Showing posts with label Downton Abbey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Downton Abbey. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Bargain books, 2 memoirs, a detective novel and a book related to Downton Abbey

I bought three of these books at our local Goodwill book store. It is a small store that just sells books, dvds, and music.
My husband and I have read the whole detective mystery series about John Rebus by Ian Rankin except for this most recent one, "Saints of the Shadow Bible." "A Charmed Life: Growing Up in Macbeth's Castle" by Liza Campbell, is a memoir. Her father was heir to Cawdor Castle where she was born and a review says "wild sorry tale with an offhand wit."
My third Goodwill purchase is "Blue Nights" by Joan Didion, another memoir. I have read other memoirs by her, and she writes about the death of her beloved daughter in this one.
These hardcovers cost $3.49 each and the money goes to a good cause.
My fourth wonderful book is "Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey", which is nonfiction about the 5th Countess of Carnarvon written by the 8th and current Countess. The Carnarvon family estate is Highclere Castle, where Downton Abbey is filmed. The real life Lady Almina and the fictional Lady Cora Crawley have much in common, including opening their estate to wounded soldiers in World War I, and I love this book. If you like Downton Abbey or history I recommend this book.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Downton Abbey and The Cazalets


I must say, I am a big fan of Downton Abbey. It achieves close to perfection for a tv drama, in my view and I would love to visit Highclere Castle where it is filmed.
Since Downton Abbey does not run 24/7 (insert sobs here) all year, I was pleased to find another tv series, The Cazalets. We borrowed the DVDs from our local public library and enjoyed watching it. A nice surprise is that the patriarch of the family is played by Hugh Bonneville, also the head of the Downtown Abbey family.
The six episodes were filmed in 2001 for the BBC, and cover the middle/upper class Cazalet family and their estate in Sussex. The time is 1937 to 1942. The house employs plenty of servants but is not at all as grand as the home in Downton Abbey.
I read a recent interview with Elizabeth Jane Howard who wrote the 4 books the Cazalet series is based on, and she is now a vibrant looking 90. The Telegraph shows a photo of her, at 90 she is gorgeous, strong looking, uses a wooden cane and is holding a tiny brown cigarette. Even better, she is writing book 5 which will answer lots of my questions about the people in the tv series and what happened next.
The first book of the Cazalet Chronicles is The Light Years, which I want to read.
Have you read the Cazelet books or seen the shows?