A few weeks ago, my friend Cheryl, knowing how much I love England and books about nature, recommended that I read Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature by Linda Lear. As luck would have it, the book was available in our library, and I checked it out.

When most people think about Beatrix Potter, Peter Rabbit and all the small animals in her other stories come to mind. And how you feel about Beatrix Potter often depends on how much you like charm and fancy. I must admit that I am a sucker for such things. Seldom is anything too fanciful for me, but I do understand how some people might find Potter’s work a little too twee. Those trousers, that hat, the little dress, and on a rabbit, duck, or pig.

However, as Linda Lear makes it clear in her lengthy but absorbing biography of Beatrix Potter, the creator of Peter Rabbit was a multi-talented, extremely bright woman who made herself useful in a time when women of her class were not expected to do much. Peter Rabbit and the other animal tales were but one aspect of this complex woman.

Born in 1866 to parents who were extremely conservative and overprotective—some might say smothering—Potter was nonetheless encouraged to draw, paint, and explore nature on summer trips her family took to England’s Lake District and to Scotland. As a young woman, Potter become fascinated by fungi, and she spent much of her time painting and observing them. Eventually she came up with her own theory of germination and spores. (This was in her pre-Peter Rabbit days.) She submitted a paper “On the Germination of the Spore of Agaricinea” to the Linnean Society in… 1897.”

Lear writes, “The Linnean Society did not reject Potter’s paper because they never seriously considered it….Beatrix was too insignificant a player for the establishment to be concerned with. To have noticed her would only have called more attention to her unwelcome and unproven theories…That they were antagonistic to her as a woman and as an amateur goes without saying, and their bad manners account for the LInnean Society’s official ‘apology’ for the sins of historic sexism a century later.”

And that was that. Except for Beatrix Potter, it wasn’t. Over the years, she had written picture letters to the children of a former Governess, Annie Moore. “Annie Moore suggested that some of {Potter’s]  pictures letters could be made into interesting books for little children….Beatrix was taken by the idea.”

Hence, Peter Rabbit was born, to be followed by Benjamin Bunny, Jemima Puddle-Duck, Jeremy Fisher, and various other characters that would become beloved by generations of children. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by revealing that Potter’s books sold very, very well. In addition, Potter, who was a brilliant marketer—is there anything this woman couldn’t do?—came up with what we would now call spin-off products: games, dishes, stuffed animals, and various other related items.

Peter Rabbit and Company made Potter an independently rich woman. To add to Potter’s wealth, an aunt died and left a substantial inheritance to her niece. Did Potter then decide to rest and retire in style, say, taking in the sights of Europe or taking a trip around the world?

She did not. Instead Potter continued to write, bought land in the Lake District, got married at age forty-seven, started raising sheep, and bought more land—well over 3,000 acres, which she would later donate to the National Trust so that the land would be preserved after her death.

This review is just a survey of this remarkable woman who was so enormously talented and creative yet did not believe in women’s suffrage. (I certainly have a hard time wrapping my mind around that contradiction.)

Lear’s biography accomplished what a good biography should. It expanded my appreciation of the subject, whom I had taken for granted as a children’s writer, which, in all fairness, would have been enough. Little did I know of Potter’s other accomplishments, this energetic Victorian who blazed through life, turning her attention not only to rabbits and ducks but also to fungi, sheep breeding, and land preservation.

Last night, I went to book group, which is hosted by our town’s library and run by the inimitable Shane Billings, the Adult Services Librarian. He started the book group over five years ago, and I’ve been with it since the beginning, with a few breaks here and there.

This month’s book was The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin. Here are the basics of the story: A young but cranky man, A. J. Fikry, runs a bookstore on Alice, a fictitious island off the coast of Massachusetts.  When the story opens, A. J.’s wife has recently died in a car accident, and the grieving A. J. plans to drink himself to death. His suicidal plans are interrupted by Maya, an abandoned two year old who is left in his bookstore.  A.J.’s love for Maya—and hers for him—gives his life meaning. (And, yes, there is more than a little similarity between this story and Silas Marner.) From there the story sweeps out to include Lambiase, a kindly police officer;  A.j.’s dodgy sister-in-law, Ismay—how can she help being dodgy with a name like that?; and Amy, a dedicated bookseller from the mainland. There isn’t much of a plot—more a sweep of years, handled beautifully—spiced with the theft of a rare manuscript and another car crash that might or might not be murder. Finally, and perhaps best of all, there is the love of books that thrums through the story and connects the characters.

As was noted at book group, this is a sentimental story, but it is redeemed, to a large extent, by Zevin’s fine writing. In short, it is a sentimental tale told well.

There was a lively discussion about Ismay, the dodgy sister-in-law. Most of the members of the book group—composed mainly of older women—felt sympathy for Ismay, but the one young man who comes loathed her character. He didn’t see that Ismay had any redeeming qualities. Certainly, this point of view, while a little harsh, could be defended, and indeed in the book, young Maya doesn’t much like Ismay either.

One of the great things about our book group—Title Waves, it’s called—is that by and large, for over an hour, we discuss the book and nothing else. There is little chit-chat about personal matters, and we take the books and the discussions very seriously. After all, we are people who love books. At the same time, we are able to laugh and joke about our disagreements. There are some, like me, who have been there since the beginning, and there are many newcomers, too. All are welcome.

As Mona, one of the members, put it, “We all feel safe to express our opinions. It’s all right to disagree, and we do it respectfully.”

Yes, we do, and it is this attitude, along with the books, that has kept me coming to book group for over five years.

During this busy time of year, especially when I have a cold—as I do now—I inevitably turn to Miss Read (aka Dora Saint) for some peace, common sense, and just plain fun. I am lucky enough to own Miss Read’s Christmas: Village Christmas and The Christmas Mouse, and how nice it is to just take it from the bookshelf.

What do I like so much about Miss Read? First, there are her depictions of nature. This description of rain is from the first two paragraphs in The Christmas Mouse: “The rain began at noon. At first it fell lightly, making little noise. Only the darkening of the thatched roofs, and the sheen on the damp flagstones made people aware of the rain. It was dismissed as ‘only a mizzle’….But by two o’clock…[t]he wind had swung round to the northwest, and the drizzle had turned to a downpour. It hissed among the dripping trees, pattered upon the cabbages in cottage gardens and drummed the bare soil with pock marks.”

When I read that description, I could feel, hear, and see the rain. Such lovely, evocative writing.

Then, there is what the The New Yorker called Miss Read’s “beery sense of humor.” In The Christmas Mouse, the story revolves around three generations—Mrs. Berry, the grandmother; Mary, her widowed daughter; and Frances and Jane, Mary’s two young daughters. It is Christmas Eve, and the children are beside themselves with excitement. (Thank goodness that never changes!) Frances and Jane have just bounded from their bath into their mother’s bedroom.

“‘The water’s all gone. Frances pushed out the plug—‘

‘I never then!’

‘Yes, you did! You know you did! Mum, she wriggled it out with her bottom—”

They began to giggle, eying each other.

‘Let’s go down and frighten [Gran], all bare,” cried Jane.

‘Don’t you dare now!’ said their mother, her voice sharpened by the thought of the [girls’] slippers being wrapped below.”

Finally, there is Miss Read’s great respect for work and home. Here she describes Mrs. Berry and her husband: “Amelia and Stanley were true homemakers….She could make frocks for the children, curtains, and rag rugs as competently as she could make a cottage pie or a round of shortbread….Stanley saw to it that any stonework or woodwork was in good repair. They shared the gardening, and it was Mrs. Berry’s pride that they never needed to buy a vegetable.”

In Maine, I’ve known many a Franco-American and many a Yankee who would fit the description of Amelia and Stanley.  And I still do.

Perhaps that’s why Miss Read never grows stale for me. Her observations about human nature, work and home, and the natural world continue to ring as true now, in 2015, as they did when she wrote in the 1960s and 1970s,