“There was something shining in the air…” #spinsterseptember #thecountryofthepointedfirs

Despite having overflowing bookshelves and a mountainous TBR, I still always seem to amass multiple copies of individual titles, and today’s book is a good example of that. Back in the 1990s (I think…) I read and loved Sarah Orne Jewett‘s “The County of the Pointed Firs and other stories” and it’s sat on my shelves ever since. I’ve often intended to revisit it, but it took the reissue of just “The Country of the Pointed Firs” stories in a Penguin Archive 90 edition to nudge me back to her writing. Yes, I had to get the Penguin version too, and it provided a joyful contrast to the darker subject matter of the Rebecca West… Jewett (1849-1909) was an American author best known for her works set along the Maine coast, and “Pointed Firs” is I believe considered her finest. Set in the fictional coastal village of Dunnet Landing, the book is narrated by a Bostonian writer who’s come to the coast to finish a book she’s working on. Lodging with a local widow, Almira Todd, who’s also the…