Category Archives: horses

Anywhere But Here….

Posted on December 26, 2012 by carolwallace

No, I did not read Mona Simpson’s Anywhere But Here, though I’m sure that some time I should. (It sounds kind of harrowing but maybe that’s just me.) I just hit a little rough patch. Does this ever happen to … Continue reading →

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Meg Rosoff, “The Bride’s Farewell”

Posted on October 23, 2011 by carolwallace

Every now and then Amazon’s recommendation system really gets it right and tosses me something like The Bride’s Farewell, a quirky and wonderful historical novel. We meet Pell Ridley on the dawn of her marriage to blacksmith Birdie Finch, as … Continue reading →

Posted in historical fiction, horses | Tagged | 15 Comments

Elizabeth Letts, “The Eighty-Dollar Champion”

Posted on September 9, 2011 by carolwallace

I don’t touch a horse from one year to the next but I did go through an intense pre-adolescent equine phase. Naturally that included, in addition to riding every moment I could (and scheming to convert our garage back into … Continue reading →

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Margot Asquith, “Octavia”

Posted on June 23, 2009 by carolwallace

I am so happy that I live in a place where the communal book shelf in the laundry room (recent source of that Simenon novel) also yielded Margot Asquith’s Octavia. I read her autobiography years ago, while researching the heiresses … Continue reading →

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Sara Gruen, “Flying Changes”

Posted on April 24, 2009 by carolwallace

Flying Changes follows Sara Gruen’s Riding Lessons, picking up with the same characters just a few months later. It exhibits pretty much the same strengths and weaknesses as the earlier book: the heroine is occasionally unbearable, the animal characters come … Continue reading →

Posted in contemporary fiction, horses | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Sara Gruen, “Riding Lessons”

Posted on April 7, 2009 by carolwallace

Two points to think about here: aspirations and authority. 1/ Not everybody is writing Moby Dick. Some books have smaller ambitions, and what matters is whether or not the author meets the goals she’s set. Sara Gruen’s Riding Lessons might … Continue reading →

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Molly Gloss, “The Jump-Off Creek”

Posted on March 3, 2009 by carolwallace

I was glad to see that there’s a new edition of The Jump-Off Creek, because I read a 1989 hardcover that looked as if it had come off a dude ranch’s shelf of books left by guests.  I wouldn’t have … Continue reading →

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Siegfried Sassoon, “Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man”

Posted on February 3, 2009 by carolwallace

This book has been on my radar for decades, ever since my teenage horsey phase. I vaguely remember trying to read it, but grasping that it wasn’t really about horses. Then of course when I read Vera Brittain’s Testament of … Continue reading →

Posted in classic, horses, letters, memoir | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments