Bettie's Books

bookshelves: britain-wales, hardback, giftee, published-2003, paper-read, spring-2015, under-50-ratings, shortstory-shortstories-novellas, translation

Maesglasau Valley

Translated from the Welsh by Lloyd Jones.
Introduction by Jane Aaron.

Description: A poetic work of fiction on the one hand, an autobiography on the other, 'The Life of Rebecca Jones' is about one family's passage through the 20th century.

This volume is dedicated to Lewis Jones, and in memory of Olwen Jones (1917-1999)

Opening: I see my mother beside her husband in the cart, a handsome couple on their way to their new home at Tynybraich. They had just left the chapel at Dinas Mawddwy, a small village in Merionith which lies between two mountain passes.

The cover picture is The Convalescent by Gwen John

Three-farthing and Dragonetta asked Flagon* which book should I read for St. David's Day 2015 and he said ROARbecca Jones, so here we are!

* Flagon is Arbie's best friend:



Every year around this time folk get a little twitchy over the use of a spring shelf and I exact the argument that this is purely for my reading habits. The reading year is divided up into four three month segments for ease, where spring is March, April, May.

St Davids Day on March 1st, with its daff emblem endorses itself to this end and a quote used in this book expounds further this cusp of reawakening:

'At Springtide, when weather is more temperate, and the earth begins to warm, and though a fine skin of snow may sometimes fall, it will not last long, and though frost may harden the ground overnight, it is seemly for the sun's warmth to soften the day.' - Hugh Lewis 1774