48 Followers
28 Following
Tristy

Musings of a Book Addict

I'm married to a scavenger of sorts and he often totes home rescued boxes of books that I paw through with shiny, hungry eyes. I pull out the odd and interesting and add them to my teetering stack.

Currently reading

The Hound of the Baskervilles
Arthur Conan Doyle
E.B. White: A Biography
Scott Elledge
Murder on the Orient Express
Agatha Christie
There Is Nothing Wrong with You: Going Beyond Self-Hate
Cheri Huber, June Shiver
Living Buddha, Living Christ
Thích Nhất Hạnh
No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger
Mark Twain
The Snare of the Hunter
Helen MacInnes
Paintings of Henry Miller
Henry Miller, Lawrence Durrell
Dreamways of the Iroquois: Honoring the Secret Wishes of the Soul
Robert Moss
Pentimento (Back Bay Books)
Lillian Hellman

Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay

Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay - Nancy Milford This is quite a tome, weighing in at 550 pages. I was doubtful that I could find the life of Edna St. Vincent Millay interesting enough to stick it out until the end, but surprisingly, I did. Nancy Milford has a way with sharing the facts and fictions of Millay's life in a lively and engrossing way. She obviously did her research and then some, and I love the connection she makes with Norma Millay, Edna Millay's sister, who was at the end of her life but still a delightful character. Milford's connection with Norma is a nice touch and we get an insight into what collecting all this history was like for the author, coaxing stories and letters from the revisionist mind of Norma as well as many others who knew and loved Edna Millay. It's also a wonderful peek into another time - the time of my grandmother. From the transition of the 19th to the 20th Century, up to the first whispers of the Korean War. It's a fascinating tale that shines a light on the life of a very complicated, brilliant woman. I actually don't care much for Millay's poetry(!) as it really comes from a different time and aesthetic, and yet I can completely relate to this story of her life. I did find that Milford got a bit TOO detailed at times (do we really need to see all the detailed lists of how much morphine she was taking at the end?) but this is a small complaint. I truly enjoyed reading this wonderful, in-depth story of the Poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay.