On the ninth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
Nine Ladies Dancing
Day 9 of the 12 Days of Christmas game and giveaway.
We only just completed the day of the maids, now we’re into presumably their mistresses. We need to find titles or images or author names reflecting the ninth day in which these ladies indulged in a little dance exercise.
Booker Talk Titles for Day 9
Now I wish I hadn’t chosen Margaret Forster’s Ladies’ Maid for day 8 since I can’t use it again.
My TBR came to my rescue fortunately, delivering Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Devoted Ladies by Molly Keane (aka M.J. Farrell).
Lady Audley’s Secret was published in 1862 and became her most successful novel. The critic John Sutherland described the novel as “the most sensationally successful of all the sensation novels”. Elements of the novel mirror the real-life case of Constance Kent upon which Kate Summerscale based The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. I’ve yet to read it though its been on my shelf for four years.
Devoted Ladies is one I have read. After a shaky start I warmed to this is as you see from my review.
For my last choice I’m indebted to my Goodreads wishlist which gave me Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet which apparently is considered his seminal work. The first draft was written while Genet was incarcerated in a French prison; when the manuscript was discovered and destroyed by officials, Genet, still a prisoner, immediately set about writing it again.
Come up with book titles or book images or anything book related (could be the name of a location mentioned in the book or a character) that matches with ladies or dancing. Let’s see how creative you can be. I’m looking ideally for 3 titles/images etc. You can mix and match your nominations.
Put your titles into the comments field of that day’s post. Don’t just give me the name since you could easily get that from a Google search – tell us something about the book itself. Why did you choose these titles – are they from your TBR or ones you’ve seen mentioned on a blog. Please try not to just use lists from Goodreads etc.
Feel free to blog about this on your own site or via Twitter using the #12days hashtag
The Giveaway
There’s an incentive to play along with this which is a giveaway of a book up to the value of $20 USD from the Book Depository
To participate, your list of books must be in the comments field by 10pm GMT/5pm Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday Dec 14.
Day by Day Prompts
Day 1: Partridge in a Pear Tree
Day 2: Turtle Doves
Day 3: French Hens
Day 4: Calling Birds
Day 5: Gold Rings
Day 6: Geese a-Laying
Day 7: Swans a-Swimming
Day 8: Maids a-Milking
Day 9: Ladies Dancing
Day 10: Lords a-Leaping
Day 11: Pipers Piping
Day 12: Drummers Drumming
Rules of the Game
1.Each day a post will go live on booker talk.com matched to the task for that day. All you to do is post a comment with your list of books on the page
2. Each day try to come up with 3 titles. No need to think of 11 books featuring pipers or eight with maids in them. This is meant to be fun not mission impossible…..
3. Participants are encouraged to be creative with the names of titles matching each day. But the books do need to be in existence – no scope here for making up your own titles.
4. The number of contributions per person will be totalled and the one with the highest number will win the prize. So if you post three titles for day 6 and 5 on day 11, that gives a total of 8 points.
5. Contributions should be entered on the page within the time limit stated each day – typically I will give 48 hours between the time I post the day’s challenge and when comments will be closed.
6. You don’t need to play every day in order to be entered for the prize. Some days will be easier than others – and anyway you have all that shopping and packing still to do
7. There is only one prize – available internationally. The Prize winner will be announced on the blog around about the 15th of December.
6. The prize is that you get to choose a book up to the value of $20 USD from the Book Depository that I will arrange to ship to you. This will probably not arrive until next year given the last postage dates for international mail.