The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, he is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath have stored…” Were you oblivious like me that these were the words in the first line of the Battle Hymn of the Republic? I’m not sure if these are the same grapes Steinbeck is referring to, but there is enough wrath in the world to go around, whether it’s the wrath of the Union army during the Civil War or the wrath […]
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
This is a book that I feel like I should have read years ago, but somehow I missed that lesson in school. It’s one of those books that is referenced a lot in pop culture so I felt it was time for me to familiarize myself with the source material. It’s funny, after the first page, I thought, “I like this guy! He’s entertaining to listen to.” That lasted maybe…10 pages? If that? I gotta tell you, Holden Caulfield got old REAL fast. I realized […]
Some Luck by Jane Smiley
I really enjoy this book and I think this is my second or third time reading it. Some Luck follows the Langdon family, who start off as farmers in Iowa. Each chapter is one year in their lives, and that concept makes this book very readable, as it moves along at a fast pace. This is the first book in a trilogy and covers 1920 to 1953. I think the thing that makes this book more than a gimmick is Jane Smiley’s beautiful prose — there are […]
The Awakening is considered by many to be an American classic and a forerunner of modern feminist literature. Yet when it was published in 1899, it received more negative criticism than positive, leading author Kate Chopin to dedicate her talents to writing short stories exclusively for the remainder of her life. Given that most journalists and literary critics in the late 19th century were men, the chilly reception shouldn’t be surprising. The Awakening is about a married woman named Edna Pontellier who, while spending her summer on Grand […]
CBR 10 Bingo: This Old Thing; published 1911 Ethan Frome has been on my reading list for years, ever since I was enchanted by Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, for which Wharton won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1921. The Age of Innocence is a lovely tale of thwarted love and sadly not the book I’m reviewing today. Ethan Frome is also a tale of lovers separated by circumstances, yet not nearly as engaging as Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel. The story takes place […]
There’s a few lines on the back cover blurbs that say, “FSG is no ivory tower- the owner’s wife called the office a ‘sexual sewer’- and its untold story is as tumultuous and engrossing as many of the great novels it has published.” This is talking about the American publisher of T.S. Eliot, and other literary greats including Flannery O’Connor, Joan Didion, Philip Wroth, and Jonathan Franzen. I like books, I like literary history, and I like bibliography, therefore I should have liked this. And […]
