PERFECT LIVES * THE DISTANT HOURS

Perfect Lives by Polly Samson - The subjects of these short stories all live in an English seaside town, and I wish the author had named the town, and that the town could have been more of a character. Other than that, it is a perfect compilation of stories spanning a couple of generations and weaving through a few families whose lives sometimes intersect. I love short story collections, both the F. Scott Fitzgerald kind, where every story is it's own little tale, as well as the Raise High the Roofbeams and Nine Stories kind that J. D. Salinger wrote where the characters in the stories intersect and connect. These stories intersect and connect. My favorites were Barcarolle, about Richard the piano tuner, and The Birthday Present about a Hermes Leica camera. I've just spent the last 20 minutes looking for a camera like the one described in the story, but can't quite come up with a photo to do justice to Polly Samson's description. I even watched a couple of unboxing videos. Still, the reading is better than the seeing in this case! (Why do I love those unboxing videos?) I tried to get Peter to let me make an unboxing video of him unboxing his XBox last year, but he refused. Here's a youtube video of Polly talking about her book.

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton - Although I enjoy Kate's stories, I've decided that they are a bit wordy to put it mildly. They are big fat sprawling hardcover books with great tales of English countryside mansions and family secrets. You can't put them down, though! The Distant Hours is no exception.