What’s In a Name? Update

Published on by Margaret

WhatsinaName14

When I decided to do this year’s What’s In a Name?Challenge I didn’t have any books in the category of a book with a meal in the title. So I decided to see what my local library had to offer and came up with three books and reserved all three – of course they all turned up quickly almost all at once and I now have them here waiting to be read. And I can’t decide which one to read first – should it be breakfast, tea, or a feast?

The shortest is Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote – Holly Golightly in 1940s New York, pursued by gangsters and playboy millionaires. There are also three short stories in this book, House of Flowers, A Diamond Guitar and A Christmas Memory.

Or should I read A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway first? According to the back cover this book ‘brilliantly evokes the exuberant mood of Paris after the First World War, and the unbridled creativity and unquenchable enthusiasm that Hemingway himself epitomised.’

I am actually drawn more to reading the longest book first – The Tea Planter’s Wife by Dinah Jefferies – historical fiction set in Ceylon (now called Sri Lanka) in the 1920s and 30s. Nineteen year old Gwendolyn Hooper arrived from  England eager to join her husband, Laurence, but he was away working, leaving her alone to explore the vast tea plantation. She wanders into forbidden places and finds clues to a hidden unspeakable past.

What do you think? Have you read any of them? Which one would you read first?

12 thoughts on “What’s In a Name? Update”

  1. I love Breakfast at Tiffany’s, although don’t expect it to be exactly like the film – to start with no one is going to play Moon River while you’re reading it! However, I remember The Tea Planter’s Wife being published and it getting a number of excellent reviews. I can’t think why this has stuck in my mind, because I didn’t go on to read it. Please read and review it and then I can see if I made a mistake back then and should read it as soon as possible.

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    1. I have to admit that I haven’t seen the film! But I’m really looking forward to reading the book – and then maybe watching the film.

      I’ll do my best to read and review The Tea Planter’s Wife asap -I wouldn’t want you to miss out on a good book 🙂

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  2. My voter’s for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, too, Margaret. But I am intrigued by the Jefferies. I do like a well-written historical mystery. If you choose that one, I’ll be interested in what you think of it.

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      1. I respect Heminway’s work – I really do. But if you’re going to read that one, you’ll want to be very careful to get an edition that has not been altered. Apparently, Hemingway’s grandson later made significant changes to what Hemingway had originally written. Here is an article about it. I haven’t read about it elsewhere, but it seems like a legitimate article.

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        1. Thanks for this information – I’ll certainly read the article. My library copy is a ‘Restored Edition’, with a Foreword by Patrick Hemingway, Ernest’s son, and an Introduction by Sean Hemingway, Ernest’s grandson, so it is not what Hemingway had originally written. It includes a number of never-before-published Paris sketches. In Sean’s Introduction, which I haven’t read thoroughly, it looks as though he has identified where Hemingway’s work has been edited.

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  5. I was going to say A Moveable Feast until I read how you described The Tea Planter’s Wife… it sounds really interesting. I await your review with interest.

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  7. The Tea Planters Wife – Dinah Jeffries novels are excellent and you are taken away and totally absorbed in the place she sets them in. I thoroughly enjoy all her books.

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