Jane Austen Read All-a-long Book 4: Emma

I gave up. Full confession. I tried, I really did. I even broke down and got an audio version to listen to during my commute to and from work. But I just couldn’t take it. I think it in part an effect of this little reading challenge project I set for myself. This was the fourth Jane Austen book in as many months for me. … Continue reading Jane Austen Read All-a-long Book 4: Emma

Jane Austen Read All A-long: Mansfield Park

This is a “two-gasp” Jane Austen novel. While reading it, I gasped twice. Jane Austen has this way of suddenly throwing her reader for a loop with just a tiny slip of narrative so affecting it makes this reader gasp out loud. She is a master of plotting. My gasping came during the novel’s first half.  First when young Fanny Price is forgotten by her … Continue reading Jane Austen Read All A-long: Mansfield Park

New Favorite Book/Old Favorite Book: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

This is at least the third time I’ve read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, maybe the fourth.  So I can’t really say it’s a “New Favorite Book” but I can say that it certainly holds up to re-reading. So that’s what I’m going to discuss here, the pleasures and perils of re-reading. There are some books that can be correctly understood in completely different fashions each time you read … Continue reading New Favorite Book/Old Favorite Book: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Jane Austen Read All-a-long: Sense and Sensibility

Two impressions: One, I’m surprised by just how much Jane Austen can shock me through effective plotting.  I suspect that most of her fans will list her prose, her sense of humour and her characterization as the reasons why they love her, but she’s very good with plotting, too.  There was a point in the final part of Sense and Sensibility that had me gasping in shock. … Continue reading Jane Austen Read All-a-long: Sense and Sensibility

Red Joan by Jennie Rooney

As a reader, I’m kind of a sucker. It’s easy to take me by surprise. I didn’t see any of it coming in Gone Girl. Life of Pi  came to me from far out in left field.  And I admit it, it never even occurred to me that he would sell his precious pocket watch to buy his wife a beautiful hair pin. My jaw has hit the floor … Continue reading Red Joan by Jennie Rooney

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

This was at least the third time I’ve read The Mayor of Casterbridge. Could be the fourth.  I was a big Thomas Hardy fan back in college.  For years I’ve been haunted by that final image of the dead songbird in the cage sitting on the back door steps of the newlywed’s home.  Forgotten and forsaken, like the bride’s father. Not quite how it happened, it … Continue reading The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

Mr. Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo

Was it okay for Bernadine Evaristo to write this book? I ask this question in light of the ongoing controversy over cultural appropriation, specifically who has the right to write about whom. If you haven’t been following this issue lately you might want to check out Lionel Shriver’s keynote speech at the Brisbane Writers Festival and Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s essay explaining why she walked out on … Continue reading Mr. Loverman by Bernadine Evaristo

The World Below by Sue Miller

Good intentions can change another person’s life, but this change may not always be welcome.   When the mother of two girls dies, their grandmother arrives to take them back to her rural home.  Their father refuses the offer; privately, the girls laugh at the notion of living with their backwoods relative.  But she was right. Caring for their widowed father would prove to be … Continue reading The World Below by Sue Miller

Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

I can confidently state that Bertie Wooster is the most beloved unreliable narrator in English literature.  I am unanimous in that.  Bertie narrated novels and short stories from his first appearance in 1917 to his final bow in 1974.  He never did figure out what was really going on.  It was always up to Jeeves to save the day. But Bertie charms none-the-less.  Take his … Continue reading Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price Purveyor of Superior Funerals

I thought this was going to be a romance. I picked it from my TBR shelves so I could check off the “romance” square on my book bingo card.  (I’m playing book bingo with my 7th graders this semester.  I’ve read 12 books but have yet to score a bingo.)  I don’t usually read books you could classify as “romance” so this was a tough … Continue reading The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price Purveyor of Superior Funerals

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

How much do we really know about each other? C.J. and I will celebrate 20 years together late in 2016, but do even long-term couples like us really know each other? Halfway through Lauren Groff’s new novel Fates and Furies a secret is revealed, one so dramatic that it forces one half of a decades long married couple to reconsider everything long thought to be true … Continue reading Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein

 That people, even more than things, lost their boundaries and overflowed into shapelessness is what most frightened Lila in the course of her life.  The loss of those boundaries in her brother, whom she loved more than anyone in her family, had frightened her, and the disintegration of Stefano in the passage from fiance to husband terrified her. I learned only from her notebooks how … Continue reading The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein