The Chancellor has, of course, read The Giver, and apparently so has everyone else but me. I don’t know why I didn’t read it, but somehow it slipped away. And then, of course, the movie is out, so there’s new buzz. We’re going to see it this weekend, so I decided to read it and get my view of the book first. So glad I did. What a beautiful and amazing and heartbreaking book. How are they ever going to do it justice in the […]
Jane Austen, meet Margaret Atwood.
Paging Jane Austen enthusiasts! Paging Jane Austen enthusiasts! This is pretty much the greatest Austen adaptation I’ve read–and I’m including Longbourn, which is the second-greatest Austen adaptation (and I’ll be honest–it was a close call. If you don’t like sci-fi or speculative fiction that much, you may give the preference to Longbourn, which is totally understandable. But you really don’t have to like sci-fi to enjoy this novel). I first heard of this book, because scootsa1000 read it and gave an excellent summary and review. […]
Would I live in Dunnet Landing? Maybe…
I read A Country Doctor ten years ago for my American Literature survey course in college. I remember enjoying it quite a bit, but didn’t know that Jewett was more famous for The Country of the Pointed Firs. Ten years later, I finally got around to reading it. It’s not a plot-driven text. In fact, it’s way more experiential than plot-oriented, and I’m not sure how to go about talking about a book like this. Jewett does a great job of creating a scene, a […]
Willa Cather–grand dame of friendship and the Great Plains
So: Willa Cather is a new favorite author. I’ve spent this summer devouring four of her most well-known books, and I have enjoyed them all so deeply. This one is great, because it encapsulates the nature of growing up, moving on, and coming back as adults to soak in the memories and re-ignite the past. Jim Burden is an orphan who moves to his grandparents’ farm in Nebraska. Here, he meets the intriguing Bohemian girl Antonia Shimerda and strikes up a lifelong friendship. The novel […]
Undying Faith and Friendship
Once I find an author I like, I find all of his/her books and read away like a crazy person. I never expected to say that of Willa Cather. But seriously: she’s The Best. Death Comes for the Archbishop covers the saga of bringing the Catholic faith to the American Southwest through the eyes of French bishop, Jean Latour and his best friend Joseph Vaillant. They endure hardships, uncharted territory, language barriers, and cultural barriers to bring church to the Mexicans and Indians living in […]
Mark Twain isn’t such a pudd’nhead after all.
I’ve never been a huge Mark Twain fan. I read Tom Sawyer as a kid, and Huckleberry Finn in college, and my overall response was “Eh.” I never appreciated Twain’s remarks about Jane Austen, particularly because his own style of writing sometimes felt very…crude? unfinished? to me. Now that I’ve read Pudd’nhead Wilson, however, I feel somewhat more magnanimous towards Twain and his witticisms. Dave Wilson is a young attorney who moves to Dawson’s Landing, Missouri and promptly makes a foolish joke. People call him […]
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