classics club
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Pride and Prejudice…Again
I can barely remember a time when I hadn’t read Pride and Prejudice. My mother read it over and over so it was always lying around the house and one day I picked it up. The rest is, as they say, history. By the time I was ten or so I had read all of Austen’s novels and every biography about her that I could get my hands on. I was slightly obsessed. I still am. Austen’s novels are what I pick up when I am tired, when I am stressed, when I don’t know what book to bring with me when I am walking out the door. I don’t…
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Book Review//Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
It is impossible for me to be unbiased about Jane Austen. Let’s get that out of the way immediately. Everything she wrote was amazing and all her books are my favorite books. I have read them all over and over since I first discovered her when I was about ten years old. However, if I had to criticize a character in one of her novels it would be Marianne in Sense and Sensibility. I just want to shake her which, I know, means she is a well-drawn, believable character. But, oh my, the overwrought, teenage angst is a bit much for me. I have a lot more sympathy for Elinor and…
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Book Review//The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
If a reader must choose between Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters then I firmly come down on the side of Austen. Austen’s writing style suits me; her wit, her humor, her ability to use the trivialities of life to tell a dramatic story, all are exactly what I look for in a book. The Bronte sisters with their wuthering moors, their insane wives locked in attics, and their tragic lives are interesting but not quite my cup of tea. I read Jane Eyre a few times over the years and enjoyed it but never liked Mr. Rochester. The passion for Wuthering Heights passed me by when I was a teenager.…
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Book Review//Moonfleet by John Meade Falkner
Moonfleet is an old-fashioned adventure novel. It is the kind of book you picture a child of yesteryear devouring while sitting on the branch of a tree eating candy out of a brown paper bag, possibly falling out of the tree at the most exciting moments. Moonfleet was originally published in 1898 and apparently remained popular for many years. I never heard of it until I stumbled on a free Kindle copy ages ago. I put it on my Classics Club list and thought I would get around to it eventually. Which I did. It just took a while. John Trenchard is an orphan who lives in the village of…
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Book Review//Guard Your Daughters by Diana Tutton
I have been saving this book for a long time. Everything I read indicated it would be a book I loved, a book I would want to read over and over. Many bloggers whose opinions I trust raved about it. So, as I do, it was set aside for just the right time. Last week I pulled it off my shelf and decided that time had come. I settled down prepared for a wonderful experience. But I didn’t love it. I know, some of you are ready to click away right now so let me hasten to add that I didn’t hate it. In many ways, I enjoyed it. It…
