Shelf Control #178: Celia by E.H. Young

Wednesday, the 30th of March, and time for Shelf Control once again! Shelf Control is a weekly feature hosted by Lisa at Bookshelf Fantasies, and celebrates the books waiting to be read on your TBR piles/mountains. To participate, all you do is pick a book from your TBR pile, and write a post about it–what its about, why you want to read it, when you got it, and such. If you participate, don’t forget to link back to Lisa’s page, and do also leave your links in the comments below as I’d love to check out your picks as well!

Today my pick is Celia by E.H. Young (1937). Emily Hilda (E.H.) Young was an English novelist, children’s writer and also mountaineer. Born in Northumberland in 1880, she was educated at Gateshead Secondary School and Penrhos College. During the First World War, she worked as a stable groom and in a munitions factory. In 1902, she had married solicitor John Arthur Helton Daniell, and with him moved to Bristol where she developed and interest in philosophy and also began her writing career.

This week’s pick, Celia is the story of a disillusioned housewife in her 40s who lives with an architect husband and two children in a flat. She is tired of married life and all that sustains her is the memory of one she had fallen in love with years ago. Rather than complaining about her situation, she creates her own private world of thoughts open to no other.

E.H. Young is an author I’d come across some years ago, especially her best-known book, Miss Mole (one which I’m yet to read, in fact even find a copy of), but hadn’t had a chance to read so far. This book seems interesting since Young explores relationships–marriages and families, as also the people themselves; what also stands out in the description is a protagonist who doesn’t allow her situation to oppress her, rather she makes the best of what she has–definitely very different from the usual course of things.

Book info from Goodreads and Google Books; author info from Wikipedia

Ali from Heavenali has reviewed the book here

Lisa’s pick this week is another which I am interested in looking up sometime, The Radium Girls (2017) by Kate Moore, the story of the experiences of the many hundreds of girls who worked in radium dial factories, which went on to ignore all claims of radium’s gruesome side-effects.