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As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning | Laurie Lee
13 posts | 10 read | 2 reading | 8 to read
"I was nineteen years old, still soft at the edges, but with a confident belief in good fortune. I carried a small rolled-up tent, a violin in a blanket, a change of clothes, a tin of treacle biscuits, and some cheese. I was excited, vain-glorious, knowing I had far to go; but not, as yet, how far." Despite this romantic and optimistic opening, what Lee finds is the most primitive and feudal country in Europe, a peninsula untouched by the modern world, a land of labor without dignity, a church devoid of compassion, and a country ripe for revolutionary change. There is humor, love, and adolescent awakening, but beneath is a foreboding sense of a savage future, a premonition that a war will come. For Lee, 1936 was the end of innocence, when "it was being learned again that men needed more than courage, anger, slogans, convictions, or even a just cause when they went to war." Thus Lee becomes entangled in the passionate, violent, and bloody struggle that was the Spanish Civil War.
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Teresereading
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The stooping figure of my mother, waist-deep in the grass and caught there like a piece of sheep‘s wool, was the last I saw of my country home as I left it to discover the world.
Phew!
I discovered a lovely illustrated copy of this at a little library. Loving it.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

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Teresereading
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The stooping figure of my mother, waist-deep in the grass and caught there like a piece of sheep‘s wool, was the last I saw of my country home as I left it to discover the world.
Phew!
I discovered a lovely illustrated copy of this at a little library. Loving it.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

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Oblomov26
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Pickpick

Tale of the authors walk from the west of England to the South of Spain via the London, with no means of support except his fiddle which he used to busk, living the life of the hobo, learning from other travellers on the road. . He arrived in the south of Spain just in time for the civil war to commence. Lee was a hell of a writer, whose prose for description of place and time and feelings, I would rate favourably with Orwell.

Soubhiville Oooo, sounds like something I‘d really like. 😀 4y
bnp Sounds fascinating! 4y
46 likes2 stack adds2 comments
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TheEllieMo
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Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks 👍🏻📚🌞 5y
OriginalCyn620 👍🏻📚☀️ 5y
25 likes2 comments
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rachaich
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Pickpick

Brilliant.
Wonderful prose, such detail in his surroundings.
I want to read more!

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rachaich
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Such beautiful prose. Such intricate descriptions.
I like 😍😍🤗🤗

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rachaich
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Book club pick for June.
I've read a few about the Spanish civil war recently so fits in well!!

Cathythoughts Such a beautiful title 5y
CaitlinR Sounds like an interesting book club. 5y
rachaich @CaitlinR it's a wonderful book club. We started as strangers and are all extremely different in every way but have become close friends and confidante. 5y
15 likes1 stack add3 comments
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Janeeny
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Janeeny
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Now starting my May suggestion from the Penguin reading challenge

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Bookwomble
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Pickpick

As I Walked Out Midsummer Morning sees Lee's leave-taking of his village home in the Cotswold countryside and his entry into the bigger world. It's a transition from a rural lifestyle that had not significantly changed for hundreds of years to the modern twentieth-century urban environment. Having seen the big city, Lee wants to see more of the world, and we are therefore gifted with his wondrously brilliant sketch of Spain. 👇🏻👇🏻

Bookwomble The heat and light of the Spanish plains seems to pour off the page and you feel transported. 7y
12 likes1 stack add1 comment
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charl08
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#maylovesclassics a love story to Spain.

42 likes2 stack adds
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rockpools
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Robothugs Good pick 😊 7y
batsy Something about those older Penguin covers 💚 7y
Cinfhen Great choice ~ I'm stumped for today 🤔 7y
rockpools @Cinfhen possibly a tad predictable, but ho hum! I'm enjoying all the pretty beachy sunrise pics 🌅 7y
Cinfhen Me too! Never get tired of seeing a beautiful sunrise 💕 7y
32 likes5 comments