This reread was a challenge to myself to see if my initial reading of the character Fanny Price in Jane Austen’s, Mansfield Park, would change. In that first reading I found her moralizing tone and timidity quite tedious. Although I have softened that assessment—she remains one of my least liked of Jane Austen’s main characters. …
Continue reading Mansfield Park (1814)- Round Two!, Jane Austen
One of my favorite discoveries from last year's Victober is this short story of the witch hunts that plagued early America. It's chilling and realistic in the way it treats all the parties concerned. I was impressed that Gaskell knew so much and created such a sad and compelling story. ....there was much to tell …
I posted a story on Instagram today about Sense and Sensibility being my comfort book. I didn't realize this is the date of Jane Austen's 250th birthday. Then I saw all the tributes and want to share mine. If Jane Austen knew when she started writing as a young girl that not only would she …
This is a surprising novel by an author I never realized had Jules Verne aspirations. The Maracot Deep by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a fateful ocean adventure of the discovery of the lost civilization of Atlantis by three modern men whose research vessel has detached from their ship. The story is mostly told in …
Continue reading The Maracot Deep, Arthur Conan Doyle (1929)
I didn’t expect to go from Mansfield Park to Persuasion, but it turns out I wasn’t ready to leave the Austen universe. Persuasion was the only book I hadn’t read and it was a pleasure to get to know Anne Elliot and the characters that make up her world. I found the premise to be …
I spent the past week with the ladies of Cranford. It was a delightful time listening to stories of their girlhood friendships and family life and the bittersweet present where many of their dreams were not realized. Still, I was captivated at this group of women trying to maintain their dignity through the aging process …
A devastating, but ultimately satisfying look at the sexual awakening of Maurice Hall. Written early in the 20th century at a time when homosexuality was a criminal offense, Forster chose to delay its publication until after he died. Published in 1971, a year after his death we follow Maurice to Cambridge with the assumption he …
…In a typical chronicle of the Israelites, it would be taken for granted that the girls did not count at all…if they give birth to a boy who will grow into a man, they have fulfilled their destiny in the only possible way. When you have heard more about the adventure of being a Rakonitz, …
“But now look up the river,” said Mordecai, “See the sky, how it is slowly fading. I have always loved this bridge: I stood on it when I was a little boy. It s a meeting-place for the spiritual messengers. It is true—what the Masters said—that each order of things has its angel…Here I have …
He had come late to the study of himself and now that he was old he was struck that he had thought so little through his life about his reason for living. He had been like a thrown ball, which while it rolls is satisfied, but when at the end of its movement it lay …
Classic Laurie 