“Delicious” is an adjective I often find myself using to describe a really good book, so a tag comparing books to different flavors of cake seems somehow fitting; and it seemed like a nice light bit of amusement for the midst of a summer vacation—so accordingly I picked up the challenge from Jenny Freitag at The Penslayer and here are my own answers:
chocolate cake // a dark book I enjoyed
The Unforgiven by Alan Lemay
I don’t usually go dark, except with chocolate. So it seems both fitting and a bit unfair that chocolate, obviously the best flavor on this list, should be equated with darkness. Anyway. The Unforgiven sets a tone of foreboding and impending danger from the very first page—and pays off on that—but it also pulled me in right away by making me care about the characters and needing to know what happened to them, and also by quality writing. I did let my eyes skim down the page during a couple of particularly brutal fight scenes. But if you like historical Westerns and don’t mind them tough, go for it.
vanilla cake // a light read
Summer Half by Angela Thirkell
I could put down any one of twenty different books in this spot at different times, depending on my mood. But I’m going with Summer Half, because it’s one I find myself coming back to periodically when I want something light, like a dependable snack. Amusing and dry and so-very-British, with boarding schools and croquet and boating and afternoon tea and a mix of sensible and nit-witted characters…this is one of my comfort-food types of fiction.
red velvet cake // had mixed feelings
A Room With a View by E.M. Forster
On the one hand, it’s a thoroughly charming, easygoing, witty Edwardian-era little novel…on the other hand, it’s the kind where flaws in the author’s philosophy and a vague feeling of something just less than satisfying in the way a romantic relationship is developed leave you with a niggling unsatisfied feeling. Enjoyable with just a touch of exasperating.
cheesecake // recommend to everyone
The Chronicles of Barsetshire by Anthony Trollope
I’ve never had cheesecake that I can recall, but it does seem ubiquitous, so I guess it fits. I’m going the classics route here—and I’m also cheating by putting down a whole series, because I can’t pick just one of the four (out of six) I’ve read so far (The Warden, Barchester Towers, Doctor Thorne, and Framley Parsonage) as a representative. Anyway, I’ve been running around trying to get people to read Anthony Trollope ever since I started this series. Livelier in action than Austen, not so bombastic as Dickens or Thackeray, with a cheerful brand of satire and a wonderful knack for creating lovable characters—if English lit is your thing, you’re missing out by not reading Trollope.
coffee cake // didn’t finish
Waverly by Walter Scott
What’s up with this category? Have you ever seen a coffee cake that didn’t disappear in crumbs altogether too soon? But anyway…after loving Ivanhoe, I thought all Scott novels would be exactly the same, and I plunged into Waverly with high expectations, only to flounder to a stop after a few chapters, highly puzzled. I was just bored. Don’t know whose side the fault was on, but I’ve never felt the inclination to try again.
tiramisu // left me wanting more
The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard
I’m trying to remember…have I ever tasted tiramisu? I have a vague feeling that I may have, and that it was something terribly gourmet and sophisticated. Or I may have just seen it in a cookbook. But sticking strictly to the analogy, I thought all but a few of Leonard’s crisp, hard-bitten Western short stories were terrific, and so I basically wish he’d written twice as many (especially since I tried one of his Western novels and didn’t care for it).
cupcakes // 4+ book series
A Fairy Tale Retold series by Suzannah Rowntree
The Bells of Paradise // Death Be Not Proud // The Prince of Fishes // The Rakshasa’s Bride // + more to come
It’s funny, but I find I just don’t tend to read many series besides mystery series, which are only connected by the central detective. And these novellas are really only connected by all being fairytale retellings. But they certainly fit the bill: short, delicious literary treats, rich in writing and imaginative settings. Can’t wait for the next one.
fruitcake // not what I expected
Railroad West by Cornelia Meigs
After loving my first two Meigs books, I went into this one highly excited because I was expecting the same thing in a promising setting: the Western plains in the 1870s. But it turned out to be a little different: rather dry, a little more focused on the railroad than the people, and leaving some eminently likable and promising protagonists sort of standing on the sidelines instead of getting deep into their hearts and minds like in Swift Rivers. Not a bad book, just not what I’d hoped for.
strawberry shortcake // favorite american novel
The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
I’ve talked about this one enough times, haven’t I? It’s my personal nominee for Great American Novel (if such a thing exists), partly because I just think it’s a fine book, and also because I think its portrait of turn-of-the-century upheaval during the Industrial Revolution is a more universally American experience than, say, admittedly wonderful but more region-specific novels like To Kill a Mockingbird or Gone With the Wind. It’s one of the perpetually-underrated novels I’m always waving in people’s faces. Do read it.
images: Pexels, DesignNPrint // pixabay – MaxStraeten // morguefile
I will admit, I saw the miniseries before reading the book, but I loved Trollope’s Dr. Thorne. I haven’t read any of his other books, but I just might have to try some more……… and maybe even more so because Cheesecake is my favorite!
I read the book first, so the miniseries didn’t quite cut it for me (though I did think Mary and Frank and Dr. Thorne himself were very well cast and played). Sometimes I think it’s better to watch adaptations first, because then you don’t have any expectations to be disappointed! If you enjoyed the book, though, I think you’ll like the rest of the Barsetshire Chronicles!
In the “Vanilla Cake” section, I read “boarding schools, croquet, bloating, and afternoon tea, which might be just as accurate as the actual sentence, since we’re talking about cake. XD
Isn’t it funny how our “light reads” are almost invariably British?
I’ve steered clear of Forster for the squiffy-morals reason. I just never felt like wasting the time when there are so many other books to read, and so little time. O_o I haven’t got my hands on any Trollop yet! You know, you’re the first person I’ve heard to straight-up say anything about him, so I’m completely in the dark about him. I’m in the market for some older (not modern/contemporary) voices in writing, so I’ll have to grab some of his stuff from the library.
(I’ll let you get away with a series because cheesecake often comes in a variety pack. XD )
oH. MY. GOODNESS. SIR WALTER SCOTT. I read Ivanhoe, and while I did like it, I was a little peeved that it took forever + a month of Sundays just to see the title character. Then I went on (shortly after publishing Plenilune, I recall) to try reading Kenilworth, and really it ought to be named “Kenilworst” because the mELODRAMA. OH MY LANDS. I was highly incensed to hear someone call my novel melodramatic; my melodrama is nothing to his.
That’s true, isn’t it, about the light reads (I could have picked any one of half a dozen Georgette Heyer books for this slot, for instance…). Maybe because that atmosphere of tea and dry wit and unflappability is one that seems foreign and exotic to us, and yet relaxing and comfortable. 🙂
Oh, yes, you must try Trollope! And regarding Scott—now that I come to think of it, I’ve never gotten beyond Ivanhoe except for reading some of his poetry (where melodrama seems appropriate). In Aspects of the Novel (now that’s one bit of Forster you might like), E.M. Forster credits Scott’s popularity to his sheer ability to make the reader want to know what happens next—i.e. that plain old suspenseful storytelling ability is a crucial ingredient in novel-writing, but isn’t necessarily enough by itself to equal great writing. I think I know what he means: I’ve occasionally struggled through a book that exasperated me in many ways, just because I had to know how it ended!