I've joined an online Thomas Hardy reading group. We're going to read all of Thomas Hardy's novels between July 2011 and April 2014, reading 1 book every two months. I've already read the first book, Desperate Measures. This book will not be read until May/June 2013.

This is not the most uplifting book by Hardy. There are six stories and each one of them deals with disfigurement and/or death. As in most Hardy stories the course of love never runs smoothly. That being said I'm not sorry that I read this book. For one thing it gave me an appreciation of Hardy as a short story writer whereas before I have only read his full-length fiction.

It's hard to pick a favourite story from this melancholy collection but I think the story called "Fellow-Townsmen" will be the one I will remember longest. A well-off man regrets his marriage to a woman of equal social standing and wishes he had married the impoverished daughter of a military man. When his wife is almost drowned in a boating accident he was told by the physician who attended her (who knew how unhappy the marriage was) that his wife had not survived. The man, however, thought there was a spark of life and had her revived. This incident did not improve his wife's temper and soon after she left him. In the same accident that almost killed his wife the wife of a young solicitor was killed. Thinking to do the solicitor and his youthful love a favour he suggests that the solicitor hire her as a governess to her children. One morning he receives two letters. The first is from an acquaintance of his wife who informs the husband the wife has died. Thinking that he is now free to marry his first love he opens the second letter to read that she and the solicitor are to be married that very day. There's more to this story but it doesn't include a pounding at the church door a la The Graduate although I almost expected that.

I see the next book is also a collection of short stories. Maybe they won't be quite so melancholy???

I'm going to take this book with me to the special meeting with the Twin Cities bookcrossers. I'll have to figure something redeeming to say about it. Otherwise I might just wild release it.

quietorchid and her hubby took me to this Little Free Library which is one quietorchid frequently leaves books in. It's the first time I've left a book in a Little Free Library and I was charmed by the experience. quietorchid warned me that she seldom gets JEs from here but the books disappear rapidly.

This release is for the 2013 52 Towns in 52 Weeks release challenge and is release #9 for that challenge.

my 8 year old niece handed me this book, informing me it was "clearly for grown-ups". Indeed! I like Hardy and these were good tales. I especially liked "a tale of two ambitions".