Year's End 2006

A custom for many at the end of the year is to pause, think back over the last year and what best and worst has come from it. A few items I thought about are: books, not newly published but new to me. “Jane Austen, A Life” by Claire Tomalin published in 1997 and “Her Own Woman, The Life of Mary Wollstonecraft” by Diane Jacobs published in 2001 are two of the best books I read out of many excellent ones. Curiously they are about two women writers living in the same time period, the late 1700s and early 1800s but living very different lives. Both their lives were severely affected by the lack of fortunes left to care for them. Yet both have left an imprint, both are still being read about and their works republished two hundred years later.

Another book that thrilled me (that I could read and learn about them) was “Stealing Heaven, The Love Story of Heloise and Abelard” by Marion Meade published in 1979. Nine hundred years after the fact, the love this couple shared until they died, separated by the walls of convents and monasteries is still exciting in the printed form. How can I choose a ‘best’ book? Impossible.

Looking over the videos I acquired this year in the absence of having television channels I choose The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes and Lynn Collins. This movie has it all, a great acting cast, great background music, great quality, colorful period clothing and scenes of a favorite city, Venice. Love, mystery, humor, history and the dialog of a poet. What more can there be?

I choose BBC’s “The Duchess of Duke Street” for the best series. This story has been around for a while, but I just found it by chance. Based on the true story of Edwardian Rosa Lewis who began as a servant and emerged into the owner-manager of the London society’s sought after private hotel, the Bentinck.

For the music category I have taken classical music into my sphere of listening. This came about by watching-Impromtu, Children of the Century and Chopin, Desire for Love-all videos of George Sand and Frederic Chopin and their mutual friend, Franz Liszt. After watching the movies I just had to know more about their music and I’m following up with books on their lives and other composers of classical music.
It’s been a good that will hopefully lead on to more good things in 2007.