UK, in which, you are watching the second season on TV. And I’m very jealous of you.

Downton Abbey is also the most expensive show made in the UK so every shot is just beautiful. It comes as no surprise that the niece to the creator of the show published “The World of Downton Abbey” in the meantime.

I’ve leafed through the book and have asked for it for Christmas. But here’s a glimpse of some of the amazing photos in the book.

Front and Back Cover:

Photos from the show:

Photos from behind the scenes

There’s are ebook version for colour readers and a text only version for us e-ink readers. But I really think you need this one printed in full colour.

Photo credits: amazon.ca

Dying to finish Dead Simple by Peter James

I didn’t expect much of Dead Simple. I had never heard of it but it was part of the goody bag I received at the book blogger event that I attended recently. The author, Peter James, is also the director of the movie Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons and Ralph Fiennes. His Roy Grace series stars a detective by the same name who dabbles in the paranormal by regularly consulting psychics to help with unsolved murder cases.

Which may be a reason why his books are named Dead Simple, Look Good Dead, Not Dead Enough and Too-Dead-Easy-To-Make-Up-These-Unoriginal-Titles. But don’t let the cheesy titles fool you, Dead Simple was a page turner. It’s a fast read and I was dying to get to the end of it.

The story is about a bachelor party gone wrong where the groom ends up trapped in a coffin and buried alive. His prankster friends have all died in a car accident after burying him. If that doesn’t make you want to keep reading, nothing will! Add a beautiful fiancee and a business partner that mysteriously didn’t make it to the bachelor party and you have yourself a good story.

Roy Grace is a Brighton detective with a soft spot for a lot of things – psychics, children and women. If you’ve ever seen the British cop love interest from Bridesmaids, you’ve met Roy Grace. He’s just not very macho but he is very loveable. His British slang confused me in the beginning but you get used to it pretty quickly. The book also ends with a car chase which would have been great on screen but in my opinion, car chases suck in a book.

Especially when you’re dying to figure out if Grace will find the missing groom alive.

Brighton