Mucho Reading on the Ides of March! What Would Brutus Say?

Might Julius Ceasar have avoided his fate if he had stayed at home reading? Or if Brutus had?

Today, Friday, I read a great deal, as I have the other days of this week. I finished reading Tessa Hadley's The London Train, which I started on Tuesday, I believe. It's on my list for the 2019 TBR Challenge that Alex at Roof Beam Reader is hosting. (His blog is listed in the sidebar.) This weekend, I must write the review for it. I liked it, but there is much, much more to say about a book by Tessa Hadley than "I liked it" or "I didn't like it." 

Daily this week I've been reading chapters of The Radetsky  March by Joseph Roth, the 1932 Austrian novel, following members of the Von Trotta Family from the late 18th century to the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the empire of the Hapsburgs, in World War I.
I am  finding this one to be powerful and extraordinarily well-handled. There is so much that I could say about it, but I will wait until the 3-part, 3-week-long roundup of the book takes place in April. I'm so grateful to have been made aware of this classic, thanks to Lizzy and Caroline of Beauty is a Sleeping Cat. (See sidebar).

Today I devoured a children's novel (ages 10-14) by one of my favorite children's authors, Ruth M. Arthur, entitled My Daughter, Nicola. Most of Arthur's books are set in  remote locations of England and Wales, but this one is set in the Swiss Alps, probably sometime in the early 20th century.  Arthur wrote most of her books from the early 1960s through the late 1970s. During her adult, married  life she lived in Surrey, England, but evidently she once attended school in Scotland.  A number of her books have somewhat supernatural elements in them, related to ancient times in Briton. It can be hard to find her books now, but I've been collecting them for the past 30 years or so, one by one, from used book sellers and rare book dealers. They captivate me in the way few books do. The young heroines almost never have a full set of normal parents. They live with a kind aunt, or an uncle, or a grandparent, leaving them a bit untethered and able to interact with the universe a bit more freely. I simply adore them because the questing of these heroines speak to me, as well as their vulnerabilities.