Last year I reviewed Jane’s Fame for CBR6 and was quite pleased with it. That book chronicled the evolution of the popularity of Austen’s books over the course of the past two hundred years. Our very own Time Lord, Bonnie suggested this book: The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things after that review. I put it on the list for CBR7 and here we are. The Real Jane Austen tackles the mystery of the well-known author. Following Austen’s death her family published the ‘official’ […]
Nothing says, “Hey, let’s make you depressed!” like Cormac McCarthy killing off characters.
This Cannonball has been really odd, because it feels like I’m switching between Cormac McCarthy and Barbara Pym–two authors who could not be more different from one another. I decided to switch back to McCarthy, because apparently I HATE MYSELF. Good lord, somebody has issues with animals. In all fairness, my sister warned me about the bad things that happen in The Crossing, so it wasn’t like I wasn’t prepared. I believe someone here on CBR (I want to say narfna) warned me, too. But […]
Lila comes home.
After reading both Gilead and Home, I was curious to see how Marilynne Robinson was going to tie up her series with Lila. But since she’s created such a complex array of characters, the novel fits easily in with the other novels and adds yet another layer of richness and depth to the complex world of Gilead, Iowa. Lila is all about Lila’s life before and after she enters Gilead and meets John Ames. We already know that she marries him, so this novel focuses […]
The anthropology of small-town living
Surprise! Another Barbara Pym novel! This one has got to be one of my favorites, though. It deals with issues of perception and marriage, and sexual identity forms a huge part of society in this novel. Published a few months before Pym’s own death in 1980, this novel questions the status quo and is thoroughly modern in a way that even I did not expect of Pym. Emma Horwick is a 30-something anthropologist living in her mother’s cottage out in the country. There, she becomes […]
Home to Stay
Whoever said April comes in like a lamb and out like a lion wasn’t kidding, but I always forget that May comes roaring in like a lion and flaming out like a dragon. Last week was finals (thankfully, I’m down to one class this semester), and this next weekend is my graduation. Woo hoo! I still have other projects I’m working on for the summer and the next semester, so no rest for the wicked. I am posting a bunch of reviews today, though some […]
Because you know I’m all about that Jane…
Anyone who knows me knows I am all.about.that.Jane (with apologies to Megan Trainor, whose twee song I am now appropriating). So of course when Alexander McCall Smith announced at the book signing I attended in November 2013 that he was writing a contemporary adaptation of Emma, I was excited. Very excited. Smith is an Austen acolyte, and also incidentally, that of Barbara Pym, as well (and one of the people who recommended her to me in the first place). For the record, Mr. McCall Smith […]
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