Tag: ernest hemingway

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Favorite Quotes from Books

Posted on by Dana

Top Ten TuesdayBusy week! I didn’t get to the Top Ten Tuesday on Tuesday at all. As soon as I finish this post, I’m off to pack up more books in preparation for next month’s move.

This week’s topic was irresistible, and I decided to participate even though I’d be late: Top Ten Favorite Book Quotes.

  1. And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…and one fine morning—

    So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.—[amazon asin=0743273567&text=The Great Gatsby], F. Scott Fitzgerald

  2. If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.—[amazon asin=0684801469&text=A Farewell to Arms], Ernest Hemingway

  3. “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”—[amazon asin=0545139708&text=Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows], J. K. Rowling

  4. “Always,” said Snape.—[amazon asin=0545139708&text=Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows], J. K. Rowling

  5. Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.—[amazon asin=0061120065&text=Their Eyes Were Watching God], Zora Neale Hurston

  6. “Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night,/Give me my Romeo; and,/When he shall die,/Take him and cut him out in little stars,/And he will make the face of heaven so fine/That all the world will be in love with night/And pay no worship to the garish sun.”—[amazon asin=0743477111&text=Romeo and Juliet], William Shakespeare

  7. “I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone, I think and plan. Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others. Too good, too excellent creature! You do us justice, indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.

    I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look, will be enough to decide whether I enter your father’s house this evening or never.”—[amazon asin=0486295559&text=Persuasion], Jane Austen

  8. “Before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”—[amazon asin=0061743526&text=To Kill a Mockingbird], Harper Lee

  9. “It is only a novel… or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”—[amazon asin=1612930840&text=Northanger Abbey], Jane Austen

  10. The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.—[amazon asin=1619493845&text=Walden], Henry David Thoreau

You know, I could really go on and on with this list. In fact, from my favorite book:

“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff!”—[amazon asin=0143105434&text=Wuthering Heights], Emily Brontë

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Top Ten Tuesday

Readers Who Don’t Read Historical Fiction

Posted on by Dana

Top Ten Tuesday

I’m a huge fan of historical fiction. I enjoy learning when I’m reading, and I have always been fascinated by history. My historical fiction reading habits may have formed when I was in middle school and started reading the Sunfire historical romances. But I recognize that not everyone really likes historical fiction. If I could recommend ten books I think might change your mind if you count yourself among those who don’t like it, I think it would be the following books:

  1. [amazon_link id=”0441020674″ target=”_blank” ]Those Across the River[/amazon_link], Christopher Buehlman: If you think you prefer horror or even just creepy stories, this historical fiction novel about werewolves in a small Georgia town might just prompt you to give historical fiction a chance. Just because it’s set in the past doesn’t mean it’s all petticoats. Review.
  2. [amazon_link id=”0440423201″ target=”_blank” ]Outlander[/amazon_link], Diana Gabaldon: This first book in the Outlander series has a bit of romance and sci-fi as well as some war drama as it begins as World War II ends and moves back in time to just before the second Jacobite Rebellion. Notoriously hard to classify, Diana Gabaldon’s books take you squarely back to another time and keep you turning the pages, too. Review.
  3. [amazon_link id=”0765356155″ target=”_blank” ]Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell[/amazon_link], Susanna Clarke: This alternative history fantasy novel set during the Napoleonic Wars pits two great magicians against one another. It’s a little bit Jane Austen, a little bit Neil Gaiman, and a little bit J.K. Rowling. Review.
  4. [amazon_link id=”034549038X” target=”_blank” ]The Dante Club[/amazon_link], Matthew Pearl: This one is part murder mystery set against the backdrop of post-Civil War Boston, where Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is translating the first American edition of Dante’s Inferno. He and his fellow poets Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, John Greenleaf Whittier, and their publisher J. T. Fields, gather to look over Longfellow’s latest cantos and offer him feedback. Meanwhile, a series of murders mimicking the punishments in Dante’s hell strike fear into the heart of the city, and only the poets know Inferno well enough to commit such crimes… Review.
  5. [amazon_link id=”0345419642″ target=”_blank” ]The Vampire Lestat[/amazon_link], Anne Rice: Anne Rice will make you interested in eighteenth and nineteenth century Paris and New Orleans. I have always thought Rice wrote better when she was writing about the past.
  6. [amazon_link id=”0345521307″ target=”_blank” ]The Paris Wife[/amazon_link], Paula McLain: This book will interest folks who normally only go for literary fiction. First, it’s about Hemingway’s time in Paris and is told from the point of view of Hadley Richardson, his first wife. Second, it’s quite literary and beautifully written itself. Review.
  7. [amazon_link id=”1565125606″ target=”_blank” ]Water for Elephants[/amazon_link], Sara Gruen: Set in a Depression-era circus, this book has a little of everything: action, forbidden romance, and running away to the circus! Review.
  8. [amazon_link id=”0684801469″ target=”_blank” ]A Farewell to Arms[/amazon_link], Ernest Hemingway: Given that this book was written in the 1920’s about WWI, I guess it qualifies as historical fiction, although it does feel like cheating to include it because I wouldn’t include a book set in the 1990’s on this list. Ah well. At any rate, it’s a great novel, well written, with some of the most beautiful passages in American literature. And it’s Hemingway writing on war. Review.
  9. [amazon_link id=”B000FC10KC” target=”_blank” ]Ahab’s Wife[/amazon_link], Sena Jeter Naslund: Not only does this one give you the perspective of Captain Ahab’s wife Una, but you also learn quite a bit about nineteenth century New England. The book is gorgeous. One of my favorites of all time. Review.
  10. [amazon_link id=”0061577073″ target=”_blank” ]The Poisonwood Bible[/amazon_link], Barbara Kingsolver: This book is for those who love literary fiction, symbolism, and allegory and think it can’t be found in historical fiction. This is a beautiful book, another one of my favorites, and so important in terms thinking about Africa and America’s own role in colonial history. Review.

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Obscure Books Challenge

2012 Obscure Books Challenge

Posted on by Dana

Obscure Books ChallengeI said I wasn’t going to do this, and maybe I’m crazy, but you know, sometimes you just run with your ideas. I was looking at a copy of [amazon_link id=”143918271X” target=”_blank” ]A Moveable Feast[/amazon_link] that I checked out of my school library, and it had a list of Hemingway’s published books. Some of them I’d never heard of. I’m no Hemingway scholar, but I did teach American literature for a long time. It’s not shocking, I suppose that Hemingway wrote books I had never heard of, but it made me think. Hemingway was awarded a Nobel Prize and wrote many books that are now considered classics. It seemed strange to me that he had written these other books that received less notice, and I wondered if it bothered him that the books were not as well received as some of his others.

Most writers publish more than one book (Harper Lee is a notable exception). Not every book published by every writer is destined to become a classic. My book club chose to read George Orwell’s novel [amazon_link id=”0156196255″ target=”_blank” ]Coming Up for Air[/amazon_link], which I had never heard of until it was suggested. Sometimes there is a good reason why a book doesn’t become well known, but sometimes pretty good books are either overlooked or overshadowed by their more well known cousins. Almost every writer who has published a classic has published several books that are less widely read.

So I created a reading challenge based on reading lesser known works by well known writers. It’s called the Obscure Books Challenge.

Guidelines? Well, the books don’t have to be books no one has ever heard of, but they should be less well known. For example, everyone has heard of [amazon_link id=”0743273567″ target=”_blank” ]The Great Gatsby[/amazon_link], and if people read only one of Fitzgerald’s books, it’s probably that one. But he wrote several others, including [amazon_link id=”0486289990″ target=”_blank” ]This Side of Paradise[/amazon_link], [amazon_link id=”1743383843″ target=”_blank” ]The Beautiful and Damned[/amazon_link], and [amazon_link id=”0684830507″ target=”_blank” ]Tender is the Night[/amazon_link]. The first two appear to have entered the public domain and can even be downloaded for free on the Kindle. If you liked The Great Gatsby, but you haven’t read Fitzgerald’s other novels, perhaps this challenge will give you an excuse for doing so.

Or suppose you’ve read Mark Twain’s [amazon_link id=”0393966402″ target=”_blank” ]The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn[/amazon_link], but never heard of [amazon_link id=”1463710399″ target=”_blank” ]Pudd’nhead Wilson[/amazon_link]? I’ve read it twice. It’s not bad. It’s not Huck Finn, but it’s not bad.

If this challenge sounds like something you might want to try, head on over to the challenge page and sign up. You can post links to your reviews on the review page and be entered to win a giveaway each month. Giveways for each month will be announced on the review page so that you can decide whether you want the book in question and want to submit a review in order to be in the running for the giveaway. Note: the giveaway books may or may not be related to the theme. It depends on what I can get my hands on, so just keep an eye on the review page for details.

I am not going to go nuts and over-commit myself to my own challenge because I have already entered quite a lot of challenges that (if I’m honest) interest me more, but in the spirit of being a good host, I will participate at The Stranger level and commit to reading three lesser known books by well known authors. These are the books I plan to read:

[amazon_image id=”1743383843″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Beautiful and Damned – The Original Classic Edition[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”0684865726″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]True At First Light : A Fictional Memoir[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”0140434798″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Villette (Penguin Classics)[/amazon_image]

I already happen to have copies of The Beautiful and Damned and Villette, and I should probably read them. True at First Light intrigues me for several reasons. First, Hemingway was working on it when he died, and his son Patrick edited it and published it a little over ten years ago. Second, it’s set in Africa. I don’t know why I enjoy reading books set in Africa so much. I should read more of them. I think part of me wants to visit Africa, but I’m also a little afraid, particularly after reading [amazon_link id=”0061577073″ target=”_blank” ]The Poisonwood Bible[/amazon_link] (such a great book!). It’s a place of such extremes: vast deserts, tropical rainforests, animals that don’t live anywhere else. The third reason I want to read this Hemingway book is that it’s mired in controversy over whether Patrick Hemingway should have edited and published it. The reviews are really split. Seems people either love it or hate it. Sounds like it provokes a strong reaction. Plus it’s available at PaperBackSwap, so I don’t have to buy it.

If I find I want to add books to this challenge pile, I’ll do so later, but for right now, these three books look good to me.

No more challenges. And don’t you all go posting any interesting challenges that I feel compelled to join!

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Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Everyone Has Read but Me…

Posted on by Dana

Top Ten TuesdayThis week’s Top Ten Tuesday focuses on the top ten books I feel as though everyone has read but me. I went to three different high schools. I can’t remember reading a single book for school during all of tenth grade. In fact, all I remember about that year was doing grammar exercises out of the Warriner’s grammar book and feeling that our teacher hated us. Eleventh and twelfth grade were better, but I still managed to graduate from high school (and college, as an English major no less) without having been required to read a lot of books that seem to be staples in the canon.

  1. [amazon_link id=”0452284236″ target=”_blank” ]Nineteen Eighty-Four[/amazon_link] by George Orwell. I actually do want to read this one, and I had every intention of reading it this year, but I think you have to be in a mood for dystopian literature, and frankly, that mood hasn’t happened this year.
  2. [amazon_link id=”0142000671″ target=”_blank” ]Of Mice and Men[/amazon_link] by John Steinbeck. I’ve seen the movie many times, and it’s not like it’s a long book. It’s just that, well, the mood thing. At least that’s my excuse for not reading it this year. You know, I put together this reading challenge specifically to address some of these deficiencies, and I read all of one book for it.
  3. [amazon_link id=”0143039431″ target=”_blank” ]The Grapes of Wrath[/amazon_link] by John Steinbeck. Ditto.
  4. [amazon_link id=”0307454541″ target=”_blank” ]The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo[/amazon_link] by Stieg Larson. Not sure I want to read it, but man, hasn’t everyone else?
  5. [amazon_link id=”0307594009″ target=”_blank” ]Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl[/amazon_link] by Anne Frank. I somehow never got around to this one. I teach at a Jewish school, but the students tend to read it in middle school now.
  6. [amazon_link id=”B000XSKDH4″ target=”_blank” ]Anne of Green Gables[/amazon_link] by L.M. Montgomery. Would I like this? I was never sure, so I never picked it up. Now it almost feels too late to bother.
  7. [amazon_link id=”1420929089″ target=”_blank” ]Little Women[/amazon_link] by Louisa May Alcott. Even my husband has read this book. I never really wanted to, but it sure seems like everyone else has read it.
  8. [amazon_link id=”0375842209″ target=”_blank” ]The Book Thief[/amazon_link] by Marcus Zusak. I have finally been convinced to put this on my TBR pile, but frankly, I avoid books about the Holocaust mainly because it was such a tragic event—many of my students’ grandparents are Holocaust survivors—and sometimes I feel that books and movies try to capitalize on it. It’s hard to explain how I feel. It’s sort of like writing a college admissions essay that deals with your brother being killed by a drunk driver—the admissions committee looks callous if they pick at your writing ability with a subject so fraught with emotion, but the point behind the essay is to evaluate your writing ability. It’s a form of manipulation. That’s how I feel about Holocaust books and movies—it’s almost impossible to criticize them because you look like a horrible person. Case in point, [amazon_link id=”0198326769″ target=”_blank” ]The Boy in the Striped Pajamas[/amazon_link] probably couldn’t have happened in reality because of the manner in which the Nazis dealt with children during the Holocaust, and yet, how do you point that out without looking like a complete ass? I should just stop because you probably think I’m a horrible person.
  9. [amazon_link id=”1594480001″ target=”_blank” ]The Kite Runner[/amazon_link] by Khaled Hosseini. I started this one, but didn’t get far. My daughter has read it. She said it’s excellent.
  10. [amazon_link id=”1451626657″ target=”_blank” ]Catch-22[/amazon_link] by Joseph Heller. This seems to be some kind of staple of teens/twenties. I don’t know how I passed the threshold into the my thirties without having my book passport stamped with this one, but I snuck by somehow. And now that I’m officially in my 40’s, I’m just not even sure I’d want to bother.

In addition to these books, I haven’t read much Kurt Vonnegut at all (that is, I have read one short story). I’ve also read precious little Dickens ([amazon_link id=”0142196584″ target=”_blank” ]A Tale of Two Cities[/amazon_link], [amazon_link id=”0142196584″ target=”_blank” ]Great Expectations[/amazon_link], and [amazon_link id=”1612930336″ target=”_blank” ]A Christmas Carol[/amazon_link] being the only selections I’ve read).

However! Before the admonitions start in the comments, I would like to add that I have read all of the following books that seem to be cropping up on these lists on other peoples’ blogs today:

  • [amazon_link id=”B003GCTQ7M” target=”_blank” ]Moby Dick[/amazon_link] by Herman Melville
  • [amazon_link id=”B003VYBQPK” target=”_blank” ]The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn[/amazon_link] by Mark Twain
  • [amazon_link id=”0743273567″ target=”_blank” ]The Great Gatsby[/amazon_link] by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • [amazon_link id=”0684801469″ target=”_blank” ]A Farewell to Arms[/amazon_link] by Ernest Hemingway
  • [amazon_link id=”0679723161″ target=”_blank” ]Lolita[/amazon_link] by Vladimir Nabokov
  • [amazon_link id=”0199536368″ target=”_blank” ]Crime and Punishment[/amazon_link] by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  • [amazon_link id=”0143105442″ target=”_blank” ]The Scarlet Letter[/amazon_link] by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • All of Jane Austen’s completed books (the six novels)
  • [amazon_link id=”0143106155″ target=”_blank” ]Jane Eyre[/amazon_link] and [amazon_link id=”0143105434″ target=”_blank” ]Wuthering Heights[/amazon_link] by Charlotte and Emily Brontë respectively

So, I am not a complete slouch.

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Booking Through Thursday: Stormy Weather

Posted on by Dana

Good Night Irene [hd video]

No, your calendar is not wrong. I didn’t do Booking Through Thursday on Thursday mainly because I had a book to review that day, but I liked the topic:

What’s your [favorite] book with weather events? Hurricanes? Tornadoes? Blizzards? Real? Fiction? Doesn’t matter … weather comes up a lot in books, so there’s got to be a favorite somewhere, huh?

My absolute favorite book featuring a weather event is [amazon_link id=”0061120065″ target=”_blank” ]Their Eyes Were Watching God[/amazon_link] by Zora Neale Hurston. First of all, let’s say a quick prayer of thanks to Alice Walker for bringing that book out of obscurity and doing everything she did to ensure Hurston wouldn’t be forgotten again. Thank you, Alice Walker. In that book, Janie and Tea Cake are caught in a hurricane in Florida. In the ensuing flood, something terrible happens that will change both their destinies forever. Oh, it’s such a wonderful book.

I have to give honorable mentions to the rainstorm at the end of [amazon_link id=”0684801469″ target=”_blank” ]A Farewell To Arms[/amazon_link], too. And without the tempest, we wouldn’t have [amazon_link id=”0743482832″ target=”_blank” ]The Tempest[/amazon_link]. [amazon_link id=”0743484959″ target=”_blank” ]King Lear[/amazon_link] also has a great storm: “Blow winds, and crack your cheeks!”

photo credit: NASA Goddard Photo and Video

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Friday Finds

Friday Finds—June 24, 2011

Posted on by Dana

Friday FindsI found a lot of interesting books this week! My department chair recommended Jennifer Donnelly’s [amazon_link id=”0312378025″ target=”_blank” ]The Tea Rose[/amazon_link], which happens to be the first in a trilogy—the other two books are [amazon_link id=”1401307469″ target=”_blank” ]The Winter Rose[/amazon_link] and [amazon_link id=”1401301045″ target=”_blank” ]The Wild Rose[/amazon_link]. I can’t wait to read these books.

Amazon sent me a mailer recommending some historical fiction that looks interesting. [amazon_link id=”0312144075″ target=”_blank” ]The Samurai’s Garden[/amazon_link] by Gail Tsukiyama has over four stars on Goodreads after thousands of ratings. That looks promising, even if some of my Goodreads friends didn’t care for it. A reviewer said of [amazon_link id=”B004VD3XQU” target=”_blank” ]The Lotus Eaters[/amazon_link] by Tatjana Soli that if you’ve never read a book about the Vietnam War, this is a good one to start with. Sounds good to me. Alan Brennert’s [amazon_link id=”0312304358″ target=”_blank” ]Moloka’i[/amazon_link] is about the leper colony in Hawaii and also has a high rating on Goodreads.

I can’t decide if [amazon_link id=”1599952025″ target=”_blank” ]The Yellow House[/amazon_link] by Patricia Falvey us up my alley or not. It’s set in Northern Ireland during the Revolutionary period, and I would like to read more about that time, but it also features a main character torn between an Irish political activist working to help Ireland achieve independence from Britain and the black sheep son of a wealthy Quaker family that owns the mill where she works. It reminds me a bit of the scenario presented in all those teen historical romances published by Sunfire in the 1980’s. The girl almost always chose the guy who was more rebellious and dangerous. The only exception I can think of is in the novel [amazon_link id=”0590331566″ target=”_blank” ]Danielle (Sunfire, No 4)[/amazon_link]. I quit reading the novels after a while because they were too predictable—even if I did learn a lot about history from them. In fact, I probably have them to thank for my love for historical fiction. I need to write a Life in Books post about those novels soon. I am suddenly overcome by a wave of nostalgia.

After reading [amazon_link id=”0345521307″ target=”_blank” ]The Paris Wife[/amazon_link] by Paula McLain (review), I sought out [amazon_link id=”143918271X” target=”_blank” ]A Moveable Feast[/amazon_link] and discovered a newly restored edition published in 2009. I am interested to read it after reading the story of the Paris years from Hadley’s point of view.

Browsing around on Goodreads for books set in Paris, I found [amazon_link id=”1596914254″ target=”_blank” ]Paris: The Secret History[/amazon_link] by Andrew Hussey. It’s not about Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. It’s more about the prostitutes, street urchins, opium addicts, and artists. Looks really good.

[amazon_image id=”0312378025″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Tea Rose: A Novel[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”1401307469″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Winter Rose[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”1401301045″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Wild Rose[/amazon_image]

[amazon_image id=”0312144075″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Samurai’s Garden: A Novel[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”B004VD3XQU” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Lotus Eaters: A Novel (Reading Group Gold)[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”0312304358″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Moloka’i[/amazon_image]

[amazon_image id=”1599952025″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Yellow House: A Novel[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”143918271X” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”1596914254″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Paris: The Secret History[/amazon_image]

So did you find any good books this week?

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A Farewell to Arms

Posted on by Dana

A Farewell To ArmsWe were having some trouble with our Internet connection this morning. Since it looked like it was going to be a long-standing issue, perhaps even stretching into the beginning of the week (quelle horreur!), I decided to try to finish A Farewell to Arms. I am teaching it for the first time starting next week, and I wanted to be ready. I have not read a lot of Hemingway’s novels. I have never read The Old Man and the Sea or For Whom the Bell Tolls, but I have read and loved The Sun Also Rises. I have read and loved many of his short stories.

If you haven’t read A Farewell to Arms, parts of this review are really spoilery. I had the end spoiled for me long ago, and it didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the book one whit, but if your mileage varies on that score, then consider yourself forewarned.

Continue reading “A Farewell to Arms” →

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Reading Update: August 8, 2010

Posted on by Dana

HatsI’m still reading books set in Salem. After finishing Brunonia Barry’s The Map of True Places and The Lace Reader, I returned to Katherine Howe’s The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, although this book is set more in Marblehead than Salem, it does have some scenes in Salem. I think my favorite thing about Salem was just walking around and looking at everything. It truly is a unique town, and I do hope I have the opportunity to go back.

In addition to The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, I’ve begun a new DailyLit selection: Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations. I haven’t read this one. I know, I know. Well, it sure starts off with a bang! Dickens was a master of characterization.

I am still reading just finished Charity Girl. I believe I’ll be finished with that one in a day or two, but my review will not appear here until the day it is published at Austenprose.

I am now about halfway through A Farewell to Arms. At this point, Catherine is pregnant, and Henry is going back to the front. I am wondering what is going to happen. I know the ending of this book. Years of being an English teacher have spoiled that plot, but I still wonder how we will get from here to there, and I wonder what will happen in between. I also found myself looking up “jaundice” on Wikipedia to see if it can be caused by alcoholism, and it looks like it can. Hemingway’s economy with words is beautiful in its simplicity. He still manages to capture so much with so little.

I’ve been trying to decide what I should read next. I’m still on this Salem kick, so I might read The Heretic’s Daughter, but I think I will scout around. Has anyone read Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman? I was going to swear off Hoffman after her Twitter rant last year, but this book looks interesting to me.

On a side note, Apture, the tool I use to create links on this site, appears to be broken at the moment, so the links might not pop up as enhanced links the way they usually do. And this post took twice as long to write as it would have with Apture. Hope they fix it soon!

photo credit: danahuff

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The Woman in White
A Picture Paints a Thousand Words

Reading Update: August 2, 2010

Posted on by Dana

Finished scarfAfter finishing The Map of True Places, I decided to re-read The Lace Reader. I won’t give away the spoilery ending, but I will say that The Lace Reader is an interesting and different book on a re-read after the reader knows how it ends. I had forgotten that Ann Chase, who appears in The Map of True Places, was also in this book, but when she mentions being friends with Towner Whitney, I looked it up and discovered she had indeed been a character. She is such a fun character and so well drawn. It would be interesting for Barry to give her a story in which she takes center stage. Barry casts Ann Chase as a descendant of Giles and Martha Corey, which isn’t possible because they had no children together. I don’t know if it’s a mistake, poetic license, or Towner’s error. It might have been fun to cast Ann as a descendant of John and Elizabeth Proctor—perhaps even the baby Elizabeth was carrying that saved her life until the hysteria died down. Lace reading is one of those things that sounds so true it’s a bit of a surprise to learn that Brunonia Barry invented it. I’ll bet it has some practitioners now. At any rate, I think I’m actually enjoying this novel more on a re-read than I did the first time around, perhaps because I recently visited the novel’s setting or perhaps because I’m reading it with different eyes knowing the ending. Either way, I’m turning the pages. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Barry signed my paperback copies of The Lace Reader in addition to my copies of The Map of True Places. I won two copies of each book as part of my prize package. I’m on about page 60, but will probably read some more before I call it night.

Aside from The Lace Reader, I’m also reading Georgette Heyer’s Charity Girl for Austenprose’s Celebration of Georgette Heyer. It’s a quick read, but I have to admit that the Regency slang is hard for me to navigate. I have had to use the dictionary a lot (thank goodness I’m reading it on my Kindle, so that’s easy). I have a quibble with the Kindle edition, however. Many of the words are broken up (i.e. to gether) and the paragraphs are formatted wrong. No indentation at the beginning of a new one and little indication of a new paragraph. It’s been maddening to read from an aesthetic viewpoint. I think I’ll finish it quickly. I’m 46% done now.

I am also reading Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, which I have never read. I am teaching American literature again this year, and it’s the only required book for summer reading. The other books are choice books. Because we are supposed to teach the required book as our first unit, I need to read it. It’s not bad, but it’s not really what I want to read right now in my current frame of mind, so I’ve not got too far. I’m also reading it on the Kindle, and I’m 12% finished.

So what are you reading? Is it good?

photo credit: Maria Keays

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Reading Update: July 31, 2010

Posted on by Dana

WitchI have been reading Georgette Heyer’s Regency romance Charity Girl for the Celebration of Georgette Heyer at Austenprose. I am about 1/3 the way through. I also picked up Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms because I need to have it read before school starts: it’s summer reading for my 10th grade students, and I haven’t read it before. I know, shocking! I like it so far, but I can’t deny that I have truly been wanting to read something set in Salem ever since my trip. I tried to tell myself I was going to finish these two books first and then I could indulge, but you know what? It’s summer, and I’m going to read it now if I want to. So I have started Brunonia Barry’s The Map of True Places. I will probably move on to something else set in Salem for as long as the mood lasts. I had a wonderful time there, and I so enjoyed seeing everything I had read about.

Plus, how cool is it that the first few results in my Photodropper plugin that helps me find Flickr images I can use on my blog returned my own photographs?

photo credit: danahuff

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