I rarely read books twice. There are just too many great books out there for me to retread familiar ground. But Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813) is a special book. Also, Storywonk* is doing a podcast/discussion on the book and I couldn’t resist. I remember my first exposure to Pride and Prejudice like it was yesterday. I was a Freshman in college and I picked it up as a way to avoid reading whatever book I was actually supposed to be reading for English Literature. I did not know […]
A War Story with Some Christianity Thrown In
Book 3 of the masters reading list is “The Martyred” by Richard Kim. I’ll start with saying that I’m glad I read it. I’ve been looking for some non-Western authors, and Kim’s writing style is solid and his characters relatable. It was also great to read about the Korean War from a Korean perspective. The story follows a professor turned army intelligence officer, Captain Lee, as he is forced to investigate the Communists’ murder of twelve Christian ministers after the invasion of […]
I really wish she hadn’t kept addressing her letters to “Daddy”
3.5 stars Jerusha “Judy” Abbott is a Canadian orphan, who at 17 is still living in the orphanage, mainly because they are using her as free help. She is frequently told that she needs to keep her strong opinions and overactive imagination to herself, or nothing will come of her. She dreams of becoming a famous author and when a wealthy benefactor of the orphanage offers to send her to college on a scholarship, she is closer to achieving said dream. She doesn’t know who […]
Still a masterpiece, 28 years on
I have long held the opinion that It is King’s masterpiece. I read it when I was 13 years old and then read it many more times during my teens. But it occurred to me recently that I haven’t read it for a long time. Then I gave it some more thought and realised it’s getting on for twenty years since I read it. Twenty motherfucking years. This caused me to think a) fucking hell I am getting old and b) I wonder if it holds up, […]
If a dead body falls in the woods, and no one hears it. . . .
I do love Miss Marple. She’s plucky and clever, and the nosiest old lady ever. In this one, a friend of Miss Marple’s thinks she has seen a man strangling a woman on a train. Not her train, but on a train going in the opposite direction. The cops can’t find a body, and no one believes the friend. So of course Miss Marple figures it out. She starts poking around with train timetables, maps, all kinds of stuff like that, and she determines where […]
You Can’t Always Get What You Want
As I read Great Expectations a lot of questions popped up for me. Do people struggle through some of this old language like I am doing? Is this book still relevant, or is it a quaint morality tale belonging to 19th century England? What was Dicken’s own stance on class? And, was Helena Bonham Carter’s portrayal of Miss Haversham over the top? (I haven’t seen the film adaptation, a friend described her performance as contained). I actually had a heavily annotated edition of the book, […]